17.5 today, bit of an odd life

I've been an outsider all of my life. Kids could always sense something was off about me and I was bullied pretty heavily for my first four years in school. I was always very cheery though, choosing to ignore these things and focus on my books and my online Harry Potter chatrooms. My brother, being a year younger than me, started at the same school as me a year later, and was bullied in a much more extreme fashion and by third grade had missed most of the classes in the past two years. He got kicked out of school and transferred, and I was asked if I wanted to transfer with him. After a bit of thought, I said yes. It was slightly better at the new school, but I had missed the first four years of this grade being together and I had rumors about me runnin around town and I was already having anger issues and was used to being mostly around myself. I was very bad at making friends as the last friend I had moved to the city two years beforehand. I think this, fifth grade, is around the time I started to feel depressed, though I wouldn't give it that name for six years. The bullying didn't stop, but it was no longer even a bit physical - completely psychological: name giving, making fun of me, stuff like that.

I finished elementary at the end of sixth grade with no friends and thankfulness that the middle school I was going to was in a nearby city instead of the town I live in. It was a bit of a drive every morning, but it was better than going to the seventh grade with all of these idiots who had bullied me for six years in one of the worst school in the county. Seventh grade was full of shallow friendships. Eighth grade, I was forced to sit next to a new girl. She was to become my best friend.

All the while, I had extreme highs and lows. My temper wasn't acting up as much as it used to but I would say something and regret it, and feel sad for the rest of the week. I would try and find a reason to get out of bed, and fail. I tried to fake sick once or twice on the really bad days when I just didn't want to go to school, but it didn't work. Chronic headaches didn't help.

Eighth grade I started going to art classes. I only meant to stay one year, but the teacher thought I was talented and convinced me to stay another year. Ninth grade was hard. I wasn't feeling motivitated, I was crying all the time, I didn't really feel like doing anything but sleep. The teacher noticed that I stopped doing things in class - I would draw for an hour, then go to the corner and eat my weight in chocolate till someone came to pick me up. She took me aside, I tried to explain to her the pointlessness that I felt, and she recommended that I talk to someone.

I went home that night and told my mother that I wanted a psychologist. She found the money somewhere, and I have no idea where. I am very thankful for that. I was having weekly breakdowns, sometimes in the middle of school, when I finally started seeing her.

Tenth grade was high school. I transfered to an Arts and Sciences school, where I am, obv, in the arts course. I've been there two years. It's a high stress environment, but there's no time - no time to be focused on my sadness. It helps a bit. When I'm bored, it's harder to focus on real life. It's a lot easier to sleep all day, eat too much, and watch whole TV shows in a week than it is to do my homework.

Last year, after I accidentally came out to my parents and realized that they didn't accept me, I started feeling the despair again. This year, after realizing I couldn't do most of the things I had wanted to do this year, I sunk into a hole and didn't leave. I watched all ten seasons of Smallville. Smallville. I stopped showing up to morning classes, stopped communicating. I reached out to one person, and when she was too busy to talk to me, I shied away from all other attempts at communication (tho, tbh, not many people reach out to me, and I'm usually the one reaching out to other people). When my dad found out I failed a class, he finally gave this a name: depression.

The problem - the reason my psychologist never gave it a name - is that I don't act depressed. I'm not "obsessed" with death, I'm not even the least bit suicidal. My defining characteristic is that I'm enthusiastic about things, while depression causes you to lose interestin everything. These two warring elements in me have led to the awakward solution of faking it. I almost am never sad in public - angry, even tears angry, yes. But not sad. That I do in private, and very rarely. I don't admit to myself that I'm feeling empty, instead focusing on the things I'm supposed to like, on the things that are supposed to make me happy. So I smile, and laugh, and act the same no matter how I feel.

My secret, of course, is that I'm always acting.