I first noticed I was living with depression when......

I stayed in bed all the time.

I was in college and had been a very good student. Then I started skipping a lot of class and sleeping all day. I was still making decent grades, so my family didn't realize. I think I really realized something was wrong when one of my roommates pointed out that they barely saw me since I spent all day in my room, even eating all my meals there. I was also watching a lot of tv and movies (like most of the day) as an escape. I dropped out of college. While it didn't solve the situation, I actually think it was the right choice.

I first noticed I was living with depression when I was younger as my dad and I would always butt heads to the point I was violent towards him, hitting him. I have always struggled to control my angry, in a healthy way.

@Laura

All I did was hang out in my room. When I got home from school, that was the first place I would go and I wouldn't talk to anyone. I also spent all my breaks alone and when I had to talk to people, I had to force a smile on my face so they would think I was ok.

This lasted for almost a year until I actually admitted I wasn't ok, I kind of knew I wasn't but I didn't want to worry anyone which was the biggest mistake I've ever made.

When matter how many times I tried, I kept noticing how life could go on without me.

When I had manic highs of happiness and then a few days later I couldn't get out of bed I was only 13 and I didn't know what was wrong with me.

It was only after seeing a therapist that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Could this be a symptom? I'm unsure but I've found myself sometimes say something and forgetting it's a mistake and remembering I made that mistake a few minutes or hours later. I had a conversation with a colleague few years ago and I remember talking about my daughter who at the time was about 13yrs old and I accidentally said she was born in 2011 which was the year my other child was born!. I realised I had made that mistake and corrected myself. I've had something like this happen a few times.

i stopped doing everything that i used to love, i felt useless and lonely, and i started harming myself just so i could feel physical pain. i started feeling empty and to this day, that never stopped

Nothing mattered anymore, not even my own life. And I thought about killing myself every day.

When I was sixteen and the internet was really showing up in schools; I was the generation that saw Oregan Trail morph into AOL and Yahoo and of course, Google. I'd been struggling since I was about eight with these feelings, but I never had a name other than "You're just acting out/you're psychotic/you're a pain in the ass." Start tentatively doing some research and realized that it's severe manic depression with bipolar traits. Tried to talk to the parents about it, got threatened with a mental institution, went silent till I was nineteen and could afford to get meds. Had some major ups and downs, though I've largely gotten everything under control right now, so I can at least safely say this:

It gets better. I promise it does. It sometimes takes a lot of work, a lot of struggle and blood and tears, but it does get better.