New lease on life?

[nuts]

im heading off to university in a few days and am really looking forward to it. however im worried that im just setting myself up for dissappointment again. you see ive been depressed over the last few years but have never done anything about it or told anyone really. i keep holding on to the fact that something new in my life is happening which will fix all the problems. i thought leaving school would do this, it didnt. then i travelled the world over the last year yet the problems were still there. now im hoping for a fresh start at university, hoping that the causes for my depression will be removed.

 

i recently told my best friend about how i felt and she was so surprised. but speaking objectively, she said that i thought the problems would dissappear with each fresh start and they never did, so why should it be any different this time? on one level i agree with her and it scares me, but on another i really am wiping the slate clean so why shouldnt everything change for me?

 

i guess im here because id really like some advice, or maybe just an opinion. i want to believe that as of next week everything can change for me, but am i just deluding myself?

[Gunther]

I don't mean to be harsh, but your avoiding the problem. Whiping a slate clean is a figure of speach, nothing more. You can't just whipe away your past, with the exception of amnesia. Whatever is the root of your problem needs to be exposed and dealt with, until then it will be impossible to move on for you it seems. You need to ask yourself, what it is that is making you depressed, then find a way to deal with it.

[RayKay]

I think if you are depressed, you really should seek a professional. There is a big difference between situational depression (ie someone depressed due to losing their job, or a breakup, whom once that is corrected or healed are fine again) and chronic depression, which sounds like you are experiencing.

 

Your friend was right - you can't expect something out there to change what is IN you. Your depression may be a chemical imbalance, it may be an inability to manage stress, it may be due to poor health - and these are things that going to school will not correct. I just fear that when you go back, and find that you still feel this way, you will fall further into a cycle.

 

School may indeed give you a bit of a positive outlook, but if your depression is as long lasting as it has been, I think there is more to it then that, and once the stress of school comes in, or its not everything you thought, or you are not instantly cured, the problem will still be there.

 

It's great you are going back to university, however the slate is not really wiped clean, because you are still going to bring with you YOURSELF - and very very possibly the problems, causes, issues surrounding and creating the depression.

[HajiMaji]

You need to accept that life is depressing sometimes. Once we realize that it can actually make us feel a little less depressed.

 

A buddy of mine is with a girl and she has a kid and a lot of other complicated stuff. My boy said in the past, he would have just left the relationship. Now though, he realizes that you cant do that. You have to work really hard and take the good with the bad.

 

Hes owning up to his current complications with his new girlfriend. Before he would just break up with the complicated female (we all are complicated in some way) and move onto the next hoping it would be easy this time.

 

Life isnt easy and life isnt pain free. Youre going to have to figure out what will make you a happier person and do those things or you will never change. Constantly be thinking about this stuff.