Hi. You are most welcome. Please feel welcome to send me a DA Note, which is completely private and confidential. I have been working to help people with depression, anxiety, anger, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, rape, sexual identity issues, and other issues for some 22 years. The last five years I have been working almost exclusively with youth. It can really help to have someone to talk to who is non-judgmental, who can directly relate to what you are feeling, and who cares. I suffered with depression for 34 years, and I would hate to see you lose so much of your life to that same thing.

I hope you saw the TREVOR Toll-Free Hotline and web page I listed on the teen suicide deviation. It was created for Sexual Minority Youth, but it is open to ALL youth who call. They do not have caller ID, so it keeps your call completely anonymous. You can call just to talk about problems, or especially if you are feeling like cutting yourself or killing yourself. [TOLL FREE 24 HOUR HOTLINE 1-866-488-7386, and the Trevor Web site: [link] ]

Also, check out the IT GETS BETTER Video Project [link] to here from thousand of others how life gets better after you get out of school. But I would rather see you happy long before then.

Here are two deviations of mine to help you with your depression:

HAPPINESS, Fulfillment & Contentment [link]
A PATH TO HAPPINESS (out of Depression) [link]

What I can tell you is that if I had died at age 13, 16, 18, 24, and 34, I would have missed-out on some amazing love and good times in my life. I never even knew that experiencing joy and happiness was possible for me. My life was completely turned around. Death may end pain and suffering, but it also ends all other possibilities.

I can tell you that the suffering you are feeling now will help you a lot later. How can you appreciate goodness if you have never experiences badness? How can you fully appreciate love, until you have lost it? How can you appreciate warmth, unless you have been freezing? Suffering allows you to better appreciate and enjoy the good things in life. The deeper into the pit you fall, the higher you can later soar high above.

Right now, you look at the misery of your life, then look forward at the future, and maybe only see the same misery for the rest of your life. You may never have even experience unbridled joy, deep love or an exuberance for life. So, you have nothing to look forward to. All of that can be yours, at least for periods of time. No one is ever happy all the time. Life is up and down for the vast majority of humans. Some of us may go a lifetime and never see but a few ups, due to depression. But please take it from me, depression can be overcome. I actually got over the worse of my depression in 3 months, and in 6 months my life was completely changed for the positive. This was after almost succeeding in killing myself, and after having my partner of 6 years leave me, and two-thirds of shipmates hatefully rejecting me when I came-out to them. So I was pretty deep in the pit.

I can also tell you that once I got out of High School, life got much, much better for me, although low-grade depression, with occasional dips into deep depression, stuck with me. School is an artificial environment completely different from real life. After graduating from HS, I actually went to a Merchant Marine Academy (not military, but looks like it), pushed there by my father, and had to go through an initial week of continuous hazing (like boot camp). I planned on killing myself with a flare gun I spotted on the bridge of the ship, but would not have access until Sunday. But then the unexpected happened. The guys completely accepted me and even liked me. Months before, in High School, the same guys would have made life much worse for me. Anyway, if you have an interest, I could tell you the fuller story.

I finally got some help after barely surviving my last suicide attempt at age 34. I decided to give life one more shot and put everything I had into trying to overcome both my depression and the worst of my Autistic challenges. If I then failed, I could die with a clearer conscious. No matter what you may think in depression, if you choose to die, you will cause suffering behind you. Death is final—there are no more possibilities for you after that. Suffering is not so bad when you know that it will eventually pass and life will get much better.

Depression distorts who you are. There are chemical changes in the brain that distort how you think and feel. The depressed version of who you are is not the real you. By doing some cognitive and behavioral self-therapy, you can overcome depression and correct your brain chemistry. But remember that if you have been depressed for a couple of years, with negative thoughts constantly repeating in your brain every day, which is what programs your brain into a depressive pattern. It therefore takes a big effort to reprogram your brain into a positive state-of-mind.

I found that when you are depressed, you ooze negativity and do not attract good people to you. When I overcame my depression and was having a grand time, I was getting asked-out around 3 times a week. We project how we feel. I then met the man who has been my partner for 23 years.

If you walk, stand and sit slumped in negativity, looking downward most of the time, this projects negative energy to those around you, who often interpret this as you being a 'loser,' and unfortunately can be like an invitation to bullies to, "Kick me." Even if you are very depressed, you can still force a smile, stand taller and try to engage with others around you. In psychology, we know that if you push yourself to act like you are a happier person, it actually helps the brain shift to a happier mode.

Basically, the more you think and behave negatively, the more depressed your brain gets and the more negativity the brain then produces. You can change how your brain works by changing how you think and act.

You can start your road to recovery by forcing yourself to start watching for negative thoughts percolating up into your conscious mound, then STOPPING the thought, not wallowing in it, and replacing it with a positive thought. Yes, this is a pain in the ass to do, but necessary to get better. For example, if you see the thought, "My life Sucks," bubble up into your mind, stop the thought and refute it, reminding yourself of the positive things (which is where I and others can help you).

Depression FEEDS on isolation and causes isolation. Push yourself to get more socially involved, try to make more freinds (e can talk about how to do that), maybe volunteer for charity, join a club, etc. Laughter and social connections release endorphins in the brain, which make you feel good.

Doctors give-out antidepressant like candy, but they are actually very dangerous for teenagers and can actually trigger suicide, so if you are on one, be sure to watch for any changes. Drugs are very missed. Antidepressants cannot make you feel good. What they do is flatten out your emotions, both bad and good emotions. They are only meant to help give you enough ambition and energy (pull you out of the deep-end), so that you can do the cognitive and behavioral therapy to overcome depression. You can take antidepressant drugs all your life, and still have low-grade depression the ant ire time, never feeling really bad, but also never feeling really good.

If you are very depressed and suicidal, and you cannot motivate yourself to work on overcoming your depression, then a drug might help in the short term.

If you see a professional counsellor or psychologist, remember than many of them do what we call 'churning,' which means dragging your treatment out indefinitely to keep collecting money for years. If you go to a counselor, tell him or her that you want to be proactive and work on getting over your depression as fast as possible, and want homework to do each day. If all you do is see your shrink once a week and talk about what happened that week, you won't make any progress.

I wish you all the best that life and love can bring you. Again, feel free to Note me if you want help working on your depression, or just to talk. All the best,

Matthew

Yes, it is incredibly sad. In your country this is not as common as in the United States. Young people in school can make a huge difference in saving lives. You can try to talk to someone who seems isolated and/or sad and depressed for many days.

A study was done in the United States on Bullying. But the most amazing finding was that if just one student speaks out to stop a boy or girl being bullied, then other kids usually join with that person to stop the bullying. It takes courage to do this, because you are afraid of becoming the next target of bullying. Bullies usually only bully if they feel they are supported by other kids around them. Bullies go after kids they feel are more vulnerable and less likely to fight back. Interestingly, it is also common for bullies to be victims of bullying at home.

I did not get bullied for being Gay (too many girls chasing me around). I got bullied for being Autistic. I got beat-on, pushed around, kicked, called a retard, moron, spaz (as in spastic) and so on. I was very uncoordinated and could not play sports well, so even the coaches in Physical Education called me names.

I also faced deep discrimination from the Catholic Church who said that I was an Abomination in the eyes of god and would burn in hell for eternity, just for being born Gay. I tried to Kill myself at age 13, by jumping off a Highway overpass, only to have some man grab my feet as I was going over. I came close to suicide again at ages 16 and 18, and thought about dying every single day for about 5 years.

When you are bullied, adults tend to blame you for being bullied, like it is your fault for not being able to stand up to the bullies. After the Columbine school killings, some schools created programs to help kids cope with being bullied, rather than trying to stop bullying.

American schools are basically socially structured around bullying. Often this bullying is subtle. For example, excluding a girl from invitations, from sitting with other girls at lunch, stuffing nasty attack notes in her locker, online attacks on your Facebook page, spreading false rumors around, and on and on.

What I can tell you, and I hope you will others, is that it really does get better after school. School is often a false and sick environment for many. Once you graduate, it changes. I went into a Merchant Marine Academy (not military), expecting even worse bullying, but to my surprise, I got complete acceptance from the same guys who six months ago would have been bullying me in school. Life got much, much better for me. I also felt that I would never be able to find love, but once out of school, I found love…

Hi, it looks like we may share a city.

It does not look like any of the kids I presented in the deviation were Emo, but with the many thousands of kids killing themselves each year, some of them are bound to be. If anything, my guess would be that being Emo might allow a person to express their emotions better and connect to others within their group better, which would tend to help prevent suicide, but then I don’t know much about Emos. Emos were not a clique, group or classification that existed when I was in school. There were Jocks, Nerds, Geeks, Normals, and those rejected by all (me). Although I grew up Gay, I was actually victimized for being Autistic, both at home and at school.

I personally do like the labeling of people. We all do it constantly in our society to some degree, but most people seem to see only the labels. For example, you could say I am a 57-year-old Gay married man. This would convey a fir amount of information, yet that information will mean very different things to different people, from good to disgusting. While I am 57, a man, and Gay, these things do not define who I am as a human being. I w as labeled by a State as being Mentally Retarded, and when I was in High School, another State that said I was not intelligent enough for college. Yet I got my 4-year Engineering Degree in 3 years and graduated number one in my class, then did so well that I could retire for life at age 34.

Our society wants to pigeonhole each person in fixed known slots. If a young person says that he or she is a Goth or Emo, how much does that really tell you about who that person is inside? I say not very much at all. Why do both youth and adults want to label themselves so badly, as well as others? I keep seeing young people trying to label themselves by their sexual orientation, and the more exotic sounding the better, like Pansexual, Amoeba, Biromantic, Cisgendered, Genderqueer, Homoflexibility, and on and on.

Fear of the unknown is about the most powerful of all fears. Being young and not knowing who you are yet can feel scary. Labels can lend you a temporary identity or to give you status. There is an innate desire to identify yourself in some way, such as by association, like saying, “I am an environmentalist.” Humans also want to label others and make them a “Known Value.” Others can label you to put you down. Why do people desire to put others down so much? The reason is that it makes some people feel better about themselves if they tear others down. If you cannot lift yourself up, then tears others down so that you can feel superior to them.

Labels have whatever power we as individuals and as a society give them. In other words, someone can call me a Faggot in a disparaging voice, but it has no power over me unless I let it. Someone once shouted at me, “Fucking Queer,” and I shouted back, “Every chance I get.” Another time someone called me a “Fag,” and I said, “Thanks, it’s wonderful isn’t it?” People have no idea how to respond to that. At Equator Crossing, I was dragged (near unconscious) before King Neptune’s Court and had my crimes read to me, which were, “You are an Average Raiser & Curve Breaker” (Grading Curves). I shouted out, “GUILTY, AND PROUD OF IT.” Alas, they made a mess of me after that. Labels can be thrown at you, but it is up to you how you catch them and reply to them.

If a Society says there are only two Genders, and some people get together and show that they are a Third Gender, then society can try to exert its power and refuse to recognize the Third Gender, but those of the Third Gender can EMPOWER THEMSELVES with a new label.

Labels can also hurt you, shatter you, or destroy you, or they can empower you, give your pride, courage and sense of belonging. It is all a matter of how labels are used and received.

What we do that is very wrong in our society is to look at people, make assumptions, and then assign a label to them. If you see that someone is Muslim, you may make huge false assumptions about that person. In my generation, if a person was labeled as a Fag or Queer, it meant (to them) that you were a pervert, child molester, promiscuous slut, drug addict, alcoholic and an evil blight of society. You can look at a person shabbily dressed and living on the street and make horribly wrong assumptions about that person. Street kids become invisible and people look right through them, labeling them as non-entities.

On the ships I sailed, when I was a Third Engineer (lowest officer rank) everyone treats you like an idiot and with no respect. On one ship, the Second Engineer got off and I was jumped-up to Second Engineer and was suddenly treated much, much better. Two months later a more senior guy came on board and I was bumped back to Third, and was again treated like crap again, by the same people who treated me better just the day before.

CONCLUSION: We are what we are. Some things about us we can change, like being a more honorable person, while there are INHERENT things about that we cannot change, like the gender of our brains and our sexual orientation. Learn to Accept and Love that which is Inherent in you, and find the will and courage to Improve those parts of you that you can change.