clinical depression?

[nirvanaf909]

 think I may have clinical depression.
Symptoms I have experienced:
Tired all day every day
Getting angry at things that usually don't bother me
Feeling worthless
Feeling like a disappointment
Feeling empty...kinda like a hollow feeling
Disconnected..I don't feel like I really connect with anyone anymore..except for a few of my good friends. Any new friends I have made I have kinda disconnected myself from
I have NEVER thought about suicide or death.
No changes in appetite
Feeling like a failure
I can't concentrate on my homework
Body aches in my ankles and my tailbone has hurt for over a year. I went to the doctor for it but they said nothing was wrong.
Semi-Drug abuse
Criticism from my friends could freakin kill me (not literally) but if someone says something monday I will think about it the whole week until I do something to alleviate the pain (usually drugs, particularly amphetamines. They make me feel really good and I forget about all of my problems, I don't use drugs recreationally, just to cope with emotional and physical pain) Note: I never started doing drugs until i started feeling depressed. Actually about a year or 2 after i started feeling worthless and stuff like that I started using. All this started about...2 years ago. But it has just gotten worse! I don't want to tell my parents or anything cuz I don't want them to feel sorry for me or anything. I'm taking care of it, but I want to know if I have depression or not.

Those are just a few that I can think of. Can someone who actually knows what they're talking about tell me what might be wrong with me?

[voodoo scientist]

Think of clinical depression like this. Your mind is a machine with wheels and cogs churning all over, and depression is a wrench stuck in the gears. Depending on where the wrench is, it can slow the process down, shut down certain modules of the machine, or break the entire machine. The thing is, nobody can really tell you you've got a wrench in your brain, so when I suspect I have a wrench in my brain somewhere, I find it's always best to assume the answer is yes and start looking around for it.

Of course, it's not really a wrench and it's not really a machine, so the metaphor will have to take its leave here. First of all, there's nothing wrong with a little recreational drug use here and there, so long as it's done responsibly and you're always conscious of why you're taking the drugs (i.e. to get away). Try to think about how you feel when you're on speed, and start researching how you can approximate that kind of happiness without it. Drugs are not a replacement for real happiness, they're more like a window to it that lets you see how happy your body is capable of feeling.

Relax - everyone gets depressed from time to time, and a good portion of everyone let depression linger for way too long when they do because they'd rather have proof of depression than no depression. Take charge of your potential depression and start expending more energy on making yourself happy - worry less about others. If you're really depressed, it will make you less depressed or fix it; If you're not depressed, it'll just make you happier. The only thing that you can't do is let your potential depression become an excuse for not going out, not socializing, and not doing things that make you happy. If you feel like you don't have the energy because there's a thousand reasons you don't have the energy, say fuck you to your brain and do it anyway.