An Intro
Warning: Long Intro
Hello there, I'm pretty new to 7Cups and decided to drop by here since I've been hearing good things about this community online. I suppose I should start off with an intro about myself. I'm WolfOwl, you can either call me Wolf or Owl, either works and I'm currently a 20 years old.
Honestly I'm not quite sure if I do actually have depression because it has never been officially diagnosed, but I tend to believe that I do (at least possibly mild depression?) with all negative thoughts that would battle with my coherent thoughts almost daily. My childhood was relatively normal aside from the year when I was 7 when I got bullied for being overweight, but that I don't think was quite the cause of it because the years after until 13 were some of the best years I've ever had.
13 was when things started to go downhill when I graduated, went into a new school and new school year. It was the most miserable 4 years of my life because I wasn't able to fit in and sorta got into self-harm (with the whole wall punching and all, though thankfully this stopped, I still have some slight visible scars from it). Things got better after the 4 years ended but the negative thoughts didn't quite go away.
Some fun facts about myself:
-I have an online "observational diary" where I record at times how I'm feeling and it's basically a self-reflection sorta thing.
- My dream pet is a cat. (Or rather a black cat to be more specific)
@WolfOwl
Hey there, Wolf it's really great to meet you. It's nice you had a wonderful childhood, but I see when you entered a new school it was rough for you and lead you to cope with self-harm. You were able to stop, but you are still dealing with negative thoughts. That sounds hard having to deal with these type of thoughts. I can't say you have depression as I am not able to diagnose you, but I can see how you would feel like you may be living with it. How would you say these negative thoughts affect you?
That is so awesome that you have an online diary to write out how you feel to self-reflect on. How has this helped you?
@Jenna
Hi Jenna, it's great to meet you as well. I had hit a pretty rough patch during that time, although the worst period seems to likely be over but the negative thoughts are still definitely affecting me till this very day. There are the good and the bad days, but mostly I feel that these negative thoughts have made me become more fearful of life in general.
There's this constant fear and anxiety about going through each day, always expecting the worst. Although there are the better days but these kind of thoughts will always linger at the back of my mind.
I'm more cautious and aware about my own actions and words, often re-evalutating and reflecting on what I've done and said, and seemingly on picking out points that I dislike about myself, never on what I like about myself.
For online diary wise, it mainly helps me to self-reflect when I'm looking back at older entries, and also helps to see how I've grown over time. I'd say it definitely helps in terms of seeing your own self-growth as well as provide a safe space and the freedom to vent or simply put out anything you're feeling on that day/time. It's better to get my thoughts and feeling out this way instead of bottling them up since I don't like talking about it verbally.