Can you use material items to make yourself feel better if your depressed?!
Question: I think im depending upon material items to make me depressed. Im 16 years old. I stopped going to school. I might go back next year though. All I do is sit at home all day in a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. Im always looking at shoes and earrings or something and wishing I had those. But the problem is that I have everything! But I WANT MORE! and I just feel depressed. Before it was eating when I was bored, now its thinking about material items. I weigh 253 pounds, and bought my dad bought me a 225 dollar treadmill. I still feel that I dont have nothing. I dont have friends, all I do is sit on the computer all day long. Between sitting online and walking 90 minutes a day to lose weight. Im a male obviously.
Whats wrong with me? My parents arent rich, they dont work, I have an ipod, desktop and laptop computer and nice clothes. Now I want a cell phone! and new jewerly. Fake jewerly obviously lol but still. I dont know if im spoiled or what.
Answers: I think im depending upon material items to make me depressed. Im 16 years old. I stopped going to school. I might go back next year though. All I do is sit at home all day in a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. Im always looking at shoes and earrings or something and wishing I had those. But the problem is that I have everything! But I WANT MORE! and I just feel depressed. Before it was eating when I was bored, now its thinking about material items. I weigh 253 pounds, and bought my dad bought me a 225 dollar treadmill. I still feel that I dont have nothing. I dont have friends, all I do is sit on the computer all day long. Between sitting online and walking 90 minutes a day to lose weight. Im a male obviously.
Whats wrong with me? My parents arent rich, they dont work, I have an ipod, desktop and laptop computer and nice clothes. Now I want a cell phone! and new jewerly. Fake jewerly obviously lol but still. I dont know if im spoiled or what.
I hope you do go back to school.
Being picked on and judged is horrible, but you deserve to go to school. You deserve a chance to make yourself a career. You do.
Material items won't make you feel better if you're depressed. I fully expected to give you the advice that taking vitamin B12 (which is material) can make you feel a heck of a lot better if you have a deficiency, as I do as a vegetarian of 14 years now.
Okay, I know it's not easy when you don't have the support of friends, and being overweight, we look for something that will make us feel better now, not two years from now. It might be earrings, or a mobile phone, or a bag of chips. Who does not want to feel better about themselves now?
You ask what is wrong...
You not being at school my friend. Trust me, I did my fair share of skipping school when I was about year nine, and it made me feel worse about myself. It got harder and harder to just go back, and I felt bad. It was easier to do whatever I liked for the day instead, but I felt worse and worse.
I got caught out of course, and that was that. Back to school. It wasn't easy. I wasn't popular or skinny or sporty or perfect, but I did want to graduate and go to university, and I did. It's hard work. You will get depressed at times, but you deal with it, and you become a better person for having gone through the hardship.
As for wanting everything... well, maybe you should let yourself have what you want... when you can earn it for yourself. You can get a part-time job, and buy your own things. It will make you feel better about yourself. I know I did. I don't know how my brother got stuck on wanting hand-outs, but I worked for everything I have and paid my way through uni.
I've just gotten offered a new job in cancer research with a supervisor who is a surgeon, and my current boss threw a $10K payrise at me to persuade me to stay (mind you, I'm not being paid what I should be to begin with).
I... did an extra year in year 12 to get the extra maths to get into the uni course I wanted, I worked as a check-out chick for seven years as I studied, I've worked at the Hilton in a skirt which I hated, I quit a PhD for my mental health after working under a psychopath supervisor (my colleague is still on depression medication from that experience)...
Yes, you want more, but trust me, you don't really want earrings. You want to be happy, and leaving school won't help. I really do hope you tell yourself you're worth it to go back to school and make a go for yourself.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You can do what you want if you admit to yourself that you're worth it.
Yeah. I wanted all those things but never got them at your age. My niece is going through the same thing. Advertising has a lot to answer for. Do something for someone and watch there facial expression when you tell them - that is better than any fake jewelery. Take care and good luck. XX
get mental help now, run dont pass go, just run for help. you are spoiled from having everything and not having to work for and having to wait until you earn what you want. i have chf and in and out of the hospital all the time, do not repeat do not let that stop you from going to school learning all you can even if you think it is dumb and stupid you will have that in jobs also just think of it as something in life you just have to do.
go luck please get some mental health.
I can somewhat relate. I'm a sixteen year-old male, and I also stopped going to school. I hated it there. Instead, I stared educating myself and I bypassed a whole grade level that way. But not only that, I started to become obsessed with material things, too. I was so bored that I would shop on eBay all day long and whenever I found something that was too expensive for me to purchase with my mom's credit card, I would get depressed and wonder what could have been.
The solution? Well, I still get depressed sometimes wondering what would have happened if my life would have went in the direction I was hoping. But I did figure out that by finding something else - something that couldn't be bought, that had to be achieved - I wouldn't feel so bad and lonely inside.
I now love to study in my spare time. Physics, to be exact. For some reason, whenever I learn a new atomic equation or contemplate the very real possibility of traveling through time, I know that everything else is so small and insufficient. After all, the man who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead. Peace.
There are a few medications for severe social anxiety. My daughter is on one and it does help, to some degree, at least she is able to attend school. I have home-schooled her more than I care to tell, and that was because of her social anxiety. She was not able to walk inside a mall, it used to be so bad.
You may wish to see your family doctor about this. There is actually something called "school phobia" and it totally sucks. I know, since I had it as a teen. Walking around school feeling that all eyes are on you-- judging your appearance and so forth-- is no picnic. I ended up dropping out and getting my GED a year later.
Now I am on a medication which helps me to stop obsessing about what others may be thinking. Even though we know in our heads that people aren't thinking about us (they're too busy worrying about themselves, lol), it can be practically impossible to function outside in the real world when we have this problem.
Even though my daughter is medicated, she still has a fair amount of social anxiety, and if she wants to go, say, to the mall, she does much better if she takes a Xanax first. We are careful to monitor her use of Xanax, since one can develop a dependence on it, but once a month is not harmful, heh heh.
As for your desire (which seems to be turning into an obsession, lol) for material things, there is a quick cure. Volunteer at your local hospital or animal rescue or somthing like that. First you will need to address your anxiety, though; otherwise it will be too scary to volunteer.
I do soooo wish you the best of luck. I wish I'd gotten help as a teen, but my parents were pretty much in the dark about stuff like that. All the best to you. :)