I have suffered for years, but I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong with me. I go through periods of feeling amazing and like I can take on the world to having periods of hating myself, losing sleep, not eating, and being incredibly sad. Usually each period of time lasts about a week or two and then switches. For a while, I blamed it on puberty….but I never saw that happening to any of my friends. One week I would feel great and want to do everything with everyone, and by the next week I was contemplating suicide. It’s like this never ending cycle.

The obvious answer is to go see a doctor and get some help. I’d love to do that because I’ve had enough. I want to feel good and I honestly can’t remember a time when it lasted more than two weeks. The problem is that, while I’m old enough to go to a doctor without my parents knowing, I can’t. I still live at home (still in high school) and my parents don’t believe that mental disorders are actually real. They just kinda think it’s all for attention and an excuse to get drugs until someone legitimately kills themselves. I need help and I don’t exactly know how to go about getting it. The longer I’ve felt this way, the worse it’s gotten. My biggest fear is that a doctor will say I’m bipolar or depressed or something and I will be forced to tell my parents. I’m so ashamed of feeling so unstable that I don’t think I could tell my parents. I love them, it’s just…we don’t talk about bad things. We never have…well. They do. I don’t. Neither do my sisters. We just pretend everything is good all the time for us. But that isn’t true and I really need help and can’t get it.