Depression and TED Talks

I have lots of problems. Depression is one of them. On the outside I'm a person who's got everything together. I've got above average grades, leadership and extracurriculars, friends, family, and happiness, but on the inside I'm just a shriveled up prune of a soul buried deep in the muck of sadness and stress. Some days it's just unbearable, and I just want to end it all and dissolve into the fabric of time and space. It's not that I want to die, it's just that I don't want to live. Allie Brosh (whom I adore) explains it here and here on her blog "Hyperbole and a Half". Go read it. She's brilliant, and it really explains what its like to have depression. If you don't want to take the time to read all of it, this panel was most striking and describes how I feel most of the time:

I'm also a big fan of TED Talks. I'm sad that there's simply not enough time for me to watch every single TED Talk ever, but I can at least watch some of the more relevant ones and spread them across the internet so more people can see them. I literally pester people on Facebook, saying "THIS VIDEO IS BRILLIANT GO WATCH IT NOWWWWWWW" and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but the people that watch it always agree. So I'm telling you right now: THIS VIDEO IS BRILLIANT GO WATCH IT NOWWWWWWW.

I completely agree about the stigma of depression. I realize that I keep telling people that I'm "tired," but what I should really be saying is "I suffer from depression." But I can't. Because people don't want to have to deal with that burden of knowing that someone is depressed, because then you have to be nice to that person and care about their feelings, and isn't it so much easier when you don't have to care about anyone's feelings and just do and say what you want? What this world lacks is empathy, or whatever word it is that means the ability to care about other people's feelings and react appropriately. The ignorance of people is what is preventing people that are suffering from getting the help that they need. And I need help. I don't necessarily need pills and therapists, I just need someone to understand completely and be sad with me. That's really all. And realize that it's ok to be sad. Don't try to push the sadness out by forcing happiness and positivity on them. It doesn't work. Sadness has to melt away on its own. So if you ever meet a person that says, "I'm tired," just give them a hug and say "It's ok. What's wrong? I'm here to listen." If they don't say anything, just listen to their silence. Sometimes all they need is a person to be there, because by giving your time and just being there, you're telling them "Look, you matter. That's why I'm here." It's that simple. You could be saving their life.

tl;dr Well, if you didn't read all of it, too bad. Go back up to the beginning and read and watch all of it, because this stuff matters.

This post has been edited to include proper grammar.

#obsessed: I Need Your Love - Pentatonix

i've always been a HUGE fan of pentatonix, and their music is just mindblowingly amazing. recently, i've been obsessed with their cover of "I Need Your Love" by Calvin Harris ft. Ellie Goulding. Enjoy!

music always makes me happy :3

Burnt Out

lately I've been feeling terrible. i have no motivation at all, i can't focus on anything, and still i can't sleep. I've been irritable, miserable, and constantly feeling overwhelmed. its been like this for a few months now, so i thought it was depression, but depression didn't seem quite right. so i googled it and realized that I'm burnt out. This Lifehacker article describes it quite well:

"Burnout isn't as simple as extreme exhaustion. When you're truly burnt out, there's very little you'll do that isn't necessary for survival. You won't find a regular vacation very refreshing. You not only lose interest in the work that burnt you out in the first place, but in nearly everything else that you do. Fun won't be fun, every little thing will bother you, and you'll be unhappy without fully understanding why. You'll feel this way on a regular basis, and you'll likely believe there isn't an alternative. "

though knowing what it is won't solve the problem, its still the first step in the right direction (i hope). right now I'm worrying about a multitude of problems, including SATs, calculus, summer program applications, extracurriculars, and other projects. theres a lot of unnecessary stuff such as extra calc practice that my parents are forcing to me to do, but they don't realize that doing more will only make me learn less, because I'm not absorbing any of the information. if i could cut out some of that stress, recovery would be so much faster, but my parents really aren't understanding. its quite frustrating, to put it mildly.

if anyone has the same problem, or has specific suggestions on how to deal with burning out, comment and let me know. rant over. yay!

Where did the time go?!

So another day, another Christmas. Once again, nothing really happened. Ah well, as long as you keep you expectations low, you can't really be disappointed.

What really startled me today was how fast time went by. I swear i looked at the clock 5 minutes ago and it was only 7:00pm, but right now it's past 11pm. Its like 8pm-10pm doesn't exist at all. pretty scary. does this happen to anyone else?

anyway, so I'm trying out a new art program thats vector. its called inkscape. hopefully it works. i gtg now cuz my computer is gonna automatically restart for an update in 20 seconds. short blog post. ok see you later!

Coffeeeeee

I woke up this morning and thought it would be a good idea to have a cup of coffee. I only drink coffee occasionally, and with good reason; coffee makes me crazayyyy. I normally don't need coffee because iIeat sugar packets (yes, just sugar) if I need energy, but on cold days, sugar doesn't offer the liquidy creamy warmth that coffee has. Alas, the combination of the sugar and caffeine in coffee makes does things to my brain that cannot be described with words. so i drew up this handy dandy table below to illustrate.

The spontaneous decision to drink coffee always comes at the most inopportune times. For example, I was sitting in a cafe once waiting for a meeting to start, and since the cafe offered Starbucks, I though, shucks, why not? The meeting doesn't start until an hour and a half later and by then I'll be back to normal. I ordered an iced caffe mocha with extra whipped cream (my favorite!) and sat down at a table to do some stuff on my computer, minding my own business. I finish my coffee, and then suddenly, a guy comes up to me, and asks "Hi, do you mind if I sit here?" and my brain could not figure out how to react. I stared at him for a few seconds, then squeaked out something that I hoped sounded like "Sure!" Have I mentioned that coffee totally destroys my voice too? I sounded like someone that smokes 3 packs a day. Luckily, I think he understood and sat down. I went on trying to mind my own business, but the coffee was taking over my brain. I was reading Buzzfeed and laughing like a maniac. Somehow, the guy and I started a conversation and funnily enough he asked me if I would like his email :3 I said yes, but inwardly I was wondering, "Who the heck gives people an email? Aren't you supposed to, like, give them your phone number or something?" I was utterly confused, but I accepted it. The next few months I tried to communicate with him, because he was a student at my dream college, but it didn't work out. Every time I have coffee now, I feel an impulse to contact him again, but I knew my mind wasn't in a right state. So after a while I just gave up. "Welp," I thought, "That's that." So yea, moral of the story, don't drink coffee, no matter how tempting it seems.

This post has been edited to include proper grammar.

First Post!

I have wanted to start a blog for a while, but I had never really felt a need or gathered enough motivation to do so. I'm starting now because I need something to procrastinate on to avoid homework during this winter break.

So what is this blog about? To be honest, I'm not sure yet, because I start a lot of projects that I don't maintain. If any hipsters out there are looking for the next big thing, don't necessarily get your hopes up (but hey you never know!) Anyhow, I've been feeling rather restless lately and was reading Allie Brosh's (whom I adore) wonderful blog Hyperbole and a Half and I discovered her post about depression. As I read through it, something stirred inside me as I realized that she articulated better than I ever will of how I was feeling. So yea, Allie Brosh, if you ever read this, I just want to thank you a bunch for writing that. In a way, it was kind of my corn, even though I didn't really have an emotional outburst (for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about go read her blog!) Back to what this blog is about. Well, I can say for certain that it's going to be a lot of random crap. If you like random crap, follow me or whatever you do on this site! If not, you can leave right now if you want to. I won't judge you. I won't even know who you are. There will also be art. Yay! But basically if I have random thoughts or rants I'll post them here where everyone's anonymous and no one will judge me either. There will be funny things, there will be sad things, there will be boring things, there will be interesting things. And let it be known that i don't just take an interest in things, I OBSESS. Like, obsessively (am I trying to be funny? The world will never know.) If a topic ever comes up that you also like, let me know so we can fangirl together! Yay!

So who am I? I am the average american teenager stressing about college, grades, social life, sleep, food, sadness, and yea. I'm trying this blog thing out and hopefully I can maintain it for at least a month before I forget about it, get bored, and relapse into the little ball of misery that I currently am. More personally, I don't really know how to describe myself. I like chocolate, the color purple, cats, chocolate, music, sleep, fuzzy things, books, nail polish, art, salads, (have I mentioned that I'm quite uninteresting?) I don't like mushrooms, olives, math, (theres not a lot of stuff that I don't like, but when I do dislike something I hate it with a passion.) I am (or I think I am because I've never been diagnosed with any of this stuff) OCD, ADHD, bipolar/depressed, and lactose intolerant. In real life, I'm very quiet with most people and also extremely awkward. So instead of suppressing all that awkward I'm just going to let it all flow here and let all that crazy out. Hopefully. Now I'm wondering if i should have made an alternate persona for this. Oh well. I also have weird brain spasms/memory lapses, so sometimes things will jump around and not make sense. Sorry. I'm weird like that.

So yea, that's the first post. Yay! It's very plain because I'm tired and I'll fiddle around with the settings and stuff later. ~hesitates before publishing then awkwardly slides away~

p.s. I was almost going to give up on this whole thing because i couldn't find a good URL thing. but now I'm proud because "cleverwittytitle" is a pretty clever witty title, right? I'm still mad at all those people that took perfectly good subdomain titles and only posted one word total on the blog. grr.

p.p.s. I'm reading this and it seems kind of boring. If somehow you've stumbled upon this blog, please please please give me your opinion! Or tips on how to make stuff more interesting and stuff like that. Heck, even hate mail would be cool.

This post has been edited to include proper grammar.