Chips' Fun House ~ View topic

I remember very vividly what it was like to be a 17 year old girl. I can honestly say without hesitation, that the way you are feeling is absolutely normal for a girl in your position. I'm not trying to minimize your situation, I just want to make you understand that you are not alone by any stretch of the imagination. This is the most confusing and important time in your life. I say important, because this is the launching point for everything significant in your future. You are making a huge transition in the way you are thinking, and feeling, and what is important to you is starting to change.

I was exactly where you were when I was your age. I wondered about what the future held, and wanted desperately to be independent. My frienships started to evolve, and I started to question the roles that everyone played in my life. Even though nothing was really going wrong in my life, nothing felt right. I was introspective and a little melancholy, and very lonely. You would be an awfully strange girl if you didnt have a teenage crisis of some sort. Its tough to get through, but you will. Just take it as it comes...one day at a time.

I look back on that time in my life and I realise that, although it felt that way at the time, that wasnt true depression. Depression is something vastly different...its all-consuming, and debilitating. I think you will look back in time, and be glad for this period of your life. As painful as it is, it will define you as an adult, and thats when the real challenge begins.