Struggle and Strife

I made this primarily for the "Mental Health Awareness Month" contest, but I would love to hear what others think of this as well. Any criticisms would be appreciated!

Throughout most of my life, I have known struggle and strife. I started showing symptoms of Depression as early as ten years old. It's hard to pinpoint when the symptoms of Bipolar started popping up. I was going to school from home up until fifth grade, which put me at a huge disadvantage on the social scene. As you can imagine, being branded as an outcast by almost everyone was not helpful to my state of mind. It felt as though people didn't like me simply because I didn't know how to act, which at the time was a foreign concept to me.

Going into middle school, I was still just as unprepared as before. At least this time around it was somewhat more of an even playing field, so to speak. I wanted to make friends, and I did, but looking back on those times, I was in with the wrong crowd. They got their kicks out of bullying others. I may have never participated, but my lack of action was nearly as bad, not to mention still associating myself with them. It was around this time I started playing video games to immerse myself in a world that was not my own. To, in a way, take myself away from all the thoughts and feelings the real world brought with it.

This trend of looking for acceptance continued all the way through to the end of ninth grade. That's when my depression started to get so bad I could hardly get out of bed, let alone go to school. So, I dropped out. At first I tried doing school from home again. It sounded like a good setup, at least in theory. But in practice, it became a battle of willpower for me. I was torn between doing actual work, or just going back to my online escape. At this point my sense of self-worth started to go south fast. I felt like I was lazy, worthless, and an overall loser. I kept thinking that if I could just finish school, things would get better. I took my GED, passed it with flying colors, and still nothing changed on how I thought about myself. I started to become convinced I was beyond redemption.

The next few years were more or less uneventful, I got diagnosed at the age of fifteen with Depression and Bipolar. That wasn't fun to find out, but at least it gave me an idea of what had been going so wrong in those past few years. Finally, I hit a breaking point. My dog died. I know it may seem weird, but in a way his death was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. I knew at this point it was either find a way to pick myself up, or give in to the torment I had endured for so long. So, I went to the bookstore to try to find something, anything, that could help me out of my misery. I did, and ever since I have been reading that book time and time again to lift myself back up when I'm feeling too down. Of course, the psychiatrist's prescriptions helps as well. Fast forward to the current day, and I realized that I do have a talent, and a passion: writing! I sought out this website to try to grow as a writer, and the rest is yet to be told.