Am I clinically depressed? *Sorry this is so long, it s a lot to explain and I have never really asked anyone about this.* Hey, I suffer from depression but I don t know if it is a mental thing and should seek medical treatment or if its just me overreacting and being silly. A couple things to note before reading my story: 1. I was never depressed enough to seriously consider killing myself, although the thought of it as an easy way out had been appealing at times. 2. I was always very popular, had lots of friends, attracted a lot of girls, was well-off financially, and was a talented athlete. 3. I hid it very well all the time, the ONLY people who know are my ex gf and my best friend. 4. I had noticed my depression comes in waves, and have gotten shorter as I have learned to deal with it. It s also weird in the way that I can tell when I m becoming down on myself and I m about to go through a period of depression. I will tell you my experience with what I think is depression: It pretty much all started when I was 13, I was a happy but shy kid with lots of friends. All of a sudden I became really down on myself, I felt like shit about myself and I really didn t know why. I would often sit up all night crying until I fell asleep. My friends started to question me and asking if I was an emo . I was not in any way, but I was really down on myself for a long time. Instead I made up a story about losing someone close to me (who didn t even exist) just so people wouldn t think I was a freak. Eventually I got back on my feet and was back to normal. I then went to boarding school in a different country, I liked being alone but also liked having friends. I didn t miss my family that much, even though I hated my boarding school. I went through a couple phases of being down on myself and feeling lonely, even though I had friends. It wasn t bad as the period I had when I was 13 but I still wasn t sure why I felt like this. I then left boarding school after a year and moved to a different country, where I was very popular and I had a beautiful girlfriend. Things didn t go so well though and I ended up moving to a different country again after 3 months. A lot happened to me during those times (I was cheated on, mugged on a school trip, left out of sports teams, and got in a couple fights) and when I arrived to the new country I was more depressed than ever. I didn t speak to anyone except this one Italian girl for the first 9 months or so I was there. I was also boarding so it made it even harder to deal with my mental state. The next year came and I had became happier and I was very much into this Italian girl. However, she ditched me for another guy and I became severely depressed. My mental and state started to affect my health and I was going to school with severe fever s without even feeling it. Eventually I went to my school nurse with tears in my eyes, she asked if everything was okay, I said no. She then asked if I wanted to speak about it and I said no. No questions asked she got me a week off school to get my act together and I m forever grateful for this. I plan to get her something really nice when I graduate :)! Anyway, I got over the girl eventually, but it hurt me every time I saw her. Around this time I had 2 years of high school left and I was doing great, I had friends, girls often had crushes on me, I had great grades, ect. However, since then I have started going through regular periods of like 2 weeks where I would become really down on myself and I couldn t bring myself to literally do anything, and this makes my school work suffer. I m in my senior year now and I m learning to cope with these periods better and they re getting shorter (I think). Anyway they still come and hit pretty hard and it really disrupts my ability to do school work. I try really hard to fight it but it s hard to fight emotions that you don t know the source of. It s been 5 years since this started now and I still don t know why it happens. I m scared to tell my parents or teachers, but I feel like this year might be too hard if I don t seek help. Here are my questions: Am I clinically depressed, or is it all just in my head? (I need this answered the most, for peace of mind that I m not crazy) I m 18 now and can go to the doctor by myself, should I seek medical/professional help? Will it eventually go away? I hope it s not something I will have to continue to deal with.. Thanks for any help, especially from any professionals who can diagnose me (if necessary). I m too scared to tell my parents so it would save me a lot of hassle.