Question
Hey I'm 13 and stress has been ruining me. In grade 7 I coped with stress by beating others so the stress of them being better than me at certain feats was alleviated. In high school it's impossible. At first I was all content and kind of "type thought" and convinced myelf that the only thing that mattered was academics. I didn't see how social life could fit into that. Over the coarse of the year I've been through many phases and they seem to make me dumber each time. I'm at about a grade 6 level of intelligence and I don't know what's going on. I've been diagnosed with anxiety, and the counsellor said that depression and anxiety go hand in hand. I don't she she understands that it's not anxiety/depression, it's like stress induced brain loss that seems to have induced depression due to my slow decline in social and academic ability. Is there ANYTHING I can do, I'm a type A personality when I'm happy but it's not sadness....

I have 2 phases, depressed and aware or overly euphoric and unaware of events and stuff around me. It's really hard to do stuff in school... I'm losing my mind or something I can't seem to recall past events at all hardly. As you can tell my English skills are also on decline. IT seems to get worse each day even though I constantly tell my counsellor it's "getting better." I'm slowly developing an ignorance is bliss strategy which seems to stress me out because I forget the simplest things. For example in the last week of december I forgot the adress of a party and the date of an EXTREMELY important event that I was thinking about since the beginning of the term. I may have psychosis. I'm not that sad it's just I've become inept. Any ideas what I might have?

Answer
Hi Justin

Thanks for your question.

It's very hard to tell sometimes whether your depressed because of your declining social and academic ability, or the other way around. Depression and other mood problems can cause significant problems with thinking that can feel like you're losing your mind.

In terms of what you could have, there are any number of possibilities, but you can't really get a good diagnosis over the Internet. I'm concerned that you are telling your counselor things are getting better when they're really getting worse. I understand you don't feel like the counselor is understanding what's happening, but whoever's treating you has to have accurate information to go on. You may need to consider getting switched to a different counselor or therapist, or ask about seeing a medical doctor to rule out other medical problems.

Good luck

BH