Hi, I'm new here. I had no idea any website like this existed until my friend Emily told me to check it out and it is actually really nice to see people talking about how they are feeling and it is exactly how I am feeling. I can't talk to my family about my depression because they will just brush it off and say that it is a phase I need to work through. They don't understand why I just want to be left alone in my room and why I avoid going out as much as possible. I regularly have panic attacks when I am around more than three or four people at a time and I absolutely cannot be around people I don't know. When I do have panic attacks, they tell me to get over it and stop being a drama queen or an attention whore. If I could stop the panic attacks, I would. They don't believe in medicine, so everything is just a phase I need to work through. They took me off my depression medication, which was really helping me, saying that if I keep taking them like the doctor prescribed then I will get addicted to them like a drug addict. Because of them totally not listening to a word I say, every depressing incident for me, every failure I go through whether it be a test or I feel like I am letting my friend down keeps building up and up until something triggers my depression and I explode in a complete mental breakdown coupled with several horrible panic attacks. Lately I've been fighting off the urge to cut again. I've been "sober" in a sense from doing that for a year. I don't want to give in because that means that my depression is winning and if it wins, I am going to give in completely and kill myself. I am heading off to college, so that is just going to give me more reason to have panic attacks, which is why I am glad I found this site. Hopefully if I just let it out on here, it won't build up and I won't give in to my demons. So I am going to keep fighting the good fight. My best friend Emily has been helping me through it because she is the only person in my life right now who knows what I am feeling and who I can talk to because she gets it. She gets what its like to have depression and want to make the pain go away once and for all. If you have any ideas on how to talk to people about this, please let me know. I need all the help I can get.