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I'm an 29 year old guy.
I'll always do my best to give well considered and sincere advice - give me your best shot. P.S. Don't be afraid to ask me private questions, I rarely spend a lot of time answering non-private questions.

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advice

So I moved to this school in my senior year of high school.

At the beginning, I didn't have a single friend and didn't make an effort at all. I was trying to improve my grades, so I was instead really focused on that because I had to make up for how poorly I did the previous year. So, I worked really hard and got all A's. I still don't have a single friend at the school, and it's mid-year. So, because grades improved and I got my counselor to write a 'glowing' recommendation for the colleges I'm applying to about my turn-around in grades and everything. She sent them, then today...she called my 1st period teacher to call me out of class so I could pick them up to overnight the letters.

Lately, my attendance has gotten worse. I was late today, so when my counselor called my 1st period teacher to ask if she could send me down, my 1st period teacher blasted her about how I'm never in her class, and I'm always late yadda yaddda. Then when I arrived late, my teacher told me my counselor wanted to see me.

When I went down and talked to my counselor after she sent for me, I got the letters & I was about to leave and she's like, "What's up with your attendance" and I'm like, "This quarter its been pretty bad"...and she's like, "It's HORRIBLE!" And I'm like, 'Yeah, I know...". I put the letters down and tell her how I'm usually late first period and stuff like that, but that I'd try to fix my attendance and make it better...so she's like, "*in sweet tone* Yes, you fix it! I wrote these lovely letters for you for your college applications - don't make me look stupid" And I'm like, "No, definitely not, I'll make an improvement..." "*in sweet tone* Yes, you do that! For the next quarter, fix your attendance. I'll be checking! And remember don't make me look stupid! Byeee!!"

Okay, so, what is wrong with me exactly? I'm so depressed, but I haven't really allowed myself to admit it until recently. Like, I literally have no friends. I know it's more so my own fault for not trying but I put so much pressure on myself to improve my grades at the beginning of the year. It's not so easy to make friends senior year, and especially when your grades matter so much. It was my last shot to get into a somewhat good college. I've given up trying on the friends thing. Make friends for what? There are only 3 months left. I'm not going to prom, and I'm even (sadly) fearing my own graduation (who am I going to hang with?).

My sister goes to Princeton, so my parents have expected sooo much for me, but I'm never as good/smart as her. She is GORGEOUS and PERFECT. It is so annoying. I am the ugly duckling, I have so much acne that never goes away and I feel like I can never face anyone because of it. I feel really, just... not pretty. And it doesn't help that she is so damn competitive with me and superficial. "Doesn't this totally accentuate my bone structure". GAH. And I feed her ego every.single.time. "Yeah, it does".

So not going to class/staying at home sort of gives me this high that I didn't expect. I tell my parents that I need an extra day to study for a test, and they're like, "Okay, fine..". I've always been the goody-two shoes, always second best to my sister, but whose only job has been to come home and receive straight A's.

My parents never ask me why I never go out with anyone or have a social life. My parents also don't have any social life as well, and they are workaholics so I feel like some of that has rubbed off on me. As long as I'm getting good grades, it's all okay, and the fact that they don't care hurts me even more. And even those are slipping now (from A's to B's and C's) because of my attendance, lack of focus, and depression I'm pretty sure. I just don't feel happy at all, and everyday I find myself randomly crying.

It sounds stupid, but skipping really does give me a high...it makes me feel a little free, as if I don't have to be so perfect all the time for my parents and everyone else. I can be a little 'rebellious' and 'bad'.

And I wish I could get myself out of my rut. I feel like absolute crap in every way possible. I'm ashamed of myself. Worst of all, while my sister is at Princeton, I'll be stuck at the local state university. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, but my sister thinks she 'has beat me'.

Hi,

I believe you feel free when you don't go to school because you have no motivation to be there right now. Do you know where you're headed? I didn't really at that point in my schooling, but you have to have goals. Those people outside of the freaks in society who find learning pleasurable, have only a few reasons to go to school: In combination 1. It will help them get a good job, which pays well. 2. It will help them chose that job, and be doing something they don't dislike. 3. They have friends, and they're not going to school to learn, they're going to hang with their friends between classes.
I suggest you make yourself 1 year "short term" goals at the very least. Where do you want to be next year? What stuff do you like? What courses do you need to take in order to be able to take the courses you want to take next year?
From the way you talk, you obviously want friends. You've sacrificed socialization for marks, but what you've really been sacrificing is your head-space. "It's not so easy to make friends senior year, and especially when your grades matter so much." -> This worked for a while, but it's not working anymore. Your friends are your marks, if you can't focus, have no reason to go to school, and let yourself feel heavy with depression then you Will fail.
"Make friends for what?" For three months. Friends don't stop being friends, or memories, just because you change schools. Maybe somebody else will end up "stuck" in the same university as you. Answer this question: If you had been friends with someone all year, would you randomly stop being friends with them now? Answer it. Making friends is a wall in your head. Sure, there are superfreak pole-vaulters who don't even seem to HAVE a wall, but you need to think about what friends are. They are people you talk to about funny stuff, eat lunch with, ultimately waste time with, but it makes you feel good. Once or twice I have made great friends with complete strangers standing next to me, in the space of 20 minutes. I'm normally really shit at making friends, but with these people, one of us said something, and the other was listening. Having a friend for three minutes is way the hell better than having nobody for three months. Just because you don't have a friend who is there now, it shouldn't stop you making them. If you never make them, you will just keep thinking "I wish I had one already".
I'm sorry to pester, but please go to school. Not turning up to class makes you look like an outcast/dropout. People who find out might avoid friendship with you. Apart from that, it's important you don't let yourself slip into worse habits.

Maybe your parents know you aren't doing well with friends, and don't ask because they don't want to make you feel bad. "The fact that they don't care hurts me even more": Hey. Parents care about a lot of things that they don't let you know about. Maybe you're especially good at hiding your pain from them. Maybe they just think you're trying to focus on grades (you were doing that earlier). They care alright. And if your parents didn't care, they would have to be the world's nastiest, crappiest parents, and I wouldn't give a damn that they didn't care if they were that oblivious to me.

Being "stuck" at local state university while your sister sizzles under pressure-cooker conditions to live up to the standards of her university doesn't sound so bad to me. Prestigious-name university or not, things depend on what students do while they're there.

You are not your sister, so don't compare yourself to her. There are two circumstances in which people compare themselves to others:
1. People compare themselves to others who they believe are inferior
2. People compare themselves, or what they posses (such as goods, and wealth), to other they believe are, or have something superior.

Case 1 leads to people feeling good because other people are inferior. It makes people big-headed, and more likely to miss their own faults. It also leads to a desire for the perpetuation of those people's inferiority, even if the only way to keep them inferior is not to grow, but to push the inferiors down, and stop them from becoming equal or surpassing. Hitler was a case 1.
Case 2 leads to suffering because one believes they are inferior. They blame other people, or they blame themselves, but either way they wish they were better, or had something better. People who are Case 2 may even achieve what it was they were originally after. But come on, there is ALWAYS going to be someone better than you, and you can't let that make you feel bad. If you did, you would feel bad the rest of your life, but it wouldn't do you any good. You just have to think about how much better you are at catching skittles in your mouth than them, and be happy about it, because it's better than being unhappy.

Both cases of comparison lead to bad outcomes. I have come to believe that the best way to overcome comparison is to think in absolute terms. You live with your parents. You eat every day. You get a chance to go to school. It sounds really phony, like an AID agency to itemize in such seemingly basic things, but when I was depressed, and I had just started to realise what it was making me sad, these are the things that I thought about. I thought "I am O.k. I might be screwed up, but what is there right now that threatens me? I'm not in danger. I am not lost. I am not injured. Etc." I thought about what my life was made up of, and realised that the only thing lacking in my life was -me-. I was so busy screwing around being sad, that I had forgotten that I was in the driver's seat.

Depression is tricky to pin down. The job of psychologists (And most of them are shit at their jobs) isn't to tell, or find out what is wrong with their patient, but to ask the right questions in response to the answers a depressed person gives, in order to help that person to figure out what is depressing them. As such, the dilemma is that you know somewhere (obviously not consciously) what is making you depressed. You just need to slow down, detach, and think about it logically. That is of course really hard to do.

Feel unpretty? Just reading your English; your pretty, capitalized sentences with proper grammar makes you pretty in my eyes.
But to be serious about things: Acne will do that. I was looking like developing cystic acne (big boils like half the width of my nose) when I was in High-school. My parents took me to the dermatologist, and I was prescribed a medication made from high-dose Vit.E (don't do this yourself, you need liver toxicity tests and stuff along the way, 'coz it's dangerous), and I've had mostly clear skin ever since. You should see if you can get an appointment, and see what medical miracles they can offer you.


Feel like crap, feel ashamed, feel beaten, feel ugly, feel lonely, but most of all, feel that you control what you do, you are driving.
If it helps, write a list. Write down what you feel crap about, and turn it into a tick-list to deal with.
Dermatologist
First friend
Get Bs in (subject)
...

Depression is a state of mind,
You just need to find a good way to change your mind.

Good luck.
-K

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(Rating: 5) thank you so much :)
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