I don't know if I'm depressed or not. I'm really afraid to talk to anyone about it, and I figured that maybe here was the first step.
There's nothing wrong with my circumstances, I come from a nice, loving family, am surrounded by caring friends that I know support me, but recently I've been on a downward spiral that I can't seem to stop. I'm in a rather intensive program at school, I'm almost done my first 'real' year in it, which has been rather stressful, and I've been having problems keeping up with it. Every so often, I'll be hit with a mini-crisis, unable to sleep, afraid and feeling so blank and empty that I go into a kind of catatonic state for a day or so, think about quitting, then pop back up and be fine until the next time. But recently, it's been getting more frequent and for longer periods of time, to the point where the last one has lasted almost three weeks, worse than ever, and was back after only three days of 'up' time. During this time, I was sleeping either +10 or -5 hours at night, and constantly falling asleep in class(like once a day, for a half an hour or more), sometimes so deeply that my friends could slam my head against the desk and I wouldn't wake up. The time I was awake wasn't much better, I couldn't seem to focus on anything, even when it's something really important. I found I just couldn't care about anything.
My marks have fallen severly during this period, but I'm really afraid of telling my parents because they know I can do so much better and everyone else seems to be coping so much better. It's not that they aren't understanding, but I know that deep down they'd be dissapointed but wouldn't try to show it and that makes me even more afraid. And even though I really don't want to dissapoint them, I still can't make myself pull myself together enough to work again.
So what I was wondering, could this possibly depression, or am I just trying to pin my problems on something other than myself? Anything would be helpfull. Thank you!