Steve, I’m glad you are alive. I am also glad you are doing better.

Thank you to the people who chose not to diagnose me with a mental disorder (and even better, prescribe medication) based on their unqualified assessment of posts that explore only one part of my life. I’m pretty sure I’m not depressed - I mean, I’m seasonal, so I’m a little depressed, but it’s mid February, so that is starting to ease up. I’m sad, and angry, for perfectly good reasons. If you don’t think kids in pain should make a person sad and angry, I don’t think we have enough common ground for you to bother weighing in. I am not sad and angry 24/7. Just too much.

mschrisgo2, thank you for your thoughts. My thyroid has actually been checked several times (most recently in connection with the anemia) because my dad has hypothyroidism. Having watched his struggle - I know what a difference it can make and how simple it is to both overlook and fix.

steve, I do try to give myself credit.

i ruminate and obsess on the failures because I want to learn from them. In pottery, I would go to friends or teachers at the professional studio.

so my biggest take away from this thread is the message many of you keep trying to tell me that if I keep doing what I’m doing, I’ll keep getting what I’m getting. But what I’m doing is going to a group of people who don’t know how to help me and don’t seem to understand what I am saying, and with whom I don’t seem to be able to communicate clearly - for help with problems outside of their skill set - because I like them and I feel like I can talk to them and I don’t know or feel comfortable with very many irl adults.

so I am going to keep getting suggestions for therapy and medication and books to change my spiritual outlook and assessments of my mental state.

apparently nobody has books on communicating with and supporting teenagers, or creating positive environments, or activities or ideas to help make their lives better... or thinks that I need them. See, this is where I want to do something different, so that maybe I get something different. Or at least feel like i might. Because if I feel like I am doing something, other than more of what isn’t enough, I probably won’t be sad and angry so much, because I will have removed the sense of complete helplessness.

i can’t throw pots like Ben. I never expect to throw pots like Ben. But when I go to the studio for help, people don’t say “well, you’re unhappy with your work because you think you should be able to throw pots like Ben. You just need to accept that you are never going to throw pots like Ben. I’m sure you throw perfectly good pots. We just need to work on your attitude.” Even if I say “I hate my pots. My shoulder is sore and the wheel is making me miserable and I just want to throw everything I made in the scrap bucket! I wish I could throw pots like Ben.” They laugh and say “me too. Let me see your pot. Have you tried this...”

so, I will stop asking this group to help me change things like my time management (which has gotten better mostly because I quit doing all the things I don’t want to do which I couldn’t even see and which no one asked about since they were busy pointing out that the things actually on my list were too many) and my skill set for repairing the world. Or anything else that relies on self reported data since I am clearly a bad filter, and stick to philosophical topics like salad spinners. Or not, as I don’t have time for that.