Extensive Reading Blog Post - Neo Weihong (14)

As for results of depression, loneliness and heartbreaks, I feel that this can cause a lot of stress for the one experiencing it. He/she may not be able to find a solution to his/her emotions and may even generate negative thoughts/emotions. This, if not diagnosed and treated psychologically over a period of time, may cause the problem to elevate and therefore create more stress and problems, to the extent that he/she does things harming himself/herself or others. And what would be more vicious is that though it may seem that he/she looks fine, it could be that the problems of depression, loneliness and heartbreaks are actually affecting him/her really bad deep inside, though no one else knows and does nothing about it.

Being different from peers would be another issue. In my own opinion, I feel that how it affects the person would really depend on him/her as an individual – whether he/she treats/recognizes this as something positive or negative. Besides, it would also have to depend on what the environmental surroundings and reactions of the peers are. So, positively, the fact on being different from peers would not really affect the individual at all as he/she would not care about the problem (as the peers also don’t mind). Negatively on the hand, being different from peers can actually cause the problem of isolation for the peers. And as mentioned in the book ‘Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul’, isolation can result in many psychological problem for the victim (this could be due to whether peers accept/reject the person due to differences).

For ‘having a front’ as a problem, I think that doing this is actually not being one’s ‘true self’. This can most likely happen for those who appear “weird” or “unnatural” etc. in different occasions. They may be the ones most criticized by others and may also have other problems such as depression, loneliness, heartbreaks and being different from peers. What most from the rest of the world does not understand is that they are only trying to do this so that they can ‘fit in’ or ‘be accepted’ into the community (though this can often make it worse for other people’s perspective on them).

For me, back in primary school, I used to think that all these problems such as depression, loneliness, heartbreaks, being different from your peers, and having to put up a front are just part of daily life. I won’t usually mind if people try to hurt me every single day, whether physically or mentally. I just lived through those. But over time, after getting into secondary school, I started to recognize this as a problem. Though this may sound good, but it soon resulted me in getting emotional at times and being unable to control. Back then, I would cry uncontrollably (even if I did NOT want to), in front of everyone in usually inappropriate situations. After that (you can now see the problem progress as it was not treated), there was a period of time where I got into a mode where I started hurting myself and others. Now? Whenever I meet with some of this issues, I would try to solve it. If I really cannot take it, I would just sleeeep (as it makes you forget about the problem and feel better about it when you wake up).