"How's it going, are you feeling okay? You don't seem like yourself, are you positive you're doing alright? If somethings going on you know you can talk to me, no judgement involved." Just those few sentences could have helped me conclude that I need help. There have been many times that I've gone days, weeks, even months feeling uneasy, emotional, indecisive, worthless, restless, and loss of interest in things that normally bring me happiness. I go through the ups and downs of being content, smiling and laughing, communicating with family and friends, going to class and be productive for a few moments, then ill-fated the next, wasting time watching television, sleeping, staying awake for multiple days, over-eating and under-eating, and having no interaction with the outside world. Anything from the stress of classes, family and relationship issues, or personal issues with me lead me to go through these bizarre phases. Naturally I recognize that this is not normal, however, instead of communicating with those around me how I was feeling, I proceeded to go to the internet to self-diagnosis. I determined, thanks to Mayo Clinic, that I am going through depression. This self-diagnosis confused me due to the fact that I always thought that depression was not real, in the sense that it was something made up by a person to stop them from being productive, and this confusion leads to my eagerness in what is depression? Is it a disease? What are the causes of it? What does depression affect in a person? How to recognize if you are depressed? How to handle depression? in the hopes of coming to terms with depression. .
The freedom given with the I-search project made my thinking process become scattered because I truly cared about my topic, depression, and wanted to use specific resources, such as documentary, journals, and articles. Utilizing the Wayne State University Libraries, I began with a search of "depression" in the quick search engine.