A
female
 ,
anonymous
writes:i am a seventeen year old girl..the past few years of my life have been a complete blur as I have refused to face up to circumstances and changes in my life and as a result lived in my own little world, mostly in the past imagining, wishing everything back to the way it was before..recently though, I have realised that I can't live with my head stuck in the sand, and have come a long way. I have been concentrating on being normal since january this year, I am doing much better and for once in my life I studied for my exams(which I am also worried about as I have always failed in the past and this year I cannot afford to screw up as it was my last year at school)..anyway my problem now is that I constantly feel like I am wasting my time, I have no sense of fulfilment i feel emotionally "numb". I have no idea what I want in life, i don't even know what kind of person I am...I'm very confused.Any insight?thanks
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female
reader, DrPsych  +, writes (4 June 2006):
 To some extent it is perfectly normal to not have any fixed goals or to know for sure what you want out of life at 17. Your teen years are all about confusion, uncertainty and making mistakes and that is NORMAL. In this fast world that we live in there is an enormous pressure on young people to have everything sorted out really quickly and to know where you are going in life. I personally didn't have a clue what I was doing, or where I was going at 17 but four career changes and two decades later I have just about sorted it out. It is sometimes better not to have a fixed plan very young about careers, goals etc because if it goes wrong (either for personal reasons or for circumstances out of your control) then you can find yourself in despair later in life if you don't have a back up plan.
However, the bit about feeling down, not having a sense of fulfilment etc is suggestive of clinical depression (and poor self confidence is part of it). It is unclear what has happened in the past that you regret, but the fact that you are carrying it around on your shoulders is part of what us clinical psych's call 'rumination'. You can get help for this - some people respond to medication (increasingly anti-depressants are prescribed to people of your age) or counselling (cognitive behavioural therapy) to help you figure out why you feel this way. Remember that exam-time is really stressful anyway at any age so you might not be thinking straight at the moment but may feel better in the post-exam period.
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