I'm having a little trouble keeping my depression under wraps with other people, especially while carrying the activity tracker around with me.
Like, I've had trouble with this one classmate popping in on me at a bad time on a couple of occasions. Like I was working on my one comic about the character going through kind of a parallel scenario to my own depression (the one I mentioned in the art therapy topic). I was just sitting in a hallway on campus working on it when suddenly the classmate sat down next to me and asked what I was doing. I was embarassed because the comic's really drama laden and kind of personal, so I kind of had to shut the notebook and brush the question off a bit.
Then this evening I was working in an editing booth when he kind of popped in without me noticing and saw my activity tracker and mood thermometer that were sitting out! I think he was able to read a fair amount before I noticed he was there. I kind of took the papers and shoved them in my back pack, saying they were for a psychology class, but it was probably obvious they weren't.
I've had a few close calls with other people, too. I just feel really embarassed about these situations. I feel like anyone who sees something like that must think I'm messed up. And trying to hide things like papers all of the sudden probably comes off as suspicious and rude. It just kind of sets me into a spiral of self-conscious and upsetting thoughts. I feel like I never notice other people trying to bury things like this, and I'm just terrible at keeping things a secret. Or I just have too many things to hide, I don't know.
I also think my parents have seen one of my activity trackers, which really sucks because they've been aware of past episodes of depression, mainly my first one which was really bad. But I really, really didn't and don't want them to know of anything. It's just a very personal matter; I want it to be kept to myself. And especially with the classmate, it doesn't feel appropriate to come out with why I have a mood tracker sitting out or things like that.
Anybody else ever have problems with acquaintances or other people you didn't intend to find out about your depression, finding out by accident? How do you keep it from happening or deal with it when it does happen?
