Depression in High Achievers

[Trueliez]

Interesting that this will be my first post in CD, but anywho.
I suppose I am a 'high achiever', I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I got that title by trying to live up to my own expectations of myself which apparently are placed a lot higher than anybody elses. I was diagnosed with clinical depression a couple of years ago, although unfortunately my parents didn't accept this, choosing instead to believe that my docotor caught me on a 'bad day'. I haven't been back to the doctor to get it checked since, but I believe I still have it as I have been left to deal with it on my own.
One of the reasons I decided to join our FIRST team when my school joined the competition this year was in keeping with thefro526's comment about needing mental stimulation. Diving in the deep end with programming has helped to keep me more positive because it's completely different from anything I've tried before (being an art student, haha =P) and has managed to make me feel like I'm making progress with something as I go through the stages of learning the language of C++. It's a kind of tangible progression I suppose, more so than with my core subjects.
The team environment that comes with a robotics team has also helped a lot too, because of the support which you get from you fellow members.
This post is rather long and without much of a point, but I suppose that I'm saying that I do believe depression in more common amoungst high achievers, that I've had some first hand experience, and that FIRST and the environment that comes with it has certainly helped me a lot when my family wasn't nessicarily willing too.