Table 7 Themes and quotes of ‘Reflections on personal worries and expectations about the future’
Themes | Quotes |
|---|---|
The impact of Future thinking on mood | “Thinking about the future would only make my anxiety high, and make me want to just not go on anymore, so thinking about the future was just not a good idea. It didn’t even feel like I had, in my present moment, thought it out, so I don’t even think about the future.” [04; female, 16, clinical depression and anxiety] “I think now my relationship with the future is, I wouldn’t say it’s very good, I think it’s fine. I’m coping with it well and it doesn’t scare me to think about what I might be doing in two years or three years from now. I have an idea of what I want to do, I don’t know how to get there yet, but I know that eventually I will find the way.” [06; female, 19, subclinical depression and anxiety] |
Optimism, pessimism, and future expectations | “I wanted to go to the College of my choice, not the College of my parents’ choice, and the subjects of my choice, so non-medicine subjects and subjects I was actually interested in, considering I have to spend two years studying them. These are all expectations that seemed unrealistic at the time, but now I’m actually doing it all.” [04; female, 16, clinical depression and anxiety] “Basically everything that I ever worried about happening didn’t happen. I can’t think of one thing that did happen.” [17; female, 17, clinical depression and anxiety] |