Fighting Darkness

Why would a child grow up believing that she has to be perfect in everything in order to gain the approval of everyone around her? How does a child go through her whole life believing that everything always is and always will be her fault? How does a child spend a lifetime fighting battles nobody can see? It's easy when the child in question suffers from a disease we, as humans, like to never mention. We pretend it doesn't exist and that the people suffering from it are just insanely sad: Depression isn't really real...is it? Alexandra Glass has suffered from depression from further back than she can recall, although she hated to name it then and still hates to name it now. There have been times her darkness has clung to her tightly; like an evil octopus...yet there have also been times when she has managed to push it a small distance away: immense battles with little result. How does one child fight an ever-growing darkness?