Alex's Background Story

Alex (Andy Penner) is 24-year-old guy in his Junior year of college. Throughout his life Alex has always been an outgoing, caring, friendly person. In high school Alex had many friends that he grew close with. Friday nights Alex and his friends would hit up fast food joints and would jam to music on those evening drives, it felt that Alex had it all. For Alex he was not always a popular guy who had many friends. During Alex’s freshmen and sophomore year of high school Alex was often bullied for being scrawny, and for having interest that those would see as different or weird. Alex was constantly getting picked on and bullied and from that he fell into a state of depression. Even with Alex getting bullied in high school his home life wasn’t perfect at all.

Alex is an only child who lives at home with his parents. Alex’s father is a construction worker who works during the day and also picks up overnight shifts at the local factory at night for extra pay. Alex’s mother is a midwife nurse at the local hospital working long shifts each day. When both of Alex’s parents are home they are constantly fighting with each other, bickering about bills being paid, and about Alex and his changed attitude and lousy grades that he receives. With this sickening feeling, and self-hatred inside of himself Alex decided to self-medicate and cope with his depression through the use of drugs and alcohol. Alex’s parents had seen the changes in Alex’s mood and took him to see Mark the psychiatrist who diagnosed Alex with Depression. For a few years Alex was overcoming his depression and had been leaned off his anti-depressant medication and Alex had felt better about himself and was more confident in himself than ever before. It was until the start of college that Alex’s depression would silently creep back into his life. At the end of each long day Alex would head back home, eat dinner, finish homework and study till 2am for his courses.

The evenings out with friends had become distant memories for him and he had realized all the old friends that he used to hang with had gone off to other colleges in different states and that he was still stuck at home. For Alex his college experience hasn’t been what he was expecting. Alex is a part time commuter student and because of him living at home he hasn’t had the college experience like most of his friends were having. Alex wasn’t going out with friends to an off-campus party, or chilling with friends in a dorm room, he was home stuck in this never-ending cycle. With Alex continuing to attend his monthly meetings with Mark the conversations that they would have had become scripted to the point where Alex is hiding his true feelings and the words that are being said are masking the depression that is still within him.