Rnd. 2

[helpinghand]

Hey, I'm Jeff. Toward the end of last fall I entered into my second major battle with depression, until just a couple of months ago.

Things had been great right up until then I was a few months into my freshman year of college. I met a lot of new people, made a lot of good friends. One of these friends was a girl, and we started to get to know each other (not romantically) very well. After about a month I had started to develop feelings for her, and strong ones because we had become very close friends.

When I asked her out, she was surprised, and asked for a moment because she hadn't even considered us like that (before declining). That really hurt my self-image, mostly because I felt really incompetent, as though I wasn't even worth consideration.


At first I just felt like anyone does after a brutal rejection, but after about a week I start to recognized that I wasn't just still reacting, but that I'd slipped back into depression. I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it, because the only person I talked to about things that serious was her. So, I tried to come out of that rut as soon as I realized I was in it--but that just got me stuck deeper.

See, right after that happened, she wanted to not stop being friends, which ended up making us way more distant than taking some space would have. Instead of staying apart and becoming friends again later, we tried to be friends again right away and grew apart slowly. I should have been more mature and told how upset I still was, but I tried to play it off thinking... I guess... not thinking. I started being passive aggressive, and she eventually did too, which was horrible (because we're both very good at it). We ended up just totally splitting ways.

So, to try and feel better I started doing the same things that had helped me last time, like going to the gym more (which did help take the edge off), and spending as much time as I could with my friends. But all of my friends were her friends too, and so I started hanging around them all less. And then basically stopped going places or doing anything besides school. Withdrawing from my friends made me start to feel lonely, which made me feel less energetic and so I stopped going to the gym. I became less capable of focusing on school and my grades got worse, which didn't help either. It wasn't until spring break that I started feeling any better, because over the holidays I ran into some people I used to be best friends with and had just drifted away from.

That motivated me to think that I really just didn't want to stay estranged from the people and things I enjoy in life. I mean, not like I'd wanted to before, but now I was determined. Which felt good, for a change. I started reflecting on the decisions I had been making and how they were ending up for me, and figured out what I needed to change.

First, I talked to the girl and cleared the air, apologized and took a mature approach to hashing out the whole thing from beginning to end including how the way she'd handled that had hurt and how I was sorry for being so immature in coping with that (remember, I'd sort of just played off like it didn't happen, nobody at all had any clue that I was spending long nights without sleep just thinking about all the little and big problems in my life).

After that, it was easy to start really hanging out with my friends again, which, one of them convinced me to start going to the gym with him again, saved myself from seriously destroying my GPA, and over the next week or two I managed to get out completely. That would have been early May of this year.

I really regret how I tried to suppress those first negative feelings and how that just led into more bad feelings. I'm also kind of amazed that just hanging out with old friends could give me so much direction. I appreciate that I learned a lot about myself through this experience, and that I've become better for it. I think that the most important thing I did, and the first thing I'll ever try if I get back there, is to really talk about how I feel, and find someone, wherever I have to look, who I can open up to.

Again, I'm Jeff, and that's my story.

[crystalgaze]

I'm really glad you got out of it! Thank heavens! Make sure you pat yourself on the back!

I reacted similarly to a man who came out to me recently about his feelings (the part about not even thinking about him in that way). He was hurt at 1st, indeed, but after explaining some things to him, we put it behind us.

We are friends for now, no problem. (However, he already thinks of us as an item, as much as I tell him that I am taking my time with everything.)

He is often frustrated, but I've been honest about the whole situation. You know, we talk about things. It has been a little emotional, especially when I attempted to go away for good 1 time. I am still debating what to do about it.