Detached / Angry / Stressed / Empty / Depressed

[S-Coff]

I'm 22 now and have been deeply unhappy for years. Sometimes I actually forget who I used to be, I've become so detached.

My story will seem trivial compared to others' on here, but it's ruined my life and only now have I gained the self awareness/bravery to try and turn everything around, and try to become a better person.

A few months before my 15th birthday I met someone, my friend's cousin and we liked each other for years after. I loved her with every fibre of my being, deep down I still do but she absolutely destroyed me. She led me on and completely messed me around. I can remember taking her aside one night at a get together, we were both 16/17 and telling her I had feelings for her, she knew well I was in love with her, I asked could anything happen between us. She actually laughed at me and told me to ask her another time, then she turned around and walked away from me and continued to throw herself at one of my so called best friends. Literally years of leading me on, of messing with my head lead to that moment.

From pretty much the next day I was a completely different person. I was absolutely shattered in every way conceivable and that's when my depression really began, aswell as my horrific temper. It's progressed ever since, it destroyed my leaving certificate (final school exams) and I had to repeat, even after repeating I didn't get the degree course I wanted and am only just finished first year now of a course I frankly don't give a damn about. I just didn't have the confidence (I still don't have an ounce of it) to do what I needed to do. I used to be great in school but now my attention span is destroyed.

After my second leaving cert I made it to college, but ended up dropping out after two months. I've never met my dad and he contacted my mam out of the blue, think it was through facebook. He just asked had he got the right person but she didn't reply. I can remember her saying to me when I was just 18 "Now don't get upset, but your father contacted me, do you want to meet him". Who the hell says that? Now don't get upset?? Why the hell shouldn't I. I'd never met him and she just sprung that on me when I walked in the door. I told her I didn't want to meet him at the time, but really I don't know what I feel, was just scared at the time. That's nearly five years ago now. I basically raised my mum as well as myself, she's the most insanely immature person I know. Even my grandparents relatives have said it. I've never had any sort of role model, any kind of person to look up to, I've always felt alone. I've always been alone.

Last August I was out with friends and Soph turned up with her boyfriend, we'd seen each other a few times over the years and were always polite, I had tried the college I went to after school again and she was there, we had a mutual friend so we had to be around each other. I left again, only this time it was because my depression/stress/anxiety had destroyed my ability to study and I just didn't have the confidence for University. I remember we were on the bus home one evening, just the two of us, she was sprawled across two seats and I was on the other side of the walkway on another two. I turned and looked at her and she was just looking at me in a way so intense I can't describe. We never talked about everything that happened between us, never. At that time she was very serious with a guy, living with him. That night, last August nearly a year after I left the college, standing next to her, talking to her, looking her in the eyes, was the first time since I was a teenager that I felt alive. I didn't realise what it was at the time, but it just felt so good to be near her. I felt whole.

I'm under no illusions about her, she's moving out of the country with that same guy. I know she loves him. I just wish I could turn back time and do everything differently. I think about her everyday and I still break down thinking of her, if I even just see her in town I light up for those few seconds.

I don't know how to connect with anyone, ever since that night when she basically made me feel like an absolute worthless dope.. I've been too afraid to have any sort of connection with anyone. I've been on one date in my whole life. I've never had a serious relationship, not one person I have ever cared about has ever told me they felt the same, not one. I ended up seeing a girl I was working with on and off for a while, but surprise surprise, she chose someone else.

To make things worse again, because of the recession in Ireland a lot of my friends have emigrated. I'm lonely every day.

That's basically it, like I said at the beginning I know this is trivial compared to some of the ordeals people on here have been through, but I just needed to let it out.

I've never spoken about this with anyone before, I've been holding this all in for 7/8 years now, this is the first time I've even wrote any if this stuff down because I've never felt like there's anyone I can talk too.

So if you took the time to read it, thank you.

[Repetition]

Sorry to hear all that S-Coff. Not sure I have any solutions to offer you. There seems to be only one possible way to get through depression, in a general sense--and that is, very slowly, with incremental and painstaking progress. A lot of what's written in pop psychiatry emphasizes the necessity of replacing the object of our obsession with something else--i.e., replace booze with long walks, if you're an alcoholic; replace a drug-using community with a community of support, etc. I certainly see in my self that we are creatures of habit, often helplessly mired in patterns of behavior and thought we've developed long before we realize that such patterns may very well be with us for life. Thus my username- repetition.

I don't think anything is every truly hopeless, because if I did, I'd probably have completely given up. Your situation is not hopeless, and you are still young and flexible enough, if you can accept that to be the truth. You don't sound like an asocial person, so perhaps you can work towards dissipating your sense of loss in healthy social pursuits, and trying to really pull out maximum enjoyment from your interactions with others, esp. face-to-face conversations.

[bigal12241]

Hey, I can some what relate to what you've gone through. Not with the whole thing about never meeting your father, which I'm sorry to hear about, and I'm not at the age where people in my life can just fall in love and go to another country. I'm 17, but I too have had my emotions and life toyed with. It was actually last year, I had a girl that even sayed she liked me so after a few days I finally built up the confidence to ask her out. Well, she already had a boyfriend and said she liked me as a friend, but this is what pissed me off and completely destroyed me, that same day she posted on facebook, and i quote, "Omg, this weird guy tried to ask me out today it was so ackward xD". All I could say was what the fu*k! I haven't really done this myself, but I am trying to, but you need to move on and find someone else. There's millions of women out there looking for that special guy and some day we will find them. Stay strong