My depression is causing me to lose my friends?

Forums: Mental Health, Depression, Self Defeating When Learning, Depression Or Real Stuff
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I am a 20 year old male and I have been unhappy for most of my life, because I've been alone for almost all my life. My father died when I very young, my family is unstable and make me miserable because they are abusive, suffer from mental illness, drug problems and were rarely around when I was growing up. I've also always found it difficult to make friends and never had good friends or friends I could trust until I started university. I feel sad and have anxiety all the time and there are days where it gets really bad and I can barely cope and I struggle pretending to be alright in front of people. I'm in university now and for once I have good friends and I don't want my depressive moods to drive them away. I've tried being more happy around them, but I just can't do it. I think I've become co-dependant on them I realise that it is not right. I've considered going to see a counsellor. Is there any advice that anyone can give me to try and handle this better so that my depression doesn't bleed into the aspect of my life (my friends) that actually makes me hopeful and gives me the potential to be happy?

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@djoo709,

Yes, you can and will be happy. I don't say that as a pollyanna, just that I think that you will gain a kind of peace like many of us have, a mix of non connection at some point, fear, relaxation, noticing of beauty, and so on.

Your depressive modes and moods may be due to clinical depression, or just because the stuff you are dealing with is very depressing.

Some of those new friends may feel the same way about you. Someone there to talk with.

Which is the key - look around and see other people from their view - not as ugly toward you, but imagining their situation. This can be hard.. but very interesting.

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@djoo709,

I highly recommend contacting a doctor. Your own physician is a great place to start, and he or she can give you a referral to a mental health professional. If you don't have your own doctor, try the school - all schools have some form of health services as that is required by law pretty much everywhere. Do this because this is a serious illness that you cannot treat yourself. If you had cancer, you would not be able to treat it yourself, either, right? So deal with it that way - you have an illness and need a doctor's care in order to get well. And it is very, very possible to get better.

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@djoo709,

The first thing that you need to do is to really talk to a counselor or a psychiatrist about your problem. They may be able to properly identify what you are feeling and what you can do to improve it.

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@djoo709,

If living that means anything, I would say..

Try not to focus on the depression so much, anxiety requires fixing, most promptly, it seems that losing friends happens to the anxious, myself included, when anxiety struck as a nervous system and chemical imbalance to the norm.

Diet, health and facing fears, even bringing them on in subtle ways gradually helps.

Though its very very personal.

Note: I focused on depression and answers were very hard to find as to what causes it, never mind what actually fixes it... Diet, health and not realising that anxiety is a factor which creates depression, one ignores that sometimes and ponders why health does not return.. It seems obvious at that point that fixing depression should end anxiety, so I waited, though facing things more assertively throughout is essential.

Knowing you do not feel that way normally is not enough, its the paradoxical catch 22.

If your too far gone, look out for too much thinking about it and stick with accepting something hit your life and you gotta settle to repair.

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@nothingtodo,

The years of meeting up with people and going to functions, facing such a dilema, even to the point of remaining and answering people, when your body freezes up and locks down in a kind of soup that you have to walk through, seems usually to be caused by abuse of substances or poor diet.

Its like the walking dead if you let it get too bad, seriously.

If its just the usual worldy spites and stuff which get you... stuff 'em.

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My depression is causing me to lose my friends?

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