I'm so glad I found out about this thread because I feel like I really need to share my experience. So thank you.
I am 19 and I have known for quite a long time that there was something wrong with me because I've been feeling pretty bad, worthless and lonely for sometime now. Although, I never thought I was really depressed. Or maybe I should say I never wanted to believe I could suffer from depression. However, a few months ago I was reading about all types of depression for a university module and it stoke me that I fitted all the criteria for atypical depression. It was really an eye-opener because it finally all made sense: my low mood, general unhappiness, desire to cry and even the sporadic suicidal thoughts. I talked to some people and I've been told it can be beneficial to share one's own story, put it black on white and admit that you're depressed, and I'm willing to give it a try because I really want to end this but I don't seem to be able to get better.
Superficially, at first sight my life seems to be easy and nice; I have a nice and supportive family, good friends, I've always been a bright student and never had massive problems. But this is not the whole picture, in fact at a closer look things are not as simple and smooth. I'm a quiet and reserved person, although not necessarily shy, and for some reason I've never found it easy to talk about my personal life. Maybe because I've had self-esteem issues for as long as I can remember. Being surrounded by much more confident and out-going people, I've always tended to stay in the background. The only aspect where I was on the spotlight was school (due to my excellent grades); this made it hard for some people to like me, especially in my childhood, but at least it made my family proud. Not only were my relatives proud, they also had high expectations of me and put a lot of pressure on me to succeed and achieve good results. This has been a major cause of stress and anxiety in my life - the fear of disappointing all of them.
When I was 14 the first real issues arose, as that was the time when my friends and I started thinking about boys, boyfriends etc. Everyone seemed to be able to find "love" (well, from a 14 year old point of view) but I didn't. I liked this very popular guy for over a year, and then one day he finally seemed to like me back. We went out a few times, we kissed (my first), was over the moon. A few weeks later, however, he ended everything. I got really depressed and started not to eat, I lost a lot of weight and became obsessed with being skinny. I would starve myself and lie about the food I ate, and although I was never officially diagnosed with anorexia or any other eating disorder, in retrospect I can say I was anorexic. Deep down I knew it was wrong, but being skinny gave me strength and made me feel happy. School was great, I gained self-confidence, guys started to notice me and I even had a few relationships, however I started to close up and not share with my family what was going on, maybe because I was ashamed, I don't know. It went on for a few years, I didn't now how to talk to my mum about my personal life anymore, I wouldn't even tell all important things to my best friends. For example, I didn't tell my mum when I lost my virginity at 17 and I know she would have wanted me to open up about that.
The worst came last year though, when I was applying to university for the course I've always wanted to study. Having been told that I was a brilliant student all my life, I was very ambitious and aimed really high, and everyone else was confident I would make it. But I failed. It was really hard on me because not only had I disappointed many people, but my biggest dream was fading away. However, I didn't want people to know how I really felt, so I tried to put a happy face up and pretend it was all just fine. I settled for a course I was partly interested in with the hope that it would all work out in the end. Then it came the time when all my friends were applying for university and I could see them all being successful. Of course I was happy for them but deep inside I felt left behind and miserable compared to them. I started to re-gain weight, which made me feel even worse because all my efforts to be skinny vanished. Anyway, I left for uni and really made an effort to go out, meet people and get better but even if I had some good days, a general unhappiness still dominated my days. I became really good at lying, pretending that everything is fine when I'm with other people, but when I'm alone I just feel desperate. Positive events can make me feel happy for a short period of time now, but it's just transitory happiness. And I know I have things to be grateful for, but I am just not able to. I have re-applied to university for my dream course and I have recently found out that I got in. I should be ecstatic because my dream will actually become true. But even if I try really hard I just can't be happy. It's like I don't know how to be truly happy anymore. I am desperate to get better, I really want to and I hope I can. I just need to figure out how to do it.
Thank you very much for listening to me, it really means something. And knowing that many of you felt really bad in the past and are now better gives me hope, a lot of hope. I hope I can post on this thread again someday and say that I got over all this.