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KimberlyEveretteIV said 9 years, 11 months ago:

I started my first year in college in September, studying for my AS levels, the college I chose to go to was also one that a lot of my friends from secondary school were going to attend. Because we had all known each other for 5 years prior and were in a new setting in college we all became very close and none of us really made any new friends. Sadly, over christmas I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and had to leave college because of it. I did not want my friends to know and became distant from them as I was/am trying to recover. In the first month or so of me being absent from college my friends reached out to see how I was doing, I lied and told them I was fine. After a while a few of them started to tweet things such as “Caring gets boring after a while” and “Get over yourself”. I felt these comments were directed at me and completely withdrew form all of them. Following that, none of them have made any effort to reach out to me or see how I am doing and I feel terribly lonely and isolated because of it. I feel that it is my fault and I should be reaching out to them…I just really need a friend right now. Any advice?

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Cecily said 9 years, 11 months ago:

Ok, two things:

1 – it takes 2 people to have a friendship.
2 – assigning blame is not helpful or in any way a good idea.
If nothing else, try and remember these 2 things.

When depression takes hold of you, everything is harder. It’s sad to hear that you felt you needed to hide your problems from them, but very common for those of us who suffer with these issues. I know I struggle with the idea that it’s nothing to be ashamed of so there shouldn’t be any reason to fear telling the people I’m close to. And if you honestly think that they would react badly they’re not worth your time.

Don’t try and decide whether it’s your fault, and try not to assume that they’re talking about you and judging you. If you want the friendship to continue, you’re unfortunately going to need to reach out to one of them and be honest about what’s going on. As much as it hurts, if being honest means you get burnt, then having them around is only going to be detrimental to your mental health anyway, and you’re well shot of them. They may just be hurt that you’re shutting them out though; you’ll never know unless you try.

And hey, there’s always the people here; we do understand.

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