I don't know if my depression is really gone...

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This will probably be pretty long, and I'm mostly writing this just for the sake of writing it, but if anyone has advice I would appreciate it.

So starting around halfway through my senior year in high school, I started getting severely and chronically depressed. I never said anything about it to anyone, I would just isolate myself (always had my headphones on, hung out in my room whenever possible) and as these were already pretty normal behaviors for me before so nobody really noticed. There were multiple reasons for me being depressed, some of which were things that were always a problem in my life, like bad habits and not ever living up to expectations. I never really felt depressed about them, just frustrated that I couldn't change them to the point that I would try to ignore them to avoid that stress.

What happened was, at the beginning of my junior year, I started to feel like things were looking up for once. I had success for the first time in overcoming some personal problems, as I had reached out about them for the first time, but I was still struggling with certain things. It felt like no matter how hard I tried I was not going to be good enough, and that all my efforts were recognized by others as nothing more than me finally catching up, and therefore deserving no praise or recognition whatsoever. At least, this is what it seemed like from people's responses to me. To me the things I'd accomplished felt like great achievements, but to anyone else they would either say nothing or continue to point out everything I was doing wrong, and not ever listen to my ideas or concerns.

I met a girl around that time, and I really liked her A LOT, for reasons I still can't quite understand. I mean, yes she was attractive, and had kind of a spontaneous personality and a weird way of viewing things, and I liked that stuff, but I still don't understand when or why I became so interested. I knew her for a couple weeks before I even remembered her name, and then at some point I became basically obsessed with her. I tried really hard not to be creepy, but I had to put conscious effort into not doing strange things like staring, following her, or sitting too close all the time (and I still would sometimes do these things without realizing and feel stupid afterward). I would think about her pretty much anytime I was able to, it literally felt like I was constantly planning our next interaction trying to figure out how to act or what to say. But for the whole first year I knew her she paid almost no attention to any attempt I made to interact with her, most of which were extremely awkward. At the beginning of senior year, however, I had chosen most of my classes because I knew that she would be in them. I really, REALLY wanted to get to know her. To my surprise, she actually started to like me, mostly because she found my strange humor and odd behavior funny, a fact I didn't realize until later. But I was always so confused about if she wanted to date or wanted to be friends, because she would always want to cuddle when we were alone. Not only that, she really liked touching in public too, she would do a lot of things that were really... how do I put this... arousing? In my mind, there's no way she was doing that stuff on accident; she must have realized, and she did it a lot too. But anyway... I would have been fine with just being friends, but I needed to know what she thought of me, and I was just unable to bring it up. I would try to plan when I would bring it up and had many opportunities, but I would freeze up, or I wouldn't be direct enough about it and she would not seem to get what I was saying (looking back, I think she did understand but was purposely avoiding the subject).

Long story short, this continued for quite a while until I got frustrated and just kind of blurted it out. To which she had a very dismissive response, like she didn't even care about what I thought or felt. And at this point others always thought we were dating, which made her annoyed, but we basically only talked to each other so it made sense. Also, she had told me and other people that we were very close friends, we hung out all the time, she even would tell me she loved me like every day when saying goodbye or whenever, in person, over text etc. Needless to say I was very confused and angry that she seemed aware of my feelings but didn't care at all, and just thoughtlessly said she loved me when it seemed to be untrue at this point. And she would tell me I was a bad friend for wanting to talk about it because it was apparently selfish of me. But she wouldn't even tell me what she really thought of me, she would avoid the subject at all costs. Eventually, after multiple similar but smaller outbursts, I got very angry and tore into her about everything that she did that was insensitive, and how she had often taken advantage of me. She was just defensive, and tried to tell me I was wrong, but I was so fed up with it, and I told her never to talk to me again. Which she did anyway, asking how I was doing and such. And because I am an idiot, every single time I thought she was trying be nice and would try to be nice back, and then she would say something mean and then just walk away while I was still trying to process what just happened. This continued for a few more weeks until I finally told her that if she tried talking to me again, I would yell at her in public to leave me alone, and I didn't care who saw. I couldn't handle constantly being treated like that, I already felt like I was literally going crazy.

At this point, I was at college, where she also was going to college and in many of the same classes as me (this was actually unintentional this time). That had to be the worst year of my life (that was just this past school year). I felt so depressed, all the problems I thought I'd been making progress on were back even worse than before, I was barely able to keep track of classes and was getting terrible grades, I did horribly at my part-time job, and I had nobody to talk to at all. I felt like I had no future. I would have definitely killed myself had I gotten the chance. Everyone I tried talking to just thought I meant I was having a bit of trouble with school, or making friends, whatever. But really, I would wander around outside at night so I wouldn't have to be around my roommates when I felt so horribly. I often used my break at work to go to the roof blasting my music, and there were more than a few times where I would totally break down crying and wonder if I should jump off (I never really got close though, I've always hated heights). I tried really hard to keep track of things, but I got so frustrated and anxious when things didn't happen how I planned that I gave up. Most of my second semester I didn't even go to class, I just stayed in my dorm, sleeping all day and wandering around outside at night. I'm very lucky I didn't get fired from my job as I was often hours late. Had I gotten fired I would have had no money for food. I constantly wanted to kill myself, and I tried to find a sure way to do this, but the only methods were impossible for me or too risky, so I just sat and suffered. When I finally left college, I came to live with my grandparents, as my dad had no room for me and thought my grandparents could help me (he thought my problems were just a simple lack of certain skills that I needed to work on, like scheduling or budgeting). Well, since I left college and am in a somewhat stable environment, I have significantly improved. I attribute this also to the medication I was prescribed for ADD (Adderall). Taking it made me feel better and like my mind was going faster so I could see things in a better light I suppose. But it didn't affect my concentration abilities.

Now I am feeling a bit more positive about things, but I still worry, and I feel that if one thing goes wrong I may fall right back to where I was, only now I would have a much easier time finding a sure way to kill myself. Even now I don't think that many of the reasons I had for being depressed and suicidal were unfounded. They are still genuine concerns in fact, I just feel I may be able to deal with them now, whereas before I had no hope for that whatsoever. But other than that bit of optimism, I haven't actually seen any outward improvement, I still feel like I don't know how to help myself get better. I feel totally confused just like before. I feel like I'm always searching for this one answer, and that when I finally find out what the underlying reason for all my problems is, I can starting working on improvement. The reason I feel this way is because my whole life I have tried so hard to do what was expected and I always felt like I was just barely scraping by. Even with all that effort I was putting in, I was only barely able to pass high school, get into college, and just behave like a semi-normal human being. I think there is always a reason for everything, regardless of whether we can easily perceive what it is, and I know for a fact that my problem is not laziness or selfishness like so many people have tried to tell me. But I just don't know what it is. That's why I was so interested when I found this forum and read about Asperger's, as it seemed I was actually relating to others for once. I am going to get a professional evaluation soon, but I don't know what I will do if I am not diagnosed. I have a lot of the traits but I just get hung up on the little things that aren't there. I also don't know how much help will actually be available for me if I do get a diagnosis, and this also worries me, because I know I need some kind of help and so far any professional help I've sought out has hardly been effective, even though I did try very hard to follow their suggestions.

I feel like this may end up being a repeat of before. I get my hopes up and start imagining all the great things I will do, and then when things don't work out that way, and when people start telling me I'm unmotivated, selfish, and lazy because to them I don't look like I am trying, I will fall back into the place I was before. I just wish I knew a way to avoid this.

I call it the black dog. You can muzzle it and put it on a chain, but it's always there, threatening to come off the chain and rip the muzzle off.

You can learn how to keep it on the chain, and how to chain it back up if it gets loose, but I haven't found a way to kill it yet.

Use this time while it's chained up to work on some protection. Join a club if you can, make some friends, work on your hobbies and strengthen the bonds you have with those who love you. They will help you when the dog gets loose again.

That's all I can think of.