Hey guys, I'm a 23 year old dutch guy, i'm a student (bachelor), am pretty lazy, got some social anxieties and love to play games. I have a depression. I take meds since februari and currently i'm in a "healing" process. So, i'm gonna spare you all the self pity stuff and how I turned into an average person to a depressed one and start right at the beginning of my first breakdowns. First breakdowns March 2014 So the first time i got emotionally destroyed was when my dad told me "If you want to live like this it's better to just go to the hospital and get a shot". I was lazy, my grades were shit, I reduced my social circle, had no side-job or anything at all. I played soccer and that was about it. So I needed to get an internship, failed to get one and my parents were really disappointed seeing how i lived my life. At that moment they didn't realize how hard it was on me already. Why he said something cruel like that? Emotions, work/stress related home situation and his negative personality. Never got over this tbh. Rejctions September - december 2014 So after 6 months or so I started looking for an internship again, got invited to almost all compagnies i send an application too, got rejected at every interview.. for an INTERNSHIP. I'm not even good enough to learn the practical side of an occupation, I collapsed again. My mom talked me into getting more help from my uni. Eventually a teacher of mine recommended a great place where I could learn and my internship with them was great! However, what changed? well I was happier for a bit, the problems were procastinated. But i didnt tackle my problems, my personallity. And everyday i started to dislike myself more to the point where i hated myself more and more and my wish for miracoulsly being killed changed to having suicidal thought. Did i have a plan? No, not a date. But enough ways, I knew where we kept the round-up (strong poison), had a car for neccesary means. What realy set me off to have these thoughts? The continues struggle with myself, wore me out. Seeing my select friends and environment moving on, while i was still the same pafetic kid as 4 years back. The feeling never made someone love me. Always being reminded of bad things from the past, some everyday not nice thought could enter my brain any time and I could only scream it out. But i couldnt scream cause i didnt want too. It wore me down mentally a lot, sometimes I feel like my depression had a negative impact on my brain capacity. I had my internship from februari till juli 2015 My mask, my saviour? december 2015 Fortuanately my mask, which i wore for years, begin to wear cause even that mask couldn't hide my true face. My parents got realy worried and my mom talked me into seeing a professional. I did. He was concerned and send me to a so called "crisis team". I didnt had to wait to start my therapy, luckily. My therapy februari till now 2016 My cognitive behaviour therapy started, but still lazy AF it's hard to actually focus on this therapy on a frequent base. I also got meds, 10 mg Paraxotine to start with (got 30 mg now and its sufficient). I was lucky not to have a lot of side effects in the beginning (I had a lot of problems upgrading from 20 to 30 tho). So the therapy and meds helped me to change myself a bit, too start shaping old me into something better. I started working out, fitness, trying to see my friends far more and I got an organisation where i could do my Thesis. The change in mere weeks were huge, far, far too huge. It went well but I couldn't handle it all. But first let me take you to the importance of fitness; so I weighed about 55 kilo being 1.80 m tall. I was a plank yes, 5 % fat. Now I weigh 66 kilo, 8-9 % fat and can push 45 kilo easily on the bench and can push 50 as well (so nearly my own weight). So I started fitness with a friend, at first it was just fun to do. Being in a SAFE environment. Going to a safe environment is realy important here, go somewhere you feel comfortable. People were nice, we got a training scheduale and it went good. My friend was active in searching new trainings to do and i got a bit into searching how to optimize your trainging. Soon we had our own scheduales. Fitness made me feel better about my own body, the anxiety of being bullied as a plank there were unrealistic and the effort i put in it payed. I could see my improvement, it became part of my mental therapy and still is. My study / thesis Februari till now 2016 So the Thesis i'm working on, you can imagine that going not too well everytime. The change in my life was too HUGE to make everything work right away. In the end life comes with ups and downs, a curve. So sooner and later I did inappropiate but innocent things at my workplace. I couldnt hide my depression from my boss and my work, so I had to tell a few off them. My boss and his wife are one of the most amazing peope i have ever met. He accepts that i'm in a journey and helps me. So over the course of my time there (i still am busy with it) my thesis / project got delayed and I ran into some problems every now and then. But things cannot go great always. At one point it all collapsed again, the thesis kinda sucked, i failed a realy important test for my bachelor and a girl in scotland -to whom I confessed, we made plans to meet eachother at her city- told me she changed her mind. I still went to scotland and meet her, but it was all one big disappointment. There's far more too that story, but it's too much to write down now and I'm very embarassed by the story itself. So ya I collapsed here again and realized i should take it easy, realized my brain is not functioning optimal and that my journey will crash if I take the wrong road. So I took a long vacation to get some well deserved rest (It feels that way). ATM i'm doing good, i'm learning to scheduale and control my life better. Other people who helped me. Nexus april 2016 till now Apart from my counselor, parents and boss there were some ppl who helped me. The first one I want to mention is Nexus and his girlfriend He gave me courage and helped me trust myself too interact with girls. Cause there IS NOTHING wrong with me. I met him via dota 2 btw, I have MAJOR respect for him and his way of life. For example: He started working with SFM from scratch a few years ago and now makes a living with it. He made a dota 2 community. He's just very venturous / enteprising and kind. He didnt make things look better by saying nice stuff about what I should do, he let me discover it myself and gave me great motivation. Mariantz & Kev November 2015 till now Yes kev and mariantz are good friends with each other as well. 2 other persons i met via dota. Mariantz is a nice girl. I met her before i started my therapy and it was a bit like this: Around november / december last year i got lost and talking with her and playing with her made me feel happier, I could actually forget and smile. So i just wanted more of her, I wanted her help and went a bit insane. I'm realy emberassed about this, still am, we broke contact for months and I appologized to her. now we are still good friends. Kev is a kind guy. I told him everything and he's realy sweet, I think he wants my D however. But for real, we are good friends and if there's something on my mind -doesnt matter how retarded or embarassing it is- I talk to him. Because I know he'll answer sincere Ofcourse there are more people and people who i see on daily basis whom in one or another way help me. But these 6 are the most important. My current situation I'm actually realy frustrated by the actions I have to take to get to these points and the next steps. Why? cause I dont want to take them? No. But because the effort I put in things is inredibly high and the reward is often just not noticable or even terrible. questions like: "Why can't I just be happy" or "Why does it have to be this way" and "What will go wrong next" are only a few of the daily struggles I may or may not encounter. For example: So i've been flirting with a girl a bit lately and yesterday I asked her out in a realy spontanious and cute way, she loved it as well. So we'll be having a drink or w/e sometime soon but here are some things my mind WILL go that makes me DOUBT: After nearly 4-5 years of depression (without handling it), a lot of rejections in almost every aspect of life, one can understand that my confidence and expierence with girls is below zero. IT doesnt help that this girl is quite younger than me. So I can't help but think that it probably end in a disaster. I hope i'll be able to talk to this girl IRL as I can on chat. I hope I won't be a disappointment to her. And even IF she likes me, what should I do then? i realy, realy don't know. I have this insane idea to get an escort. I actually called one last wednesday and wanted to make a "date" with her for like next saturday or something. She was like "Dude, wtf man. call on the day you want something, Jesus." She sounded very agitated from the beginning. But that idea is still in my mind. So far my story, obviously there are a lot of ascpects I didnt told you guys. The girl in scotland. How i didnt deal with all the rejections from internships, other psycholigcal trauma like events, no matter how small they can shape a person if you make it big enough. Anything Pre 2014 For some I hope my story inspires them to make a move. For others it may be a realization / example of where first world people can struggle with. But mostly I hope that you'll realize and see how a depressed person need some people whom he/she can use to better him/herself. thx for reading. F|One Last Throwdown YEA ITS MY STEAM NAME!