This is my first real post. hi. please be nice to me.

I'm a junior in college. I think I was depressed for pretty much all of last semester. My grades stayed fine, but I have no idea how. I couldn't get myself to start homework until late at night, and then I'd start crying and then I couldn't stop crying. For a while, if I wasn't sleep deprived because of procrastination, I was sleep deprived because I was too miserable to fall asleep. My mood and my outlook on life got worse and worse for a couple of months, and my friends pretty much had no idea what was going on, because I kind of withdrew as much as I could. In March, I finally went to the counseling center at my school and got up the nerve to say that I was having suicidal ideation (although not in so many words), but not that I thought I was depressed. I told the therapist that I was stressed out, or something. I don't know why it's so difficult to say, "I think I'm depressed."

I don't know whether going there made me better or what. I never did get a diagnosis...I think he was worried about scaring me off. Anyway, I did start feeling better after a while, and then I was fine all summer except for being worried about coming back here.

Is it possible to think yourself into a depression? I feel like I might have done that. There was a mental health screening at my school last week, and I made myself go to it. I scored just above the cutoff points for depression and generalized anxiety disorder. (the psychologist said, "So it doesn't look like you have bipolar disorder...so that's good....." heh.) They gave me an appointment for Nov. 10. I felt kind of silly about that..but then I had a couple more of the random crying fits.

I don't know what to think about the "anxiety" thing. Maybe I worry about things more than the average person, but that feels more like an aspect of my personality than a psychiatric condition. I guess I just don't want to deal with that.

As for the depression, I don't feel as bad as I did last semester and I'm obviously functioning, but I'm worried that things are going to get worse. I spent the end of summer break with this feeling of dread about coming back to school, which hasn't gone away after being here for a couple of months with only, like, one-and-half nervous breakdowns. I should be happy, because I really like my classes and I have some cool friends, but I don't know when was the last time I had a really happy day. I don't really want to do anything. I can enjoy things while I'm doing them, mostly, but I have to force myself to start and afterwards I'm just tired. I could spend all of my time holed up in my room if I didn't have to eat or go to class.

I'm worried that I can't really talk to anyone in real life about these kinds of things. Actually, right now I don't really want to talk to anyone about anything. I'm shy anyway, but when I get lonely or blue, I really don't want to make the effort to have social interactions. If I already feel bad, why should I take the risk of making myself feel worse? I don't feel like people understand that. I think the people I live with (I live in a dorm) just think I'm unfriendly, or something.

I'm glad I have the appointment -- I'm really lucky that I go to a school with resources like that, because I have a friend who can only go to her school counseling center once per quarter. but I don't know whether I'll be able to explain what's wrong. When I'm talking to people, I have a tendency to pretend things are perfectly fine. And I don't think I like talking to therapists anyway...I keep reading posts here by people who luuuurrrrve their therapists, which makes me jealous because for me it's really just another difficult social interaction, except the other person probably only thinks about me for the hour that I'm sitting in front of them.

I really just want a magic pill that will fix everything. yeah. It's a nice dream, anyway.

Hmm, so, I wrote a lot. I hope it's not too boring. It's a lot easier to write these things than to say them. Thanks for listening. *curls up in hole again*