Reaching out to people is great. Reach out for walks, companionship, support, connection, fun, engagement with life and nature, coffee, meals together, etc. I think that reaching out for people to fix you or help with some big underlying issues (not saying that this is what you're doing) tends to be not so successful. This seems to me like a boundary issue. Perhaps you see "reaching out" as spilling your guts to others, but I don't think that's what your T necessarily means. Ask a friend to go for a walk and that doesn't mean you have to say everything that's going on with you. You can talk about the weather, the beauty around you, a book you're reading, etc. You can acknowledge that you're having a tough time but that support like this really helps. You can protect what is personal to you while still being connected to other people.

Pushing people away usually makes those people feel pretty bad. And if depression is a serious problem for you, it's good to recognize that it is not easy to be friends with a depressed person. I've been and am on both sides. It helped me to remember with empathy that there are struggles and feelings when you are friends with someone who's depressed.

Anne