Hi everyone,

I know that I won't get any definitive answers, but I was just wanting to see if anyone else has had similar experiences to mine.

I am a sophomore in college. I go to school one thousand miles away from my home and school is very very hard. I go to a university that has a 98% retention rate and has a huge legacy matriculation.

However, I have never been so unhappy in my life. I am consistently sad, and this has persisted since December 2011. I thought that maybe it would be a temporary thing, but now it is so bad I need to talk about it here.

Even though I have no clear reason to be sad, I am always sad. I lay in bed and cry at night and it literally feels like my heart is being squeezed because there is a tangible pain in my chest. I sleep erratically during the night, staying up until 4 o'clock because I can't stop thinking about everything. I just feel so sad all the time and unbelievably stressed. I also feel so so so lonely. I feel so sad that I don't even want to eat most of the time.

So here's the question: what advice do you all have? Does this sound similar to your experiences with depression and have any of you experienced these? Basically...what should I do?