Hey, so I've never done forums before, but this seems like a good place to start. I wrote a big long thing on the introductions page, so I'm going to focus in a little bit more here.

I have been struggling for the last few years, since I was about halfway through my undergrad career. I'm now in my second semester of graduate school, and the problems I had then, which seem like they never actually went away, seem to be back, even though they're not as bad right now as they were back in November. I've had problems with losing friends and dealing with real jerks that I don't understand, and it seems that while I love school and can handle that stress, I can't handle the persistent relationship issues. I've been to counseling a total of 3 times for feeling depressed, usually at the urging of a friend, but I don't know that it's ever really helped me that much. Except the second time, when it seemed much more like exploring who I am and why I respond to things the way I do.

I'm still dealing with trying to stop caring about this one friend I had. Our friendship just kind of imploded within the last month or so, and I haven't heard from him since a really stupid argument we had. My other friends say I'm better off, since he didn't treat me very well and obviously didn't consider me as much as I considered him, but it's still hurtful, and I'm having trouble dealing with it. I recently came to terms with the fact that he has been emotionally abusing me for a long time, and he did the same thing previously to a mutual friend (who cut him off completely, but it hurt her at least as much as this is hurting me).

I've been struggling less recently with being so sad that I am incapable of focusing on my schoolwork or enjoying myself when I see people, but I have been struggling with other things. At the risk of having to put a trigger icon on my post (which I didn't want to do, but this is probably important), I had started cutting last November when things were really bad and I was overwhelmed, in part because of this friend and in part because I felt so alone, and it had happened twice, I told a friend, and ended up going to counseling at my school (which I have since stopped, after 2 sessions...I did not like the counselor and always felt like I was defending the choices I had made). The last couple weeks I feel more isolated, I want to withdraw from being social and just stop talking to people because I don't want to bother or annoy anyone, but I can't get the situation with this friend and my feelings and my despair over my failure at getting help out of my head. And as much as I feel better in a way, I know I'm not because it never lasts long, I do feel isolated and withdrawn, and I've been starting to think about cutting again which is a horrible idea considering how ashamed it made me feel having to tell anyone about it. And I feel very emotionally distant from even the people I consider my closest family and friends. The other problem is that I am a strong, deeply rooted Christian, and I know what I believe, and I love God, but having to stop talking to this friend for my own good is making me feel like a terrible person/Christian because I know he could use a real friend, and I struggle with the fact that my problems are not as bad as most people's, yet I can't seem handle them very well. Life just seems like one big long series of unfortunate events, and every time something starts to seem like things will be ok, I get dragged back down by something dumb.

I just don't know what to do anymore.