Even though you enjoy school, it is still a stressor. There is pressure both from yourself and others to excel. Every time you go up a level in education, the competition increases.

I do understand losing friends. I had a very tight friend who suddeny stopped wanting to have anything to do with me overnight. He never told me why, and to this day, I'm not sure. At the time it was devestating, mainly because I had no idea what I had done, and this was someone wih whom I had spent most of my time with. (This was a highscool thing). After something like that, you lose confidence in yourself and your ability to trust your instincts as far as people go.

Therapy is usually a long term thing, and the therapist isn't really there to give you answers. It is their job to gently guide the conversation in such a way that it leads you to find your own answers. Even though the terapist might have the answer, until you can come up with it yourself, it is much less likely that you will accept the answer. If you have a chance to stay in therapy, by all means, stay. Don't be ashamed to tell your therapist that you have cut yourself. That is a problem that can escalate quickly and go from being mild cuts to dangerously disasterous. Its like any other addiction, you think you have control over it, and by the time you realize that you don't, the behavior has been well established and is difficult to get rid of.

You might want to visit the self injury site, where you will find that there are many people who resort to that kind of behavior to release stress and temporarily make themselves feel better. It is not that uncommon, but if you don't get a handle on it now, it may become so ingrained that you can't stop. I started when I was a preteen and wasn't able to stop until two years ago. I'm 49. I never went for help and things escalated. There would be cooling off periods followed by ever more violent episodes until I was cutting so deep that the last time almost killed me. You really don't want to go there. Telling your therapist won't shock her. I'm sure she has seen it before.

Don't try to get into a relationship at this point. You need to feel good about yourself before you can give to a relationship. Its not easy to avoid isolation when you are depressed, but again, the longer it goes on, the harder it is to stop. To back to your therapist and see if you can't get a regular schedule going. Right now you are working on an education that will undoubtedly help you in the future. If you can hold onto that, if nothing else, you will know that you are capable of accomplishing something important and get some of your self esteem back.

Sam2