I feel like the grit of depression is wearing me down like sand wears down a car's engine as it flies through the radiator. That was an attempt at sounding poetic, but I'm finding it harder to function over the last few months. I don't know where to start because it feels like I have a lot on my mind and I can't unravel it all. It took me weeks to work up the motivation to post here and every second I write this is an effort and makes me want to quit.

I feel really isolated, but I don't want to see any of my friends or go anywhere or do anything. My days, especially this summer, have been really monotonous: I wake up and go to class and that's all I do. During the evenings, I take long walks and think and ruminate until I feel half mad.

I ruminate during other times of the day as well, dwelling on negative thoughts. I think about current news and, the meaning (and lack of) of life, my insecurities about my looks and my anxiety about looking for work after graduation.

Since last September and throughout this school year, I've felt increasingly distant from people. I find myself uninterested in people and their stories, I have no desire to connect with anyone. I feel like there is so much to know about each person and each person being so different there is no way I can even scratch the surface of a person. I also project my own complications onto other people, imagining them to be complex and intricate, again playing into the thought that connection between people is always incomplete and something held back.

I feel that I can't relax and that I'm always on and very irritable the past few months. I feel isolated from people and unable to connect, but paradoxically, with no desire to connect. I'm becoming highly insular and turning down invites from my friends to hang out, even as I get angry and irritated when they don't reach out to talk with me.

I often can't stay present and my mind wanders when I'm out. I end up thinking a lot and getting upset. And after all that I feel severe apathy and numbness, but an uncomfortable numbness with raw emotion all over the place.

I also fear that this will go on indefinitely which saps all my hope.