Yeah, I think it's often the alienation that gets me. And this sense of being a burden to people due to my depression. I try my darndest to fight those thoughts but they creep in nonetheless.

Like my bad night last night, I messaged a friend to express how bad it was, mainly because it can sometimes help to do that. And I know she struggles with depression as well, although possibly not in the same ways that I do.

She hasn't written back yet, and that's hard sometimes, because I then start to internalize her not writing back. These are the thoughts that go through my head.

*She's tired of me. Of course she is. I am very tiring. I am a broken record. I would escape myself if I could too.

*How dare she not write back. If someone wrote me a note like that I would respond immediately, if only to say I was thinking of them.

These are the reasons and the thoughts at least that keep me from reaching out sometimes, which then exacerbates the alienation even further.

I have a therapist as well. He's online, so I can write him whenever I please. And he is quite good at getting back to me. Oddly the same type of internalizing doesn't occur with him if he takes 12-24 hours to get back to me. I give him more latitudes than my friends, even though I am paying him.

Human emotional responses are weird.

Some of the worst moments and nights of my life were the crippling loneliness of never knowing if I would meet a person I could share my life with. I was 25 and had never dated or kissed a man. I was ashamed, which spiraled my depression even more. And it's not like I could stare in the mirror at myself and spout some kind of self-help nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with that. I have come to believe in it more now, but this is how I would have viewed it at 20.) and muster up the courage or confidence to reach out to men.

I see things a lot differently now almost twenty years later. But hindsight and all that. We do the best we can with the tools we have at the time.

And once again, I'm impressed that you sought out professional help. That's a great step.