Hi! It's been a long time since I wrote on this forum. I am 21, male, and I have been to several docs and therapists. I have lost hope and interest in defining my mental health, and honestly I've even lost hope in therapy. I hope this is allowed on the forum, and that it doesn't sound as advice to leave therapy if you feel better going to it.

So my diagnosis is depression with post-traumatic anxiety. Now I've 99% recovered speaking about the anxiety so my main problem is depression. Over the years I couldn't understand if my depression (and mood swings) was caused by external situations, by a neurochemical problem in my mind or by my drug use. Now that 19 months have passed since last time I took a drug, my mind feels clearer and I'm starting to remember why I started taking drugs in the first place and I've reached the roots of my depression.

As I've said before, I have lost hope in therapy. I've tried two terapists, every time I went into all the details about my life (felt pretty much like getting naked in front of a stranger) and after months I've accomplished nothing. I mean, of course I've improved just by telling someone how I feel every week, but they never told me any strategy to cope. While the first one was obsessed with the though that I was still doing drugs, even sending me to do drug tests (that came out negative), paying little attention to my other problems, the second one seemed to genuinely care about me. She even texted me sometimes outside of therapy. Sometimes I went just to tell her I felt anxious about a situation, even sometimes shaking in front of her, and then when I left I thought "wait, she didn't tell me any strategy to cope with how I feel". Well actually she did say something, but things like "go eat something and distract yourself, think about something else". We all know anxiety doesn't work like that, otherwise I wouldn't have needed her advice. Same thing goes for depression.

Actually one thing therapists were very good at doing was prescribing me medications on the first visit (and I'm terrified to take them, having abused benzos in the past and having fear of psychoactive drugs in general).

So speaking about my depression, it's linked to my relationships, so I hope some of you experience the same thing and have some advice for me.

Basically I don't have many friends, but a few groups of friends I'm really bonded with. Every group belongs to a different place (hometown, university, place where I live now). When I'm with my friends, I feel on top of the world, but then, as soon as I come home, I feel like I don't have friends at all. When they text me, I feel like a rush of joy and then, when the conversation ends, I feel lonely again. Basically when I don't see them or text them, I feel like they don't exist anymore.

This has been happening since I was in middle school. So the consequence has been that I used to choose fewer and fewer friends in order to minimize the suffering. Eventually at 14 I discovered alcohol, then marijuana and then other drugs to cope with my feelings. In fact they are unbearable. When I'm by myself I feel lost, like there's no hope for me, and I will never be able to find relief. I even had suicidal thoughts in the past but never had the true intention to kill myself, especially not to make my parents and my friends suffer.