Loneliness and Depression

My name is Joe, I live in England and I am training to be a hairdresser. I started my training two months ago, I am 19 years old.

I’ll be honest with you my life so far has not been easy, like the majority of people in this world I’ve faced issues and encountered problems which has hurt me, which is fine bad things happen. I was bullied at school, people made fun of my physical appearance a lot, and I didn’t fit in with the popular crowd. I hanged out with the more geeky group, and didn’t mind it, I got on well, but as time went on my group got smaller and smaller, and in the end it was just me and one other friend. We were targeted a lot, even by people in the year below us, we were made fun of and pushed around.

I got through school, not enjoying the last year, i didn’t go to the prom and I left school with little friends. I spent the summer holiday alone. I didn’t even see my friend I had at school. I went to sixth form, or college which was at the school, however I was too shy to make friends, and I was silent pretty much through out it. No one understood how I felt and I didn’t get any support from the teachers and none of the students make the effort. I can appreciate that it is hard to talk to someone with such low confidence, and I understand that in a way.

In the end I turned to playing World of Warcraft, which I had been playing for a while, I was pretty much addicted and spent a lot of time at home playing it, I wasted a lot of time and even skipped college to play it. I began to get more and more unhappy (This period of time at college I am 17 years old) I left sixth form a year early, with nothing to show for it. I had no friends nothing. Everyone I knew was going out having fun and getting in relationships. I had no friends therefore all I did was sit at home playing games, if I talked to someone I would get shaky and nervous, I literally lacked the social skills.

at 18 I tried college again, this time going to a different place, I chose to do ICT (computers) because people I knew online were going there, and I wanted to be with them. I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy it, and I didn’t. I was bored there, but I was with people who also gamed and were like me, so although I was anxious and nervous to begin with, I soon started talking and getting more involved. I have a very outgoing personality and I am very friendly, I need human interaction a lot of the time.

I left this college earlier as well, but I had improved my appearance a lot as I had gotten older, I’d even had a relationship with a girl for a while, but that didn’t work out. I no longer talked to people at college, they weren’t the going out type i need to be with, some of them were awkward like me, and I need people who have a laugh and are more open. My old friends at college made no effort to talk to me after I left anyway, even one particular friend I had, who I thought we were close. I texted him a few times and made the effort but he never came to me, so I stopped.

I soon felt a little more confident but I am tortured by the fact that I still don’t have a real friend, someone I can trust, talk too and go out with, I have no one. I dream for a group of friends who I can go out with, go on a lads holiday with, but I feel like its too late. Everyone uses things like facebook and I know its weird, but have no one who would be interested in me, no one would ‘like’ anything I do, or comment. I find that I am completely destroyed by this. If I even tried to make friends they would see my facebook and they would know that I am a nobody with no friends no one putting me in pictures, nothing. I am 19, the best part of people’s lives, and I sit at home considering suicide. Lonely, depressed.

I started hairdressing training and I hope that I can find the strength to get through it and become the best I can, but I find it hard, I work with very nice people but I hate to tell them that I am lonely and unhappy, they have social lives and many friends, and I feel embarrassed to admit that I don’t go out, because I have no friends to go out with. This is literally destroying me I need to start enjoying my life, not regretting every day that goes by having another depressing and lonely day. If I don’t find a way out of this lonely dead end I will kill my self, I would run a warm bath and I’ll slit my wrists and I will leave the world as relaxed as possible.

All I want is friends who care about me and will invite me out, so that every Saturday I don’t have to tell my colleagues a lie about how I am going to the pub, or out with friends, because I am too weak to face up to the truth. Is having a few friends too damn hard to ask? I am a giving person, I try and be selfless as possible and polite, I am also a good laugh, but I can never be myself among people because I am too nervous.  but when I do open up I find people do like me, but they don’t invite me out with them because  they have their own friendship groups. I am happy at least with my career choice, but right now that is it.

Sorry for all the text, I appreciate the people who read through this.

Thanks.