Never seem to be happy

[Fudge---GB]

Hello, sorry for the long post but here goes.

Im 23, live at home and suffer from depression/ anxiety for long time not necessarily realising it. Ever since I was born I've always had problems with my weight which has always lead me to be a fairly anti-social individual whereby I would think to myself "if I was at a healthy weight I would be more encouraged to go out and enjoy myself." Though I thought like this I'm an extremely bubbley and fun person to be around, well so my friends say.

During this time I did surprising well at school , I got a job in a large retail store and went to university studying in a design field, where naturally people, tutors and lecturers are always critical of your work to encourage you to push yourself and think outside the box. I enjoyed it and was fairly good at it because naturally I'm a good drawer, but I always struggled with the workload given (always second-guessing my designs) which made me difficult to motivate myself whereby I would fall behind my peers. I passed my first 2 years (it was a struggle but I completed it) but I was never happy with myself always thinking it wasn't good enough. By the third year I struggled once again with the workload with my peers always being ahead of me and I deferred. I went to see a psychiatrist and thought there would be something I could do or give me that would keep me focused on what I was doing believing the negative thoughts I was feeling (I've had these thoughts for along time even during my school years) was natural and just apart of life.

By the time I was 20 I began smoking weed on a regular basis where in the first time in my life I genuinely started to look after myself. I went on a diet and began exercising regularly (something I never would of done beforehand) and ended up losing approximately 35-40kgs, in a about 3-4 months but I still wasn't happy with myself. Since I lost my weight, co-workers and my friends all become sceptical of me and began treating differently, gossiping about me and it got to a point where I had to quit my job and lost contact with my friends (though I never really was in contact with them on a regular basis anyway).

Fast forward to now Im 23, unemployed, can't be bothered doing anything, quit smoking weed and gained a lot of my weight back and I feel as though whatever I do or try to do will never make me happy, so I don't see the point. Seen a counsellor but didn't really do much, and now all I do is sleep and question my existence.Thanks

[JessF]

Hello Fudge, welcome. In reading your post, I get the picture of a very motivated, creative and talented young person. You pushed your way through a difficult design degree, pushing aside your perfectionism. You started to look after yourself and saw some big results within only a few months.

Despite this, the black dog is on repeat telling you that things are hopeless and nothing you can do will be able to change things. It's so hard to fight that voice, even when you have evidence to show that that voice doesn't know what it's talking about.

My advice is to ignore the voice, and push ahead anyway. Push ahead even if it feels like there's no point. It might sound like a backwards way to do things, but sometimes pushing yourself to do something before you feel motivated can actually help to light the fire and keep you going. I'm guessing that this is what happened when you first started exercising - what got you started on that big change?

I get the sense too that a lot of your unhappiness comes from comparing yourself to others. For example, deferring your third year because you felt you weren't doing as well as your peers. Being treated differently after you lost weight and being gossiped about - their opinions must have mattered to you a great deal.

We will never be able to control the expectations and thoughts of others, we can only be true to ourselves. And you have shown that you can do that, even though you're a bit lost and on the sidelines for the moment. I hope you can post again and tell us some more.