I don't really have a story about depression, because mainly my whole life has been filled with it, but I'll try and explain my chronic depression. Since first grade I've always felt alone, and have never been able to be a big social bug. Back then I was kind of that kid that people invited when they needed one more person for plans to work out, and kids often excluded me because I was weird or quiet. Third grade I met one of my best friends and blissfully enjoyed my life...until fifth grade when he ditched me for the popular kids. By fifth grade I had other friends in school and from my neighborhood, and I wasn't considered one of the odd kids anymore but people still mocked me for being weird, and found it easy to make fun of me thinking I would take it as a joke. I didn't. I found an old powerpoint slideshow I had made that year, and in it I made a slideshow of kids bullying me and me expressing hatred toward myself. I thought of myself as weird, annoying, ugly, and all other insults that were said maybe just once to me, but they stuck forever. Seventh grade was my best year since my friend group was solid and we hung out all the time. The next year all my friends excluded me and bullied me because I was going to a different high school than them, and yet again I was alone. I don't deal with loneliness well, and I contemplated suicide many times. I never would go through with it, but I always played scenarios in my head of what I would do and how people would react. High school was just as bad. Freshman year I felt extremely awkward, I had braces that I hated, and I just felt plain ugly. I had always hoped maybe sometime in the future I would become handsome, but it was just a hope. It took a while to get friends because I have always seen myself as uninteresting, unappealing, and straight up awkward. There wasn't a month freshman and sophomore year that I didn't want to kill myself. But I didn't because I hoped for the future. My life was miserable starting high school year simply because I felt so alone and unwanted. Junior year I had a solid group of guy friends and had some of the best times of my life up until we decided to join our group with a group of girls (we went to an all guy school and them an all girl school). All my guy friends started getting girlfriends and I felt miserable and alone yet again and I started giving up on trying in life. The thing that tipped the scale was one of the girls we met that I fell in love with at the spot started dating my friend and not me. One night before sleeping, one of my friend and I were lying in his basement with the lights off, just having a talk when he told me he really wanted me to be able to have a girlfriend. I told him that I really wanted one as well, because I felt alone and that I'm starting to lose the will to fight. I finally admitted that I had been behaving recklessly recently because I gave up on life and that I just completely hate everything about me. I didn't expect it and it completely caught me off guard, but my friend started crying and told me that I shouldn't give up. He didn't know that I had been thinking about suicide earlier in the night, but I stopped because of his care for me. My other friend dating that girl made me feel miserable for a while, but they broke up and I dated her and it was nice and sex and stuff. And here I am, at the end of my freshman year of college. Some of my closest friends are all gone away, and only two friends have been at home. One is always grounded or has to work, and the other became a grumpy and unpleasant person. I haven't dated a girl in two years, I haven't kissed a girl in one, and I commute to my college and live at home so making friends is nearly impossible. Recently I've been extremely alone again, and it's a familiar empty feeling that I always get. When I hang out with friends I still get the empty feeling, it's like I'm missing something in my life that is causing anxiety. That girl I dated is still good friends with me, but I'm one of her only friends and she's up at her college -blam!-ing dudes all the time and going out and having a good time and then coming to me to talk about it because it makes her feel bad doing that stuff and she has no one else to talk to. And she's my ex and we dated for a while so it kinda sucks ass. So as of now, I would say I'm depressed. I've come a long way since grade school and I've learned to be patient. My dad was diagnosed with cancer last year and my mom has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia since I was two so some family things have been a struggle. I'd say right now I feel alone and a little hopeless since my social life is almost null, but friends will be coming back in a few weeks so I might have some things to do. I just feel like I need someone who is dedicated to me, to make me feel like I matter and is interested in me and thinks of me when they wake up. I'd also like to clarify that people say I'm extremely magnetic in personality, I've had people have crushes on me, and I'm not socially awkward. I've always just had an innate disgust of myself and feel like no matter what I do I'll never be great, it's a hard feeling to express. Pic related, me taking a picture when I was depressed.