I am currently undergoing a period of self reflection, and have things I feel I need to externally express, and so I have chosen this forum as my channel. I am currently considering seeing a therapist/counsellor. I have had one bad experience of this in the past, but I am maintaining an open mind and feel that I may be ready for it again. This thread may come across as self-indulgent, and indeed it is, but hopefully it will help me, and in turn, any insights may help others.
My depression is generally quite mild, but this continuous low mood does eventually drag me down further and further. It doesn't stem back to any particular incident or trauma in my life, and on paper my current life is not at all bad. But I just can't seem to shake it.
As a teenager I went through the usual emotional ups and downs, and in some ways I feel I've never grown up since then (I'm in my early forties now). Those years were indeed not easy for me. I was not a loner, but I was hardly the model of confidence either. In fact, I'm quite sure I had some sort of diagnosed social anxiety disorder. I found talking to people hard (as I still do now) but at that age it came with the added complication of the toxic teenage 'coolness' contest - the endless strive for popularity which curses those years for many. For some this is not such an issue, such as those to whom coolness comes easily, or that section of society often labelled (for lack of a better word) as 'nerds' - those for whom coolness is not such a priority, but who are happy with their own interests. But I wrongly believed that achieving the approval of others was the be all and end all, and I was not very good at it. And so talking to anyone that I felt I needed approval from became an awkward and clumsy act, and as they were the only ones I tended to interact with, my social interactions were generally very negative. When all you are focused on is how well you are presenting yourself to the person you are interacting with, you forget to just relax and chat.
So now I'm in my forties, and 'cool' is no longer a goal. And also, no longer a possibility. There is still a part of me that is obsessed with other's opinions, but I am learning to move on from that. It is very liberating to do something, or go somewhere because you want to, not because it is the 'thing to do' or 'the place to be seen'. But my social skills, and my social mindset have suffered. I still struggle to interact with people. I am no longer desperate to impress, but I do tend to assume people won't like me. But now I have reached the point where I do not particularly crave company - I prefer to sit on my own at lunch, as it is less effort than interacting with people. I feel on the surface I am happy with this, but I also feel that under the surface this detachment from people contributes to my depression. It feels in a way like a form of self imposed solitary confinement. Sometimes I go through phases where I force myself to integrate, particularly when I start a new job (I am a contractor so I move around a lot) but after a while it just feels draining and I revert to type. There are specific situations where I do embrace social interaction (I will cover these in a later post) and I come away from these with a glow that lasts many days, so I feel there must be some kind of effect I'm missing.
So I think the TLDR is that I ruined my ability to enjoy the company of others by being obsessed with trying to be cool as a teenager, and this has partly contributed to my depression.
