Depression and low mood (young people)

As I said before when, in the summer I just I recently just whenever someone says, “Are you going to the party tonight?” I’ll be, “No I’m not.” I can very easily say, “No I’m not.” And, a lot of people can say, “Why not? You’ll have a good time and everything like that,” but I do think beforehand look, there are more cons in going out than pros. One I don’t like discos which is the large thing around here, discos. And you just think…

 

Or I’m going to worry about,” just worry about letting say, I’d say more universally, I’m worried about let, pulling the mood down, I’m not going to be able to talk to any girls, I’m not going to be able to do this, I’m just going to be on my own, because people are going to be dancing in the disco, I’ll sit on the side and drink to myself, and stuff like that, and...

 

But I find obviously, the big thing is that you get there, and you have a fantastic night, and that is normally the case, and you’ve got to really learn that when you’re at home and you’re thinking, well shall I go out this evening, you think of the worst things ever, you think of the worst things ever, completely you know, that will never materialise that you think will never ever actually happen in your reality. You just think what is the worst thing that could happen and you think what’s the, you never think what’s the best thing that could happen? You think, “Well I could get a girlfriend or my friends could say, “You’re a legend Jack,” or, or something like that, and… So that no, my social, I think it does, I think depression does really affect your social, your social life.

I like going out with my best friends, I mean, I like going out with even people who I’m not so close with, but I get quite, I don’t, I don’t like it, I don’t know why I don’t like it so much, it’s quite, I know definitely if we went out to a restaurant, I know it’s because of the eating thing just drops in, like just ruins my day for me, but , even if it’s just for example like we’re going bowling or something, you know something’s that’s completely, it doesn’t require much of kind of anything, apart from just lifting the ball and chucking it down, but it’s quite, it’s, when you’re feeling low on the inside it’s really hard to not look it, like it’s really hard to just be happy. And if everyone’s happy you don’t want to ruin the, you don’t want to be like the one person who ruins it by like sitting in, in the corner all like upset.

 

So I don’t like doing this because as much as I can put up a front I don’t like having to put up such a huge front like, if you’re just talking to a couple of people it’s not too bad, but if you’re going out, if you’re gonna go bowling for example and you’re going with a group of 10 people, and it’s happened to me sometimes, even if you go with a huge group of people and everyone’s really excitable, and everyone’s really like having fun and everything, and it’s kind of, you feel so like limp, you just don’t, you feel quite, you feel physically and mentally drained and you don’t want it to show. And it takes even more out of you, ‘cos you don’t want it to show, so like sometimes you just, you just don’t go because it’s like, you just tell your friends you’re tired, and or you, you’ve got work to do, whatever. But it’s just because you don’t want to be surrounded by so much, you don’t have to make such an effort for just that little amount of time.

 

And, because the thing is you have to make the effort because if you don’t look happy you just, you’re going to end up ruining everyone’s day. And it’s kind of, you, you don’t want to ruin everyone’s day by being upset, but you don’t want to kind of completely drain yourself by being happy so you just end up leaving it.

I would say be sat in a night club and everyone was having fun and I’ll be having fun and I wouldn’t necessarily be drunk at all and suddenly I’d feel like I was all by myself, completely closed off in like a bubble and I’ll, aah it was just the weirdest feeling, I would feel like, “Oh my God, I have to get out of here, I have to get away.” And I’d look around and all I’d really want was someone to say, “Are you okay?” But obviously you’re so good at the act it was just smiling and no-one would ever knew unless I told them, and I knew in my head I would be thinking these things in my head, if I told them right now how I felt everyone would be asking if I was okay, and just things like that, everyone, I would get, but I didn’t want that.

 

I am the party goer, I am the person that’s always fine and does okay, so I didn’t really, I didn’t feel like too much pressure was on me but I didn’t want to kind of let that slip. I didn’t want the looks of sympathy that I got from my Mum and that kind of thing. I wanted to you know escape with my friends.

 

And it would happen every now and then, I just had to get away from the place, and then I’d wonder if anyone would even notice and obviously you’re in a busy club, so who would really notice anyway. And every now and then I would just go home, and everyone would think I’d done that White Ninja thing where you drink too much, and then kind of just wandered home, but I would never ever say the real reason.

Social life was ultimately pointless given that I would be out drinking myself so, I couldn’t wait to get home so I could drink as fast as I usually did, so I didn’t even like drinking in social situations, you know, like I’d want to be alone at home on my own. Chronic, chronic depression, suicidal depression, every morning, every night “I won’t drink, I won’t drink, I won’t drink,” an hour later pissed out of my skull. It was, that was the purpose of my days, was get through the day so you can start drinking, like, as you’d found out, I’d earn you know three bottles of wine, you know ‘cos I went to a lecture, or I’d turned up at work, so I was working in a pub, and immediately it wouldn’t be like, “Oh 11 o’clock, brilliant I can go home,” it’d be “11 o’clock quick, okay I’ll have a half here,” and then go home and get drunk, you know, everything was tied around that, the same way that previously everything else had been tied around bulimia, everything now was measurable by when and where I was gonna get drunk basically, you know? I didn’t have any thought space left for the rest of the things that I should’ve been doing and enjoying at that age.