Honest, no-bullshit advice needed

[BDF]

There are some things I never talk about with anyone. I can count maybe 3 or 4 occasions when something slipped out in the past 2/3 years (I had to be drunk every time). I don't exactly want to talk about them much on here either, it's been over two years, but it still isn't enough I guess, not enough to even write about it anonymously in a forum... although I do have suspicions that my parents might have caught wind of me around here.


I'll break the last chapter of the story though, otherwise no one knows what the fuck I'm talking about which would make this thread pointless. In summer 2009, before joining university I lost a friend in a fire. His name was Solomon, but for certain reasons he preferred Jack. I won't pretend the like hasn't happened to me before, because it has, but skipping the details I pretty much felt like he was the last pillar propping me up. I had ways of dealing with it before, but that time I didn't. Simply no one left to talk to, it's what it felt like. Friends from school, no, not really, maybe one of them I trusted enough but still I didn't consider him mature enough. Parents... I never got on well enough with my parents, so by definition didn't trust them. I much prefer when the choices are left up to me, which I didn't trust my parents to do. Perhaps they'd understand if I explained in full, perhaps they wouldn't, it wasn't a chance I wanted to take, since other people's security also depended on it, not just me (without going into details). Several other stupid fucking coincidences didn't really help either. I needed and outlet and the need to talk to someone sent me galloping in the wrong direction a few times. Totally fucking stupid and a waste of time.


It happened in the summer before me joining university two years ago. I had a lot of things mapped out, knew what I wanted, knew where I was headed, had clear plans and ambitions, before. After, it all got fucked. Consider my first year at uni a sham. I might as well have skipped it. What do I do when I'm depressed?... I spend money, on food, booze, anything that makes me feel like I'm better off than others. Basically it's like lying to myself that "everything's fine". I managed to pass the exams and get into 2nd year, with my parents help I'll admit. It didn't take a social scientist to notice something severely fucked up inside me almost overnight, they noticed, and helped me pull my shit together around Easter before the exams.


Second year of uni, I did a bit better. Overall I got slightly worse grades, but I achieved what I achieved almost entirely without any help. Still I had my moments of relapse, which were disruptive, and almost totally sporadic and random in occurrence. They're what got me a 2:2 instead of 2:1, but at least they weren't all-year-round.


Third year, things feel like they more on track, but still I get my episodes I guess. They're disruptive as hell, as always. It usually involves me obsessively watching movies until 4/5 am, drinking, and eating pizza. Sometimes going out at night, not with others, just by myself and doing nothing in particular, not really going any place. Maybe cycling at night, literally doing a big circle round the town where my uni is, which takes about 4 hours, so it's daylight when I get back. Generally I'd treat a lot of people like shit in the beginning, completely ignoring them for example. I'm better now, 2nd year was better in that respect too... but I'm pretty much of a savage recluse that lashes out when I'm messed about by someone. I'll take a shallow joke and not give a shit, but where once or twice someone tried to act more intimidating (it only took one or two occasions for them to learn), I'd react disproportionally, to put it lightly. I'm not even talking about several occasions where I got into pretty vicious fights, usually with hyperactive first-year drunks taking the piss out of everything, or chavs... or drunk chavs/high chavs. I never took shit well from people, but after what happened I really had a short fuse between being totally passive, and being explosively aggressive. One example was me literally tearing an un-opened beer can and stabbing someone in the head with it, which no-one (including me) in their right mind would do, because he found it funny throwing it at my head with his friends watching. I've gotten better now, that kind of shit doesn't happen anymore. Not made many friends because of it over the past 2 years, but enough to help me get by and stay moderately sane in the head. I see them maybe 2/3 times a week, sometimes more often in the gym. I wouldn't call them very good friends, and it's mostly my fault I guess. I just don't open up anymore. To anyone. There's that slight air of dishonesty, because I'm almost always holding back. You can call it white lies. Anyone I've gotten closer to in the past, just didn't end well. I feel like something about me just fucks people up it seems, even though there's no logical reasoning behind that, just some kind of coincidental trend.


I really could do with some words that can help me get through those times were I feel like spinning off at a tangent again, where I lose sight of what I want and start spending sometimes days on end doing absolutely nothing constructive. I don't feel like talking to anyone really, even if the best thing to do is talk to a counsellor. Besides I've made things difficult for myself in that respect. I can't do it for free with the university, even though the service is available, because it would very likely conflict with something else I've already done. Too technical for me to want to bother explaining. Doing it privately would injure my bank account. I don't know if anyone here's been through something similar, or how you might have coped with it... but some help would honestly be appreciated. I rarely ask for help, I mean it when I do. I can't afford to spend time drifting like this... it's not in my personality to do so.

[BDF]

Perhaps this is meant for the grieving forum... I'd really rather not. I avoid even looking at that forum on the main page if I can help it.

[alibear101]

Hey there! I am so sorry for the loss of your friend, i can only imagine the pain that you went through when you found out and the pain that you are still going through. You parents should be fine with you being on here. Its a great website, safe, and its really helpful. You wanted honest advice and that is what i am going to give you: you need to go and see someone about what is going on. its not say that the first person you talk to will help you and you will be okay, you may need to go through several therapists, but eventually it will help you. Talk to your professors and explain what has been going through. They will hopefully understand. tell them that you are working towards getting better but that you have occasional slip ups and that they need to realize that you are trying your best. You can probably get a doctors note if you start seeing a therapist. You seem like a great guy and by coming on here and posting this it shows that you do really want to get help. I'll message you so that we can get through this together. You are strong and you will get through it all

[BDF]

Originally Posted by alibear101

Hey there! I am so sorry for the loss of your friend, i can only imagine the pain that you went through when you found out and the pain that you are still going through. You parents should be fine with you being on here. Its a great website, safe, and its really helpful. You wanted honest advice and that is what i am going to give you: you need to go and see someone about what is going on. its not say that the first person you talk to will help you and you will be okay, you may need to go through several therapists, but eventually it will help you. Talk to your professors and explain what has been going through. They will hopefully understand. tell them that you are working towards getting better but that you have occasional slip ups and that they need to realize that you are trying your best. You can probably get a doctors note if you start seeing a therapist. You seem like a great guy and by coming on here and posting this it shows that you do really want to get help. I'll message you so that we can get through this together. You are strong and you will get through it all

I always leant on the idea of getting through it mostly myself, as I have done so far... leant on the idea of me coming out of this antisocial phase and actually getting back to being normal, making new friends, slowly if needs be, and just moving on that way... and to eventually find someone I can trust enough to talk to about all this, through a more natural process than seeing therapists.

I've been to therapists before, not in connection with this, but in connection with my relationship with my parents. I wouldn't say any of the sessions really helped much at all, and in fact one of the therapists made the whole issue a lot worse. Pretty much turned me against my parents even more. So I'm just sceptical of how useful they can be.

Generally I have a problem with trusting others. It's just the way I've become moulded. I can't really help it... it's extremely uncomfortable and goes against all my experience to walk up to someone I pretty much hardly know (may be a professor/teacher or just as easily almost anyone else) and open up about something like this. They may give me lectures, I might see them once, or twice a week, doesn't really mean I know them. Same way most of my friends here at the university hardly know me properly.

Also if I did go to see a therapist, I do feel that I'd somehow how to explain the chain of events that led up to his death, not necessarily that they are connected. I only say "he" instead of his name because I honestly dono which is more appropriate, Solomon or Jack... always called him Jack so I'll carry on I think. Jack's death only scratches the surface. I can usually keep a straight face now when I think of it, but when I start thinking about everything at else once I feel like puking. I know it's hard to understand unless I explain but I simply can't do it... it's overwhelming.

About my parents seeing this... my only concern is as far as I know, I don't think they're even aware I lost him. I certainly never told them about him. I don't tell them a lot of things. Honestly, they know a lot less about me than you could probably imagine. Same issue, trust. There are many problems I've had... and I just don't trust them to let me handle things the way I want to handle them. I just don't. And I guess I don't trust them because they don't trust me to handle things the way they think they should be handled. It's ridiculous and gets nowhere. I've almost always had my own ideas, and an independent way of thinking and most people simply aren't accepting of that. Everyone wants you to comply and fit in with the rest. They say it's "good to be different" but don't even know what it means. Being truly different doesn't mean dressing up like a clown on a night out and being the centre of attention, that's just being a clown. Anyway... parents is a different topic entirely, and I don't think they know about me being here.