How many years have you spent in the "dark"?

[Y]

As dark i mean, doing nothing, no real improvement, only avoiding life, letting your fear get the best of you, and when you look back its just empty.

I spent 3 years of my life like that, and now ive gone out of my room, and im struggling, im not doing great but still i know i wouldnt earn anything if i stayed longer, and i regret those wasted years so much, cos all it does is to get you worse, the more you live like that, the harder it is to get out of it...:/

So if youre still in the "dark", go out and start doing something, cos youll have to do it sooner or later, dont let your precious time just slip away. Youll regret it later...

 

[Sable]

My current 'dark' spell has lasted exactly (to the day) 1 year. It was a year ago that I confessed all my problems, fears, anxieteis, etc. to my family (and a room full of hospital staff). I was then diagnosed with depression (psychologist's diagnosis of SA came later), and told to take time out from college. That time out became permenant. For the last few months I have been looking for a job, but it is so, so hard.

But I have an interview on Friday, and I'm going to give it absoloutely everything I've got. And I have a plan now. I'm going to get in to college to study veterinary nursing. I have lots of work to do to even get in, but I'm bloody well going to do it. The first step is getting this job. I'm going to break out of this 'darkness'. It's gone on long enough and I'm sick of it.

You're right about looking back and regretting the time lost. I do. Not just the last year, but all these years I've been too scared to leave home. At the time it is so hard - it's still hard. But if I don't do it soon I'll regret it for the rest of my life.

 

[paranoid_android]

I've been in this hole for about 3 or 4 years. I cannot tell when it started, guess I noticed when I was already down here. I let good things passing by and it is sad, very sad. But I guess I did what I could with the best I knew. I have quit meds for a week, my anxiety is less than it used to be but I have been avoiding things so I cannot make a comparison. The other me stills think I'm a mess. I know I need to continue this journee but I have to take it slowly. The damage is done, some things were lost, I have accepted that so...I think the important is to have a pleasant life as much as possible, and not recover the time I have lost. Recovering time is a damned line and only makes us more anxious.
Don't regret about things you didn't do in the past if you can't do them in the future. It won't be useful at all.
I have been listening to Workingman's Blues from Bob Dylan while writing this reply and, eventually, I may have become a bit melancholic meanwhile. I'm not sorry and it's working.

 

[simone]

i'm still in this hole, and have been for going on 11 years now. i pass up what could be great opportunities all of the time only to regret the decision and beat up myself afterwards. i make friends very easily, but never keep them because i never want to go anywhere or do anything. i feel so stupid all of the time and i think that i would be content with spending the rest of my life underneath my covers. only i know that's not the best for me. and that's what brings me to this forum.

 

[FaymeLevy]

10 years here. No job, no school, no IRL friends, no dating, living with my mother. fun times.

 

[Thelema]

Since The beginning of middle school. I had never gone to the school before and I wanted to go a few days early to see where my classes were. My mom didn't want to....She expected me to find my way in a school I had never been to before while everyone else already knew where they were going when she knows I can't talk to people.... She walked in with me and I got right in the truck and that was it for school. Lost all of my friends and my life became worthless and boring. Yesterday I talked to a friend I met on the internet for the first time on the phone! :wink:

 

[LittleMissScareAll]

My entire life

 

[Quixote]

I suppose the worst was during my first two years at uni, back during high school at least I would see some people every day in class, as it ended I lost sight of them all, including my only real friend. Not that it is much better now, but at least I'm used to it, and I have developed coping strategies. But I remember back then, three months after my final exam, I felt like I was plunging into a black hole of solitude (sorry for the clumsy pseudo-literary expression btw )
In any case, as I said, it's only marginally better now..