"What's depression like?" He asked.

Being alone.

Feeling lonely. 

I have felt lonely before. Many times in my life, actually. It's simply what happens when you are dealing with things you are unable to share with others. 

Loneliness is something toxic. It makes you feel so utterly useless. So utterly worthless. You start questioning what is wrong with you. Why would people rather be friends with other people than you? Aren't you fun? Aren't you kind? Apparently not enough. 

It is never enough. 

I have never felt enough in my life. 

I know that I am not supposed to complain with friends in my life who are willing to do anything to secure my well-being. I have had those friends since I was very young. They have protected me all these years, cared for me all these years, and now that I feel like I am ready to make new friends, it seems harder than I never thought it would be. 

I don't seem to be somebody who attracts people. I don't seem to know how to act around them. Who do they want me to be? What do they want me to like? 

I was always the kind of person who didn't care. I liked what I liked, I did what I did, I stayed inside and hid in my bedroom indulging in my own thoughts and bad habits. 

Getting better has been the best process I have ever gone through in my life. Slowly regaining control over my body, over the things that I think and do. It has been great, it has made me realize how strong I am, but it also makes me different. 

I am different. 

Most people don't like "different". 

How are you supposed to explain to people why you don't like crowded places? Why you get triggered by jokes on sensitive subjects? Why you don't understand some jokes that people make, even though everyone else laughs about them? 

I don't know who I am. I never have. I am Kyran, I know that. I have been and still am depressed sometimes. I don't like people that much, but I really want to. I hate crowded places. I constantly feel like I am being judged, like people can see all my flaws. I don't like who I am, I don't like who I was then. 

So how are people supposed to be my friend when my personality changes so much? When sometimes I turn into old Kyran, tired and sad and scared of everything, sometimes a little more open, even funny when the time is right. 

I have no idea how to fit into people's pictures. How to be the person they want to be friends with. How to make them laugh, make them like me. 

It sounds so bad, and I know that. You arent' supposed to want to be liked by people. Liking yourself should be enough. 

But that's where the problem is. 

I don't like myself. Not yet, at least. I am on my way, slowly but surely, but not yet. So I am searching for other people to tell me that I am okay. Not on here, not my friends, but new people. In real life. People that have somehow appeared into my social life. 

I want them to like me.

I want to be liked. 

I want to feel normal.

I think that is what it all comes down to. I just want to be liked. I just want people to tell me that I am a nice person, that I am doing well at socializing, even though it is so hard to me. 

I never thought of myself as a socially awkward person, because I was never social. But now that it seems like I am, it makes me feel weird. Why do some people make friends left and right with no effort, and can't I seem to even make one new one? Am I too closed? Am I too quiet? Am I too hurt? Too damaged? Too difficult? 

Having explored the dark corners of depression. Of PTSD. Of social Anxiety. It makes me realize that I am complicated. And that life after pain is complicated. Because nobody understands what you have been through and how hard you are trying. 

It can only go up from here. 

- Kyran