Hi, guys!

[PoorlyButSurely]

I've been listening to the podcast for probably a year, but this is the first time I've been on the forum. I've been in a really bad place for the past few weeks and maybe talking to you guys will make my days less gloomy. No pressure!

I'm a 24-year-old woman living in the Midwest (read: snow). I have a job that I love, but basically no friends. My three best friends stopped responding to my calls and texts with zero explanation about 14 months ago, when I was entering an especially depressed couple of months, so I didn't even have it in me to fight for them. I was seeing a wonderful guy until mid-summer, but since then my life has basically been work or home, mostly by myself. I have three roommates, but two of them have very different work schedules from mine and one of them is chronically ill and often doesn't have the energy to even hang out in the living room. So: I'm pretty lonely. I do have an incredibly affectionate cat that I'm very lucky to have around.

I've been diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety, with some OCD and PTSD thrown in there, too. I'm on medication, but lately it hasn't been enough. I've now missed 4 appointments in a row with my counselor and 3 with my psychiatrist. I'm lucky to have a team that is persistent and patient, but my depression has been completely suffocating lately.

I'm sure there will be better places on the forum to post about this in detail, but this is where I'm at right now.

So, hi! Even just reading and hearing others' survey results and listener emails I feel connected to you guys, and I look forward to reading and talking with you!

[bigeekgirl]

Nice to meet you. I landed here on the forum after ages of listening to the show for the sheer human contact myself. It's so comforting to be able to talk openly about my "issues" and return the favor. I kind of suck at making friends IRL... would be funnier if it wasn't true. So yeah.

Snow is depressing, in my experience, and even the winters here in the South leave me longing for spring or at least hibernation. The holiday season doesn't seem to help matters.