Making friends when depressed

Post Reply New Topic

This is where I'm at right now. I know I need supports in my life from people who care about me in order to feel better emotionally. But that requires finding the supports for me right now.

Never in my life have I set out to 'find a friend'. They always happen because I'm doing an activity of some sort, work, school, whatever. Now that I don't have activities I don't know how to just find friends. And beacuse my depression keeps me from being interested in things AND people who I don't know well, so very often, I can't even find excitement in just talking to people about most things. Like, I zone out half the time when people are talking to me as it is. And while I know that once I have found people I am close and comfortable with, I do not need talking points in order to get some sort of benefit from having a friend, I can't just like, be with some new person and have that. I need to go through the process of making a connection first.

That's the hard part I guess about making friends, making mutual connections so that they truly become a friend.

But for me and probably lots of you, just approaching people is not fun and I'm so nervous and it feels so fake that how can I possibly find some sort of connection with that person?

Nothing I'm sure none of you don't know, and I almost feel like I'm intruding because I've had great success in having friends in my past and many of you have not. But it's hard to just, like, approach strangers.

The only friend I have in town (we don't have much in common than where we live and our ages not being hugely different so there's her being kind of in my cohort so we know the same cultural references) who is probably on the spectrum said that her Dad would just strike up conversations with people anywhere and everywhere when he was out and about, like say, waiting in line at a check-out counter. He said that he found one of his best friends that way. Do I really have to become that sort of annoying person when I generally despise (unless it's a fun flirt!) that sort of thing, to get friends?

Personally, I think that it all starts with you patching yourself up--seeing a therapist, getting medication, finding help for your depression--before you go out and look for people. Depression is both a health issue and a safety issue, and in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, physiology (which can be caused by and can affect depression) and safety are both more basic than social needs. You could also adopt a pet or work with a therapy animal (pets are great companions) but I would do research and some hard thinking before going through with this one, just to make sure that you're up for the care which animals require.