A shy hello from Germany

Dear friends,

my name is Christoph, I'm 20 years old and I'm a college student of English and Russian.
Languages are one of my biggest passion apart from literature, chatting and music.

My story begins in the year of 2013, when I was a high school student in my last year.
I took advanced courses in maths and physics and didn't really know what to do, but I kinda regret taking these courses, because I always had horrible English teachers, but then I had a young and passionate English teacher who went to college in Ireland, so his English was brilliant and he didn't have a terrible accent like some of my teachers before. He was one of the reasons why I decided to study English in college.

Well, back to the story. During this time, I kinda lost interest in school. I always had been a passionate student, but in this time, I started to stay up pretty late, thought a lot and slid into depression slowly but steadily.

I've always been a loner and my problem is that I'm anxious in social interaction, I guess, so I often avoid going out and started to build up my social life on the Internet, which isn't a good idea, because it makes you even less lonely, but you actually feel that you are in society. It's a vicious circle.

In October 2013, I started college, moved into my very first own apartment and my family helped me, so that the moving went smooth. I was proud of myself that I made this big step, because I didn't know if I would be able to make this step.
The first semester went pretty well, but I didn't feel happy. I've been alone quite often in my small apartment, watched TV, read books or went on walks. I made some friendships and even started to meet a girl for the first time in my life, but I wasn't really happy. When I met this girl, I felt nervous all the time and I didn't even know whether she wanted to be friends or wanted to get into a relationship and I even asked her on Facebook if she liked me, because that felt easier to me, She said that she did, but one day, she changed her Facebook status to 'is in a relationship' and that hurt me, because she got into a relationship BEFORE we met for the last time and she didn't even bother to tell me. I mean, we were just friends, but I obviously showed interest in her and it hurt to see that news on Facebook.

Alright, I'm going to continue my story. Well, during the semester break, I've been at home all the time and I didn't meet all the friends from high school. They all went to different colleges and I have to admit that I wasn't very persistent at arranging a reunion, so I just spent my time alone.
In April 2014, I started to feel pretty bad. I felt like I had zero energy, suffered from anxiety a lot and spent the majority of my time on the couch, because I was afraid of death and passing out. This condition persisted and eventually, the second semester began. I tried my best to cope with my problems and forced myself to go to classes, although I felt horrible, but it didn't work out. I missed classes too often, so that I failed them and it got so worse, that I had a severe panic attack and called an ambulance. I spent a week in hospital, but everything was okay with my organs which didn't disburden me, because there obviously was something wrong with me. If not, why would I feel that way?

I'm going to make a leap into the present now. I started a therapy three months ago and it helped me. I cried a lot and it took me a while to talk about difficult topics, but I did my best. I forced myself to talk about unpleasant topics, because otherwise, it would never get better, right? The semester is going to start again next week, I already found a new therapist there and my mom will bring me back on Saturday (my university is three hours away from my parents' place) and I'm already looking forward to it. I want to change so much and I want to make new friends, try out new things and live my life instead of thinking about everything that could happen or not happen. It's senseless to ponder over one's whole life instead of just living it. I know that my anxiety of dying and feeling bad will never get better if I won't start living a life that I consider valuable.

Now a little bit about myself, basically my character. I consider myself to be pretty smart and talented in various things and I have a pretty good general knowledge. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I need to try my hardest to see myself in a good light, because I feel inferior pretty often, because I'm not happy. I took four foreign languages (English, French, Latin and Russian) in school and I know some basic vocabulary in other languages like Polish, Italian or Japanese, but I still feel inferior or worthless when I see someone who is better than me. I know that life is not a contest, but I can't help myself but feel utterly worthless when someone speaks like five or six languages fluently. I don't look too bad, but I hate my stretch marks and the fact that I'm overweight. I got high blood pressure (although medication helps) and losing weight definitely would help me, but even if I try to do more sports or eat less snacks, I eventually give up due to depression. I'm not weak-willed, I'm just depressed and when it gets too worse, I'd do everything to feel better and that's usually eating snacks. Moreover, I have problems with falling asleep lately. I'm just too pensive and I don't even try hard to fall asleep, because being alone with my thoughts sucks. I wish there was a power button for thoughts.

Well, that's me and my story. If someone read the whole thing, thank you very much!
Feel free to ask me questions, I'll be glad to answer them! ^__^

- Christoph from Germany