I've stayed away from relationships for most of my adult life and at 32, I'm lonelier than ever. Why, you might ask have I not entered into a healthy fulfilling relationship since college? First, I've never felt I could trust anyone because of the circumstances surrounding my childhood, which I won't get into here. Let's just say I don't speak to my family anymore because of it.

But it's the second reason that is probably tougher for me to overcome. I was engaged once and I know how difficult it can be do be with someone who has major depressive disorder. Months would go by where I was sulking, unable to participate in life things, and generally irritable to the point that I was mean.

That relationship didn't work out, and I realized a few years later, after the wounds started to heal, that I would have left me, too. I wasn't a great person to be around.

I've since been treated for depression, and knowing what I know now about myself and my condition, I'm a better person for it. I should be able to find someone to be in a relationship with. It's just hard to imagine putting someone through life with a depressed person. Really hard.

It's an extension of the guilt and shame surrounding my condition, or so I've been told. I'm constantly in fear of either forcing someone to endure my depressive episodes with me, or having them deal with me possibly killing myself one day. (Note: Not suicidal now at all. No emergencies.) That's something I find hard to make someone endure.

But I'm lonely. So lonely. Dealing with this alone just isn't going to cut it anymore.

I know no relationship is easy. It's always going to be work. For me, it's going to be overcoming a lot of fear about myself and my condition in addition to everything else. In the end, that fear and potential pain seems more palatable than this swelling feeling of loneliness. I think I've reached that tipping point in my life finally. It's time to move forward...

I try not to regret decisions I've made in life. I'm never certain if those decisions are the result of my depression or not. Often times, they are. And as much as I look back and wish I had made a different choice, done something rather than not do it, I have to remind myself that, circumstances as they are, I really didn't have a choice at all.

The only choice I have in most matters, when it comes to dealing with my illness, is whether or not to seek help when I'm well and fully facultied. The help that I do seek is what mitigates any future regrets that I might have.

Still, I'm not capable of preventing a regret spiral all the time. I'm 31 years old and have had one failed relationship in my past. I seem encumbered by the thought of making new ones. I often seek an exit plan before I've made it through the front door. Just a few minutes ago I was walking to the convenience store in my neighborhood and saw a group of 20-somethings walking home from a local swimming hole. They seemed happy, engaged with one another in conversation in a way that I never seem to be able to accomplish. It's these moments that send me away.

I never had the experience of youth. My past is full of trauma that has prevented me from enjoying life. Combined with major depression, I seem to be unable to even achieve those care-free moments that come easily to some. When I start to feel the regret of not having lived life to its fullest, it's usually in the face of seeing others ability to do so.

Last year, I moved to a place where happiness seems so easy for everyone around me. It's part of the culture. And since then, I've experienced paralyzing regret spirals like I've never experienced before. It's hard not to when you get older and further away from those moments that could have defined your life differently, could have help you learn to enjoy things in a different way, could have helped you make the friends that would set you on a different path.

Sometimes all I want to do is to be able to enjoy not just the place, but the people I'm with. I never learned how that works, though. And feel embarrassed that I don't know how to as an adult. I've learned to fake it for the sake of others, but never learned to embrace it for the sake of myself. I don't think I'm hopeless. I'm working on it. But I do think it just becomes harder and harder as the days go by.

Maybe someday I'll find a way to experience life and to enjoy the people in it. Today's not that day. Will that day ever come? I'm hopeful. But until then, I'm just working on being okay with what I've got.