Sharing with friends doesn’t hurt?

share you stories about being scared to share “shameful” things and being accepted by a friend or better them relating to it. I am gonna pour out my feels below:

This is my journal entry for this amazing day tbh hearing your stories is a bonus.

So I have a big university group project due soon and so I was feeling super stressed as expected. I was being distant from friends for a few days because of the anxiety and stress. I was also feeling super down because today I decided to play a game and not do my work. So when I got a text from one of my close friends I finally decided to talk so she doesn’t feel bad even though I felt like shit. I am really good at hiding my emotions and I was also hoping it would cheer me up.

My friend has been going through a rough time too, I won’t say any details but she feels like she’s behind in life and that was causing her some depression and anxiety.She has always taken things at her pace but she’s had a particularly hard time lately. Mind you she is very smart and I think she is absolutely amazing.

Anyway our convo started about the game and very quickly it changed into something more real. I always felt that I had to be perfect and on top of things on the outside almost pathologically. I felt like a fraud, incompetent and useless.
I have recently crawled myself out of this thought process barely and I felt so alone because my parents didn’t get it and my other friends had their lives together. I felt like the only one who had struggled in this way and had to become “normal” even everyday social interactions would scare me. Some still do. I struggled to do basic adult things like getting a job and many more.

We started talking about her struggles and she was saying how perfect I am. This has happened before and I was too ashamed to say otherwise but because I knew she was struggling I decided that I shouldn’t keep up the facade. If it helps her it was worth it. I didn’t expect that it would help me probably far more that in it did her. We realised we were going through the same things just at different times. So many things little worries big insecurities and sources of doubt and shame, all the exact same. Even down to the way each parental figure responded to our struggles. Suicidal thoughts and so much more.

I felt so warm that I could offer some advice and tell her she wasn’t alone. I struggled alone and had to crawl through shit but it was worth it for this. I have never felt like I was allowed to be vulnerable in front of someone else. I always thought I’d be judged or shunned for lying about my true self but she understood me and I her.

Thank you if you read the whole thing