recently, every time I tell someone of my depression and absolutely debilitating loneliness and how hard it is to make friends, people automatically say "yeah, the pandemic..." NO, it's been like this way before the pandemic, years before. I am tired of people automatically blaming the pandemic, sorting me into the group of people who developed mental health problems just because of the pandemic, as if being in that group means that we are "struggling together," for some reason it feels patronizing. I am not a part of the mass majority of people who are experiencing trauma from covid, no community or people to go to to "relate" what I am going through. I am the majority of people dealing with depression for YEARS from many different things.

I don't know. It just feels like being mentally put into the group of everyone depressed and lonely from the pandemic makes me feel invalidated as if I am part of the "all in this together" group as if it would make me feel better. It is not the pandemic.