So these last two weeks have been the worst ones of my life I'm pretty sure. I guess I should probably explain a bit of my background. I have always been a smart person. My group of friends and I are all the top of our class and all ambitious. And the closest of all of these friends, my best friend actually, happens to be our year's valedictorian. In academics and in everything else, I have always had problems with comparing myself to him. He knows literally everything about me and I love him like a brother, but at the same time I always am excessively hard on myself and look down on myself because I constantly compare myself to him. Im less smart, not as good looking, worse at sports, worse in music (we both play instruments), less social, among other things. And all this year I have been having random bad weeks of depression followed by long periods of being okay. But what happened two weeks ago I feel like pushed me over the limit. We were all waiting to hear back from colleges and well, we finally did. Both of us applied to ivy leagues and a few other backups. I only got into 2 of my backups and NONE of my top choices. Meanwhile, he got into all of his, and some of them were the same schools we both applied to. And I have been in this huge slump ever since because I can't stop thinking that I'll be less successful than he will and he is basically living my dream while I am forced to watch. When I tell some of my friends this I can tell they think its a bit much to be so depressed about not getting into a college. But its a whole lot more than that. This was just like the last straw. It just proves beyond anything that I will never be as good as him and he will always be more successful. I have never felt so awful about anything before, I just stare into space brooding over all of this and getting worse and worse. This is the first time I have had any thoughts about suicide too. I mean, I know myself so I know that I would always be too much of a coward to actually kill myself. But the fact that I am still thinking about it concerns me. I have talked to my best friend about all of this, but nothing anyone ever says seems to help. I just want to know how I can feel better
First things first, please please don't act on your suicidal thoughts (*hug*). It ALWAYS gets better. In life there are always going to be people who are better at certain things. That's just the way it is. You clearly have a lot going for you. Getting accepted into 2 colleges is no mean feat and you should be really proud of that! Stop beating yourself up over it. Sure, he might get a fancy Ivy League degree, he might be a good sportsperson and musician, but none of that necessarily means that he will be more successful than you. These things, in my eyes anyway, don't make a successful person and count for very little in the grand scheme of life. At the end of the day, these things really aren't that important. A person's success is measured on their character, not where they got their degree from. Not that many people get their first choice, life isn't really fair that way. But if we were to spend all day comparing our lives to those of other people, we would find loads of things that we would be jealous of. As I said, you seem to have a really bright future ahead of you, you're clearly intelligent and I'm sure you'll be successful, so don't let what other people are doing get you down.
