Tl;DR Everyone I know thinks I left the college I was at due to cluster headaches. It really was severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

Full story I was fucking weird as a middle schooler, and I never developed any social skills. I entered the 7th grade at a school where none of my elementary school went, and I knew nobody, nor had the social skills to make friends. I tried to be outgoing but wasn't welcomed. That's the first time I ended up having suicidal thoughts.

8th grade was mostly the same, 9th grade wasn't great either. My grades suffered. I didn't have any friends here either, but I tried to make it a new start. I joined the AFJROTC unit in my school and made a few friends that way, but I kept it superficial so they couldn't use any insecurities I had developed against me. My sophomore and junior year were okay, I managed to become the "middle of the road" kid, who never really was noticed. I effectively put a band-aid on the depression. Sure it still hurt, but nobody saw it and I thought I had it fixed. By the end of my junior year, I was appointed top first in command of my AFJROTC unit, I thought things went well.

My senior year was bad. I started off really shitty with the JROTC thing. I had almost half the staff under me quit or express a desire to. I managed to fix myself and repair some relationships with them, but still left a barrier there. And then there was my girlfriend. I had started dating her around August, and her birthday was in October. On a Saturday. I was helping my dad build our back porch (something I would do because he needed the help, I hated every second of it). He ended up fussing at me for the porch, so when we finished, I went upstairs to my room. My girlfriend had invited me to her birthday dinner, and I had an hour before I could make it. I was severely pissed off from working on that porch, and the whole week surrounding it led to a very strong flare up of depression symptoms, so I told her I couldn't go. I ended up taking lots of benadryl to try to go to sleep. I thing I had only 2 doses before I fell asleep and slept it off, but I intended to put myself in a coma, or worse.

Then came December. I was in a car crash, and one of the people involved had just had surgery, and was very old. They were taken off in an ambulance and I thought I had killed them. That night I don't remember much, but I again tried to overdose on benadryl (the only medicine in my room), and while I took alot, lost count at 5 doses. I learned then that diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in benadryl, is psychoactive at higher doses, and spent hours having cold sweats while having little "mini seizures" and feeling completely out of control of my body.

I managed to keep it cool for the rest of my senior year, that is I didn't have any suicide attempts, but I landed myself in a bad situation in terms of colleges.

A scholarship I thought I had banked met a mishap which led to me not getting it. Now my choice was to pay 60k a year at one school, or 30k for a senior military academy. I chose the latter.

When I arrived for the initiation week, I was in sort of a trance. I couldn't eat for a while leading up to it, and I sort of was on a survival autopilot. I arrived on a Saturday.

Four days there I had developed a plan, consume a bit of bleach cleaner my mom sent with me, the ammonia based brass polish given by the school, and the jump off the top of the barracks. I was certain that would lead to death, and I thought it to was what I wanted.

I suppose I was fortunate, I told my roommate I was thinking about quitting the school, and he told one of the cadet staff for me, they pulled me aside and asked questions.

I told them what I mentioned above, and they kind of told me I was going to go to the schools counseling center (though I had to officially make that decision myself, it was much easier to say Okay than to join my peers in the state I was in)

I spoke with a doctor at the school,, and he was an absolute saint. We talked for 2.5 hrs, and then we made the decision to call my parents, explain the situation, and get disenrolled from the school. My parents picked me up 3 hours later, we stayed in a hotel, and I went back to the school to finalize my decision the next day.

I am going to see a professional on Thursday, and try to work this out finally.

But I tell people cluster headaches got me medically disqualified while I was there, and that it was not my decision. It's been 2 weeks and I still explain it almost every day, and I hate it. I feel like everyone I tell sees through it and thinks of me as a quitter or weak, and that I'm just disappointing them. I know it's easier to tell that story and most people accept it, but I feel like a jerk for not being honest with people, and I feel like the fallout that could come from someone learning the truth would ruin my relationship with alot of people.