I was too scared to join a hedge fund and now have a depression

Don't want to be the cheap psychologist but I would say there is 90% chance this depression is not really coming from this missed opportunity.

Thank you all for the responses!

Echoing others above. Don’t let this missed opportunity ruin you. In fact, how do you even know if you will be happy on the job?

Personal experience: I recently went through a hedge fund internship. I thought I had the best internship of my life, even better than my locked down internship for BB IBD next year. Well, I was kinda happy during the internship, but I ensure you, hedge fund is a different beast. The learning curve was really steep. I was pulling crazy hours and felt tremendous imposer syndrome as I didn’t know as much about hedge fund as I would have liked. The stress did push me over the edge sometimes, and I even wanted to quit. I stayed til the end tho and got the best experience for the internship. This internship taught me that I needed to go to sell side before joining the hedge fund industry.

I assure you that your life will be fine. You’re smart enough to get the internship, so there will be many other opportunities waiting for you. Good luck brother!

sounds poor. HE HE HE HA

Apply again in a year or two. Start teaching out to headhunters in 6 months or so to get on their radars.

Why were you too scared to join it? 

You didn’t miss out on anything 

In reality how sure are you that these are even connected? Seems like a silly thing to be depressed about. 

If you felt you weren't ready, maybe, in fact, you weren't.

Try to break in later on. 

I always recommend martial arts and sport and , specially an intense, challenging and demanding one such as jiu-jitsu to grant you a daily dose of discipline, challenging yourself to overcome pressure and your prior limits and most important to disconnect from everything outside the training session because otherwise you'll get a physical immediate consequence for not being 100% present in the moment. Is incredible how the chemical of the brain and the body ( hormones) can rewire your mind and reshape your daily life, that's my humble advice from experience dealing with long time depression too and engaging in martial arts, that's one of the best decisions that I've ever made. Also induces you to push further healthy habits in your life and create friendships with your fellow training partners, and we aren't even reaching to the psychological benefits related to being able to defend yourself and loved ones against a violent attacker... Resuming, I really recommend it, but most important remember that you're more strong that you can imagine, just keep going day by day doing your best and one day before you even realize everything in your life will be hundreds of times better than you ever thought that it could be, you have this mate 💪🏿💪🏿💪🏿💪🏿

thanks for all the helpful comments. It is not getting better though. the feeling of regret is probably the worst there can be. I am seeking psychological support now although i am not sure how much it will help. the only happy moments these days are the ones where I do sports.