I'll echo Slinky's generally beneficent sentiment. I've been here since I was twelve- nearly forty percent of my life. I'd hate to see anybody here harmed- by others, by themselves, or by life.
On topic:
For a while I thought I some sort of psychological marijuana addiction, or some problem in that vein. When I stop smoking pot I get pretty anxious- my chest hurts, the back of my throat hurts, I cannot stop thinking about the negative aspects of my life and the future that seems likely to spring from it.
Then, I realized that was just the normal sober reaction to how much I dislike most parts of my life.
I am the least productive and functional of all my RL friends, who are not exactly pictures of optimal mental health themselves- I love them to death, but it's true.
I do not have a job and am unlikely to get one in the incredibly near future, though there is this apartment managing job that I might be able to take over from my mother, whenever she moves on from it- which will be soonish if not soon, she wants to move to the UK at some point I believe. I might have talked about this before. The idea of going into a job interview leaves my knees knocking and breath short enough that I'm fairly sure I would be unable to conduct one, if I even had the wherewithal to have ever scheduled one. I want a job so bad it makes my teeth hurt. It would solve many of my problems.
I'm also beginning to consider that I might have had, like, Dysthymia or Cyclothymia or something throughout most of middle-and-highschool and it just ****ed all my **** up. I don't really want to specifically self-diagnose, but I'm pretty sure something was wrong with me. My mother suffers from Depression and Anxiety and my dad has Bipolar Disorder, so there's at least a suggestive genetic link to mood disorders I could draw. Ultimately, though, it's unsure.
School is school. It's always been school. College is like highschool, only now I get a little choice over the classes I inevitable fail because of my godawful study habits and endless supply of procrastination. I don't like school that much- it's incredibly grating on my self-esteem. It's a part of my deal with my mom that I can only live with her without working if I'm going to school, though, so that's that.
I don't ever do anything. I sit at my computer and read and watch the occasional video, with a rare break to write or draw as my inspiration waxes. Doing nothing, over a long period of time, is one of the most soul-crushing experiences I've ever had the misfortune of going through. There is little I would not do to end this state. Occasionally this is broken up by hanging out with my friends, which is nice.
I have given up not only on my dreams, but on having dreams at all. I have been stripped of all of my ambitions but securing enough of an income that I can do nothing until I die. This somehow seems like an unhealthy mindset for a twenty-year-old.
The idea of being in a romantic relationship seems strange and frightening. The realm of romance is an entirely different social magisterium and set of rules than that of normal interaction, which I already struggle with, and I find it more or less completely impenetrable. Sex without romance is far too much effort for how much pleasure it offers above the baseline. I've considered paying someone someday, if I give enough of a crap and have enough money, but that situation seems too awkward to me. Also, occasionally my sexuality decides to focus on a specific gender without my input, which seems like it could be awkward if it happened in the middle of a relationship.
Sometimes I just sit and think about my life too much and begin to get sad and mopey and listless. I don't generally cry about it- at least, I haven't in some years- but I'm a lot closer to it than usual. Reviewing my life is a horrifically unpleasant experience.
There have been periods of my life where I fantasized about running away and being homeless, so that my family didn't have to deal with me. It would be so incredibly nice to not be a mooch, to not depend on my mother for everything. I hate this situation so much it is legitimately difficult to find the correct collection of words in the English language to describe my emotions- I must use comparatives. Have you ever seen someone harm a family member of yours? Your brother, your niece, your mother maybe? If you have, that's about the level of sheer loathing that I'm talking about here. It tightens my eyes and my teeth, and it makes my gut churn.
There are very few parts of my life I like, save my family and my friends. Perhaps making things- mentally putting things together, like you do when you code, or draw, or write, is a pleasing distraction. I rarely have the motivation to do any of that, though.
...still better than when I was in highschool though.
This post was going to be shorter when I began writing it. I guess I'm not particularly looking for advice- waiting for my mother's job to pass to me is bearable and workable. Just venting about how screwed up I am in the head, which seemed to have worked- it was a Pretty Bad Night for me before I wrote this, and now I don't feel any tightness in my chest at all, even though I haven't smoked in a few hours. That makes it a Pretty Good Night for me.
The mental health picture painted here is pretty bleak, but I'd like to mention quickly that these are like ALL the bad parts of my life from the past six months to a year or so- those aforementioned family and friends are a great help to me. I'm powering through even all of this. Things just get to me sometimes.
