I've been getting more and more depressed lately. I recently hit 30 and I was hoping the feeling of "holy fuck I'm old now" would go away after a few months but it's only gotten worse. Other people my age have families and careers, and I'm making less than 13 bucks an hour answering phonecalls, have never had one real accomplishment that meant anything to me, never been on a date, never had a real social life or a group of friends, never been to a party, .....well the list goes on. I'm constantly obsessing over having missed out on my youth, and I can't move on from it. I feel like I've missed out on the process and experience of becoming an adult, and it's left me with something missing deep at my core. And I feel it missing whenever I'm faced with something I want out of life but can't have- a new job I would have to interview for, being in a group of people in a social setting and wanting to make friends, a girl I want to talk to, whatever. I just don't have the self-esteem, self-confidence or experience.
And now that I'm 30 I have people (mostly family, not like I have a lot of people in my life) breathing down my neck about what I should be doing now that I'm 30, making comments and cracking jokes about being an old man or "too old" for this or that, and the reality of being too old to make up for everything I missed out on is really setting in. Everything just feels more hopeless now than it ever has been. I have no confidence in myself to succeed at anything, I can't even picture myself being successful. I feel like I've given up any real hope that life will get better, that I'll somehow get my life on track and have a sense of normalcy with things like a social life, group of friends, dating life, sex, a job that doesn't make me wish I'd just died in my sleep every morning I wake up. I've never been suicidal, but lately I've found myself fantasizing about it more, and if you asked me if I thought it's possible I'd kill myself before I'm 40 if nothing in my life changes, I honestly don't know. I'm just tired of the passing years leaving me with nothing but regrets instead of interesting stories and meaningful accomplishments, and I'm tired of being disappointed with life. I'm fucking miserable, and I hate myself. Sometimes it seems so surreal to think that my life has really turned out this badly, that I actually made it to 30 without ever having gone on a goddamn date. What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this? Where did I fuck up so badly? I'm just sick of being me. I guess this isn't really going anywhere, I just needed to rant. Went to bed and woke up feeling particularly miserable with myself.
You sound like me. I'm in the same situation.
No, just no.
I used to think that way too, but after about a year with facebook I've come to an interesting conclusion: most people just add everyone they talk to for more than 2 minutes. I've often met people while being with friends, never seeing them again, and 2 weeks later I notice the others have all added those guys I'd already almost forgotten about.
I feel like I'm the only one not adding every random retard I meet.
Seriously, people with over 50 friends on facebook either spend lots of time abroad, are some kind of minor celebrity (e.g. play in a band) or just add anyone they talk to.
And the status updates,... are specifically geared towards making the person look good. Only an attention-whore would post stuff like 'my life sucks' or 'so depressed'
Edit: Look, no-one can guarantee that things will get better. I'll flat out tell you that maybe they won't.
But if you try, there is a good chance they will. I was at rock bottom less than a year ago. I had 3 "friends", and none of them lived in my immediate vicinity. I'd trudge to university, feel like a total alien, trudge home and watch TV. I suffered from depression and social anxiety all the time. I was on a shitload of medications. But somewhere along the line I resumed fighting. I did stuff I always wanted to do, even though I knew the road there was going to be hard. I don't want to get too specific but if some of that shit had gone wrong I might've killed myself because the emotional trauma would've been too much.
Now you might say that I got lucky, and someone else might not, and that's right. But in order to get lucky, I had to take a shot. And not just one shot - I took a lot of shots. Most didn't work out, but one or two did. And here I am now. My life is still fucked up in some aspects, but all in all, I'm rather content. I still suffer from SA occasionally, and once in a while depression comes back.
But I don't take any medication anymore and I know that people out there care for me and believe in me, even though they are not obligated to due to blood relations. Yeah, people not related to me believing in me actually was a novel concept to me. That's how fucked up my social life was.
Fellow SA sufferers often tell me how I'm so harsh to myself and how they could never do that, but the truth is: I'm not a particularly brave or even diligent man. I'm lazy as fuck and half of the time I can't muster up the courage or motivation to do anything.
But I never cancel a plan just because I didn't couldn't do it the first time. I postpone it and try again later.
And that, I believe, is the secret to my success: think long-term, find out what you have to do and do it by any means possible.
It does not get better. I'm not going to spend another half of my shitty life looking for a therapist and hope things get better by the time that happens I will be in my 50s with nothing and no one. At least when i am dead i dont have to deal with anything or anyone or hope for anything that does not exist.