Smilax

I've suffered from depression and serious social anxiety most of my life, that is my main diagnosis and the core of my problem. Along with this I've long had an enmeshed and codependent relationship with my parents. I'm 32, have never had any friends, never dated, never had a girl friend, rarely ever socialize. I dropped out of university 5 or 6 times due to being emotionally overwhelmed. Most people who meet me usually comment on how intelligent I am and indeed I've always excelled academically when I could hack it, which was usually only for short periods. I used to dream of becoming a physicist, mathematician, or other research scientist and I had the grades and smarts for it. But that all seems like a distant dream now.

I have worked retail jobs off and on over the past 10 years, often with breakdowns in between. I've had short periods of problems with alcohol over the past 5 or 6 years, usually lasting a few months at most, but I was able to pull myself out of it each time. Usually I would hit the bottle after some kind of breakdown and major negative life event like quitting a job. I've quit a number of jobs and burned a lot of bridges just because I couldn't handle things emotionally, I'm an emotional wreck of a man to be honest, and this is without alcohol. I've been on medication and seen therapists in the past with little success, the meds did little but flatten me out and remove my motivation, the therapy was usually lacklustre or actively made me worse.

As I mentioned I have a codependent relationship with my parents and they enable me like you would not believe. They do so out of love and worry but it has seriously messed me up over the years. I've been allowed to live off them at home with no job or school for years at a time up to just recently, remember I'm 32. In my effort to leave the nest and distance myself from them my mother recently bought me the apartment I'm now living in. So as you can see even in my effort to leave them they enable me. I have a very low rent to pay as a result.

I was working a retail sales job, at a local Video Game store, over the Christmas break that was going well. However I knew that my hours would likely be cut back after the holidays and they were. I was cut back to just 8 hours a week which was barely enough to pay the small rent I have from my parents, I had to then lean on them for food and everything else. Now of course they are MORE than willing to let me lean on them but I didn't want to. I started to desperately look for work handing out my resume willy nilly for all kinds of positions I knew I wasn't suited for. I also started to drink occasionally, a holdover from Christmas, due to the stress and depression. All thought hours alone didn't help. Within 2 weeks I had a job as a gas station attendant at a local chevron station. I knew I would hate the job but took it with a smile anyway. I took a herculean effort to work myself up to going the first day due to my social anxiety in new situations. The first day technically went ok, I knew I could do the technical side of the job. However I was already an emotional mess day to day at this point, and the depressing atmosphere of the station made me much worse and I felt EXTREMELY alienated from the staff and customers. I came home and broke down a bit. I sent and email off to the boss and resigned. Thing is I had already sent in my 2 weeks notice at my OTHER job that I was looking to leave so I may now have lost both jobs, lol, waiting to hear.

I am a complete mess right now and fighting not to drink. I know it can only make things worse. But a large part of me doesn't care, a large part of me is semi suicidal (not in terms of ending things right now but in terms of not giving a **** and actively self harming). A large part of me WANTS to throw my life away. It's just too difficult, too much anxiety, too much depression. I know I'm a man child and this is a childish reaction. I know the solution is tough love. Although honestly thinking about that simply magnifies my disgust for myself and urge to drink.

I'm sorry for the huge rant, I need to vent somewhere. As for recommendations for attending AA meetings or to turn to God etc, I thank those who would like to suggest those but I'm a strong atheist who is not going to change his stripes on that matter. This doesn't mean I'm not open to something like rational recovery or some other form of meeting. However right now I'm just too much of a mess to think of anything. :-(