I am a 27 year man, who is having real trouble in the everyday aspects
of life. When I consider the various symptoms of both depression and
anxiety I feel like I have most of them, and have had so for at least 4
years. I find most days I simply canno...
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I am a 27 year man, who is having real trouble in the everyday aspects
of life. When I consider the various symptoms of both depression and
anxiety I feel like I have most of them, and have had so for at least 4
years. I find most days I simply cannot see what the point of being here
is is - if anything, I feel like a burden on society. In the distant
past, my Mother passed away when I was ten and my Father, Brother and
myself did not cope well with this. I have only vague memories of the
years following my Mother's fight with cancer, but clear memories of her
ordeal in the lead-up to her passing away. Following this, my Father
re-married twice and both times we lost our respective family homes and
the second time we moved from the area where I grew up (Northern Beaches
of Sydney) to a regional area of NSW. I know that I have had significant
trust issues and concerns since these events, which has caused me to
isolate myself from making friends and leaves me in a position now where
I do not really have any. It was not until I was 26 that I had sex
(although I thought it would never happen), and it was with my first -
and only - girlfriend; who I met when I was 25 when our respective
parents encouraged us to date. Initially, I am not sure that either of
us had a strong attraction to one another but we continued to date for 6
months until she decided to move interstate to 'pursue here dreams'. She
explained that it was something she 'needed to do alone', but that we
could continue dating. By this time I had established quite strong
feelings for her and provided support in as many ways as I could
(financial, emotional, etc.). Overtime, however, she began treating me
in the same way that others do - telling me to wake up to myself,
telling me that I was useless and was simply being mean. Being
delusional, perhaps simply because I wanted some kind of friendship, I
overlooked this and looked forward to her visiting - the last time she
did she essentially explained she had no feelings for me and that was
the end of it. I went on a date a few weeks ago with someone I was set
up with and became really frustrated with her constantly changing plans
to just meet for the first time (I cannot explain why this was so
frustrating). On meeting, we talked and found that we had a lot in
common and agreed we should meet again. After texting one another for a
few days we made a date at a restaurant. Unfortunately, just as I was
leaving to meet her I received a text message saving that she 'didn't
feel up to it' and I never heard back from her. In discussing my current
living situation and explaining that I live at home with my Father
(having never moved out), I realised that, like most people, that she
found this a major concern/a turn-off/very sad. This brings me to my
current situation. I am currently in the final stages of writing my very
boring PhD (which I was supposed to complete years ago), am earning an
above average income working 2.5 days a week and have saved a deposit to
purchase a home. I have ambitions of owning a home, but feel that I need
to support my Father. He owns a retail business which he runs entirely
on his own, which he is running using various very large loans and is
injecting more money from his home loan into the business every month
just to cover the business' expenses. I pay a large 'rent' to my Father,
which covers some of his expenses and we share a car; which means I drop
him off and pick him up from work every day. As he is in remission
following having an operation for Bowel Cancer, I have to run his shop
when he has to go for tests and appointments with specialists. I am
useless at retail and barely make any sales. I know that if he were to
go to hospital for a long period, again, financially it could be the end
of us. I constantly go through bouts of feeling sorry for myself,
feeling lonely and isolated, being agitated and frustrated, and very
rarely feel like I can see any 'light at the end of the tunnel'. I have
no motivation for my studies or work (or even getting out of bed each
day) and can hardly ever concentrate (which is hard after being a star
student and employee for many years). When I go to work (at the
university) everyone is angry with management and many people, including
my PhD supervisor, have recently been made redundant. I know that there
are very few people being employed after completing a PhD and after
submitting more than 100 job applications this year I have not been
interviewed/shortlisted for one position (even positions for graduate
positions). My current work is also very uncertain. I have also been
suffering severe back pain and headaches caused by scoliosis and spent
more than $4000 on therapy in the last financial year. I have seen no
improvement in the pain and rarely sleep more than a few hours per
night. I have also been to many GPs and counsellors and have not found
anything helps my mood or pain. When I think rationally (I have very
little emotion, except for anger, frustration and sadness) I feel guilty
for not making the most of my talents, opportunities and abilities and
this makes me feel worse. When the only person that really seems to have
any care for me (my Brother just asks me for money), my Father, says
that I am 'impossible to live with', I question what the point is of me
even being here at all. I am not enjoying any aspect of life and am only
making the life of others worse, when I am around them, so I really
cannot see why I should remain on this earth. This just increases my
loneliness and isolation. As people say that you cannot make others
happy, or love others, without first being happy yourself, I see no hope
for me to turn my situation around. I can honestly say that I have no
one to talk to and when I try to talk to colleagues (mainly middle-aged
people) they give me the impression they simply want me to go away. My
work/study supervisors and Father simply tell me to 'get on with it',
which I simple cannot. I am sorry for posting such a long comment, but,
even if no one responds I think this is just an outlet for me.
How do I talk to my doctor?
