Beating depression? ( and anxiety)

[Jack_H_O]

Hey everyone, Its come to the point in life where my only support lies online and from what I've seen, beyond blue is the best place for that. ( i recently found out an old friend with depression is now a spokesperson for beyond blue). I have been seeing a psychologist and doctors, and so far, antidepressents if not in my best interests, I've seen what it did to my step sister and it's side effects, so as of now, it's not in my goal list. I was given a score of 40 on the k10 list, but did not tell my psychologist everything wrong with my life.

So I've been suffering from depression for roughly 3 years, stemming from many reasons. financially struggling family, aggressive family, divorse, family deaths, and as of recently,I've lost my personality, I hate my looks ( I'm from south east asia, I'm not "phenotypically" good looking), my height which is 165cm and I'm a male at 18 years old ( It's horrible, Everyone bullies me about it). and most of all, i have not one friend.

I've gone through school being the "sheep" who just follows people around and was bagged out for doing, even by the younger kids. I did this for an entire year until my final year, where i just sat in the library by myself. through my last year, I just studied, people called my a geek,nerd, etc, and the only reason why i studied was because there was nothing else to do, no friends to hang out with, nobody to talked to. Because of this, i recieved an ATAR of 88 and made the distinguished achievers list, neither of these achievements made me happy, only sadder. My life at home is equally as bad, I live with my mom who is constantly yelling at me or others every single day, she's carrying a mortgage of over $1million and she'll never be able to pay it off in her lifetime, so shes constantly mad. I love my dad to bits, but he suffers from depression and anger problems, He'll sometimes say to  me "everything you touch seems to brake", " you're useless" or to himself, he'll say " I'm a failure... I can't do anything right". None the less, he calls me everyday to check up on me and his anger is rarely seen too often. As a side note, everysingle person in my immediate family has suffered from depression, my father the worse.

The last time i felt happy was when i was 15, and i actually did have friends, a small group of 7-8, but we were all good friends, and i was actually funny and happy back then, i was getting invited to parties, people were trying to make friends with me. but year by year, people stopped hanging out with me, everyone got tall and good looking, girls would talk to them but completely ignore me (Girls have told me that I'm ugly right to my face, very good looking girls), i stopped being funny, stopped being invited to parties, and its now at the point where i've spent months on end at home just playing video games because I'm alone. I did have one good friend but as of recently, that person has left me to hang with the popular group.

This solitude is killing me, and my looks and height are keeping me from being happy. I've deleted facebook because seeing all the happy party goers and people around their friends was killing me inside. I had to quit work because no one would talk to me, the girls would just talk to the tall good looking guys and the guys would ignore me, treating me like a kid, making me do all the labour intensive work.

I've tried to cut all ties with my school life, and i have one opportunity to start new at university. I've tackled my height insecurity, and partially my looks( fat face, ptosis and a lazy eye on my right eye with mild ache).  But one problem is my social anxiety, due to all this solitude, I've lost the ability to talk or hold conversations, even with my family. I can't even look people in the eye when talking due to my self consciousness. ( At one point when a girl at worked asked me to help her with something, i broke into a sweat and my eyes started twitching)

I know this has just been a rant about how much i dislike my life, but I've got 15 days until uni and I really want a new start. I hate being stuck by myself. I've begun working out 6 times a week with a mix of cardio and muscle toning, just to give me something to do, it does help take my mind of things. I'm still continuing my hobby in photography and skating, but doing it alone is hard.

I've cut alot of problems to shorten this, but these are my most concerned issues.

Thank you, any input will be taken to heart.

[JessF]

Hi Jack, I want to start positive by saying I think this will be a new start for you. High school was not a nice experience for me, it ended up with me being very bullied and isolated and I could not wait to get out. In many ways I was a nervous wreck by the time I left, I had those horrible things going round in my head that had been said to me by girls at school - the things that girls have said to you, and some of the things your father has said to you too - and I believed them.

While it took me a very long time to leave all of it behind, and I still have to cope with anxiety now, many years later, one thing that did happen was that when I got out of school and into the real world - in myc ase, directly into work rather than university, was the NONE of what had happened before mattered.

It was a complete reset. Those horrible girls and thick as pig dung boys had to make their own way in the world just like me, and without their judgments and in a completely new world and environment I could be who I wanted to be, and start all over again.  It will be just the same for you, I am sure of it.

I am sorry to hear your home life is not good. Luckily I did have a supportive family with me through my tough times. How would you feel about moving out into student accomodation once you get settled and start making friends?