The only things I want to do these days is sleep and eat (poorly)

Note: I am a sailor and I do occasionally use coarse language or curse words. If that offends you, it's best if you don't read any further.
Also, my view of life is not so "happy, happy, joy, joy." If that bothers you or gets you down, it's also best if you don't read any further.

Hi, I understand it's normal to introduce one's self when joining groups like this, so I will: My real first name is Charles, but you can call me by a nickname given to men doing what I did in my branch of the military, which was "Twidget." That is a name given to sailors like myself who maintained and repaired electronics.

And please, I know that some of you want to tell me, "Thank you for your service," and that you mean well... I appreciate that you feel that way, but please understand that I bristle when I hear that. When people say that I hear it in my head like people at an AA meeting responding to someone who introduces themselves. It's not like they're not wanting to be nice or welcoming to that person, but the perfunctory nature of the response that bothers me. It all started after servicemembers began returning from the Vietnam War to be called "baby killers" and such. I don't know how it was outside of the U.S., but here, in the 80s and after, Americans felt really, really guilty about the things they gave vets that the pendulum swung far in the other direction and just seemed to get stuck there. So, it's not that I don't believe you when you thank me (and I speak for a lot of vets, just not all of them) or that I don't appreciate you wanting to tell me, it's just so... I dunno... predictable? I dunno... It just rubs me the wrong way. I'm sorry if you're offended by that. That's not my intention if it does.

Anyway... I digress. I suppose you want to know some stuff about me and what brings me here, so I'll check off the boxes. Some may surprise you, others may not, but I promise to be honest while protecting my anonymity. And, I'm going to lay it all out here, so if you're not up to reading a tome, I suggest you move on to another post.

Here goes:

* I'm a 61-year old man.
* I was born in Louisiana but now have settled in the part of the world I hope to take my last breath, namely Texas.
* I consider myself a Christ-follower, although I fail Him a lot more often than I think anyone in my place would prefer.
* I'm a Gulf War I Navy enlisted veteran.
* I'm currently employed as a corporate trainer, training customer satisfaction representatives how to serve their customers while furthering their own careers.
* I'm heterosexual if that even matters to anyone.
* I've never been married or been in a particularly intimate relationship with a woman, which is both a source of and a byproduct of great personal shame. Not to mention my current state of loneliness.
* I consider myself an amateur historian and aspired once to be a public school history teacher until I was one for 6 months and it sent me to the E.R. twice during that time with stroke-level high blood pressure and nosebleeds because 13-year old children are devil spawn. (Not really, it's just that I wasn't cut out to be a teacher. Loving history and teaching it to 7th graders are not mutually inclusive.)
* I am 6'-0" when I stand up straight, which occurs less frequently as I age, and post-pandemic I weigh 300+ lbs.
* I'm a type II diabetic and I inject 50 units of insulin once a day, plus swallow over a dozen pills a day, half having something to do with high blood pressure or diabetes.
* I had a heart attack in 2007 where I actually drove myself to the hospital to seek treatment because it was so mild.

If you'd like me to answer any further meta-questions, feel free to ask. I'll try and be as honest as I can with my replies.

Now, to the subject at hand (depression & mental health):

While I know that my parents did, in fact, love me, my father believed it was his role to work at a job he loathed for all of his post-WWII adult life to be able to put a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on my plate, and adequate education, he struggled with his own un-treated Persistent Depressive Disorder and was an emotionally-absent father for the entire time I knew him. From my father I inherited the family trait of dark bags under my eyes, another family trait of depression, being a curmudgeon, an interest in government and politics (although he was a Roosevelt Democrat and I was a Reagan Republican,) and general broodiness. I did not, however, learn from him how to throw a baseball or a football, how to fish or hunt, how to repair a car, how to make a budget or balance a checkbook, and most definitely not how to woo, treat well, or even discuss woman and/or sex. He's been dead for over 20+ years now.

My mother was a kind, but not outwardly loving woman who raised me served as my Cub Scout Troop Mother, drove me to my basketball games, insisted that I go to church with her until I was 13, ensured that I did my homework, etc. What she did not do if ever hug me or kiss me or tell me she loved me. Well, at least not until she was on her death bed. I never saw my parents in bed together, although I did hear them fighting at night when I was a teenager and they shared the same bedroom. I now believe that although she loved him, she never was really in love with him, you know what I mean? And the general vibe I got from her was that sex was dirty and generally not to be discussed. She also disapproved of every one of the few girlfriends I had. From her, I inherited my love of chocolate, reading, cats, and ultimately my faith. Also, I inherited from her my attitude about sex and my fear of failure.

Both of them openly wished that I acted more like my older sister, the good student of the family, who I ultimately learned also had a love/hate relationship with my mother, so much so that she began living with a neer-do-well her first quarter at college and ended up flunking out because she stayed at their apartment instead of going to class, and she ended up marrying this guy when she knew it would end in divorce two years later, all because she wanted so desperately to get away from the house and our mother. She also has dealt with depression and low self-esteem her entire life, although she's now a retired grandmother and loving it.

Both my parents also wished I was more like my best friend growing up, the straight-A, captain of the football team, president of the student council friend. I was a C and D student and never enjoyed or did well in school. Plus, I never understand the purpose, which was preparation for life, where presumably you'd get into a good college, get a good job, get married, and raise kids of your own. In short, I was a disappointment to both my parents and they never praised me or told me they loved me because that wasn't the way they were raised, either. Parenthood is a job where you begin with absolutely no clue what you're doing, and by the time you do, your children have left to start their own lives.

It's kind of ironic that I would later be found to have a 139 IQ (yes, I'm aware the concept of IQ is inherently racist and has been disproven somewhat, my point is I was demonstrable vindicated as not being simple-minded or stupid) and invited to join Mensa. I'm also the only one in my immediate family to have earned a bachelor's degree.

I was, using a term I've heard popularized in recent years, cucked at 16 by my then 15-year old girlfriend at the time, who I believe I really deeply loved and planned (like a dumb, love-struck kid who didn't know better) to get married after we'd both graduated high school. And like a horny 16-year old boy who'd gotten used to heavy petting had been discussing and pleading with his girlfriend to have sex with him... when she had sex with a 21-year old man (I cannot emphasize that enough) in the cab of his pickup truck the same very night he confessed his love to her (she denied it, but I know of proof she was lying)... when she betrayed me like that I was devastated. The very next day she sat me down and told me she wanted to date both of us when we'd been pre-selecting baby names (I know, how stupid one is at 16) the week before. She claims no culpability in the breakup, but how else did she think I'd react to that admission/ultimatum?!

Years later she'd said she'd been treated like a pariah at our high school even by students I didn't even know. To that, I now say: "Good!"

After that, I doubted everything about myself. Although I had a handful of girlfriends after that, I was always the "perfect gentleman" (in other words, never even made a sexual approach for fear of rejection) and couldn't even perform the few times I was with prostitutes in the Philippines during a deployment.

I now have full VA medical benefits and have spent time seeing military and private-practice psychologists and one psychiatrist, and been to several therapy groups where I've learned CBT and ACT techniques that I use to cope with my depression.

I've never been happy at my jobs and I was even living in a veteran homeless halfway house for two years after my aborted attempt at teaching.

I have never actively considered suicide, but nearly every day I wish that the day of my death will come soon. I'm lonely, I'm fat (I'm not "heavy," I'm morbidly obese. There's no need for platitudes or euphemisms here,) I'm finally starting to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in debt, the pandemic means that I never leave my apartment except to take out the trash, get the mail, get my hair cut, or the occasional doctor or dentist visit.

I do not find most women my age attractive and have become resistant to romantic relationships because I'm such a loner now. Most women my age that I do find attractive are unavailable to me (married, lesbian, etc.) and online dating is a pathetic joke. So my fear of dying alone (no one else in the room) looks like an inevitability.

I take Bupropion (generic Wellbutrin XL) a day for Persistent Depressive Disorder. I haven't been in therapy in months because I see little value in it. All it results in is 50 minutes about my bitching and complaining about my life (much like I've done with this post) where the therapist doesn't really provide much comfort or feedback, nothing really gets accomplished or changes, and that's it. I may have gotten that week's complaints off my chest, but to what end?

I wake up in the morning not wanting to wake up or get out of bed or work, I have to talk myself out of using a sick day to call out from work, I only take showers now about every two or three days, I seldom shave, I reject plans I make to eat healthy or exercise of work on projects or learn something new and instead play Call of Duty or watch movies in bed or look at porn or send out for food that's bad for me, and then I can't fall asleep or stay asleep or sleep without tossing and turning all night. I don't think I'm having nightmares, at least. I can't even masturbate anymore because old age and diabetes have robbed me of even that.

Add to that the world is going and instead of coming together to build a better world we're at each other's throats about personal pronouns and tweets from 20 years ago. And if you're a Christian, you believe there will come a time when you're going to be in Heaven with God and many people you've loved, or you'll join Him there when He returns eventually. And even if you don't believe that you know that one day you, like everyone else, will assume room temperature and "die, to sleep—No more—and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."

Like I said before: I will never commit suicide. It's just not in me. But I know that I will die one day, and because of my age and health it's likely to happen soon, and given that nearly every day is a long gray fight for me, I half fear it and half wish for it to come soon.

I'm not sure what I hope to get out of this forum. Maybe just to be able to say what I've said above "out loud," as it were, because any time any one of us with this pernicious wound speaks our feelings out loud we're "tut-tuted" and "there-thered" by those we share our feeling with as if they don't want to hear us being negative. That's like complaining that we have this bloody gash on our chest and they tell us we're going to be fine or just "suck it up" or "rub some dirt on it" or something and then think they're being helpful.

I've learned that Depression is a lot like Diabetes: You never get over it. You're never cured. Occasional sadness? Sure, but depression as we suffer from it... it'll be with us always. Some days it'll be bad, some days not as much, but it never goes away. It sucks, but it's the truth.

Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for listening. I'm not expecting that anyone responds, but if you feel like that's something you want to do, don't let me stop you. And whoever you are, I pay you're doing okay. And if not okay, at least better than before.

Edited by @CheeryMango to remove curse words
Edited by @rebecca947 to remove dosage of medication