Lifetime of Confusion and Depression

Hey there. So I've never put any of this into written words before, so I'm sorry if it seems splotchy or incoherent, but my nerves and anxiety are screaming at me to communicate it with someone.

I am a 26 year old male. I grew up in East Baltimore. My mother never really went to high school, and my father made it through by the skin of his teeth. Nevertheless, both are rather successful people these days.

I had the privilege of going to a pretty high-caliber high school, via academic success in elementary and middle school. I never really fit in, though, and spent most of my high school career alone, despondent, and itching to leave. I don't have a single friend from high school that I talk to now, and I'm sure that nearly half of my classmates don't know who I am. Fair enough.

I went to a nationally-known college based largely on the name of my high school, and went there because I was a fan of their sports teams and that it was far from my current life. I did rather well there for about three months, until a paper that I just couldn't seem to write sent me down a snowballing path; I skipped one class to write the paper, didn't end up writing it, and continued spiraling down a path of indifferent performance to the point where, by Christmas, I spent all of my time in my dorm room ignoring classwork.

I came home, pretended things were going great, and then went back to school and picked up right where I left off. I paid nearly $52,000 to attend college for a year and wasted every dollar of it in my dorm room, playing video games with my brother and walking aimlessly around campus as though I had somewhere to be.

I made online friends, as socially unsuccessful types are wont to do, and eventually told one of them that I was feeling depressed about things and wasn't sure what to do. He proceeded to call my school's campus security and tell them I was a suicide risk, at which time I was "arrested" by the campus police and held for the evening in a counselor's office. I remember that the counselor wouldn't let me leave until I called my parents to tell them that I wasn't going to kill myself. The point of this anecdote is to confer the idea that I really, really don't feel comfortable telling people my problems, worries, or issues anymore.

I left school (or was forced to leave, rather) after that year. That was 2008. I spent the next two years working odd jobs while living at home with my parents. The following year, I got a pretty cool job working as a pool manager for a country club, where I met a genuinely beautiful girl whom I successfully courted. I was 20. She was 16. Yup.

We spent the next two and a half years avoiding unapproving parents, friends, and others, while never really reconciling the fact that we weren't really in the same place ourselves anyway. Nevertheless, we spent every possible second together and she became something that I could feel positively about, all while providing a cover for my own depression, anxiety, and social awkwardness.We finally broke up in a blaze of glory those two and a half years later, and I still think about her regularly.

I have since started taking up community college classes, and finding that I lack the motivation to have anything to do with them. I enrolled in a business law program, because I parlayed that country club job into a pretty solid set of business management positions (for an early-to-mid 20's guy with no education).

That being said, that's never what I wanted to do. As childish as it is (and that tends to define a lot of what I do, if you haven't noticed), the only thing I've ever really "wanted" to do is become a race car driver. This has been my desire since nearly birth, and continues as the only thing that feels as though it would motivate me to get out of bed each day. I am not, however, socially or financially positioned to take up that career, of course, so I shrug along about my day doing what I do now.

I began dating the love of my life about two years ago now. I say that not because I am obsessed with her, or because my life is dedicated to her--both of which I wish were more the case--but because she is simply a fantastic human being whom I aspire to be, and who leads me to think the way I do and analyze myself like I am now. She is self-aware, kind, funny, loyal, beautiful, and (I have to deride her somehow, right?) very, very cliche. I don't treat her nearly well enough, and her and her father have told me that before.

I am a reserved person. I enjoy spending time alone, and even prefer it to time with others. I feel uncomfortable around others, unless the group is very large (as my insecurities fade away and I open up; strange?). I am also very depressed about myself, my life, my situation, and my inability to change any of those. I am anxious about any and every pressing deadline that exists in my life, and worry about them constantly. I am also insecure about how I look, even though I am 6'4", thin, and don't really have many extraordinary flaws.

The reason that I am writing this is because I feel unable to do anything about it. Very recently, my girlfriend's father told her that he needed to see a lot more out of me if we were to spend our lives together. Instead of responding to that with anger or with motivation, I responded by crying myself to sleep for two consecutive nights. I am a 26 year old male.

I write because I feel that I have failed myself. It wouldtake three years before I could get a degree in anything meaningful (not that I'd want it anyway). It's hard to get an education in anything when I have a job that requires fifty hours per week, anyway. I am unable to ask for help. Physically unable (the closest I ever reached was scheduling an interview with a psychiatrist and counselor, and then by not showing up or responding to any calls; this was over a year ago). I shake and shudder and close up and get aggressive at any external critique or potential aid.

I don't want to feel depressed anymore. Or anxious. Or insecure. Or feel like a failure to my family, my girlfriend, her family, my "career". or anyone else (and by failure, I mean someone with little chance of improvement). I don't know what to do, or where to turn; that is, I do know where, but not how.

This is a winding and confusing and depressing thing to read, I know. But it is the furthest I have ever gone in telling anyone my feelings this deeply in my entire life. If you read this, thank you. If you have any suggestions or help or even pity for me, please pass that along. It sounds so weak, but carrying this feeling around for pretty much my entire adult life genuinely hurts.

Thank you.