My name is Russell, I'm 22 years old and I live in Lincolnshire.
I'd like to make this a short one but I do have a habit of rambling incoherently, hopefully I wont do that this time lol. I've been taking anti-depressants and other meds on and off since I was 19, been through a couple of different ones (Citalopram, Risperidone, Sertraline, Valium). Most of them haven't helped a great deal but I started to take Sertraline again recently. I feel depressed all year round but it gets a lot worse around winter time so I thought it'd probably be best to start them again just to be safe.
Mid-2007 was when things got a lot worse for me. I split up with my girlfriend from college who I'd been with for about 18 months. I was depressed already and suffering horrible anxiety a lot of the time. I also had a job in a factory that I absolutely hated. Honestly the thought of the place made me feel sick and even though I've left that company now the thought still makes me feel nausea, it's close to where I live too and even driving past it makes me wince. I, along with most other low-level employees, were made to feel awful everyday by pompous idiot managers. They've left scars on my self-esteem that still exist today. We were treated like scum and you could see their utter contempt for us in their eyes when they talked to (or talked down to) us.
Anyway I worked there for 4 and a half years between February 2007 and August 2011. During that time I went through failure after failure in all sorts of areas in life. I couldn't find another job, I lost contact with my few friends I had and have always found it hard to make new friends, I crashed my little Vauxhall Corsa that my parents bought for me, I had a couple of girlfriends who liked me to begin with but I think I must have some massive personality flaws that only become apparent after a while because things would be fine to start with then they just totally went off me. Maybe it's because I was so depressed all the time. I know girls don't really like that and they find it off-putting...
Anyway during my time there I was signed off sick for depression by my GP 3 times in total. The first time was for 3 months altogether, the second for about a month and the 3rd time for about a month as well. I was in and out of the GP's office, counsellors place and the hospitals mental health unit more times than I care to mention. I was put on suicide watch a couple of times too because I used to self-harm. I also had the local hospitals crisis team phoning my house everyday to check on me which caused my mum a great deal of stress which plagued me with guilt.
This whole time I became very anti-social and hardly ever went out at all. I'd lost all my friends so didn't really have anyone to go out with. I'd just go to work then spend my days off in my room, waking up at around 12 in the afternoon and drinking myself into a stupor while watching DVDs and listening to music, and masturbating to fetish videos online. I wont tell you what my fetish is.. I've lost count of the amount of times I went to work drunk/hungover. Luckily they never called me out on it so I must've been hiding it fairly well. So I was dealing with all of this and also my brother is a bit of a psycho so he was fun to live with......
Anyway in around July 2010 I found out about a special visa you can get if you want to spend time backpacking in certain countries, so I applied for and got a one year visa to live and work in New Zealand. I saved up my wages from work for about a year, sold my car and a &$%+ load of CDs, DVDs and games and managed to get about £2200 to take with me. Now this is something I still feel really bad about because the whole time I was making a big deal out of it saying how great it's gonna be etc. So I flew to NZ via Los Angeles but as soon as I landed there I realised I couldn't do it. I was scared stiff. It was the most nerve-racking thing I'd ever done. I got through customs and walked outside of the airport then I could feel myself beginning to panic. "What the hell am I doing?? I'm on the other side of the world and I don't know anybody!!!" These were just some of the thoughts that were racing through my head at the time.
I've always had very low confidence and very high social anxiety so it took me half an hour to gather up the courage to talk to a taxi driver about taking me to my hostel. Anyway I did eventually and he took me there. Anyway as soon as I met the people in my dorm room I knew what I was doing was a massive mistake. They were all loud, happy, confident people and I just didn't fit in at all. It was like that in every hostel, every room. The only time I felt comfortable was when I had my own private room but they cost the equivalent of £50 a night so they just weren't affordable. Anyway I did a bit of travelling but I was a nervous wreck the entire time and just didn't have any fun at all. I was meant to be there for a year but ended up flying home after 3 weeks. That was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. There I was bragging to people I knew that I was leaving and going to live in NZ for a better life for a while and then ended up coming back and not even lasting a month out there..... I felt so bloody stupid I still haven't been able to talk about it properly to people and I've been back in England since late September.
So there I was, back home living at my parents house, no job, no car, hardly any money.... I felt like the biggest loser in the world. So I started applying for any job I thought I could get but didn't get anywhere. I was lucky to get a letter or an email saying "thanks but no thanks". I bought a car so I could get around to look for work and that cost me £650 I didn't have... But eventually I did get offered a job in another factory (great!) but it was just on an as-and-when-needed basis. And it turns out I was never needed! They had no work for me at all... Needless to say this had all put a big dent in my confidence, what little I had. But then another little stroke of luck, I was offered a Christmas job with Royal Mail... However they still don't have a start date for me as they've lost some of my documentation so that's put a massive delay on things. That's getting me down too as I've got £1300 on my credit card I need to start paying back and I don't know when I'll be starting work with RM.
Recently because I've just been in my room most of the time I've started working out a lot with some weights that we have. I don't know why I do it.... Maybe it's just out of boredom. Or maybe it's just another way for me to self-harm as I lifts weights over and over again until it starts to hurt my arms so much I can barely move my fingers....
It's all really getting to me and a lot of the time I feel like I should end it. Nothing seems to be going right, I have no future and very little to live for...
Anyway that's my story so far, sorry it's so long and boring.
Thank you for reading it. You don't have to reply but if you read it all, then thanks.
