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[ToonyMan]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Toony - Please don't take this as a personal indictment of your lifestyle, but I genuinely think it would help you.
Go outside and explore more.
There is life beyond the windowsills of reality that we call our keyboards and peer through monitors out at. Sometimes we find ourselves in the same day to day grind with no escape in sight.
It's times like these when my creeping depression sneaks back on me that I say, "fuck it" and take it to the world. We could be doing anything in the world, with anyone in the world - the possibilities dance slightly outside the realms of our perceptions, within the confines of our ability to learn, trust, and love. Tell yourself that you don't need money. You don't need attention. Just take to the road and stars with nothing but yourself and your own abilities. There are places out there that you can see that you have never seen, things to learn that you have not yet learned, and friends that you have yet to meet - and you might not see, learn, or become friends with them because of limits, because of our failures as human beings, because we have only so much life before our physical shell breaks down - but make the effort anyhow. To do so in spite of all possibilities and odds against us, that is to develop strength, courage, love.
And in doing thus, we create for ourselves the meaning in our lives - and make a few friends along the way.
No excuses, you start living the way you want to live - today - or work your way up to that point, mentally and physically stronger every day. Take chances, make mistakes, get messy

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wholeheartedly agree.
The year before I moved off to college I had a year off. I did nothing the entire year but sit inside of my room playing video games. I barely ate, I didn't socialise with anyone but my internet friends, I didn't go outside unless the circumstances required it. I was a die-hard turbo-nerd, and pretty apathetic too.
Moving to college changed everything. I simply sat down and decided with myself: No more. I will not sit inside and turbo-nerd it out. I do not have fun, in fact it makes me miserable.
The grand change of scenery and situation really helped overcome everything. I now barely play any videogames whatsoever. All the time I used to spend on video games I now spend on learning the piano instead. I'm acquiring a skill I didn't have before and I am genuinely friggin proud of myself.
Before, in what I guess is equivalent to the american high school, I never really tried hard to earn my grades. I've always had the things come pretty easy, I'm almost priviliged in that way, but I never tried to focus and channel it, I never tried to aim for the stars and see how far I got. Now I genuinely do study for my grades and it is paying off. My first year of uni I got straight A's, highest marks possible. My team mates nearly consider me inhuman because of the apparent ease I have with the things, but I know it is because I work for them, so I do not feel embarrassed or ashamed of being priviliged.
I still struggle with social things, but now I am proud of who I am, how I got here and of what I can become. While I find some things difficult, I am certain that I can work it out with time. Even now, I find a lot of social workings much easier than I have ever before.
Tl;dr when I moved off to uni, I decided to change everything and get a life. It was remarkably easier than what I had anticipated, and remarkably better too. Discarding the methods I used to work with did not feel like abandoning my personality, or betraying my identity. It felt like cleaning up in the things that was wrong with me, leaving only the things that was right. And now I feel clean and so much better.

Hmmm, well, I start college at the end of August so I guess I should do something beforehand.

[RedKing]

It's 8pm, and the heat index is still over 100 degrees. 

[Aklyon]

EA has bought out the Plants vs Zombies people. I suppose it could be worse, but its not anything good either. :/

[Burnt Pies]

My throat hurts from the chemo.

I've been in the hospital since June 28th and have been undergoing treatment for leukemia for the last 6 days.  It's taken so long to start treatment because when they first started treatment, the dying cancer cells released too much potassium into my bloodstream and stopped my heart, so I had to spend severall days in the ICU, and then even more time just trying to get my kidneys to function properly again. 

And now I'm stuck here for the next 25 days.  Fun times ahead.

Good luck, man.

[Angel Of Death]

EA has bought out the Plants vs Zombies people. I suppose it could be worse, but its not anything good either. :/

Oh, great. They're going to fuck up Popcap's games, too.

[SalmonGod]

Best wishes to xtank... hope the treatments work.

Toonyman: 

I guess I'll be the one to say something different.  I feel like I have exactly the opposite problem.

I spent grades 3-10 going to a school where I absolutely didn't fit in.  I tried.  I tried really really really hard and was all kinds of outgoing and adventurous and tried hanging out with almost everyone, but every social situation I managed to get included in was either highly toxic or a total failure.  I had 3 younger siblings, but was too much older than them to really be friends with them.  I was incredibly lonely and spent most of my time reading books, playing video games, and exploring alone outdoors. 

I moved just after 10th grade and started developing a lot better social skills and making real friends.  My future wife also moved in with my family when I was 17 (long story -- I saved her from homelessness) and she is very very extroverted.  So by the time I graduated high school, I had exactly the opposite situation.  I was constantly interacting with people. 

It was... overwhelming... my life felt like it was hit by a train.  I was confused and exhausted all the time.  After a couple years of re-orienting myself, I began to realize how much I actually missed the majority of my time being solitary.  Then a few years ago, I began reading about the differences between introverts and extroverts and understanding a lot more about myself.  Today, I think my ideal situation would be to limit real-life social events to maybe once or twice a month... but I'm the man of a four person family now, and two of them are very obviously 100% extrovert and want my attention every moment they can get it.  I'm also trapped for the time being working in an office arranged on an open floor.  No offices or cubicles or anything separating anyone, and I have to spend 40 hours a week here minimum. 

I've grown a ton over the last 10 years.  I'm thankful for the experience... but I'm also really concerned that it's slowly killing me. 

So... I guess I just wanted to get that off my chest the same way you did, under the pretentious excuse that it might offer you some perspective    I agree with Kael and Miggy.  Get out and experiment more.  It's the only way to get to know yourself and what you really want.  Just be sure to keep your options open.  You may be depressed right now, because you're judging your own happiness by what makes other people happy or what society's idea of a healthy person is or even just because your mind has little reference by which to judge your current situation and decide whether it is good or bad.  I think there are very few people at your age who can really say.  I'm a very very self-aware type of person, and I couldn't.

[Heron TSG]

My dad was well enough to get out of the hospital and go fishing with me today. According to him, his new heart makes him feel younger than he has in twenty years.

[ChairmanPoo]

I would have thought such a thing would make you happy....

[ToonyMan]

You may be depressed right now, because you're judging your own happiness by what makes other people happy or what society's idea of a healthy person is or even just because your mind has little reference by which to judge your current situation and decide whether it is good or bad.

That's a really good point.

Anyway, I would have spoke with my parents today, but guess what they're not home and I don't have a way to contact them.  My brother is home but my brother is like the only person who actually knows me and we're fine together so it doesn't matter right now.

I hope they come home soon, it's almost 12am.

[JoshuaFH]

My cat Charlie died just the other day. He was such a good, proud cat. I'm sad that I'm simply so far away from home, so I didn't get to see a moment of his last few days.

And I'm also sad that my Mom is hospitalized again for another infection in her back wound, which I'm reminded is garish and needs constant attention and care. I'm so worried about her, but can't do anything from where I'm at. I'm furthermore reminded of my own mortality, and that of those around me. Dying and death seriously scare the shit out of me.

[Euld]

A friend posted an amusing/encouraging misquote of Vincent van Gogh, so I decided to check out the authenticity of it on Wikipedia.  If you want to feel depressed, read about van Gogh.  He suffered from mental illness all his life, and killed himself two years after he cut off his ear 

[alway]

It would appear I am unable to access libsyn podcasts for some reason. Which is quite annoying, since almost every podcast I listen to uses it. >_<

edit: Turns out it's a routing problem. Something at 24.29.160.141 is sending my packets to 24.29.164.137 which then endlessly sends them back and forth between itself and 24.29.164.134. And considering the address ends in woh.rr.com, it would appear my fail isp has indeed rolled a 1 on their networking skills.

And it seems i.imgur.com is suffering a similar fate. It goes through the same initial route, but then it gets stuck in a separate yet equally infinite routing loop in the ISP's network. That place is a god damned hall of mirrors. D:

[Vector]

Want to thank everyone.  I'm doing better today thanks to circumstances changing back past the tipping point.

I know I'm not done, though, so please bear with me.

[Aklyon]

It would appear I am unable to access libsyn podcasts for some reason. Which is quite annoying, since almost every podcast I listen to uses it. >_<

edit: Turns out it's a routing problem. Something at 24.29.160.141 is sending my packets to 24.29.164.137 which then endlessly sends them back and forth between itself and 24.29.164.134. And considering the address ends in woh.rr.com, it would appear my fail isp has indeed rolled a 1 on their networking skills.

And it seems i.imgur.com is suffering a similar fate. It goes through the same initial route, but then it gets stuck in a separate yet equally infinite routing loop in the ISP's network. That place is a god damned hall of mirrors. D:

Did you try setting your router to an alternate DNS?

[breadbocks]

Want to thank everyone.  I'm doing better today thanks to circumstances changing back past the tipping point.

I know I'm not done, though, so please bear with me.

Just keep in mind that we'll always be here for you. Only trolls have reason to dislike someone who is asking for help.