Anxiety, Depression and Feeling Like Shit on My Birthday

Hey, just a bit of introduction. My name is Yeltsin Lima, I am from Brazil. Today is my birthday and I am feeling like a piece of shit. Not because I am 27 years old now, but because of something more. I am 27 years old with nothing.

Discovering Anxiety and Depression

I discovered I had anxiety sometime ago when I smoked a bit of hashish. The problem was not the drug itself, my first doctor said: "The hashish didn't cause anxiety on you, it just made it big". I started to treat my anxiety with Rivotril 2mg. I don't know if the dosage is the same in the US or Europe, but for someone who never took this kind of pills, it sure made me feel like a zombie.

I always had the feeling like I am not worthy. When I was a teenager, I always wanted to find my true friends. I sometimes asked my friends "Are you my true friend?". And it caused a feeling of strangeness.

Because the drugs I had to take, I was fired from two jobs. The jobs were very mechanical, I had to make some things with spreadsheets and the real problem was not only that, it was because I had to work at home. Since the Rivotril (drug name Clonazepam) was very heavy, I fell asleep a lot of times when I was working. It was hard to explain the reasons, it's hard to say: Hey, I was sleeping because I was very high on Rivotril. So I simply accepted the boss reasons.

Also, a bit sorry for my English. I'm using Grammarly to try to make some sense, but sometimes you can't understand very well since I never did a "formal English course", I learned English on my own.

Why I have depression?

I am gay. Basically, that is the reason. First, my family didn't accept my sexuality. It was a nightmare when they discovered. They basically outed me, I wasn't sure if I was gay, bi or straight. I had some experience visiting web chats like "Uol" (it's basically a porn web chat).

My first experience with gay sex online was when I was 8 years old. Yes, very young I know. My parents discovered some strange search on Yahoo (Google was not very popular in Brazil at that time), basically searches related to the male genitalia.

Since I was 12, I think, I had experience doing some shit things on the webcam for random people at web chats. Sometimes I wonder: that's probably some video mine at the darkest corner of the internet...

I was never open to other people offline. Online I was a very different person. When I started to take the pills to depression, I became I very different person: both online and offline. When I was 20 years old, probably, I had a relationship with a young guy (not so young, please). I remember that I had to travel to São Paulo for a geek convention and I said to my ex-boyfriend: "Hey, I have to broke up with you because I will travel to another state and there is a good chance I will betray you".

I had an instant regret feeling. I tried to call him but he refused the calls. I was so mad about what I did, that I took some Rivotril and I drunk a lot of alcohol. You may think: oh, he slept a lot. But no, that was not what this combination did. I became very drunk. And I did shit things with shit people that I regret so much, that you can't imagine.

For some months, I became almost cured of both anxiety and depression. And then I discovered I had a disease. A DST.

HPV

I am not afraid of telling the public that I had HPV. HPV is common knowledge as a disease that affects women only. But some scientists say this:

Data show that approximately 3–4 million cases of genital warts in men occur each year with a peak rate of 500 per 100,000 in the 25 – 29-year-old group.

I was in the 25 - 29-year-old group. Probably less, I think, but still very close to this stats. When I discovered it felt like a knife hurting my body, my heart. My depression became 20 times worse, my anxiety exploded. No medication had an effect that time. And when I had to do some exams to see if I had HIV or not, I became paralyzed. I freaked out. The result came, and it was negative. I drunk so much that day.

Why I am feeling like shit on my birthday?

This introduction was to explain why the feeling of shit. I sometimes always compare myself with others. For example, I compare myself with my best friend.

We did the almost the same college (the same place, but different courses), but back then I was more successful than him. My salary was close to R$1.200 (something like $400). His salary was R$800 (something like $267). It maybe is not that much in dollars but in Brazilian Reais is a very big difference.

My first depression and anxiety problem were after I entered this college. No, the problem was not the college, was what I did when I was at the college. Besides the drug, I also become almost alcoholic. Every day I stopped next to the bar (there is a lot of bars close to some private colleges) and I start to drink a lot.

I can blame the depression, the anxiety or anything else. But the real problem was me. I was feeling totally unworthy of life. I didn't want to live anymore, because my life sucked. I had money, but I didn't have friends or a sense of "I need to live for".

I never did an objective thing for my life. For example, my goal was: nothing. Really, nothing. I never tried GTD, for example. The maximum I tried was Pomodoro.

Fast forward to today, I don't have any fixed income. Some months I can earn R$2.000, some months I earn nothing. My friend is now CTO of a company and earning two to three zeros. He now lives alone and I still live with my parents, I do have a company but is registered as an individual company (in Brazil the company system is a little bit complicated. For example, the LLC in the US can be similar to LTDA. but it's more complex and more expensive. There is also EIRELI, MEI and ME. The MEI type of company can only earn the maximum of R$81.000 per year). My friend also has the latest premium car and I use UberX with my dad credit card.

I have tried to learn some new programming languages, but my brain simply can't learn new things. Actually, I can learn, but I will distract my self very easily.

This post can easily seem like someone crying on a new social network for likes or for attention. Maybe it is. Maybe isn't. I just wanted to write this to take this feeling of myself.

One music that can explain my feelings right now is I Am Changing by DreamGirls.

Look at me, Look at me
I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am

Sorry everyone for this post, really sorry :(