I’m trying to work the nerve up to actually post this somewhere where my family can see it:

I know it’s frowned upon by most of my family members to do a cry for help like this through Facebook and I wish I could do it some other way but I am so fundamentally broken in the head I am literally incapable of expressing these kinds of thoughts and fears and vulnerabilities to anyone’s face.  The minute I’m in front of a parent or sibling or even best friend who might be able to help me I clamp up and put on a stiff upper lip and tell myself I can handle it on my own and I really don’t have any right to complain because my life isn’t that hard and other people have it so much worse than me.  On top of all that I’m terrified at how they’ll react if I let them see how fucked up I really am.

But things are bad.  Really really bad.  There’s no good reason for them to be so bad.  I have no excuse, no right, no explanation.  But for months now I have accomplished nothing, made no money, my bills are piling up and the stress is always there in a ball in the back of my mind and no matter how much I berate myself and try to motivate myself to change it’s like I’m trapped screaming in a body that won’t listen.  I tried to draw for an hour, I got a little bit done and then I fell into such a crippling existential depression that I had to go lay down and then the guilt and worries and shame and fear all piled on so hard I couldn’t sleep and now I’m feeling like there’s a genuine danger that suicide will start looking like a more attractive option than continuing to FAIL at pulling myself out of the deeper and deeper grave I’m digging.

I think I need professional help, but I have no money, my family has no money.  I have no car, no credentials, no job prospects out of the house-of-cards I’ve built for myself doing something I love and I can’t even get myself to do that anymore.  I work a job doing something I dreamed of doing my entire teen years and what’s more I’ve got a boss who is friendly and understanding and co-workers who are creative and wonderful and inspiring and everything should be great but it’s not.  I can’t bring myself to do my job day after day, I find something, anything to do instead and drown myself in it until it’s too late to get anything done and I tell myself I’ll make up for it tomorrow but I never do.  I never ever fucking do.

This problem’s been going on for years and it’s gotten substantially worse in the past few.  I need help but I’m so terrified of facing the reactions to this I’m afraid I won’t even be able to post it.  After 20 minutes go by I’ll have calmed down from the immediate panic and be telling myself things won’t be so bad.  If people call me to ask me what’s wrong I’ll try to brush it off and say I was just overreacting.  Maybe I am.  I just can’t tell anymore.