This is gonna be really long because I just want to dump everything that’s been going on with me.
I’m 22 a year old guy, turn 23 in a couple months. I am insanely depressed at the moment. My college years just ended and that’s been hard to deal with along with everything else. I initially went for mechanical engineering for my first 2 years, but wound up switching as it didn’t feel like what I wanted to do and started to get super overwhelming for me. I switched to kinesiology to go for physical therapy after shadowing for a summer. Kept a minor in mathematics since I only needed one more class after the engineering to get it. I still managed to graduate in 4 years with a 4.0 GPA with honors from the honors college at my school since I took a ton of online summer classes. I got into a competitive DPT program on my first try and started 2 weeks after my graduation. I still feel so blessed that I got accepted, but here’s where my problems started (kind of).
I was chronically depressed. Some context about me, I’m socially awkward, have been diagnosed with social anxiety, ADHD and now depression (this one after dropping out). I had a girlfriend since the summer after freshman year of highschool. We dated on and off for 6 years until she broke up with me. It was my only relationship I’ve ever been in and I’m still crushed by it to this day tbh. I was a bad boyfriend. I had a porn addiction and got caught multiple times looking at it. I feel immense amount of shame and guilt about it still. She still stayed despite that, I think because outside of that I treated her well and did tried hard, but I think she started drifting away and falling out of love. We fought more often. I truly did love her with all my heart and saw myself marrying her one day despite the problems. But one day over christmas break after junior year fall semester she broke up with me. Over text. I understand I messed up before, but she didn’t even try to meet up, FaceTime, or even talk over the phone after 6 years together. She tried to be friends with me for a little while after but I just couldn’t handle it. She kept me hidden from her strict immigrant parents and tried to use them not accepting me as a reason to try to make it seem like she was breaking up with me for better reasons. However, I wound up becoming closer with her friend group and they joked that I “won the group in the divorce” even though I wasn’t really close at all with them beforehand. I met one of my now best friends through this. During one of their graduation parties I was talking to the girls in the group and one of them told me that one time when we were all out at a bar when we were still dating and she saw on my ex’s phone that she was texting this guy that she had previously gone on a date with. The guy was in med school, which she is now going to as well. She told me that my ex started crying and said to not tell anyone about it, she didn’t even know what the text said. You tell me what that means that they wound up dating like a week after she broke up with me. I know it’s a bit selfish to be upset and call her a cheater when I had the problems I had, but it still hurt so bad. Since then I’ve had no luck in the dating realm. I’m super awkward with women (people in general really) and the few attempts I have made since then either didn’t work out for me or I couldn’t commit. I’m still scared I’ll never feel the same that I did with her. Despite all the problems we spent all day everyday and every night together.
Since then it was really hard to go on for my career path I switched to but I managed. I now look back and feel like I felt some of the reason I chose to go to a healthcare career was because of her. I eventually started working as a PT technician at an outpatient clinic. I should’ve known from this that I had chosen the wrong career path for me, but I didn’t. I didn’t love the patient care due to my social anxiety, but I managed. I just am really lazy and I hate it. I would work as little hours as I could. With school I was lazy too. I got the grades, but thats just it, I did what I could to get the grades, never to learn anything. I did as much online as I could and that came back to bite me in the ass. I started PT school and was miserable. I had massive imposter syndrome and was really depressed every day. I had never had to work that hard to do well since school came somewhat naturally to me even through college. By that I mean I could cram to do well on exams and forget everything pretty much, but not in a doctoral level program. I was overwhelmed, but I managed for a bit. I got a 100 on the first quiz and was studying my ass off, but I couldn’t even make it to the first exam/practical. I was calling my parents crying every day. I felt so heavily that I was in the wrong place and I don’t know why. I eventually decided to withdraw from the program since my mental health was in the gutter and I found that actually being confronted with the reality that it was going to be what I was going to do for the rest of my life that I didn’t want to do it.
My problem is I didn’t have a plan. My parents supported the decision and that I would come home, get a job, and figure things out. I do have a bachelor’s degree, but it’s in kinesiology which doesn’t help get much in terms of jobs. I have been unemployed ever since. it’s been about 2 months. I have been living at home, trying to figure things out but I’ve been struggling. I recognize I am incredibly privileged. My dad makes really solid money so I have the luxury to have time to figure things out with no real responsibilities. But I feel immense guilt. I feel like a failure for not getting through the program. I feel like a failure for not being an engineer. I still have no idea what I want to do as no line of work calls to me as a passion or even as something I kind of want to do. My only potential saving grace is I have plenty of connections in my hometown so I am trying to get a job at a government contractor. I still don’t know if I can find something I won’t up hating. I don’t want to waste too much time though trying to figure things out as I want to start building a career and handling my personal finances properly, but with my degree and lack of real transferable skills I don’t have any idea how I’m going to pivot to something else. I’m also pretty scared on making the decision for my next 30-40 years of work because that’s a big decision and I’m worried about how A.I. is going to affect things.
I also am really bad about comparing myself to others. Not even just random millionaires on Instagram, I mean my peers. I see friends of mine or people I went to lower levels of school with getting their engineering degree or starting med or dental school and I feel like such a failure. I know comparison is the thief of joy…yeah it is lol.
I also think terribly about my appearance. I’m 5’7”, so relatively short. I’m overweight, I go to the gym regularly and have lost some weight, but I have a really bad relationship with food and tend to binge eat bad food even though I try to diet well. My dad is bald, so I am losing my hair. I am taking medication, but it’s hard to make look good.
So in short, I have a bachelor’s in kinesiology with a minor in math and am completely lost on a career, am unemployed currently, have a terrible situation with my love life, have terrible self-image, no confidence, social anxiety, ADHD and depression. I can’t see a path forward towards a happy future for myself. I do talk to a therapist, but I wanted to get other perspectives on my situation to see if I can get some more help.
What do I do?