I'm 24 years old, male, had my first anxiety symptoms around when I was 18, although it's been about a year since my last anxiety attacks happened.

You probably wouldn't notice it when you look at me, thinking I could be just like any other slightly awkward person you could meet. Ever since I was in elementary school, I had to deal with constant bullying that only grew as the years passed, at home things were not much better, which led me to believe I really had no one to go to, not only I would be verbally and physically abused at school but at home the psychological damage was worse, someone decided that I was the one to blame on, and if the subject of bad things happening at school ever came out it was quickly labeled as my own fault, I grew up thinking that there was something bad with me, that I wasn't good enough, that I didn't deserve good things to happen to me, I remember many nights as a kid literally crying to sleep because I really had no one to fall back on, thinking about it I was probably depressed through most of my youth years, but of course I never even knew that word then, I just thought that was the way life was supposed to be, that being an actual punching bag was just my place, I dreaded recess because at the time all the boys apparently had to play some sport that I of course was terrible at, I wasn't picked last, I just wasn't picked, I dealt with constant rejection all those years, which just made me isolated, I remember since very young, say 6 or 7, just looking at the girls and how they weren't made to play but instead they were just sitting and talking and eating and laughing and just having a good time, I don't remember if I ever experienced any gender identity disorders before this, but at the time I kept wishing I could just be a girl, going to bed every night praying that I could just wake up a girl, thinking how much better my life would be, maybe it was just my experience at the time, maybe it wasn't I never had anyone to talk to about that kind of stuff.

Since I never had many friends at school I focused on the subjects a lot, I was the smart kid in my class, always doing my homework, studying, straight As became the usual, which didn't help with making friendships either, my relatives would regularly praise my parents on what a good job they had done with me, and everytime I tried to tell my side of the story, they wouldn't hesitate on telling me how apparently ungrateful and bad person I was, I remember feeling incredibly frustrated because nobody would listen to me, but somehow I always told myself that one day all of this would be over, that one day I would look back and be glad that I was strong to go through everything as a child, that I would be proud of myself.

High school wasn't actually that bad, I had a girlfriend for a while and the years passed by fast. Then I worked my way up to a crappy college, while many people I knew got sent to expensive universities in their brand new cars, I would ride a 1 hr bus every day, thinking that everything would be worth it, that I was almost at the end of the tunnel, that sooner than later things would change for the best, here is when my anxiety kicked in worse than ever forcing me to take days off to get myself together, I got medicated about this time as well but after exactly 1 day my doctor said to stop taking the pills because they weren't really gonna help, and I could do it on my own, so I tried and soon enough I graduated and went on looking for a job finding nothing but extremely entry level jobs, I'd work up to 10-11 hours a day for a salary that wouldn't excite your average walmart employee, I did great but since there was no future for me there I was forced to quit, deciding I would go back to school to expand my horizons and that's where I'm at now.

And I know people always say, well life is not supposed to be fair, or anything along those lines, and I agree, I never asked to be a millionaire, to be famous, to be indestructible.

The thing is that after 25 years, it's my birthday in a couple weeks, I feel like I've accomplished nothing even though I know I have done things many people are just not capable of, I feel that I have nothing, I still live at home since I have nowhere to go, I feel that what I told myself all my life, wasn't true at the end, or at least not yet, that things aren't really getting better as time passes by, that there was not really a light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like life is just asking me to keep going but every end I see is just a product of my imagination, now more than ever I feel hopeless, I feel like no matter what else I try, what else I do better, at the end of the day life is just gonna laugh at me as it has done all these years, I have no motivation, I don't want to wake up to see my failures every day, to not see anything that I can be proud of, to see myself, I don't like me, I feel that now more than ever I just don't want to live a life in which I'm not happy, in which time has proven me that I can't be happy, that after all these years good things are still not allowed to happen to me, that I don't deserve them, and to me it feels incredibly frustating, because I am not a bad person, I know I am a good person, I like to do good things for those few around me, I like whenever I can find a way to make someone happy, I've always believed that if you are a good person then good things should happen to you, like karma, but somehow I'm realizing that even if I keep hope and one day things actually start changing for me, it's gonna be too late, I just cannot erase all those young years of my life, what is supposed to be your happiest stage in life wasn't even close to that, I'm feeling that it isn't worth it anymore, that wishful thinking is not worth a life of dissapointment, that I would be better off dead, that at least that way I wouldn't feel bad anymore, that I have nothing to lose, to me right now the future looks dimmer than ever before, I can hear the shortness of my breath as I type.

I still think it's not fair that I take my life just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that I could've thrived had I been a little bit lucky, I want to believe that it was never my fault, that the reason for my existance was not for others to have someone to make themselves feel better, but somehow it isn't working anymore, and I don't know what else to do.