Don't know if it's depression, but i'm suffering.

Good morning everyone, I hope you all are doing well.

(First of all, excuse me in advance for the English mistakes i could do, as i am not a native speaker.)

I have been thinking about writing such a post for a long time, but always postponed it, telling myself - at least unconsciously - that "it would be acknowledging that I have a problem, and only worsen the situation. And only losers would do that anyways.". But finally, and as a last resort, I turn to you for help. Now that my little caveat is done, here's my story:

Context:

I am an 18 year old boy, in highschool, still living in his mother's basement (middle-class family, not "rich" but I never felt like we lacked money). Since I was little, I've always been successful at school, getting good grades, liked and congratulated by my teachers. Although it wasn't always the case, I have a pretty large group of good friends, including some very close ones with whom I share many good experiences and memories. Never been truly bullied, and the only pupils that weren't nice to me had all left school by the time i was 16. Haven't had a girlfriend since 2016.


What's the problem then?

Everything in my life seems great. Good grades, loving parents/teachers/friends, good socioeconomic situation, and envied by some for what I have. But it seems like something just doesn't work.

It all started in May 2018 (Before that, although I have always been subject to outbreaks of nostalgia and "existential crises", it never got too bad). I discovered that I was living a life that wasn't the one I wanted to live : addicted to pornography ( I started when I was 10 years old), I masturbated 2-6 times a day (depending on my free time) to things that disgusted me after I finished. Whilst many of my friends describe me as "muscular and sporty", I haven't been able to stick to any sort of workout routine for the last 2 years. As I said earlier, I had been celibate for 2 years, and couldn't seem to get to anything conclusive with girls (probably because I'm too shy, as not far from all the girls I've had crushes on ended up dating friends of mine) : to this day, I'm still a virgin, and around me my friends are increasingly doing it for the first time, with their significant others, most of the time the same girls I had crushes on (and that are friends with me).

Since that time, I decided to change my life, and take action. But everything failed to this day, over and over again.

My pornography addiction? Never got to more than 3 weeks without watching some. Lifting? (as this was the sport I've been most interested in for 3-4 years now) Never got back at it seriously, except for 2 months in the summer of 2018. Girls? Still none. But most importantly, I can't seem to be able to do anything.

I have been writing my feelings in a copybook for 5 months now, and if you were to read it, you would only see, each week, one or two pages of "This is the day when I choose to change my life for the better! Today will be the beginning of a new, brighter life for me!", and then, 4 to 8 days after that : "I failed. Miserably. Got back to porn, ate sh**, played video games the whole day.". And this cycle has been going on since May 2018, although I have only been "recording" it since November of that year.


Solutions I tried: (and which don't seem to work)

- Watching/reading self-help advice (Jordan Peterson, Jocko Willink, many other motivational videos and books). Every week I try to do incremental improvements in my way of life. But it's not helping much.

- Seeking help from close friends. I've talked to some of them about this lately, and their answers - although highly pleasurable and comforting - are always close to "I can relate, I've been though this. You need to take action, go out, do something. We're with you in this, and we'll always be. You're great and capable of sorting yourself out". But that doesn't change, and I don't feel like they can understand, nor like I can truly explain what I'm going through. When I tell them, I always have a deep feeling that I'm not telling them everything I should.

- Reason and self-convincing. I am completely aware that my inaction and failures are rotting me from the inside. I can feel it. It's possible to come up with dozens of logical/moral/ethical arguments that are completely valid, but none is able to truly convince me. The only thing I haven't tried yet is meditation, hypnosis and self-persuasion, but I don't think it would really help (am I wrong?).

- Some (don't want to sound preposterous) self-psychoanalysis. I've searched in my past for traumatic experiences, or behavioral patterns that could explain what I'm going through : no abusive parents/relatives. No sexual traumas. No lack of care/attention (but maybe excess thereof). No truly abusive relationships. --- I've also tried to find something in my dreams, which I'm busily writing down when I wake up, trying to understand them. But I feel like all interpretations might be completely wrong, and maybe that Freud was completely mistaken thinking that dreams made sense at all.

- Maybe it is something I inherited from my mother's side of the family? She has always been prone to strong anxiety ; her sister is alcoholic and a heavy drug- user ; her brother and father are completely mad, and ended up in asylums. But what can I do if these problems flow through my veins?

- I tried to track down any hormonal or medical conditions, but I think everything's good so far. Haven't done many tests, so I may be wrong.


The "Circle" and the "Two Ethics/States of mind":

Everytime I indulge in food/porn/games, after around 20-50 minutes of feeling good, I get -somewhat, I'm not diagnosed with depression, and don't want to misuse the term- depressed, and wonder about what is wrong in my life. It's pretty much the only thing I can do, as after eating/masturbating, I don't even have enough energy to play videogames, and it's either that or sleeping (I just slept for 12 hours and I'm in this state right now). Because I've done that for many months now, I found out some terms and expressions to describe my feelings and troubles.

First I all, I found a pattern, which I call the "Circle". Each time I'm a little bit exhausted or displeased with how my day went, I either watch some porn or play some videogames, telling myself doing it only a little bit won't hurt. It's hard not to do it, as I sometimes during the day have recurrent and intrusive thoughts about these activities. Then, after doing it, this is pretty much what I say to myself: "****, you did it again. It's dreadful that we're not able to get ourselves out of this mess. But now that we've started, why would some more hurt? It's alright, [Life should be pleasurable/you'll do better tomorrow/you already failed, why should you keep thinking you can overcome this?/some nihilistic thoughts (I'll get back to these soon)]", and it goes on.

--> This last part underlines the two ethics/states of mind that I go through in a week. At first (geneally at the beginning of the week), I truly believe that I can change my life for the better, and take action. And it all works out well : I do things that I know are good (sports/studying..) and feel great for doing these. But, when the week's over, and many times because I fail at something (last week for instance, a girl pretty much implied we would never be together as she considered me to be "like her brother". Still hurts.), I am confronted with nihilistic thoughts similar to : "And why should you continue, for life has no meaning? There's no God/transcendent being watching us, we're faillibre creatures, human beings have no purpose as individuals or as a species, and every man or woman that think they have one are fooling themselves, drowning in an ocean of delusion!". The world seems to crumble around me, and I feel shattered into pieces. That's when I repeatedly indulge in mindless instantly-gratifying although self-destructive activities, as you know now. It goes on for the whole weekend, and the cycle repeats itself. I have some suicidal thoughts, but I won't act on them. Not that they aren't sometimes appealing, but I don't have the courage and wouldn't want to hurt my family and friends. Don't worry for that.


Conclusion:

This was my story. Yes, it's pretty dense and long, and I'd like to thank you if you read it all. And even if nobody did that's okay, I needed to write it anyways. I would be lying if I said I'm not searching for a magical answer from one of you. And yes, I know there's no "magical answer", but I'm still a naive adolescent that, under a veil of preposterous reasoning and cynicism, hopes that truth is somewhere to be found.

And I know that I should maybe see a professional, but psychologists in my country are expensive, and I don't like being too much of a burden to my family (my parents separated a year ago, and, even though it's alright, we're not overwhelmed with money. And no, I really don't think this is where my problems come from, I'm really comfortable with this situation, I love them both just as they do. My father and me were never really close, so it made practically no change when he left the house. Once again, I may be wrong, but I really don't think I am, at least regarding this.) and psychiatrists.. well, my country's social security might make them not that expensive but.. 1/I would need a prescription from my family's physicist, and I don't want either him or my parents to know what's happening. And 2/I would prefer not to be put on some sort of medical drugs, like antidepressants. I'm no fan of this idea. I'm longing for a change from within, not without.

But maybe I should force myself to see one. I'm really lost.


Once again, thank you a lot for reading.