What Is Wrong With Me?

[mablisaki]

Its no emergency but it seems like I feel like crap all the time. I don't contemplate suicide or anything like that. Sometimes I feel like a wave of sadness washes over me and I can't help with tearing up. Things seem to be getting worst. Maybe I should start at the beginning...
I've always had self esteem issues when I was a child. My older brother making fun of me and beating the living crap out of me and my sister everyday didn't help. My parents reaction was just that’s what brothers and sisters do. I hate that Bar steward to this day and love my sister with all my heart. Well with no friends all through out elementary school and middle school I found a strange niche in high school and became a little bit popular along with tons of drugs alcohol, and deviate behavior. I'm surprised I was never arrested or died.
After dropping out of high school my life was going nowhere so I joined the Army to prove my manhood to myself. After all my training I was home on leave and started having panic attacks in public places. At the mall one time I had to leave because all I could hear was my heart and blood and my vision tunneling. After my leave was up I was sent to Korea and I spent 2 years there. I never had a panic attack while I was there and felt completely safe and comfortable in crowds in Seoul. Except when I visited home I could hardly make my self-leave my parent's house. I would get this foreboding sense of doom, and feel like I was going to get shot.
While I was in Korea I met this girl online and ended up marrying her when I was home on leave. After my second tour was up I was sent back to the U.S. for my last year in the army. As soon as I got out of the Army and wanted to go to college instead of working full time she divorced me. I bought her a house and I think she was just using me so she could get financed through the V.A. with a good interest rate.
That was a year ago. I've started college and am doing extremely well in my classes. I've gotten to the point where I hate to go out in public and refuse to leave my house except for class. I am angry all the time and i never use to be this way. Everything makes me mad and my 2 friends have stopped hanging out with me much because I think I drive them crazy. I'm sarcastic and cynical about everything. I can't stand for people to look at me. I've been in college for 2 semesters now and haven't made any friends. If i go to the bar with the 2 friends I have, I have to leave if its too crowded because I get that foreboding sense of doom. I'm getting to the point where it is hard to get out of bed because I know as soon as I get up I'm going to get mad.
The last time I left my house was on mass to go to my parent's house. Other than that I haven't left except to go to the grocery store in a month. Even when I go the grocery store I go at weird times like 3 in the morning so I don't have to be around people.
What is wrong with me? Do I need to go back to Korea or maybe join the Army again. I hope not. I was miserable the entire time I was in. No one likes me very much, but before you say that’s b.s. Like my parents, I've tested it. At school I've tried talking to people but always get those polite don't talk to me answers when I try to start a conversation. Oh well, I just want to feel good. No one takes me serious about my feelings when I tell them so I have to resort to the anonymity of the Internet for some form of help.
Maybe I just need someone to vent to. I don't know.

[potor]

I am sorry to hear your life has been so hectic and full of issues.
You seem to be on the right path by going back to school and supporting yourself.
However it does sound to me like you might be suffering from depression and/or a social phobia to some degree.
I wonder, and I understand it is not easy, if you can talk to your GP about your feelings and possible get some counseling.
There is a depression questionnaire in this room as well that you could take and print out to take to your doctors appointment.

[joung]

I do think it is time to talk to someone about these feelings and about your extreme discomfort outside of your own house. There are probably treatment options available through both your school and through the VA. Unfortunately, the longer that this pattern of withdrawing from the world continues, the more ingrained the pattern becomes.

I think we can all understand how difficult it is to reach out and ask for help. Many of us have struggled with that decision too. But there is help out there! You don't have to go on feeling this way.