I recognize a lot of what you say. Seems I've said a lot of those things myself. I happen to agree with a lot of your sentiments.

When I was young - like you - I knew that I was shy and lonely and unhappy. It took a few more years before I identified myself as "depressed." In a way, that helped. In a way, it didn't. People will tell you that you have a medical condition and that it is treatable and that doctors are the ones who can help you. I don't look at it that way.

Medication has helped me, mainly because it rectified a huge problem I had with insomnia. I did have to get that from a doctor, naturally. After years of hearing about my medical condition, I've gone back to thinking that my main problem was that I was shy.

I think you're right in identifying that as a root of a lot of your difficulty. My guess is that you are probably very intelligent, as well. Unfortunately, that often complicates shyness. A lot of things you could do with people just don't interest you. A lot of people just don't interest you. You're probably prone to getting bored easily. Just my guess. I may be wrong.

Would medical help and therapy make life better for you? I'll give it to you straight. Probably not much. Does that mean that you are just going to stay feeling the way you do? Again, I'll give it to you straight. It's apt to get even worse.

At your age I just couldn't find anything that I really felt like doing. Man, that was so depressing. My parents weren't the type I could talk to about it, either, as you describe. In fact, they were very unsympathetic and let me more-or-less know that they thought I was a loser. That made me want to move out; so I got a job (a very lowly job) and I moved out.

Ever since then, basically, my life has been a struggle to support myself. At times, though, it has seemed pretty decent, with frequent depressive episodes. When I was working, or furthering my education, or doing something of value to someone, life sucked a lot less. So, if you have managed to start working, you are probably on the right track. It is hard, at age 19, to accept that life is hard, most jobs suck, and most people will be miserable to be around from time to time. The typical 19 year old doesn't dream that that is how life is. That's why I think you are intelligent. I think you've basically figured that out. That is discouraging.

You can have happiness, now and then. That's about all anyone gets. You have to do something of value and be kind to people around you. At the same time, you have to avoid getting overly suckered and don't let just everyone waste your time whenever they feel like doing so. You have to be sweet and hard-as-nails at the same time. Does being shy make it harder? Yeah. It does. It can make it awful hard. That is really extremely unfair, and life doesn't care. If you were born missing an arm, or a leg, that would make life harder, too. You'ld have the same choice: try harder, or miss out. Did I mention that Life Doesn't Care?

Is there some treatment that will get rid of the shy-thing? No. But there are people earning their livelihood claiming that there is. You can help line their pockets, if you care to. You can take beta-blocker drugs. You can go to therapy for insight. You can get a diagnosis from a psychiatrist. After doing all that, as I did, you'll still be shy. It's awful to be lonely. It's about the worst thing there is. Escaping that is very hard for a shy person. It takes prolonged, sustained effort. It's a war you never win, once and for all. You just keep fighting it. But you do win battles, and you get to know some good fun now and then. It's just hard-won. You can even get to be wise and understanding because you aren't able to take a lot of ordinary things for granted, as others can.