yeah...sounds like depression. It's brutal. Merciless. A filter on your perception of the world that can make everything and everyone dark and ugly. I can't speak to the circumstances of your life, but i know depression. I used to romanticize it...treat it like it was mysterious and beautiful. Now i just hate it. I'm a veteran (marine corps) and i spent most of my life thinking that counseling and medication were for the weak and crazy. I was too much of a bad *** to surrender to that. I came home from iraq disgusted with humanity. Every time i would get a "thank you for your service" i'd feel rage. I'd want to choke the living **** out of the person. I'd think "**** off, you complacent, protected piece of ****". The feelings you describe, "bored, helpless, miserable, alone, scared, ashamed, confused, and depressed," that was my life...all day, every day. Interaction with other human being felt abrasive...like trying to rub sand paper on my eyeballs. I got accepted to an ivy league university on the new gi bill...that means a full ride (tuition and books covered) plus a paycheck ($2700/month), and still, all i could feel was that sense of isolation, loneliness, and misery. It was the chance of a lifetime and i realized that, if i didn't change something, it was all going to go up in flames.

I finally got some help and went on meds.

It was startling. It took about a month on meds, but the depression just lifted. I didn't become happy. I just didn't have that negative filter anymore. I was able to think about the thing that i wanted to think about instead of the things the depression compelled me to think about. I took courses in behavioral neuroscience while i was in school (columbia university), and began to understand how what i was feeling had less to do with "character" or "willpower" than with brain chemistry. I suggest reading up on "rumination" (google the wiki on it). It's the compulsive thoughts about the things that only make the depression worse. Reading up on seligman's experiments in conditioned pessimism might provide insightful too (particularly the ideas about seeing things as "personal", "permanent", and "pervasive"). It did for me.

Depression creates a catch-22, a no-win situation. Exercise, social interaction, good diet, hobbies (spelled distractions)...these are the things that are recommended to stave off the depression...and, of course, they are the things it is damn near impossible to take care of when you're depressed. Medication can help...you just have to get past the stigma...and that's no small matter.

Best of luck. Don't romanticize the depression...hate it. Kick its ***. And **** anybody who gives you grief for dealing with it however you have to.