Special thanks to Jig, McIntyre, Cama, Gorui, and X for their thoughts...everyone has given great advice but their posts (and PMs especially) have really rang true and I've spent a lot of time thinking about them.
I'm going to try my best to keep on living and get myself out of this funk. I've never been a quitter, I just want to start kicking some ass in the game of life. I've been down and out for too long..
Five years ago, I was on top of the world. It was spring quarter of my senior year, and I was at the one of the biggest party schools in the country. The beer was flowing, the trees were blowing, and the girls were hot, young, and (for the most part) pretty easy. However, anxiety started setting in. I had spent five years in college, was on the verge of finishing my second major, and still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Then, an idea hit me. It was something that I felt was truly amazing, and so did many people around me. I pushed myself to total sleep deprivation trying to develop this idea.
It turns out that the sudden rush of energy I was feeling was a result of a manic episode and not some other force. Next thing I know, I'm in the psych ward of the hospital getting tests done. After I left the hospital where I was diagnosed as bipolar, I had the privilege of going back to live with my parents in my hometown I didn't like in the first place (much like you described). I sunk into depression because I had no friends that still lived in town, I wasn't sure if I'd have to go back to school and retake the classes I had left, was continually getting calls from friends asking where I was, and so on and so forth. As a side effect of one of the prescriptions and most likely the depression as well, I found myself rapidly gaining weight (when I left school I was 200 lbs, at my peak I reached 290).
I was insanely self-conscious about the fact that I was bipolar, and it was mostly due to the negative stigma that people attach to the disorder. In my experience, if you tell someone who doesn't know you at all that you're bipolar, this look comes over their face that essentially says "get away from me you psycho." The weight gain completely wiped out any remaining self-esteem I had. I had no job, I had few friends, and to be honest I really saw no way that it would get better. I'm not really sure what triggered it, but after damn near two-and-a-half years, I finally said enough is enough. It took almost nine months, but I was able to lose all 90 lbs with regular exercise and a better diet. Obviously this did loads for my self-confidence and got me in a much better state of mind. I was able to actually focus more and put my mind into finding a job/internship/whatever. Again, it didn't happen instantly, but I was able to find something in a field I'm interested in.
Although our situations are much different, everyone has things that they need to do every single day to keep themselves moving forward. Believe me, when I was sitting at my parents house, 90 lbs over-weight, with no job, no money, no friends, and seemingly no real hope for that to change, I was ready to throw in the towel. However, there was something pushing me to not become just another statistic in a mental health brochure. I wanted to be able to show other people affected by bipolar that you can come back and do what you want to with your life, no matter if you find yourself in the shitter.
I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I've definitely hit what I felt was rock bottom. Could it have been worse? Of course. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel like the lowest place in the world when you're in the situation. All I can say is there is one major positive about hitting rock bottom: life can only get better. Try to be as optimistic as possible. It sounds cliche, but the more positive you are, the more positive things tend to happen to you. If you're always assuming that things are going to get worse or that something terrible is going to happen, you likely aren't going to be ready to pounce when those positive opportunities arise.
