Riot it's my Birthday Today

Hello all it's my 24th birthday today, Thursday May 21st. Over the last few days I have been thinking over my life and have decided to ask for something else instead of a game with a Rioter, I want some life advice.

A little about me,

My name is Jason, I went to college for 2 years for a computer programming and computer game design degree at DSU in SD. During that time I was one of the top students of my classes in all of my programming classes and had an average of a B in most of my other courses. This faltered during my fourth semester as I was informed that I would have no place to live shortly after the semester as my family (mother) was retiring and moving. Seeing as I would have no place to live I was more concerned about finding an apartment and job around the college. Roughly 2 months before the end of the semester I was informed that I would not be able to continue my studies at college due to not having a cosigner for student loans as my parents were both retired. Following the semester I found an apartment and was working ~75hrs a week between two jobs just to make rent and pay my school loans, this lead to me moving in with my sister in another town to cut costs down and transferring to a different store in the company.

At present I make $.25 more than the starting pay for my position despite working at the company for 8 years now, my pay is $.75 less than the entry position pay at Walmart where I live for the night shift (which I work). I work (on the clock) for around 44hrs a week and another ~6hrs off the clock helping my coworkers and other departments in my store to make things easier for them if possible. What irritates me the most about this is the other employee who holds the same position as me has only worked for the company 9 months and is making the same wage as I am, while he is constantly being told by my superiors to step up or leave as he takes more than twice as long to do the same amount of work as I do.

During college I had a similar issue wherein during our Game design courses/labs we were put into teams to work on projects, on these teams (except for game jam) I was the only real jack of all trades we had and the only programmer on the team. I was usually the only one who worked on the project for any extended period of time to the point of putting in 40+ hrs a week just on the project on top of coursework and classes. Because of this other groups who worked better together got much better grades on the projects and had farther along game prototypes. While most people would feel proud of the work they did on their own, I only felt regret and despair as I was not able to do good enough despite the setbacks. To this day when someone else accomplishes something I can't all I feel is crushing defeat and worthlessness.

In order to try to get my life on track I have done some drastic things these last six months. I went to a psychiatrist in order to get rid of my severe depression and gain some confidence, though this instead made things worse as I soon found that my insurance doesn't cover anything psychological and I received a bill for $500 each month for the 2 months that I went to counseling, of which I am still paying. Following that I tried to change my perspective on things and changed my username and cut most of my ties to who I was previously to rediscover myself this lead to me choosing to leave all my online friends I had, so I could work on reteaching myself programming and 3D modeling without distraction and not bother them if I failed. Alas my own insecurities and inferiority complex has made it so that I was not able to get far without wallowing in despair as I wasn't making fast enough progress to keep up with my expectations.

So for that I apologize to Omnipresentrage, Sirziggsalot, Vesgoth, and Ranmari.

I am at present planning on leaving the town I am in and moving back to the city where I was before and seeing how things go there. This is mostly due to never having had any real friends that I could hangout with my whole life (online friends excluded). All the people I thought were my friends when I was younger all just used me for things and whenever I had trouble they abandoned me as soon as they could. I feel as if I may be able to find some people who can be my friends when I move as there is a gaming lounge there that I visited and had a decent time in talking to the people there.

I feel as if my problems with social anxiety and fear of being betrayed or abandoned have made me very antisocial and it's why I will not get anywhere in the world as I have no contacts from which I can reference for interviews or insight into things. This coupled with my not wanting to make anything more difficult for those I do know makes it so I have no one whom to turn to or seek advice from. It may have been predestined that I would never get anywhere in the gaming industry as I am not a fast typist and have trouble making myself stick out from the crowd.

I need some advise on what to do with my life as I am at a dead end and am losing faith in myself even more day by day. I feel that I don't contribute to this world and am just making life harder for other by merely living.

I will be on probably tomorrow as I have to head to work now so I won't reply until then for those who read this.