I live with my parents and talk to them regularly.

>>60965
age?

Doesn't really bother or affect me, so I don't know what to say. I guess it's related to the lockdown stuff, but that was already how I lived

>>60966
well over 18...

>how you feeling?
Bad.
>You doing alright?
No.

I think about killing myself pretty often due to life circumstances but never to the extent that I would follow through. The only time I've gotten close to understanding the mindset of someone who would follow through was during a week long migraine -- it was to the point that I couldn't even sleep more than a few hours before being woken up from the pain. I'm not sure I'd say I have depression, but things that I would typically enjoy, I just don't -- not really. The only times I do things like watch anime or play games is because the desire to complete them, so I don't really play games or watch anime anymore. I'm certainly not sad or anything. My anxiety is pretty bad, but it's gotten better; I somehow traded social anxiety for health anxiety, which wasn't exactly a fair trade. Every so often I have panic attacks and think I have some illness, and go to the ER but after so many times of doing that it put strain on my parent's finances since I'm still on their insurance. I'm pretty sure I have an issue with my parathyroid, but I'd need to go to a doctor a few times, get bloodwork done, and have surgical intervention, but obviously that would cost tons of money. My new coping mechanism is just accepting that I'm going to die so if I start freaking out I just tell myself I'm going to die anyways; this helps with the guilt about medical debt -- it'd probably be cheaper with me dead than going to a doctor. My family is the type to forgo going to the doctor even for serious stuff like pneumonia so even when I'm justified in going to the doctor, I get rude remarks.

The pandemic really fucked over my mental health in general, which in turn has fucked over my life, but hey? Who's got money for a therapist and medication? At my current rate, I'll probably either end up homeless or a NEET in a few years. The wildcard scenario is that I'm pretty sure my father is suicidally depressed and is planning to kill himself, but he's also an insane conservative prepper with a gun stash, so he may kill my whole family at some point.

>I've noticed depression and mental illness become more normalized.
Yeah. Most people I talk with online have brain problems as well. It depends though. There's generally 3 types of people: 1. Suppresses it and doesn't mention anything unless directly asked 2. Masks their problems behind irony 3. Insane people; varies on the level of insanity. Some just bemoan their life situation constantly, others actively create problems for themselves and others.

The kids are not alright.

Can't say I've ever really felt effected by it as badly as others seem to. For me I feel more freedom and fulfillment from internet discussion than from talking with real people. Since whenever I'm talking with people in person with very few exceptions its more a task of trying to play a game of socialite where I need to say something or discern intentions and I hate that. It's so much easier to just go on the net and speak my mind to my wonderful friend Anonymous who's always willing to talk about whatever.

Although I will say that as time has gone on Anonymous even has begun to feel a bit distant at times and I wonder if the ever-increasing grasp of social media is poisoning people's minds to make them treat the internet as just another social game instead of a break from all the world's woes.

>>60971
>The only time I've gotten close to understanding the mindset of someone who would follow through was during a week long migraine -- it was to the point that I couldn't even sleep more than a few hours before being woken up from the pain
I also consider myself a person that's fairly resilient to thoughts of death, but yeah migraines are the one thing where even I start to crack at the seams because of just how mind-bendingly awful they can be.

>how you feeling? You doing alright?
not great.
i don't have any irl friends to talk to, i can't drive, and i'm NEET currently, which normally wouldn't bother me too much since i don't really like people or the idea of working, but in comes another problem is that i live in a single-parent household. my mom takes all of her anger issues out on me; verbal abuse, weird mood swings, weed addiction, gaslighting, among other things. a lot of this has gone on for as long as i can remember since my dad left, but it got worse and worse the closer i got to becoming a legal adult. she even badmouths me to her friends and family, to the point where my reputation among them is poor because they all think i'm some abusive parasite that makes things worse by existing and being the product of an abusive ex. my mom told me that "there's something wrong with you" in response to me not really wanting to connect with either side of my family, since my mom's side more or less despises me because of her, and my mom's effectively cut me off from my dad's side before miraculously having a change of heart and urging me to get in contact with people i haven't spoken to since i was 6. i ask my mom's side of the family for help, i really wanted to stay at my grandmother's, since she owns a decent house, lives close enough to various facilities in town so i could walk to work if need be, and people staying with her can't be an issue, because she lets pretty much every other member of the family stay there whenever they need to, but i apparently just don't deserve that charity; the last time i asked, every adult in the family except my grandmother told me no. i guess if i ever need help, i better not even think of going to my family for anything.
i was diagnosed with depression at 17, though looking back, i cam recall having bouts of low energy, (mild) suicidal ideation, feelings of hopelessness and "i think everyone would be better off without me" as far back as 8. i've realized that exercise, a better diet, and a good sleep schedule keeps my emotions in check, but those first two aren't an option anymore, since my method of getting exercise without leaving the house broke, and my mom caused a scene in the middle of a walmart when i tried asking for salad mix. constantly being on-edge because i heard a door open somewhere so there's a non-zero chance that my mom will walk in on me and remind me of how much of an ungrateful lazy waste of effort her only son was also contributes to things.
i also have trouble enjoying things that i'd normally enjoy. for example, recently i wanted to play through this one RPG, but then i noticed its sequel was coming out soon and i didn't have the money for it. i tell my mom a whole month in advance that i need $60 to buy a game, and ask her to ask around to see if there's any housework that anyone in the family can let me do for some money (and also an allowance for doing housework for her, since i already always do that). i also offer to sell some of my own belongings, if she'll drive me to a pawn shop/secondhand video game store. she says she'll "think about it". a month passes, and she does fuck all except be weirdly passive-aggressive whenever i bring it up, make plans but then backpedal or outright lie to get out of having to commit and then blame me for plans falling through, or start screaming at me for offering to sell my own things. she also wholeheartedly suggests that i walk across town to ask if places were hiring. so then it becomes apparent that "i'm not getting this thing that i've been looking forward to for the past month", and now i've lost the motivation to do anything that i'd enjoy.
that's my situation, anyway. one thing that gives me solace aside from daydreaming about stabbing my mom to death is imagining what it'll be like when i eventually leave all of these people behind and totally cut off all contact with them.
>Thoughts?
well, i don't know how you'd solve a loneliness epidemic, outside of state mandating that everyone spend time with each other. when i was in middle/high school, my problem was that my mom just wouldn't let me spend time with friends after school, but when i was in college, it seemed like nobody was interested with spending time with each other outside of class. it could be that i just wasn't looking in the right places, or maybe it was simply that nobody wanted to be friends with me, but still, how would do you force people to not be lonely?
i don't know if i'd quite say i feel lonely. having a girlfriend, having a small, tight-knit group of friends to have sleepovers and play games with, and/or having a daughter are all things i fantasize about semi-often, and i'd be lying if i said i didn't feel melancholy over it sometimes, but out of all of my problems and fears, being alone isn't really at the top of the list. i don't mind talking to people over the internet (if i don't think they're annoying, anyway). kissu is pretty neat.

>>60976
>$60 to buy a game
Do you need helping pirating stuff? No one with money trouble has to buy games

Sometimes I wonder if the epidemic really is loneliness and not anxiety about the future for one's life. It makes me ponder what potential policies could possibly be put in place that'd make people's lives exponentially better, or rather help them turn around their life. Like say there was a policy that you could receive $20k, but only once in your lifetime. For those in a real bind I feel like that'd probably do wonders to help them pull themselves out of a hopeless situation and potentially turn their lives around. Although the actual feasibility of it would sadly be nonexistent because of the obvious negatives it'd have as an actual policy greedy people could take advantage of.

>>60978
my physical game collection is one of the few things on this planet that gives me bliss, a moment of reprieve in this hurricane we call life.
that, and it comes with an artbook and cd. a character designer i really like worked on the game, so it'd just be nice to physically have.
i can pirate, i'd just rather not, especially when the physical version has stuff i care about.

>>60979
More than a one-time cash injection, universal basic income could be an actual solution that allows people to live on the bare minimum without needing to work. If people did aspire for more in life there'd always be opportunities available and people could afford to fail a bit here and there trying to do more.

>>60976
>college
did you finish your degree anon?

>>60985
nope. dropped out.

>>60981
Oh, yeah, I can understand the appeal of that stuff. I love instruction books, but I don't think many games come with those any more these days. the last physical game I bought was probably Dungeon Travelers 2 which came with a little mini-calendar.

Seems like utter bullshit to me. In my experience, loneliness comes from an inability to connect with the people closest to you, not simply from a lack of company. If you have the social skills and connections to seek sympathy and understanding for how lonely you are, then you're not really lonely. It's like how the people who talk about killing themselves are the least likely to actually see it through. When you're truly backed into a corner, you don't waste effort seeking help from people because you know they don't give a fuck about you.

Though I do think the increasing digitization of social lives is a net negative. I'm probably the last person who should be saying this, but most people will live healthier lives if they go outside and make friends in person far away from the whirlwind of bullshit always going on in the internet. This is a place for people who failed to make it out there.

>>60976
Get a fucking job and move out, anon. It sucks at first, but every year past middle school that you live with your parents will wear more and more of your mental health away. Distance will cause your relationships to improve, having your own space will give you security and peace of mind, and meeting your own needs will give you a sense of control and self-reliance that will gradually wipe away your inner turmoils. I know it's easy to wallow in NEEThood when it gives you a safety net and keeps you from having to face the unknown, but very few people have the mental fortitude to live a completely unproductive life for any significant period of time.

The US marines recently paid my family a large lifetime pension because of my father's PTSD, Gulf War Syndrome and mistreatment. Im going to get a Psy.D and fix the Anglophone world

I think it's silly. I would even argue that we are the least lonely we have ever been as a whole.

Social media and the internet in general make true loneliness very rare but at the same time social media has the tendency to make people feel like they are lacking compared to others, that's not just in regards to friend circles but to life in general.

I remember reading a while ago that the average person has 2.5 friends, that was a while ago and a brief check just now showed numerous results all of which were higher than that but I think it's probably something that's hard to properly measure. But I think that the number of true friends that people have was always low, it's just that social media makes people assume that everybody has hundreds of friends and because they don't they assume they are lonely.

I myself have no friends at all and the only people I communicate with in person is my family. The reason I say loneliness would be very rare these days is because even though I have zero friends I am still on this website communicating with people right now. 50 years ago that was never going to happen, I would have nobody to talk to about things like this or anime or whatever.

>>60991
Decent advice, awful way to present it.

>>60986
Suggest going back anon, and this time go to community college first so you don't have any debt.
This will likely be your only way out.

I'm lonely

>>60963
I'm never lonely because I have my kissu friends at my side, always.

I guess I don't really know what loneliness means for the average person. Like for plenty of imageboard dwellers it means genuinely zero contact with any non-anonymous people besides maybe your parents. But then I think about articles on social isolation during covid with people doing zoom calls with their friends every night and weekly group dinners over webcam or whatever. Does that count as loneliness? I'm sure it's a bummer compared to meeting in person, but meanwhile I would kill to have a friend group like that. Does having plenty of passing acquaintances you can easily text to hang out with any weekend but no one you feel like you can bare your heart to count as loneliness? That would still be a huge step up for me. Reducing the world into norms and non-norms is dumb and everyone has their own struggles, but at the same time it's hard for me to imagine many of these people the "loneliness epidemic" articles talk about know what true loneliness feels like.

I'm daijoubu. Recently had to move to a foreign country away from home, don't really know or interact with anyone outside of work. It doesn't bother me that much though, I usually pass time on the internet chatting on IBs/forums, or being immersed in a book or a video game. When I was younger I always wanted to have more friends at school, but nowadays I'd rather be left alone. Being outgoing and social all the time is too tiring

i'm ok

>>61021
I feel like not being able to be with people in person has the same sort of detriments as not going outside regularly. Like, although conceptually you may be having the same sorts of conversations online as you might in person, the brain does more when you're actually with someone IRL; being inside versus outside is pretty arbitrary spatially, but the brain releases hormones and stuff when you're out and about and looking at stuff like trees and plants.

>>60963
yunyun......no..........