I commented on one of your art posts today, and I ended up following you here because I came back to reddit to find my comment downvoted and I wanted to see if you were being brigaded. I think you handled yourself well in those posts, but I know it still feels bad. I'm sorry your reddit experience started off that way. I don't have much else to say about that subject, other than to point out that developing a thick skin is only part of the equation. You also need to remember that the people who were treating you poorly were not behaving normally. I don't care about what's normal for reddit or for a particular sub. Decent people don't behave that way. In other words, the problem was with them, not you.

Anyway, I won't speak to the particulars of your situation because I'm not sure I have anything to offer there. What I do have is the perspective of being 43 years old, and the experience of having lived through several intense high and low points from the time I was your age until now. So here's the bad news up front: the world is just as shitty today as it was 23 years ago. In fact, it's even shittier in some ways. The good news, though, is that through the simple effort of continuing to breathe, you will in a relatively short amount of time be a very different person than you are today, with a very different understanding of the world and your place in it, and yet you will retain your sense of self throughout the process.

I don't know how much sense this makes to you and I apologize if it's not coming through in a useful way. What I'm trying to say is that the rules of the game will change and the people who are playing the game will come and go.

When I was a teenager I wrecked a motorcycle my dad paid for. It was my biggest problem for a long time. I joined the army and ended up in Germany and before long was living with someone and planning to get married. I was on the phone with my dad and he started moaning about the bike again. I'd already paid for the damage, mind you. At that moment I realized that the equation had changed. I suddenly became aware of the freedom and power that had accrued to my side while I hadn't been paying attention. He wasn't controlling the situation anymore. I said "And you want me to do what, exactly?" It was the last time the subject was raised between us. Hell, I was only about your age when that happened. And the game has changed repeatedly since that time.

My dad is dead now. Now I'm the dad whose children are grown. So many of the things I thought were everything at one point, are nothing now.

Deal with your depression in whatever way makes the most sense to you. You can't control all of your circumstances, but you can be in charge of you. Don't think of yourself as an endpoint with a life behind you. Think of yourself as occupying a point on a timeline that you own.