former drunkard

Hello good people, I was encouraged to talk about my feelings and share experiences with others and maybe try and make others feel better by listening and relating to them. I'll try not to be too hopelessly negative but I don't know where else I could share my experiences, and a lack of health insurance prevents me from being able to see anyone professionally. I'm not expecting a diagnoses, but just another head other than my own to bounce ideas off of to get insight and try and make things better for myself and my peers.

So I used to be a terrible drunk asshole, the kind that would buy bottles and drink alone in my apartment and just sit around hating the world. Luckily due to unemployment and lack of funding I was able to kick my substance abuse habits and my general feelings about consumption abuse has changed and I have been functioning with only a few cups of coffee a day for a good part of three years.

The problem is, I'm still in trouble because I'm 29 and I live at home. I can't seem to hold a steady job and I still have overwhelming anxiety, paranoia and some kind of angry personality disorder which has pushed friends away and made me extremely difficult for my family to deal with. I try to keep it together and have good days and bad days but sometimes my anger and delusions blast off and I end up making someone cry again. I can't live like this, and because I haven't been able to keep a job, I haven't been able to get health insurance to see anyone professionally. I can have normal conversations about complex feelings and emotions without manipulating people but I'm still worried for my livelihood and general failure at being a functioning human being.

I'm also an artist. I can draw very detailed pencil drawings of things you would only see in illustrations of weird old books and being creative has been helping me get through the loneliness and fills the void in some way, but I feel like I'm losing a lot of patience to sit down and draw, I'm not as productive as I used to be and it's really eating me up inside.

I would love to just talk to people and make new friends and help others with whatever they are going through because I've been way too angry, selfish and egotistical and withdrawn for too long. I'm desperately trying to change because I'm very worried that I've become a monster. I need to get out of my own head sometimes.

Now that I've embarrassed myself I look forward to whatever this experience is, I just hope I'll be okay someday, that everyone will be okay, and that we can all help eachother be okay and free of anger or pain. I'll be posting more embarrassing experiences, feelings and general emo stuff hoping it helps someone, or myself. I don't know how to end this, and I'm probably making the cats a little uneasy by talking to myself all the time so ...yeah!

Have you taken any mental health self-tests online? I mean I know those things need to be taken with a grain of salt, but I'm thinking if you google for and take a variety of self-tests, being sure to include tests for personality disorders, it might give you an idea of what forums here you can post in and find people more closely dealing with the same issues.