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Honestly, OP, you have to understand that my words are not just kind words. They are 100%, bona fide truth. You have to work hard at overcoming the conditioning of your own mind and that of our sick, deluded society. You owe this to yourself.

You know deep down that what makes you special has absolutely nothing to do with your size, your skin colour, your hair, your teeth, your ears, your knees or your smell. There is something resolutely good about you (about all of us) that is jut there!

Be honest with yourself: do you only want to find love from somebody who is deluded? Are the most attractive people to you those who are attracted to physical characteristics over everyone else? I almost know that this is not the case.

Friends who tell you you are wonderful, loveable and beautiful are great, but it doesn't help if you think they're just saying this because they love you or because they want to be kind. But it might be that they can see it too! They are telling you the truth. They are not conditioned to stare only at your body and they can see beyond the fat that your mind is obsessed with.

OP, I lost about 70lbs not long ago. And all I saw was the fold of fat on my back, the bulge of fat on the hips, the roundness of the belly. A couple of years later and I have regained that weight. Just the other day, I looked in the photo album and couldn't believe just how thin, strong and great I looked. The mind plays tricks on us. You may well be fat and out-of-shape, but you can still be beautiful, still be loveable, still be wonderful.

This is not some kind of dippy positive-thinking. This is fact. Beauty is not the exclusive preserve of thin people. Beauty, as we are told, is in the eye of the beholder. But while you are utterly terrified that people will only ever see you as some sort of misshapen blob, you are hiding your beauty from them. While you hide the beauty, they will only ever see a misshapen blob.

In my arrogant view, you need to do two major things: the first is to stop looking for somebody to love you right now. Make yesterday your last day of ever having done that. You need to start looking inside you to find love. Without it, OP, nobody is ever going to love you (apart from us and your friends). But romantic love is ded in the water unless you start being in love with you just as you find yourself right now. Like I said earlier, this needs to be your number one priority. Meditation will help; mindfulness based stress reduction will help; understanding the way that your mind works will help (buddhist teachings focus on this). You have to set about this task in the correct way: stop thinking that my words are just nice or that they are positive opinions. Start thinking that my words are just simple truths and go and find the evidence to understand why I am saying these things. I am happy to be here and answer your questions if it would help.

The second thing you need to do is go and read Gary Taubes and then buy his book. In 3-6 months, you are not going to be fat any more. Da-da! Magic! But your problem will still be there unless you find out why you are already beautiful. Someone might end up falling for the new-look you, but it won't last because you will hate yourself secretly and this will lead to trouble, misery, suffering and unhappiness. Gary Taubes will be a great guide to why you are fat and what you can do about it; Dr Atkins was right! You may also find the Diet Doctor helpful and Tommy from Sweden with his blog. Google them and Google LCHF (low-carb, high fat). Being fat will become an option for you, not a life sentence. But thin people are deeply unhappy too; thin people are lonely; thin people can't find people to love them; thin people are in abusive relationships; thin people look to drink, drugs and other such distractions to make their lives bearable. When you step on the scales, you only see the quantity of mass that makes up you; love for yourself doesn't have any effect on the readout.

It matters not a jot if you have known for a while that you don't love yourself. That's the past; it's not real; it's just a memory; this is real; this is an objective experience; this is here and now. Here and now is when you need to start loving yourself.

Wanting what you cannot have is the root of all misery; in buddhist teachings, they call it clinging. Clinging is based on ignorance of things as they really are. Your ignorance teaches you that you are the fat that makes up your body (you're not); it teaches you that love and kindness are always less attractive that buff bodies and pert asses (they're not); it teaches you that if somebody can love you then you might be able to love you (you won't); it teaches you that if somebody loves you right now, they will be deserving of all of your love and you will owe them one (this is wrong). These are all delusions. The delusions lead to you craving the impossible; the impossibility of it all leads to unhappiness; unhappiness leads to loneliness and the circle spins around.

Buddhist teachings, on the other hand, say that you can keep from devaluing yourself. But you are going to have to work at it. Within six months, you are going to be thinner, stronger, healthier, more conventionally attractive. Woo hoo. But you are also going to be mentally stronger; more aware of what really makes you special; more confident; less judgemental; happier; and...you are going to be in a loving relationship with someone!!! That is the guarantee I can offer you if you take the scales off your eyes and look at the truths I have laid out in front of you.

As I said, I'm happy to keep you company on your journey. Start a blog and I'll subscribe; put photos of yourself all over it (remembering that you are already beautiful, wonderful, loveable.

Just think - by October, you are going to be everything that you ever dreamed of. But now, it's time to WAKE UP AND STOP DREAMING!!!

Stop focusing on what you don't have and can't do. That's like the kid learning to ride a bike and can't stop staring at the telephone pole in the sidewalk: he keeps staring at it and he keeps steering straight into it.

Put some focus on the things you can accomplish and can acquire: You can make yourself stronger, and it's not the thing that will take you 4 hours a day (4 hours would make it faster, but it's not necessary). 25 pushups four times a day will take you no more than 5 minutes total and costs you zero, yet after a month or so will start showing you some visible results. Swimming takes a bit more time a day, but has more pronounced results on your physique. Bike riding is pretty much free once you have a bike. The girls calling you ugly is at least half kids just being kids and doing what they can to hurt other kids - adults don't do that sort of thing very often even when it is true. Get yourself into better shape and they'll probably start changing their tune.

Good grades will only cost you the effort you put into it, and will pay off tremendously in the future: college grants and the like come far easier to the guys who have great grades and learn how to apply for them.

Get yourself a hobby that is interesting and teaches you something - this will make you interesting to others and give you things to talk about. You can research it online at the library or get books on the subject. Astronomy will give you some perspective, learning to perform magic tricks will help you entertain people (The Royal Road to Card Magic is an excellent book to start with, and can be bought used for less than $2 plus shipping), balloon animals will help you get along with kids.

Get a part-time job. If you can afford to take a girl to dinner and a movie, they'll not be inclined to turn their nose up at you. Also, if you work in the food industry (McDonalds, pizza, fine dining, whatever) you can get meals free and might be able to take some food home - your family having to pay for less meals will help their situation and perhaps generate some upward momentum.

Also, cut your soda pop intake by at least %50. For most Americans, soda makes up about 60% of their calorie intake and is horrible for your teeth. Rotting teeth are very expensive to fix and very avoidable. Plus, making yourself look good is a lot easier if you're not overweight.

Get in the habit of walking around with a good, upright posture. Whenever you can, force yourself to smile at least 10 times an hour - this has been shown to actually affect your mood regardless of whether you had a good reason to smile, plus folks take a much more positive view of people who seem happy.

At least once a day pay someone a sincere compliment - don't just make something up, find something about them or something they've done that you can honestly say something good about. Also, once a day try to do something, anything, to help someone out or make their job a little easier: people that see you do stuff like that will look up to you for it, and the people you help will try to pay you back for being a good Joe.

Also, don't even try to date girls that primarily pay attention to your wallet - unless you enjoy watching them have sex with your wallet instead of you.

That loving a tree thing gave me a really weird visual... but here is some of the best advice I can give you, I hope it helps.

~Get your body healthy. Start eating right, cut out as much sugar and soda as you can and bring in to you diet as many vegetables and fruits as you can. Start exercising 3-5 days a week, maybe jogging or going to a gym. But if that seems like something you wouldn't be able to make a habit, maybe just try taking a walk everyday or something, just getting outside and moving my legs really helped me through some of my hardest times. Also maybe consider quitting smoking if you feel that is the right move for you, it totally changed my life for the best when I quit cigs and tree.

~Start journaling or somehow writing your thought and feelings down. This sounds like it wouldn't be that helpful if you have never tried it, but trust me, it can do wonders for clarifying what exactly needs changing in your life. I think journaling can be 100x more effective than any form of therapy.

~Hang out with your friends and don't talk about how you feel depressed, talk about stuff that feels nice and get your mind off of what is making you not feel so nice.

~Check out stuff by Anthony Robbins, he is incredible. I recommend Lessons in Mastery. It really gave me a huge boost and changed my life for the better permanently at a time when I felt like how you have described you feel now.

~Get some hobbies, get outside, get your mind off your troubles and into books, sports, action, anything that makes you feel better. But make sure your not pushing your emotions under the rug, make sure to figure out (maybe with the help of journaling) what exactly the message your emotions are trying to send you is. Once you know what their message is, then it is fine to move on and take action based on those messages.

~I also recommend a book called One Small Step Could Change Your Life and also Switch.

Here are amazon links to my recommendations below (each one changed my life for the better permanently)...

If you want to talk about anything or ask me questions about how I got through some very hard times just PM anytime. I sincerely wish you good luck with everything :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Mastery-Anthony-Robbins/dp/0743525159

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Change-Your-Life/dp/0761129235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318486356&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318486377&sr=1-1

I know exactly how you feel! I'm sorry you have to go through this--it's just the worst existential morass imaginable. And it blows that you have to keep having surgeries. If it will help, here's my story in a nutshell.

The little car I had rented got smashed when an 18-wheeler barreled into the driver's side door. I ended up in a coma, with my pelvis snapped in three places, a lacerated spleen, a subdural hematoma, and a bunch of cuts and bruises, some requiring stitches and other just ugly. Because of the coma and the head injury that caused the coma, I don't remember the whole first ten days after the accident, but I'm glad I don't: I think it was painful and horrible. And that right there is the only upside of a head injury: you forget some shitty stuff. The rest of it is pure crap.

It doesn't sound like you had a head injury, but I think our experiences after that were kind of the same. Your life screeches to a halt for a little bit, and then veers off sideways, and everyone else's lives just continue on the trajectories they were on before your accident. A few people show up every once in a while, at the beginning, but after a short time it becomes clear that you are on different life paths now, and they don't come around anymore.

Meanwhile, you are exhausted, because healing your body is hard and tiring work. Even if it looks (and feels) like you're just sitting around all day, your body consumes a lot of energy knitting things back together, and you don't understand why you're so tired at the end of the day (or in the middle, or at the beginning). You don't really have the interest or energy to pursue the things you used to pursue; you feel like the whiniest person in the world because all you really have left to talk about is your awful health; nothing distracts you long enough from how horrible things have become. Your old "friends" have moved on with their lives, and you can't find or make new friends because you've become boring, don't talk about anything but your health, and you're too tired to really go out on the town, anyway, even if you did have something interesting to talk about.

You end up feeling completely alone. In my case, I struggled because after the first six months of recovery and cognitive remediation, I was well enough and functional enough to fool everyone, including myself, into thinking that the TBI (traumatic brain injury) didn't have any long-term effects. I went back to law school. I could understand what the professors said, but I had to sit in the very front of the classroom to hear them. I could not understand the other students, who did stuff and went places and told stories about how wasted they'd gotten last weekend or how hard they'd worked to help their legal clinic clients. They kind of looked like aliens to me, like we were actually different species. My "friends" from the first year and a half of law school dropped me (to be fair, I don't really blame them, but it was still incredibly disappointing). I felt like my only focus for the rest of my life would be my recovery, which made me so sad and disappointed in myself--I had wanted to do something meaningful in the world, help someone, but all I could think about was how to help myself--I thought I was too crazy with PTSD and anxiety from the accident to be useful. I eventually graduated, barely, and started a job at a big law firm. It wasn't until they fired me because I could not keep up with the hours (I was too tired), despite everyone recognizing me as "the first year who can write," that I admitted to myself that the actual injury might still be a problem, not just my psychological response to the accident.

Which brings me to the next part of the story: endless, endless, endless therapy. I know it's not the same as endless surgery (how horrible!), but I imagine some of the feelings are the same. At one point, I suddenly stopped going to everything--cognitive remediation, occupational therapy, psychological therapy--because I just could not stand to be a patient any longer. I thought if I had to explain one more thing about myself to one more person, if I had to think about myself as sick or injured for one minute longer--even if it remained true--I might just explode. The weeks and months and years of trudging to one appointment after another had just worn me down so much, I couldn't even bring myself to communicate with my therapists about quitting. I literally just dropped off the face of the earth. I know that isn't an option for you (surgery is less optional than another hour-long session of memory and emotional regulation exercises), but I imagine you must feel kind of the same way.

So here's the part that might MYFB:

It has an end. You will not actually need surgery every year for the rest of your life. I don't even know exactly what's wrong with you or any details of your accident/injuries, but I can say that with confidence. You will not be a patient forever, you will begin to feel better, and you will have other things to think and talk about.

Time heals most wounds. And those it doesn't heal at least become mundane and unobtrusive. I still have problems from my head injury--faces kind of all look the same, I have no memory for names, time passes oddly for me in ways that are hard to explain, I still get the occasional devastating, blinding headache, I don't think my energy will ever come back up to what it was pre-accident--but none of them are important anymore. Some of them are funny, some require a bit of explanation, but no excuses (e.g., I tell everyone I meet that I don't remember faces and if I stare blankly at them the next time I see them, please don't be offended, just tell me who you are--but I'm over feeling bad about it!). Most of them, I just cope with. Time passes weirdly and I can't keep track of things? No problem, I have three calendars. My energy levels aren't what they once were, but they're good enough, plus coffee is a thing.

You will find new friends. This part is hardest and might take longest. But there's a new you, a new post-accident you, and you have to accept and love that new you. That will make it easier to find other people who can also accept and love that new you. For me, I couldn't really cope with people comparing new me to old me, and I kind of gave up on those few friends who didn't give up on me first. But that's OK! You will find people who don't make that comparison (either because they didn't know you then or because it doesn't matter). You will find that you are able to relate to them on a deeper level, and you will find that you have better friends. Not just St. Patty's Day drinking buddies, but real, honest-to-goodness friends. It will take a long time (I won't kid you about it), but it will happen. This is the hardest part--keep on keeping on, and it will get better.

Antidepressants kind of suck and you might feel better if you supplemented or replaced them. After my antidepressants picked me up off the very bottom but made me basically manic depressive, I switched to huge amounts of EPA-omega-3-only fish oil (the EPA has the good stuff for mood regulation, DHA is just a filler from a mental health perspective). This is what I take now. It's not cheap, but it helps. Also make sure you have enough B12 and D. Supplement! B12 has to be sublingual, because it's destroyed in the gut, but you cannot really take too much. D is one of the rare vitamins you can actually overdose on, so be more careful there, but definitely supplement that, too. Everywhere else in the developed world, those are recognized as important components of mental health--just not in the U.S.

Go volunteer somewhere with little kids. There's almost guaranteed physical contact, and it will help you feel more human. In big cities, most large hospitals need volunteers to come hold babies who are stuck in the hospital and whose parents cannot be there 24/7. They need human touch to heal and grow and thrive, and so do you. It doesn't have to be another adult to make a difference for you. I didn't feel so starved for physical contact, but to be brought out of myself and to feel useful, so I volunteered at a soup kitchen and shelter every weekend for a long time. I thought I was helping them, but it was really the other way around.

Get a dog, if you aren't a dog hater. It will sort of help with the physical contact thing. If you are not strong or up for long walks right now, go to the pound and get a little old dog who is a bit calmer and who might not otherwise find a home (because no one wants to adopt an old dog). Or go through a rescue group that keeps the dogs in foster homes, because the fosters can tell you in great detail about the dog's behavior and personality, so you can make sure you're a good fit before taking him/her home. The dog will get you out a little bit more, and put you in situations where you end up talking to people, which will make you feel more connected to the world. You may even met a friend (I met my husband). Just make sure you have a place for him when you have to go in for more surgeries (a couple nights boarding in a kennel or another home is OK for most dogs, if it comes down to that).

Sorry if this was too long! To sum up, you will feel better! Just hang on, and wait it out. This is the shitty part, and things will start looking up soon. I'm rooting for you! Stay in touch, feel better!

Get this book by Barbara Sher. Ignore the title of the book (you already know what you want to be) and go straight to the chapter about "going against your tribe." That chapter deals EXACTLY with what you are facing now. Read it and think. Also look up Barbara's website and join her forum. You will find people who's whole purpose is to support each other in the process of trying to achieve their dreams.

One of the ways I have personally learned to cope with the "who I really am" thing recently is to imagine a border collie raised among Newfoundland dogs.

"Newfies" are HUGE, born and bred to be water dogs capable of rescuing people in cold, rough seas. They are also docile and relatively quiet creatures when kept at home. When hanging around the house, Newfies are often like a quietly-snoring chunk of furniture that relocates itself every once in a while. They are better off if they have access to challenging cold waters.

A purebred border collie, on the other hand, was born to herd, born to work, born to GTFO and RUN all over the countryside. Border collies are bundles of determined energy. Keeping a border collie cooped up in the house all day is inviting disaster. If you don't give a border collie what it REALLY needs, it can go a little nuts and expend it's energy by chewing up the furniture.

So there you are, chewing up the family "furniture" of your parents expectations by being born as a different "breed" than them. That's not your fault. It's who you are.

You were NOT born to swim in the ocean of doctoring, plunging through medical school to rescue people from the rushing tides of illness and defying scary, ice-filled storm waves to bring those victims safely back to shore.

You were born to "herd" technical details, to run 'em fast and far. You were born with restless geek energy to create and to fix and to innovate. If you were plunged into the medical "ocean" of where your parents want you to be, you'd have a hell of a problem.

Conversely, can you imagine a newfie running around trying to herd sheep or whatever? It wouldn't be a very pretty sight. I don't think any newf would understand how awesome that experience is for a real border collie.

So there you are, being like a border collie stuck with newfies for parents. They can't even imagine the world you are REALLY suited for, the true world where you would be honestly happy. Happiness for them is in challenging those ocean waves. They can't wrap their minds around happiness coming from being in a completely different environment and working world.

That's why they say stupid things like "when you grow up, you will have no friends because they will all become successful and leave you behind and you will still be a failure."

Well, duh... a metaphorical newfie-brain would consider anything that ISN'T 100% newfie to be a failure at life. You aren't out there in the ocean like they want you to be. That means you'd "suck at life" in their eyes no matter what. You could win some kind of freakin' awesome nobel prize thing at engineering and they'd probably still consider you a failure at life because of their narrow view of what happiness really is.

>Should I just give in and do what they want?

Accept and love your metaphorical newfie parents as who they really are. Understand that what they have for you is sadly misdirected love, not really understanding or accepting who YOU really are.

Wiser parents than yours would actually step back, realize that their kids are separate creatures from then and accept and support their children's real dreams.

As you learn to accept your metaphorical newfie parents as they are, learn to accept yourself as the metaphorical border collie that YOU are. :)

Step into the world where you belong, and you WILL find your friends, people like you who understand and love you for who you really are and were born to do. :)

Go run with the geeks, go chase down those engineering challenges, bark like hell and and direct those ideas into new realms. You'll find others who were built like you and will be positive friends with you as you become honest with yourself and the world regarding what you were born to do.

So have the courage to quit looking for approval from your well-meaning but depressing parents and go run with the geeks.

Heck... go see if your ultimate dream could be to design and build amazing devices that doctors could use to save lives. That would bridge the gap between your world and theirs. :)

EDIT: Holy hell, that was long. I'm not going to bother with a tl;dr here. The above paragraphs are the product of my own trying to fit myself into a lifetime of the wrong pigeonhole and thinking I was "failing at life" because I never followed the real dreams I never knew I had. I had to get breast cancer and check out of life for a few years myself in order to finally realize who I am and what I should have done in life. I will leave the sum total of my learning as it is... if someone else wants to do a tl;dr for this, then go for it.

They know about your kitty's condition, and they're not noobs. Trust them.

Please give your kitty a smooch from a complete stranger. I don't wish her or you any pain.

One day many years ago, our neighbor came over to our home and asked if I would watch over her kitty. He was definitely in the last days, and she knew that we adored him. I was homeschooling my little girl, so we spent the whole day over there, and she read to him. He passed while we read the last page of "Cat Heaven" (completely true, unreal moment, doubt if you wish). My little girl, she knew that the cat was gone but didn't freak out. Tears were shed, definitely. We waited until our neighbor came back, which wasn't long since it was the afternoon. It was very sad, but this cat had had the best years of his life with our neighbor (came from an abusive household before). People make such a big deal about kittens being born, but the leaving can be just as special and so much more meaningful.

You must remember and tightly hold what you and your cat-companion have shared. None of those experiences are going to go away. You both have had wonderful times, shared special secrets, and have known love. May your heart never forget. You both are very, very lucky.

First of all, let me ask you : have you heard about Highly Sensitive People (HSP)? Read the Wikipedia page on the topic. As an HSP person myself, I can relate to some extent to your experience of not "fitting in", living nobody seems to understand what's going inside your head. This might be your case : Dr. Aron has a self-test available online available online. It's not exactly 100% accurate but psychology isnt' quite an exact sciencee ; anyhow, if you're a HSP, you'll know you fit the mold by reading on the topic.

If you think you are one, I suggest you read Dr. Aron's book. While the book has a lot of shortcomings (sometimes, the doc goes way too deep into metaphor and if feels like she's on acid), the advice she gives is solid and really helped me deal with a world that's built for an extroverted, streamlined way of life (ring a bell?). And, hell, maybe your family should read it too! (There's also /r/hsp but it's not very active, I'm afraid)

I'm lucky, in a way, that my own mother is an HSP (even if she never even heard of term, she is) so she could somewhat relate to what I lived, even if she did not totally understand. Right now, my wonderful wife is the one who introduced me to the concept of HSP so she's very understanding.

Anyway, read about it, maybe it could help you. In the meantime, hang in there. Don't forget that, in the end, all your family wants is the best for you so their intentions are certainly good.

There is a great book that recently came out that shows you how to use the principles of video games and your interest in that to turn your life around and achieve success in life. It's called "The Nerdist Way" by Chris Hardwick. Awesome, awesome book, I highly recommend you read it.

Obviously I can't make any absolute claims, but it really sounds like your mother is a classic narcissist – in the clinical sense... at least what you're going through reminds me quite a bit of what I've seen myself (I grew up with a narcissistic mother and grandmother).

Here are some quick links I found that seem to describe it well:

http://www.narcissism101.com/NarcissistsinMedia/NarcissistsinPrivate/narcissisticpare.html

http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickguides/selfhelp/coping_with_a_narcissistic_parent_or_sibling.html

http://www.lightshouse.org/the-narcissistic-parent.html

http://www.willieverbegoodenough.com/is-this-your-mom/



I got a lot out of the following books:

http://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Mirror-Children-Narcissists-Struggle/dp/0688140718/

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Always-About-You-Narcissism/dp/0743214285/

but there are other, better rated ones on Amazon, so go take a look if you start resonating with it all.

If you do decide that your mom fits the narcissistic pattern – first, know you're not alone. Really, I promise, you're not alone. Second, it gets better – get out of the house as much as possible – get involved in school activities, anything you can to get out.

Regardless, when college comes around – that's your break. Trust me, it gets better.

But you have to put work into it – you need to be mindful of setting boundaries with your mom as you become independent. It's going to be hard at times and she will make you feel bad when you push back – but you clearly have good instincts, so trust them about what feels right and wrong.

edit: link formatting

The name of the book is Feeling Good by David Burns -- it is old but remains very popular, and I always recommend it to people who are struggling, whether it is specifically "depression" or not.

One word of note: the first chapter is dry as heck because he is making the case for his method, but it gets better quickly after that.

I agree that it is reassuring to connect with other people, especially redditors, who struggle. Definitely helps me feel less alone! Thanks for the kind thoughts.

Enlist a friend or cousin's help in ending this. Your job is to avoid all contact after the breakup, let a cousin handle the details of getting addresses changed and whatnot. Get help in doing the details.

Don't spend forever planning your escape and never doing it. As I've said before, leave when everything appears fine. Leave on your terms, don't wait for some big drama. Leave simply because you know it's right to do so.

Also, read this book if you're still on the fence about leaving:

http://www.amazon.ca/Good-Leave-Stay-Step-Step/dp/0452275350

Here's the workbook on Amazon. The accompanying book ("The Self Matters") isn't really necessary; when I used this workbook as a kid, I didn't even have the book and I still got a lot of great use out of it.

I don't usually post this publically, but since multiple people are interested, here's the link to the PDF.

I had back/upper neck pain from 18 to 26. I went to multiple physical therapists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and massage therapists. I was just like you - had X-rays and MRI's and doctors told me there was nothing physically wrong with me. This book was the best thing that helped me.

Give it a try, it's only $6 on Amazon.

>"hey, if you were rev'd up more then maybe it would have worked."

It's possible that she has a fetish or interest in sexual aggressiveness which she isn't expressing well. I'd go through some of Dan Savage's archives for advice on approaching such play, and then discuss it with her to see if that's something she's interested in.

Also, I am rarely in the mood for sex if I'm stressed out and have a lot of demands to deal with in my day-to-day. If she has a lot going on then having sex won't feel like something that's relaxing and rejuvenating, but another demand that she doesn't have time or energy for. There are a lot of books out there with insight on how women experience sex differently than men (She Comes First leaps to mind) which you might read together to see if there is something that the two of you can do to reconnect sexually and have it meet both of your needs.

I'm reading this book. seems to be helping so far. I feel totally overwhelmed too.

I don't know how successful it is in the long run, meeting a life partner, but I've always taken a Taoist approach to relationships. When I say Taoist, I mean the sort of Taoism I gleamed from The Two of Pooh. It's a cute little book I read every couple years to remind me that there are so many things I can't control about the world, so many things that would make me unhappy if I spent my time thinking about them. To worry might even be counter-productive.

When it comes to my work-life, I'm terrible at taking this advice, but, with relationships, I figure that it's something I do to enjoy myself, something I do to feel close to people. Rather than worry about what will happen or whether or not she'll text me, I just tell her how I feel and leave it at that. If something happens between us, it does, great. If not, I'm not going to make things bettery by worrying or getting upset.

With this girl, you could've been overly-worried about the time limit, you could've been intimidated because she was "too hot for you" ... or something could've been going on in her head that got in the way. Maybe she doesn't really know what she wants our of a relationship or maybe she thought you were the one sending mixed signals. In any case, I think this is an experience you can learn from such that you'll be able to approach the next opportunity with more confidence. I might even contact this girl to apologize for anything I didn't feel right about and ask why things didn't work out. I've learned a lot about myself through the eyes of women with whom "it just didn't work out" and I think I've become a better person for it.

It's from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-Matter/dp/0446561754/

Here is a book you should get written by a Harvard psycho-pharmacologist:

http://www.amazon.com/Prozac-Backlash-Overcoming-Antidepressants-Alternatives/dp/0743200624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334269982&sr=8-1

I feel like you should go to jail again because you just stole a minute of my life with your dramatic title. How about you stop crying all over the internet and go get yourself some life?

PS: You are not depressed you are 17 and remember, stop crying on internet go get life!

http://www.amazon.com/Get-Life-William-Shatner/dp/0671021311/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376987671&sr=1-2&keywords=get+a+life