all the people telling the LW that they need to just stop whining and get over it are full of shit. depression is a serious and crippling disease, even for the young and so-called successful.

a few years ago i graduated from a top-5 school (full scholarship, the whole shebang) and got a self-directed research job - a former professor basically found the grant money to let me do my own research project for a year on a topic of my own choosing. but having just come out of 16 years of directed living, i basically could not deal with being home all day and setting my own course for a year. my natural state of depression - which had been checked by years of staying incredibly busy with activities - came out in force and the following year was the worst i've ever had. i was unable to focus, i never left the house or saw anyone i knew, i basically stopped doing my research and didn't check my email or voicemail, i played wow all day, every day. my boyfriend was still in school and he didn't really know what to do to get me out of my funk. i felt so ashamed and depressed that i stopped interacting with basically everyone i knew. i periodically asked my parents for money which led my mother to think that i had a drug habit because i didn't have the nerve to tell her that i lost my great research job. i couldn't deal with the shame of letting down the former professor who took a chance on me and found the grant money to give me the job in the first place.

i spent almost a year without any income, racked up some credit card debt until the credit cards were closed, and got to the point where i had to ask my parents for $300 and sell my cd's to make the rent. and then there were the meals i skipped and the hiding it from my boyfriend. it took this dire financial reality for me to try and leave the house and get a job. luckily i got a job in a library with some other young folks. i'll be honest, just leaving the house and being around people was miraculous for me. my routine had been to wake up in the afternoon, log in, maybe eat something, log out around 3am, and go to bed. just breaking this habit was huge.

it's been two years now and it's still difficult for me to think about this part of my life. i still feel like a failure even though i am sort of on the path to my career goal. i recognize that the damage i did to my "career trajectory" may be irreversible. just writing this took a great deal of emotional effort and i'm only sharing it because i recognize everything that the LW is dealing with and think it's important when in the middle of that kind of thing to feel like you're not alone. it's also important to recognize that it won't always be like this and that there is a future. i still have a lot of problems with thinking that it's too late to do well in life (however you define "doing well") but my boyfriend has now turned into my husband and we've got two cats so i don't have a choice - i have to try to make my way in the world.

and to cary who suggested that the 25 year olds need to get out and do good work, as a 24 year old who keeps trying, let me tell you that no one wants us. the next entry level nonprofit rejection letter i get that begins with "over 200 people applied to this job!" might just be the end of me. many overachieving people my age have an annoying tendency to think they have to start their own do-gooder project which is often a poor replica of an already-existing nonprofit or they expect to do meaty work their first year out of school - not me! totally willing and excited to work with already-established great organizations. totally willing to be a peon in your great organization and do whatever you want and be servile for a few years before getting a promotion. but no one wants us. so it's just not true that we're "needed" to save the world. maybe we are but no one wants to make use of us.

i started watching both fringe and dollhouse this season hoping for some interesting scifi stuff (and to sort of supplement my inadequate weekly lost fix :().

i had high hopes for fringe but that show is really terrible. it combines the worst aspects of x-files-ish "weird stuff" (i love x-files btw) with 24-style ticking time bombs, and totally infuriating ground-breaking and metaphysics-challenging technological advances in every episode.

on the other hand, i was expecting dollhouse to suck but i really like it now. the stories are fairly interesting, the writing and acting is pretty good and it's just not particularly cheesy or over the top. i hated buffy so like i said, i didn't expect much, but i like it now.

so which show got the king-making post-idol slot and which show got buried on friday nights? totally unsurprisingly, one of those shows now enjoys a fairly wide audience and one suffers from pretty terrible ratings. if dollhouse does get cancelled i'll be a sad puppy. imo they made a mistake marketing it before it came out...from the commercials i thought dollhouse was going to be like alias...just "sexy" women doing action stuff. le sigh. hope it gets picked up for season 2!

remember everyone, there are no racists in the republican party.