[!@#$%!]

Sounds to me like you're depressed. Think about it. You grow up in a "humble Mexican family" and your family saves money sends you to college with the illusion that after 4 or 5 years or whatever you'll be ready to make the family proud and have a good job and buy your mom a house some day.

Except that now you graduate in the middle of a nasty recession so not only do you have to keep your old student job but you also lose it and move back in with your parents. Ouch.

Now you have to wake up every morning and look at your parents in the face while maybe all of you are thinking that all those sacrifices for your studies were for nothing and you would have been better off working landscaping. Ouch!

And maybe your parents are nice and supportive and tell you to hang in there, you'll be okay, but maybe they are finger-pointing and impatient with you. But regardless, sounds to me like YOU could be beating yourself up and making yourself depressed. Because that's how it happens.

Now depression has nothing to do with the penis or being macho or testicles. War vets get depressed. Old grandmas get depressed. Horny teenagers get depressed. Post-partum mothers get depressed. Kurdt got depressed, the poor junkie. Winston Churchill got depressed--a lot. So do college graduates with no jobs.

Of course people telling you that you're not being "a man" for being depressed is gonna make you feel worse if you believe them-- now you're not just an unemployed college graduate with no prospects but also unmanly. Fuck me, I'd wanna kill myself too.

But anyway, those people are wrong, lol.

You have a bunch of problems at the moment but the way to deal is not to beat yourself up or question your manhood or your honor or whatever the shit. Getting depressed when everything goes to shit is more or less natural, and going through phases of destruction is normal and part of growing up. Think of it as an animal going into hibernation when their environment runs out of resources. Cuz right now you look around and there is nothing and the response is to shut down the store. It's a kind of normal energy-saving reaction.

And maybe what people are clumsily trying to say with "be a man" is "grow up and deal," and with that I have to agree. (And I know I said "that's pussy talk"-- sorry about that). But yeah it's hard to grow up--cuz it's horrible and sad to lose our grandiose teenage dreams of being rich and famous with your band and realize that all you have to look forward if you are lucky is a 9 to 5 and cable TV and credit card debts and crummy neighbors.

But the thing is that there is a lot more than that, even for those of us who aren't rich and famous and in bands and married to supermodels. (Or maybe you thought you were gonna be a professor with your tweed jacket and tenure for life, teaching courses about Sonic Youth.) There is a lot worth living for, besides those things, and I don't wanna get into it cuz it might sound like a lot of blah blah right now, but the point is, yeah, have a funeral for your teenage dreams, it's okay to give up the skateboard and the superhero comics and weed for breakfast; welcome to the trenches with the rest of us, where you have to work for everything and wishful thinking doesn't count-- and it can be a lot of fun, but you have to get used to your new life first.

Anyway, a few suggestions on how to deal, I suppose.

First of all, stop worrying about what you "will be". The future is impossible to predict, so stop worrying about it, stop beating yourself up about it: you'll just get exhausted making predictions and calculations from your depressed perspective where all looks bleak. Tomorrow or next month or next year you'll feel different about things, but more importantly, you'll see there are lots more options than "being normal".

Second, take care of yourself NOW. Maybe you need to go on a trip or camping or something (when is the last time you had a fucking vacation?) Maybe you don't actually have the money for a vacation now (that's why you need to save next time you get a paycheck instead of spending it all on weed, lol). So see if you can get unemployment checks-- it's a good way to keep going. I know a girl who bought an apartment in New York while on unemployment--oh yeah, and paid it off 5 years later. Unemployment isn't welfare, it's a kind of insurance. Yes, they ask you to look for a job, but you can do other things besides that, like go away for the fucking weekend.

Anyway after you get some rest and stop feeling sorry for yourself (eventually feeling sorry for yourself becomes funny, you'll see), you'll need to start looking for a new job that's not a mind killer, college boy. Something you might actually enjoy. There are jobs like that, you just can't see them right now.

How to do that, maybe I'll discuss another time, but I gotta go make breakfast & go to work now.

But yeah, first thing to do is stop beating yourself up, and stop worrying about "teh future" or questioning your manhood. Take care of yourself TODAY. Like, right this second. Go exercise, and shower, and put some clean clothes, and eat something decent, and stay away from daytime TV.