I'm new here and want to talk

I've been really struggling this last month, I hate Christmas time because of all the drama and relived memories it holds. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I have an anxiety problem and suffer from bouts of depression, especially when something triggers my anxiety, or I remember something that happened in the past. A bout of depression for me usually lasts 2-3 weeks, but can sometimes last for over a month.

I grew up with a violent and abusive mother. I put up with that for nearly 20 years before I ran away from home when I was 19. 7 years has past since I left, but the memories are still raw. In that time I've had to walk through the fires of hell. I was bullied badly because of my anxiety condition at my first job. I've been in and out of work since 2014, and no matter what I try to do to better myself, I always run into a road-block.

I'm currently trying to get my Provisional driver's licence, not an easy task when you're liiving on Newstart Allowance. I busted my ass for a whole year to save up enough money to buy my first car, which I succeeded in doing, but then I had to learn to drive the damn thing. Everything was going fine until my relatives, whom I live with, started pressuring me to go for my test before Christmas. I thought I was good enough to at least try.

But on the very morning of my driving test, I had a freak accident while cleaning my car. I managed to stab myself in the eye with a raised windshild wiper, and thus failed the driving test because I couldn't see and judge properly. Ever since then I've felt like absolute shit.

It's so hard to get your licence these days, and trying to live off of a pension that doesn't even meet the minimum poverty line range is even harder! I don't get along with most of my family, and last year I had to deal with the death of my mother.

She was found dead in her house by police, and she had been there for at least a few weeks. She died alone, unloved and surrounded by her own squaller, all because she refused to seek help for her abusive nature and her addictions. There is literally no words to describe the smell of human decay mixed with cheap cigarette smoke. That is a smell that will haunt me for a long time. I can't even stand to touch the photos I managed to salvage from the house.

I'm so sick of going around in the same circle all the time. I try to move forward with my life, but anxiety and depression keep pulling me back. The thoughts of self-harm and suicide creep out of the shadows, telling me that the world would be better off without me somehow. I'm seen by society as a 'dole-bludger' and a liability because I survive off welfare. Well I say to those people, lets see you go through a living hell of constant physical, emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of someone who's supposed to love you unconditionally for 20 years and come out the other end with barely your life.

I want to live a reasonably normal life, and not have to worry about money, or where I'm living, or how I'm going to get a job. But I don't know how to live a normal life with anxiety and depression. I've seen psychologists, I own just about every self-help book out there, and still they all say the same old things;

"you gotta work this out from the inside."

"You are what you think."

"Gratitude is the key to the Universe."

"The universal law of attraction is always working."

"Every tool you need is already inside you."

But that's the problem, I don't know where the hell my "toolbox" is at, and I'm scrambling around in the dark trying to find the damn thing! (If you've read as many self-help books as I have, you'll know what I'm talking about.)

So this is where I'm at. I can't sleep or eat properly. I have literally no motivation to do anything at all. I simply can't be bothered with it. My depression is driving me up the wall, I just want it to go away and never bother me again.