I'm still alive after my startup failed. This is how I felt

I don't know why I'm doing this... for most of my life I've always been alone, I sure have family, and friends around me, but my loneliness is more a mental status than a physical one.

Since I was a kid I always dreamed big, I always thought that I'd create something useful, something that will change the world in a better place and I've always been towards business, legal and...err...not always so legal, but even in that case it doesn't mean that is bad, think about napster, it wasn't so legal, but it was the begin of a change.

So as soon I had the ability I started to work on my project, damn, I still think that it could have improved the life of many, I worked on it 14 hours each day, for three years, I even got a small seed funding, I found and lost a wonderful girlfriend, I found and lost so many friends, I dropped out of college, and during all that time I never took one cent as salary, because I so damn believed on that project, every single funding was there for hiring, and infrastructure, not for me, I could live being minimal and frugal, avoiding going out with friends, having fun or simply living, I believed I could, those were very hard days I wouldn't wish never to my worst enemy.

My startup never went profitable, I never got the chance of improving the world how I wanted to, I had no money left in the company bank, and neither in my personal account, I was without nothing, and my life of the last days were only about a single company, I couldn't remind a single day I didn't something different, I never disconnected for a single day, I never... lived during that time.

But that was the easier part, it took few seconds to shut down an entire infrastructure that was designed to manage thousands of connections at the same time, or partial downtimes. The worst timing of my life arrived about a month after that, when I realized that everything I did during the last years haven't brought anything, that the world was still the same, that most of the people never heard what I was doing, that most of the people didn't know I existed. I sure had family and friends around, but I was completely alone in my world, I never found the courage to speak with them and tell how I felt, I never thought they'd understand.

For months I woke up in the afternoon, and went to sleep in the evening, doing nothing during the day, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't think about anything, I just stayed at home, I never went out for months, I never wrote, I never talked for months, it was like I never existed, it was like I wasn't living, it was like I hadn't any reason to live any day longer. I went so close to do something very bad, something that would just have stopped all that, something that you can do only once, and then there is nothing else, but that was already my life, I was nothing.

But then something happened, I don't know what exactly, maybe it's true that after you've touched the real bottom you can only go up again, I started to contact some friends again, I started to talk with someone again, and eventually going out sometimes, I'm still not living how I'd like to, I still haven't changed the world, and neither found what I want to do next, but thankfully I now know that I've been at a point I don't want to touch never again. I finally stood up and did a very first small step to continue with my life even if I still see the disappointed face of my parents because I won't ever get a degree.

I don't know if this post will ever be read, or if it could be useful to someone, but if you're in a similar situation I just want to tell you that you need to hold, I know it doesn't make sense right now, but believe me, in the near future you'll be grateful you didn't do something stupid.