I've had social anxiety since I was about 12 so and know a lot about depression, being a social outcast, and the alienation of social exclusion. Personally, I would rather suffer physical pain (chronic pain, etc.) than the mental pain (anguish, etc.) of being a non-entity with no hope for a future. Too bad the doctors and psychiatrists don't agree with me on that. But that's what self-medicating is all about.