I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

If you really wanted a soulless but high-paying job you hate, you'd be at Yale preparing for a career in finance.

It sounds like you don't really know what you want to do with your life right now. Nobody really does at 20. So I'm going to give you some advice nearly everyone here will hate: go to college.

My parents threw me out when I was 18, and I learned a few things really quickly. The most important was that in California, you can go to community college for free as long as you're poor (which I was by default as a line cook/graveyard shift baker), and knock out two out of four years of a bachelor's degree just dicking around, trying different things in different departments until something clicks.

You'll learn a ton. Most of it won't have to do with your degree. That totally doesn't matter and it's not the point.

With just a little bit of focus, you can come away with an associate's degree and a killer transfer application to get you in to a better college. Or, you can just drop out, and hopefully you'll at least have a better idea of what you want to do with your life, a little bit of experience, and a larger professional network than you started with.

I built my freelance programming and design career by teaching myself those skills while taking classes[1] and working in kitchens. By the end of the first half of year two, I wasn't working in kitchens anymore. Now my school is paying me to finish my bachelor's degree, and I'm turning down job offers every time I go to a meetup for my field, one that everybody tells me is supposed to be dying or something.

The other most important thing I learned was how to be happy while poor (not fake college student poor where you can always call your parents for more money, but real poor where you have a jar of peanut butter until pay day next week and your heat is turned off), and that poverty is worth not being subject to others' expectations and living on your own terms.

Not having money is not a real problem. Living with shitty parents who yell at you about money and wanting to kill yourself is. Get the fuck out of there and go to college. You will not regret it, as long as you don't pay for it.

I second the advice to stay off of Hacker News, because it's generally full of privileged overachievers who will make you feel worse (though not consciously) about your situation.

If you want any specific details about how to accomplish any of these things, feel free to contact me, info is in my profile.

1. Some of you are saying to yourselves, "Why were you teaching yourself while going to college? That's dumb, you shouldn't have been in college!" It's because outside of "elite" universities, programming knowledge is usually woefully out of date, and the nature of this field is such that the only one with any authority to say it's out of date is the one teaching the out-of-date course material. History, philosophy, and writing skills are much less dependent on the state of the art, and it's easier to find a skilled, accesible and receptive mentor in all of these fields than it is in programming or computer science.

Leaving job because you read, "Leaving my job was best thing" is rat-race-y.

Remember what it was like working so hard your body could not keep up? Well guess what, that's when accidents happen. Serious ones. Just be thankful you got out when you did.

Sounds like you're in good company here anyway.

I had a really tough job too once. Everyone in the company was at each other's throats, and management made one public decision, and the privately overturned them without informing anyone i.e. me even though I was the dept head. It was chaos beyond beleif. I got fired, It happened just before the crisis, and it turned my world upside down for a while.

I know what you mean when family and friends aren't supportive, especially if they haven't gone through what you did, and can't see why you shouldn't just be back on your feet again.

But I suppose you're here at HN because you're involved or want to be involved in start-ups or something. If you are, just keep plugging away at it. It's probably the one thing that'll really keep you sane.

I know it looks like a self-help book—at least that's what I thought—but it made a huge difference in my life. While I was never in your exact position, I was in terrible job for the last 2 years. My boss would call my office almost every day at 4:55 to make sure I didn't leave early. I endured constant criticism and had really didn't have a shred of positive feedback in over two years of work.

What Colour is your Parachute made me realize that it really was the job, it wasn't me at all. Don't get discouraged. Figure out what you really want to do with your life and work towards that. When someone recommended that I read that book, I thought it was a crock at first. I didn't think i needed some crazy self-help book. But, in reality, I did.

Just a few months later, I've left that terrible job and am working at one that I love. It's out there—don't give up on the basis of one lousy job.