Based on your story I am not sure what the issues that need solving are?
I know that I’m better than in 2020, but in 2019 I was a smart and promising student interested in what I was doing, and I see no way of going back to something like that?
Well, nobody is a student forever, regardless of how much they like college.
I’d have to deal with the massive shame of having, almost deliberately, chosen to obstinately screw things up for four years.
Is that massively shameful? AFAIK it’s common for college students to choose their major poorly, get depressed, etc.
And if I could get that depressed in the past, surely I have a ‘major depression’ sword of Damocles hanging over my future as well?
Maybe? The circumstances seem pretty unusual.
And again, my current degree basically won’t get me anywhere
It can just get you all the normal jobs in the world that normal people can do, right?
There are things I’d like better —though I’m not fully sure what exactly they are —, but today, at 22, I may not have a way to pursue these things.
So what? You don’t even know what they are. Also, probably not? Why wouldn’t you be able to pursue them just as well as you could ever have?
My advice is to just chill out and focus on whatever object level things in your life you are working on, rather than dream about some hypothetically better way the last 4 years could have panned out for you.
Based on your story I am not sure what the issues that need solving are?
Well, nobody is a student forever, regardless of how much they like college.
Is that massively shameful? AFAIK it’s common for college students to choose their major poorly, get depressed, etc.
Maybe? The circumstances seem pretty unusual.
It can just get you all the normal jobs in the world that normal people can do, right?
So what? You don’t even know what they are. Also, probably not? Why wouldn’t you be able to pursue them just as well as you could ever have?
My advice is to just chill out and focus on whatever object level things in your life you are working on, rather than dream about some hypothetically better way the last 4 years could have panned out for you.