How do I tell my parents I'm not happy...

I'm a 21 year old student. I feel that my life isn't going the way I want it to. I don't know exactly how to describe the way i feel the past few years of my life have been pretty unsatisfying. I don't usually feel really really depressed, I just have a general feeling being unfulfilled and insecure. I don't feel very sad or very happy. It's just a dull state of being where I try to push out the voices inside my head. It's just a constant state of feeling "blah" or "meh" if you know what I mean. I'm trying my best to explain this but it's not easy to describe.

There are numerous factors in my life that make me feel this way about myself. I don't feel they are specifically important to mention here but there are a number of issues that hang around my head. I think of them this way. Each one is a small obstacle that gets in my way. If there was only one issue, it would be a small hurdle and it would be relatively easy to just "step" over it. However I feel that each problem piles up on top and creates a big wall that feels almost impossible to get over. I'm pretty sure I can overcome my past problems and get over this. It's not going to be easy and it's going to take a while but I'm confident that I can do it if I try. I'm not quite sure how to do this but I think my parents can help me.

My parents are close to me and I know they care about me. They help me do things I don't know how to do or am too lazy to do, they help me financially and I appreciate that very much. I just don't feel I can open up to them. I'm sure this repression is very common for guys growing up in suburbia. I have friends at school but I don't feel close enough to any of them just to talk about what's on my mind. I don't have a girlfriend and I never had one in the past. Even though I have friends, I still feel I'm trapped inside myself. I don't feel as though I can take my problems to them.

I don't want to make it seem that bad though. I have some very good friends I've made at school but I don't feel I need to talk to them about issues that happened before I met them. They just wouldn't understand the situation as well as my parents would. Just because I can't go to them though doesn't mean they're not good friends. Some would say that you can go to a good friend with any problem, but I don't feel this way. It's just there's nobody I know who I'm that close with. Someday I hope this to be the case but now it is not.

Anyway, I feel my parents, especially my mom can help me. I love them both but my dad has done things that I haven't really forgiven him of (I need to do this). I know he feels bad about what he did and cares about me just as much as my mom but she's more, well, innocent. It's hard for me to do this because I've been such a closed person for most of my teen years and into my early twenties. I hide my discontent by joking around and making life seem less serious than it is. My parents and friends have come to know my quiet but dry and sarcastic sense of humour. Most of the time I don't even think about how I act and how I appear to others because I've been living like this for such a long time now. But then there are times (like now) where I just kick myself for living such a crappy life. I think to myself that I can change and I owe it to myself to change. I just need to stop being so passive and neutral. I need to grow up and face my problems. This is why I'm writing this post.

Again, I know my parents can help me but I just need to ask them for it. I feel so embarassed and ashamed admitting my weakness to them yet I feel that they would understand and I also do not think they would be surprised. There's just something about this that I think they can see in my day to day appearance even though I never blatantly come out and say to them, "Help me, I don't like myself and I want to change."

Okay up to this point I've made my life seem to be really bad and it's not. I have hobbies and friends. I've been relatively successful in poker over the last year and I'm proud of myself for that. Also from time to time I find myself having lots of fun and totally forgetting about my problems. However, there is a lot of down time in college for me to be by myself and they don't just go away.

I'm going home for Thanksgiving soon and I figure I need to talk to them about it sometime. Any thoughts on how I can do this? It will be very hard for me, no doubt, but it's something that I feel needs to be done...

I sincerely thank anyone who has read this far and thank you even more if you decide to offer a bit of help. If I made anything unclear, and I'm sure I did, just ask and I will try to clarify.