The Great Deception

I have long struggled under the weight of living up to what people perceive me to be. I'm not sure if this is arrogant or presumptuous, but I think people perceive me as the following (this is based on what people have actually said to me to my face):
 
-wise
-knowledgeable (excluding things mathematical)
-funny
-nice
-generous
-self-sacrificing
-sweet
-bright
-smart
-talented (somewhat)
-a person who gets things done
-a person who knows their own mind
-strong
-one who gets up after being knocked down
-full of untapped potential
-possessing an old soul
 
Now, I'm not sure how much of that is ass-kissing and how much of that actually true. Like I set forth in my disclaimer, this is what has been told to me. But I feel it's necessary to out myself to the world. I am only some of these things, and mostly not the better ones.
 
A close look at my life under the magnifying glass would yield promising results. Though a bumpy childhood that ended too soon dominated my earlier years, after I moved past that, it would be safe to say I was on an upward swing through high school and the first few years of college.
 
However, somewhere in my early twenties, the trend took a sharp dive. For a while I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I've alluded to it before, but I went crazy in my early twenties and fled L.A. like I was trying to outrun the Bubonic Plague. This abrupt departure, in retrospect, was a mistake. I should have left the right way. But I didn't.
 
The following 2 years were seemingly the darkest. I managed to uncover a little of the mystery behind my particular brand of lunacy, and it helped a little, but not enough to change directions or make any hugely significant changes in my life. So, I moved to New York City, thinking that the most alive city in the world would jump-start what had become a static 2D existence. It did. For a while.
 
And now every single day I fight to get out of bed. I struggle to be the things I think people perceive me to be. I just don't have the energy anymore. I try to be myself, but I find myself lacking. I try to fulfill my potential, but I just can't see past the walls of sadness and despair that seem to be closing in on me at an alarming rate. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anyone, really. My days at my job consist of the most mundane tasks which only serve to undermine whatever confidence in my own abilities I may have woken up with. I can't seem to get out of my head. I can't see a reason to continue trying so hard in this city, when I have been trying hard for so long.
 
Which begs the questions: How long and how hard do you have to try before you admit to yourself that it just isn't working? And if this doesn't work out, what do you do after that, because as far as you're concerned this was the Last Big Move.
 
What do you do when everywhere you turn, you only see the worst version of yourself, and the pain and self-loathing that rises up in your throat has backed up to such an extent that you're basically choking to death? How do you accept that you just may be average and destined for mediocrity?
 
What do you tell your friends when they read your blog, which paints in excruciating detail that which you can't really put a label on? What do you say when they ask you how they can help, and you just don't know?
 
How do you smile, laugh, joke, talk, advise, exist when you know you're a complete fraud?
 
I refuse to medicate, in case that would be a suggestion.