Investing can be done by yourself but like the person who defends themselves has a fool for a client so does the self investing lottery winner.
One winner in England once decided to have the easy life so put all his lottery winnings into his local bank and let it sit there on virtually no interest, which some of you would say is pure madness because in real terms its shrinking but it was over one million pounds but he didnt have to worry about that.
The local bank went bankrupt...his account was only insured to a few thousand pounds...so investning or not is not the smartest thing to do, you really need professional help but then you need to find them the same way as you would a handyman or plumber, not just pick the first name from the phone book but study on what you need and then hire with your best interests at heart.
One such thing is to look at profesisonal bodies for your choice of lawyer, accountant and financial advisor.
The same way that youd look for a baby sitter, house keeper etc...picking from graigslist isnt going to do it for you...you need to know what measures you have to be secure, you need to know first of all that they are profesisonal, to google their names to avoid some probelms which do often tend to be shared about their past customers.
You should find someone who will take a deposit in cash before you share your good news and also need to make sure they are fee based and not commision based, that way if there is a good investment where theyd get commission then it would go into your investment account and not their personal account.
Although if an investment is paying commission then you need to ask yourself, if its such a good deal then why do they have to offer commissions to get anyone to invest or recommend investing?.
The larger investment houses should have a nice list of existing customers you can talk to and have years of quality experience without complaints which you can find online in cases against them, look and you shall find.
Another thing is to start taking night classes or a part time class on business management or money management, after all when do you think is going to be a more motivational time to learn then right now?.
Also a good thing is to get yourself a therapist, not cos your a loonatic or unhinged but its nice to talk to someone about the problems your facing without oit being somone who is out to get your money, to motivate you do benefit them or to blackmail you into giving them money, nobody is 'independant, if they are living with you, related to you or friends with you, they might be $300 an hour but they will save your money and your sanity and could help you deal with your family, friends, professionals and yourself.