T'sup, JPPLAY
Welcome to Deeperblue, on behalf of everybody here. I'm glad you found an interest in freediving, but more so an interest in Deeperblue.net. This is the best site in the world to get the latest information about freediving, spearfishing, scuba, and some superb recipes to boot. There's almost too much information about training, exercise, equipment, and physiology. There's definitely plenty of personal input on the forums and great photo galleries put up by moderators and members.
I have just a bit of advice to address some of the key points in your post. First, you might want to tell members where you are located...you can do this by adding it to your personal profile, found in your user's control panel, or usercp. This way, others who might live near you are able to give you some connections you might not have known existed. I've met two other people from Dallas, TX so far, and one of them is going with me to take a freediving course in Miami this July.
Secondly, if you are considering training yourself, although I've basically done the same, try to find someone to watch you and make sure that he/she can perform the necessary safety procedures if some unfortunate occurance arises. I got interested in freediving when I was almost your age.
I'm 28 now, and I'm not sure how I made it this far being so careless. It's not a very good feeling to wake up from a short black out with your face still in the water, mouth open about to breath in a lungful of poolwater.
Stick with Deeperblue.net and you'll definitely get the edge on things. Plenty of people, who've already worked figured things out through trial and error, share what all they've learned to try and be of help to others. Good people here at Deeperblue.net, and it's great to have more.