I just feel like I need to get this out somewhere because I don't know what I'm doing to myself. This is also going to be somewhat long because I think there has been a lot of build up to the state I am now, and it's not really worth it to just talk about stuff in a vacuum. I'm 19 and in university.
Why?
Recently, I've lost all motivation to live. When I'm waiting for the bus, I think, how would it feel to just fall in front of the bus and get run over? Would it feel better than what I'm feeling now? Will people actually care?
Would I care? Yes, I like living, but I don't consider what I've been doing for the last couple months living. More like following this kind of template for life so I don't lose my mind, drop off the grid and waste my parent's money.
Break-up
I broke up with my ex-girlfriend over the summer break. I didn't know why at the time, but there was definitely something wrong with me. Thinking in hindsight objectively, I gave up a lot of my ideals and thought about things I shouldn't have thought about, if I was to be a good boyfriend for her.
She was brown and I'm asian, so there was a lot of tension there in my mind, even though whenever she asked me I always felt obliged to say everything was okay with that situation. I kept trying to fight back that, "ugh, being with a brown girl feels wrong." And everytime I thought about that feeling, I beat myself up inside for thinking such shitty things about my girlfriend. It was a pretty shitty time. I mean, I really enjoy being around her, but it hurt thinking about these things.
I guess that's the main reason I broke up, but there was also some shitty things that felt so wrong in hindsight that I did around her. She didn't notice, but I reflect on my actions a lot and it just felt horrible. I guess you could throw a lot of that under the horny teenagers rug, but it still felt like shit. There were other non-sexual things that hurt me too. She's in the same university as me, but her program is really shat on by other people. And it hurts because I realized it was true once I attended a couple of her lectures. Also, she failed a pretty easy course, and almost failed a couple of other courses. I've always been kind of a nerd and my marks hang out in the top 20% of the class, so it's something that sometimes floated across in my mind. And then I think about how shitty a person I am to think like that about my girlfriend, and again, beat myself up internally.
So I broke up with her, and I thought that was that. Felt like shit for the rest of the summer break, but had a bunch of distractions with work so it was a bit better. I broke down a couple times at work, but thankfully no one was around, and the coworkers that saw I pushed away and pretended it was nothing. Met some good people whose relationships with me have began to falter because of this depression I've been going through. I still miss my ex, but I feel it's really just that I miss the feeling of being around someone who cares about me. Because here right now, there is no one that does.
Went back to school, and I realized how much of a void leaving her has left in my life. It's pretty stupid, but being around with her was the only thing I did for most of first year. She enjoyed it too so even though it was kind of clingy, it was mutual and enjoyable. We talked and texted daily, almost hourly even. But that was all gone now.
In 2004, I was introduced to Counter-Strike by some kids of friends of my parents. There were always these house parties every week at one of the parents' houses, so back then, most of the kids came together and played, slowly around the PSX, PS1, PS2, XBOX and PC. It was really nice, though I've always had horrible control of my emotions (read: I can't really distinguish between teasing and stuff like that). Crying was an easy emotional escape that I used way too much because I emotional about stupid shit. So it really alienated most of those parents' kids and we don't really keep in contact much.
Anyways, a lot of this built up, and we all played different games a lot. Counter-Strike just kind of stuck by with me. I bought the Anthology, registered it on Steam, and played Counter-Strike almost exclusively. A bit of my PlayStation 2 with NHL2004 and Tiger Woods Golf (lol) and Final Fantasy X, but Counter-Strike was my favourite.
I started out very shitty as we all do. I played a lot, got better, met some cool people and got into a clan. Here's something that I hate. Every clan/team that I enjoyed always died. TeamLiquid being the exception, hopefully. The first clan was SWAT, and we scrimmed a couple times, sucked, then it just blew up, and me being a rookie member, I have no idea what happened. It sucked, but live and let live. I lost contact with all of them.
Then I moved on to the AKU server, where I spent most of the time for a while. I was really friendly with a guy named HAZARD, but he was friendly with everyone so yeah. Most people knew me, and I knew most people, and it was fun. I finally started seeing a lot of improvement.
Around this time, I played around with this NLCS server, where I made a bunch of friends. I was very regular, swapped names a couple of things, and finally decided to apply to actually join the team and be a mod. It worked, and it was great. AKU was slowly dying off since most members were old and they didn't have time to keep up the game.
And then NLCS died off because the owner disappeared and no one wanted to continue paying the server fees. NLCS was my life for almost 2-3 years, so losing it was pretty traumatic. We were all still friends, but it was fragmented since there wasn't a single server to play on. Most people moved to this LS server, so I did as well.
Around this time, I started swapping in my name for more odd names, like "Valar Moghulis" from Game of Thrones. I had started becoming good enough to be considered a hacker, but since people knew it was me, they just knew I was good. When I swapped names though, it was a different story.
Suddenly, I got banned from the LS server. I appealed and got rejected. I got banned from this MIND server. My appeal was ignored. I got banned from DW, and some 4-5 other servers. I told them it was me, but people didn't care. Most people went, "oh, I always knew he was too good to be playing fair." People on my friends list started disappearing. Blocked, I believe. I had one good friend, SPIKE, who was on my side, but it didn't really matter. And in the end, we went our separate paths.
The last straw was this final server. I jumped into it, went 15-1, then got banned immediately. I went into their forum to protest. At this point all I wanted was someone to realize they were wrong. I just wanted some community to be a part of. I was mad, and I told them, "I was banned from all these 6-7 servers, yet each and every one of them were wrong. So now you banned me. Are you going to make the same mistake as them?" And they showed me a replay of me jumping down stairs and killing someone immediately, and you could hear them in the background screaming that I was so bullshit. And so I was banned. I really had nothing else going for me, so I left the Counter-Strike scene. This was the end of Grade 9 I believe.
The reason I went into this huge background story is so you can understand my thought process at this point. My Steam account went from 200 friends to 0. Counter-Strike was my livelihood. I didn't hang out with people outside of school. I didn't have any one on my MSN. I had that online community, and that was it. And then I didn't have it anymore.
I enjoy my phrase, "plug in to disconnect," because that's exactly what I did. No good friends, just people I talked to around school, about school issues, and some things during school. It was sad. It was my life.
When I lost the Counter-Strike community, I think I died a little. I crawled up farther into that shell than I had ever been. I didn't open myself to anyone anymore. I got cold. Angry at the world. Cynical. I mean, I was always all of these things, but that bit just pushed me over the edge. I don't trust anyone. People who knew me in high school only knew I was quiet, emotional, cynical and smart. I didn't care, and people didn't care about me. I lost all means of social interaction. I gave up trying.
In Grade 11, I made friends with some of the people in my programming class, and things opened up a bit. There was this girl that was really friendly, but nothing came out of that, and I don't think either of us wanted anything to. I dominated the class in Counter-Strike when people figured out how to put the portable game on USB sticks and play on the computers. It was nice because people finally recognized I wasn't this robot who worked all day and did nothing by study. And I opened up a bit with everyone.
In Grade 12, my group kind of merged with this bigger group, and I finally had some half-friends I guess. People were friendly towards me, and I started becoming friendly with them, and it was nice because everyone just thought I was a jerk. I'm still actually a jerk because I still hated and distrusted people who I didn't know and weren't close to, but I guess some people realized I was only like that to some people (which is a horrible thing).
I liked finally knowing and being able to talk to people, but then I started to not care anymore and it all broke apart a bit. I was still socially awkward. I didn't and still don't know what to and how to talk to people. Sometimes it just clicks the first time, but I don't really have anything interesting to throw around after that. I think I never got past the "I hate everyone" mentality from Counter-Strike, but these are excuses. The year ends and I still haven't met anyone.
My sister believes all of this is partly a result of my parents being shitty and encouraged me to leave the house for university. We're complete opposites; she enjoys being social, I enjoy my little hole because it's safe.
University
So I go to a university away from all my high school people, and I started all over again. My best friend, at least, I think we were best friends at one point, went there, but I fucked up big time and didn't ask him to room with me because I'm so oblivious, so now our school and work periods are out of sync and we don't see each other anymore. I hate myself for this too.
But well, it's a clean slate, and I kind of knew before this was going to happen before. It's not like I had any real friends before. When I got to university though, I kind of wished that all my shit would magically fix itself because that's what everyone says, university is a new life. But it didn't.
I mean, I met my ex-girlfriend in the first week and it went well for almost a year, and I didn't care about my problems anymore. But they still existed. My ex-girlfriend knew, but it didn't matter to her because we both wanted some cling onto someone. I'm still impossible to talk to. I prefer arguing to small talk. I don't even know how to small talk. I small talk awkwardly. I'd rather debate, but I get emotional easily so it ends horribly. I can talk about class, pretend I have the same opinions as them, like that the professor sucks, and fake it a little bit, but it's never my opinion. No one sees things the way I do. It sucks.
But all of those problems built up behind this mask because I had a girlfriend. I started to realize this as I broke up with her, but then it all came crashing down at once.
At first, I thought it was just shock from the breakup. We were connected daily, hourly, and now there was just a void there.
Emptiness
But then I realized, it wasn't just a void there, it was a void everywhere. I talk to people, but I don't hang out with them. I talk to people once a while in class, then I disappear until the next day. And we only talk about class things. Never anything else.
After a lot of walking around, I realized, my personality is crap.
I tell myself that everyday, and I know it's true. I'm just not a fun person to be around. I do nothing amazingly well that distinguishes me from others. I don't talk to people well. I don't like people. I don't see the good in things. I don't compliment people unless it truly astounds me. I always talk down to people. I always think I'm better and try to justify the reasons. I don't think about other people's feelings when I talk. I don't restrain myself.
I really want to change this, I really do. I don't like living like this.
stuff I try to do
So I've been spending the last couple of months in university trying to fix it.
I tried joining a couple of clubs. Only one of them stuck with me, and I still haven't really made any friends from that club.
I tried talking more to a bunch of people in my class, but nothing ever really clicked with anyone. I'm still shit at that.
I quit Reddit so I could be more productive. Helps me from being distracted by Reddit, but not the rest of the Internet.
I try smiling more and being happy, but I only remember to do it occassionally.
There was a blog somewhere I read online about doing 5 things to improve yourself and change your outlook:
write and reflect about 3 things you're grateful for today
write about something nice that happened today
meditate
exercise
random acts of kindness.
And do this for a couple months. I tried, but I couldn't break in the habit once I stopped for a couple days.
I tried dressing better so that I could be more confident and somewhat sidestep how shitty my personality was and motivate me to be better by feeling positive about myself. But that doesn't do enough to help.
I tried just thinking it away. "I can do it, I can do anything." But that hasn't led anywhere.
I tried buying stuff to make myself feel better.
I tried learning new things to distract myself. I started learning the guitar.
I tried doing more stuff. I took up running again but lost the motivation. I'm trying to code a bunch of programs but I don't have the time or the motivation.
I tried hanging out in more public places to kind of make myself more comfortable being around people, but that doesn't do anything for me.
I tried talking to some girls, one that I really liked and crushed on hard, but it's pitifully sad and makes me more depressed when I get nowhere. I miss the feeling.
I tried studying people's language, expressions, body more and reacting in a positive manner, but I always feel fake, and I can't keep it up, and I forget to do it all the time.
I don't know what else there is left for me... Nothing changes anything.
I know some people will say like, keep going at it, or you're not trying hard enough. And I feel like it's true, but I just don't have the motivation to do it. And I know I don't have the personality to talk to people to make friends.
stuff that's screwing me over
All my negativity and depression and failures have really fucked up my life.
I've lost my ability to control my sleeping habits. I sleep at 8 PM some days and 5 AM the other.
I'm losing control of my school schedule. I'm missing classes I shouldn't miss.
I have no motivation to study for exams. I don't see the point in studying because I don't see the point in doing well. It doesn't motivate me anymore. The only reason I study is because I'm scared shitless of failing and disappointing my parents.
I don't play games, I don't do work. I sit here and endlessly browse nothingness. Then I browse it again.
I don't eat proper meals. Some days I wake up at 3 PM, miss two meals, eat dinner at 6 PM and sleep. Some days I wake up at 7 AM and eat 1 meal all day. Some times I eat dinner at 11 PM and another snack at 3 AM. I don't understand anymore.
I don't know what to do anymore... Nothing good has happened. I haven't met new people. I haven't had a good day. I haven't made any new friends. I still miss my ex. I have no one to talk to. I have no motivation to do anything.
I don't see a point anymore.
Thanks for reading, I just needed to get this off my back a bit. I broke down a couple times writing this, so please don't say anything stupid.
My lingering hope is something I read on a girl blog here, that we place too much value in things at this age like relationships because we haven't gone through enough of them. I hope that's the case, but I feel like that's not the problem. I don't know anything anymore to be honest.
update 2012/10/28
Thank you all for the support. I read through them all and it really means a lot to me.
I just wanted to clarify a bit though.
I have no intentions of committing suicide. I think about it, but I will never do it. Partly because I'm a coward, and partly because I feel like that's the coward's way out of everything.
You might say I'm an optimist because I always hope that the next day is better than the last even though that has almost never been the case. I enjoy living, in the sense of breathing in, breathing out, and just experiencing life. But I don't consider what I've been doing as living, or more accurately, living properly.
I have spent the last 4, no, probably the last 19 years living in this sort of hole, emotionally isolated and distant from everyone. Sure I have "friends", but I've never had any real connection. When I hear about people hanging out with their friends all the time, I just feel jealous, because I've never experienced anything of the same sort. And when I do, it always feels like I'm isolated from the group. I don't have the same sort of opinions and attitudes as others. I don't have the capacity to make friends.
Around the people I do interact with, "my friends," after lots of self-reflection and thinking I often feel like I'm more of an accessory to them or just someone that's just...around. It rarely feels like I'm ever friends with someone because they enjoy my company. Either I provide some use to them or I'm just attached and they're too nice to tell me to buzz off. Either way, it's deflating. You know that feeling when people don't respond to your text messages or instant messages? Yeah. Could be just low self-esteem as well.
Continuing on, I've always felt this way, but I really wanted to change. Something like find a group of friends who genuinely enjoyed my company, actually "live". And that was my motivation to overcome some sort of mental barrier that's made me so hostile and distant from people.
When I met my girlfriend, it was more like she accepted me for the shitty person I was, and that was okay with me. I actually forgot about all these problems because I had finally found someone who accepted me. But I never wanted someone to accept me. Over time, I grew complacent with the way I was, the shitty way I was, and at one point over the summer break, I realized that.
People will tell me, it's okay to be yourself. You should like who you are, and accept it, and move forward knowing that you are who you are and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, I don't know. Maybe I have a tendency to over-think everything, as some of my friends have pointed out. But I really hate being myself.
I really hate myself. That's the shittiest part of it all. I hate every time I screw up when I talk to someone. I hate every time I screw up a relationship with a friend. I hate all my inadequacies. And I'm trying to work hard to improve them. But at the same time, I want people to like me, but how can I expect people to like me if I don't even like myself?
It's a weird place I'm in.
I don't see a point in living because I don't feel like I have been living these past few years.
EDIT: Fuck it, I'm sorry I can't really comment much on this at all. I wish you the best of luck and know that you are not alone, you have friends, and that you are only a little bit past the starting line. There is so much there in the world for you in the future, and that you should talk to some people you trust about this.
people tend to lose their social skills after some time of hardcore gaming, not to unusual. I knew a guy who failed at school because he was addicted to WoW..he had a hard time to find his way back to a "normal" life with friends, social contacts etc. after that. It is a long and hard way, you already did some good steps with clubs etc. but lost motivation. No biggie, you started once, you can do it again if the time is right.
For the depression stuff: I would highely recommend to look for professional help, TL cannot help you in that regard.
@EienShinwa: It's common among asian peoples (especially the older generation in countries like Japan and China) to discriminate against brown people especially in regard to mixed relationships. You have no idea how many of my friends refuse to partake in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with brown people just because their parents would get on their case incredibly fast. It's sad and pathetic, but it's a part of the societal conformity that discriminates against anything different.
On October 25 2012 09:49 AngryMag wrote: people tend to lose their social skills after some time of hardcore gaming, not to unusual. I knew a guy who failed at school because he was addicted to WoW..he had a hard time to find his way back to a "normal" life with friends, social contacts etc. after that. It is a long and hard way, you already did some good steps with clubs etc. but lost motivation. No biggie, you started once, you can do it again if the time is right.
For the depression stuff: I would highely recommend to look for professional help, TL cannot help you in that regard.
Dang, you just opened my eyes. I've noticed a slight (actually huge decline) in my social skills with people. I think playing too much sc2 and watching to much anime is to be blamed. However im a junior in College and i'm 18 years old, so i attribute it to the age gap.
First and foremost, I highly recommend that you seek professional medical help as soon as possible.
University does offer a clean slate for a lot of people, but it won't just arrive on a silver platter. The things that you are trying to do and change about your life are worthy of your continued support, and are steps in the right direction.
I definitely went through some rough times myself during late HS, early college -- broke up with my gf, had a general parting with most of my friends, and then I screwed a couple of opportunities I had up real hard. But my mother really helped me out by this simple expression:
Take every day one at a time, and things will turn out well.
Another thing that helped me was this thought: In almost every culture, there is exists some sort of "Ease of Life" phrase:
"It's all good" "No worries mate" Bob Marley's "Don't worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing, is gonna be alright." "Don't Worry be Happy" etc.
I figured that if these different cultures all shared a similar vibe, there must be something to it. I decided not to worry about everything so much anymore, and just do what I enjoyed doing, one thing of which was pursuing my goals in school. I took pleasure in learning and doing well in class, but I wasn't going to let it make me crazy.
Finally, my faith is really important to me, which is not just a belief but a way of living, that, if done properly, is happier overall. Most people use 'faith' for their own ends/purposes and thats why so many are disillusioned with it, but if you study the truth and try to apply it - things like putting others first before yourself - you'll find a lot of fulfillment in it, and it'll help you make and keep friends easier, etc.
All in all, you got this man, and don't think that just because a couple doors have closed, that there are not a million more opportunities out there for you.
I'll leave you with this great quote, " For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. "
My first year in college was awful too, so when I was 19, I was trying to think of ways to kill myself that would look like freak accidents (didn't want to "shame" the family -- another issue that was not healthy). I actually had a pretty sweet plan. On the same commute I made to school for four years, there was a stretch of highway that was basically on the perimeter of a plateau. It was a straight drop into some massive crop field. I mean hundreds of feet, you can barely discern farm vehicles from the top. There happened to be a 300-feet stretch on the highway where for whatever reason there was no guardrail. Moreover, there was even a slight bend the left where if you didn't slightly adjust your steering wheeling, you would just fly straight off.
I drove by the same spot every day, but never made the attempt. I hated life, but I didn't really want to die to the point where I saw no future, else I would have taken that fall the on any given day. I told myself it wouldn't be this way forever. I'm lucky to say I was right, but it took a shitload of personal work and evaluation. It's weird... being young can be hard because your coping skills suck, everything's new, and if your not at the right point in life (or right mindset) that everyone tells you where you need to be, you feel like a failure, like everyone knows that you are. Worse, falling short of expectations you put on yourself, and beating your up it. That's all I think about youth, really: extreme highs and very, very deep lows.
I'm not going to tell you it will get better, that there's some purpose or role for you, and I don't have little tips that will life you up. All I know is that if you're hurting this much, it shows that you really haven't given up, that you do still have desires and goals. Your misery and dissatisfaction are a testament to your will to live happily! The frustration and depression comes from feeling incapable of achieving these desires.
Man I just wanna say something short and sweet. I wanna keep this simple.
If you kill yourself today, you'll never know IF things could have gotten better tomorrow. You'll never get to see the sun rise, or the waves at the beach, or the trees, or the moon at night, or that beautiful girl's smile that lights up a room. Life isn't all butterflies and rainbows, there's war and murder and rape and lots of terrible things, but without terrible things and ugly things by comparison, we would never know wonderful things and beautiful things. Life is not black and white, there is so much variety, so much color, so much diversity and excitement to be had. Compared to the good, the bad doesn't even come close.
If you take your own life, you'll never know what could have been. You never know what the future holds.
Iono if it helps but there's a quote somewhere about how life isnt easy, you have to crawl and carve every spit of happiness you can get out of it. When I sit here on my computer not feeling happy, just being alive, I think about this quote. It gives me the motivation to do all the things I hate. Talk to strangers, groups, apply for jobs, study, workout. I've never really enjoyed life, I dont understand it. I dont want a shiny car or a high paying job. I dont want a nice house or even the latest video games. But I have hope that sometime in the future I will want something. Even if it takes years before I realize it. So I keep trudging on even though I dont even know the exact quote. So dumb.
On October 25 2012 14:39 MaestroSC wrote: She was brown and I was asian.... this is when i stopped reading, because now all i can picture is what I think a brown person would look like.
Maybe its better you guys broke up... most people would feel insulted if when someone says "what race is your girlfriend?" you say "brown"
i hope my next girlfriend is a mixture between peach and off-white... or maybe cream.
"Brown" is a legitimate way of calling a Middle Eastern or Indian person. It's the same as calling someone white or black, the politically correct words might be Caucasian or African American, but that doesn't stop people from saying it anyway.
I'm going through the same thing. But as it happens, I can't break up with my girlfriend. I need someone to rely on and I don't think I can stand with two feet on my own. Goodluck to you man
Yo. The depression thing is physical. Your emotions create physical reactions in your body. So if you aren't treating your body well, there will probably be some negative reactions in your body. And this can feel exactly the same as your body feels when you feel bad, but it's really just your body trying to recover. So there are some things you can do to change that.
-People get cranky when they don't get enough sleep. Make sleep a priority. Set a regular bedtime and be firm. You can pretend you are your own parent/guardian. You can "ground" yourself if you step out of line. Something I did once went like this: I was going to bed at 5am night after night for no reason. So I said, I'll go to bed at midnight for a month, and if I go to bed much later than that I can't be on the computer after 5pm for a week.
So make your physical health a priority. Focus on sleeping well first, then eating well and drinking enough water. Then you can add exercise if you want.
Another thing I will mention is the theory that we get addicted to feeling the same way. So if you feel negative for a long stretch, you can become addicted to that negative emotion. Even if someone tries to make you happy you might still feel negative. But if you feel positive for a long stretch and focus on doing things that make you feel good, no matter what it is, you can also become addicted to positives. This is a good thing! And remember, laughter is one of the best ways to feel good.
So here's the big secret.
Watch comedy for a few hours every day from now until you feel positive, give it a few weeks at least. You don't laugh, you keep watching videos until you do. No biggie if you skip a day, just keep watching comedy as much as you can! Youtube has thousands of stand-up comedy videos! Here are a couple of my favorites: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
Also try to ignore negativity both online and in real life. Well, don't ignore it, just don't read it. And don't let other people with negative attitudes get you down.
Try to have fun, don't take things too seriously, try to derive existential meaning from your actions. There are still people who love you and people who would love you if you allowed yourself to meet them.
lol I used to make blogs like this as well. Thinking about the complexities, the disappointments, the isolation and fears of life. But one video changed my life. In fact, it was a really short segment of a really short video. If you have a free 2 minutes, watch this youtube vid that i time stamped at 4:00
Once you realize this, you will realize that you are lucky in every way possible, and every day is a blessing. All of that proactive stuff you are trying to do is great, but just start with yourself first, and stop trying to make everything as complicated as it really is.
'We are going to die...and that makes us the lucky ones' use every minute of every day to the fullest
Hello Blisse, I read everything you wrote, i think i kind of know how you feel, when i was attending high school , while i was sitting in the bus in the morning i was imagining a nuclear missle hitting the area to end it all almost everyday.
To be honest my life was shit, and i think yours is like shit too but that is not your fault. There are things we can change and some we cant, back then i tried many times to change, reform myself but to no avail.
I can only give you one advice, if your life is shitty first accept that, i mean accept that the circumstances make your life shitty not your personallity, you say you get little sleep, not eating meal regulary no social activities no close friends etc. that are some shitty circumstances i think no one would be able to have a fulfulling life with, its not your personnalitie fault because you tried your best, no one could expect you to do more then you are capable of.
Don't try or act like you are someone you are not. Change the things that are in your power to change, even if they are little. One can't change his personnality but you can change sleeping habits, meals, you can talk to your best friend, you can talk to your sister or family that you are not doing so well etc.
Okay so from reading your post it looks like you're stuck in your shithole. It's a miserable and unhappy place, but it's yours. You're used to it, and you always end up going back to it, because it's the only place where you feel completely in control of your surroundings, right? Nothing unexpected ever happens there, nothing that you wouldn't know to react to. It's the most comfortable place to be miserable.
If I've understood your situation wrong then stop reading here. If I haven't, then feel free to open the spoiler below and keep reading.
Your hole is a prison cell. A prison cell with an unlocked door. But you've spent so much time there, and the world outside looks so full of things you don't know how to handle, that you just stay in. And you feel miserable. What's surprising about that? A prison cell is a miserable place to live in. You can lie to yourself for some periods of time by setting up a computer in your cell and playing CS 24/7 and telling yourself "oh this isn't a prison cell alright it's a pretty nice place and I'm happy to be there". But reality always ends up setting back in, and after the glow of the screen fades out, you look around yourself and realize you're still in the same shitty prison cell you've always been in all along.
What advice can I give you now? None specific. I can tell you that you're not the first person to be in such a prison cell. And I can tell you that many have broken free. How that happens, I believe, is different for each one of us. But it often hinges on the outside world, on the world we glimpse at through steel bars. This outside world is what can lure us out, sometimes forcefully, and make us suddenly realize one day: I'm happier here. I don't want to go back.
Student life is a world that could never have done that for me. During all these years I never came close of leaving my cell. I even pretty much gave up on leaving it one day. But I kept living and going on anyway. After some years I eventually finished my studies and got my first job. Instead of solving rote problems with predictable patterns at school, I now had to solve practical issues, with the method completely left up to me. The outside world started to look a bit brighter. And then this same job started sending me to missions to the countryside of China. The outside world was now something I had never seen before and I was drawn to it. Being white and a tall nerd, in the countryside I was a rarity. Heads were turning and kids were staring wherever I went, and that stroked my ego. People were engaging conversation with me, and as opposed to talking with other French people at home, we were all way too busy working through language issues and bartering about our respective countries for it to ever become awkward. The fact that I needed all of that is pathetic of course. But big things have small beginnings, and that was my beginning. I haven't been back in my cell since.
So my advice would be to just hang on. The outside world around you right now obviously fails to draw you out of your cell. So the best you could do would be to proactively change this outside world. You can do that by opting for crazy and unsafe choices whenever you can, such as getting a very challenging job or going to some wild country for a year for studies or internship or even some humanitarian work. Anything goes, really. But I wouldn't be surprised if you kept doing nothing. You feel safe in your current environment and might be too scared to risk anything to upset it. That's fine. Life won't always play by your rules. Life has a nasty tendency of putting people into all kinds of unforeseen situations and it will happen to you too. So just hang on, try to upset your life if you have the balls for it, and one day you'll break free. I'm confident you will. Good luck anyway.
Edit: You should also try the more practical ideas that other people have shared in this thread (such as living a healthier life to begin with) as they can only have positive results. But even if they don't then just hang on.
I don't like (90%+) people either. As you go through life, you'll realize more and more how terrible most people are. And that's totally fine.
As for pretty much everything in life, quality > quantity. I'd rather have one or two close friends than a hundred acquaintances that don't really give a shit about me.
Sounds like you're trying a bit too hard to fit in. Please don't conform just for the sake of conforming, that's dumb. Yay for being different rather than just another one of the masses that sleepwalks through life.
Hang in there and survive your classes, and spend your time getting to know yourself and improving yourself. Writing is great, write down all the things you can think of that to you have positive value, and also things that have negative value to you. Putting things down in writing really gives a lot more clarity and vision towards your view on life.
Thank you all for the support. I read through them all and it really means a lot to me.
I just wanted to clarify a bit though.
I have no intentions of committing suicide. I think about it, but I will never do it. Partly because I'm a coward, and partly because I feel like that's the coward's way out of everything.
You might say I'm an optimist because I always hope that the next day is better than the last even though that has almost never been the case. I enjoy living, in the sense of breathing in, breathing out, and just experiencing life. But I don't consider what I've been doing as living, or more accurately, living properly.
I have spent the last 4, no, probably the last 19 years living in this sort of hole, emotionally isolated and distant from everyone. Sure I have "friends", but I've never had any real connection. When I hear about people hanging out with their friends all the time, I just feel jealous, because I've never experienced anything of the same sort. And when I do, it always feels like I'm isolated from the group. I don't have the same sort of opinions and attitudes as others. I don't have the capacity to make friends.
Around the people I do interact with, "my friends," after lots of self-reflection and thinking I often feel like I'm more of an accessory to them or just someone that's just...around. It rarely feels like I'm ever friends with someone because they enjoy my company. Either I provide some use to them or I'm just attached and they're too nice to tell me to buzz off. Either way, it's deflating. You know that feeling when people don't respond to your text messages or instant messages? Yeah. Could be just low self-esteem as well.
Continuing on, I've always felt this way, but I really wanted to change. Something like find a group of friends who genuinely enjoyed my company, actually "live". And that was my motivation to overcome some sort of mental barrier that's made me so hostile and distant from people.
When I met my girlfriend, it was more like she accepted me for the shitty person I was, and that was okay with me. I actually forgot about all these problems because I had finally found someone who accepted me. But I never wanted someone to accept me. Over time, I grew complacent with the way I was, the shitty way I was, and at one point over the summer break, I realized that.
People will tell me, it's okay to be yourself. You should like who you are, and accept it, and move forward knowing that you are who you are and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, I don't know. Maybe I have a tendency to over-think everything, as some of my friends have pointed out. But I really hate being myself.
I really hate myself. That's the shittiest part of it all. I hate every time I screw up when I talk to someone. I hate every time I screw up a relationship with a friend. I hate all my inadequacies. And I'm trying to work hard to improve them. But at the same time, I want people to like me, but how can I expect people to like me if I don't even like myself?
She was brown and I'm asian, so there was a lot of tension there in my mind, even though whenever she asked me I always felt obliged to say everything was okay with that situation. I kept trying to fight back that, "ugh, being with a brown girl feels wrong." And everytime I thought about that feeling, I beat myself up inside for thinking such shitty things about my girlfriend. It was a pretty shitty time. I mean, I really enjoy being around her, but it hurt thinking about these things.
Racist much? Or is this just the superficial asian culture again?
On October 25 2012 09:17 Blisse wrote: She was brown and I'm asian, so there was a lot of tension there in my mind, even though whenever she asked me I always felt obliged to say everything was okay with that situation. I kept trying to fight back that, "ugh, being with a brown girl feels wrong." And everytime I thought about that feeling, I beat myself up inside for thinking such shitty things about my girlfriend. It was a pretty shitty time. I mean, I really enjoy being around her, but it hurt thinking about these things.
Also, she failed a pretty easy course, and almost failed a couple of other courses. I've always been kind of a nerd and my marks hang out in the top 20% of the class, so it's something that sometimes floated across in my mind. And then I think about how shitty a person I am to think like that about my girlfriend, and again, beat myself up internally.
I'll read through this all eventually but it's a lot.
Can you elaborate on why you broke up with her? Because she's brown? Is she too into her religion and is her way of thinking too different from yours? Were you worried she'd be too dumb/lazy and a liability towards your future success and happiness in life because of it?
When I'm waiting for the bus, I think, how would it feel to just fall in front of the bus and get run over? I tell myself that everyday, and I know it's true. I'm just not a fun person to be around. I do nothing amazingly well that distinguishes me from others. I don't talk to people well. I don't like people. I don't see the good in things. I don't compliment people unless it truly astounds me. I always talk down to people. I always think I'm better and try to justify the reasons. I don't think about other people's feelings when I talk. I don't restrain myself. All my negativity and depression and failures have really fucked up my life.
I've lost my ability to control my sleeping habits. I sleep at 8 PM some days and 5 AM the other.
I'm losing control of my school schedule. I'm missing classes I shouldn't miss.
I have no motivation to study for exams. I don't see the point in studying because I don't see the point in doing well. It doesn't motivate me anymore. The only reason I study is because I'm scared shitless of failing and disappointing my parents.
I don't play games, I don't do work. I sit here and endlessly browse nothingness. Then I browse it again.
I don't eat proper meals. Some days I wake up at 3 PM, miss two meals, eat dinner at 6 PM and sleep. Some days I wake up at 7 AM and eat 1 meal all day. Some times I eat dinner at 11 PM and another snack at 3 AM. I don't understand anymore.
I'm very similar in all of these ways and more. I often feel like I'm too dumb.
Overall what someone said in the blog sounds right. I'm always amazed at how many dumb things I've done as a child when I look seriously. But Nostalgia's rose tinted glasses give a different cursory review.
And to be honest the things that mattered to me in middle school, in high school, don't matter to me anymore. It's all the people I've met and the real friends that I keep now that matter.