EPTWhy?
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.
And now, I realize I have nothing.
Background
+ Show Spoiler [longbackgroundstory] +
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.
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.
- write and reflect about 3 things you're grateful for today
- 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.
