Losing myself

I'm at such a low point right now, and I don't see how things are ever going to get better.

I'm two years into college, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do with myself. I don't just mean that I don't know what I'm going to do for a career; I know that's not anything unusual. What I mean is that essentially nothing seems to interest me in terms of doing something as a job. I'm not having a hard time deciding between something, or am inundated by choices. I just am not interested. I don't care. On top of that, I have zero motivation to do anything. None. Nadda. Zip. Zilch. Why the ###$ should I care about doing anything for any of my classes? Why bother? If I do get a job, am I ever going to get anywhere with it? Will I try to get promotions or chase opportunities? Will I even be able to recognize opportunities? Probably not.

There's so many things I really do want to do in life - so many sights to see and experiences to have. Too bad for me, then, that they typically require money, devotion, influence, or just plain luck.

Add to that my general disdain for humanity, life, and just about every aspect of society imaginable, and you have a recipe for failure. Everything is just so freaking pointless.

I don't even know who I really am, anymore. I've changed my personal hygiene, I've changed my clothing, I've changed everything about my room in which I live, all in hopes of at least beginning to change how I feel. But none of it helps; none of it changes who I am or what I think of myself. I still haven't met any new friends or anything. In the last 3 years, I've had a single conversation with a non-relative outside of school that lasted longer than 10 minutes, and even that was awkward and fairly repetitive. In the entire history of cell phones, I've gotten probably less than five calls from people outside of my immediate family. Hell, I don't think that really even matters seeing as I now struggle to articulate each and every one of my thoughts. It's pretty alarming, actually, just how much my vocabulary has shrunk as of late. I don't completely forget entire words or what they mean; I can hear other people speak just fine. When I'm speaking or writing, though, I'm constantly reaching for words on the tip of my tongue, or simply repeating the same few words and phrases over. For Christ's sake, I often resort to using the thesaurus built into Microsoft Word. It continues getting worse, too, so I'm only watching myself degenerate.

I wouldn't have any idea where to start to get help, either. Really, am I just supposed to tell my parents how they've known practically nothing about me since I was a small child? They have all these expectations of me which I don't see how I can fulfill, not because they're unreasonable, but because I don't see myself as capable. It's as if, either way, I'll be a disappointment.

This is once again one of this things that I don't know why I bothered to post it. I hardly post here as it is; at first I thought it was great that I found someplace with people similar to me, yet for whatever reason I still feel out of place. So many times have I begun typing responses, only to close out of the browser halfway through because I wasn't motivated to finish, couldn't verbalize my thoughts, or simply figured I'd be ignored. I got this far in this post and was about to do the same, but screw it.

I know how you feel. But honestly i get tired of feeling the same about myself. Yeah im ugly, yeah im a loser, yeah i hate getting old, yeah i dont know what to do in life, yeah theres no chance ill be able to sustain a normal office job, yeah the chances of getting a girlfriend or wife are slim, yeah yeah yeah yeah. LOL. Ive run out of ideas so much that i cant even post posts like the one above me anymore...

Goddamnit, I was halfway through writing a long reply to this when I stupidly closed my browser. So here we go again...

To be honest reading your post was a bit painful. Partly because so many aspects of it are recognizable from my own life (except the vocabulary bit), and partly because your own situation seem to be so much more dire than mine. I hope I can provide you with some positive feedback, but then I am not generally the source of much positivity...

Cosmos wrote:There's so many things I really do want to do in life - so many sights to see and experiences to have. Too bad for me, then, that they typically require money, devotion, influence, or just plain luck.

I know I may be stating the obvious, but you are contradicting yourself. You mention your complete lack of motivation to do anything, but then you do seem to have certain things you want to achieve in life. Now I know this probably stems from the complex jumble of emotions that you are experiencing, as I find myself having the same contradictory feelings. Still if you'll indulge me, I'd like to explore this. What are those things that you really want to achieve in your life, however unlikely this may seem at the moment? In other words, what is you really feel you want to be motivated for?

I find it interesting that you managed to change so many aspects of yourself. I often consider this, but I seem to be very much stuck in the patterns I have carved for myself. Whenever I try to break these patterns I end up falling back into them and then berate myself for being unable to change. To give a slight example to make it sound less abstract, I REALLY should stop picking my nose...

As for getting help, as you are in university do you have access to some sort of counselor? Someone else on this forum managed to approach his, that seems to be a good start. (Maybe you've already tried this route, sorry if this is a moot suggestion.)

Also, KEEP POSTING! Please. Having feelings of being ignored or misunderstood are probably only natural as an avoidant, but I find that it helps in venting some frustration and provides some sort of short-term emotional relief. But I suppose I'm being very selfish in saying that, as I just need someone to talk to...

I'm at such a low point right now, and I don't see how things are ever going to get better.

I'm two years into college, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do with myself. I don't just mean that I don't know what I'm going to do for a career; I know that's not anything unusual. What I mean is that essentially nothing seems to interest me in terms of doing something as a job. I'm not having a hard time deciding between something, or am inundated by choices. I just am not interested. I don't care. On top of that, I have zero motivation to do anything. None. Nadda. Zip. Zilch. Why the ###$ should I care about doing anything for any of my classes? Why bother? If I do get a job, am I ever going to get anywhere with it? Will I try to get promotions or chase opportunities? Will I even be able to recognize opportunities? Probably not.

There's so many things I really do want to do in life - so many sights to see and experiences to have. Too bad for me, then, that they typically require money, devotion, influence, or just plain luck.

Add to that my general disdain for humanity, life, and just about every aspect of society imaginable, and you have a recipe for failure. Everything is just so freaking pointless.

I don't even know who I really am, anymore. I've changed my personal hygiene, I've changed my clothing, I've changed everything about my room in which I live, all in hopes of at least beginning to change how I feel. But none of it helps; none of it changes who I am or what I think of myself. I still haven't met any new friends or anything. In the last 3 years, I've had a single conversation with a non-relative outside of school that lasted longer than 10 minutes, and even that was awkward and fairly repetitive. In the entire history of cell phones, I've gotten probably less than five calls from people outside of my immediate family. Hell, I don't think that really even matters seeing as I now struggle to articulate each and every one of my thoughts. It's pretty alarming, actually, just how much my vocabulary has shrunk as of late. I don't completely forget entire words or what they mean; I can hear other people speak just fine. When I'm speaking or writing, though, I'm constantly reaching for words on the tip of my tongue, or simply repeating the same few words and phrases over. For Christ's sake, I often resort to using the thesaurus built into Microsoft Word. It continues getting worse, too, so I'm only watching myself degenerate.

I wouldn't have any idea where to start to get help, either. Really, am I just supposed to tell my parents how they've known practically nothing about me since I was a small child? They have all these expectations of me which I don't see how I can fulfill, not because they're unreasonable, but because I don't see myself as capable. It's as if, either way, I'll be a disappointment.

This is once again one of this things that I don't know why I bothered to post it. I hardly post here as it is; at first I thought it was great that I found someplace with people similar to me, yet for whatever reason I still feel out of place. So many times have I begun typing responses, only to close out of the browser halfway through because I wasn't motivated to finish, couldn't verbalize my thoughts, or simply figured I'd be ignored. I got this far in this post and was about to do the same, but screw it.

Sounds like me a few years ago. I thought I had no abilities (apart from being good at mathematics) and no real interests and motivation. I was lucky to find something that can probably fill a life and that I'm committed to.

But is it the fact that you have no ambitions that makes you feel bad or is it the social pressure? I don't think it's necessary to achieve certain things in life if you don't want to. As for me, I don't want a carreer, because it would inhibit me from doing the work that I like. I want to be a scientist, but not necessarily a professor, because being the head of a department leaves you less time for your research, writing and teaching.

And what about the things that you want to do in life? Can't those provide a motivation? I know, motivation is not enough most of the time. I actually have a goal, but I do not always work hard for it. But having a goal enriches my daydreams at least.

Ironically enough Math is the one subject I'm not that great at. I suppose I prefer dealing with words rather than numbers. Words can have character while numbers are cold and impersonal. Numbers are not ambigious though while words are inherently deceitful to a certain degree....

Objection(of course): Numbers wouldn't even be there without us thinking about them. I was never good at arithmetics and I can't even read the clock (yes, seriously), but I can see logical structures easily (and that's the fun of it). Math as such is quite useless (although solving puzzles relaxes me). But luckily, my ability to see structures also helps with other things. Even with learning languages.

darklight wrote:But luckily, my ability to see structures also helps with other things. Even with learning languages.

I find that completely depends on how structured the language in question is. I can remember from school that this was particularly true for reading Latin, but I had the hardest time trying to learn German, since it seems to be full of exceptions to the rules. French on the other hand seemed to be much more structured.

I get the impression this thread is veering slightly off topic...

Asuka wrote:I can think logically but for some reason I can't apply it numbers very easily.....I used to be very good at Math. I really don't know what happened.

When did this turn around for you? At 13 I won some school-wide maths contents. I entered the same competition the year after and didn't even get in the top 10. I don't think my confidence in my mathematical abilities ever returned after that. When I graduated high-school it was among my weaker subjects.

Hm, funny, I discovered my mathematical abilities rather late. In the early school years, when it's just arithmetics, I was average. When it started to get complicated, I suddenly had good grades. It's handy now for statistics and programming.
Yeah, German must be a horrible language to learn. And I don't think it's even worth it. Most scientific and philosophical texts that are in German are much more understandable in translation even for me. German language is only good for making simple things sound more complicated. Worst language to communicate science to a broad public.

But I didn't mean only grammar with the underlying structure of a language. I think, seeing structures helps to see what's possible with a language. I like to see these things, although I have a hard time to apply them myself.

darklight wrote:Yeah, German must be a horrible language to learn. And I don't think it's even worth it.

Don't worry, I don't think Dutch is any better...

Don't worry, I don't think Dutch is any better...

Well, at least it is easier to learn Dutch for Germans than the other way around. I was quite fluent after 5 weeks. But I still find it hard to express feelings or anything personal in Dutch. When I speak Dutch it's either study/work-related or just small-talk (which I hate) and joking around.