I'm 19 and I feel like I traded being a person for survival
My dad died when I was 13. We had nothing. We were living off borrowed money from relatives and I remember just having this feeling in my chest like I need to pay these people back as fast as possible. That became my whole thing.
I worked towards that goal nonstop. Got a job right out of high school at 18 — genuinely a dream job, the kind of thing I couldn't have imagined getting. I'm in a way better place financially now. On paper things are good.
But somewhere along the way I lost myself. Like actually lost myself.
When I was a kid I used to make my mother smile all the time. I was the kind of person who loved making friends, who actually cared about people, who was warm. I peaked socially in high school — had real connections, people actually knew me and I knew them. I felt human.
Now I feel like a machine. I work 5 days a week, 3 PM to midnight. I wake up at 5 AM for prayer and gym. I'm in college. I'm trying to upskill because the AI layoff stuff has me paranoid. Every single hour of my day is accounted for. On weekends I just doom scroll or watch a series because I have nothing left in the tank.
I don't talk to anyone at the gym. My college is private so the social scene isn't really there. I don't give two cents about friendships anymore and that scares me because that's not who I was. Something happened socially that I don't want to get into but it made everything worse. People have tried to use me and I'm the kind of person who takes everything to heart so I just stopped letting people in.
The thing that messes with me the most is I don't have a strong why anymore. The debt thing that drove me for years is basically handled. And now I'm just... here. Doing the same thing every day but without the reason behind it. I keep telling myself I'll figure it out in a year or two when things stabilize but part of me knows I've been telling myself that since I was 13.
I'm not depressed in the way people usually mean. I'm functional. I'm disciplined. I get stuff done. But I feel so disconnected from everything and everyone and I don't know how to get back to the version of me that actually felt alive.
If anyone has been through something like this I'd genuinely appreciate hearing how you got out of it. Or if you didn't get out of it. I just want to know I'm not the only one walking around like this.