u/EntrepreneurTop1007

20m. I feel like when I was younger, I spent a lot of time in fight-or-flight, but in a weird way, it was also good for me because I was constantly forced to meet people, be around them, interact with them, develop social skills, etc.

Now that I'm an adult, though, I'm out of school, I'm not working because of my anxiety, and I don't hang out with friends that often. I feel like my social anxiety is starting to get worse because I'm not getting that constant exposure anymore.

I don't really know what to do. I keep pushing myself to hang out with friends, but I don't really have money to go out. I'm only not homeless because I still live with my parents. I'm meeting some friends today, but I'm so incredibly anxious about it. It's insane. I genuinely don't know how to overcome this. Everything feels so difficult.

I need to make an appointment to get my eyes checked and update my prescription, get new glasses because these ones are scratched, find a job, make money, get back into school, get my driver's license... and I feel like I'm going to get killed just by leaving the house or something. The fear is that strong.

I miss being a teenager, man. It sucked being scared all the time, but at least I had constant interactions with people. I was around others every day, so my social skills were at least being maintained somewhat. Now I feel like I'm slowly losing that, and I don't know how to stop it. I'm becoming one of those awkward mute people that never talk and have trouble speaking. I sometimes physically cant get myself to get words out, so I just stand there awkwardly smiling. I hate my life man, social anxiety truly has just ruined my life.

Man spike spiegal is so cool man. found this edit a few years ago, been going back to it every now and then. wish i was like this guy, but im completely the opposite.

ive always wondered this, because as therapists, im assuming that youre working with this person and you probably have high empathy n stuff, so you are making this person at the very least feel seen and heard and understood and shit. but if your patient is the villain and the problem, can you tell? and if so, do you let them know? and how would u do that without them flipping out or them changing their therapist? ive heard some people on reddit say that their therapist told them they were the problem and then they cried and changed their therapist and im just left wondering like idk the whole story maybe that therpist was actually just an asshole and not great at their job, but like what if you ARE the problem? just because they made u feel like shit and made u cry doesnt mean its not true, but now youve run away and found someone that validates you. Im not looking for that, I want to fix my problems and if im the asshole in my story than shit needs to change whether my therapist makes me cry or not.

im not sure what my problems in life are honestly. i have some ideas, and im pretty highly self aware i feel like, but im also kind of narcissistic and feel like subconsciously ill put on a show for the therapist to get some sympathy. i have a bad habit of just acting like a victim and a wounded puppy to get everyone to give me a nice big hug. its bad. im trying to work on it. im trying to learn what personal responsibility is, because if im not narcissistic, then at the very least ive been conditioned to just feel helpless enough that someone swoops in and saves me. but im 20 now and that shit isnt gonna fly anymore. in any case im still delusional enough to believe i could somehow fool a therapist, i dont want to tho, id do my best to be absolutely honest and genuine.

anyways, my point is, i dont know whether im masking or hiding or have convinced myself my life is shit, or if my life is actually shit, and im wondering if a therapist could tell the difference.

https://preview.redd.it/2ekb8vclp3jh1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=1501a7845fae5e985427f01da14a5b5f6a3b9bd7

debbie is genuinely the best character in shameless and i dont think people give her enough credit. like yeah obviously she does some insanely fucked up shit and there are times where she is genuinely unbearable but thats literally what makes her such a good character. shes one of the characters who actually changes the most throughout the show and you can really see how growing up in the gallagher family fucked with her.

when debbie was younger she was honestly one of the sweetest kids in the show. she wanted a normal family, she wanted to take care of people, and she was way more responsible than she shouldve had to be. but then she grows up and realizes that being nice doesnt really get you anywhere in her world, so she starts becoming more manipulative and selfish. and honestly it makes sense. she basically had to raise herself while also helping raise liam and dealing with the complete chaos of the gallagher family.

what i like most about debbie is that shes not written as some perfect victim. she makes horrible decisions, hurts people, lies, manipulates people and completely fucks up sometimes. but at the same time you can still understand WHY she became like that. shes basically a product of her environment.

and i think thats what makes her so interesting. you can literally watch the little innocent girl from season 1 slowly disappear and turn into the person she becomes later. shes flawed as fuck but thats exactly why shes one of the most realistic characters in the entire show.

(When i say dr k im referring to the youtube channel "healthygamergg" its a self help kinda guy that I watch a lot. posted this in his subreddit first, but apparently i broke some rule so im trying it here.)

Don't know which flair was most appropriate but anyways.

(20m) My life fucking sucks right now. And I don't feel a thing. Nothing. I'm partly optimistic, and partly sad. But lucky for me, I'm not the type of guy to be too impulsive so.

So honestly, there's nothing I can even do but change. So I'm gonna change. I'm gonna fuck up a lot, there's no way around that. And trying to bury myself and overcome myself doesn't work either, so I'm just left with myself, so I gotta change slowly, not try to put up some kinda fight.

I have a terrible habit of spiritually bypassing and also using self help content to substitute action and then I end up doing nothing. The days I'm most stressed and most hopeless are the days I end up watching like 3 of Dr K's longest lectures on spirituality and karma and self help all at once. So that needs to stop. I need to stop journaling too.

I feel like I've put so much shit between myself and my goals that everything feels cloudy now. When I was a kid it was more like:

problem → emotions → action

But now it looks more like:

problem → emotions → run away from emotions → analyze emotions → try to understand why I'm a screw up → watch copious amounts of Dr K to understand myself and understand my next moves → analyze more → mental masturbation through the content x100 → analyze why the hell I'm watching content instead of taking action → feel more emotions → repeat

And then I never take the action. I also always feel like im smarter than people, and I big brother them and act as if im some self aware super genius trying to mentor them, and in the end I never get results and yet they do.

I need to clear all that shit out so that it's simple again.

I think the bottleneck here is that I feel like I need to feel good to act, but I keep numbing myself too much. The emotions trigger the change, so if I let myself feel like shit it usually leads to the right decision and right action.

On top of that, there's numerous things I can directly control that also affect change and affect my mental and emotional habits, like working out, diet, sleep and making sure my environment is clean and pristine and at least somewhat inspiring. I'm also gonna try to reduce my scrolling, but I know me and I can't control myself for shit, so I'm gonna start small. No phone in bathroom and no phone when I wake up. Everything else is fine, at least for now.

What I'm trying to do is just set a foundation. I also printed a bunch of resumes and I'm gonna go around handing them out but I haven't planned that day out yet.

There's so much shit to fix man, so much shit and idk if I'll make it, but there's a weird sense of peace in the uncertainty. I don't know what lies ahead and I can never know what lies ahead, which means there's always a chance, and I don't wanna miss it just because my brain decided to give me a cocktail of self loathing and negativity.

But again, I'm making this clear to myself because I know me. I am not gonna change easily, I'm barely gonna change at all, but that's not really the point honestly. Just little ones. That's all I care about.

If I can use my phone like 20% less in the coming weeks, I'm happy. If I can consistently work out a little for the next few weeks I'm happy. If I can keep my room relatively clean for the next few weeks I'm happy. Nothing else matters right now.

I also feel like change to me is no longer this massive gratifying movie montage moment. I always envisioned some kinda training montage. Eye of the Tiger or some badass song plays in the background and it's a montage of me struggling but eventually making it, and it's cinematic and feels good.

I tend to escape into fantasy a lot like that.

But change actually won't look like that.

Change looks like folding my sheets.

And when the feeling of the emotional high of "LETS GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER HELL YEAHHH" wears off and it becomes boring, that's how you know you're changing, if you can tolerate that.

I feel like that's the next goal, among many others. To be able to keep doing the boring shit after the emotional high wears off.

The reason I'm making this post is because I wanna stop doing all the spiritual bypass bullshit and self help content, so for now this will be my "journal." I'll try to write something everyday, and hopefully that keeps me on track, and yall can give ur input if u have any. Also might help some of u on similar journeys.

As for today tho. Last night was completely and utterly bullshit. Whipped out my vape and smoked a lot (I don't smoke often but I enjoy the buzz every now and then) and also binged videogames til like 7 in the morning. Going through a lot of stress right now, life just sucks.

But today, I woke up, meditated a little, cleaned my room a little, cleaned my desk a little and I feel better now. Action is euphoric honestly.

My desk has been pissing me off and making me depressed for weeks now, and now I'm just admiring how clean it is. It feels good. I feel more centered.

Unrelated but a few weeks ago I learned to solve a Rubik's cube, something I've been trying to do since I was in middle school but never could do no matter how hard I tried. So I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that lol, another little win I guess.

P.S as sucky as it feels and is, its not like anyones gonna change for me. even if anything that happened wasn't direclty my fault, its still on me to fix it, which sucks ass, but its just reality. so im trying to jsut take responsibility in my life where i can. Im trying to carve out some agency.

https://preview.redd.it/48lpd5edwsih1.png?width=942&format=png&auto=webp&s=acbb5b4d55c1f054345e209271e7c6c885c170bf

The post binge burnout goes crazy. We haven't dipped below 1000 in a while. although it is 4pm on a Tuesday so this will climb more later. nonetheless tho, I hope this isnt the end man. Imagine we could maintain that 3k for a few weeks, maybe hirez would actually do something, and although it was fun, and a massively great effort, its not enough to invoke any change.

Idk if anyone else feels this way, idk what it is about the show, maybe its because its filmed in the early 2010s, but it reminds me a lot of my childhood, and feels nostalgic to me. And i grew up in a nice suburban neighborhood, good community, rarely any crime, good parents and siblings, so idk why i feel like im back in my childhood when i watch the show but that's part of the reason i keep rewatching, just makes me feel like a kid. first watched the show in like 2024 I think, or 2023.

I feel like i'm stuck with the mind and desires of a child:

As you grow older, your values, desires, and thoughts tend to change. You slowly stop eating candy, cereal, and dinosaur nuggets all the time and start replacing them with actual food. You begin to value your career, your future, and having meaningful experiences in life. I feel like I'm missing that.

I'm 20 years old, and I still feel like the same person I was at 15. Not entirely. I want a family, I want a good job, I want to make good money, and I want to be able to provide for my family when I'm older. But for the most part, I still feel like a kid. Junk food, soda, and video games. Sitting at home fantasizing about one day driving and growing up to become the person I want to be, dreaming about a reality where everything is finally going right for me.

Meanwhile, I'm 20 years old and I've never had a license or a job. I barely graduated high school. Then I see people on Instagram that I used to know in high school, and they look so cool. They have their lives together. They have jobs, they're working toward careers, they're studying, they've built a good physique, improved their appearance, they're going on vacations with friends, dressing up nice, going to fancy restaurants, making reservations, and going to parties. And I'm just like, bro, what the fuck?

I want to be like that. I've wanted to be like that for years, but I feel like I'm stuck in a child's brain. What is wrong with me?

I honestly feel disgusted with myself just typing this out. It feels so cringey, weird, and pathetic. Like, what do you mean I'm 20 years old and I feel trapped in a child's brain? That so disturbing.

Edit: alot of you are hyper focusing on the food i mentioned. My fault for saying it wrong. I said those specific things as representations of a childs mind, not literally that you need to stop eating that stuff to qualify for "adult" i more so just mean that everyones doing cool shit and making memories and im still doing all the shit i was doing as a kid cuz i didnt really feel the shift. I see people going to fancy restuarunts and parties and dressed nice and im like "wtf? We do that stuff now? ...... Oh yeah.... Im 20, this is grown up shit."

Very late to post this here.

I had a friend who I kinda grew up with. We went to elementary school together and got closer and closer until it reached some boiling point. I was extremely avoidant and dealing with a lot of emotional shit, and she was also dealing with her own stuff. Over time, we just seemed to drift further and further apart. Next thing I know, I'm getting ghosted for 3+ weeks with no texts, no calls, or anything.

I did what I could to maintain the connection. Again, I'm sure I'm not innocent in all this, but from where I stand, the vast majority of it was her fault because I wanted to maintain the friendship. But when I'm getting left on delivered for 3 weeks and hearing she's talking shit behind my back, what am I supposed to do? I just figured it would pass and that she was dealing with some shit. Then a year went by, and it just got progressively worse.

At some point, I realized she just wasn't doing anything to maintain the friendship. As painful as it was, I had to get her the fuck out of my life, prioritize myself, and respect myself. So I blocked her on everything and avoided the shit out of her.

She did a lot of things to try to get back in contact with me. She even contacted my friends to get messages to me. Eventually, I'd waver and let her back into my life because she really seemed to care. It never lasted though. She'd be a good friend for a little while, and then I'd be back to getting ghosted again. I couldn't take it, so I blocked her again. This time it was for good, and nothing was going to change my mind.

She had treated some of her other friends the same way, and we all kind of collectively left her behind.

Now, 2.5 years later, I'm still missing her like crazy, and the whole situation was weighing really heavy on me. I knew too much time had passed and that this whole thing probably could never be fixed, but at the very least I wanted to call her, get that shit off my chest, get on good terms with her, and then see how I felt from there.

So I called her. We talked, caught up, and then a few weeks later the whole OG squad even linked up. It was so fucking awkward, man. I wanna slap myself whenever I think about it. Since then, it's been radio silence for 8 months which brings us to today.

I guess I'm on good terms with her now, but we've grown apart so much. I still miss her, and I'm still holding onto the possibility of us becoming good friends again someday. I don't think I'll ever be able to close the book on that. I just can't.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I could try to be friends with her again because she's grown a lot since then. Her old friends and her have reconciled and become close again. However, there's just such a big gap between then and now. I feel like it would be unfair to try to become her friend again because I'd be going into it expecting her to be her old self, when she's grown so fucking far past that. That's unfair to her, and it's also unfair to me because I'll probably just get hurt again when I realize she's a different person with a different life and everything.

I just need some advice on how the fuck to move forward. Is there any chance of getting some connection back, or should I close the book on it forever? If you think closing the book on it is the right move, how do I do that? I truly and wholeheartedly think I could never do that, and that I'll be stuck in the past forever.

edit: I've recently realized I maybe need to let myself feel negative emotions and just let it get processed and so I'm sitting here at 20 years old just constantly feeling like I'm back in high-school and elementary school and just feeling a whole bunch of grief and pain and nostalgia and liminality and i'm getting sick of feeling it honestly, but maybe this is just the process, idk.

Very late to post this here.

I had a friend who I kinda grew up with. We went to elementary school together and got closer and closer until it reached some boiling point. I was extremely avoidant and dealing with a lot of emotional shit, and she was also dealing with her own stuff. Over time, we just seemed to drift further and further apart. Next thing I know, I'm getting ghosted for 3+ weeks with no texts, no calls, or anything.

I did what I could to maintain the connection. Again, I'm sure I'm not innocent in all this, but from where I stand, the vast majority of it was her fault because I wanted to maintain the friendship. But when I'm getting left on delivered for 3 weeks and hearing she's talking shit behind my back, what am I supposed to do? I just figured it would pass and that she was dealing with some shit. Then a year went by, and it just got progressively worse.

At some point, I realized she just wasn't doing anything to maintain the friendship. As painful as it was, I had to get her the fuck out of my life, prioritize myself, and respect myself. So I blocked her on everything and avoided the shit out of her.

She did a lot of things to try to get back in contact with me. She even contacted my friends to get messages to me. Eventually, I'd waver and let her back into my life because she really seemed to care. It never lasted though. She'd be a good friend for a little while, and then I'd be back to getting ghosted again. I couldn't take it, so I blocked her again. This time it was for good, and nothing was going to change my mind.

She had treated some of her other friends the same way, and we all kind of collectively left her behind.

Now, 2.5 years later, I'm still missing her like crazy, and the whole situation was weighing really heavy on me. I knew too much time had passed and that this whole thing probably could never be fixed, but at the very least I wanted to call her, get that shit off my chest, get on good terms with her, and then see how I felt from there.

So I called her. We talked, caught up, and then a few weeks later the whole OG squad even linked up. It was so fucking awkward, man. I wanna slap myself whenever I think about it. Since then, it's been radio silence for 8 months which brings us to today.

I guess I'm on good terms with her now, but we've grown apart so much. I still miss her, and I'm still holding onto the possibility of us becoming good friends again someday. I don't think I'll ever be able to close the book on that. I just can't.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I could try to be friends with her again because she's grown a lot since then. Her old friends and her have reconciled and become close again. However, there's just such a big gap between then and now. I feel like it would be unfair to try to become her friend again because I'd be going into it expecting her to be her old self, when she's grown so fucking far past that. That's unfair to her, and it's also unfair to me because I'll probably just get hurt again when I realize she's a different person with a different life and everything.

I just need some advice on how the fuck to move forward. Is there any chance of getting some connection back, or should I close the book on it forever? If you think closing the book on it is the right move, how do I do that? I truly and wholeheartedly think I could never do that, and that I'll be stuck in the past forever.

edit: I've recently realized I maybe need to let myself feel negative emotions and just let it get processed and so I'm sitting here at 20 years old just constantly feeling like I'm back in high-school and elementary school and just feeling a whole bunch of grief and pain and nostalgia and liminality and i'm getting sick of feeling it honestly, but maybe this is just the process, idk.

Very late to post this here.

I had a friend who I kinda grew up with. We went to elementary school together and got closer and closer until it reached some boiling point. I was extremely avoidant and dealing with a lot of emotional shit, and she was also dealing with her own stuff. Over time, we just seemed to drift further and further apart. Next thing I know, I'm getting ghosted for 3+ weeks with no texts, no calls, or anything.

I did what I could to maintain the connection. Again, I'm sure I'm not innocent in all this, but from where I stand, the vast majority of it was her fault because I wanted to maintain the friendship. But when I'm getting left on delivered for 3 weeks and hearing she's talking shit behind my back, what am I supposed to do? I just figured it would pass and that she was dealing with some shit. Then a year went by, and it just got progressively worse.

At some point, I realized she just wasn't doing anything to maintain the friendship. As painful as it was, I had to get her the fuck out of my life, prioritize myself, and respect myself. So I blocked her on everything and avoided the shit out of her.

She did a lot of things to try to get back in contact with me. She even contacted my friends to get messages to me. Eventually, I'd waver and let her back into my life because she really seemed to care. It never lasted though. She'd be a good friend for a little while, and then I'd be back to getting ghosted again. I couldn't take it, so I blocked her again. This time it was for good, and nothing was going to change my mind.

She had treated some of her other friends the same way, and we all kind of collectively left her behind.

Now, 2.5 years later, I'm still missing her like crazy, and the whole situation was weighing really heavy on me. I knew too much time had passed and that this whole thing probably could never be fixed, but at the very least I wanted to call her, get that shit off my chest, get on good terms with her, and then see how I felt from there.

So I called her. We talked, caught up, and then a few weeks later the whole OG squad even linked up. It was so fucking awkward, man. I wanna slap myself whenever I think about it. Since then, it's been radio silence for 8 months which brings us to today.

I guess I'm on good terms with her now, but we've grown apart so much. I still miss her, and I'm still holding onto the possibility of us becoming good friends again someday. I don't think I'll ever be able to close the book on that. I just can't.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I could try to be friends with her again because she's grown a lot since then. Her old friends and her have reconciled and become close again. However, there's just such a big gap between then and now. I feel like it would be unfair to try to become her friend again because I'd be going into it expecting her to be her old self, when she's grown so fucking far past that. That's unfair to her, and it's also unfair to me because I'll probably just get hurt again when I realize she's a different person with a different life and everything.

I just need some advice on how the fuck to move forward. Is there any chance of getting some connection back, or should I close the book on it forever? If you think closing the book on it is the right move, how do I do that? I truly and wholeheartedly think I could never do that, and that I'll be stuck in the past forever.

edit: I've recently realized I maybe need to let myself feel negative emotions and just let it get processed and so I'm sitting here at 20 years old just constantly feeling like I'm back in high-school and elementary school and just feeling a whole bunch of grief and pain and nostalgia and liminality and i'm getting sick of feeling it honestly, but maybe this is just the process, idk.

title pretty much.

Not a big thing, I know. However, there was a huge trend at my elementary school when I was a kid where everyone learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube. I just LARPED like crazy. I bought a couple of speed cubes, but I never actually learned how to solve them. I tried a few times with YouTube videos, but it always felt so complicated that I would get overwhelmed and frustrated easily, and eventually I would just give up.

I remember going to class and seeing my friends solving massive cubes like the 12x12, the triangle ones, and all these other weird shaped cubes. They could solve regular 3x3 cubes super quickly too, and I would think, "Damn man, I should be able to do that." But I never could. That was back in 5th and 6th grade, and now I'm 20 years old.

I'm going through a pretty rough patch right now, and I've landed on the realization that I just need to get a little better every day, because that's really all I can do. I'm trying to build as many little responsibilities and things I can control into my life as possible to rebuild myself slowly.

As I cleaned my room, slowly I might add, I noticed something. Usually, I pick a day and spend like six hours cleaning everything at once. This time, I did it over the course of a few weeks in little bite sized pieces, and honestly, it worked way better. It's also been much easier to keep it clean now.

Anyway, while I was cleaning my room, I found my old 3x3 Rubik's Cube and got the urge to finally learn how to solve it. Today I opened up a video and started learning. I got anxious and overwhelmed just like I did as a kid, but this time I didn't quit. I actually kept going, and I made it all the way to the final step before I messed it up.

But honestly, I enjoyed every step of the process and felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a long time. I finally learned something fun and cool, and I worked through discomfort instead of running away from it.

Even if this is childish or dumb, and my grown ass should probably be focused on something bigger, it's still a hell of a lot better than binging the same show all day.

And the funny thing is, after all those years of thinking, "Damn, I should be able to do that," I finally am. I'm learning.

Overall, I'm happy, I'm proud of myself, and I realized I actually like learning.

Little wins, guys. Little wins.

Not a big thing, I know. However, there was a huge trend at my elementary school when I was a kid where everyone learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube. I just LARPED like crazy. I bought a couple of speed cubes, but I never actually learned how to solve them. I tried a few times with YouTube videos, but it always felt so complicated that I would get overwhelmed and frustrated easily, and eventually I would just give up.

I remember going to class and seeing my friends solving massive cubes like the 12x12, the triangle ones, and all these other weird shaped cubes. They could solve regular 3x3 cubes super quickly too, and I would think, "Damn man, I should be able to do that." But I never could. That was back in 5th and 6th grade, and now I'm 20 years old.

I'm going through a pretty rough patch right now, and I've landed on the realization that I just need to get a little better every day, because that's really all I can do. I'm trying to build as many little responsibilities and things I can control into my life as possible to rebuild myself slowly.

As I cleaned my room, slowly I might add, I noticed something. Usually, I pick a day and spend like six hours cleaning everything at once. This time, I did it over the course of a few weeks in little bite sized pieces, and honestly, it worked way better. It's also been much easier to keep it clean now.

Anyway, while I was cleaning my room, I found my old 3x3 Rubik's Cube and got the urge to finally learn how to solve it. Today I opened up a video and started learning. I got anxious and overwhelmed just like I did as a kid, but this time I didn't quit. I actually kept going, and I made it all the way to the final step before I messed it up.

But honestly, I enjoyed every step of the process and felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a long time. I finally learned something fun and cool, and I worked through discomfort instead of running away from it.

Even if this is childish or dumb, and my grown ass should probably be focused on something bigger, it's still a hell of a lot better than binging the same show all day.

And the funny thing is, after all those years of thinking, "Damn, I should be able to do that," I finally am. I'm learning.

Overall, I'm happy, I'm proud of myself, and I realized I actually like learning.

Little wins, guys. Little wins.

I'll probably come back and make a full post about my journey up until now and what's gotten me to this point, but I'm fucking angry and tired, and I just wanna binge a show and then go to bed or something.

summary + where I'm at: (20m) I did horribly in high school. Really bad social anxiety that just kept getting worse every year, and grades that kept slipping over and over. I would start every year with really strong resolve, and then I'd fall off a cliff. My grades would go from average to failing. I failed a few classes here and there, racked up months' worth of absences in each individual class, and was pretty much on track to fail my senior year until my vice principal pretty much saved me.

I was in a dark place. I was depressed, numb, and stopped caring because I didn't know what else to do. I just withdrew from everything. She pulled me out of that and told me I couldn't go to university anymore because of my grades, which is what I had always wanted to do. We talked about college instead. She helped me graduate high school, and then I procrastinated like crazy. About three weeks before college starts, I picked some random-ass program that looked cool and seemed like could lead me to a good future, damn near had a panic attack, and then dove straight into college right after high school.

I thought this was my chance to make it right. To right all of my wrongs. To prove to myself I wasn't a useless piece of shit.

I gave it 300% and failed miserably.

I did sort of okay first semester, and then second semester I completely failed. Every. Single. Class. Except math, which is ironic as fuck considering how many times I failed that in high school. I got expelled from the program.

I didn't know what to do, so I took a gap year.

Now I'm on the tail end of that gap year. I've taken some online high school courses to make up the credits I needed for the university program I wanted to go into, and I intended to apply. Then today, about an hour ago, I found out that I can't apply. Or at least it seems that way. I'm gonna call my old college and the universities I want to go to and see if it can be ironed out.

The reason I can't apply is because I don't meet the mature student guidelines. But I also don't qualify as a regular applicant anymore because I've already been to college. I can't transfer either, because I failed college, got expelled, and don't have the grades to transfer into university.

Some honorary mentions: I badly injured my back and have been dealing with chronic pain for almost a year now. I can't lift much anymore, although I'm functional otherwise. And I still haven't been able to resolve my social anxiety.

I quite honestly just feel nothing. I don't feel anything. I'm just gonna keep binging my show and hope I'll be okay.

But the next few days decide whether I end it. I'm getting sick of this shit. It seems like the only reason I was born was to just eat shit 24/7. If that's how life is, I don't wanna be here anymore. It's not even an emotional thing because I feel nothing right now. It genuinely feels like there's no point so why stay and fight for the sub-par life il have to live in poverty.

I'm 20 years old. never had any kind of job before or a drivers license (social anxiety but also just a shit ton of laziness) I'm locked out of going to university forever, and I've injured my back and have social anxiety, so trades probably aren't possible either. I can't survive in this economy with a McDonald's job, and I can't keep leeching off my parents forever. One day they'll die, and then I'll be homeless unless family takes me in, where I'll once again just be a leech and a piece of shit.

I'm pretty much a lost cause at this point, and no amount of advice or whatever will help me. I'm sure of that. However, there's a tiny flicker of light inside of me that wants to live, so some advice would be appreciated.

Otherwise, I just wanna say thank you to Dr. K and the HealthyGamerGG community for being my safe space and my community. Y'all are my dogs, man. Great people in here. Degenerates too, but all around a good community.

My favorite thing in the world for the past few years has just been binging Dr. K videos. I just got a membership, so I've been watching all the spiritual stuff about karma and meditation. It's been really fun, but of course I won't change at all because of any of it.

Idk why I'm dragging this on.

Dr. K, I love you, twin. You've been my rock for a long time now.

Take care, everyone. I'll see you in the next life.

https://preview.redd.it/d7wrxtibsweh1.png?width=977&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a6ad3db15523d2489829f246137cf60ff9c2f7a

Those are the guidelines for mature students. Il be 21 by the time I start my studies next year in September, however I went to college right out of high school for a year, so its been about a year since then so far, il be 2 years out of college by the time next September rolls around, however I'm not sure if i need to be out of college for 2 years when I apply for university in the next few months or if its okay that il be 2 years out by next September.

Would really appreciate some help. Thanks in advance.

https://preview.redd.it/p2mv8w39mweh1.png?width=680&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c87a3eda64e975cfeb9c42382a859185b0cd238

id be applying for next year so id be 21 by the time I start uni. I've been out of highschool for 2 years and I did a year of college but I failed and got expelled after my second semester. Am I still considered a mature student?

20m i feel nothing. I dont know what I am, why im here for what im purpose on this earth is. Seemed like i had a bright future for a while, and now I dont think there is a good life out there for me. and im feeling nothing writing this. Im gonna go back to watching youtube after this, il laugh and smile here and there, but quite honestly i feel nothing. my life is falling apart, and i dont care. il probably be homeless soon, and i dont care. i dont have it in me to end myself, but il probably get there at some point, I hope it happens in my sleep soon tho.

TLDR: I’m 20 years old and feel like I’ve spent most of my life stuck in cycles of trying hard, failing, avoiding things, and hating myself for it. I’ve struggled with social anxiety, depression, procrastination, and self sabotage since middle school. I’ve had moments where I improved and made real progress, but I always seem to fall back into the same patterns. I failed college, got expelled from my program, injured my back, and now I’m struggling to finish online courses that could affect my future. I have good friends and some hope left, but I feel numb, lost, and scared that I’m heading nowhere.

Man, I’m just so angry with myself. Why the fuck can’t I just be a normal human being that can get shit done and make a half decent life for himself? Why did I have to be born this way?

Growing up, life was pretty alright. I had pretty loving and good parents. My mother has a mental illness, and I remember her episodes from when I was a kid, but to be honest, I’m not really sure I was affected by it all that much, although I don’t know. Anyways, childhood was pretty regular and fine, and my life was always somewhat dysfunctional.

I was horrible at organizing things school related. I would stuff my lunches in my desk at school to avoid eating them, and then a few months down the line my teachers would complain because they’d find moldy food in my desk. I also wasn’t taught to take care of myself that well, so my teeth are pretty fucked up. I still struggle to do that consistently, but I’m significantly better on that front.

Around 6th grade, I got horrible social anxiety. I have no idea where it came from, but from my memory and what I’ve pieced together, my mother had a big episode around that time, and maybe that’s what sparked the social anxiety. From then on, I was just in my hoodie and avoiding every human in sight. I started wearing a hoodie everywhere, even in the middle of the fucking summer.

Progressively, it got worse. I started struggling with grades more and more. At one point, my teachers thought I was special needs, so they had me do a test with a psychologist at school. The results came back pretty much normal. I think I recall being a little above average in some areas, but I was mostly just an average kid. My grades kept slipping though.

Grade 8 came around, and I got a test back that was a 50, the lowest grade I had ever gotten in my entire life up to that point. My heart sank to the floor. From then on, I vowed to get good grades. I dedicated myself to it, and I actually did really well.

I started conquering my social anxiety, building better relationships with my friends, doing really well on assignments, and I even got a 100% on a math test once. I still hold onto that moment to this day.

Then COVID hit and I was alone at home with nothing to do but binge YouTube for 6 months, which made my social anxiety 15x worse. I would have failed elementary school (I don’t think that’s technically possible because they can’t hold me back, but marks wise I would have), but they froze the marks and I got saved. All the hard work I put in earlier in the year was saved because I genuinely didn’t touch a single assignment once COVID hit, and my teachers were spam calling my parents to get me to work.

Then high school rolled around, 9th grade. I still had some momentum from 8th grade, and the fear also kept me awake, so I worked hard. I got almost just as good grades in 9th grade as I did in 8th grade, like 80s and a 70 or two on courses I didn’t care about, and then 80s and 90s on the main courses like math. I also managed to make some good friends.

Then 2nd semester of grade 9 rolled around, and I had developed a lot of good friendships, but I lost focus and stopped caring as much, it seems. Grades dropped. I think I almost failed some classes, but I’d swoop in and get things done last minute to avoid failing.

Grade 10 was like falling off a cliff. I lagged behind in classes, didn’t have as many friends left, and my social anxiety spiked 5x higher than the previous level. I started skipping class to avoid people. Grades dropped, I got depressed, and I skipped more, and then more and more and more. Each time I skipped, it just made it harder and harder.

My math teacher pulled me out of class near the end of the year at one point to genuinely have a heart to heart with me and ask me if I was depressed or something. I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know if I was, but I didn’t want anyone to think I was either. I’m not sure what I told him, I don’t remember, but him even asking me that was devastating to me.

I tried hard to recover but couldn’t quite get there, so I took summer school to make up for the course. I swore to myself in summer school that I’d lock in. I brought earbuds, didn’t talk to a single soul, locked the fuck in, and got like a 90 or something.

The following year in grade 11, I was like, okay, I can’t keep doing this. I’m gonna lock in. At the time, there was all that manosphere stuff, Andrew Tate, and those guys, so it really gave me a lot of fuel to push. I started hitting the gym, took better care of myself, picked up meditation kind of, and started forcing myself to go to class and talk more.

It didn’t last long. Within 2 weeks of grinding, I started skipping again. I had so many absences in that class. I failed the course and just barely passed my other ones, then went to summer school again and barely passed there too. I probably got somewhere between a 65 to 70.

My social anxiety was even worse now. I just hated myself all the time.

Grade 12 rolled around, and I had understood my tendencies more, so I tried to lock in again. This time, I made it about a month before I crashed rather than 2 weeks. Same script. Try hard, fail, get depressed, avoid people, and have my social anxiety flare up like crazy.

I fucked up a lot. I managed to pass some courses, but math I had to downgrade the level twice. First it was university level math, then mixed math, and I had started skipping so much that I had 2 months of absences in a few of my classes damn near straight.

I gave up. I knew I couldn’t pass, so I got low and didn’t want to see anyone or anything anymore. I just wanted to pass away in my sleep.

One morning I was late to school and my mom tried to wake me up. I told her I didn’t want to go, and after wrestling with me a little she left me alone. Then next thing I know, she woke me up, put a phone to my ear, and told me it was the vice principal.

She firmly yelled at me and told me to get my ass out of bed and be at school. We ironed it out in her office, where she told me that no matter what I do now, I won’t ever make up the credits and be able to go to university, but reassured me that I can still live a good life. We discussed some alternative pathways.

I didn’t want to be left behind (I’m South Asian, by the way), so I was like, okay, let me go to college then for something and make do with it.

The vice principal managed to get me into a college level math class mid semester, but told me I had to make up all of the coursework from the start to the end before exam time. It was hustle time. She kept her eyes on me, made sure I didn’t come to school late, and when I did she would be pissed.

I went to the guidance office with her to get my courses and career path straight, and she kept telling me to show up for myself and that I’m not dumb or useless.

I managed to finish school and graduate.

Then I procrastinated the shit out of going to college, and like 3 weeks before classes started I just picked a program that looked cool and almost had a panic attack.

Then it was time to go to school, and I was like, okay, here it is. This is my chance. This is my chance to prove to myself I’m not useless. I’m making up for all of my mistakes right now.

I locked the fuck in. 300% effort.

I tried really hard. The social anxiety made it so hard to talk to people, it was really bad, but I managed to make friends. I tried really hard, but eventually I started skipping again. The depression feelings came back, and I withdrew from people.

I can’t understand why I did these things. I remember I studied for a test, went to college, and then just chose not to go into class and take the exam. I know social anxiety was part of the friction, but it’s a test, man. I can’t fucking understand why I did that.

So anyways, I kept trying to force myself to go to class because I just knew that the only way out was to go through, and that I’d have to endure some pain for a bit, but I couldn’t do it.

I kept skipping, and it got worse and worse and worse until I failed every single one of my classes and got expelled from the program.

When I got the news, I just felt nothing. There was a brief moment where my heart dropped a little, but I mostly felt nothing, and I even started laughing a little while thinking about it.

I decided that I should have gone on a gap year out of high school to take a mental health break, so I took my gap year on the spot.

I also, somewhere near the end of college when I was failing badly, got hooked on video editing and filmmaking. I started working on that because I was like, okay, I can’t just sit around and do jack shit. I’m gonna dedicate myself to this.

And I loved it.

I worked hard for like 2 months. I had a whole plan, and I was gonna get good enough to submit a short film to a festival and watch everyone’s reaction to it at the festival.

I developed a lot during that time because I realized part of my pattern was that I always took things too seriously, tried too hard, and then burned myself out. So I took tiny steps, and day by day I was gaining momentum.

Eventually, the same thing happened with filmmaking. I stopped making them, but I had learned a lot during that time.

Then I started hitting the gym with my friends because, for some reason, after the filmmaking arc, my social anxiety had gone WAYYY down. I was able to be happy and talk to my friends.

I spent a lot of time with them that summer, and we started hitting the gym together. After hitting the gym every morning for 2 months consistently, I was starting to look big.

Until one day, while helping my dad with something, I lifted a pile of bricks over and over and got a zapping shock pain in my back.

I dealt with it for nearly a year, then got an MRI and went to physio because it wasn’t getting better.

The physio told me it was a disc bulge and that it was a lifelong thing I’d have to manage. That day, which by the way was like a month or so ago now, was the first time I genuinely got depressed and cried in a while. I haven’t cried since like 8th grade.

I’m still dealing with that now.

I also wanted to get my ass back in school even though I have no direction and don’t know which program to do, so I got to work on that by doing some online courses to get some high school courses done so I can actually apply to university like I originally wanted to.

Now I’m sitting here. The deadlines on my courses are almost up, and I’m fucked because I haven’t done jack shit. Once it expires, my low grades get recorded on my official transcript, and then I won’t be able to get into any college or university.

Everything is falling apart, and I just don’t seem to give a shit.

I’m just gonna keep numbing myself and smiling and laughing as if nothing is happening.

I’m fucking scared, or at least I think I am. I can’t tell. I still don’t feel shit about college. I did one year of that shit, and it feels like it was a glitch, like it was never meant to happen, like it’s from a different timeline. That whole period of life feels like it exists inside of a void or a vacuum.

But right now, I’m a fresh 20 year old, and I think I’ll probably either be homeless in the future or I’ll just off myself sometime soon.

I don’t have a job or a driver’s license. I have some good friends around me, which I guess is the only thing going for me right now, because even in the midst of all of this, I managed to work on my social anxiety and make some real progress in that.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t seem to care about myself. My heart is fine, my stomach is fine. I don’t feel shit. I just don’t care.

I don’t feel positive or negative. I just hope sometime soon I don’t wake up, because I’m starting to believe I was just born to be a useless sack of shit.

And I know the very rare few people who actually read this (thank you for reading) will tell me something like “you’re 20” or “you’ll be okay, you’re young” and whatever, man.

I don’t know if I will.

I haven’t lost 100% of my hope yet, but I’m getting there fast, and I would really be okay with just not waking up tomorrow. I hope that’s what happens.