Good evening,
I'm not sure where to start, but I realized this night that I need some help and that I need to do something about my current condition if I do want to change my life. Which I do. I'm sickened by myself as I am at this moment.
But before I go on I should give out some information about myself. I'm a 22 year old male from Romania in his last year of university studies. I haven't had a proper job in ages since my confidence is rock bottom at the moment, I have had one long-term and long-distance relationship for 2 years , got engaged with her as well for half an year, and then it ended with a terrible heartbreak and a massive argument. I'll be adding more information as I talk; this thread will probably feel like a rant or a personal diary post.
This thread started after a nervous breakdown that I had tonight when I realized just how alone I feel at the moment. My self-esteem is shot to the ground; I'm not physically fat, I used to be but I've lost quite a fair amount of weight, yet somehow I still find myself unattractive and generally unlikable because of my looks. My confidence tends to fluctuate a lot, from periods of rock bottom to periods where I'm fairly confident in my abilities. And I tend to doubt myself a lot and my ability to accomplish things. This roots itself from a fear of facing the outside and the world; fear which in turn I think starts off from me being a bloody shy individual and from people in general terrifying me at the start, whenever I meet them. There have also been several incidents which have left me seriously doubting myself and my abilities. Perhaps I also set way too high standards and goals for myself that I can't reach at the moment; I tend to wish to become this super man, and I acknowledge the fact that it takes time to get anywhere but the progress seems to be extremely slow.
So my confidence, self-esteem are fairly low, and I tend to doubt myself a lot. The doubt also comes from one incident in my family where I failed to rise up to my father's expectations and got literally called "nothing" to his eyes. This was a fairly long time ago though.
I keep thinking I'm unlikable, that I don't have anything interesting to add to conversations and that I'm generally boring, bland, dull. I feel like a ghost whenever I talk to people, like nothing barely gets registered or that everything I say / do amounts to nothing.
I should still mention at this point that at university I'm always the quiet one that tries to pay attention at courses; I have a few "friends" I guess but nothing like the close relationships I had back in high school. Those have progressively gone colder as my friends have moved and I remained in my home town, still doubting myself. To this moment I talk to a few girls, both online and offline (a massive improvement over the paralyzing fear of chatting, even without flirting, to members of the opposite sex), and there's a few friends that I still keep in touch with, but they're both out of town and , even if they have their own troubles with uni and everything, I feel like they are much better individuals than me.
I don't think I'm an idiot or unintelligent. I'm not the brightest spark, otherwise I wouldn't have reached the final year in my university. Despite my laziness and fear of facing the world I have managed to take the biggest part of my exams; yes I still have several resits that I have to take, but they're the kind of resits that if I had actually not been afraid to show up to lectures and seminars, I could've scored great in them.
I do have several interests that have sparked over the past years; I've started reading again and watching movies, I've picked up traditional martial arts courses which have opened my eyes to a wealth of spiritual information, I enjoy reading about a wide array of topics from traveling, to cooking (yes, I'm a male who fancies the idea of learning how to cook), foreign languages (I know English, Romanian (my native language
), French, and at the moment am learning, or attempting, to learn Japanese). I used to be a horrific couch potato, still am but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be since I've been doing the martial arts classes and running in the park with my dog.
To sum it up, I feel horrible about myself, like the lowest scum of the earth. I feel I should be doing a ton more things than I am at the moment but am scared of facing the world and I'm terrified of talking to new people for fear of being judged. I feel completely alone and isolated, in the past, whenever I used to be with people, even with friends, I felt like a ghost, like what I said didn't add any value or didn't amount to anything. I admit I probably set way too high standards for myself but I'm afraid of disappointing my family with lower standards; I'm terrified of being considered stupid, unintelligent. And the fear is causing me to not progress, to not change at all, to not evolve. Hence, the lack of motivation to do anything other than vegetate and slowly become my father. Oh yeah, my father used to be a very good person as well; he used to care about his family, even if he was being a complete idiot when it came to his relationship with my mother (didn't abuse her but he has certain viewpoints on what it means to be a man). Now, after he's given up smoking (he smoked for about 30 years and went cold turkey about 4 years ago), he's gained a ridiculous amount of weight which has stopped him from working; he doesn't even do anything to fix the situation, he's just content on eating and watching the telly. Ending up like him terrifies me, the thought alone shuts me down.
After tonight's breakdown I decided I would start doing something about it though and not complain anymore, hence why I'm here and why I posted. I may have contradicted myself in a few places but I've been completely honest about things and tried to explain my current situation as best as I could. I have a few things planned in order to start fixing myself and the situation with my family, I just hope I can become motivated enough to actually do something about it. The thought of ending up something that would disappoint my family and my sister terrifies me.
Thank you for reading this far and for bearing with me. I felt I needed someplace to vent and get these feelings out.
Good night.
Edit: I should add that socially, because of my fear of talking, I end up being silent as well and passing on the responsibility of continuing the conversation to someone else. I can talk for a while but after some time I end up becoming silent. I realized perhaps this is due to the lack of experience I have in, well, everything; that reading more, doing more should give me more options to talk about. I just feel like everything I say will give people more fodder to judge me with, which is why I end up keeping to myself. That's why I have difficulty coming up with things to talk about.
Double edit: I do have some plans for the future but I have not taken any active means of reaching them. I want to be a game designer; even if I have taken refuge in video games from the world I find the process of creating a world for people to enjoy themselves in, thrilling. I just want to be able to control the urge to waste time and procrastinate and actually do something about my dream.
Thank you for reading part or all of this. Perhaps I can start anew.
New edit: TL; DR --> I'm unnaturally shy, terrified of talking to people, unable to come up with subjects to talk about, and I have rock-bottom confidence and self-esteem. Always doubting myself whether I am actually able to do anything.
I'm not sure where to start, but I realized this night that I need some help and that I need to do something about my current condition if I do want to change my life. Which I do. I'm sickened by myself as I am at this moment.
But before I go on I should give out some information about myself. I'm a 22 year old male from Romania in his last year of university studies. I haven't had a proper job in ages since my confidence is rock bottom at the moment, I have had one long-term and long-distance relationship for 2 years , got engaged with her as well for half an year, and then it ended with a terrible heartbreak and a massive argument. I'll be adding more information as I talk; this thread will probably feel like a rant or a personal diary post.
This thread started after a nervous breakdown that I had tonight when I realized just how alone I feel at the moment. My self-esteem is shot to the ground; I'm not physically fat, I used to be but I've lost quite a fair amount of weight, yet somehow I still find myself unattractive and generally unlikable because of my looks. My confidence tends to fluctuate a lot, from periods of rock bottom to periods where I'm fairly confident in my abilities. And I tend to doubt myself a lot and my ability to accomplish things. This roots itself from a fear of facing the outside and the world; fear which in turn I think starts off from me being a bloody shy individual and from people in general terrifying me at the start, whenever I meet them. There have also been several incidents which have left me seriously doubting myself and my abilities. Perhaps I also set way too high standards and goals for myself that I can't reach at the moment; I tend to wish to become this super man, and I acknowledge the fact that it takes time to get anywhere but the progress seems to be extremely slow.
So my confidence, self-esteem are fairly low, and I tend to doubt myself a lot. The doubt also comes from one incident in my family where I failed to rise up to my father's expectations and got literally called "nothing" to his eyes. This was a fairly long time ago though.
I keep thinking I'm unlikable, that I don't have anything interesting to add to conversations and that I'm generally boring, bland, dull. I feel like a ghost whenever I talk to people, like nothing barely gets registered or that everything I say / do amounts to nothing.
I should still mention at this point that at university I'm always the quiet one that tries to pay attention at courses; I have a few "friends" I guess but nothing like the close relationships I had back in high school. Those have progressively gone colder as my friends have moved and I remained in my home town, still doubting myself. To this moment I talk to a few girls, both online and offline (a massive improvement over the paralyzing fear of chatting, even without flirting, to members of the opposite sex), and there's a few friends that I still keep in touch with, but they're both out of town and , even if they have their own troubles with uni and everything, I feel like they are much better individuals than me.
I don't think I'm an idiot or unintelligent. I'm not the brightest spark, otherwise I wouldn't have reached the final year in my university. Despite my laziness and fear of facing the world I have managed to take the biggest part of my exams; yes I still have several resits that I have to take, but they're the kind of resits that if I had actually not been afraid to show up to lectures and seminars, I could've scored great in them.
I do have several interests that have sparked over the past years; I've started reading again and watching movies, I've picked up traditional martial arts courses which have opened my eyes to a wealth of spiritual information, I enjoy reading about a wide array of topics from traveling, to cooking (yes, I'm a male who fancies the idea of learning how to cook), foreign languages (I know English, Romanian (my native language
), French, and at the moment am learning, or attempting, to learn Japanese). I used to be a horrific couch potato, still am but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be since I've been doing the martial arts classes and running in the park with my dog. To sum it up, I feel horrible about myself, like the lowest scum of the earth. I feel I should be doing a ton more things than I am at the moment but am scared of facing the world and I'm terrified of talking to new people for fear of being judged. I feel completely alone and isolated, in the past, whenever I used to be with people, even with friends, I felt like a ghost, like what I said didn't add any value or didn't amount to anything. I admit I probably set way too high standards for myself but I'm afraid of disappointing my family with lower standards; I'm terrified of being considered stupid, unintelligent. And the fear is causing me to not progress, to not change at all, to not evolve. Hence, the lack of motivation to do anything other than vegetate and slowly become my father. Oh yeah, my father used to be a very good person as well; he used to care about his family, even if he was being a complete idiot when it came to his relationship with my mother (didn't abuse her but he has certain viewpoints on what it means to be a man). Now, after he's given up smoking (he smoked for about 30 years and went cold turkey about 4 years ago), he's gained a ridiculous amount of weight which has stopped him from working; he doesn't even do anything to fix the situation, he's just content on eating and watching the telly. Ending up like him terrifies me, the thought alone shuts me down.
After tonight's breakdown I decided I would start doing something about it though and not complain anymore, hence why I'm here and why I posted. I may have contradicted myself in a few places but I've been completely honest about things and tried to explain my current situation as best as I could. I have a few things planned in order to start fixing myself and the situation with my family, I just hope I can become motivated enough to actually do something about it. The thought of ending up something that would disappoint my family and my sister terrifies me.
Thank you for reading this far and for bearing with me. I felt I needed someplace to vent and get these feelings out.
Good night.
Edit: I should add that socially, because of my fear of talking, I end up being silent as well and passing on the responsibility of continuing the conversation to someone else. I can talk for a while but after some time I end up becoming silent. I realized perhaps this is due to the lack of experience I have in, well, everything; that reading more, doing more should give me more options to talk about. I just feel like everything I say will give people more fodder to judge me with, which is why I end up keeping to myself. That's why I have difficulty coming up with things to talk about.
Double edit: I do have some plans for the future but I have not taken any active means of reaching them. I want to be a game designer; even if I have taken refuge in video games from the world I find the process of creating a world for people to enjoy themselves in, thrilling. I just want to be able to control the urge to waste time and procrastinate and actually do something about my dream.
Thank you for reading part or all of this. Perhaps I can start anew.
New edit: TL; DR --> I'm unnaturally shy, terrified of talking to people, unable to come up with subjects to talk about, and I have rock-bottom confidence and self-esteem. Always doubting myself whether I am actually able to do anything.
