Hi, I'm new

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Michael99

New member
Joined
Oct 2, 2020
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Hi, my name is Michael. I'm from the UK and just turned 21 in August. Haven't really been on a forum since I was like 16 or something but been feeling kinda down lately so I thought I'd do something about it, even if it's just to vent or something.

I'm generally a pretty big introvert. It's not that I can't make friends, heck I was reasonably popular in secondary school (though I didn't appreciate it enough at the time). But since I finished my GCSEs, it's kinda been downhill. All the friends I made are doing their own things, getting jobs and such. Meanwhile I'm still clueless where I'm going.

Since leaving school I've picked up and dropped a bunch of hobbies in hopes something will stick. I did a media course for a bit (was a huge mistake, two years I'll never get back), tried to learn how to code and even trained for pro wrestling, which was a childhood dream of mine. A dream I've sorta left behind (another huge mistake). Right now I'm doing a new course in childcare where I get to work with kids and have been teaching myself to draw. I enjoy both, and have stuck with them for longer than I thought I would, but who knows what things will be like by next year.

Throughout all this, I've more or less been on my own. I still have my family and I talk with the people I work with, sure. But I really don't have much in the way of friends. I tried not to think about it too much for a while, but it kinda hit me a while ago that since lockdown and quarantine stuff started going down, my life remained largely unchanged. No plans to meet up with people.

I do have have the odd person online I talk to, although I don't hear from people much. I do have one person I'd consider my best friend, who is also online but she's kinda starting to reply less and less. She's somehow getting her life together better than me, even despite the pandemic. I'm happy for her, but I get this sinking feeling in my gut that she's eventually gonna get too busy to keep up with me and my depressing amount of free time. Might be paranoia but it's a possibility.

I'm kinda scared how long this will go on for to be honest. Like, okay, I'm 21. That's young, I know that. But next year I'm 22. The next I'm 23. So on and so forth. In that time, how much of it is gonna be me wasting my life looking for something that will stick, all without someone who I can trust will be there for me and I for them. It doesn't feel like something that's gonna end. I've felt this way for 6 or 7 years, what's another 10 or even 20?

One more thing, since it's on my mind and I haven't told anyone. I feel like a much worse person since I started feeling this way. Like, I'm not a jerk I don't think, I stay polite with people. But I'm definitely much more self centered, less empathetic, more bitter, just a much colder person in general. I've stopped caring what people might think of me, since I know they'll be out of my life soon enough anyway. I hope I don't sound like a jerk, but it's true. Maybe it's frustration or something, maybe it's normal but it feels weird when I compare myself to when I was a teenager and would burn myself out cuz I wanted to help people. Nowadays, I just feel a little too apathetic.

That's about all in terms of where I'm at right now. I mean, there might be some stuff I haven't mentioned, but it's either too personal or just not worth making people read anymore. If you read all of this, thank you and I appreciate it. Sorry if I typed too much, a bad habit of mine is writing an essay when a paragraph might do. Kinda just started this to vent a little where family can't see it but I'll still be checking out other threads around here, so I might see you in the future.

Hope you have a good day.
 
If I was in your place Michael99, I'd stick with the childcare thing and I'd keep drawing. You enjoy them and if you've got the aptitude to do them well, then don't give up on it.
Otherwise, I think you're asking all the right questions. 21 is a good age to discover who's right for you and to start a career. But time does indeed pass quickly, don't waste the time you still have to work with.
 
Hi Michael, your story is sounding familiar. Kudos to you for working at staying positive, it really helps. I hear you on the cynicism too, don't worry too much about it. You have to let it out every once in a while or it will just overwhelm you and wipe you out for days at a time. Nothing wrong with letting the steam valve off, just as long as you don't turn your mind into a sauna. If you're worried about it turning you into someone you don't like then you're pretty safe.

Finding what you love can be tricky, but like any relationship, the one you have with your calling has its ups and downs, it will wax and wane, and sometimes changing what you do with what you love or how you do it, is way better than finding something else or starting over. Still: try lots of things. What fits you will stand out pretty quickly, and you never know, you might find that you'll be happiest combining different aspects of a few things. Purpose doesn't come in a box after all, it's got to be tailor made.
 
Yes, next year you will be 22. And in 20 years, you will be 41. But guess what? That doesn't matter. What matters is what you do today. What you do right now. That is what shapes who you will be next year, 20 years from now. Stop focusing on the future and start focus on what you can do now, what you can change now.
So what can you do now to get yourself on a different path to a better future? Definitely keep doing what you enjoy and keep trying new things. Something will stick and that will lead to people who stick, but you need a better attitude about it all. Focus on what you want, focus on what is good and stop worrying so much about the bad. You are 21, you don't have to know exactly what you want to do right now.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top