What could have been but never was

[Sam_Wright_1988]

Hi,

I like to- one more time -ask a couple of questions and then get on with my life. I am so very stuck!

I find myself in a strange position, as ever. I have sort of a life but a few personality flaws that are ruining my life in the present. It is as if I can't go forward and try to ruin my life intentionally. I feel like I am trapped in a cage.

I am a dreamer. The past five years I went to college, took a gap year, tried to find myself. It worked, a little. I had dreams, not goals. The dreams never became reality. The girlfriend I never met, I made a few friends but am still lonely, I wanted to live life to the full but never did. I waited, fantasized, fell secretly in love and I hid. I hid all the time.

I am a dreamer and I never finish what I set out to do. I set goals and forget about them and I am aware that today is all I have, that this moment is where it should happen. I feel as if my consciousness, of my surroundings and myself, is definitely growing but I am afraid as well. My story is broken: I am not who I tell myself I am. I am boring. I read and play video games. It's all I do. I wanted to throw parties but was afraid no one would show up. I wanted to travel the world but I never left. I wanted to finish my degree cum laude. I wanted to inspire others.

Right now I am twenty-five and I have one year left.

The few friends I have don't see the problem. There never is or was a problem. I can be very social, but I don't open up easily and that is unfortunate. I miss out on a great life. So my first question is: how do you open up and accept the circumstances you find yourself in? I have what it takes, I am certain. But I can't express it, like I threw a switch long ago. **** switch! Why... won't... it... flip??? I have always been lonely because I chose to be. The choice got the better of me, it changed me, it isolated me.

The second question, the hardest, is how I can change my routine. I am acutely aware of the fact that I think way too much and it is destroying my life, my joy and the fun I could have if I wasn't so heavy on the deep dark thoughts. I live in some sort of fantasy world, I play video games and read a lot. I spent days on end on my own, I don't want to, but it is all I know, I can't look beyond my limited life. How do you stop thinking? And how do you start living? I feel safe in my head but when I am confronted with reality, I shatter into a thousand pieces. The person other people think they know is there, yes. I am a kind person, helpful. But it's no use. I can't get out of the heavy thoughts. They ensnare me.

The last question. I know very well that all of us could have awesome lives, if only we'd take chances, go outside and would try stuff. Life isn't scary. I am not afraid, not any more. I haven't been for over a year because, what is the point? Life's too short. I'll die one day so I better do it with a little class. The question is, how do I get there? How can I ever believe- despite a lonely, depressing and 'immobile' past which is dragging me down -that life is really what you make of it? It is! It really is but if this is my life... And I still decide to read because I just don't know how to get out of my mind into the real world. How can I remind myself, change myself slowly into the guy I one day hope to be? The guy I want to be, today. Now. The guy that's there but isolated himself. I can't get him out and the longer I stay lost in thought, the less likely it is I will ever change.

I want this to stop. I want my complaining to stop. I don't want to ask questions on forums, but it's where I go when I am lonely. I know there are many places I could go as well. I could pick up the phone and call a friend, I could go out and dance, drink beers and try to hook up with a girl (haven't tried that for over five years). I could but I don't. I never do. I pretend that the possibility of having a nice life is just as good as living. It isn't. This is out of control, this is not what I want.

What's holding me back? Why not worry about real stuff, not things I imagine? Why create problems that never were? Why have panic attacks over nothing? Why not love and live instead? What the hell did I do to myself?

This way I won't get to know myself. And I have had it with the attitude, waiting, hoping for change. No. I have to change my attitude and go out there. There is nothing to fear. How did I get here? Why not enjoy life?

Everyone, please, tell me your stories! I am dying to hear them, I need some sound advice. I want adventure but I have created the exact opposite of adventure. I lose myself in thought and worry.

I am doing it now!

 

[docwatson9520]

Best way to go about changing yourself for the better is not to aim big change little things at a time
For example the next time you go to pick up the controller for your game , don't

Instead do something more productive go out for a walk or run
Maybe try something new take time to make something
Do something round the house that youve been putting off
Motivate yourself to do something challenging
Youve got the reading and computer games mastered
So learn something collect something
Or instead of reading at home go to a coffee shop with a book you never know you might meet more people

Little changes are the key if you set a huge goal like travel the world next year all you will see is obstacles
When you realise you can change little things then the big obstacles wont phase you

 

[Ste_lla]

Wow, You described so much of what I'm feeling.

I'm also stuck in a hole. I took refugee in a dream. Dreams that I would never see come true. Although imagining a whole new life was never enough, it made me feel better.

I am also a simple dreamer. I found out recently when I realized that I haven't done anything to make a dream come true, to change my lifestyle, to not feel lonely, to simply live the way I want to.

I went to college far from home because I thought that was the answer. I was running away. But you can't expect your life to change in one day for merely changing your surroundings. I needed to change, not the country or the people. With the first year of college gone, there were a lot more unfulfilled dreams. I was still stuck, I was still a quitter, I was still afraid and I was still lonely.

This summer all I did was hid behind the TV, watching tv shows. Enjoying the life of a fictional character instead of going out there to enjoy my own. Because facing reality honestly seems too hard, and when I try I feel like I don't fit in so I go back and crawl into my bed.

Now unfortunately I don't have any answers, since I'm struggling with the same kind of questions. Why do I feel so lonely? Why am I sitting o the couch when I could be traveling somewhere? Where do I go to find answers? How can I change? etc, etc.
And then I realize that I'm doing it again. Over-analyzing everything, thinking it through a million times.
There's never gonna be a good answer or a right answer. How can I know? I could read hundreds of books on self-help or something like that and it won't make any difference.
I don't know how to get out there: You just do it. That's it! it's so simple, yet so hard for most of us because most times its easier to stay lost in our own imagination than face the world.

 

[Nice But Dim Jim]

I relate completely to everything you have wrote.

My ruination is very different that yours but otherwise the feelings I have are the same. I am a dreamer but my dreams are clouded by the hatred I have for reality. Reality is cruel to me but its only cruel because of my actions or inactions, my long term partner left me last year because in all the time I was with her, I never asked her to marry me or tried to expand our relationship because I was happy just plodding along. Now the only thing that would truly make me happy if I was married to her, funny how you don't realise what you want something until you can no longer have it.

I can't even play computer games, I don't even have the attention to do that anymore. I come home from work, have my dinner, watch TV and go to bed, rinse and repeat 6days a week. Then on Sunday, I wash my car, my work clothes, my home and go shopping for the week ahead. This has been my life for a year. I very occasionally deviate and have a blow out but generally this is my routine and I can't break it.

I recently went out drinking with my friend, I met a very beautiful girl, very different to what I generally "like" and went home with her. Woke up the next morning, sort of half dreaming that it was my ex I was beside, realised it wasn't and quietly slide out and off. She got in contact with me about heading out again, I declined and have ignored her ever since not because I didn't like her but because I didn't want to be happy and I knew I could be with this girl, we talked for hours because we were different and the attraction came from those differences as oddly the differences brought around similarities. I am lonely but only because I want to be with one individual that I can't have and its ruining my happiness. Subconsciously my heart and head just doesn't want me to be happy without the one I loved.

 

[Markka]

There is a long way to achieve something like that. So it would be better if you make sure that you are okay with the way you are now, even if it isn't that thing you want achieve.
But when you are unhappy with something there is this possibility that you try to change things too fast.
It is like closing your eyes and jumping without knowing what waits down there. Because of this you may end with more pain than in your earlier situation.
I have realized that it is better that when I start to change something I change first my view of my current situation. When I don't have problem with it then I start the real work.
This way it is more easier to go slow enough and with that you also make sure that the real problem doesn't lay in your attitude.

 

[el Jay]

You sound exactly like me, just a few years younger. Scarily so, in fact.

(sorry if my responses sound disjointed; I wrote replies to quote blocks in a haphazard order)

I am a dreamer. The past five years I went to college, took a gap year, tried to find myself. It worked, a little. I had dreams, not goals. The dreams never became reality. The girlfriend I never met, I made a few friends but am still lonely, I wanted to live life to the full but never did. I waited, fantasized, fell secretly in love and I hid. I hid all the time.

I am a dreamer and I never finish what I set out to do. I set goals and forget about them and I am aware that today is all I have, that this moment is where it should happen. I feel as if my consciousness, of my surroundings and myself, is definitely growing but I am afraid as well. My story is broken: I am not who I tell myself I am. I am boring. I read and play video games. It's all I do. I wanted to throw parties but was afraid no one would show up. I wanted to travel the world but I never left. I wanted to finish my degree cum laude. I wanted to inspire others.

Right now I am twenty-five and I have one year left.

This is me down to a T, pretty much. Well, not so much the reading part, but everything else.

The few friends I have don't see the problem. There never is or was a problem. I can be very social, but I don't open up easily and that is unfortunate. I miss out on a great life. So my first question is: how do you open up and accept the circumstances you find yourself in? I have what it takes, I am certain. But I can't express it, like I threw a switch long ago. **** switch! Why... won't... it... flip??? I have always been lonely because I chose to be. The choice got the better of me, it changed me, it isolated me.

The first of many things I can only say "I wish I knew" to. I'm fairly social myself and get along with people easily, but I can never "connect" to them. I always feel like I'm intruding on their life if I try and push myself on them too much, and that they know so little about me and my past that they don't even really know "me." Doesn't help that plans often fall through, so when I get the courage to suggest doing something with someone and they actually agree, it ends up not happening (through no fault of their own, and certainly not malice).

Unfortunately, I think the only real cue for isolation is a slow, dedicated crawl back towards being social. Start small (like I'll mention later in this post), and just work your way there. hat may be very unspecific advice that's easy to say and hard to do, but that seems to just be how it is, unfortunately.

The second question, the hardest, is how I can change my routine. I am acutely aware of the fact that I think way too much and it is destroying my life, my joy and the fun I could have if I wasn't so heavy on the deep dark thoughts. I live in some sort of fantasy world, I play video games and read a lot. I spent days on end on my own, I don't want to, but it is all I know, I can't look beyond my limited life. How do you stop thinking? And how do you start living? I feel safe in my head but when I am confronted with reality, I shatter into a thousand pieces. The person other people think they know is there, yes. I am a kind person, helpful. But it's no use. I can't get out of the heavy thoughts. They ensnare me.

I never could escape those sorts of thoughts either. I spend a lot of time gaming myself (not so much reading, though). I got used to playing them during school (in which I was bullied a lot), and ended up just keeping doing it because it's all I knew, and I could never make friends easily, nor did I have an easy time in social situations. I've spent a lot of the past several years of my life "alone" more or less, though I lived with my grandfather (and begrudgingly so, my father, too). But that's hardly a "social" life of any kind.

As you'll read later, the only solution I found to overthinking things is medication. Even then, it doesn't make me stop thinking, just helps me avoid the panic and anxiety that came with overthinking about things in my life.

The last question. I know very well that all of us could have awesome lives, if only we'd take chances, go outside and would try stuff. Life isn't scary. I am not afraid, not any more. I haven't been for over a year because, what is the point? Life's too short. I'll die one day so I better do it with a little class. The question is, how do I get there? How can I ever believe- despite a lonely, depressing and 'immobile' past which is dragging me down -that life is really what you make of it? It is! It really is but if this is my life... And I still decide to read because I just don't know how to get out of my mind into the real world. How can I remind myself, change myself slowly into the guy I one day hope to be? The guy I want to be, today. Now. The guy that's there but isolated himself. I can't get him out and the longer I stay lost in thought, the less likely it is I will ever change.

I wish I knew the answer to this. For the moment, I'm trying to do what little I can to plan for changes in the near future that ma alleviate some of the loneliness. One example is I'm going to be playing FFXIV with some friends. I've never really played MMOs before, but a lot of the people I know have, and they've met people who became real life friends. So by playing it with them, maybe I'll make some friends who enjoy the same things I do. It's a small goal, but an easy one and it'll be fun, in any case.

I also have my own gaming discussion forum (which is where I know most of my friends from) that I've had for 9 and a half years. Obviously not the sort of thing you could really go out and do yourself, but it provides some semblance of interaction with people. If those sorts of forums are your cup of tea, I could PM you a link. You would probably fit in just fine.

I want this to stop. I want my complaining to stop. I don't want to ask questions on forums, but it's where I go when I am lonely. I know there are many places I could go as well. I could pick up the phone and call a friend, I could go out and dance, drink beers and try to hook up with a girl (haven't tried that for over five years). I could but I don't. I never do. I pretend that the possibility of having a nice life is just as good as living. It isn't. This is out of control, this is not what I want.

What's holding me back? Why not worry about real stuff, not things I imagine? Why create problems that never were? Why have panic attacks over nothing? Why not love and live instead? What the hell did I do to myself?

This is how I feel too, although I don't even have friends I can really call up to do stuff. But I know all too well about sitting around thinking about everything I COULD be doing, yet never doing any of it, due to a thousand imagined concerns that won't ever happen, yet paralyze me and keep me from having fun and getting out there. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer as to how to solve the problem.

My anxiety issues came from being bullied for years as a kid and teenager, and they never subsided, even well into my 20s. Just last week I got so sick of it I finally started anti-depressants (I'm taking citalopram) to try and stop it, and in just that week, a lot of my major anxiety issues have already been fading away. Maybe it's something for you to consider, especially if the problems are as irrational as they sound.

This way I won't get to know myself. And I have had it with the attitude, waiting, hoping for change. No. I have to change my attitude and go out there. There is nothing to fear. How did I get here? Why not enjoy life?

Everyone, please, tell me your stories! I am dying to hear them, I need some sound advice. I want adventure but I have created the exact opposite of adventure. I lose myself in thought and worry.

As I suggested above, maybe medication is one possible solution? Maybe not the most preferable option, but if your have such irrational concerns and fears that hold you back no matter how illogical you know they are, it may be what you need. I tried for years to suppress my anxiety through logic, through brute forcing my way through the problems, but nothing ever worked. At best, I'd manage to successfully do something I feared with little, if any, problem, but I'd be just as scared next time. It never went away. Now with the med I'm taking, it's starting to feel like I might just be able to move on with things.

 

[Superman]

Very well explained, I can definitely relate. It seems to me you're on the right track (just as I think I am) but sadly I don't quite have a solution yet. Should I find a way to flip the switch, I'll definitely share it with anyone who wants it.

 

[Sam_Wright_1988]

Thank you all for the wonderful replies!

After asking these questions I came across my answer. I have intentionally removed distractions and I feel horrible but bear with me.

I am scared and lonely but at the same time, I realise that is my own fault. It is something I can control. Admitting that I am scared and lonely is extremely painful. Not running from it is the hardest thing I have ever done, the best way to go about it, I figured, is to stop playing video games and watching porn. Those are distractions and bad influences, keeping me isolated. Giving me an excuse not to go out there, continuing the story.

I honestly don't know what to do with myself but I am sure that forcing myself to feel the pain will eventually force me to adjust. It is not weak.

I guess we grew up in a strange period: I have used my computer to ignore feelings of loneliness, a lot of people went on living, I didn't. That makes perfect sense to me, being alone is still too painful to fully accept. The alternative is even more daunting, doing something creative, letting people in. I am not sure whether I can do that.

It is also unnecessary to feel this way. I will have to accept my vulnerability, my life for what it is.

I hate it. But I am guessing this is the best thing I can do... the questions have revealed a painful reality.

---

The weirdest thing is I have witnessed my life. I have never been there.

That's what hurts the most.

Now it's up to me to get involved. I'll post that on my wall. I have no idea where to start. This year showed me that is the thing I dread the most. It's what I have been putting off for no good reason.

I am also running out of time.