Stuck in a cycle and afraid

[confirmed08]

Hey back again. it’s been a couple months now since I last posted and safe to say things have not improved, and in some aspects worsened quite a bit. my girlfriend of one year broke up with me in september and I’ve not been able to forget her ever since. this combined with year 12 exams really took it toll, and now I’m starting to lose sight of anything positive in my world. and I know that’s so selfish and I hate myself for being suicidal. I’ve got so much to be grateful for, so much more than many yet I don’t want to continue anymore. I contacted her for the first time in a month or so on boxing day and that only made things worse. she is so happy, she’s just got a car at 17, a new phone, she looks amazing. I’m happy for her, I always said I wanted the best for her and I did not matter. suppose I got what I wanted. can’t see an end to this cycle anytime soon, and honestly it’s hard to convince myself I’m worth the time and effort to fix anymore. it’s not worth, I’m too far gone, I’ve left it too late

[confirmed08]

thanks geoff, you’ve put that in a really good way. she’s had multiple boyfriends before so what you’ve said seems to be scarily accurate.

it’s so crazy to think I’m just one of them now. I mean nothing to her anymore. it’s crazy and so so sad at the same time. I tried so hard. I loved her and her family. this was meant to be our year, we said it all along. but apparently not.

thanks for your comment sorry it took a couple days to reply

[confirmed08]

hi again bro

at the moment there’s not really a lot more troubling me, I count myself pretty lucky during this pandemic. even through my struggles I’ve had it far better than many. bit of stress and pressure surrounding work and this next year coming. will I or won’t I go to uni? mum keeps pushing uni, mentioning it all the time. I really don’t feel I’ve got anything left in me at the moment to go through the study and dedication to a course I don’t know if I’m interested in or not.

and I should remove on her everything I just cannot bring myself to do it, I don’t want to release myself or release her from my memory. I end up doing what I’ve been doing since august last year, looking at her profile on various platforms. I have no idea why, in hope of something I suppose. or to just bring myself down. I can’t bare the thought of finally letting go I guess.

I used to make videos a bit last year but more the year before. I’d love to get back into that, I miss it dearly but I just need the energy and dedication to it that I can’t commit to anything at the moment. it’s infuriating. I just wind up punching myself more than I used to in frustration with myself over anything and everything.

I should move on, part of me wants to. but a greater part of me wants to see me crash and burn. and I’m constantly feeding into it. I don’t want to help myself. how am I expecting someone else to do it for me then? I so desperately want to act on yours and everyone’s advice, but at the same time I don’t. because that would mean I’m stepping towards healing.

I’m so lost.

thank you so much again for your comments, it truly means a lot.

J.

[yggdrasil]

Hey mate,

Making videos sounds fun, I used to do that too! I'm sorry it's still a struggle - sometimes all you can do is wait it out.

If you're unsure about uni and courses etc I think it's fine to wait and just work instead, although going to uni can help you figure out what you're interested in. If you'd rather work and earn some money you could try and get a low stress job like uber eats driver. I've done that on and off for years and love it! Driving forces you out of a bad headspace as you have to focus on the road.

Anyway keep on keeping on man and I know you'll get through it!

yggdrasil

[confirmed08]

hey again.

I have been leaning more towards doing some work over the next 6 mths to a year, but my mum pushes it a lot and the majority of my mates are going off to uni’s. feeling kinda pressured to but with my lack motivation and uncertainty in where a degree in this specific field will lead to, I’m not really eager to spend the great amounts of time and money on something useless. but then just working I feel somewhat guilty of wasting my time.

so torn on things right now

[yggdrasil]

My perspective is you always need to go with what seems right to you, and try to not be too swayed by the pressure of others (although getting advice is always good!) You might make mistakes (I have), but some of this stuff I think you just have to learn the hard way.

In terms of job outcomes for different degrees, QILT gives the stats each year for where people end up

https://www.qilt.edu.au/surveys/graduate-outcomes-survey---longitudinal-(gos-l)

although I'd take the numbers with a slight grain of salt because they're based on voluntary surveys, and there will be massive selection bias in who responds I suspect. However, I used these stats myself to help me choose my own post-grad path. I thought doing a science postgrad would be less employable than an engineering postgrad, but according to these stats at the time (2016) the outcomes were very similar.

I think people of our parents generation also overlook TAFE as a really good pathway to the workforce (if that's where you want to end up.) In their day a Uni degree was basically always more competitive than a TAFE course, but that's not really true anymore for many areas of work. Many job markets are now completely saturated with a huge amount of people with undergraduate degrees in that area (e.g. law, psychology, some areas of engineering) but comparatively few jobs, so people graduate with these degrees then find out they need a masters to stand out against all the other people with undergrad degrees! This leads to "degree inflation".

I think a strategy for kids who have big ambitions, and are interested in areas that are less employable (e.g. music, film, theatre, etc etc), but also need to support themselves financially, is doing a shorter TAFE course after high school in an area that's in really high demand and pays well (e.g. certain trades, disability suport etc), making a stack of money and gaining independence from family, then in their mid-twenties reassessing if they want to study something else, or have a crack at their passion. That way you have resources behind you, and a fall back profession to sustain you when you need to make cash.

Anyway I'm sure you'll figure out a good path for yourself, just try and shrug off the pressure from others. Ultimately the biggest responsibility you have is ensuring you're happy and comfortable in your work/study, and people can put a lot of their own anxieties/insecurities on you with all this stuff I reckon.

[confirmed08]

I’ve finally changed over psychologists just this week. seen her once and seeing her again next week, hopefully this one works out.

been feeling pretty average. tired, sad, alone. trying to avoid social situations to disconnect myself but it’s hard the temptations to be around people still arises. have also felt increasingly anxious the last week, not entirely sure why. just breathing heavier, heart racing a lot, things like that. just don’t feel quite right, feeling worse than what I have and I’m not sure why.

work’s stressing me out a bunch so suppose that could be it seeing as I worked 5 days in a row last week which I’ve not been used to. I know that sounds kinda pathetic when I’m sure there’s people working all sorts of ridiculous hours, I should count myself lucky. I hold that guilt I’m sorry.

[yggdrasil]

That's great to hear mate! Well done for taking that step!

It's great you want to socialise. Do you mean you're avoiding social situations that your ex will be at? Maybe you can join a sports group or other interest group to make some other social connections?

Don't worry about comparing yourself to others re: work. I think people's capacity for work ebbs and flows all the time. E.g. sometimes I'm super switched on and can do long hours - particularly if it's a task I'm really interested in or passionate about. Other times I work much less than a full 8 hours. Don't put that burden of guilt on yourself. I struggled with similar feelings for most of my life.

I think it's really important to avoid comparing yourself to others as much as possible with all this stuff, particularly with things that feel competitive in some way. It happens with uni all the time. You see some people in the office all the time, seemingly working really long hours, but really they're only working productively a small part of the time, and are just sort of faffing around the rest of the time. So just do what ever hours you need or want to do, and try not to think about what other people seem to be doing.

[confirmed08]

thanks, like I say hoping it’ll be a change for the better

and no it’s not that I’m avoiding social situations with her, we were long distance and didn’t share a friendship group so I haven’t seen her since the start of July last year before lockdowns hit. I’m just avoiding them because I don’t feel worthy of the friends I have. I take them for granted all the time, it’s always been easy for me to make friends and I’ve always had them. but I’m not good enough for them, and if I disconnect from everyone around me it would make leaving easier should I decide to. I hung out with them the other night, however. it was pretty good, I’m just really tired, anxious, sad and disinterested at the moment.

I’ve always been one to compare myself with those around me. my ex, my friends, and just anyone at school. I need to be at certain I guess checkpoints and when I see people around my age who have reached these points that I haven’t and am nowhere near reaching, I get really hung up on it.

it’s frustrating because I know what’s right, what the right ways to think are, what the things to do are, but I wanna see myself burn because that’s what I deserve. and I can change psychologists or reach out to others as much as I want, but in the end how is someone else going to fix me when I absolutely despise myself and almost love seeing myself suffer I guess. I can’t move on. I guess I’m just waiting for her to come back, wanting her to see how much pain I’m in, get her attention. I’ve tried it indirectly on social media to no avail.

[yggdrasil]

Yeah those are really hard feelings to sit with. I went through a similar thing with my friends when I was your age. The self-loathing stuff is really hard, and undermines everything else positive you try to do for yourself. It's very hard to get past the self-loathing thing, but you can do it step by step.

I think it's challenging to get to self-acceptance and move away from self-loathing in a purely logical way, i.e. there is no step-by-step logical recipe for it. If you sort of accept yourself as you are first on an emotional level, this creates a degree of confidence and inner peace that allows you to work on the parts of your life you're unhappy with. This idea underlies ACT therapy, and a lot of religious traditions too.

Another more abstract way to stop hating yourself is to reflect a bit on what "the self" really means, i.e. what is it exactly that you despise? Often what people mean by saying they hate "themselves" is that they hate a particular pattern of thought associated with extreme emotions and behaviour, or that thinking about themselves generates these extreme feelings. But these patterns of thought are usually very fleeting, and you can retrain you brain to stop generating them as much with things like CBT and schema therapy. When these thoughts pass does a person still hate themselves? I think the concept of "self" lends an artificial permanence to these things. E.g. do you despise yourself from two years ago? What about future you?