Today is one of those days where I just feel like I have nowhere to go. Once upon a time I got up at 6 in the morning or earlier, but now I wake up at 7:30, 8:00, or later. I’ve started coming to school late, I am not handing in assignments on time, I take no pride in my work, and feel like the only escape is dying. I am speaking as a younger teenager somewhere in or around wherever, and even now, I still think that I am highly intelligent. Keep in mind, though, that I always have this feeling of hopelessness, the feeling that comes when you know you’re good at something but you are prevented from carrying on with it. I also feel like no one would be interested in trying to employ me, so I have never volunteered, worked in a proper setting, or even shown up for an interview. Lastly, of course, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that degrading crud just to please some tool at the HR desk. Lately I have been getting really bad grades due to my lack of caring for very much, and that is just one of the many things trying to suck me under; to make me feel dumber than I really am. Regardless, however, if there is one thing that sets me apart from others, I hold on to enough pride to say that I know more than many ever will.
I apologize if I keep talking about my knowledge and intellectual capacity, but since it’s such a large part of my life, and a primary differentiating factor, it’s just devastating to feel like it is slipping away. That’s why I always feel so bad and angry when I don’t do well in school, because if you don’t do well in school you don’t do well in life. I am lucky in many regards with my family, because they do not pressure me and treat me well. Yes, all of the fore mentioned pressure is internal. It destorys me, and my future, when I fool myself into thinking some things are even more important than they are in reality, due in part to the idea that it gets better. It has to get better, right? Someone like myself, someone who writes well and is well spoken, has to have some sort of future. For the record, I probably do, but it is likely as an over-educated janitor, or maybe an all around tool. My future has always been a touchy subject, because I have gotten so cynical about it along with the vast majority of items. It always a sort of salvation: It’s going to get better, the people that get in your way never win, with this being one of the things that has allowed me to stay for so long.
A few years ago, I was in roughly the same spot I am now. I lost hope, when not even thinking about where I could be was enjoyable, I felt isolated, so I made an attempt on my life. To this day, I wish I had completed it, going farther than you would with a few pills. Yes, I remember the charchoal, the rounded off chairs, the security cameras, having to go to the bathroom in those awful bedpans, all after I checked into the local hospital. Well, I’ll tell you right now, I am not going back there. No matter what, whether I keep trudging along or finally end it all, the hospital is not the destination of choice. Now I am quite simply here, and though I spend large protions of my day thinking, I now feel that even my thoughts are haunting me.
3 comments
I dare say I have found myself in a similiar situation. Most people would consider me quite intelligent. I am in the gifted program and take highly advanced classes in every subject but math. Recently, I found myslef not caring. I ignored my homework because I didn’t want to do it. I got horrific grades last semester the one teacher who saw them was shocked and thought they must have been typos. Sadly, they weren’t. They gave out class ranks at the beginning of first semester, at the time I was 2/376, this semester they gave them out once more and I had significantly dropped.
I honestly believe my IQ may have dropped. I believe I am losing my intelligence.
I am now trying very hard to focus in my classes, and to do my homework. Yes it has come to this for me. I no longer care if the homerk is correct ,it is a battle for me to have it finished. If I have finished half way and I find I’ve been doing it incorrectly I don’t care, I leave it and go on. Most of my homework assignments are now frantically finished within the first few minutes of each class.
I suppose what I would suggest is that you talk to your parents. I’m not exactly sure what your relationship with them is like or how busy they may be, however, perhaps you could get them to just check over your work? Sometimes you may just find yourself in a rut. Assistance may seem appalling at the moment, but if it gets you back on track and headed toward your future once more then it will be worht it.
That’s the other piece of advice I’d give you. Find a goal. Even a vague, broad goal will do. There is a saying “You need to have a goal to aim for in life, because if you aim nowhere, that’s just where you’ll go.” In many respects thi is all to accurate. You need something to look forward to. You need an incentive, something more specific that you can think to yourself, “If I work hard on this now eventually I wil be ___” Something tanible in your mind to work for. Thishelped me last time I was in a rut.
I just joined to comment on this post. I was in the exact same situation as both of you while I was in high school — it had long been established that I was extremely intelligent, and I looked like I was all set to graduate as at least salutatorian and go on to an Ivy League college. Wrong. My depression got so bad and so disabling that my grades slipped embarrassingly low, Cs and Ds, and eventually I was hospitalized for a month in my junior year for a suicide attempt which made my grades sink even LOWER due to not being able to make up a whole month’s worth of work in time. I did get accepted into a college, but it’s a pretty crappy one, and I’ve still been feeling so hopeless and disgusting that my grades have dropped AGAIN and now I’ve been doing terribly at a shitty school that it should be really easy for me to excel in. I’m so sad and so done with this. It’s a positive feedback loop where failure just leads to more failure and it’s making me sick.
My point with all this is to please, for all the good that is left in life, please, please hold on to your grades. I can’t ever know exactly how low you are right now but I think I have a similar idea, and trust me, you do NOT want to end up like me. I’m older now and I can definitely say that if I were to go back and do it again, I would force myself to keep working on my grades even though I was almost always suicidal. I’m not saying good grades will make you happy–not at all–but bad grades lead to shitty future like the one I’m living in, and it just makes life even worse. It’s hell and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Like EasilyHopeless said, I can feel my IQ sinking, it’s like it’s dripping out of my ears.
Reach out. It may seem dumb, but try therapy or some form of counseling, just to see if anything helps at all. Talk to others. I hope life gets better for you in some way, somehow.
Thanks! The fact that you joined just to reply to this makes me feel pretty good, though I am generally in a better mood today. (I don’t know why, maybe I am bipolar.) You know, my grades are still O.K. The worst grade I am getting is a 61 in the class I hate the most: Careers. It’s half a course where I live called Civics and Careers. I really hate my teacher, and it’s unhelpful. This stands out, luckily, because I have an 80 in History, 94 in Latin, and a 78 in French. However, I could definitely do much better and do not put much effort into school or life in general.
I’m not even sure whether or not the risk is more me turning out very angry and taking advantage of people. To tell you the truth, I likely have the intelligence to pull off an Enron-esque scam, and the love of control but what’s the point? I would hurt too many innocent people, with a few possibly winding up on the forum some day. Trust me, though, none of those thoughts are serious and I will probably shape up at some point. I’m not a threat to myself right now. 🙂