That’s exactly what I wish I could do, honestly. I was looking online to see if there were other people paddling similar canoes as I am, and I wound up finding this place. A place where I can talk about how I feel, where other people might feel the same thing, and where I won’t be judged for it? Somewhere I can truly let everything out without people I personally know wondering what’s going on with me… I’m not entirely sure where to begin, so I apologize for the chunk of words this is going to become.
That’s something that I do a lot, actually.. apologize. I don’t know why I do but I just.. do. I feel the need to apologize for things when they might not even be my fault. I blame myself for things going on around me, I get worried about status updates from friends on Facebook when it seems like they’re just venting about something but they’re vague. If I ask and they say that they’re “fine” or “don’t worry about it”, I worry more because they’re not telling me something. It’s not that I have to know what’s going on in their lives, but I feel that there are times when people say they’re okay because they don’t want to hurt my feelings.
I’m 22 years old, female, finishing up some requirements for my BS in Mathematics. For anyone that might be mildly familiar with the show NCIS, I wanna go on and do what Abby does: work in a lab and analyze evidence. Put the pieces together and figure out who the culprit is.. it’s like a puzzle to me. Recently I was denied from the next school I planned to go to in order to get a Forensic Chemistry degree but I’ve made other plans to go part time to another school for awhile. I just felt I should let any readers in a little to learn about me, but I’ll try to not go on too many tangents (though I’ve been told that’s okay since I’m a Math major, after all).
4 years ago, shortly after entering college, I got checked out and found out I had ADD. Since then, I don’t know if it’s partially because of my medicine but I’ve become more “self-aware” I suppose is how to phrase it. When I had to take a philosophy class, we talked about happiness, that is, long lasting happiness. I began to notice that I wasn’t really happy with myself and my life. I feel little bits of temporary happiness once in awhile, but they’re very quick and fleeting.
I wondered for awhile if I have some sort of social anxiety problem. When I’m in a large group, I feel very alone, even though people are all around me. I’ve always found it difficult to speak up, and when I do it’s because I really want someone to listen. Online I find it pretty easy to open up and talk, but that’s probably fairly normal. A lot of times I feel like I’m complaining to people though, that I’m being bothersome and that what’s bugging me really doesn’t matter because I know they have stuff on their plates that are 10x more worrisome than (for example) my procrastination because I don’t feel motivated to do much and I’m freaking out over a paper I have due (which I’m actually in that boat right now).
I feel that I “go through the motions” a lot of times. I don’t know how else to describe it except for that. I wake up, eat, sort of take care of my body but I don’t really care about myself physically. I go to class, work, interact with people… I do what’s expected of me. To waste time, I check Facebook all the time, I refresh my email, play games on my phone, play Facebook games a lot of times… wash, rinse, repeat.
I worry about losing friends on a regular basis. I feel like I don’t make that much of an impact in peoples’ lives and that they can all move on without me. Hell, the girl I’ve roomed with for my 4 years in college recently blocked me on Facebook and I have no idea why. I tried to ask her through other means but I haven’t gotten a response back. Honestly that’s what probably triggered this feeling lately.. of everything being my fault, that I do things without realizing it and people don’t tell me I’m doing things to push them away. I lost someone I felt was a friend in a very.. abrupt manner a couple summers ago. It was actually around this time of year a couple years back… someone I only knew for a couple of months, someone I knew online but it ended pretty much with her saying “I can’t talk to you anymore, goodbye.” It hurt like hell, probably mostly because I hadn’t lost someone like that before and I began to wonder what exactly it was that I was doing that caused this.
There were a couple of times this past semester that I just wanted everything to stop… I had some mildly suicidal thoughts but I know enough about myself that no matter how much I think about it, I’d never go through with it. It was early March and I was laying outside on the grass at night. It was pretty damn cold outside while I was looking up at the stars and I just began to wonder “If I stayed out here the whole night and fell asleep, would I get hypothermia and die?” It’s not that I want to die, I just wanted things to stop. Another thought of mine was “I wonder what speed a truck needs to be going in order to kill me on impact if I ran out onto the highway right now” and I wound up going to google and doing some research honestly. They were just passing thoughts, nothing I’d go through with but the fact that I began to wonder such things had me worrying about myself.
A group of my friends at school began to play Dungeons & Dragons on a weekly basis, and I got to be a part of it through the semester. The reason I’m even mentioning that is.. I don’t think that I would’ve lasted the semester if I didn’t have those guys by my side, and they wouldn’t have survived the campaign if I wasn’t around either. During that time.. I felt like they actually wanted me around. I felt wanted, needed at times.. and that made me feel a bit better about myself, though as soon as we ended for the night and I went back to my room, I started hating myself again.
I’m not a good student, I barely pass most of the time. I do work when I want to and even then, I usually put in only 50% effort if that. Rarely do I work hard for my grades, and that’s only when I’m really interested in a class. I don’t like asking professors for help, but I do try to keep them aware of what’s going on in my head. For one exam that I didn’t really study for, in the essay portion instead of writing, I drew a stick figure and bubbles of a “diagram of despair” is how I think I worded it. It was roughly 2 1/2 years ago, so the memory’s a bit fuzzy. The professor approached me later and said that I was the most self-aware student that he’s had, and he thought that was pretty cool. I generally know what’s going on with myself and I want people to know and understand what’s going on too, so they don’t look at me and think I might just be “moody” or something. This past semester, I got to have him as a professor again but for a class I unofficially audited instead of taking for credit. Didn’t have to pay, didn’t have to do the work, didn’t have to take tests or quizzes, just got to sit and learn. I realized that’s what learning is supposed to feel like… I actually had better attendance than a couple of the students in the class because IÂ wanted to be there and learn without the stress of a grade on my shoulders. It was an amazing experience, honestly.
Okay, I’m really getting on a tangent now. I tend to ramble, if you couldn’t tell but I just needed to get all of this out there without feeling like my friends are gonna pass over and ignore it, or come at me and ask me what’s up.
4 comments
I like how self aware you are aswell. It seems we have i alot in common. I have adhd and i take medication for it too. I started off think about scenarios like that but never actually went through with them. Im even scared of losing all of my frinds.im sure you have made an impact on SOMBODYS life. You seem like a nice person to me. Everyone makes and impact on somebody.
I probably have, it just feels like I haven’t. Maybe a part of it is because I’m adopted and don’t know who my biological parents are, nor do I know much about what kind of life I was born into. I was 2 months old when I was adopted.. but anyways, thank you for taking the time to read my rambling. I just really needed to get it all out there, you know?
i can see how you fell lost. i dont have my mother in my life. i never have. she left when i was born. i have two fathers though,(my real father and his partner) but it isint the same. im glad you got it out there its not good to keep things bottled up.
D&D helped me through some low points in my life as well. It’s funny that things we find meaning in things like that. Perhaps if you joined other organized play groups you could maintain that feeling of being involved and useful in the world, advice I’d do well to take myself. Thanks for your post.