I’m 25 years old and I feel like I’m too broken at this point. My recent DUI has sealed my fate. It’s either I end my life or continue on and eventually become one of those broken-looking old people working the cash register at the local 7-eleven. I’m pathetic and weak. I’m a pathetic man and I think I’m more of a burden to everyone in my life. Someday I may just have the balls to kill myself. My life is meaningless. No friends, no family, no one to talk to. It’s game over for me. It hurts to even try anymore. What the hell is the point?! Everyone around me has surpassed me in every imaginable way. I’m so goddamm pathetic and I fear there just isn’t enough time left to fix someone as broken as me. I didn’t realize it until just a year ago but I took a real hard look in the mirror and then I found some old photos of myself when I was a kid. It shocked me how much my face had changed. I noticed a trend in all the photos of myself. As I got older in each photo I noticed my smile slowly turning upside down. I didn’t realize just how sad and hopeless I had become until I compared what was in the photo and what I saw staring back at me in the mirror. I’m 25 years old and I already feel like I’m burnt out. Not because of work but because of my never-ending loneliness. It hurts so bad that I don’t even wanna try anymore. It especially hurts because I lack so many social skills that it makes other people uncomfortable. It’s why the only jobs I’ve been taking are cleanroom jobs where I’m dressed in a “bunny suit”(not a literal bunny suit). The job is perfect because I’m mainly only dealing with machines all day. My coworkers can’t really see just how broken I am when we all look the same. You can hardly see my eyes behind my goggles and you definitely can’t see my mouth area because it’s covered behind my suit. It’s the perfect job because no one can pry me open in there and regardless of how curious someone might be about me, there’s hardly ever any downtime. Nihilism has changed me dramatically. To be honest it’s more like pessimism. It all just seems so futile. The social hierarchy is there for a reason but when you’ve sunk so low….the desire to rise again just feels wrong in some way. I’m not allowed to let anyone in…..no one. I refuse. I just feel so numb now. I can’t even cry anymore. I tried to cry a few days ago and I just couldn’t…..not really at least. Just a single tear came out and then it ended.
The best way I can describe how I feel?….. It feels like a building came crumbling down with me inside of it. I’m now buried and surrounded by rubble, it’s dark and quiet but I can’t get out because I’m too weak and I can’t call for help because my mouth is sewn shut. You can’t see my face because I’ve got a mask on. No one noticed because this building collapsed somewhere far away in a desert far away from society where no one lives. I’ve been here for years and my recent DUI felt like more rubble fell on top of me. I now lay in a dark lonely place with only my own thoughts to keep me company. So much thinking and my past is what haunts me the most. Oh, it’s definitely the past that I can’t seem to get over no matter how much I try. I’m trying to make sense of how and why I ended up here. What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong? Am I a fool for thinking I could ever live a normal life? Do I have anything left in me? What’s the point? What is the meaning of all this? Why should I live?
2 comments
I have a lot of the same problems as you. I’m a year older than you, terrible social skills, unemployed, nobody to rely on or talk to, and I’ve messed up my life so bad. Looking at old photos of myself honestly breaks my heart, but I don’t cry either, I don’t think I have any tears left. I’ve made so many mistakes and I keep sinking lower and lower.
I wish I had something helpful to say or some answers to your questions, but I don’t. I don’t know what the next step is for either of us.
I know no matter what I do next, I’m going to do it alone. I cannot bond with other people. No one’s gonna rescue me. But I also know that my mind alone cannot burn away all the darkness.
I think humans need love like a flower needs sunlight, without it they wither and die. We don’t literally die from loneliness, but our souls die over time. I don’t know how to fix mine, or yours. I just really hope there is a way. I hope we aren’t broken beyond repair, and there’s a path for us to heal.
I’ve definitely been there, that is despair at the end of work, or at least work that I like. I’m 33, and at this point most jobs pay less than I can save by doing repairs to my house, if I can get some operating capital. I’m still working on that part, but jobs these days just don’t pay. Yes, they give you a wage, but if you actually calculate your expenses out, you either need multiple incomes or a very high paying job.
So, don’t. There is always a choice, and not participating is sometimes the best choice.
I think many of us are socialized to blame ourselves for work issues, and men are socialized to be stoic/unfeeling and highly productive. Take away the work, we all crumble. The men who don’t crumple are either independently confident, or they are getting what they want.
For the past few days I’ve been thinking about calling the suicide line. Not so much because death is an immediate desire, but that I’ve tried so hard to make the whole being a functionally economic adult thing work, and it doesn’t. I start working on a new direction, and just feel filled with the feeling that it won’t work, and I can’t commit any more energy towards failure.
Be where you are, and who you are. At this point, you’ve run out of other options. Oh well, find people that appreciate you. The trick is to overcome self loathing, and when I figure that out I’m going to write a book on it and sell it, because I’ve read hundreds of self help books. I have a degree in social science and years of training on how to help people in the exact situation I’m in. None of it helps when the person in question wants meaningful work.
I think the eastern religions have the right approach; the answer is to learn to let go, to not desire, and understand how our desires manipulate us. Do that and you’ll be free. I reached the point I’d rather be homeless than work for my last employer, which is a liberating amount of fed up with this shit.