Pour Your Heart Out

I just had the surgery. Everything went well, I have to lie in bed for the next week until I can start using crutches.

 

this thread is funny asl

 

I have crippling anxiety and depression, I get overwhelmed easily, I thought about offing myself many times, I'm addicted to video games, I ghosted my girlfriend completely, I have nothing better to do then chatting here. That was a huge info dump ig.

 

It sounds like you have many self destructive behaviors, some that you might not like that you do at all. Do you think that might be you trying to take hold of your life, in one way or another, so you feel like you have control over at least some circumstances?

 

yeah, that sums it up

 

What do you think the biggest influences are towards those feelings?

 

Nah, don't waste your time here, I take therapy so it's all good thanks for being willing to help.

 

Been feeling kinda...meh off and on for a while here.
Having so much freetime over Christmas break isn't good for me, gives me too much time to spend spiraling in overly dramatic thought instead of applying myself. Being faced with the weight of your own existence kinda sucks sometimes. Just like...the thought of having to exist and support myself for the next 60 or so years really makes me think about if anything I'm doing right now will matter in 30 years, or 10, or even 5. My dad says I should just keep on taking college classes, graduate with a bachelor's at 19 and then do whatever I want with the rest of my life, but college classes have honestly been brutal these last two semesters and I can't keep going without at least a small break.
He says I need to be able to support myself and my family, so I should just pick a well-paying job and pursue it. There's wisdom in that, I suppose, but it also sounds like I would practically be enslaving myself to a career that can support my lifestyle for the next 40 years or so. Who knows if I'll even find somebody to start a family with? Social anxiety combined with no rizz combined with weird upbringing means I've never even flirted with a girl before, much less pursued a relationship. On one hand, I tell myself to stop worrying so much and that everything will solve itself in the end. On the other hand, it seems I can hardly take care of myself most days, much less a family. I try to be pragmatic, but that rarely goes anywhere either. I'm so awkward with children. Like, painfully so. They either unsettle me or annoy me. What kind of father would I be if I can't even stay in the presence of other people's children for long? I could go on, but I won't.
If I were an outsider looking in, I would call myself at least mildly depressed most of the time. Thing is, sometimes I am perfectly happy. I wake up, go to work, come home and go about my day, sometimes the entire day, without feeling anything at all. Then I'll be standing in the shower and the thought of growing up, or at least older, and going away fills me with so much apprehension I have to stop myself from thinking about it cause I've been standing there in the water unmoving for who knows how long instead of taking a normal shower like a normal person.

I came to a realization the other day. My main motivator now is fear, or at least a form of it. I do well in school, not because I am interested in my classes or because I just want to graduate, but because I am afraid of letting my dad down. I keep myself productive and stay happy on the outside, because I am afraid of what people would say if they knew that I can hardly hold myself together during the semester, and I'm not much better over break. Creative drive is gone, for the most part. I don't make things anymore, not like I used to. There was a point in my life where I was always doing things, making things, accomplishing goals, and now I usually don't even have the energy to dedicate myself to a grind in a video game, much less a big project in real life. I'm letting my friends down by ignoring conversations we've been having for months, because the thought of researching to defend my position holds zero appeal, and I can't even force myself to start. The problem with this is that the desire is still there. I still want to do things, make things, accomplish goals, better myself, but it seems like I no longer have the energy to do that on my own. I opened up Minecraft the other day and stared at my creative world for a while before placing a few blocks and logging off. I used to spend an hour every day building there, but now the most I can make myself do is fly around and look at things I've done in the past. It's not a complicated task, it's not some daunting obstacle, it's freakin Minecraft, and I can't even make myself play the game because I have no drive to do so.

I can still perform with guidelines and people watching me and telling me what to do and where to go. That's vital to maintaining the illusion. But I don't want my betterment to be in the hands of others who either are unaware of or ignore my desires for myself. When someone tells me to do something, I do it, because that's how things work. I get good grades, I do well in CAP, I work hard, blah blah blah. But I don't want to.

This crap is really messing with me. Things, activities that I've been participating regularly in for close to five years, I will suddenly dislike and want to quit for no reason other than "I'm tired." The next week, or even the next day, I'm full of energy and ideas for those activities. I'm in positions of leadership over up to 15,16 children, and people there trust me to get things done. So I do. Because if I let them down by being a bad leader, or a bad teacher, or even a poor example, people notice. I tell myself I'm just tired of going for 7.5 hours every week, but it that really true? Time isn't the issue, it's me. I'm worried that I'll crack under pressure that they can't even see, and that I'll fail my leadership and, more importantly, fail my cadets. But that's absurd. They trust leaders who are, let's be honest, far worse than me in terms of confidence, knowledge and bearing.

What's wrong with me? Am I being dramatic or overly emotional, allowing how I feel to regulate my emotional state so much? I don't know. Nobody else does, because I'm not telling them, aside from the occasional slip. I think that the best thing about this place, the thread, at least for me, is that you can get a sense of distance while talking to people who still care, at least impersonally. You guys, to some extent, care about me and what I'm going through, but not personally. You don't know me, and I don't know you, which is why I would rather tell this random thread of people on the internet than my own family or my best friend.

Back to whining. I realized that this is possibly the first year in my life that I haven't felt any excitement at all about Christmas. I'm not excited about family coming over, they live in town anyways. I'm not excited about the gifts, I have a job. If I really want it, I'll buy it for myself. I'm not excited about the food, because I can't eat that much anyways. I'm not that worried about this one though. I feel like, as I grow, my age may increase linearly, but my maturity and my mental age increases in little blips throughout time. I don't know if that's stupid or literally just how everyone works, but stay with me here. I can say for certain that I am more mature by far than I was last Christmas, but it sure isn't because I'm a year older. It's because of what I've been through in the meantime. My priorities have changed a good deal since then. Now, I'm content to just have a place to stay and good meals to eat and a family who loves me, even if I can't trust them with how I'm really feeling. A roof over my head and food in my stomach have somehow become my two main subconscious concerns over the past year, perhaps because I have been faced more and more with the fact that soon, those will be my two greatest conscious concerns as I move out.

I know this a downer message to be posting on Christmas Day, Merry Christmas by the way to everyone who celebrates, but I feel like if I don't tell somebody soon I'll chicken out and then gaslight myself into thinking I was making this up later on, so there we go.

 

been a while since i've given this thread something, so here i go.

2024, in order, had me continue working theater projects (third in a row, this a lead in a musical), a car crash that nearly killed me, a relationship that started as a "hey are you okay from that car crash?", having to break up with her since she was insane, then her working with me, then her quitting work and me taking on her shifts, then doing a theater musical's rehearsal schedule on top of working every day of the week, then getting in a different relationship with someone in the cast of the musical, for that not to work out, and have her block me on her birthday and badmouth me to the entirety of the cast behind my back while still boning once a week (no idea how else to describe that, lmao), to finishing said play and continuing into directing a kids camp and putting on a play with 8-10 year olds, going to a renaissance fair for a weekend, then dropping into working contiguously on two different other plays in wildly different styles, in two completely different and time consuming positions, to performing one of them, one of the most, if not THE most exhausting role i've ever had, then spending two days awake tearing one set down and putting up another, putting together a show with duties i had never carried before, slopping it together until it barely scraped into the performance night, having to be backstage for the entirety of the show (also had never done that, lmao), becoming stage manager after the stage manager (a woman) cheated on her wife with ANOTHER MARRIED WOMAN IN ANOTHER STATE, to tearing that set down, not showing up at the cast party because f*** that, to pulling together enough time and money to try and properly get the holidays done, and honestly, not even succeeding in that.

tldr, ow.

that doesn't talk about the emotional reaction to any that applied up above, nor the consequences constantly working and doing had on my social life, my personal life, or my relations with my family. the good news, is that i now only work five days a week, but my back hurts, my bank account is four figures, i dread spending time with my family, and i STILL feel completely overstimulated from the s***show.

and frankly, if i spent the time to try and process any of the hurricane that katrina'd all over the damn place here, i'd likely be worse off than i already feel i am!

what may be the most important bit to me in my own opinion; i did not accomplish, finish, and sometimes quit the things that i wanted to do just to squeeze these other projects through the door, just to feel like i'm still in the red. thinking like that, ANGERS me. f***ing stupid, all of it. it feels, yet not was, like a waste of my time.


i let it affect me.


i let it sit in my head and rot me from the inside out, instead of just moving on and getting on with the life that i'm actually wanting to lead. genuinely have no idea why it circles in there so persuasively.
worked on multiple tracks, multiple stories, film ideas, even filmed some things, and i still haven't gone through the footage for at least 95% percent of it. i've gotten one singular track to a playable state (though it's a behemoth, so let's be fair), and half detailed the sucker. at least ten others sit and languish, some from seven freaking years ago, still not finished, still good ideas, still something, or whatever. i've talked at length with people irl about getting together and never really organized anything for it. topping it off, i've gained at least 30 pounds this year.

i'm failing. i don't feel like i'm failing, rather i actively can see my own shortcomings, and i HATE that. what i hate even more is that i can't see the shortcomings as they happen, but rather in hindsight, even when trying to correct them.

so what am i really going to start doing about this?

holding onto everything, clutching little pearls instead of letting go to find new ones, is ruining me.
i'll be starting with this one problem. try and work the solution.
it ruins my work ethic, it ruins my confidence in my art, it ruins my train of thought in who i should actually be around, listen to, and try to be.
i love holding onto the tiniest sliver of hope in things, despite all evidence to a contrary, and wishing that that hope can carry me through whatever comes next. it's lovely, and romantic;
completely insane at the same time.

what is closer to truth is the complete opposite. I carry myself through whatever comes next, not the hope. I am the one who needs to get out the other side, not whatever i'm holding on to. maybe i thought i was stronger when i was with something else, and that may still be the case! but nothing can be the catalyst to what i could fully be.


I must be the change that comes in my own lifetime. I cannot wait anymore for it to arrive.

 

someone has to set the dominoes in motion, wish you godspeed in your endeavours

 

You probably do not need the advice that im gonna give you because, by the way that you say things, either you already have everything figured out or you are working on it, however, one of my new years resolutions is to speak about the things going on inside of my head, and I, kind of, went to something similar this year.

So, i really loved it when you said "i love holding onto the tiniest sliver of hope in things, despite all evidence to a contrary", because i've been holding on to something, more like someone, this whole year. Some of y'all will probably know that at the start of last year, I started talking with my ex again and i was ranting about how it is possible to be friends again blah blah, complete and utter bullsh*t, she ghosted me three times this year, and i kept coming back like a f*cking dog, until i realized that what i was actually after, wasnt a friendship, it was that, when we broke up, she said "I think that now is not the time, lets give us a few years and then we'll see", and my dumb*ss has been holding on to that little thing for almost two years now, hoping that, by some miracle we would get back together and all that sh*t, when she started taking 2 weeks or more to answer i just said, f*ck it, im not playing this stupid game anymore, and i have not answered her for about 2 months or more now. There's a saying in spanish that goes something like "Man lives on hopes, and dies of disappointments", but i feel like if you fill your boat with hope rocks, hope isnt really anything, its just hope, its illusions, its extra weight in your boat, that all its gonna do is sink your boat more and more. You can't live on hopes, hope is a glass bridge, while its good to always have optimism, and having the hope or feeling that everything is gonna finally go your way or that your life is gonna improve in some way or another, is good, you have that, but you cannot hang on to it, it cannot be what rules your life, only tangent things can, because while im christian, and i always let things work out the way God intends them to work out, i always try to make an effort for things to go better in my life, and not let it all to hope or chances, or whatever you wanna call it.

Where I'm going with this is that you have to let go of things, i realized that there's a lot more things than we think of, that we dont really have control over, so just live your life the fullest way you can, and don't let the adversities in the way lead the way.

To you i'd say that, you have to let go the things that you cant control, because they deminish you and your cretive ability, and start focusing more on what you can actually accomplish by yourself, with your hands and mind.

And to zachypacso (dont worry i read the whole message), first of all, hello old friend , and also, if you've read what i said before I'll just say that if you work really hard towards a goal, you will accomplish it, also, what i felt while reading your message is that you think that your life is grey, dull, with no fun whatsoever. Man, i wish, i really wish, i could sit down with you at a harbor or a bench i dont know, and wxplain to you my view of the little things in life, because thats what keeps me going, and i think that will keep you going too, my view is that you have to narrow your focus man, you are living day by day, every hour counts, so you have to start enjoying every little good thing that happens to you. I wake up everyday, get out of bed, put on some good music, and get a shower, for me, thats already a win, so im already happy, then it so happens that I burn my lips or my hand with the coffee, ill just probably be grateful that i can have hot coffee, and then i get on with my day. I try to do it in a way that doesn't feel forced, going to class and hearing the birds sing or idk man, thats for you to find, but just enjoy them, enjoy the sunsets, you only get so many in your life, enjoy good songs, enjoy good food, just enjoy life and it will get a ton of color.

The other thing i would say to you is, that people trust in your leadership abilities for a reason, people wouldn't put you in charge of those kids if you werent ready for it, because there are adults over your position that make that decision, and if you slip up one day and you arent a good leader (it has happened to me) you just apologize to them and they will understand it and forgive you.

The last thing i'd say to both of you would be to live life to the fullest, enjoy it, cherish it, and most of all, have fun. I will hold both of y'all in my prayers, and i wish you the best in 2025!

 

The only thing I disagree with that is I think there is a very clear difference between hope and false expectations. Holding hope isn’t inherently bad unless you’re holding it to the flame of unrealistic or false expectations. I think everyone needs goals and aspirations they must work towards, and I think a lot of that stems from hope. I am a very realistic, some might call pessimistic person, at times, but I also think that hope, when used correctly, is important and powerful.

don’t mean to detract from zachypacso or endie I thought both of your messages were good and important.

hopefully you guys get what I’m saying

 

my brother just got a Gf. I'm close friends with his gfs sister. I had a crush which my friends helped me get to know better. but the more I get to know my crush the more I start to like my brother's gf's sister . I feel like I'm trying to distract myself from her by focusing on my crush. idk what to do

 

I'm only 14 too

 

In the discord you were 13 a moment ago

 

well 14 in 9 days

 

depends on the age difference. if you two are close to the same age, she knows you well, and you know her well, go for it. if you've never really tried to make a move on your crush of course, as well. you're more likely to make it with someone you know than someone you don't. (grain of salt here - I've never been in a relationship myself)

 

early happy birthday from me, cuz i know i'll forget when it's actually time

 

i was planning on giving advice as well, but i didn't since i've never been in a relationship myself
now you're doing it haha
honestly bad idea to ask this in an frhd forum

 

no bro: i think i like my brother's gf's sister, who is prbly my best friend rn. so this other girl really likes me and i used to really like her, and i feel like im using her to distract me from my brother's gf's sister