BooksandTrees

Hi I am just a little tired of the same process. I get depressed and think I'm lonely. I then reach out to my friends and they talk to me. I do this for a few months and they always respond, but rarely initiate. I then get tired of it and realize I'm the only one putting in effort. So I can be resourceful and ask them for help and be more social, but at the same time it's just kind of fake and I know I'll never be that close with them - so I just give up I think. I know they "care" about me, etc. I hold a spot in their minds, but I don't feel "special" or "thought of". I want people to think of me and yearn for my inclusion in their lives. I do not have that unless it's a giant get together. As for work, I have a backlog of work to produce and complete. It's just that all of the projects tasked to me are disappointing and boring. They're tough projects and I usually excel at them, but I'm tired of them as well. They don't really do anything for me besides pay my bills. I understand how fortunate I am to make a high salary, but it is empty and not meaningful to me. I stopped taking stupid projects from people who just pile work onto others and leave the office. I just tell them no. I never really had an issue with this, though. What I did stop doing was these presentations, teaching, and other forms of volunteer time. I assist middle school students twice a week from November until February. I drive 1 hour there, 1 hour back, and spend 1 hour there. The kids barely focus, talk the whole time, and don't get much done. It's a waste for me to be there. I sit with them, I help them as much as I'm allowed, I teach them easy concepts that I break into a simple form - and they do get it. They reproduce what I say and show they understand. I just draw concepts and don't show any equations or crazy math. It's not overwhelming. I just don't enjoy it. I then teach college kids and they only talk to me so they can give me a resume or ask for career advice. I don't really care about helping them. The thing that has really crushed me has been the fact that I offered to teach a guest lecture at a prestigious university. The engineering society I joined was asked by a friend of mine to send someone to teach a lecture. I like my friend and wanted to help so I offered to teach the lecture. While preparing the lecture I had a meltdown. I got angry that I keep wasting my spare time to help people and not help myself. I spend hours and hours preparing this lecture, which will be the standard hour long lecture. I've never done a 1 hour presentation before so naturally I am nervous. But on top of nerves, I'm disappointed that I offered to help, and, while preparing my presentation, I realized how much I dislike my career. The presentation is about engineering after college and what our responsibilities are. I got so depressed. I would much rather create fun content, write, or do create an entertainment studio. The issue is how scary it is to leave a career where I'm so well liked. My society loves me, my job is great for people who like engineering, my coworkers are nice, and my pay and benefits are great. I'm just miserable because I don't love it. I'm competitive so I'll be jealous if people below me now get higher positions than me eventually and brag about it. I chose engineering because I wanted to be elite. I wanted to show people that I can do impressive things and be better than them. I did this because I was angry and slighted most of my life. I chose engineering to look down upon people who looked down upon me instead of live a life with love and passion. I am now poisoned by it with depression, anxiety, and empty-heartedness. I want to get out of the presentation, but I can't because of how much effort my friend had to put forward. I need to hit a home-run with it as well because of my pride. I'll feel better after all of this is over with on April 17th. I'm just angry that I'm treating things like school again. Hope you're doing well. I'll try to be around more. I'm just lost emotionally and have been doing some deep thinking.

I've reached a major breaking point in the past couple weeks. This was made worse by watching the new 'Joker' trailer, which looks amazing. The reason it made it worse was seeing how similar to Arthur I am. I felt so bad for him and I just ended up feeling bad for myself. I think it's amazing how alone and sad I am. People like my entertainment factor and gravitate towards me at events, but outside of events I am alone. Outside of work I am alone. I don't even know why I am posting on here either. I have come to the conclusion that I don't even want to get my engineering license this fall. I'm so detached from my career. My commute is terrible, but even at my apartment 5 minutes from my office I was miserable. I listened to a podcast about a woman creating cartoons and how much she loved cartoons and I began to cry at my office and had to leave. In my spare time I just sit and cry because it's the only time I have to myself to exhale after the long week. I want to be productive, but I need time to decompress. This lifestyle is taking my heart from me. Last Monday I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote the first chapter of a new book that came to me in a dream. I wrote for hours and went to work with little sleep, but I was happier than I had been in months. I enjoyed every second of the writing and then felt wonderful afterwards. It's the feeling I searched for with porn. I'd watch porn and enjoy it, only to feel dead inside immediately after. I then went to work and was miserable. I hate how my friends rarely reach out to me to talk about things. They respond when i need help or advice, but I'm never called upon to talk. I'm lonely. I'm 24 weeks free of video games and happy about that. I'm still watching porn, but the desire is going away. I watch less than 3 times per week and the urges are subsiding. I feel like a breakthrough is happening there. My soul needs healing in a very bad way.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the support. I think I'm just driving myself insane. I don't think I have a lot of these disorders. I'm still going to talk to my therapist about them though. I'm going to be stuck until I just make the decision. I can't move out of my house into an apartment or buy a home if I quit my job. I have to buy or rent first. Buying a house without a job is suicide financially. There's just so much I want to do and I have such little time to do it so I constantly feel the pressure to perform and act on it to make change. Even if I like the activity, I feel hyper focused on doing it well. Most of the things I do in life I'm just doing to make extra money so I can leave my industry one day. My mom said she'd understand if I stayed home and has been a lot better. We haven't fought in over a week. I really need to just make a decision about this all because I get frustrated at work if I think about it. If I just think of work I do fine and can go home and do what I want. If I could just keep a clear mind and positive attitude I could finish my work faster, go home, live life more instead of freezing and watching porn after stressing out, and learn if I like these activities instead of just quitting blindly and leaving behind a high paying job for something I don't know about. I'm sorry for annoying you all with my issues.

That's something I wish I could do. I think constantly expecting to be productive causes so much stress and turmoil. Being mindful and present can allow you the mental freedom of choice in the future. I sound like a hypocrite saying that since I can't seem to do it recently. I'm glad you are feeling better.

That's true. I think most of mine is just biting the bullet and going for my dreams and trying to live life the way I want. I just don't think I can do it at home.

Thank you. I'll keep people updated after my therapy session. There's some great content online with people sharing their experiences and it feels like they're talking about me since it's so relatable. I've wondered if I was bipolar for years now, but people with bipolar disorders have longer manic episodes. Mine last a few hours and then I crash. I literally have 7 to 9 out of 9 of the indicators on a daily basis and it's so painful and exhausting with the depression headaches. They say people can develop BPD from childhood abuse and neglect. I've mentioned this in multiple posts. There are also impulsive and have addictive behaviors (porn, binge eating, sex, drugs, etc.). So even if I'm not diagnosed, I think similar treatment could work since it's so similar.

Have a great trip! The excitement and adrenaline you'll get from traveling will revitalize you when you least expect it. Enjoy.

So I keep getting told that I have very black and white thinking processes and got annoyed because I don't really know what it is truly. I'm not annoyed at you, I'm annoyed that literally everyone I speak to regarding my issues says the same thing. I went online and typed "people keep saying I think either black or white" and the results all came up with individual stories of people overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Dozens of articles. So I read about a dozen and had extreme commonalities with the authors and contributors of these articles. This got me thinking about taking the general online tests about BPD. I scored almost a 100% on every single BPD quiz. The results all say these are general quizzes and to discuss with an actual professional. I think I might bring this to my therapist. I had another therapist say I only think in black and white, but never had them suggest BPD. I'm wondering what the solution is to overcoming these thoughts. After reading these stories I relate to them all. If I speak to someone and they mention one thing that I deem to be stupid, I disregard them as a person and really start to hate them and can't stop fixating on it. I do the same thing to myself if I mess up. This kind of explains why I get so obsessed with someone when they are nice to me and then so hateful towards them when they let me down. I'll say how much I hate them and look for all the things I hate and make up arguments and stuff. Then I'll beat myself up for being so pathetic in trusting them and hate myself for it. This also makes me wonder if this is why EVERYONE starts to let me down. They do one thing I dislike and if they do another one I start to "see through their facade" and come to the conclusion that they're just a piece of shit. When really they just have a different viewpoint than myself and it shouldn't take away from what they've done for me in my life. This is why it is so easy for me to just ignore people and cut them out of my life. I'm not sure if I do this because I gave my father so many chances to be a father to me and he'd continuously let me down. It's my best thought at the moment. After that 20 year ordeal if anyone does anything remotely stupid or says something I deem to be unintelligent I will completely lose all respect for them and never speak to them again. This sucks. But thanks for that @Vera. I might have a new avenue to pursue some answers. I posted one of my results below and a link to BPD below that if anyone is curious. Borderline Personality Disorder Synopsis

After having a melt down I finally relaxed. I went out and bought a half dozen donuts and just listened to music. I then had a series of conversations with my mom about the anxiety I face at home with the desire to be productive. I explained how playing video games for decades lead me to regretting not doing fun things with people and learning new hobbies. Now I want to do all of them at once. This includes learning from the beginning (the most frustrating stage of any hobby with the most failure) as well as overwhelming myself. If something doesn't go my way I freak out because it's a waste of time in my mind. Now the strategy is to continue what was going well for me. I need to get a better attitude about work. If I decide to approach work with a better attitude and legitimately give it my best and I still don't like the career, then I'll have my answer about choosing a new career. Right now I just kind of linger and do things when they're due and don't have a positive mentality about it at all. If bad thoughts come to my mind, I want to practice meditation or better mind and mood techniques to say "this is out of my control, I'd like to focus on my work so i can just finish it. Don't derail the day, etc." or just think of nothing so I'm not clouded with stressful thinking. She also told me something I always tend to overlook, which is I hate having options. The story she mentioned was that we were going to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. Then she suggested hamburgers and I freaked out because I already had my mind set on peanut butter and jelly and now it's going to take all of this effort to change my mind and expectations. This is something I struggle with. It's just an example, but picture that struggle I had and replace dinner with hobbies. I freeze and freak out at all the hobby options. I'm brilliant when I sit down and work on a solitary item, but I freak out when I have to switch tasks. I really dislike multitasking. I think that's why I loved Overwatch and NHL so much for video games as well as RuneScape. They were so repetitive and didn't require much change. I felt comfortable. All of this change I'm going through leaves me on edge all of the time. I'm going back to the 8 hours of sleep each night, getting to work earlier so I can leave earlier, and not going out to lunch as much. I'm also going to see friends after work when I can, or go rock climbing or do yoga instead of the gym. I really dislike the gym and I can't fake it any longer. I love how I feel after workout out, but god damn it sucks. The last thing I want to try is just learning how to relax my mind at home. I feel that I don't accomplish anything during the day, so I put tremendous pressure on myself to work hard at home. I don't have fun and then I stress out and get angry. I then do this 5 days in a row and say I'll work hard on the weekend. The weekend comes and I end up "wasting" the weekend and getting very angry. This process needs to end or I'm going to get worse. it's about developing a better attitude about being a failure, accepting that I'm not a failure, and i'm not constantly wasting time. I've worked so hard to build better habits, quit gaming, quit social media, try quitting porn. I've done so much already. These should be encouraging me to continue to better my mentality, my mood, etc. I'm going to try these and then keep a little decree in my phone for when I'm freaking out.

Good job on getting back to double digit days. What are you doing instead of gaming?

Working from home is so frustrating because there are many factors that feed into bad habits. The only way I've been able to work from home is by setting deadlines for myself, but that leads to stress. In school I'd procrastinate and get angry when studying until I could do it. It was much easier to go to the school's computer lab and work on stuff with colleagues and classmates. That's why I wish I had a cartoon studio or something so i could go to and write. My desk area is in my bedroom so it's easy for me to go to sleep, watch distracting videos, etc. One thing I realized is I only work in sprints. I can only be productive for 30-45 minutes at a time without getting bored or needing a break to walk around. This is the same for fun work as well as school or work work. If this is something you struggle with try to be more forgiving to yourself and allow yourself 30-45 minute periods of time to write your paper and 30 minutes of time to stretch, walk, read something, talk to a friend, cook food for your week, beat up a homeless person, yell at ants outside as loud as possible, something to get your mind in a different place for a few minutes. I wouldn't suggest two of the options I recommended.

I'm sorry for the loss of your loved one. I am glad you're taking the time to be with your family, continuing to help others, and yourself. It's hard to do all of these things when you're struggling. The calorie counting software helped me learn good foods and bad ones, but I have a tough time sticking to it since most foods at restaurants or a complex meal you make in your free time is hard to add to the calorie counter. Like if I make chicken, rice, and a vegetable that is easy. If I make a stuffed chicken with a sauce and other stuff it becomes tricky. Like, how many onions from the sauce did I eat lol. But I overthink everything so this is probably what's happening. Anyways, I hope you are feeling better and find a good planner to motivate you to achieve those plans.

Sorry about your aunt dying. It seems there's a lot of misfortune happening health-wise with your family in the past few months. I'm glad you are staying strong and being supported through it all. I'm also sorry about your illness. Rest, water, basic foods, and medicine are all going to help you there. This is a great time to read, relax, write stand up material, write storylines for DnD, watch inspirational people online briefly, but not too long, draw, idk. Just giving some options.

I'm glad you're going out and achieving. I think this is one of the things we had talked about a few months back with potentially going back to school or doing work outside of the house. Changing your environment is huge, but also recognizing how special you are is equally important. People enjoy your company and presence and I think seeing that helps you believe you're that special also. It's one of those external factors of self esteem that influences the internal factors of self esteem. Maybe I did retain something I read from the book so far. Self reflection is important to all journeys. I think you're doing the right thing to reflect on your issues with each step you're making.

I talked to my mom about the issues I have and it was met with extreme defense and we didn't get anywhere. I don't like being angry. I understand most of the decisions she had to make and issues I listed were because my dad was not only abusing me, but abusing her worse. It was easier to stay away and safer to make certain decisions. We took a few days away from really talking to each other until yesterday where we had a few great conversations about what I need from her as a mother, what steps would help, and what I can't be surrounded with anymore. Even if I move out of here soon, I have faith we will restore a frustrated, but unbroken relationship. But we're both under the belief that it takes two to change now - success. @fawn_xoxo I'm trying to read the Six Pillars of Self Esteem and I am having a difficult time. There's so much in my life that I'm frustrated with, which I previously posted, that sitting down and clearing my mind or just focusing on reading is impossible. That's honestly why I never read the three books you suggested and I bought. Sometimes I love reading books and can hammer out a book I'm engaged with, but even those books I get stressed out by. There are some books that I love to read and it takes me months because I get angry at the idea of reading. I think I just get very restless and frustrated. I'm wondering if it's because I don't spend enough of my spare time doing something productive or interesting for myself that when I go to read (learning) I just can't focus because I have too much pent up frustration. This leads to me watching porn or something. I get so angry by this. If I take time to relax and be away from things all I want to do is sleep and rest my mind. I spend most of my time thinking of new ideas and going overboard. This leads into the daydreaming fixations I have. I come up with videos I want to make online, story lines for my cartoon, workout routines, then easier to attain things such as just watching porn. I honestly read the Introduction 10 pages about why he wrote the book and died. I daydreamed every page. I finally got to the beginning of the book and couldn't retain a thing. I read the first 5 pages of the actual book and probably didn't retain a word. It's annoying because I want to read it and learn, but I get these stupid little depression headaches. You know the pain in your head during depression where they're sensory pains, not real headaches? My eyes water and I just want to eat chocolate and watch porn and then sleep. My house is too cold. I hate wearing layers of clothing. I get so annoyed wearing a shirt under a shirt, under a light sweatshirt, under a jacket in general. It angers me when people in my part of the country just sit there stating how much they enjoy wearing layers of clothing. I just sit there and think of how much of an asshole they are because I just want to wear shorts and a T-Shirt. But this is an example of how I hate other people for problems I have with myself or my environment. I saw my old roommates playing video games all day when I was trying to fix myself of playing video games and gaming addiction. So I just started to hate everything about them and ruined that living situation. I do the same thing to my mom. It's a toxic behavior that I recognize and am trying to fix. That's why I'm hoping these books, therapy, group therapy online here, and my own recognition of these behavior patterns can help me change. The only issue is when I can't focus on reading, I'm fucking cold, I'm tired, I'm irritable....It all feels like a shitty distraction. Then I get angry that I didn't spend my weekend properly having fun or properly making my life better. Once again it's a weekend where I didn't read these books, didn't take a writing class, didn't write, didn't take my adobe suite classes, didn't exercise. I'm ignoring my own advice though. I tell myself the HALT thing sometimes, but haven't in a while. I've averaged 5-6 hours of sleep the past 2 weeks instead of the 8-9 where I'm happy. I gotta get back to this. I sometimes forget these things because I don't have them written down. Something that has helped me with the coworker situation is I wrote in my phone notes "You don't like her. She is the same girl you once wanted to date 2 years ago, but just uses you for attention". This has helped. I think I need to do the same thing with issues. I wanted to make a better acronym than HALT. I feel like hunger, thirst, anger, loneliness, tiredness, but also environmental aspects are to be included. Like right now I'm fucking cold and it's the warmest day of the year so far. Or how being in my room all day on a weekend makes me feel trapped and angry. I've got it! HALTED: Hunger, anger, loneliness, tired, environment, dehydration Nobody else has to use this I guess, but I think it works for me. Now I want to write this in my phone so I can refer to it if I'm in a bad mood or noticing anxiety building. I'm going to call it mood workshop and go from there. I apologize to the people reading this and seeing me ramble. I actually wrote down exactly what I was thinking this entire post. If that annoys people, I apologize, but it's a journal entry and I accept it and forgive myself. I wanted to ramble and get this frustration out of my head. Maybe I can find a warmer place to read. One of my goals is to stop yelling at myself when I "waste time". I got angry because I am not actively fixing my life. Then when I am not actively fixing my life, I should be doing these great hobbies to get people to remember me or something. This makes me think of a big reason I quit gaming in the first place. My fear of death and leading a boring life. Playing the same video games all day and night, then working 5 days per week and repeating was stupid. I miss them, sure, but I would rather be seeing the world, meeting people, socializing, changing my scenery, and diversifying my life. Give myself a break and just breathe and relax. Being at a 10 out of 10 stress level all day doesn't help.

I had an emergency therapy session tonight and finally came to a conclusion about why I don't like my mom. I constantly was and felt abandoned by her since I was 2 years old. There's tons of instances where she would leave me alone for most of my teenage years and early 20s to see her family, work late, or see her boyfriend. She'd leave me home alone with my dad, who would abuse me, from the age of 10 to 18. She would always pick me up late from after school programs by over an hour or someone else would pick me up. It hurt my feelings because the kids would get hugs and hold their parents hands and I had no idea who was getting me and never got the hug. I used to run away from home at 4 so she'd chase after me because if I didn't do that we wouldn't talk for a while. I see her now and want her help, but she can't help. She has so many issues that I end up helping her instead of helping me. It makes me so angry. I just want love. That's it. I'm so lonely. I've only had one person be super happy to see me and love me and that's my aunt. It's the neglect from her, the abuse from my dad and grandparents, and bullying in school and moving away each summer preventing me from seeing friends after school that has made me isolated, depressed, sad, lonely, and feeling like nobody wants me or loves me. It makes me beat myself up and get angry at myself and others. I constantly seek other people's approval because I just want some love, acceptance, and attention from people. I'll consider the program. We talked about it tonight. I just need to leave my home to heal my relationship. It's stressful because I can afford to buy a home and hate renting. But I still don't know about my career so buying is stupid. I want to be social, but I hate loud roommates. It feels like purgatory.

Being away from work might take my mind off of deadlines and thoughts I have where I think all my bosses hate me for not getting something done quickly. Even though those aren't real and they like me. I just think they all hate me as much as I hate myself. Getting away from my home can help me stop thinking about life at home. I feel like I'm abusing my mom with my behavior and I don't like it. I just can't stand being around her even though I love her. It's confusing. I view her as weak and never fixing her issues and it makes me think of her instead of solving my issues. I came home as a cry for help from my mom because I was suffering, but she's not even tried to address her own abuse issues and clearly cannot handle helping me. She told me she'd rather have me yell at her than others. I'm not going to do that. She'd have my dad do that. She opens herself up to abusive situations and that is not correct because it trains me to treat her badly. How does that help me? She is sick. I feel like a monster. For learning to love myself, I have no idea. My therapist recommended a 10 day program where I go to the hospital from 8 am to 3 PM each day and receive individual and group treatment.

I agree. I hate myself so much and have so much anger from years of abuse and neglect that I don't know how to let go of it no matter what I try. I get stressed out by the idea of reading sometimes and it makes me not really focus on what the book is saying. I just can't tell if quitting my job or asking for a break to mentally heal is the right thing for me. If I'm being honest: I need to get away from society for a bit and retreat. I absolutely hate myself for some reason. I use anger and revenge as the main source of my drive in life. I get lots done with it, but I suffer longterm. I'm frustrated with myself so much that when I see people messing things up that I either mess up or yelled at myself enough to never mess up, I explode on people for messing up because I yell at myself so much. I hate my life, but I want to live. I don't want to end my life or anything. I'm so sad about being angry. I can't be around my mom anymore because she clearly loves me, but is far from perfect and I scream at her as much as possible. Then i feel bad because i yell at her and she doesn't deserve it. I hate being angry. It makes me cry all night. I'm so tired and it makes me so unfocused and depressed at work. Then I get mad at work. I need help and I can't afford to go to a mental wellness retreat and I don't want to go to a hospital. I just want to be alone or away from people. I have no idea what to do. Thanks for replying. Matt

I had a meltdown on my way home from vacation. I went to meet a girl that I'd been talking to for months and it turned out to be a disaster. I utterly despised her personality and just couldn't deal with it any longer. As I drove home my mind veered off into about 80 directions. I was angry that I wasted my vacation again, disappointed in this situation with the girl, embarrassed that I don't even try to date better women because of fear when my intellect, personality, and looks clearly shout that I can do this. I think I'm just stuck in this depressed state where I don't want to succeed because I'm afraid of failure and I get embarrassed easily. The only way to fix this is to try. Everyone faces this struggle in some aspect of life and mine is opening to a woman, liking her, and building something. Any warning sign that flashes I just back off like it's nuclear. I'm tired of not going after beautiful women with great personality. I'm not going to settle for trash. It's pissing me off. This is another thing I thought about. I'm the best man at my friend's wedding. He's marrying a fucking cow with an obnoxious personality. He opened up to me and has given me signs that he isn't sexually attracted to her. Dude! Don't fucking settle. Holy shit. I'm just tired of being surrounded by people who are so fucking depressed and weak. It's hard for me to strive for excellence when everyone i know is just deep underwater and can't help me when I need it. I'm sorry if there are people who read this and get upset by the words and opinions I have, but I'm not going to settle. I also thought about my life. I don't like my career. This is noted. If I quit my job I'll be stuck at home with my mom. I have enough money to pay for 5 years of rent without working though, but most people require you to have a job and I don't want to funnel money away for nothing. I hate living at home with my mom. She's a great person, but has so many fucking problems of her own that it's killing me. She treats me like her husband and wants me to solve her problems without getting her to change, she just wants to complain to me and not fix anything and I can't do that. It's making me very angry. She also has terrible opinions about anything I'm dealing with and quickly talks about something unimportant and needless when I'm asking for advice. This is going to sound selfish, but I can't live here anymore. I need to put myself first and fix myself. I don't have the mental ability to help her. I can help people in these forums because they're committed to change and being better. She's not and hasn't. I'm getting worse mentally and it's because moving home has made me get a 2.5 hour daily commute instead of my old 10 minutes. I can't even talk to my therapist about my issues anymore because I'm complaining about my mom for most of each session. It's utterly wasting my time. We fight each weekend and I get so angry that I need to see friends and leave. I can't even write because I get so stressed out. I haven't liked living at home for most of my life. When my dad moved out I remember telling my girlfriend in high school that I didn't think I liked my mom either. She's not a bad person, she just stressed me out and so does my family. I need stability and tranquility. I want to allow myself to have some fun. If I move into a new apartment alone, what does that do for me? I'd be free and independent again, but still battling with my life. But what if I were resonant of this? What if I moved out again and just had the discipline to work on my goals in life instead of just collapsing into my depression? I don't even mind my old roommate anymore I guess. I don't know anymore. I can't focus at work at all because I just feel trapped. I hate being home, I think my mom is frustrating, I get annoyed by my friends, I dislike the chicks I've met, I'm just lost. I can't take my mind off of it. I don't like my career and I hate my home. I just tired of being around people i hate and doing things I hate. I'm stuck and lost. Any suggestions?

Don't be so hard on yourself either. You're making great progress. It's just hard to work on yourself so much. I keep having meltdowns as well and feel so stupid. It's just hard to be so impatient. Self improvement forces us to put pressure on ourselves and our heads turns into a pressure cooker. It's easier to receive advice from others and give advice to others because we don't have to feel the pressure of our comments or conjecture. When we fix ourselves it builds fast and we are likely to get delirious and unable to think properly because of it. Then we start to go insane and think bad things. Anger and frustration set in and your body naturally gets tired and mentally depressed to protect itself from the damage. Depression is that suppressed anger. I tell this because I'm facing the same issues. Something I want to try is writing out the path I'm following on a paper in front of me so when I panic about following the right path I can quickly read the advice and not fill my head with needless pressure that causes me to freak out. You know it's valid advice and you can just read and follow until it's engraved in your heart and then you just live. Another thing is nothing is set in stone. We need to follow very general ways of life so that we have room to change things up if a life event occurs or if it's nice out and you want to relax outside. My mistake is I'm too militant and regimented. My goals are solid, but my enforcement of it is killing me.

Thanks. I just got back from a bad vacation and terrible series of anxiety attacks. I'll write this out later. I'm mentally destroyed right now. I apologize for the length of my entries. I know they're books for the most part. I'm just trying to organize hurricanes of thought into a single entry. I really want to quit most things in my life. I haven't been happy in a very long time.

I remember teething. I didn't enjoy it. I feel like we are all trying so hard to change so much. It's exhausting. Which anime did you watch? Why is your friend a liar?

If I rent a place I will have to pay $1,200 per month for base rent plus $100-300 per month for utilities and food. My savings will go down by almost $20,000 per year. I have no issue doing this, but the style of apartment that I'd be getting would be in a stupid multi-unit complex and most of the people in these complexes are one or more of a mixture of poor, loud, ignorant, and inconvenient. I'm tired of it. It's like a college dormitory for people with low income and low morals. I don't want to move closer to the city and share a place with random young professionals because I'm kind of tired of that. I rented with young professionals for the past 5 years and I'm just tired of the drama involved with potential relationships they have, house rules, quiet issues, people slamming doors, eating your food, or just passive aggressiveness. I set out rules beforehand and let people know what is going on and it works for a bit, but after a while I just don't like them. Apartments are also a 1-2 year commitment where I live. That's another 1-2 years where I'm stuck at this job. Living at home has allowed me to sort of focus on the idea of not liking my job. @Vera I used to live 5 minutes from my job. I still hated how it wore me out. I lived in a mansion on waterfront property 5 minutes from my job and was saving over $10,000 per year. I was still unhappy with the career I had because it was not making me happy. My coworkers were and are fantastic, but the project hours and styles really put me off. I constantly struggled to be happy and ended up getting addicted to video games again. @fawn_xoxo is correct about needing to make a change. I can't quit yet because I'd owe a few thousand dollars due to them paying my school loans. I have to wait until the beginning of summer unfortunately. I understand what you are saying and I'm not ignoring it. But if I leave now I'd owe them money. I did that when I quit my last job and it really sucked. I don't want to experience it again. If I wait til summer I'll not have to owe the money and also earn a few thousand dollars for my savings. This is a double win for me and will allow me to have more resume freedom if I decide to ever pursue a job in this career again. I have a few months before reaching a major milestone for myself. Bear with me here lol. I hear you. I just need to wait. This period from now until then is going to allow me 3 months to plan out the next chapter of my life. I was invited to animation school. Do I pursue this? I will most likely plan a visit to the university during this time. I also have a few website ideas I'd like to flesh out. I also have 4 styles of books I'd like to write. Are any of them reasonable? Not to mention my cartoon studio dream. I really want to focus on this. If I quit my job, will I still want to focus on it? I need to put a few months into it and see. My strengths are working as a team, planning, comedy, motivating people, storytelling, imaginative thinking, and critical thinking. My work ethic is also second to none when I need it to be. I've also proven to be a strong marketing force by winning several million dollars worth of projects on my own without any help in the past few years (without any bonus in pay or reward for it, thanks both companies). I have the eyes and passion for this. I will now have these few months to realize whether they're real or not. I've never taken any time in life to try and understand myself or figure out who I am. I just forced my way down paths to prove I could do them and did it for other people. I did things for me as in my pride, but I never did anything for the real me, for happiness. Quitting games, social media, and porn have opened my mind, eyes, and heart to what life has to offer. I still struggle with porn, but I'm rapidly improving. I appreciate everyone's input. I consider it all and it does help shape my path.

I don't really know yet to be honest. Right now my dream world would be to have a small cartoon studio where I could write and produce a show, write books, work in an engaging environment where I can talk with my artists and collaborate. I also want my own website where I can write my funny satire, produce videos, and maybe other things. I want the freedom to find this out. I am not enjoying life enough to find this out. I'm struggling mentally to deal with regular life and just left with scraps of time when I'm not at my best. I feel motivated when I'm writing, creating, making people laugh, socializing, and working on projects I care about. I don't even want a huge home. I could buy a house right now with my savings and I just see these 3 bedroom 2 bathroom homes that would be filled with nothing. If I get that home I'd be forced to be at my career longer and I just don't truly enjoy it. I really love writing. I'd also like to help people quit gaming. I really enjoy writing about my experience and journaling. I love detailing this stuff out.