This is a backstory heavy post. I won't go on for too long about how much better things used to be in the past (which I've a tendency to do) I'll try to sum the good part up real quick:
In summer and fall 2017 as well as winter 2018 I felt good, I was alert, awake, lucid, able to concentrate, I had a real emotional serenity going on and I'd finally matured quite a bit and gone about getting my life in order, getting an education so I could get a decent paying job and be an adult.
I think recovering from months of intense pain caused by illness (that I learned could've been fatal had the cause remained undiscovered), combined with a friend (who I'd actively involved in trying to help) dying played a part in waking me the f up. At the end of the first semester I was one of only a handful of students who got an A in a notoriously difficult programming class so I felt really capable and like I was finally a functioning adult after many many years of depression, isolation and self made safe spaces. It was so great to finally feel fully awake, alert, capable and comfortable as well more compassionate, understanding and willing (and WANTING) to be more selfless and caring towards other people.
Then I think around March of last year, something...changed. And I could feel it as it was changing, sort of like the changing of the seasons, I started feeling a sadness, can't quite explain it. But it was like a part of me knew things were about to go downhill. And BOY did it. Could no longer concentrate at all. Got so bad that when I watched a movie or video, I could only watch a few minutes at a time before getting distracted. And obviously that's not going to work when I'm taking information science, computer systems and programming classes! So the second semester at uni was a total failure. Not helped by the fact that 2/3 classes involved group projects which was never going to happen anyway. But there was one programming class that I should have aced. It was right up my alley, pure programming, no essays, no group projects. Yet I failed that too. My student advisor was visibly confused about that and asked if "the air had gone out of me" and you know what, that about sums it up!
I became really depressed and started being bothered by things about the world, society and other people that had stopped bothering me. I went from spending all day studying programming to spending all day watching gaming videos. I tried to feel better by spending all day outside once spring kicked in for real, but it only sort of helped. I became immature, strange, stupid and...invalid, I guess.
Before I started uni I was about do undertake a sort of get to work program (hard to explain so I won't) but I paused it in agreement with my case manager so I could focus on uni instead, and if uni didn't work out we'd resume. So in spring 2018 I decided I should resume given that uni just wasn't happening. I asked for a meeting with my case manager. They said she was on sick leave (apparently quite serious) and they couldn't find a replacement? I was talking to them through my student advisor so I wasn't quite clear how that went but I think it ended with them saying they'd be in touch or something. They didn't get in touch and I, now reduced to a depressed idiot spending all day on distractions, didn't think to keep nudging them. My student advisor sent a report to them at our last meeting, detailing how uni hadn't worked out and how I wanted to return to the work program (again, hard to explain how this all works, just go with it).
Again, nothing. No phone call, no email.
My dad's rich. He gave me and my siblings a lot of money last summer and I really needed to get away from everything and clear my head so I spent them on a trip abroad. That trip was really nice and refreshing and yet, a while after I got home...things got even worse than they had been before I left. I overate like crazy for the rest of the year, I developed strange interests that I obsessed over (I've always obsessed over things now and then, usually history-related, like the Titanic or ww2, but not really about strange things and not like this.). At one point I think I was seriously on the path to becoming religious, possibly triggered by a hard to dismiss (and kind of scary for some reason) synchronicity event on my trip abroad. I became even less mature, I think, watched even more juvenile things on yt all day. I guess I was creating a safe space? but it was horrible.
I don't know how many kgs I gained but I'm pretty sure it was well over 10. Once I realized I'd gained a lot of weight and that I'd have to get started on remedying that situation, I refused to weigh myself until I looked better in the mirror. Don't think I could've handled it. Once I looked in the mirror and gave myself the go ahead t oget on the scale, it said 86kg...must've been over 90. Before I'd been in the upper 70s with my preferred range being in the lower 70s. I just recently got down to the lower 70s after spending all of spring losing weight.
Annnnd...I've done nothing. In the second half of 2018 I briefly tried another semester at uni but it didn't work. And of course by then I was NOT doing well. I was on leave for the spring semester this year. I want to keep my options open (despite them not really being there as far as I can see) so I haven't canceled my student registration yet. I don't remember when this was but at some point, long after the last meeting with my student advisor, I found a letter I'd disregarded without opening...it was from the goverment work-help-office-place (again, not going to explain it). It said that they'd done an evaluation and concluded that they couldn't help me get to work, so they wouldn't offer me any services. I hadn't asked for an evaluation. In fact, we'd done one in 2017 and they'd concluded the opposite, that I was good at archival and secretarial work and that they were going to help me. All I asked for was a meeting with my case manager so that we could "get back to work". The case manager who I couldn't get ahold of because apparently she's hospitalized. Some bureaucrat who's never even met me decided to basically tell me to fuck off and go live on benefits for the rest of my life, for no discernable reason. By the time I found the letter (I'd gotten no emails, no calls), the deadline to appeal the decision had passed. Not that I think an appeal would've worked because it's such a hopeless bureaucracy. The only one who knew my case, my abilities and the way forward is awol and the people who replaced her are clueless. So there went my backup plan.
Even if I resume uni and pass all my classes, I'll be 32-33 by the time I graduate. And wow, if things hadn't gone wrong and I'd somehow passed all my classes on time, I'd be done by next christmas. How time flies when you're wasting your life
No idea what to do now. Literally not a clue how to proceed. Can't just start applying for jobs without help, there's no way I'm going through a regular job interview process (nasty things, how're they still allowed?), let alone passing it with no work experience at 28. Picturing myself at a job interview, one of threething would happen:
1. Would die of anxiety and wouldn't be able to answer any questions
2. Interviewer Qs would require me to unnaturally talk about and compliment myself in cringey ways (not gonna happen)
3. Interviewer would ask personal questions like what do you do on your free time (I watch youtube videos and go for walks/hikes alone because I have no friends) or why don't you have any work experience when you're this old, to which I'd just tell him/her to fuck off and then get up a leave.
I'm just confused as to what happened to me? What happened in my brain? Why the sudden and dramatic change? And most importantly how do I fix it? How do I go back to being a person? How can I wake back up and get back on track? And where the hell even is the track?
In summer and fall 2017 as well as winter 2018 I felt good, I was alert, awake, lucid, able to concentrate, I had a real emotional serenity going on and I'd finally matured quite a bit and gone about getting my life in order, getting an education so I could get a decent paying job and be an adult.
I think recovering from months of intense pain caused by illness (that I learned could've been fatal had the cause remained undiscovered), combined with a friend (who I'd actively involved in trying to help) dying played a part in waking me the f up. At the end of the first semester I was one of only a handful of students who got an A in a notoriously difficult programming class so I felt really capable and like I was finally a functioning adult after many many years of depression, isolation and self made safe spaces. It was so great to finally feel fully awake, alert, capable and comfortable as well more compassionate, understanding and willing (and WANTING) to be more selfless and caring towards other people.
Then I think around March of last year, something...changed. And I could feel it as it was changing, sort of like the changing of the seasons, I started feeling a sadness, can't quite explain it. But it was like a part of me knew things were about to go downhill. And BOY did it. Could no longer concentrate at all. Got so bad that when I watched a movie or video, I could only watch a few minutes at a time before getting distracted. And obviously that's not going to work when I'm taking information science, computer systems and programming classes! So the second semester at uni was a total failure. Not helped by the fact that 2/3 classes involved group projects which was never going to happen anyway. But there was one programming class that I should have aced. It was right up my alley, pure programming, no essays, no group projects. Yet I failed that too. My student advisor was visibly confused about that and asked if "the air had gone out of me" and you know what, that about sums it up!
I became really depressed and started being bothered by things about the world, society and other people that had stopped bothering me. I went from spending all day studying programming to spending all day watching gaming videos. I tried to feel better by spending all day outside once spring kicked in for real, but it only sort of helped. I became immature, strange, stupid and...invalid, I guess.
Before I started uni I was about do undertake a sort of get to work program (hard to explain so I won't) but I paused it in agreement with my case manager so I could focus on uni instead, and if uni didn't work out we'd resume. So in spring 2018 I decided I should resume given that uni just wasn't happening. I asked for a meeting with my case manager. They said she was on sick leave (apparently quite serious) and they couldn't find a replacement? I was talking to them through my student advisor so I wasn't quite clear how that went but I think it ended with them saying they'd be in touch or something. They didn't get in touch and I, now reduced to a depressed idiot spending all day on distractions, didn't think to keep nudging them. My student advisor sent a report to them at our last meeting, detailing how uni hadn't worked out and how I wanted to return to the work program (again, hard to explain how this all works, just go with it).
Again, nothing. No phone call, no email.
My dad's rich. He gave me and my siblings a lot of money last summer and I really needed to get away from everything and clear my head so I spent them on a trip abroad. That trip was really nice and refreshing and yet, a while after I got home...things got even worse than they had been before I left. I overate like crazy for the rest of the year, I developed strange interests that I obsessed over (I've always obsessed over things now and then, usually history-related, like the Titanic or ww2, but not really about strange things and not like this.). At one point I think I was seriously on the path to becoming religious, possibly triggered by a hard to dismiss (and kind of scary for some reason) synchronicity event on my trip abroad. I became even less mature, I think, watched even more juvenile things on yt all day. I guess I was creating a safe space? but it was horrible.
I don't know how many kgs I gained but I'm pretty sure it was well over 10. Once I realized I'd gained a lot of weight and that I'd have to get started on remedying that situation, I refused to weigh myself until I looked better in the mirror. Don't think I could've handled it. Once I looked in the mirror and gave myself the go ahead t oget on the scale, it said 86kg...must've been over 90. Before I'd been in the upper 70s with my preferred range being in the lower 70s. I just recently got down to the lower 70s after spending all of spring losing weight.
Annnnd...I've done nothing. In the second half of 2018 I briefly tried another semester at uni but it didn't work. And of course by then I was NOT doing well. I was on leave for the spring semester this year. I want to keep my options open (despite them not really being there as far as I can see) so I haven't canceled my student registration yet. I don't remember when this was but at some point, long after the last meeting with my student advisor, I found a letter I'd disregarded without opening...it was from the goverment work-help-office-place (again, not going to explain it). It said that they'd done an evaluation and concluded that they couldn't help me get to work, so they wouldn't offer me any services. I hadn't asked for an evaluation. In fact, we'd done one in 2017 and they'd concluded the opposite, that I was good at archival and secretarial work and that they were going to help me. All I asked for was a meeting with my case manager so that we could "get back to work". The case manager who I couldn't get ahold of because apparently she's hospitalized. Some bureaucrat who's never even met me decided to basically tell me to fuck off and go live on benefits for the rest of my life, for no discernable reason. By the time I found the letter (I'd gotten no emails, no calls), the deadline to appeal the decision had passed. Not that I think an appeal would've worked because it's such a hopeless bureaucracy. The only one who knew my case, my abilities and the way forward is awol and the people who replaced her are clueless. So there went my backup plan.
Even if I resume uni and pass all my classes, I'll be 32-33 by the time I graduate. And wow, if things hadn't gone wrong and I'd somehow passed all my classes on time, I'd be done by next christmas. How time flies when you're wasting your life
No idea what to do now. Literally not a clue how to proceed. Can't just start applying for jobs without help, there's no way I'm going through a regular job interview process (nasty things, how're they still allowed?), let alone passing it with no work experience at 28. Picturing myself at a job interview, one of threething would happen:
1. Would die of anxiety and wouldn't be able to answer any questions
2. Interviewer Qs would require me to unnaturally talk about and compliment myself in cringey ways (not gonna happen)
3. Interviewer would ask personal questions like what do you do on your free time (I watch youtube videos and go for walks/hikes alone because I have no friends) or why don't you have any work experience when you're this old, to which I'd just tell him/her to fuck off and then get up a leave.
I'm just confused as to what happened to me? What happened in my brain? Why the sudden and dramatic change? And most importantly how do I fix it? How do I go back to being a person? How can I wake back up and get back on track? And where the hell even is the track?
