Hi, i'm a 20 years boy. I'm going to be as specific as I can so here is my story (english is my second or third language). I don't expect a lot of people to read this because it will be a long story which I will write anyway at least as a journal which I heard helps as well. I'll add timestamps to help my incoherency.
I recently figured out I have a depression that lasted for about 2 years (around sept 2017 – present time) and still going and it doesn't matter how much I try, I can't get myself out of it. I guess there are multiple causes of my depression because at that time it hit me from every aspect of life, I lost everything I thought I had and was left "naked". I don't know if these are things that typically happen to teenagers, but they happened to me, and I took them very personally. At this point I don't even know if I'm bitching about stupid things or I really got hit by something. Anyway, It changed me completely or… I would say it somehow created me or slowly uncovered the real me. I really don't remember when was the last time I felt some happiness, except the event I have written below at the end of the story. I'm specifically interested about the uncovering the real self i wrote below. If someone knows anything related to that, I would like to read more.
Short self-description: I can tell with no arrogance that I was always smarter then average. I was the genius kid in primary school and middle school. Introvert. I never had real social skills, and was pretty isolated. But I was a rich kid and the smartest in the room so extroverts adopted me really fast (yes, they were usually using me for self-gain). I was aware of my lack of social skills and in the 8-th grade it was my first time I tried and managed to have conversation with a girl from class for about an hour, while walking on our way to school. I mean I used to speak with my classmates, but only about something specifically. Never had long meaningful conversations, except boys. I had some good friends. But I was terrible with girls. There was one girl I liked and I never could make the first move, she liked me aswell btw. I was super anxious about this, so I only talked to her on social-media. It didn't get any further. After a about 2 years of only messaging I asked her out several times, but in an awful way and it didn't work out. It was all before 10 grade. I addressed a lot my lack of social skills and I managed to make a lot of friends there, which is how I got a girlfriend later on. After the 9 grade I changed my school and moved to one of the best high-schools in my country. There was where my genius collapsed. Everyone was smart and scared at the same time because of the high school requirements. I never had good grades after that. It took me 1 year and something to make some friends and to get social involved. In my 12 grade I got the girlfriend i'm writing right below.
Depression story: Here is what happened 2 years ago:
-I had a 2 year relationship (aug 2016 – aug 2018) which started to become extremely toxic which ended 1 year later in rage;
-I finished one of the best high-schools in my small country (2017) and decided not to go to university for 1 year in order to better decide what I want to do with my future, so I started a job at my family's small company as a helper manager or smth like that. Long story short, I was helping my father at what whatever was he doing.
-At the time I started working with my father(sept 2017 – July 2018), he got in some serious financial problems, and my way of taking things for granted, everyone being nice to me because I was rich vanished. I had to contemplate my self being.
How did the trouble begin?
The stupid me in a relationship part. I had a pretty nice relationship with that girl the first year and I was into the old fashioned way of serious relationships. I loved her the way a teenager does and I didnt recognize the moment when I had to breakup, and instead of 1 year of a nice relationship with a breakup, i had a second year of nightmare. She became distant, I felt unwanted. But as I didn't have social skills and I was backed up by money, I was delusional, and didn't breakup. I didn't breakup mainly because i wanted to have sex with her and I waited 1.5 years for that. We finally had it and the relationship didn't get any much better, contrary to my expectations. The second year of realtionship was very confusing. I knew something doesn't feel right, but it was that time I started to work with my family and didn't have enough time to figure it out. Also I had no evidence of her doing something wrong and i left things how they were. After a while, I just couldnt bear it anymore and broke up.
Here is the drama (betrayed by everyone) : Shortly after the break up (aug 2018) 2 of her girl friends got in contact with me and told me all the shit she did behind my back. It wouldnt have been a big deal if the shit she did behind my back wasn't with people that I considered friends and best friends. Turn out she was a cheater, lier and didn't care about me at all, used to lie me even while crying to prove she doesn't lie, even though I was getting some suspicious half-evidence. I learned that she was seeing and at least once kissed a guy who I was considering to be my best friend for like 2 years (I had a lot of common interests with him, we were very alike and worked together on a project). It was like a double betrayal. She cheated on me with several guys, was desvirginated at some party after I went home (after one year of relationship). There is another guy who I considered to be my best friend for most of my life, I knew him since kindergarten, were in the same class for 9 years, sitted at the same desk in middle-school (i went to another high-school after). Turns out he became her emotional support after the fight I had with her after breakup and now they are still dating (She still cheats though, the guy doesn't know). I was betrayed by everyone, and by everyone I mean the fact that a lot of people knew what's going on and no one tried to light me up. After that, I realised that actually I have no one to talk to. And they really were people I considered closest to me and they were the only people I was really trusting. Probably here is where I completely stopped trusting people. The only close friends I have right know are 2 guys I met in high-school. I'm still in close touch with them, even though they are studying in different cities/countries. I have to mention that they are high-standards people. Both of them are extremely disciplined, hard-working, rational, and i'm sure they are going to be super successful, and usually they help me to get over my dark moments).
Meanwhile working with my father (insane amount of stress)(sep 2017 – July 2018)… I was working with my father, who turned out to be an extremely toxic boss. I figured out I never knew him. He never talked to me or supported me like a normal father would. In fact, i was educated by my every soft mother. I'm not delusional. All my relatives have the same opinion about him and her. He was only telling me his bussiness stories and how successful he is. In fact, he never was. At the same time he got in some serious financial trouble with his business, the money ended and I went from rich kid to "question my existence" kid. It hit me by making me question myself what is my personality based on, because I was used to taking things for granted just because I had money and everyone would like to befriend me. This is when I started teaching myself creating websites in order to do some freelancing work. My father was is an extremely impulsive person, I am calm and rational. We were 2 opposites. Because of his way of impulsively managing things, I was getting more and more stressed with the work. In a pretty short period of time I started sleeping 12-13 hours per night and didn't feel rested (it was at the same time my girlfriend started being distant and at the same time I started having depression symptoms). After almost an year working with him I had a stress crisis, it was something like an epileptic seizure, but I was conscious and half an hour later I ended up in hospital, had to take opioids. My father still didn't do anything to address that. By his way of thinking, "My nerves are as weak as my mother's". I have to mention that my mother consistently takes opioids in order to cope with the stress my father creates. He is not physically violent, he never was, but he is very loud, and almost always raging (exactly my opposite). Luckily, after that, I moved abroad to study, were, unluckily, my biggest and most cronic depression episode started. (October 2018, right after breakup, after cheating and betrayal from almost everyone I knew, after toxic father) And it was right after all the relationship drama, betraying friends, and toxic father. I was barely sleeping at night, no way of getting asleep before 3 am for half an year, absolute chaos, couldn't talk to anyone(there was only one friend that used to call me from time to time for what I will always be grateful), I have no idea how I got over those months. I couldn't get over anything. I didn't know I need help. The only thing that kept me from having serious suicidal thoughts was the voice in my head that was telling me that I still have potential and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. That voice i think is the critical side of my personality that would keep me afloat in the darkest moments of my life by reminding me that there will be better days, or maybe I was too much of a coward to end it all.
Here is more about my current self. I'm a smarter than average person except the social thing. I am student right know in my second year learning economic informatics, studying abroad and I'm the best at programming lessons in my group while doing considerably less effort than my colleagues, I mean I barely study at all because of my depression. I never had social skills and still have no idea how to get along with poeple from my class, but don't get me wrong, I worked as a freelancer after I taught myself developing websites and still have very good relations with my clients. I can't get along with people that I have no common interests with, i won't ever speak to them if I don't have a specific reason to and I'm talking about my current colleagues. There is no one I can get along with. I was like this all my life, since I was a kid. I tried to contemplate why I am like this numerous times, but no result. I simply think I'm better than they are and I think they aren't the same level I am. And by that I mean that there is a voice in my head arrogantly telling me I'm better than others and there is the other voice criticizing it and reminind me that I won't live up to those expectations of myself any time soon because of my depression. I'm not arrogant by saying this, it's just what I think, I keep my humility while i'm around others and i play the nice guy, I'm just aware that I can do thing others can not.
Also I still don't know what I mean by "same level as me". The only explanation I have for myself is that there are very few people with whom I can get along and who can understand things with a greater perspective than usual.
It's my second year at this university and there is only one girl I met with whom I could really get along and speak "at the same level". She is a super balanced person, lives up to standards that look impossible for me to have because of depression and last year she had one of the highest average grades.
I was trying to discipline myself in order to get better and get myself out of dark. I worked as a freelancer because my family hardly could support me anymore and I didn't even want to request money from them, but I did from time to time as I was literally starving. I developed some wordpress websites, had some good clients. My dream job was and still is to be a programmer. The rational and logical way of thinking that this job requires is completely suitable for me, but I had to learn a lot in order to get such a job. Therefore, at that time I was mainly doing design, which turned out to be something I hated so much it would make me burn out in a couple of hours, but I had no choice. I didn't expect that doing design work would make me more vulnerable to episodes of depression.
(October 2018 – Jan 2019) After 4 months of severe depression I started to force myself to work on something. I was programming my day for productivity. It lasted 2 weeks and those were some of the most productive periods of time I ever had. By that time I had a complete understanding of business plans, how to make one, and actually made one. I did that by studying one specialisez book and a lot of internet resources. Right after these 2 weeks I collapsed. Lately, and by that I mean about 1 month ago I discovered I was self-sabotaging myself. After every try of getting better I finish up by punishing myself, procastinating, not carrying, and making myself to turn things in such a way so I would feel desperate.
(March, 2019) Meanwhile I descovered Jordan Peterson, and started reading some books like "No more Mr. Nice guy" which was exactly my description, "Iron John", "4 archetypes of men" etc. I got insights about the masculine psychology which explained to me why all of these things happened to me, I understood why i got betrayed, why my father was like that and everythhing. But it didn't motivate me trust people anymore, there were no arguments to sustain it. Apparently, I started to get better. I started dating that girl I was talking about. I started taking care of myself, doing more things to myself, exercising, eating much healthier, cooking for myself, made friends at the hostel I lived (which by the way didn't make me any happier. I was feeling like i'm stagnating, pausing my self discovery while losing a lot of time with people I don't really have a lot to learn from). I was desperate to get better. Back in March I applied to a marketing training at my university, where we made teams and worked on a project. I had previous experience in marketing since I was developing websites and I had more knowledge in the field than the average and some of them I barely talked to referred to me as being a genius. It was then when I realised that marketing is burning me out just like designing websites does as it requires the same way of thinking. There were a lot of people, but I couldn't get close to anyone, not even with the people from my team I worked with. I don't know what's the catch with that because I was being myself there, i was pretty happy, not really depressed, but it wasn't fulfilling. I felt like these people could never understand. Also at the same time I had to work on a big website, which completely burned me out. And another episode of depression kicked in. I couldn't provide enough of myself to the relationship and broke up after 1 month (still friends btw, I still appreciate her more than any girl I have ever met), couldn't get myself together, failed 1 exam**. I was punishing myself again, self-sabotaging, making me feel desperate.** Even though I collapsed, I was able to keep disciplining myself for more than a month, which was a record, I forced it as hard as I could, and I really have to mention that in this period of time I was able to solve an insane amount of personal problems, made an amount of money that allowed me to buy a new powerful laptop, a phone, and still had money to party all summer. All that in one month and half.
I have to mention about my decision to work as a freelancer. I didn't want to lose time by working on some job that only required my time. I decided that my time is somewhat more important and used it to learn creating websites.
After that specific collapse (Half April – July), I was still partly trying to take care of myself, trying to figure out ways of being more of myself, to embrace my wild instincts and the masculine self which I never did and to get easier with myself. By that I mean I was always rational, I was never impulsive and i was repressing my feelings with cowardness which I thought was rationality, I used to let people walk me over.
(July – September 2019) So here the summer begins with me still depressed. I went home, had tons of free time to complete some programming tutorials i planned earlier and to get better. Of course i didn't look at them even once. But the good part is that a lot of my friends from high-school I still trusted were home as well and we partied a lot. It didn't improve my situation, but… There was one party with 5 of my high-school friends and 2 girls that were friends with one of them. I tried to be as much of myself as I could and I tried to express my masculine self as much as I could. So I got drunk, and I mean really drunk. It felt like the best thing that happened to me in the last 2 years. I felt some sort of happiness I don't rememeber feeling for a very long time. Even if i was drunk as fuck after drinking more than 15 shots I never felt more in control of myself in my enitre life. I could perfectly embrace my masculine self and my rational self it was the moment I really felt alive. Currently, I'm pretty good at controlling myself while being drunk, and there is no chance to make the wild man from inside to take control so perhaps this is why I could feel the perfect balance. Even if my friends tried to make it out with those girls, I had both of them interested in me while not even trying. One of the girls just kissed me out of nowhere while dancing. And I really didn't even try to make it out with any of them because I was not interested. I still can't explain that episode of pure happiness, it felt like heaven, I was feeling that I have all power I need to to anything I want with my life, i felt the alpha male from inside, I felt that I could get along with anybody, while of course keeping my filter of "not being at the same level", but just cassually making friends, I was feeling like the perfect man I was always to be or better to say to be the self i'm trying to uncover from inside, because I know that the person I was in touch with when being drunk was the real me, the broken and reborn self. Sadly, I couldn't reproduce it while not being drunk. There were some other parties but I didn't get that drunk, therefore I didn't feel the hidden self just as intense. I can't get along with girls because I'm never living the present moment, I'm ambiguous.
(October – 2019) Here I am. University started again, finally started to learing more of programming. I'm getting better at it, and i'm getting better really fast. Fast enough to get a job in about on month. After about 3 months of depression I did pretty good at university for those 3 weeks, managed my time well enough. Started to have a high protein breakfast in order to deal with anxiety, which by the way worked better then I have expected. Besides uni, my current program consists of doing about 3 – 4 hours per day of learning programming. I have time for more, but for some reason I can not bear more than that. I don't hate it, i enjoy what I do, but it's exhausing, it burnes me out slowly. I have some assigments to do, but the thought of doing them is killing me. It's hard for me to do what I like to do(programming, but programming in real life applications. The way of programming we learn at university is far from giving me a chance to get employed) but taking time to do smth not exactly related to what I want to do right know(getting a job, learning programming) is stressing me out too hard to bear. And I sarted to collapse again. I feel how I'm slowly punishing myself, procastinating and getting less and less care of myself. After 3 weeks of doing pretty good at uni, I completely missed the last 2 days of lectures because I couldn't get myself in a mood to go there. Everything gets too painful again.
Some of the reasons I can't accomplish basic daily goals are:
– Sleep problems. It's my biggest problem. It doesn't matter how early I go to sleep or how tired I am, I still fall asleep after 00.00. It can get me hours to get asleep if I go to bed earlier. It doesn't matter how much I sleep. I tried sleeping from 6 to 10 hours. Still yawning all day and getting tired way too fast. Even if I get tired, I can't get afternoon naps because I just can't fall asleep;
– Mood changing. My moods can change really fast. I'm pretty sure I didn't become bipolar, but my moods vary a lot.
– Lack of focus. It's basic.
– Social activities, talking to people. During my dark times when I was freelancing, it would take me days to call that client for most basic things. It was triggering such an anxiety and such pain that I was trembling for hours. I even lost a customer because I could make myself make a call for 2 or 3 weeks. And the calls where just to inform some basic things, I was actually doing pretty great as a web designer.
– Can't stop thinking about the past, everywhere, always.
I also have all the other depression symptoms, but those are the most significant.
Right know I'm waiting for to get a job. I am going to apply in about 1 month. I hope that that evnironment would help my mental health, but at the same time I fear that I would not be able to bear a 8 hours a day job and doing uni at the same time. I desperately need a job because a lot of anxiety and depression comes from the fact that I'm not fully independent, and I hate to request money from my family. I want to rent a flat, and live alone. Deep inside I feel I need time being alone. If getting a job would not make my mental health get any better, I will go to a psychologist/psychoterapist. I didn't go yet because I can't aford one (I'm not a hypocrite, I had money a while ago when I was partying that summer. But I really thought it was the end of my depression). Also, I'm kinda getting pleasure from my isolation, I don't won't any people "who do not understand" in my life. And I do not know what I mean by that, I just know there are such high quality people. I find them from time to time, people with limitless minds.
As I said earlier, the only thing keeping me away from suicidal thoughts or away from something darker than what currently is, is the critical side of my personality that judges me and finally tells me I still got potential, that there is a fix, that there are books about that and that someday it will get better, but until then, I'm self-destructive. Sometimes I see a light at the end of the tunnel by thinking of the big family I will build and I will be able to trust, but it's too damn away from the present time…
I identified my critical self as being a really strong Magician archetype, which allows me to survive in the darkness.
Any books recommendations would be welcomed. Also, I like philosophy
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