Existential/Quarter Life Crisis

[HadhADHKJASD2]

These past few months I’ve gone through a pretty bad life crisis. I feel stuck, lost, and hopeless. I am questioning everything and it has gotten too a point where it is debilitating and taking away from every other aspect of my life. Everything is falling apart and I feel hopeless. Reality seems so scary right now. And I don’t know what to do other then rant about my problems and hope someone can at least offer some guidance or perspective.

[Originally, this post was a long a** rant that I spent about 15 mins just writing. It was messy and very chaotic, so I took the paint points of the rant and made a bullet-point summary.]

    Homeschooling Trauma
        No social life / friends
        Bad social anxiety
        Cheating throughout online school, and forgetting the things I did learn and fear of lack of essential and necessary education before entering college.
        Life is bleak and others pity me
        FOMO on teenage / HS experiences

    Existential Crisis Based on Nihilism
        Fear of death
        Fear of wasted time / further wasting time and not spending it correctly, not making use of every moment. And not knowing how or why to even spend it correctly.
        My existence feels futile and mundane but also confusing without meaning, it all feels meaningless
        Fear of dying without knowing everything there is too know about everything
        Feeling insignificant and useless in a literal and existential way
        Afraid I cannot go back to how I was mentally and physically with these realizations. I feel doomed. I can't continue with regular life anymore, I keep thinking about how it all doesn't matter and how I won't possibly solve all these issues and that I'm just living a distraction. It's all a distraction. All cope. I feel paralyzed. And how can I live knowing how *** up our world is.

    Mental Health
        Feeling of depression and suicide.
        Chronic and debilitating procrastination that has ruined every aspect of life, caused me too go days without doing school work or even basic tasks like showering, and has put me behind in school, my previous goals, basic *** like attending college orientations, changing clothes, sleeping and life in general.
        Overeating and excessive weight gain
        Extreme insecurities regarding physical appearance (looks, acne, weight, height), have fallen into the "blackpill" rabbit hole and it's made me very depressed.
        Loneliness: virgin, friendless, loveless
        Cases of ghosting from perceived friends that have happened in more then one instance
        Negative experiences with therapy and doubts about its practical, ethical, and scientific legitimacy.
        The realization my loved ones may also be struggling just as bad as me

    Life Crisis Regarding Future (School, Career, Finances, Personal)
        Fear of going too college because of social anxiety and it being a repeat of high-school loneliness and suffering.
        Insecurities involving the prestige and price of school as well as major choice not being a good fit, being too hard, and useless
        Unsure if college is right for me and feel like I am going in blind
        The desire too play college soccer but the reality of not being recruited and me not realistically making my team due to skill issues, development issues, and the fact my school is a high level team and I barely played in HS.
        Hopelessness when it comes too dreams I’ve had as a kid (soccer, music, content creation, entrepreneurship) shattering against reality and never coming true. The realization of probability / determinism / luck / insane skill I may not posses in regards too hopes and dreams / unfairness of capitalist system has killed my hope. I will die never accomplish these and any sliver of hope is delusion. But, I cannot live with this notion. It hurts to realize not everything is possible.
        Fear of being average and never accomplishing remarkable feats.
        Fears of being doomed to wage slavery and being poor for the rest of my life just like I am now. Afraid I won’t be able to provide for my family and / or follow passions and be a failure in life like I already am.
        Finding self improvement, goals, and even continuing life itself futile and so confusing with all this hopelessness and uncontrollable factors that seem to not favor me. This is causing me too feel stuck and unsure what my “next steps” are, I’m just living day by day and I am clueless. I want answers.

[at_anchor]

On 7/7/2023 at 0:00 AM, HadhADHKJASD2 said:

Fears of being doomed to wage slavery and being poor for the rest of my life just like I am now.

Wage slavery gives you freedom and a sort of independence. If you were worse off, you would regret not even being able to become a wage slave. So it can get even worse.

[Ulax]

@HadhADHKJASD2 Hey dude,

Sorry to hear you are going through all this.

Sounds like you have an extensive trauma history. My recommendation would be that you focus your self-improvement efforts on deeper inner work.

My guess would be that a lot of your issues are because of unresolved trauma you have experienced in the past.

I think the following playlist and channel, in general, could be a useful place to explore. 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tOAzOD0sB0RTbXVBXeiYm48EIToqR_F

 

[OrangeOak]

@HadhADHKJASD2 Don't give up. Things will get better. Strategically plan your escape, and have patience and discipline.

My recommendation would be: Get a social job (i.e. teaching assistant, support worker). Something where you can feel useful and practice your social skills. (Very important for a young man, which I assume you are). These jobs are entry level, anyone can do it. And always go to work, no matter how shit you may feel, or how hopeless/meaningless life may seem. You need structure to your day, and a source of income. Don't go to college/university yet. Unless you are very clear about why you are going, and you really want to, then I wouldn't go. You'll be left with a lot of debt and 3-4 years you can't get back. 

Make sure you're hitting these 5 things everyday: This is the bare minimum for good mental health. 

1. 30 mins of physical exercise,  2. Minimum 10 mins of sunlight on your skin,  3. healthy food (see Leo's video 'how to shop for healthy food'), 4. Good sleep. There is an abundance of information on how to maximize quality sleep. Research and implement. It's one of the most crucial things for your mental health. 5. Social connection: Parties, friends, family. Quality time with people. Bonus: Eliminate addictions: nicotine, sugar, gaming, YouTube etc. Addictions make you unhappy. 

It sounds like you need to devote most of your spare time and energy into developing your social skills/confidence, friends and girls (talking to strangers daily, practicing different aspects of social skills). I suspect a lot of your other worries could evaporate once you get this area sorted, although there's no saying how long it will take. You have to be prepared for it to take years, but the reward will be immense. Remember sex is on the same level as air and food in terms of basic human needs. If your career/future is a big source of stress, I would also devote time to that daily, but just take a step back and approach it in a calm way. You're so young. You could screw around for the next 5 years and still be able to achieve remarkable things. I would recommend Leo's life purpose course for that, if you're serious. I am pretty much in the same situation as you to be honest, but now I'm pretty clear on what I need to do to get out of the hole I'm in, it's just a matter of execution and not getting distracted. 

There's so much to say, but I don't want to over complicate it for you. Although please PM me if you want to discuss this further. Good luck!