[ComradeRob]

Originally Posted by Deffeh

So im getting older, i turn 21 on burns day.

I am desperately unhappy and not sure how to change things, as realistically im about to enter my prime and things, at least physical health wise, are only going to get worse. To review;

Bollocks. 21 is not a particularly great age to be and the only people who say it is are old people for whom the rose-tinted spectacles are distorting their memory. Most people are quite clueless at 21 (I certainly was; and I'm not making any claim for great enlightenment at 25, except for the realisation of how clueless most people are and always will be, including myself).

Physical health-wise, unless you are already some kind of Adonis, there's plenty of scope for improvement as you get older. Maturity brings different benefits, but they can outweigh simple youth provided you take reasonable care of yourself (of course, that's a big 'if', but my point is that there is no destiny of inevitable decline, at least for another 20 years or so).

Every year i seem to get more and more disassociative. Severing ties, losing contact with people, remaining aloof, periodically falling out with people after convincing myself they are out to get me. Its bizarre, i do this internal witch hunt thing, in which i plan ahead long series of argument and detail anecdotal evidence which to use against a person.

What kind of people do you like? What characteristics do you find pleasing? And yes, you might find that you have difficulty dealing with people, but that does get easier as you get older. Call it maturity if you want; as you age you will begin to naturally relax.

For my birthday im going to do the typical 'drink all day' thing, but probably just in the flat, because i dont want to trouble people to come out. The thing is as well, for all the people i 'know', the amount of people i even 'go for a drink with' is desperately small. I suspect my birthday will be me and 4 friends in the flat, and it'll be a mediocre occasion. The thing is, to try anything bigger would just be embarrassing. Im toying with whether to even bother asking my Glasgow friends to come up to Stirling, i dont want to obligate them, and i also dont want confirmation from a lot of them that i would go to their birthdays, but they wouldnt go to mine. Even more than that, i dont want anyone to spend money getting here / on me, for what, like i said, will be an incredibly mediocre affair, probably involving me playing music on my laptop and showing videos on youtube to my guests. I dont even know if i'll invite Dace up and when you're not sure if you want to risk inconveniencing Dace or not shit isnt good.

Life isn't about obligations. Going to see someone for their birthday is unlikely to be a major obligation on anyone that you know; on the other hand, because of that fact it does mean that some (or perhaps most) people may well have other things on. The point is that there is little to be lost in asking, and you shouldn't feel slighted if people say 'no'. I know it's a cliche to say that 'life's too short for worrying' or something like that, but it's true. Obsessing over perceived social tensions is a waste of time. Worrying about what other people think is often pointless, especially because most people spend 99% of their time thinking about the kind of stuff that is irrelevant to anyone else.

This isnt to say ' i have no friends ' - i know plenty of people, i just find myself caring so little about what any of them think, say, do, etc etc that im under no illusion that i should expect them to do the same for me. When im 'on top of things', im reasonably good in social settings. But i dont care enough about keeping people happy, or keeping up appearances or anything like that.

Life is not about caring about people. Again, an illusion that is drummed into us during childhood and especially adolescence; the truth is that most people are far more self-absorbed than you could ever imagine. Friendship isn't some deep, cosmic connection, it's just a convenient way of spending time around people that you find bearable. In saying that you don't do enough to keep people happy, you're missing the point - you do as much as you should (i.e. fairly little), but you're under the illusion that there's something more. There isn't. Nobody really expects anything more.

Ive also realised that the people i do keep in regular contact with are mostly pretty simple, and the relationships i own are very one dimensional. I surround myself with persons of mediocre intellect so it makes my slightly above the national average brain feed my ridiculous ego. I am the best student out of any of my friends in glasgow or stirling, for example - the ones that didnt drop out that is.

If that bothers you, there are ways of getting to know some smarter people, but I'm betting that you know that anyway.

Intelligence is not a linear scale, with some people higher and others lower. You are probably very intelligent in some ways (I don't post much on GD, but I read it a lot and your posts are amongst the more intelligent amongst a group that is probably skewed towards above-average intelligence already (yes, I realise what a terrible condemnation of the human race calling GD posters 'above average' is)). On the other hand, you probably have some deficiencies (and I don't necessarily mean the cliched 'smart but socially inferior' thing, I mean that there are probably genuine intellectual blindspots). You seem to be worried about the idea that there are other people who are intellectually 'better' than you in some ways; this is undoubtedly true, but you will be better than them in other ways. The best analogy I can think of is comparative advantage; the point being that you will never be the best at everything, and trying to be so is counter-productive.

Mentally, im in a pretty bad situation in that i dont really have much of a fallback for when things go poorly. Especially regarding my family - who considering my mother has Clinical Depression, and my Auntie has Manic Depression (she was actually just committed a few weeks ago and her kids taken off her) are pretty terrible at understanding my aforementioned disassociative posture. They dont know im on meds, or how bad ive felt most of my life, because its easier that way. Even if i did for some bizarre reason want to share it, to do so would be selfish, considering the financial and emotional worries they have not just of their own, but due to the combined problems of two nutter families (the aforementioned auntie isnt the only one in a home or an institution). People keep dying too on both sides, and theres more to come in the near future i would suspect. I'll attend the funerals, show face, but its rather hard to be continually criticised for not being more family orientated etc when i feel.. nothing, towards other human beings.

Part maybe of my issue with family is its a tie you cant fully sever, and i hate being obligated to people. I really dont feel anything about any of them, except quite a lot of anger and resentment towards my mum.

I'm wary of offering any advice on this. My instinct is that you will probably feel better about this over time, as a product of greater personal independence. I dunno, I don't have any first-hand experience of this kind of thing as it relates directly to family. I don't really want to say anything for fear of simplifying or descending into banal self-help psychobabble.

I havent had sex in well over a year and a half, and have never actually did the whole 'chase' thing myself, relationships i just sort of fell into. I have no sex drive. Combined with my complete distaste for and disinterest in the human race, my misogyny is at such a level that i cant really forsee me ever having a relationship again, especially given the typical role played by the man in the courting process.

Well, that's a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy. I won't bother with the obvious psycho-spiel here (that you need to think about what really makes you happy, develop self-esteem etc.). I will only add that the belief that you either can, or should be able to, foresee anything more advanced than what to have for dinner is probably mistaken; a lifetime gives plenty of scope for unforseeable occurrences and the fact that you can't foresee them doesn't make them any less likely.

Regards meds; im always aware from both the internet, and my immediate family that there are supposedly a significant portion of people who 'have it worse', their numbers timescales and doses produce a better resume. Part of the thing with depression is in some sort of horrible way you guard it and are even 'attached' to it. You are also very much aware that considering the scope of the illness, you dont really stand out from the crowd by being 'depressed'. Im probably better on them than off them, but i get lulls, like the last few days, where it just seems impossible to go on. If you havent experienced it, theres nothing that can explain the nightmare of knowing yourself you arent angry with anyone or anything, or upset about anyone or anything, but being unable to rationalise it as a chemical imbalance. I'd like to think that even now i'm reasonable rational and coherent enough to suggest that im not depressed about anything in particular, i just feel like shit.

I don't really want to give any detailed input on this, because I don't think I can offer any great first-hand experience. Nor do I want to say 'well, we've all had bad times' or something like that, though I can personally attest to having had some periods of time when I've felt depressed and lacked all motivation. As to what can be done, I suspect that the only improvement would come from addressing your problems. But you know that already, and I'm not really helping by pointing it out

Recently ive been waking up in the night terrified someone is going to break in, have barricaded the door and what not, checked its locked on several occasions during the night. Today when walking to the bus stop i ducked when someone was walking towards me because i was so sure they were going to take a swing at me, the person looked at me like i was crazy. I went to the gym to try and get the adrenaline flowing, managed a 45 minute or so workout but quit due to apathy rather than tiredness. I did push myself pretty hard and lasted longer than i have before in similar mental states, but after a while parts of my body just wouldnt respond.

Exercise isn't really as simple as people think. 45 minutes sounds like a pretty good workout if you were doing reasonably intense exercise and pushing it for any longer than that wouldn't have been a good idea. The notion that exercise should only end once you're physically incapable of exercising further is quite daft.

So,
Im getting older and i need to make some better choices in my life. I eat well, ive gotten help in the form of medication psychiatry and psychology, i exercise 5 or 6 times a week, i take vitamin tablets and olive oil capsules, eat my 5 a day, cut out the fizzy drinks again. Its just pretty devestating that i dont seem to be reaping much reward from any of the positive action ive taken.

Diet changes are rarely all that rewarding in the short term. It's more about not being left wheezing by small flights of stairs when you're 50 than about having boundless energy at 21. It sounds like you've got a pretty good setup as far as diet and exercise goes though. It's quite fun to be ahead of the trend on things like that; in a few years people will be asking what your secret is.

To sum up, I'd guess that your main problem is that you don't see yourself as a valuable member of the human race (oh god, that sounds like so much hippie bullshit, I'm vaguely disgusted with myself for typing it). I'd disagree with that, and I hope that you realise that you are probably a much better person than you think, and for reasons that you probably don't appreciate. Yeah, I know, that's not much help. But there's no magic secret, there's just a bunch of people making their way through life in the best way that they can.