Rant

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

What made me write this is the fact that I came close to flunking another set of exams. I wouldn’t have crossed the line I any one of them had they not been scheduled to take place in the afternoon.

Now, a lot of people on this planet find themselves in similar situations (or maybe they don’t and I just find it comforting to think that everyone sucks) and usually the best way to solve this crisis is to shut up and get down to work.

But since that approach has failed with me quite a few times, I, after lots of thinking about how I got here, concluded that it is worth spending half a day to write down in a few hundred words all what is wrong with me and my life and hope that makes me get out of his hole.

A few years ago I used to kick ass at academics. Yes it was just school, and only really tested how quickly you can memorize massive blocks of text and how well you can puke it on the paper the next day without half digesting it, but I was doing well in flawed system and thus it can only be said that I was on the right track. Like all kids I had plans for world domination and was convinced that I was a fucking genius.

Then, we had to move to some other city. For most people this is nothing dramatic. But it was a first for me.
I had always been in one school and one house all my life. Now that everything had changed, change being something this brain wasn’t used to, I started wanting to go back.
I had to make new friends, and since I didn’t get out of the house, that didn’t happen in the two years I lived there. In school I did make friends, but I always felt like a stranger. That place never started to feel familiar but only because I didn’t talk to anybody.
I did nothing but eat, sleep and (try to) study. I would find a million things to waste time when I had to sit down and study. I couldn’t get anything done, became detached from reality and watched loads of TV. I remember having a couple of OBEs when alone at home and it was scary, to put it mildly.

This screwed up my brain pretty bad. For two years there was zero intellectual stimulation (unless documentaries count) and zero social interaction. But what really blew up in those two years were the personality traits already present in me. I had always been a bit shy, especially with girls. I was sensitive to negative evaluation by others in pretty much everything, and would easily give up anything I found out I wasn’t good at (like sports) for the fear of being made fun of. In short, I wanted people to like me.

Now everyone who has gone through puberty must have been self conscious at some stage, but as Wikipedia says, a personality trait becomes a personality disorder when it disrupts a person’s normal activities - makes him do some things or stops him from doing others. This was now true for me. I avoided all social interaction, close to running away when someone wanted to talk to me.
All my thoughts centered around what people other people think about me. The only things I remembered were bad social experiences. When around people, everything I did was influenced by the shit stated above.

But I associated all of it with the fact that I was in a new city. I thought everything would be normal when we get back ‘home’, which was scheduled. Cities change pretty quick in developing countries these days, and so when we did get back, everything about that city has changed, but nothing about me did. I faced the exact same circumstances that I faced when I had left - new people, new places, and even though the house was the same, nothing around it was. There were new additions, including a 25 storey office at about 30 meters, construction waste all around, and a bunch of ugly houses where I used to play built with the sole purpose of cashing in on the influx working youth, all of whom I thought were total assholes.

Back at my old school, I discovered that I really was an idiot to think that people would be welcoming me. Puberty had done strange things to my old friends (whatever little number was still there), and it was practically like going to a new school. When I look back at it, I find it quite funny that I went back to a school that sucked just because of my old friends. But given my personality, I also remember exactly why I did it.
It was like someone dropped a second bomb on my head. Within a few days of getting there, the city I hated didn’t look so bad. At least I had friends in that school, here I had to do that herculean task again and I didn’t bother to. It was the worst social isolation I have experienced. It was mentally depressing, tiring and needless to say did things my brain I have come to accept as permanent.

Nothing worth mentioning happened there. Also I don’t remember any of it even though I passed out two years ago. My brain only treats bad social experiences as important and puts everything else in the trashcan. The only good thing to have happened in that period is that I never got close to killing myself and that two hours before a maths exam, I thought it was good idea to surf the Internet for nothing and somehow discovered the fact that this mental state is actually a recognised personality disorder. disorder called AvPD.

I read a few patient accounts and they explicitly stated everything I always dismissed. I thought everything would just be alright one day and I would gradually become a normal person. But this was shouting at me that I had been stuck for quite some time now, and ideally needed a psychiatrist.
But the AvPDian inside me had another approach to solving this problem. He thought that now that I knew everything that was wrong with me, and all my problems had been stated in some pretty impressive psychology lingo, I would overcome all of that automatically. My brain would remind myself of the rational reasons for my behaviors, actions, and feelings and everything would auto correct.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened. Knowing that I have AvPD has helped me get over a lot of things. I can interact with people, but only in a borderline formal way. I cannot strike a casual conversation with another human being. I can never have an emotional ‘pour-your-heart-out’ kind of conversation with anyone, including my parents. I still cannot ask a girl out, and in fact avoid talking to them at all (this is still close to running away).
I am confident about my abilities and I no longer care about what people think of me, although at times the ghost does come back.

I have developed two personalities, one is the real me and one is the me around people. The second guy is a loner. He avoids all social interaction by choice (so that he wouldn’t have to go through it). He doesn’t run after girls (they don’t know that he exists either) and still dreams of world domination (since that’s the best way to ignore reality). Every aspect of his personality has the purpose of getting me though life without feeling like I suck.
The first guy cannot care less about his future, still finds something useless to do when he has to study, and watches depraved pornography every now and then.

Frankly, they both suck, and I haven’t achieved anything in life that I thought I would at 19.
Which is what prompted me to write this. I thought that I needed help back then but now I can say that it was just an excuse I found to be complacent and consistently and selectively procrastinate everything important in life.

I write this thread because saying all of this here is equivalent to, as lame as it sounds, saying it to a bunch of real people, and now that I have written down somewhere all that is wrong with me, the next time my brain would remind myself of the rational reasons for my behaviors, actions, and feelings and everything would auto correct.
This thread wasn’t supposed to be read, but to be written. I wanted to channelize the anger I have for myself. I thought it would do me some good, and I did it at the risk of being seen as an attention whore. I would request the mods to not delete it. It will die, unlike the forum games.

2

You’re still young, you can achieve anything you want in life. You just have to believe it and fight for it.
I don’t know if you know what you want.
If you’re in this forum its because you love Blender, why don’t you make a short movie about AvPD?

3

I was in the place you are in some (a lot of) years back. You have had the added ordeal of changing home but feeling lost and alone it’s something that happens to a lot of young people around that age. When I remember those days I wish I knew then what I know now, and be spared those times of dispair, but of course, no one can look at life at 19 with the eyes of an older self. I know you are not looking for advice and I don’t have any original one to give except keep going on and working hard at doing your work well ( because work will ultimately be your support always in hard times) …trying to make a few friends in realworld, people you share interests with, talk to real people more and most of all … shut that brain damaging stuff called TV at once, there’s absolute no answer to your problems there I assure you! Facing things is what will get you through eventually. I have always stayed a bit of a geek (computer geek now) and life is complicated at every age but you learn to live and get control of it after a while. all best wishes!

4

It took some real guts to post your feelings my friend. I too moved around alot as a kid. Always starting over with new friends, cities, environments etc. Most people don’t self evalute themselves like you have done here. They are scared at what they might find or uncover and for the most part take part in the world in a dream-like state as one of the sheeple. Take heart, try and give yourself a little room to grow. It sounds like you have alot of insight and self awarness and in my opinion is very valuable quality. I have never read a statement like yours in a setting like this. It has made an impact on me personally. You are a very brave individual and I applaude your courageous nature. Shut the television off for a day. Now with paper and pencil in hand, what is it that peaks your interest? What kinds of things get the gears spinning in your head? When you were in school, what did you have an apptitude for? You need to light the spark within you again. You have been traumatized by drastic changes in your life because you were forced to leave your ‘bubble’. You need to take the ‘baby steps’ to bring to light the person you were meant to be. My dad once told me…Usually the hardest things to do in life, and the decisions that we make are the ones we try to avoid because them seem too hard or difficult. It is these ‘difficult choices’ that are for the most part 99.9% the right choices to make. Just on the content alone of your personal letter, I would say to you, that you have many endearing qualities that most people will never know. Do not become a cynical, self-loathing, victim of circumstance. Rise to the challenge, give meaning to your existance with anything that brings you joy no matter how trivial. You will not find this on the television. You will not find this in porn. For they are just distractions to waste your time, and they will only continue to hold you back. God Speed my friend. You are not alone.

5

Accept a limitation and it’s yours.

You might want to look into learning to meditate. Your brain is feeding you c**p. Meditation will help you not associate or identify with this hooey which frees you up, giving you much piece of mind and the ability to get beyond it.

Good luck.

6

I think you need to get out and get dirty, buy a piece of sh!t car or scooter or whatever and make it purr again (or hang out with a motorhead in their garage), play a sport and let your body get some abuse and abuse others heh, take a hike, do something creative with real tools and materials. You are too clean! When you are covered in sh!t at least you know you accomplished something.

7

Life…gets…better. :slight_smile:

8

I can relate to the parts I selected above, you think maybe I’ve got that too?:eek:
If I’m in a small group or something, I only talk when deemed necessary most of the time. I’ve heard more than once ‘You talk too much’ , of course sarcastically.
I spend much of my time in front of the computer and internet, it doesn’t affect me at all there, I can say what I want (Like oogabooga :P). Oogabooga!

:no:

9

Really?

What did you think you would achieve at 19?

You have your whole adult life ahead of you; there’s plenty of time to do whatever you didn’t do, and more.

There is no need to live along some predefined function of time, as dictated by traditional definitions of “success” - Some people find their path early in life, others take more time (sometimes, quite a bit more), and that’s perfectly normal.

10

Cool, you have friends here, just keep on truckin’.
It is not like none of us have been there before.
What do you think? Are we all strangers?

11

Well TECHNICALLY…:smiley:

12

I’ve just been reading online, a similar disorder (maybe even the same thing), SAD, affects 2-7% of Americans.
It’s surprising just how common it is.

13

SAD is close. There often is overlap, and boundaries are hard to define, many suffer from both.
The major difference is that SAD sufferers know that there is no rational basis for their social phobia, while AvPD sufferers justify their isolation to themselves somehow.

Read the wikipedia page and ‘life stories’ or patient descriptions here.
If that sounds like you, you might have AvPD.
But as I said, certain personality traits alone do not imply personality disorders. A lot of people are shy, but eventually open up.
It is a disorder if it disrupts your normal functioning, stops you from doing something you might want to, and makes you do things you otherwise wouldn’t.

The major feature of AvPD is extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation. They want people to like them badly, and become recluses for the fear of ‘rejection’. If you don’t associate with that, than you are probably just shy. If yes, you might have it.

14

dont give up! dont be lazy ! Motivate and activate yourself !

15

I think the important thing here is to make that “first contact”, that could be so potentially important for you. By this I mean just COMPLETING something that you have never completed before. And I don’t mean a project, or some kind of PHYSICAL thing. I mean an ACTION. I realize how hard it is though, I myself am pathetic at talking to new people, but if I am introduced I am fine. That first step of meeting people has always eluded me, made me feel somehow “creepy” or “strange”, but if I meet somebody through circumstance or I happen to be doing something where introduction is necessary, I can become good friends with them and really open up my mind and soul to them.

If it does the trick, FORCE yourself into something, make a commitment of some kind to just do something. I take Italian classes as often as I can (I have a passion for Italian, I practice for 20 hours a week often), maybe try something like that? Find something like a language (or maybe art classes?) that forces you to talk to people, makes you at least say hello. Think of what you learn in a language, straight away. The first thing I ever learnt in Italian was “Come ti chiami?” Which means “What is your name?”. I learnt that, and had to apply it straight away, and in doing so I made friends.

And also, I know that it is a bit “bullshit” that TV rots your brain, but it really does, but in a non-literal sense. If I were you, I would just take your TV and throw it out the window, or give it to somebody else. I did it, and I essentially became instantly happier.

But I digress…

Forcing yourself into doing something is better than sitting there and forcing yourself to do nothing. The idea of people judging you, is silly, just don’t worry about it, especially with girls (seems backwards, but, being open with girls is what they like. So do it.)

Hope I was some kind of help. I am no Psychologist, but at least I am not a Psycho.

16

I generally don’t watch TV…it does not catch my interest much.
And even then, when I do, I usually tend to only watch feature films (partly because we don’t have standard television anymore…).

17

I suggest down the rabbit hole! The happiest entity I personally know is my dog, a boxer, who shares a single brain between its head and arse. The most intelligent/creative/intriguing person I have met is an unhappy, confused, manically depressed (no meds), self absorbed, self delusional, introverted dick head of the highest order with no regard for others. Would I want it any other way? What is the difference between a schizophrenic and a highly creative person? Mostly a few IQ points it seems. If you want to be just happy, I suggest a lobotomy. Good luck!

18

To the OP, I see myself in you (that sounded vulgar). I am slightly anti-social, but my personality is amorphous; it changes to fit the situation. There are some things that I will not tolerate, but my moral fiber is mostly intact. My only two main monsters is a homicidal wrath that I keep under control, and something you do not wish to know about. I never had much difficulty in school, and I enjoyed the adrenaline rush that I got from procrastinating and doing everything at the last minute. Often you just need to find something enjoyable that is constructive; hence my enjoyment of Blender and videogames. I wish to destroy the planet, but I have a respect for life, my anti-socialism keeps me from doing something regrettable and I have a cat. I do not wish to use drugs, and I know what shrinks will tell me, but when the laws collapse, I am going monster hunting. Until then, I use my agression to push me forward in my goals.

I can see the monsters, their machinations upon the world, the blindness of humans, the malice in the world, the hand I may play in the monsters’ machinations, and the eventual outcome. They may use me, but I shall slay them.

I can see the pokemanz, their machinations upon the world, the bad aim of trainerz, the mudflipz in the world, the pokebawlz I may throw at the monsters’ machinations, and the eventual capture. They may attack me, but I shall capture them.