Have you ever felt a big portion of your life was wasted? Does thinking about those times fill you with regret and a horrible sense of mortality?
I'm 25 now, and I think just recently I came out of a shallow depression (I was never clinically diagnosed though) that started around 19 (maybe the shock of going to college started it). I was fairly sad most of the time. A bit of a loner. (I had friends but they were at different universities.) I didn't do much in college. Didn't date, didn't really meet new people. I spent a lot of time alone reading and thinking. I felt pretty crappy and kind of wallowed in existential literature and philosophy. To the point now where I am a phd student in English.
This february I kind of hit a low point. I wasn't suicidal or anything but I was close to tears everyday. But somehow (maybe with the help of all the shit i read when alone!) i was able to pick myself up. I asked a girl out. I started calling my friends to hang out more. I feel like being around people again. My social life has NEVER been this active.
But now I feel like complete shit all the time. Not the general sadness I was so comfortable in for so long, but just anxiety. I feel like I NEED people around now, because I am so afraid of being in that place I was in again. I also have terrible anxiety about those lost years. I almost obsess over them. It's a terrible feeling to look back and think "what the hell was I doing?" It sneaks up on me at the strangest times. (I have always had anxiety problems but now it's really found something to latch on to.)
Probably the worst part is that I have begun to question my motives for studying literature and philosophy. I think I was running away from life, rather than immersing myself in it like I thought I was. I don't know if I can continue to study it anymore.
Does anyone else ever feel this regret over lost time? How do you deal with it? CAN you deal with it or is it something I need to learn to live with? Am I just getting older and that's it?
― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 3 July 2005 20:13 (nineteen years ago)
― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 3 July 2005 20:17 (nineteen years ago)
(one of my schoolfriends and his partner are due to have their first child any day now, incidentally; it's the first child among the group of schoolfriends that I'm still in contact with)
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Sunday, 3 July 2005 20:21 (nineteen years ago)
― Aaron A., Sunday, 3 July 2005 20:24 (nineteen years ago)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 3 July 2005 20:26 (nineteen years ago)
― lukey (Lukey G), Monday, 4 July 2005 10:38 (nineteen years ago)
― lukey (Lukey G), Monday, 4 July 2005 10:39 (nineteen years ago)
It's doublethink of the purest form--I 'know' that I haven't wasted any of my life, but I also 'know' that I have.
Not that this helps any, but maybe knowing you're not alone will make you feel a bit better.
― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Monday, 4 July 2005 10:47 (nineteen years ago)
― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 4 July 2005 11:06 (nineteen years ago)
― dahlin (dahlin), Monday, 4 July 2005 11:07 (nineteen years ago)
really
― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 4 July 2005 11:16 (nineteen years ago)
― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Monday, 4 July 2005 11:51 (nineteen years ago)
ps forgive yourself
yeah. good advice. this is the hardest part i think. i'll get it one day. (maybe once i get my life completely back on track.)
― ryan (ryan), Monday, 4 July 2005 16:13 (nineteen years ago)
hope we all felt v productive in those four years
― kind-hearted, sensitive keytar player (Abbott), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 04:32 (fifteen years ago)
Advice I can relate to.
― Bob Six, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 07:10 (fifteen years ago)
this "4 years pass..." thingy is depressing me
― baaderonixx, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 08:05 (fifteen years ago)
Didn't date, didn't really meet new people. I spent a lot of time alone reading and thinking.
possibility toxicity
― j., Monday, 5 December 2016 02:07 (eight years ago)