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DoesMeanChangingTheBulb
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: 3 Jun 2016
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Posts: 28
Location: England, United Kingdom
01 Jul 2018, 1:55 pm
01 Jul 2018, 3:48 pm
DoesMeanChangingTheBulb wrote:
I haven't used this website in over two years now, but I've gotten to the point where I feel it is the only outlet I have remaining. The ones I formerly had I no longer feel comfortable expressing myself in. I hope the same can never be said for this one. Not to beat about the bush, I feel almost no sense of self-worth anymore. My pride in myself has been gradually decreasing over time and has now gotten to the point whereby I find it hard to even believe I deserve any help from others. I apologise if I am posting this in the wrong section; I am still very unfamiliar with how this website works.
For a bit of background information, I am 20, as of March 11th, have Asperger's Syndrome, live in the UK and am currently going to University, studying animation. Outside of that, my hobby is amateur video editing in the form of 'YTPs' (basically just semi-complex humorous edits of existing media, far from anything of professional quality), through which I've made the only people I've been able to call "friends" for the longest time (sans a few I've recently made at University, though I typically stay out of their way out of fear of bothering them). I don't yet work and can't really say there's much else to my life, beyond enjoying spending time with my younger siblings, often playing video games.
With that out of the way, I can now elaborate on how worthless I feel I am as a person. My studies were my only distraction from the thought that I am contributing nothing to society (and am thus a burden upon it), but with the end of my second semester in April and the painfully long wait until the second year begins in late September, I have had nothing to do but wallow in it. I've attempted to improve my abilities in my own time, however this has only led to me becoming completely disillusioned with my goals, feeling I am entirely incapable of them to the point that I have considered quitting the course. My grades for the year haven't helped, as I only scraped a Pass in key areas such as life drawing and storyboarding, and while my Firsts in stop-motion and animation analysis are some consolation, they don't mean much to me when I am well aware that they are far less important for a viable career in the field.
This leads me to why I have been struggling to improve in my own time: I don't feel I'm mentally healthy enough to accept my own failures and learn from them. When I attempt to, for example, improve at life drawing, I loathe the results so much that I often destroy them and hurt myself as punishment for producing them, which, of course, only makes me afraid to try again. As a result, my time since the end of my second semester has been spent merely attempting to distract myself from my feelings of inadequacy by making videos, talking to friends and playing games, often failing to do so. I know I won't get anywhere by doing this, but I increasingly fail to see the point in trying. "What chance do I have when the most skilled and talented people in the world struggle to make a living with this?", I ask myself. "And even if I do make it, do I really want to insult the medium when I'm well aware that my work is simply not good enough? Could I live with myself knowing that?", I add.
Part of me thinks I should quit and attempt to live a quieter life, working some menial job to get by. I increasingly can't tell if I'm pursuing the goals I am because I really want to or because it's been instilled within me by my mother that I NEED to "make something of myself." Conversely, I question whether I'd be able to live with myself knowing I threw away the chance I had at the only thing I'd ever shown any semblance of competence in.
Whatever I do, I know my crippling inferiority complex will continue to tell me that everyone else is better than I am and that the world is better off without me. I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago that I hurt myself out of a sense of anger towards my work, and that hatred extends to myself in general. There is a large part of me that positively detests everything about me, convincing me that hitting myself in the head and the inevitable damage to my brain I'm no doubt suffering are exactly what I deserve, with my total eradication being the end goal. Even typing it here makes me feel mad towards myself. It is the one side of me about which I have no reservations; it never feels bad to hurt myself or to shout insults towards myself telling me I need to die. I have absolutely no idea how I can deal with this and the small percentage of me that's against it is increasingly fearful of me losing my mind entirely because of it.
I've attended counselling before but now I'm finding I'm beyond it. By the end of my sessions with the Student Wellbeing adviser at University, I was completely unable to express myself to her or to truly co-operate with how she was trying to help me. In our last session she wrote a letter to my GP recommending more serious psychological help might be needed and told me I should book an appointment with them. Months later, I still haven't done this, having convinced myself that I'm not worth the time or the money that would need to be invested, and now it's no doubt too late to do so. I wanted to tell my dad about it in hopes that would help me gain confidence, since he has always been the one person in my family I've felt comfortable talking to, however the deterioration of my self-esteem has resulted in an inability to communicate with him in any meaningful way; whenever he asks how I am, I feebly lie to him
that "everything's fine" and refuse to admit that it isn't despite him practically begging me to do so.
I am also struggling very much at any real level of independence, which only furthers my lack of self-worth. I know that I should be using this time between semesters to seek part-time employment and to develop my life skills, but I am overwhelmed by these things on my own and my inability to communicate with my family means nothing ever gets anywhere. I feel like nothing but a pathetic leech on society, and this feeling is only amplified in how my three siblings, all 8 to 10 years younger than me, are already getting to be more independent and successful than I am. My little sister may not realise this, but her teasing me about this genuinely hurts me deeply and only leads to more self-harm.
I apologise for the length of this post and for if I have misunderstood the guidelines of this forum, but I am very much appreciative of anyone who even bothers to read it. I hope to return the favour and help others here if I'm ever able to convince myself that my input is truly valuable.
For a bit of background information, I am 20, as of March 11th, have Asperger's Syndrome, live in the UK and am currently going to University, studying animation. Outside of that, my hobby is amateur video editing in the form of 'YTPs' (basically just semi-complex humorous edits of existing media, far from anything of professional quality), through which I've made the only people I've been able to call "friends" for the longest time (sans a few I've recently made at University, though I typically stay out of their way out of fear of bothering them). I don't yet work and can't really say there's much else to my life, beyond enjoying spending time with my younger siblings, often playing video games.
With that out of the way, I can now elaborate on how worthless I feel I am as a person. My studies were my only distraction from the thought that I am contributing nothing to society (and am thus a burden upon it), but with the end of my second semester in April and the painfully long wait until the second year begins in late September, I have had nothing to do but wallow in it. I've attempted to improve my abilities in my own time, however this has only led to me becoming completely disillusioned with my goals, feeling I am entirely incapable of them to the point that I have considered quitting the course. My grades for the year haven't helped, as I only scraped a Pass in key areas such as life drawing and storyboarding, and while my Firsts in stop-motion and animation analysis are some consolation, they don't mean much to me when I am well aware that they are far less important for a viable career in the field.
This leads me to why I have been struggling to improve in my own time: I don't feel I'm mentally healthy enough to accept my own failures and learn from them. When I attempt to, for example, improve at life drawing, I loathe the results so much that I often destroy them and hurt myself as punishment for producing them, which, of course, only makes me afraid to try again. As a result, my time since the end of my second semester has been spent merely attempting to distract myself from my feelings of inadequacy by making videos, talking to friends and playing games, often failing to do so. I know I won't get anywhere by doing this, but I increasingly fail to see the point in trying. "What chance do I have when the most skilled and talented people in the world struggle to make a living with this?", I ask myself. "And even if I do make it, do I really want to insult the medium when I'm well aware that my work is simply not good enough? Could I live with myself knowing that?", I add.
Part of me thinks I should quit and attempt to live a quieter life, working some menial job to get by. I increasingly can't tell if I'm pursuing the goals I am because I really want to or because it's been instilled within me by my mother that I NEED to "make something of myself." Conversely, I question whether I'd be able to live with myself knowing I threw away the chance I had at the only thing I'd ever shown any semblance of competence in.
Whatever I do, I know my crippling inferiority complex will continue to tell me that everyone else is better than I am and that the world is better off without me. I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago that I hurt myself out of a sense of anger towards my work, and that hatred extends to myself in general. There is a large part of me that positively detests everything about me, convincing me that hitting myself in the head and the inevitable damage to my brain I'm no doubt suffering are exactly what I deserve, with my total eradication being the end goal. Even typing it here makes me feel mad towards myself. It is the one side of me about which I have no reservations; it never feels bad to hurt myself or to shout insults towards myself telling me I need to die. I have absolutely no idea how I can deal with this and the small percentage of me that's against it is increasingly fearful of me losing my mind entirely because of it.
I've attended counselling before but now I'm finding I'm beyond it. By the end of my sessions with the Student Wellbeing adviser at University, I was completely unable to express myself to her or to truly co-operate with how she was trying to help me. In our last session she wrote a letter to my GP recommending more serious psychological help might be needed and told me I should book an appointment with them. Months later, I still haven't done this, having convinced myself that I'm not worth the time or the money that would need to be invested, and now it's no doubt too late to do so. I wanted to tell my dad about it in hopes that would help me gain confidence, since he has always been the one person in my family I've felt comfortable talking to, however the deterioration of my self-esteem has resulted in an inability to communicate with him in any meaningful way; whenever he asks how I am, I feebly lie to him
that "everything's fine" and refuse to admit that it isn't despite him practically begging me to do so.
I am also struggling very much at any real level of independence, which only furthers my lack of self-worth. I know that I should be using this time between semesters to seek part-time employment and to develop my life skills, but I am overwhelmed by these things on my own and my inability to communicate with my family means nothing ever gets anywhere. I feel like nothing but a pathetic leech on society, and this feeling is only amplified in how my three siblings, all 8 to 10 years younger than me, are already getting to be more independent and successful than I am. My little sister may not realise this, but her teasing me about this genuinely hurts me deeply and only leads to more self-harm.
I apologise for the length of this post and for if I have misunderstood the guidelines of this forum, but I am very much appreciative of anyone who even bothers to read it. I hope to return the favour and help others here if I'm ever able to convince myself that my input is truly valuable.
Do you hate yourself for deeper reasons or do you hate yourself because you are not yet what you consider to be a successful, productive member of society? Because at 20 years old, if you were particularly successful, you would be an anomaly.
When I was 20, I lived at home and didn't drive. My younger sister started driving and moved out before me and my older sister started driving and moved out before she turned 18. I didn't have my first "real" job until I was 23 or 24 and it was just a few hours per week. Like you, I was spending my time studying.
What were other people my age doing? Well most of my classmates were about my age and doing exactly what I was doing. Studying.
People my age who didn't go to school usually worked. Usually in food service or retail. A lot of them didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives.
What happened to them?
Most of my classmates eventually graduated and got full time jobs at companies.
Some of my sister's friends got married and had kids. A lot of people bounced around from one thing to another until they found something that fit or worked for them or paid the bills.
No one became famouse enough to be a household name, though some may be well known in their field. Either way, they are important to those who love them.
I know some people in the entertainment industry. Most started out like you and it took them a while to get on their feet. One of them is a director/writer of some well known shows. 20 years ago she made an independent film while she was a student at film school. She rented the equipment, hired SAG actors, screened it in a theater and while the story was entertaining, the production wasn't that great and it wasn't that great because she and her crew were still young students developing their skill set.
I think this image below is a good representation of reality.
02 Jul 2018, 6:00 am
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