Why am I still alive?

[Murmur]

Why, even though I have nothing to live for, am I still dragging my existence on? Nothing I could do makes as much sense as dying, but I still don't in spite of it all... I simply can't understand how I continue to defy my own logic like this...

[NightBlooming]

I'm sorry to hear your life is sucking so much. It sounds like you are in a really tough situation.

Is there anything I can do to help?

[Murmur]

I don't really think so... Unless you have any ideas about what to do about not really belonging anywhere, not having anybody to trust and rely on, and a lack of direction/purpose coupled with anhedonia...

[Psychopomp]

I can identify completely. It's like you're on a treadmill. The trick is to find little things that give you goals. Video games are good for that. They don't help with the long term ambition but they'll help you run out the clock.

[Murmur]

I can identify completely. It's like you're on a treadmill. The trick is to find little things that give you goals. Video games are good for that. They don't help with the long term ambition but they'll help you run out the clock.

Most of the video games that I haven't played through that I have left are ones that I don't really feel interested in playing or just make me feel incompetent when I do play them... And it doesn't really help that the culture surrounding video games is very much a "heteronormative males only" club...

[Rimbaum]

My two usual courses of action are to write or try saving up for something. Personally, I try to save up for Asian ball-jointed dolls. It can take a long time, even if the one I want is (relatively) inexpensive at around $120 or so. And that's not even counting the length of time it takes to produce and ship the things out. It's an expensive hobby, yes, but one that requires a lot of patience and creating goals for yourself.

Writing, of course, is something you can do regardless of financial situation. You don't have to show your stuff to anybody, but you can set yourself a word count goal. 200 words a day, for me, isn't tough at all to pull off. And if you feel up to it, there's always online fiction archive sites where you can share your stuff with other people and get feedback. For me, though, just the daily word count goal is usually enough to help.

[Psychopomp]

And the great thing about writing as a hobby is that there is a chance, however tiny, that it could turn into a living.

[NightBlooming]

@ Murmur - yeah I totally get what you said about videogames. A lot of them are just - wow - so bad.

Are there any foods you like to make, any music or any particular smells you like? Any particular places you like going?

anyway, kind of off topic ( I might start a thread in chit chat tomorrow). But I found this website that's been wasting so much of my time. Basically its this guy (gay) who writes amazing reviews of books chapter by chapter. And writes reviews on good books but also totally takes down Twilight.

http://markreads.net/reviews/

Also, another good time-waster:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

[NightBlooming]

Also,

*Hugs*

(if they're acceptable)

[Murmur]

I'm not any good at writing... I can't for the life of me come up with names, or places to start, or anything more original than a pastiche...

@ Murmur - yeah I totally get what you said about videogames. A lot of them are just - wow - so bad.

Are there any foods you like to make, any music or any particular smells you like? Any particular places you like going?

anyway, kind of off topic ( I might start a thread in chit chat tomorrow). But I found this website that's been wasting so much of my time. Basically its this guy (gay) who writes amazing reviews of books chapter by chapter. And writes reviews on good books but also totally takes down Twilight.

http://markreads.net/reviews/

Also, another good time-waster:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

I'm most put off by the community surrounding videogames... And "traditional" RPGs... And, well, pretty much everything "geeky" it seems...

I'm really not much of a cook, and eating, to me, is just something that's done. I listen to a lot of soundtracks when I'm whiling(?) away the hours on the computer but it doesn't seem to me like music has ever had much of an affect on me... It seems to me that in my experience, if a scent is noticeable it's not a pleasant one. I don't really go places because I'm completely uncomfortable with myself and, again, I don't trust anybody around the place I'm at now...

I don't think I have the mental faculties to make anything of markreads right now seeing as I've been up from around 5 pm yesterday in an attempt to alter my sleep schedule to one where I don't wake up in the late afternoon every day. I can comment that tvtropes has lead me to a fair amount of deeply offensive stuff and have sometimes wondered why I still browse it afterwards...

Hugs, I think, are inappropriate as I've come to feel lately that it's best to keep emotionally detached and distant from everybody.

[Dave]

I think that part of the problem with people feeling like they have no direction in life is not so much that they have no goals or desires but they either don't know how to achieve them or somehow think that it's easier for everyone else. I know that whenever I talk to someone who's feeling like this, I try to give them advice from specifics in my life. They automatically assume that I have somehow had it easy and really do make assumptions like, "Yeah, but at least your parents paid for you to go to college." I have to let them know that I had zero help from parents for college. Or they say it's easy because I'm so outgoing, and I have to inform them that I made myself outgoing because I was shy and easily embarrassed but I wanted to be outgoing so I worked for it.

Instead of looking at the fact that you feel like you're just dragging around like it's a bad and aimless thing, look at it like you're at max potential: you're not tied to anything, you're not invested in anything, so you can really and honestly do whatever you want in any direction you want to go in!

[Murmur]

Instead of looking at the fact that you feel like you're just dragging around like it's a bad and aimless thing, look at it like you're at max potential: you're not tied to anything, you're not invested in anything, so you can really and honestly do whatever you want in any direction you want to go in!

Except I can't, because I'm surrounded by people I can't let know about anything I might want to do with my life...

[AlexTheSane]

I wish I had signed onto the board earlier this week. This sounds like serious depression. Maybe it's the way you put it in your original post (by the way, are you actually thinking of killing yourself? If the answer is "yes" or even "maybe", call someone, a hotline or something, please). The whole lack of purpose/anhedonia thing is just very in-tune with my own experiences of depression.

What do you do during the day? If that answer is "nothing" or "sleeping", change that. Find something to do. Preferably something you like, but lacking anything like that just something that doesn't make you feel worse. I don't know what you do, what your responsibilities are or where you are in life, but definitely make time for you. Schedule your day a little bit, nothing too ambitious just "wake up time" and "meal time" (the remarks you make about food kind of worry me a little too, not eating or being ambivalent about food can be a sign of depression).

Part two is finding someone to talk to about this. I guarantee that there is someone in your life that you can open up to a little bit about these feelings. If you're worried, don't even think about the details, just with the general "I feel lost" or "I feel like I don't fit in", someone who knows a little bit about what's going on with you. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, do it here but in a lot more detail. Not everyone will read wall-o-text type posts, but even just getting it out there in the world get take away some of the negative feelings.

Hope this helps.

[Murmur]

I wish I had signed onto the board earlier this week. This sounds like serious depression. Maybe it's the way you put it in your original post (by the way, are you actually thinking of killing yourself? If the answer is "yes" or even "maybe", call someone, a hotline or something, please). The whole lack of purpose/anhedonia thing is just very in-tune with my own experiences of depression.

What do you do during the day? If that answer is "nothing" or "sleeping", change that. Find something to do. Preferably something you like, but lacking anything like that just something that doesn't make you feel worse. I don't know what you do, what your responsibilities are or where you are in life, but definitely make time for you. Schedule your day a little bit, nothing too ambitious just "wake up time" and "meal time" (the remarks you make about food kind of worry me a little too, not eating or being ambivalent about food can be a sign of depression).

Part two is finding someone to talk to about this. I guarantee that there is someone in your life that you can open up to a little bit about these feelings. If you're worried, don't even think about the details, just with the general "I feel lost" or "I feel like I don't fit in", someone who knows a little bit about what's going on with you. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, do it here but in a lot more detail. Not everyone will read wall-o-text type posts, but even just getting it out there in the world get take away some of the negative feelings.

Hope this helps.

I dialed one some time before starting this thread, but I got nervous and hung up during the first ring...

I mostly just browse wikis and play some video games throughout the day, then early in the morning when nothing counts against the daily set download allowance do more bandwidth heavy things like watch video LPs... It seems like it would be difficult for me to schedule anything... I don't keep very good track of time and it seems like I have a tendency to not go to sleep and wake up the same times as the last....

I can't talk to anyone I know in person about how I feel because it would ultimately necessitate coming out... And I don't think that would go very well... I don't really know what more detail I could add here, either...

[Kass-ID]

I can't talk to anyone I know in person about how I feel

What would it be like if you could talk to someone you know... who would you chose to talk to? what would you tell them?

[Murmur]

What would it be like if you could talk to someone you know... who would you chose to talk to? what would you tell them?

I don't really have any idea about the first two things... And as for the latter... I guess something like how horrible I feel about certain masculine aspects of my appearance and voice and so on and how I feel I would be much happier if I were rid of them and could become feminine enough to present as female...

But in the end, the things that I wish for most of all... Is that I would just cease to exist. I never should have in the first place. It's evident in the hopelessness of my surroundings, and the fact that I never really belong anywhere I go, online or off...

[Dave]

I have been reading your replies and it seems like you...no offense...like to come up with excuses to keep you stuck in your same place. It sounds like you'd rather desire death than take the plunge and direct your own life. Why? I couldn't say. Most people are just afraid, and if that's your case you definitely aren't alone. People in our situations don't hold the monopoly on being afraid to take charge. Many people experience it, some at different levels. You have options...you even said you tried calling but hung up, nervous. There are steps you can take, you just don't. Why don't you?

[Murmur]

I have been reading your replies and it seems like you...no offense...like to come up with excuses to keep you stuck in your same place. It sounds like you'd rather desire death than take the plunge and direct your own life. Why? I couldn't say. Most people are just afraid, and if that's your case you definitely aren't alone. People in our situations don't hold the monopoly on being afraid to take charge. Many people experience it, some at different levels. You have options...you even said you tried calling but hung up, nervous. There are steps you can take, you just don't. Why don't you?

I haven't got any confidence in myself and I'm not prepared to deal with any sort of conflict...

[Dave]

Then try my "I'm not special" technique.

You're not special.
You aren't somehow exempt from feeling like shit. You aren't somehow exempt from having to deal with bullshit, conflict or embarrassment.

You're not special.
What you're going through isn't "worse" than what other people have to go through. What you're going through isn't any more impossible than what other people have to go through.

You're not special.
You have to work for everything you have, like everyone else. You have to put in time, like everyone else.

[Murmur]

That honestly doesn't help at all. The only way I know how to deal with conflict is to avoid it, and I never, ever forget anything that I consider an embarrassment and feel like I'll never be able to live it down or make up for it or what have you... Unfortunately for me, as it stands I also can't just abandon everything and leave all my problems behind... In no small part because I have a lot of difficulty with speaking and being understood, due, I guess, to my voice being horribly low combined with things like my total lack of comfort with myself possibly causing me to speak abnormally softly or something...

And to elaborate on why I struggle with calling any kind of hotline... I don't honestly know what I should say (if it could even be understood), and feel like I would just end up tying up the line without accomplishing anything