#5380 In response to
#5361:
I hope you read this (if you don't, at the very least watch the video!!!) because I did a double take when I read the screen...you described my entire sophomore year, practically word for word. The difference is, I didn't get help and I'm feeling better than I ever have now! Last year I fell into a rut of sorts, as you're describing, where I just kind of stopped caring. I didn't get out of bed to go to class, I did terrible in school, I gained weight and my life in general was just in shambles. I don't even know what the initial problem was, but I can tell you what definitely made it considerably worse and tell you how I found a solution. I felt extremely guilt about missing class, missing assignments, getting bad grades, continuing to spend money on unhealthy food and recreational drugs that I didn't need. The problem was, that guilt just made me feel like a weak, helpless and hopeless person. I sat in bed at night and knew exactly what I needed to do the next day: get up, go to class, eat healthy and do my work, but the next morning I just couldn't get up. I hated the fact that I knew what I had to do and I hated the person I was being but couldn't gather the strength or determination to actually make any changes to my lifestyle.
For me, it took almost failing out of school, gaining weight and becoming unhappy with my physical appearance and almost completely throwing away everything I had worked so hard for all of my life to that point for me to realize that I was better than that. (Hopefully, you'll have a similar revelation way before any of that happens.) Was this the person I was going to be the rest of my life? Or was I going to, with the odds stacked against me and with myself in this deep hole I dug, emerge healthier, more motivated and healthier than ever before?
Like you, I never thought about taking my life...not once, even for a single second. But I DID question my purpose on this planet, the reason that I exist. I felt so hopeless and for some reason just couldn't find a real good reason to change my behavior because...what exactly am I even working toward? What am I going to amount to? In the scheme of things, why do I even matter? I think one of the problems is that society is teaching all of us nowadays that we're special and we're all going to go on to do great things. We are special, and we are going to do great things, but the expectations that we all have are unrealistically high and it's getting to the point where we're losing sight of what's actually important. Yeah, I could get straight As, go to business school, start a business that goes on to be worth millions and millions of dollars and eventually have my name in a textbook somewhere. And props to whoever makes the choices and works hard to achieve that...but what I realized, and what wound up being my solution, as cliche as it may sound, is that if you live every day of your life to the fullest and genuinely work on improving yourself and your relationships with others, it won't matter what your job winds up being or what legacy you leave behind. You get one life, and it's meant to be doing things you enjoy, spending time with the people you love and above all learning who you are...to the point where you truly love being that person.
You can figure out a way to wake up, that's not hard. Schedule early classes, set an alarm, get help from your roommate. That's not the hardest part. Genuinely wanting to get up and have a fulfilling, productive and time well spent day is a completely different animal. I promise you though, if you can just commit to ONE week of getting up on time, going to class, eating healthy, spending your free time doing things you enjoy with your friends (while also being productive, such as exercising)...you'll feel so good about yourself and you'll want to continue. If you mess up, forget about it. Ditch the "all or nothing" mentality that so many people have because we're humans and make mistakes. But keep yourself busy and stay moving. While you do, try to appreciate what we so often take for granted. Don't get me wrong, you should try to be successful as you can! Get good grades, land a good job and make money if that's what makes you happy! It's important to be able to take care of yourself and whoever's important to you, or be able to fund whatever hobbies or interests you have.
But 1) If large amounts of wealth or an impressive title aren't what makes you happy, don't feel like you have to obtain them and 2) If your goal is to obtain that wealth or title and you fall short, it's not the end of the world. If you tried your hardest and still fall short, you need to be able to accept that, be OK with it and move on. I know this entire post covers many topics and it's almost more of a rant than anything at this point but I'm submitting it anyway and I hope at least something here helps. I hope you find out whatever it will take to help pull you out of this hole and that you do far less damage to yourself than I did in the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ
TL ; DR
If you don't have the time or hate reading, watch this wonderful 10 minute video and you'll get most of the main concepts I discussed above. But in one sentence: You're a fucking awesome person so get up, get out there and be fucking awesome.