Emptiness

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Just a rant: I'm not sure where to start, I feel my life is completely empty, that I' not doing anything worthwhile with my life, and I've basically stopped having dreams and hopes for the future. I've lost interest in the things that used to interest me, and I just don't feel I have anything to look forward to any more. I feel almost every major life decision I've ever made was a mistake. My career bores me to tears and I'm convinced it was a mistake (I'll become unemployed in a few months and my job prospects aren't good) but I don't really know how to do anything else and I've no particular interest in anything else in particular; I don't have anything I feel passionate about. I feel very alone and I feel certain I will die alone, I don't really have friends any more, haven't dated in years and don't expect to ever do it again. What it would do to some of my relatives is the only reason I'm not going to commit suicide, I can't find any other reason to live.
It's a series of little things that got me more or less to this point - I went hiking, for the first time in a long time, and I found it dull, when I used to like it. Then one guy in the group struck up a conversation with me and it was extremely depressing - main topic was dating, enough said. Then the other day, at the supermarket, some girl seemed just terrified of me - I didn't approach her or talk to her or anything, I hadn't even noticed her until I glanced at her and saw the fear in her eyes, for the life of me I have no idea why I scared her, but it doesn't help. An underlying issue is that I feel I've messed up so badly, that I've done nothing worth doing in my life, and that I can't trust my own judgement because I've blown it too many times. I've wasted most of my youth and I just don't see a way out - I don't see what I could do better or differently. I want to change my life but have no idea how or where to begin. I think I never really recovered from the one romantic relationship I've been in, and then I lost interest in my career and had a series of bad experiences with it, and lately I've lost interest in what hobbies I used to have. Nothing really interests me any more, and today has been a particularly bad day, not because anything in particular happened, I don't know why. Sorry to rant.

I'm sorry to hear that. I had a similar feeling hit me today. I guess maybe it's been creeping up on me for some time, but it just suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not sure if it's any consolation, but you're not alone.

It's really hard to know where to start 'fixing' things, too, when there is so much wrong and just getting out of bed in the morning is so hard. Bleh ... angst and depression suck!

How old are you?...just to put things into perspective..It def. sounds like you are depressed...Often when people are depressed they throw themselves into something to numb the pain of the depression, unless they are fixated upon something or someone that is the source of the depression. I am prone to depression...and it is like a dark cloud over your whole psyche, but it DOES pass....for me, it comes and goes, and when it comes on heavily, it can cloud your whole perspective and view of yourself in rather intense ways...

I'm 28. Young enough to change direction, I know, but I don't know what path to take, or where to begin, and I don't trust my judgement at all.

It's been exactly like that for me, it hit me like a ton of bricks today but it's been creeping on me for a while.

thanks, folks.

I'm caught up between who I am and who I think I need to be. The longer this goes on, the emptier I get. I'm afraid my character is going to be permanently compromised, or maybe it already has been.

you sound like you are going through a mid-youth crisis...I did at that age as well..and it took the form of a very intense depression...

That's the awesome-ness of this website, I guess. With almost 50,000 members, there's always a good chance you'll find someone who can relate, no matter what you're going through. I'm 28, too, and thought I already went through my quarter-life crisis last year, but maybe that was just the opening act or something--lol.

We are largly a doomed genetation. Trapped by the expectations that we have been raised with in a world were they nolonger fit. I spent thd bettet part of the 5 years since finnishing college beating myself up for not being in grad school. Among many other failings i held myself exclusivly responsable for. My break from years of depression came with being diagnosed on the spectrum.
It allowed me tk give myself a break and accept that much of this is out of my hands. So i dont need exhaust my self trying to change them.

Find a way to give yourself a break too

In this sense, I've always said I'm lucky to be born when I was. Being in my early 20's is the perfect age for me in this time period. I may have pissed the last 3 years of my life away, but I still have time, something many people don't have these days. We are always told you can always turn your life around, but that idealistic philosophy is becoming farther and farther from reality. As you said, we are trapped by outdated values and overwhelming expectations in a rapidly changing world. At the moment, I'm trying to give myself a break.

I just have to take things one moment at a time / one day at a time when I start feeling like that.