Irritable and guilty over being bored with my family

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I hate it. My parents. I feel like I should be able to be grateful and enjoy their company over the holidays because they're trying their best to support me. But I just can't. I went christmas shopping for an hour or so yesterday and picked up two clothing items that my mom wanted. Hated it, bored out of my mind. Whenever they talk to me bringing up some mundane trivial thing I can't help but be somewhat rude because I just don't care and don't want to be taken away from my own thoughts. I've been thinking heavily about programming a basic economic model but I'm not sure I can motivate myself to actually start writing it. I feel this special interest is quickly dying because I have no one to talk about it with.

I just feel down on everyone. I feel like I'm the only one in the world that has any curiosity. If I go to my parents house my father just sits and watches football the whole and I just want to scream it's so dull and irritating to me. I hate the fricking television every time they turn it on. I could just stay at my own apartment the whole day but then I get lonely so basically I can't win. I don't have any friends left in my home town as everyone I grew up with has gotten married and moved out of this god-forsaken economically depressed and worthless state. All I have is my parents and I'm sick to death of my life here.

It's also sickening for myself that I can't even treat my parents right. I get irritable and verbally abusive at times because I feel so empty and bored around them. I enjoy taking care of their dog (the puppy in my avatar - she's 4 years old now and spends most of her time sitting on my lap) but that's about it lately.

I've felt that way before. My best friend, probably the best one I've ever made told me not to let that stuff get to me so much. It's not your fault you can't bond with them. It's not bad that you don't enjoy what they do or what other people enjoy doing. The fact that you even care that you don't care is enough because there are people who don't even care about that. The only real thing you have to worry about is the fact that you are stuck in lame place. I live in a very similar situation. My town really sucks too but I do find ways around it. I look for people who like the same stuff as me, at concerts I go to and, comic book conventions, even online. I'm sure there are a lot of cool people who'd love to talk about a new economic model or who have other similar interests. You just have to keep and eye out for them. (^_^) Learning to be confident in yourself and not being upset with yourself over things you have difficulty with helps. There are a lot of insecure people who are self loathing and they don't even have AS. People tend to look up to people who aren't self loathing, because they are looking for the encouragement that it's ok not to hate themselves.

I don't have any friends right now. I don't have any semblance of a normal life. I've had some friends over time but they all drifted apart as they moved to all different parts of the country. Not that I feel like I would relate to them anymore anyways. Everyone I've known has grown up and now have children.

My dream was to become a scientist but now I have second thoughts. To be frank, the problem is I have no motivation to work on something that doesn't interest me and now I'm not sure there's anything in my field that interests me anymore.

I got my undergraduate degree in 2006 and my MS degree just last year. Now I'm completely burned out, have no interest. My graduate school experience destroyed my interest in my field and no amount of anti-depressants can fix that. I just don't give a f**k anymore.

I know I need some change in my life or I'll go insane, only every time I try some living arrangement out on my own I become too depressed to function. Whenever I've had internships where I have to do the 9-5 thing I'm too tired and exhausted to have the will to do anything outside of eating, sleeping, and surfing the web. If I don't enjoy what I'm supposed to be doing for work I completely break down and can't function at all. After a while there's no way I can even keep getting up on time in the morning.

I seriously don't think it's possible for me to live on my own. The loneliness and lassitude destroys all my will. So for now I'm stuck living with my parents. I don't think I can handle it much longer. I feel trapped and at 31 I'm already feeling too old, like I'm wasting my life away.

I'm asexual and not interested in having children but at the same time I feel like I have the emotional need for a close relationship or a living arrangement with another person. I can't spend my life in isolation and I can't stay with my parents much longer. I'm just not happy here. I don't know what kind of other option there is.

I know I need more confidence, but even that doesn't seem like my biggest fear. My biggest fear is trying to get into a career and then having no interest or motivation and then breaking down.

Okay, let me do some targeted aerial strikes here.

1) In former Soviet Union it's completely normal for several generations to live in the same house. I lived there for 17 years, and looked up my former classmates who are the same age as me (34), and a number of them live with their parents (and, chances are, grandparents).

With worsening economy in America, people are starting to do the same here. If a girl judges you by the fact that you live with your parents, despite you having experience living by yourself... do you honestly see someone with that low of an awareness level being a possible romantic match?

2) Having children does not mean that someone's grown up. Look at all the dumbass, fat, overprivileged, spoiled kids running around. Many people get into relationships because they can't stand to look inside themselves. I know such people.

3) First, and foremost, find something that interests you in ANY FIELD. Chances are, you're already doing something that interests you, without even realizing it. Pursue it. Feel what it's like to have enthusiasm about something again.

4) While you do that, you have the material support of living with your parents, however boring they are. It's a safety cushion.

5) Who's older, a 31 year-old non-alcoholic or a 25 year old who's been getting drunk every week since the age of 14? An obese 55-year-old or a thin 65-year-old who trains in sword arts? Do numbers really carry an exact meaning? Allow for certain elasticity in the concept.

6) Allow for non-binary outcomes. Between 0 and 1 there can also be a 0.5 or a 0.67. You may have a job that you don't like, but also don't hate. You may not have 0 friends or 20 of them, but stumble upon 1 or 2.

7) Ask yourself what would be the ideal future that you currently see as unreachable. What you would like to surround you. Then ask yourself what your current strengths are, and calculate how you can utilize them to move forward in some way.

Depression is an inability to visualize a future. You need to break that wall. Start a project of some kind, something that you feel good about. Something that may also generate interest from people on the Internet. Your current living situation allows for that. You need to channel your energy somewhere, or it becomes stale, and in staleness lies depression.

Also, consider researching a physical activity you may enjoy. See the part about elasticity of lifespan. The activity MUST be enjoyable, so the gym is out of the question. And if it includes some superficial form of communicating with people via a limited protocol (like a formal martial arts dojo), that will make you feel more validated as a human. More alive.

What kind of economic model? Recently I had the idea of programming a minecraft-esque MMORPG that would simulate a real-world economy, and allow me to change variables in order to compare varied economic systems.

Obviously not. I'm not interested in a sexual relationship and that seems to be the bigger obstacle. I just get sick of living alone and friends that only have time to get together once a month or so will never be enough for me.


Sure, but I don't judge all people that want children that way. I don't honestly believe that not marrying and having children makes me inferior. It simply makes it harder for me to relate. People with kids don't have time to do anything fun, or having fun doesn't seem to take precedence in their life. I can't understand or relate. I can understand you say this should not bother me but for some reason it does.


The problem is getting funneled into something I don't have enthusiasm for and not being able to force myself to have enthusiasm. This is what happened to me in graduate school and it was traumatic. I learned that even science isn't 100% curiosity and passion. A lot of it is also forced drudgery. I've pretty much given up on the idea of being a professor. I have no interest in being forced to write to persuade clueless people into giving me grant money or dealing with department politics. I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't survive in that kind of environment and that's the option with the most freedom. If I work doing research for the government or some private company I have the same problem of not being able to choose what really interests me. Also, research is nothing like an ordinary job. It's not something I can simply kick myself in the ass and force myself to do.

I also really wish I was in control of my enthusiasm but I fear I'm not. I'm completely dependent on my brain producing the right chemicals to find anything rewarding. I don't think the majority of the population who've never experienced severe or prolonged clinical depression can appreciate this fact and the terror it induces in me.


That's not really possible. To get a job in my field I have to move wherever the job is. This means completely uprooting myself once more and moving to a new town where I don't know anyone. That already destroyed me once when I went away to graduate school.


It's not really that. I just feel I have a lot more emotionally in common with intelligent 18-25 year old people.


I have no interest in 20 friends. Just one friend that I could grow close to and spend a large amount of time with would satisfy me. Not someone who only has the time to do something with me once a month. Is this even possible outside a romantic relationship in this f****d up society? I think some kind of communal living arrangement would be better for me but the problem with that is they'd have to be the right people.


I try, but things really do seem to be much harder for me.


Yea, I already know all this but at the same time I don't seem to have much control over what I "feel good about". It seems to flow in and out. When it disappears I'm instantly miserable. It's hard to think long term about anything when my mood in the instant is overwhelming me. The worst part is often I don't even know why I'm feeling more depressed than usual. I'm so much at the mercy of these dark moods that sometimes I just have to wait for it to lift. I think I really need to learn to be more productive in those windows when my depression lifts rather than wondering when all my motivation will evaporate again.


I enjoy hiking and mountains. There's less of that in Michigan though. That was the one thing I liked out in the state of Washington when I was in graduate school.