the future

Post Reply New Topic

Is anyone else here as terrified as I am about the future? Like, I purposefully, for YEARS, did not think about my long-term future. I find myself just now, however, thinking about my future. It is so damned bleak.

I don't think about my future, I think about the worlds future.

Well that's just the saddest thing to ever exist. But sad isn't quite as bleak seeming.

I am alone in agony in them.

I never knew what loneliness felt until now. It is perhaps the worst emotion I have ever felt in my entire life. I didn't know emotions like this existed.

Same. My only wish is that kid's addiction to technology won't cause their fall.

This will pass, if you allow it to.

Trust me, I am saying that for myself as well.

Good times pass, bad times pass.

Loneliness sucks. I am feeling it right now. When I feel lonely, I try to find other people to listen to. Just being a shoulder and a listening ear snaps me out of it pretty quickly. When I am deep in my own head, I just have to find somebody who needs to be reached out to, and I make an effort. It won't cure my problems, but it will get me out of my own head for a while, and it will make the future and the present seem less bleak when I have made myself useful.

I went through something similar a while back. What do you think triggered the change, for you?

I was high last night for one >>
Seriously though, depending on the strand I suppose, it really helps me to actually 'experience' instead of just 'know', if that makes any sense. I've had a number of eye-opening experiences from it, the very first one being 'omg I don't actually have any idea what people think of me, that is a lack of social awareness that most people have, could I be on the spectrum?'
I go through most of my life 'knowing' things without experiencing them. Its like watching a movie instead of being in it kind of. Like memories I have; I can bring up situational memories well enough, but I don't often remember the emotions involved. It's like I have blocked out many emotions on purpose, because at some point I realized I could not handle them. One of my 2 therapy goals is to be able to experience emotion without having it overwhelm me.

This morning the emotion is gone, but the lesson is not.

What triggered a change in you?

Starting around 6-7 I started repressing each moment as it happened & pretty much disconnected from, well, everything in order to protect my Self. But being a stupid kid I went too far and hid my sense of Self away to keep it safe & I did such a good job even I couldn't find it until around 8 years ago. Kind of an oversimplification, but it works as a basic description.

I have also gone through some life changing experiences in the past few years, with it culminating in me having no one to open up to after having someone I did open up to (break up) the past couple weeks. I think perhaps importantly I am not actually considering suicide as an alternative now, so I have to face this s**t.

I've been the way I am since a child, couldn't give you years except below age 10.

I'm glad you got past that bout of suicide. I know those feelings (or *not-feelings*...but knowing they are there?). And once you get past considering suicide, it helps to know that you *can* get past it. In a weird way it gives it less power, should it ever happen again. And as you said, once you've decided to live everything has a different weight in your reality. I went through a year of cycling up and down, but reached a point where I said, ' this is who I am, this is what I want and this is what I can do' and I'm learning that *is* my life. Not so bad, really...

Future is an unknown word to my vocabulary; I'm just struggling day after day, and question myself every night if tomorrow would be worth to stop the ride or not.
Anyway I am committed to find a way out sooner or later, so suicide is part of my plan.

I understand. I see nothing wrong with suicide *except* when someone could be mistaken about how bleak things are and how bleak they will always be. Dozens of times I thought that there was no future, no possibility that I might someday be just a little curious to see how things turn out. And each time, eventually, it passed and I went numb again. But then something changed in my life beyond my control and it affected me in ways I could not expect nor understand at the time. I still don't understand those changes but I'm willing to see how things level out / plateau, and take it from there. But that depression appears to be gone, maybe for good. Someday it may be replaced by another, but at least I'll know it for what it is.

Oddly, people who are depressed see objective reality *outside themselves* far more accurately than non depressed people do. But they (we!) are blind to our own situation, because that accurate view of the outside world makes it seem like nothing can change. It's all beyond our control - and we know it. Something I've learned from this is that if you wait long enough the world is never completely static over time.

I've felt that way on and off. Sometimes it was easier to just focus on getting through every day with as little pain as possible than to think about where I was going.

Socially, I'm still worried about the future because I don't see a clear solution. But this is one of those things where stressing about it might not do anything as you can't really plan for friends.