I'm Tired. Can I Just Not Care?

(Note: This is a long rant/rambling of emotions and feelings that I just wanted to get off my chest. It's very early in the morning. I'm very tired, and as such this is probably jumbled and filled with tons of spelling and grammar errors so I apologize if its hard to read or understand)

It's simple, but its also very complicated. I'm tired, and I just don't want to care anymore. I'm a guy in my young 20s. I don't use any kind of drug, I don't get drunk, I feel that I'm educated even though I haven't completed college yet. I have so much ahead of me, and so much potential...so why do I feel this way?....why am I ready to give up on my big desires and dreams?

Those are questions I can't answer with any certainty. All I can say is that I'm tired of the worry, the anxiety, the pressure,...the failure.

I'm tired of trying to get over my lifelong social awkwardness and make the friends and connections that I have always desired. I've tried different approaches..I've tried counseling, looking at ways to improve my social skills and putting myself in situations to make friends. It doesn't matter....it always fails. No matter how much confidence I have in my ability to succeed, for whatever reasons I just never do. Never have.

I'm tired of trying to cover up and manage the physical imperfections and scars of my physical condition/disease. Constantly working to make myself appear as good and as attractive as I can manage. Still present...still noticeable...no matter what I do people will see it, know its there, and will judge me for it. I don't blame them because I would do the same were I in their shoes.

I'm tired of college. I don't care about my studies or my subject. It's the only thing I feel I could manage to do and still make a decent living off of, but here being 3/4 of the way finished...I just don't want to continue. Yes, the experience has been good and I have learned things from my studies, but I don't feel there is any more I can gain from it. Just a bunch of useless classes...doing silly work that will not help me in any way after the class finals...I hate it, and I don't feel like its worth the time, energy, and the student debt to continue. What would I do without a degree? I don't know../sigh

I'm tired of trying to find a girl to get a date with. To have my first kiss or experience my first emotional connection. I'm tired of failing to hone my social skills. I'm tired of trying to improve my physical looks. It's not just looking for a girl that could overlook my physical imperfections...It's asking a girl to make personal sacrifices and deal with issues that she wouldn't have to worry about by dating 99% of the other guys who aren't like me. Over the years I feel I've had at least a small amount of confidence in my ability to break through my insecurities and charm a female into falling for my personality. All the worry, anxiety, and the rejection for the few times I have broken past my insecurities and made what I felt was a confident approach.I've always held at least a small amount of hope and confidence that things would work out and I'd meet someone special any day. It hasn't happened...and I'm ready not to care if it does or not. Maybe it will or maybe it wont..Neither outcome will make me or break me.

I'm tired of the expectations of my family, acquaintances, and most importantly myself. The expectations everyone has for me to do great things. To get a degree, get a good job, get a nice wife and raise a nice family. The dream scenario. The scenario that has caused me ton of pressure and anxiety while trying to create for myself. It's something I want, but am starting to feel completely incapable of accomplishing.

It's really nice not to care. To look at my life and decide that when I fall into this next hole that I'll choose not to dig myself out. I'll fail big.. I'll give up..and I'll choose not to let it bother me...at least for now. What if this decision later becomes the biggest regret of my life? What if I can achieve everything I desire and have worked hard for only by preserving and pushing on a little farther?

I just don't care...Maybe my mind and emotions just cant function like I want them to..maybe its out of my control. On the other hand maybe it is in my control and I'm just too weak and pathetic to overcome my problems.

I don't know what the problem or solution really is. All that I know is that I'm tired of it all and I just want to fail. I want to show everyone that I couldn't do it and that I'm done trying. Get it over with and move on to other things....what things? Again...I don't know.

Has all my work and struggles been for nothing? If I give up now I guess it has been. I have no desire to harm myself in any way. I have no desire to die..All I want to do is to rest, not worry, not be crushed by the burden of expectations, not feel constant anxiety and feelings of worthlessness. I'm tired of failing.

I want to be happy. I don't know what I need to do..all I know is that what I've been trying for the past decade hasn't worked and I'm ready to throw up my hands and give up. The question I have to answer now is...should I?

The unfortunate truth is... happiness is earned.

This is why you go to college - to have a bright career that finances your family and/or your desires in the future. Keep at it.

I understand your desire for your first kiss, girlfriend, all of that... I really do. However, without the hunt, how much fun will the catch really be? Nobody appreciates something that was handed to them. Trust me, you sound like the type of person that WOULD really appreciate somebody. Believe it or not... that's a rare thing these days. Stay the way you are and don't allow the failure to make you jaded, you have only your own eventual happiness to lose.

Your struggle will only ever be for nothing if you give up. I understand discouragement, its something we all face. However, I believe that with dedication, anybody can get what they most desire. Remember, nothing ever came of comfort. Discipline, hard work, dedication. These are the values that pay off in the end.

That being said. Don't be afraid to get away and take a break. So long as you come back to the pursuit of your desires and the creation of your future.

No offense to the person who commented above, you show some good points, but I'd like to put my perspective in as well.

My story has a lot of differences from you but I am essentially what you talk about - just not caring. This is why and how its working.

I've had a bumpy ride in relationships. I have had 2 relationships of note, excluding little flirtations. Nothing dramatic, no really nasty break-ups, no abuse, no cheating.

My troubles seemed to be physical. My first real relationship led to me getting mono/glandular fever. This put a stain on the relationship which eventualy ended in a fairly messy way. I've struggled with my energy levels now for the past 3 years, constantly taking supplements, shaking and constantly having to restrict what I do to just get through the day. It also resulted in me having to drop out, then repeat my last year of school, and drop out of my degree at uni.

For a first fling this was fairly effective in shaking up my life. I was physically scarred and didnt mentally want to commit to something else, which had caused me so much pain the first time and was going to be very had to balance at a time when I was simply trying to get through simple tasks like showering. So I had some time to focus solely on studying and keeping myself healthy, made some friends but never really committing. They were friends but I had no emotional connections to any of them.

During this time I had become comfortable in myself. It's hard to describe, but I became much more acceptable about myself, my failings and my wants. Things that bothered me before didnt affect me. I was less concerned about my figure, less worried that I was behind others in relationships. I began to explore things that I loved, and decided what I actually liked and wanted, completely unrelated to anyone else. I became quite determined in this time. I decide what I wanted to study at university, and worked towards that score. I had never really studied properly before that, but when I stop caring, I started wanting. I begun playing my music really loud, keeping my room clean with everything where I wanted it (I was living alone at the time).

For the first time in my life I didnt care at all about anyone. Not that I was being selfish - I was exploring another passion I discovered; vounteering and advocacy. But for the person sitting next to me in class, I didnt give a crap if they were having a fight with their boyfriend, or worried about their friend, or stress about their appearance or wanting a girlfriend. That was their problem. At the time I also lost interest in the internet - which distracted me from everything.

I settled with the notion of not caring. For once, I gave myself leave to care only about myself, only about what I wanted to do, what I needed, that I was happy. It was amazingly freeing. I felt like I was flying. I'd find myself almost skipping along.

When I went to uni, things changed a bit. I moved into a residence with other students. They all seemed to be so confident. Take note; I wasnt confident before, I just didn't give a stuff what was going on for others, including what they thought. So this was hard. I was still skipping along, but I was finding I wasn't building the friendships everyone else was. I was struggling again a lot with my energy levels and was struggling to stay awake in class. This was quite secluding. I missed out on going out to the pub because I'd have to take a week to recover, I'd sleep in til 5pm and miss the whole day, I would use every waking moment to try and soak in a little uni work and get some food into me. At this point socialising was so far down my priorities I took me a while to realize how much I was missing out on. The people in the rooms near me, who were all strangers at the start, were now best friends. But to me they were still strangers.

By the end of the semester, I had to make the decision to move back home and get some support. Even just to have someone to force me to eat 3 meals a day or draw me a bath when I couldn't get out of bed. Again, I was secluded.

After taking a year for myself and not giving a damn, I was ready to get back into it. I was unpracticed, but still ready. Unfortunately at this point, my body wasn't.

After taking some time off from uni to get 'better', I met the guy who was my second 'relationship'. In this case, I was quite unattached. I knew I didn't want to lose the goals and passion I had developed in my time by myself. I knew my past relationship had led to compromises, and letting some of my wants fall away for their wants. I had become attached to caring about myself; caring what I essentially wanted out of life and what made me happy.

Soo... I kept my distance, was fairly selfish in not changing, and was generally having fun being with him.

Then this physical curse seemed to rear its head again. The first night we had sex, the condom broke - pretty bad luck really since I had just got a prescription for the pill. But I took the morning-after pill asap and did everything I was meant to. The relationship continued much as it should.

But 7 weeks after that, while I was staying at my grandparents house in the country with my father for the weekend. I became violently ill. I originally thought it was just food-poisoning mixed with that time of the month. I tried to go to sleep but couldn't ignore the pain. So I waited up until my father came back from a seeing a friend. My grand-parents were asleep at the time and I didnt want to bother them.

When my dad finally came home I had thrown up at least 5 times. I collapsed as I began to tell him I didnt feel well. I could just drag myself onto the tiles before I threw up again. He was quite surprised when I asked to go to hospital. The hospital was in the nearest city, a good hour away. But something didn't feel right, I'd been car-sick before, and I'd felt nauseous before, but this was different.

After 11 hours of messing around at the hospital, they did an ultrasound and found out I was pregnant. Whats called an ectopic. The morning-after pill hadn't done anything but stop the baby in one of my tubes, which ruptured and bled out. Sorry for the gory details but its just the facts. They rushed me to surgery, and pumped me full of blood to compensate for the 2 liters I'd lost into my stomach.

I spent a week in hospital after that and a month recovering physically. It had shattered my body. Again, a simple fine relationship somehow causing a life-ruining physical effect.

But this wasn't just physically scaring like the last time. I was rocked to the core mentally. This is a lot to be told within 5 minutes before you go into surgery, with no family or support present. I barely had time to ring my mother and tell her what had happened, as they cut my clothes away. One minute I had bad period pain, and the next I'm about an hour from death.

Now I think about it, it was so lucky I couldn't get to sleep. Or I would never have woken up. I had about 3 months of being seriously emotionally traumatized about not just the event, but the concept of losing a child I didn't even know I had. Although I gradually got better. The doctors had said I may get post-traumatic stress disorder. The kind soldiers get after war. I thought this was the end of it.

When I was better, I took time to travel, staying with a relative in england and help her with her child. All was good, but I was more home-sick than I should have been for how much fun I was having. I came home after 4 months instead of the 6 planned. Then I crashed.

I was still scarred but I had thought I'd been through the worst of it. Turns out PTSD can hit you up to 6 months after the event.

I hit bottom quite quickly. I became like a child, I couldn't deal with the smallest things, I was scared of everything, I had problems sleeping and nightmares that would leave my screaming. At my lowest, I was scared to be touched my a male for fear it might happen again, and thought I was being followed as I walked down the street. Even at 20, I slept in the same bed as my mother each night, swapping places with my father. I could easily be sent into hysterics.

I don't remember a lot of it, and I will never be able to understand how I could think or be that way, but thats what happened. I asked my family to treat me as if I really was 5 years old, protecting me from things I couldn't deal with.

Pretty bad really, but I am better. I got lots of help from professionals and had to be on some pretty strong medication for a while there, until I could even think of dealing with what was going on in my head.

Even though I would say I'm better now, I am still in the phase of not caring. While I was going through the PTSD I couldn't deal with anything. So I completely shut off and protected myself from things like money, other people's feelings, well pretty much everything. I was essentially a baby, unable to do anything, until I fixed my own mind.

So, I can understand feeling tired. I can understand wanting to just give up on social obligations for a while. Sometimes, you have to be first priority. Sometimes, accepting your life alone is the best path to becoming happy.

I know I won't always be alone. I know eventually I begin to open up more. But I also know, that even being a 21 year old at uni, its okay to not go out all the time. It's okay to be single. It's okay to want to be single.

Right now, I'm happiest by thinking about what I want. I don't mind staying in on Saturday nights, I don't mind not having only a few friends. I don't mind that I have to have a nap sometimes and that I perhaps don't want to get out there dating.

I'm not ruling these things out in the future.

I'm just giving myself a break from searching for things I'm meant to have and want.

I'm giving myself the permission to be single and worry about what I want, until perhaps, a relationship isn't just something I want for the future and am meant to have. Until its something I want right now and am ready for.

Maybe you too (hopefully not as dramatically as I did), want some time off from 'life' and just want to enjoy being.

Anyway... that's my perspective

Well I admire you for all the effort but you cant control other people's reactions so dont try making that a goal...and then assuming you have failed because of other people's superficialities.

What you can control are your studies and to an extent, your career.

How about focussing your energy on them and rather than giving up on the social stuff..just roll with it. Dont view them as a challenge. Do something you enjoy doing for its own sake. Then, maybe...out of the blue....

"and charm a female into falling for my personality."... I gave that one up a long time ago

@Coverage - What physical condition/ disease do you have?

Well I admire you for all the effort but you cant control other people's reactions so dont try making that a goal...and then assuming you have failed because of other people's superficialities.

What you can control are your studies and to an extent, your career.

How about focussing your energy on them and rather than giving up on the social stuff..just roll with it. Dont view them as a challenge. Do something you enjoy doing for its own sake. Then, maybe...out of the blue....

 

"and charm a female into falling for my personality."... I gave that one up a long time ago

 

 

The unfortunate truth is... happiness is earned.

 

This is why you go to college - to have a bright career that finances your family and/or your desires in the future. Keep at it.

 

Your struggle will only ever be for nothing if you give up. I understand discouragement, its something we all face. However, I believe that with dedication, anybody can get what they most desire. Remember, nothing ever came of comfort. Discipline, hard work, dedication. These are the values that pay off in the end.

 

That being said. Don't be afraid to get away and take a break. So long as you come back to the pursuit of your desires and the creation of your future.

 

I appreciate the responses guys! I completely understand where your coming from. I understand that having a college degree is an essential first step to having a great career, and that dropping out of college would make it much more difficult to find a decent job and receive promotions later on. Unfortunately, my apathy extends towards my outlook on life. I constantly question how important money and personal wealth really is. I think about how fragile and weak human life is and in general how weak the economic and governmental systems of our society is. How easily everything can all change in a day. Generally I think about how hard I would have to work in order to 'maybe' gain something (wealth) that could easily become worthless should some sort of disaster strike or should I happen to die (can't take any money with me).

 

I don't like college. I don't like my classes. I don't like the stupid assignments that have absolutely no practical application to the real world. (Granted I do understand the importance of education. It's important to know basic math, world history, basic biology, etc), but after that...the meat of the major I'm in is just not important to me. It's too late and too expensive to change to some other field of study. My only choices are to drop out or struggle though something I really hate to enter a bad job market and, if I'm luckily, land a job that I don't think I'd enjoy doing.

 

I know a degree in anything is better than nothing even if one doesn't get a job in their field of study, however I'm have a very difficult time convincing myself that spending years longer doing something I hate to 'maybe' make a lot more money later on in life is really worth it.

 

I understand your desire for your first kiss, girlfriend, all of that... I really do. However, without the hunt, how much fun will the catch really be? Nobody appreciates something that was handed to them. Trust me, you sound like the type of person that WOULD really appreciate somebody. Believe it or not... that's a rare thing these days. Stay the way you are and don't allow the failure to make you jaded, you have only your own eventual happiness to lose..

 

I agree with you that struggles do have the potential to build up character traits and make someone a more well rounded individual. As far as the 'hunt' goes, I'd probably enjoy it more if I didn't feel like I was trying to bring down a Buffalo with a butter knife.

 

 

,,,,,,,,

Anyway... that's my perspective

 

Thanks for sharing your story Kate. You've obviously been though some very difficult moments and struggles. It's great that you have made some progress towards recovery and I hope you are able to keep improving to become the person you want to be. Even though I wouldn't classify my physical or mental struggles as being as bad as what you went through I do feel that I can relate to the feeling of not caring if I have that many friends, or not caring if I go out and socializing every weekend.

 

I've certainly done plenty of doing my own thing without caring or thinking about other important areas of life. I don't see anything wrong with doing this for awhile because everyone needs a break from things every now and then, but I'm afraid I've probably used it too much as a crutch for me to lean on as an excuse for why I'm not progressing in areas that I would like to get better in. It's easy to say 'I don't go out on dates or socialize much because I just don't care or put much effort into it anymore,' but that attitude and lifestyle obviously wont help me get better if I don't change. It's just discouraging that when I have put forth considerable effort, I seem to come away with no progress or rewards.

 

@Coverage - What physical condition/ disease do you have?

 

I can send you a PM with some info on it.

That's exactly how I feel right now. I'm 21, don't drink, and I also feel educated enough to leave university right now but I'm in my last year so...I feel like I should go through with it and finish.

Anyways, you seem like a nice guy. I wouldn't have a problem dating someone like you. Just from reading your other posts as well, you seem like a really genuine guy

It sounds like it might be mainly your education that's burning you out. I don't think you should quit your degree, especially being 3/4 of the way through, but maybe you should take a semester off, do something interesting like go volunteer overseas or just work a job, any job, then you might come back refreshed. I know people who have felt the way you do and then after a semester of working at a bar or something like that they are pretty eager to return to school. I know what you mean about not feeling money and material success is as important anymore. That was my goal after graduation, but then when I didn't get it and had to live without it, I realized that I didn't really need it. My job situation is finally improving, but now it's like I'm grateful to have a job that uses the skills I learned from my education, and I don't really feel any excitement about the extra dollars an hour (whereas the goal before was to get those extra dollars an hour).