Life seems to be deteriorating

[Rickster]

I'm 20 and am currently studying in university; in my last year before graduation. I feel like as if life is getting more boring and dull. And my personality is fading.

 

I think I should enlighten you about my past so that you may know where I stand. I'm unsure how I got into this rut. About 4 years ago my ex split up with me and I was deeply hurt. I was inflicting self-injury. Then slowly as time passed, I became much better and healthier. As of now, I've let my ex out of my heart.

 

During my first year of university I was still experiencing heart ache from my relationship and I didn't do my in that year because... well.. I just didn't have the energy and spirit to do anything. Then on my last semester of my first year I failed a subject. That's where everything came to me. From then on, I had totally got myself buckled up ready for the next semester to put in 300% of effort. As a consequence, I did well and got the grades I wanted. I had never felt so stressed in my life, and so worked up, but luckily the long summer holidays were just after that semester for me to cool down. In that semester too, I forgot about my ex, maybe because I had just too much focus on my studies and the feelings were just dying away.

 

Up until now, I've been working my butt off in university studies. This university I'm attending is pretty reputable. I've give you a hint. It is ranked 40-50 in the world and is one of the best universities in my area. I noticed, my life slowly disappearing, disintegrating away, like as if no meaning. I rarely enjoy anything now. I barely go out and have fun. In fact, I don't even know the word fun. Even when I do do things, it is not entirely 'fun'. I recently moved to the dorms so now I study in a 10 by 5 box. There is just so much pressure building up. I don't even know how to let go. Where I see some of the people in the dorms having 'fun', I do my work. I suppose they are in their 1st year so they don't realise how much effort needs to be put in. I'm currently doing the toughest semester in all my semesters, I'm feeling like this already; no mood and motivation to go on.

 

Everything is so monotonous. Day after day I do the same thing. Wake up, breakfast, shower, computer, off to campus, back from campus, prepare dinner, eat dinner, study, sleep. University is slowly engulfing my life away that I think some people think I'm nerdy. I'm actually not, I've seen myself to be fun once, once 4 years ago. When I do talk to some of the people living within the dorms, its about university related stuff. And I think that's why they see me as a nerd. I just don't know what else to talk about.

 

There is just girl in particular which I've developed feelings for that I seem to revolve around the same topics i.e. university stuff, or the events going on in university. This girl also makes me think about myself too much. She's a nice person, conservative and doesn't judge. But when I do try to talk to her, she seems uninterested. I think it might be due to the fact that I don't have much to say to her. She is so hard to come by. And the fact that, I feel so awkward because I can't express myself (I'm just bad in social confrontations), and because I felt like the previous relationship I had, didn't work out, it really gave me less confidence. I don't think this is a bounce back relationship because I don't develop feelings for a person easily and I think 4 years of grieving is long enough to say it's not. It takes a pretty good reason for me to do so. So developing feelings for a person is rare. And I feel like this opportunity is slipping away, but I just have no guts to stand up for what I want. Furthermore, I heard she might be moving out next semester. sigh..

 

Then once, I was feeling really depressed. I think it was about this girl and the university assignments piling up. I started to get insomnia because I hadn't gone out in a while and have been cooped up in my room doing work and I was so sick and fed-up of writing report after report.

 

Life seems like it's not going to change. Next semester I'll be doing the same. Its a vicious cycle. I hate it. But for some reason I'm in it and it's like as if I'm letting it eat me alive; no attempt to escape it.

 

I'm sorry if all these sentences are jumbled up. My mind thinks this way. I'm complicated. If I were to organise the sentences to form related and more understandable sentences I wouldn't be able to express my feelings.

[rusty_boi]

Ok first remember this quote " Things are only as hard as you make them". My suggestion to you with the whole not being fun thing is get some hobbies. Play a sport preferably team sport so u can socialise, Learn an instrument, make a movie, paint. There is a whole wide world out there, experience it. You need a social life along side studying. Also maybe try student exchange for a semester, that way you will have something to look towards, your life wont be monotonous, and you can talk at the new university about your home and not just uni. Then when you get back you can talk about the place you did exchange at

 

Second, with this girl the reason you dont know what to say is u are over thinking and then you psych yourself out of a normal conversation. Just go with the flow. You should ask her out, just dont think about it and do it. U will be nervous inside but if ure not thinking by the time u realise ure nervous u hopefully would of asked her out. And finally another one of my quotes, i live by this one and its one i made up "The only thing worse than failing, is not trying. Then wondering What if??"

[greensleeves]

University is expensive, so I think it's great that you're so focused on your studies. Try to look at it as a means to an end, the better you do now, the better you're future will be. But, you do have to make some time for relaxation and fun, that's important as well.

 

Try to schedule some time for that if you have to, maybe some specific times that you'll get some physical activity, preferably around other people. Are there any clubs at your school that might interest you? If you can find someting you like, they might meet on a weekly basis and you can start to develop a social life from that. If you always know you have specific social activities scheduled it can be a distraction for you to look forward to when you're feeling overwhelmed by your studies.

[Rickster]

Thanks for replying. I know it's all in the mind. But right now, my mind has been taken over.

 

I've actually done your suggestion. I transferred from my home country to surprisingly, where you are located, but further down south. It was more for my future rather than something new. I also do play sport, and I do enjoy it. It's a team sport - soccer. I'm pretty good at it too. But for some reason, over the past couple of weeks I've played less and less, and I'm not sure why. It's either I've been doing things while the game is on, or, I've been too busy doing work, or, I don't know why, but I might be losing interest in it.

 

There is just something about this university that takes over me. When I first started to work hard, I had so much energy, so much motivation to see it through. The semester after that made me extremely stressed and tired. I didn't have a break after that semester because there wasn't a long enough break and I was preparing myself to transfer to Australia. As of now, I just lost it. My drive is becoming weaker and weaker. The whole university scheme is going in circles. I start off the semester reviewing closely each lecture and attend all lectures. I start doing assignments and start backing off the reviewing of the lectures. Then after all assignments are done I work on reviewing for the exams. To be honest, I'm just so sick of following this same pattern of assignments, reviewing and exams. Its close enough to 3 years of doing the same thing. I'm not sure how long I can sustain the effort I've been putting in.

 

Talking to this girl is a strange experience because I don't know her well enough to understand what she is interested in and then develop conversations based in those areas. It's not that I'm scared to talk to her about what she likes or is interested it, but it's because she is just so conservative (like me) that I end up not knowing what to speak to her about when I've already tired speaking of a topic but she doesn't seem interested. I only really talk to her when she's alone. When she is with one of her girlfriends, I can't think of something to say to her.

 

But you're right, I'm nervous to confront her about my feelings. I don't feel like doing it. I don't know her well enough to know that she will reject me (your words of wisdom did help me, I wrote it on my whiteboard).