Struggling to Improve
[TW mentions of self-delete]
For some context, I’m 18. I recently turned 18 about a month ago. And these issues have been prevalent since basically my whole life but now I’m really starting to feel like I’m running out of time to fix them.
There’s a lot I want to work on and start improving on but I’m finding it almost impossible to be consistent let alone start at times. I’m always trying to run before I can crawl. All I wanna do is get this thing over with so I can continue on with life, but that often times isn’t going to work. And i find myself becoming frustrated that I can’t get the results I want, when I want them, which makes me give up momentarily. Or permanently. Additionally, if I’m having a bad day or if I’m upset, I’ll skip a day and find that I don’t have the motivation to continue where i left off so I end up giving up. I’m a perfectionist so if things aren’t perfect, then forget about it.
The only ways I find myself truly sticking to my goals is if I really REALLY want to achieve that goal, and I’m willing to do ANYTHING to get it. Or if I’m put under immense pressure (such as a deadline or some consequence I’m deeply afraid of that in order to avoid it I HAVE to do this thing.) then I will make a way, even if I partially do that thing. As long as I don’t have to feel the immense anxiety from not doing that thing, idc if I fully complete a task or not. (But a lot of the time, I never actually wanna accomplish any of these goals, like genuinely, I’m only forcing myself to do it because Ik I have to and I don’t wanna face the consequences if I don’t do such.)
But i know constantly putting myself under severe pressure and anxiety is often times just going to make me SO overwhelmed that I will want to take a permanent nap (aka self-delete). A excellent example was during my last few years of HS, I was doing pretty badly so my dad decided to help me. My dad can be very critical if not harshly critical over any mistakes. So if I get a score anything less than perfect, he will complain, get frustrated with me, force me to redo something, constantly complain that it’s not hard, I’m not dumb, I’m not trying hard enough, I don’t understand the material cuz I’m not 100% certain of the definition of a word used in a question, blah blah blah. It would cause me SO much anxiety that at times I’d turn in assignments blank or half do them just to avoid him having to help me with them (which made things worse). And it got SOO bad that I thought about taking a permanent nap SEVERAL times, made plans, and even tried to carry out those plans at times.
Luckily I made it through all that suffering and graduated with mostly A’s but it was horrible. And I know that doing all that is just going to make me wanna be wiped off the face of the planet.
So I honestly don’t know what to do. I need a career but I don’t know what I should do. There’s nothing I love that I want to make a career out of (I draw but it’s not that great and it’s really only a hobby that I sometimes partake in when I’m bored). I can’t go to college cuz 1. SATS (English part is easy, it’s the math bit that I can’t seem to get past). And 2. I don’t wanna drain my parents pockets to try and “figure out” what I wanna do. I live with my dad so I’m gonna have to ask him to pay for it but he doesn’t want me to go to college unless I’m ABOLUTELY CERTAIN of what I want, because besides a few career paths that you can pursue from getting a college degree, college is practically useless and a waste of time and money.
And maybe I could get a job if I wasn’t so petrified of interviews and what work life will be like. I’m too scared of messing up and getting told off. Plus my hygiene is crap and i really don’t wanna embarrass myself or burden others with it.
But because I can hardly get myself to keep a steady hygiene routine without giving up after a day or two, idk how I’m gonna make things work.
So…yeah. That’s about it. I don’t know how posting this is going to make things better because at the end of the day, I have to make the change, and I already know I probably won’t.
I feel, almost completely hopeless. But I’ve been watching this Christian guy on YouTube that makes a lot of content about these issues (I’m Christian btw). And it feels like he’s basically my only source of guidance. I found out through him that I need to start learning how to love myself, and to receive Gods love because that would make things a lot easier? If I’m not wrong. So I’ve been trying to follow along and such but ofc things are not working out :’D… I’m thinking about posting this also to the Christian community on here, cuz maybe it might help.
@milkiiyy3303 I’m not in any immediate crisis, but I do have passive thoughts. If u were wondering. I also just realized I can’t post this in any different thread so I’m not going to do that.
@milkiiyy3303 hi there I'm Lola ❤ first of all happppyyy birrrthddayyy🎈🎈 your 18 your childhood as now expired😂 I'm glad you found that christian channel helpful, that's a great start ❤ do you do things by routine?? Like a 2 hour shower because you need to wash your hair a certain way?? Just curious.
You have so much going on in your mind right now, that even getting out of bed would be overwhelming for most 🙁 you need to break things down, find a routine that gives you the flexibility that it's ok to have a bad day. I wish there was more I could do to help you, but I don't know how sorry😕 gives you a giant tiny hug ❤❤ I'm here for you ❤
@Tinywhisper11 noo I don’t take a 2 hour shower for my hair to make sure it’s clean lol. But I have noticed that about a year ago, I used to scrub my legs like four times every time I shower cuz the soap that ran off of them didn’t look clean enough. I got out of that habit and only scrub them 2 times, which *** is an improvement. It used to make me wanna avoid taking a shower cuz I know I’d have to do this ridiculous routine to make sure I’m extra clean lol. I also noticed like not too long ago when I had a bf, that I was afraid I didn’t like him cuz when I looked at some of his selfies, I didn’t smile hard enough lol
@milkiiyy3303 I'm glad you have managed to shorten it ❤ and oh that bf thing doesn't sound great bless you 🙁 I only asked cause I detected a little bit of ocd behaviour in your words. Do you think you might have that?
@Tinywhisper11 you know that’s crazy cuz I’ve suspected of having ocd for like the past few years. And that Christian guy I watch on yt that I mentioned in my original post actually does content on religious OCD (something I think I struggled a lot with particularly in my early teens, and I’ve noticed I’ve showed some signs of it this year.) That bf thing caused me a lot of anxiety actually. So bad that sometimes it was hard to eat. And I had to find some sort of certainty to confirm I still liked him, otherwise I would not feel peace 😭. But then the fear would come back again and the cycle repeated :’). And because I’m a Christian and he wasn’t, I had to leave him, but I spun out about a few verses in the Bible that I thought meant I couldn’t even be his friend either, so I stopped being his friend too. But then after that I started doubting whether or not I was wrong, which made my anxiety come back and it was hard to eat at times or even feel peace. I kept researching, I asked some people about it, and everyone gave me different answers which just made me obsess about it more and I just would not rest until I was certain that I didn’t do anything wrong by unfriending him too.. 😭. And this was really recent, ever since a couple of days ago I stopped spinning out over it but who knows, I might just do it again 😭.
@milkiiyy3303 awww honey I hear you, relationships are hard 🙁 and with fear and mental health issues it can be really really hard 🙁 just follow your heart in theese circumstances. And never doubt yourself, you chose what you thought was right at the time, leave the past in the past ok? Hugs you tightly ❤ I'm always here for you ❤
@Tinywhisper11 thank u for ur support I really appreciate it. It’s nice to know someone is there to listen :D. And it’s really nice to know im not going crazy when I started suspecting I had OCD. I still need to talk to a professional about it, but compared to my symptoms when I was in my early teens, they aren’t as prevalent or I guess severe (they come and go with varying intensities, at least the ones I’m aware of) so I’m afraid I’m just gonna be brushed off like I was with my last therapist :’).
@milkiiyy3303 ohh! You had a bad therapist🙁 don't let that turn you off from getting help, you need to find the one you can trust ❤ I have a psychologist and she is lovely ❤ ocd comes in different stages, there's not just one type, so don't give up ok?
oh and btw.....
@Tinywhisper11 OH MY GOSHHH I RECOGNIZE THAT MARIO CARTOON. I FORGOT WHAT IT WAS CALLED BUT I THINK IT WAS MY FAV GROWING UPPP > <. Also thanks for the support I really realyyyyy appreciate it :D.
@milkiiyy3303 i feel the same way too. we put immense pressure on ourselves in order to get one goal and by the time that goal is achieved we still dont really have a sense of purpose or belonging. fortunately my parents are quite the opposite to urs in a sense that it is me putting the pressure on myself a lot of the time rather then other ppl. but regardless of that, you are wonderful the way that you are. i know the future is very very scary and this journey that we face ahead of us is frightening to say the least, but we dont know! we simply do not know what is ahead, it can all take a sudden turn.
i have had these thoughts since i was around 8 years old. i often had a low self esteem as a result of bullying and the deep self hatred i had for myself, as well as my mum having leukaemia at the time. i resorted to a lot of dangerous methods in order to cope with this feeling. but things became a lot better and i was very happy up to a point where i felt nothing could bring me down until not too recently my best friend of 3 years decided to leave me after discovering about my past, believing that i was unhealthy for her. till this day i am unsure why she suddenly decided to leave but it has certainly left a huge scar. i am resorting to these ways again. i am telling this story to show that things are unpredictable and how things can suddenly turn. from my perspective, your change just happens much slowly then mine does. thats a blessing and a curse. it means that, although the pain you have endured and might endure for a little while longer, means your blessing will be just as long. so live long enough to see it. be safe. tomorrow is a brand new day.
@baymax1815 thank u for ur encouraging words. Honestly, my parents don’t put that much pressure on me to get my life together or much of anything, they kind of let me and my siblings just do whatever we want as long as we get our chores done and obey. They never pressure us to go get a degree or anything, or enroll us into programs they think will help us. Not even when we were younger. I mean, my dad has been bringing up some ideas on what me and my sister could do for the future, like recently he had this idea that we can draw a mascot (cuz we’re both artists) that could be used for like toys, or some other brand and we could make a lot of money. And we don’t have to do anything other than just design a mascot once and dad will figure it out from there. But we both declined, I don’t like working with my dad. I’m afraid he might tell me off if I make a mistake or he might require me to fix up my mascot drawing or something (it just sounds like too much anxiety to deal with 😭). And it kinda sounds stupid, but when I know I have something I need to do, I tend to avoid it because I feel overwhelmed with this anxiety about just knowing I have to get on this thing. It could be as simple as me knowing that at 4 pm, or 4:30 pm, everyday I have to make dinner. And just knowing that gives me a bunch of anxiety that I just procrastinate and try to find something to get rid of the anxiety. I mean, I get dinner done anyways, and the anxiety goes away once I get on it. But idk, it’s just a burden to always have to feel so anxious knowing I have to do something before I do it, It could be hours away, days away, it could be even something I enjoy doing it. And I’d still feel anxiety from it. Idk why I get like that.