I'm not sure if I want help or if I just want to reflect on this. If anyone reads it all it's more than I expected.
I'll be turning 31 next month and at the same time ringing in my 10th year since college graduation. Nothing has happened since that day. I looked for a job that never came, a place I could never afford, a life I could never live. There was no pain, no anger, no desire for more. I just failed silently and the world passed me by.
The problem is twofold.
The first problem is that I am a coward who wants to be forgotten by the world. I wanted a quiet life of modest comfort and can not achieve that. I suffer from a multitude of diagnosed problems (Aspergers, Generalized Anxiety, Major Depression, etc) that make me feel incompatible with people. I can "fake it" for a little while but under any scrutiny my facade falls away and I just crumple. I can't work with people, I can't interact with people, I do not want people in my life. No love, no friends, no support. I do not crave them, I won't have them, so by and large they won't have me.
The second problem is that I'm complacent. The pain I feel I have felt a long time, and it is familiar and "safe" to me. I self sabotage a lot of my """efforts""" and feel very little remorse for it. When I graduated the market was terrible and I had a good excuse, but as things improved I was exposed. My fear (and massive gaps in my resume) put up a red flag to anyone who saw my resume, and I became unemployable.
My mother is a terrible person who I need to escape, a woman just as defective and codependent as myself. My dad acts like nothing is wrong, ten years into the job hunt, and just says "keep applying". He is not a bad person, but emotionally there is nothing there. No one else will even acknowledge my struggles in my family.
I've been in and out of therapy all my life, my current guy (since 2012) stopped being helpful a few years ago but I still see him out of sheer habit. He points out my hypocrisy and I moan and I try to overcome it but it just isn't working. Occasionally he goes negative and says "well lets just get you on disability and be done with it". I actually tried that out of desperation, but was denied. I appealed it and had to face a judge, and I poured my damn heart out. At the end of it all he asked me if my hands worked, I said yes, and he denied my claim.
I've worked with at least a dozen state appointed job developers, all of which eventually drop me as they figure out my self sabotaging nature, even the state case worker eventually dropped my case, even though with some prodding she will still talk to me unofficially.
I just want out of this, I don't want to die but I don't want to live either. I have nothing except crushing student loan debt, a useless degree, and a family that every sane person I've talked to has told me to get as far away from as possible. There's no path forward here that isn't torturous to me, and I'm just sitting on this shrinking island of comparative comfort as I slowly wither and die. It's a mistake, it's all a mistake.
Colton Powell
I'm in a similar situation, OP. I haven't done anything with my life since graduating four years ago, and I'm ashamed of myself; I'm ashamed of myself for not doing anything to improve my situation, and I'm angry with my parents for letting things get so out of hand. When your only son spends all his time alone in his room, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, perhaps it's time to seek professional help, or to at least have a conversation with him about what's going on!
I'm sorry for what you're going through, OP. It's past five in the morning where I am, so I won't be able to post again till tomorrow afternoon, but I sincerely hope that someone is able to do better than lend a sympathetic ear by giving you some good advice; we really need all the help we can get. Goodnight.
Matthew Howard
My entire twenties were a loss. You're in a bigger boat than it feels.
No one stops to think how hard society has been flipped on its head by not only normies using the internet for social purposes but smartphones to move it from the desktop to literally everywhere you go.
I was taking a Bioenergetic therapy that basically helped me cut my attachment to the stupid shit I cared about as a young dude, but had to leave town without really getting through it. I still recommend looking into somatic type therapies.
Another option is to check out the channel Meta Intent, if you're a thinking type. /watch?v=JRwJoosnRgw&t=6m27s
Evan James
Just read your second post; iktf. I realized that my prior attempts to step out of the parental home and make forward progress were self sabotage, but in a way that would make me end up back where I started. For example, taking too small a step (moving to an apartment less than a mile away, so parents stop by whenever and act like it's an extension of their own house) or too large a step in order to "fall back to square one" on purpose. It's about composing yourself, and taking that step toward a dull day job to pay the bills while taking classes to get credentials toward your real career.
Matthew Gray
I'm too much of a science guy to really buy into that personally but if it was working for you that's what matters. Most off the grid thing I ever did was neurofeedback training back as a teenager, in retrospect it was probably pure bs but I was so bad at mindfulness it did help with the anxiety somewhat.
I'm actually a really disconnected guy, never got a smartphone (never had anyone to call). I bet I'd be a LOT less stable if I hadn't missed that shit.
I think the lesson here is that even if you feel like someone in your life has a responsibility to help you you should never expect them to actually do so. Maybe that's just called having shitty parents, or maybe that's normal? Can't tell.
Not sure what that "real career" is anymore. The BS was Chemical Engineering, a misdirected effort to make as much cash as possible. STEM was, as always, a fucking meme but I didn't know that when I had to declare the major back in fucking 06. Switched to self taught programming, but no one seems willing to give me a shot on that front without a CS degree (which is also a fucking meme). There's not really anything to move forwards towards. I reached "the goal" only to realize that there's no such thing as an assurance in life. Generally just thank you for responding, I've made threads like this a few times over the years and no one's ever actually responded.
James Russell
I'm very surprised that you didn't got disability benefits; did you submit a doc's diagnose when you applied? You better not tell me that all the shit you mentioned is self-diagnosed a la Tumblr. The only advice I could give you career-wise is to do freelancing if you've a degree related to writing. Because you really have something that doesn't even kill your autism for the sake of getting a job in order to survive.
Either apply again for disability benefits with a doctor's letter or some shit (with another person that isn't the faggot that said if your hand works) and/or do freelancing. This is all you have OP given your current autistic attitude of not socializing whatsoever.
Luis Ortiz
oh no they're all very much professionally diagnosed, late middle school for the Asperger (about the time people started making that diagnosis) and anxiety, a few years out of college for the depression. I don't know how real any of it is, but there's a few obvious tells that I'm on the spectrum (I'm completely faceblind, I can't stand physical contact in any form). Frankly I hate the labels and do not embrace them publicly.
The judge had all of the diagnosis' but seemed under the impression that only physical disability would qualify you for benefits. Apparently it's hard to get disability in this state. Even then that's not a life I WANTED to live. I really just want to fuck off so bad from the situation (and in general) I'm in but you need money to do anything.
Benjamin Scott
that said I had been doing various kinds of therapy since pretty much the day I could talk. My folks could tell something was wrong but no one really knew what. When the diagnosis came (like six professionals in) they kinda just gave up on me. "Oh well, guess he's just fucked up, no cure". No one cared once they had their answer, any therapy after that point I had to seek out myself, as I did for anything related to college. I struggled forward by myself because I wanted to prove to myself and those around me that my (not amazing) intelligence could overcome my social handicaps. I was a pariah in grade school and was builled endlessly. In college I didn't talk to anyone and no one gave a fuck and THAT is why those were the best years of my life. But once I had to start doing job interviews it just hit me over and over as I botched interviews left and right. The field was merciless, and no one cared if you were smart if you didn't present well, and the chance to prove myself just never came. The drive died after a few years of that and has never come back since.
Jason Foster
>therapy since pretty much the day I could talk
This is weird. You were basically made to think of yourself as "off" from everyone else from childhood, it sounds like. None of those diagnoses remotely medically significant. Not to downplay it (I'm not exactly neurotypical either) but the way you're thinking of yourself, as "disturbed" or w/e, is a defining factor in your situation.
Ayden Rogers
There may be an element of that yeah. The line between what was "always" wrong (and there are some things that are just authentically wrong) and what "became" wrong later due to my own expectations is a blurry one. My parents did not help here, I was the oldest kid and they quite frankly didn't know what they were doing. Mom was (is) extremely paranoid, untrusting of the world, and herself. Dad was addicted to prescription painkillers until I was halfway through college.
I mean obviously for the most part my depression was generated because of how my life was going, I was fairly sad the whole way through but it wasn't intense until I fucked up my life. The anxiety was always there. The aspects of asperger's syndrome were always there but I was NEVER sure that's what it actually was, or indeed if it was anything. I have tactile problems, things literally don't feel right. A lot of the early therapists I saw were physical therapists. The whole mental basis came afterward because they couldn't find a way to help me.
A few really shitty experiences during formative points in my childhood and boom here we are.
But yes anyone I've worked with who's heard from mom (she will usually butt into my business sooner or later) has confirmed to me that she's endlessly critical of me and pretty much views me as an invalid. She doesn't hide those opinions from me either, and its a big part of why I need to leave. Having self confidence at all is a massive struggle in this environment, it's straight up abuse and the fucked up thing is I only really realized that a few years ago.
Jayden Scott
Last thing I'll drop before I have to check out and go to bed. Watch this, on 2x speed if need be, but watch it. Coming across it (specifically the Quadro concept) changed the course of my life and what I value, thus where I divert my focus. No, I'm not affiliated with the channel.
Do you have friends, OP? Any peers that you could confide to IRL? Did you ever try moving out? If not, why - is there a reason?
Benjamin Wood
I'm the user you replied here I guess freelance writing might have to be your only thing in order to move out since it requires the minimal communication and is usually by email. The other job I would've told you in order to move out and would be easy for you to get it since you have a degree already is being a CSR and working at home so you don't interact with your coworkers. But this requires a little stress resistance in order to put up with people's bullshit.
I don't know what else to tell ya; there's Jow Forums's path to self-taught programming but this requires strong commitment; and there's the path of being an artists that draws cute anime girls, yet both of these careers require 2 years minimum practicing 13 hours/day in order to be able to get commissions.
Adrian Scott
I talk to some people online, but going through school/college I was by preference alone, and after college there obviously weren't really new opportunities. Even in those communities I do not want to be too close to anyone, not close enough to confide in anyone anyway. I don't trust people enough, and that's a familial trait. No one knows about my problems except blood relatives, none of whom really care if I fix them.
I've never moved out because my mother has an all or nothing approach to independence. So any "assistance" she gives me is cut off immediately if I dare to leave here. I want to highlight here that only dad works, she's only "helping me" by proxy.
Anyway right now that's about seven hundred dollars a month in student loans on top of cost of living. I have about a grand in my bank account and no real way of making a steady income. It's just not practical to leave, I'd get a month or two tops to completely solve all my problems or eat shit and die.
I will watch it, and I am watching it. But ten minutes in I'm not sure what there is for me to gain here from this weird combo kinoplex pseudo MRA stuff. I don't want relationships, I don't have a sexual desire in my body. There will never be a girlfriend or a wife. In general if you ask me people aren't as cleaver as this dude suggests they are. Most situations feel like accidents that people just fall into. This dude seems to think that everyone's a sociopath. There are exactly three women in my life (My mother, her mother, and my sister) and all of them are people I'm already actively trying to cut out of my life.
yeah I'm aware of those routes, can't draw worth a damn but I do code. Who knows, maybe someday.
Wyatt Walker
I posted the video
He is literally explaining how people orient and operate off of "collective mind" or herd mentality. The Quadro describes the basic roles people create as groups they assimilate into grow more than 3 people. That is, not clever at all, just sophisticated at masking their intentions as something other than a compulsive need to find power in numbers and not defy the herd order, especially their local queen.
I shouldn't have built it up so much for you, but as a guy in the same position as you (stuck around toxic people) these videos really helped me understand what's behind their weird irrational need to steal my attention and bug me constantly, trying to work me up emotionally
Daniel Diaz
There is people who had it much worse and just left and never looked back. There is this epic guy in /out, have you guys seen him, he said fuck it and now lives in a school bus, has a ton of friends, a life he loves, and would never ever in his life go back to normie life. user it sounds as if you can always come back to this shit show of life you have now. Knowing that you may as well try to start something, nothing big, just going out in the world and living a little and see what happens. If you don’t like it you can go back to being depressed in your room.
Mason Young
I guess see what you were thinking about but the context here seems outside of the archetypes this guy is trying to push.
Everyone in our family are introverts except my father. None of us are "connected" to the community at large meaningfully except for him, and he is only "connected" in that way at work, in another state. When he comes home he collapses immediately almost every night. He just sleeps here.
There are no family friends, no connections, no one to impress or disregard or dominate or whatever. This is an island away from whatever real or perceived power structure you've got there. Maybe that sounds nice? I don't know, they're still really shitty people for the most part.
In any case I watched it all, and I do appreciate anything, even if it's not personal relevant. It shows that people can care at least. Don't take it as an insult or anything, whatever helps you helps.
Blake Foster
Honestly yeah, I wish things were worse because if they were the impetus to leave would be a lot stronger. That said the fact that it's not is how I got 10 years into this mess
Hunter Bennett
Well that sounds like a pretty shitty attitude on her part, and I can imagine you have it tough leaving home in that setting. I don't know how much time you spend at home user, but what I'd do is to steadily increase your "outside time" until you're comfortable with only going back home when you need to sleep - you need to spend less time with your family and more time around people. One thing you should definitely focus on, and I can't stress this enough, is your trust issues - if you can't trust anything, how can you be sincere with yourself? People can lie and disappoint, but I found it important to be at least a tad naive in life - it helps bring back color and a bit of "right-brain thinking" into a bland worldview driven by rationality and compulsions alone. A hypothetical question, OP - if every living being in the world disappeared in this moment, how would you feel? What would you do in such a world? (let's say that suicide is not an option)
Realize that the "lone misunderstood genius" is no longer a fad and if you want to actually get smart, you have to have connections. Connections are everything to intellectual living - connections help you get education, help you network research, help you get friends and jobs. Whether you feel emotionally attached to them or only "suffer" them out of necessity is your call, but it's something you shouldn't underestimate. I'm not saying this as somebody adept at this stuff, but as somebody who grew up very stuck-up and overconfident in my intellect due to how often I got praised in childhood for it - and then came crashing down later on as my well-connected peers ran circles over my self-centered, stubborn ass academically. It was a very humiliating, but ultimately liberating experience.
Robert Sanders
You want to talk of a lost decade? Look at my life: When I was twelve I started middle school. Eventually we moved not once, but 8 times. I still had to succeed in highschool before all else. Not even with people, just academically.
Every move lead to a change in people. I had to adapt to various drug addicts and freaks. Some died during my journey. I only started college only to fail because my aunt saved my ass and wanted me to have any job in this life rather than 'waste time' in school.
I had to follow her or else I became homeless. Now I got a decent but shitty job dealing with a bunch of disgusting mean spirited freaks while i myself am no cupcake during this lifetime. Everyone is mean and hates me while I have to trudge on in a form of drudgery to keep my life in balance with no one left by my side.
It's worse because I am a 'fucking sperg'. You tell me how I can redeem myself while being in leagues with a bunch of people who hate me even though I put out the most work in a dead end shitty job so most everyone can at least smile for the day.
Carson Stewart
Your mother is the queen (Sagittarius), your father the mule (Ara, provider), you're the flop (Pisces). Not sure but maybe your younger siblings serve as your mom's pets (bullies).
It is a psychoenergetic order that only initiated men are not part of. Every human is born into it, and almost every one dies in it.
That's how it is in my family too.
Ethan Rodriguez
The fuck is this. >It is a psychoenergetic order that only initiated men are not part of. "People are like this, except when they're not" Gtfo with this pseud crap
Andrew Price
yeah I try to get out as much as I can, but it's tricky because she doesn't drive (she COULD drive but won't because of a fairly serious car accident that occurred... 25 years ago [she was not driving at the time]). A lot of her manipulation is a double bind. One particually nasty one:
1. "You are worthless because you are dependent, why aren't you out there working?" 2. "I have no one else in this world, I consider suicide constantly and would hold you personally responsible for my death if you left!"
It's hard to cut someone out of your life when you feel like they will literally die if you don't keep an eye on them, and for the longest time I just... couldn't bear even considering it. It was only a few years ago that I was finally made aware of how hideously fucked up what she's doing is. This is just one example of one of the worse things.
In any case yes, I try to spend time away, a few hours most days right now. She gets suspicious at anything more. A reckoning will have to come at some point.
I get what you're saying about connections, I experienced it too. Back in college they all helped each other out with their work, I went alone. They showed me up, a lot. And then when we graduated I had no one to call on and they all helped each other find places in the world. At the time I thought it was weakness, that they would be exposed for not knowing the material. Turns out that doesn't matter! Who cares if you know what you're doing as long as you know somebody! A meritocracy this sure isn't! A shame I didn't understand that at the time.
I don't care what labels are applied, or what their intentions are. Seems like a difference between us is you care what their justifications were for their actions whereas I just care about what their actions are, and that in itself is plenty of reasons to want to get away.
I don't have the answers but know I read it
Liam Howard
A deeper description of the roles, which all humans gravitate into: /watch?v=Jsk9IXrBpLU&t=25m38s
Sebastian Sanchez
>I just care about what their actions are, and that in itself is plenty of reasons to want to get away.
As stated in the American Beauty video, you will likely end up replicating the way you relate to your family with other people as soon as you escape them. It is not your family, it is the roles you are playing toward one another that is oppressing you. It will follow you, as they say, "wherever you go, there you are"
Julian Foster
>It's hard to cut someone out of your life when you feel like they will literally die if you don't keep an eye on them This will sound shitty, but... stop caring. First of all, you can't be personally held responsible for somebody's decision to take their life, unless you're responsible DIRECTLY (i.e. abusive behavior), which you're saying you're not. Second, while not universally applicable and thus you should tread carefully, open threats of suicide are rarely genuine and almost always utilized as a method of manipulation - just think about it, imagine being suicidal, if you really wanted to take your life, wouldn't you rather stay quiet about it so nobody would intervene? I feel really sorry for you OP. I went through a very similar situation and I'm not quite past it, but on a solid road to - I'm moving to my own place in two weeks, and I've got a steady job. Although it's really lonely being without friends, family and a gf.
Isaac Carter
Also as a side note, what the fuck is up with us millenials and shitty controlling parents. I've never heard of a boomer with similar issues before, yet this is like an epidemic.
Cameron Richardson
Boomers left home at 18, millenials want to delay work life by staying in fantasy land. Parents literally can't control you after 18 unless they're your landlord.
Samuel Anderson
Yeah my therapist has walked me through that a lot, it's a slow road to believing it but maybe I'll get there. It's hard, she's abusive, a legitimately terrible person, but I value my family, even though I shouldn't.
I hope you find the best of luck moving forward user.
I mean you don't need all those labels to say "people tend to turn into their parents because they think that's what parents do". It just feels a little reductive. Everyone WANTS to have all the answers but I don't think you'll ever find a nuanced truth at the bottom of some 30 minute /tvr9k/ joint venture. Do what you will but just understand such powerful convictions will always draw skeptics.
To be fair my Mother's Mother is really shitty too, how shitty though depends on how much you believe mom (she is not a reliable source)
Daniel Torres
my mother married my father immediately after college specifically to get away from her mother. They could do this because they both easily got jobs at the same company before graduation. It's not a situation that's nearly as realistic these days.
Bentley Parker
Leave man. you are already dead
Julian Ross
>powerful convictions will always draw skeptics.
Well put. Just wish I'd actually gotten the point across, so you knew what you were disagreeing with
Elijah Morgan
I'm gonna head out, if this sees more use I'll check back in tomorrow but... honestly this went in a direction I wasn't expecting it to. But thanks. The more people I hear say these things the better my resolve can be to act on them.
I'm not disagreeing per se more just saying that by and large movies are designed to show idealized dynamics between characters. I disagree with the clarity to which this dude takes movies and say "yes, this is how the world works". It's enticing to think something so simple and well defined could dictate so much... but I want to think people can be more nuanced that that. Don't let a rule of thumb let you miss the mavericks.
Zachary Young
You've got to leave but you've got to make it smart. You can't not leave in anger burning all your bridges with mom and pop, even if they suck. You must like create a story like "I'm going to [outstate location] where I've heard there are many work opportunities, wish me luck mom" If she goes crazy just "HAHA don't worry mom". If she tries to drag you down with "you're looser wtf are you gonna do there you dumb fuck" you shrug it off "I love you mom, please don't be sad" or some shit like that. If she threatens to anhero, same shit "XD, don't be silly, love ya". So you leave with a big smile "to try to get a job". And then you run out the door and don't look back. A chemistry degree can go a long way out there user, you just have to find the right people. They are out there, and they need your skills, some are good, some are bad, but even a year of wild adventures is worth more than 40 years of the same shit you have now.
>"HAHA don't worry mom" That doesn't work though. And all this talk about wild adventures and shit is cute but also reckless. Regardless of how your parents are, the wide world still isn't an inviting place.
Joshua Gomez
>Parents literally can't control you after 18 unless they're your landlord. Not legally they can't. But they still can emotionally and financially.
