Tag: Experiences

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A Feeling of Uncertainty

Over the summer I’ve learnt some things about myself. Suddenly out of nowhere I got struck by this fear of the future, being alone and never finding out what to do with my life. It completely drained me of energy, scaring me even more.

This has been quite a terrifying experience for me, and I wanted to write about what my experience felt like, because it seems like everyone goes through this differently. I read tons of articles online about what you could do to get your feet back on the ground, and some of them were helpful, but some just stressed me out even more. The words “take control before it is too late” scared me, and I wish that I had found an article that focused on reassuring you that nothing is dangerous and there’s nothing you can do to make it worse. I couldn’t find one, so I decided to write the post I really could have needed myself because it might help some of you. This is based purely on my own experiences, and remember that everyone is different and even though you don’t relate to everything I’m saying, you are still alright.

I think the first step to get your feet back on the ground is understanding why you are feeling like this. Find the root of the problem. Sit down with a note pad and a pencil and start with thinking: “What is the main problem here?” In my case, it was that over the summer I had spent way too much alone time, and it was driving me crazy. I was bored out of my mind. This made me feel completely numb because I thought that I had lost all hope of what I want to do with my life, which obviously isn’t the case, it’s just the boredom and my own head twisting and turning on irrational thoughts.

When you have found the root of the problem, try thinking of what could be the solution to the problem. This isn’t easy, and there’s often not just one answer that’s going to fix everything, but list all things that you think might be able to help. Sometimes it fixes itself just because time passes. For me, I was just waiting for school to start again so that I would have something to do so I wasn’t so bored. That’s a thing that I couldn’t do anything with until school started. But in the meantime, I did things like going outside and faking myself into thinking I was okay. These are things that have been proven to work for me every time.

“But what if they won’t work for me?” you might be thinking. That leads me to talking about “what ifs”. During these phases where I feel like everything is uncertain (anxiety is a stigmatized word, so I prefer to call it a feeling of uncertainty.) I get lots and lots of what ifs. The biggest one is always: “What if I don’t ever get better?” which of course is completely and utterly irrational, because you will always find some way to get better. Maybe not today, or tomorrow or in a week, but it always finds a way to fix itself. If you’re like me, you’re worried that if you think about it, you’re gonna make it worse. But the truth is that your head does whatever it wants at times, and sometimes you just gotta let it blow over without actually doing anything.

Remember that feeling like this is totally okay, and you’re not in any real danger. A lot of people have it this way, but everyone experiences this differently. If you can’t relate to everything that I’ve written, remember that you’re just experiencing this differently, and you will still be okay.

 

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Short term happy or long term happy?

Lately I’ve been really confused about which people make me happy. Because a lot of people make me happy, but different kinds of happy. Let me explain. I think the best way to explain this is to call the different types of happy “short term happy” and “long term happy”. I’ll try to stop saying happy now.

As I’m only 18 years old, I’m still trying to figure out myself, what I’m supposed to do with my life and which people I should surround myself with. I’m in high school so the main source of people I know that are my age are in my class. I still haven’t figured out my place amongst all those people in my class, even though I’ve known them all for almost two years now. Everyone seem to have found their people and friend squads but I have not. I wouldn’t say I don’t have any friends in class, because I do have people to talk to but that really depends on how you would define “friend”. I consider them all just classmates to be completely honest. I know some of them better than others, but I feel like I don’t know them well enough to call them friends. I also only see them at school, I never hang out with any of them on weekends or holidays. Considering I’m not 100% myself around them because I don’t feel safe around them, they can’t really be called friends in my opinion, because you shouldn’t feel insecure and not like yourself around your friends.

But here’s the weird thing. Sometimes I do feel really comfortable around them and it feels a bit like they are my friends. This makes me happy, but I think it’s more about being caught up in the moment than feeling genuinely happy. I would like to call this the “short term happy feeling”, catchy name, I know. These moments when I get this feeling, I do feel happy, but only for a short period of time. A few hours tops. It’s that kind of feeling you get when you impress someone you really want to impress or when someone you look up to says they’re proud of you. Maybe this is just that feeling teens get when they do something that gets accepted and praised by the cool kids, who knows. Or maybe it’s just my fragile personality that gets influenced by what a teen is supposed to be like in this high school environment.

I’ve just had a break from school for over a week, which means away from my classmates, away from the school environment and I’ve realised I’ve been away from the “short term happy feeling” too. Does that mean that when I get that feeling I’m just trying to impress people by being a fake version of myself? During this break I’ve visited tons of family, which is the people I don’t have to show off for and don’t have to impress. I’m just existing and communicating with nearly no effort. I’m not thinking about “I should say this because that makes me sound cool” or “No, don’t talk about that you’ll seem like a loser”. I’m quite relaxed. This is why I’d like to call it “long term happy”. Does this mean I am being myself? I’ve been happy for this entire week I’ve been on break, not just for small moments that last a few hours.

I think it all boils down to that we get influenced by whatever people we surround ourselves with and if that’s people we are insecure about and try to impress, we won’t feel genuinely happy. You’ll just feel happy for a short time if you do something that gets accepted, but you will be 100 times more insecure and blame yourself if you feel like you fuck it all up. If you truly are comfortable with someone, you won’t constantly feel scared about saying something wrong. You’ll just feel relaxed and not worry about sounding like a rambling idiot going on and on about different types of happiness.

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I don’t know what to do.

I’m having one of those emotional nights and I just felt like writing about something that I’m thinking about quite a lot. Actually quite a lot is an understatement. I think about this 24/7. I’ve had a conversation in my head discussing: “Is this stupid? Am I weird for feeling like this?” and I figured that the best thing to do would be to write it all down instead of random thoughts just flowing around in my head, which some of them doesn’t even make sense. I feel like I’m making a much bigger deal out of this than what it actually is. I feel like this subject has a rumour for being such a happy, positive thing and it’s the most amazing thing that could ever happen to you in your life. Your family and friends are suddenly way more interested in knowing everything about you when you are in this state of mind.

“Can you just stop rambling and get to the point and tell us what you’re talking about.” I can hear you say inside my head. Okay, okay I’m sorry. I’m talking about when you start crushing on someone. There is just something about that one specific person that fascinates you. And while this might be exciting and the best thing ever for some people because they’re not an insecure weirdo talking about their problems to a computer screen (and whoever it might reach), I’m not a fan of your head being all messed up 24/7, your body being all shaky, the feeling of having a heart attack when you see them, and the impossible task of getting this person to leave your damn thoughts.

Sure, it’s nice to feel this way if you are confident and certain that the other person feels the same, but unfortunately for me, that is not the case. In the last year I have had 2 people who I’ve liked a lot. I still like the second person. Let’s say that I have been crushing on them, to use that term. And no, do not say “Awww!” to this. Because it’s not cute, it feels like it’s eating me alive. Because I’m a socially awkward teenage girl who is mostly silent, doesn’t have any best friends or a squad in class and is scared to talk to people most of the time, this is not a fun experience. I already have a hard time getting to know people. And being 10 times more intimidated by a person you desperately want to get to know, is not a good feeling.

I’m still trying to find out what I’m supposed to do in this situation. Because honestly, I have no fucking clue. I desperately want to get to know this person, but I don’t know how, and the last time I tried to tell someone about it I ended up feeling the most anxious I had been in a while because someone suddenly knew, and they reacted in a way that’s similar to what I said earlier.

If you’ve actually read this far about me rambling about my problems, thank you so much.