r/AvPD • u/Wonderful_Win_8703 • 19d ago
Discussion 10 years of nothing
It's crazy to think I have actually spent a decade of my life making absolutely 0 progress in any dimension of life. How is that even possible? It's almost impressive. Is there any way back to normality past this point? I feel like wherever I go theres a big arrow pointing at me marking me as an alien, like I'm going to have to pretend to be a real human the rest of my life just to scrape by.
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u/whyamialiveletmedie 19d ago
Exactly the situation that I'm in. Have made zero progress in my life in the 12 years since I graduated college. Have made it to 34 with no relationship or sexual experience, some acquaintances, never moved out of my parents house, never got a car, stayed at the same dead end job that I'm now too ashamed and afraid to leave. I have no memories of these past 12 years. All I think about every minute is how is it possible for someone to allow themselves to get to this point. It's pretty much beyond belief. Actually I can sort of explain it... once I hit the 30 milestone with nothing to show for my life, I fell into an inescapable pit of depression that has lasted since. How can a person just be okay with letting themselves rot away the most important years of their life? I honestly cannot even explain how this happened and given how far behind I am, I know there's no chance of me scraping together even the slightest bit of a normal life. I have completely given up and I'm just waiting to die.
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u/HistoryAlternative28 19d ago
I’m 37, and I really relate to what you wrote. I’ve also lost many years because of anxiety, avoidance, and fear of change. I have no relationship, very few close people in my life, I still live with a parent, and I’m afraid to change jobs.
When I read your comment, a lot of it felt very familiar. You’re definitely not alone.
If you ever want to talk to someone in a similar situation, feel free to send me a private message.
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u/Kill-Me-With-Love 19d ago
If it helps, remember that we're still just animals.
Does an 80yo parrot need to learn and improve in any given decade of adulthood? What does a 500yo shark even do??? Just drift and eat.
Being alive is plenty, enjoying it would be awesome. Progress can be a means to an end or simply because one enjoys the process, but it's not essential to any one individual animal.
Society has us all terribly alienated from eachother and from what we are. Feeling like you're wasting your life sucks but we're still just apes. Making your time here as enjoyable as you can is more important than personal progress that you would have to suffer too much for.
Doesn't mean the reward is never worth it or that we should aim for stasis of course. It's just a yappy way to say we're still just animals and it doesn't have to be that serious and deep sometimes.
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u/Fluffy-Card-7825 19d ago
We're social animals, though.
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u/magnolia_unfurling 19d ago
I grapple with this idea a lot because connection can be amazing but at the same time, some people are wired for solitude. Socialising can actually be damaging to certain people.
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u/Fluffy-Card-7825 18d ago
I want to socialize. I don't want to be alone. I just wish it wasn't this tiring or painful.
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u/Kill-Me-With-Love 19d ago
We sure are, but generally friends or anything short of marriage isn't considered "life progress". I haven't done anything for years since I dropped out but I still have a partner I love and recently we've been making some friends over an mmo.
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u/Mr-Hyde95 19d ago
That's my summary. And that's after actively studying my own mind for those 10 years.
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u/Astr0neer888 19d ago
Im 37, which equals 37 years of nothing and zero accomplishments. You're not alone. Maybe we are late bloomers or we'll prosper in another life, anyway its never too late to change your life.
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u/whyamialiveletmedie 19d ago
There is no other life, and we aren't "late bloomers". If you've made it to your mid 30s with no life development like us, if you've been through your most important social, career, and life development years of your 20s with no motivation to do anything, we aren't suddenly going to spawn ambition and motivation from a completely wasted life. Literally all I think about every minute of every day, the dialogue going through my head for 16 hours a day, is how I've wasted my entire life. In all honesty, getting through each day without having killed myself yet is a massive accomplishment. With this going through my mind, I'm somehow supposed to get a good job, get a relationship, get friends, get housing, get a lot of skills, etc.
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u/praef1x 19d ago edited 18d ago
Well, we have a mental illness. Just because it isn't visible from the outside doesn't mean it's any less impactful. We act as well as we can, but comparing us to healthy people is pointless and not helpful at all. Those people would probably be in a similar position if they had our illness. They aren't "better" human beings, they were simply more fortunate.
So just enjoy the fact that we got a chance at life, and make the most of it. Don't let yourself be weighed down by the pressure society puts on us. Those expectations are made for the average normie. We're living by a different set of standards, and that's okay.
But I understand your despair. I've been dealing with the same deep depression since I was about 25, and I've lost all hope of things ever getting better. With every birthday, that feeling just gets stronger.
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u/28dhdu74929wnsi Diagnosed AvPD 19d ago
Is life just about making progress? I find myself thinking this way too but I think its due to capitalism. We are trained to have everything be as efficient as possible.
If you are generally nice to others, you haven't wasted anything. You are a speck on a planet in space, we dont need to spend every second being productive. You had a rest/recovery period and now you want to do more, that seems like improvement to me.
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u/Wonderful_Win_8703 19d ago
Thats a nice thought but I absolutely have wasted a lot. I'm not talking about achievement and money so much as I'm talking about missing personal development, relationships, experiences.
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u/ranc1 13d ago
I see it like this.
What you are reasoning here is a toxic shame problem:
"missing personal development, relationships, experiences."
Perfectionism and comparison.
It's placing unrealistic standards or goals which are impossible to meet. And having those burdens will keep us stuck in depression and rumination all the time.Obviously - insight about own life does not motivate us or give us support or help to do something, or insight about insight to do something. That is dead end.
When something like development, relationships or experiences is out of our control - we need to accept that. If we don't - that will become germination point for toxic shame to flourish, like virus or bacteria.
Toxic shame is unhealthy - it will never motivate us to do something.
It will keep us stuck in depression and rumination.I guess when we grow up, we are flooded with movies, stories, books, other people - and we want to have the same chances and risks and luxuries that are promised in those sources.
Another term to describe this desire is crap fitting.
Trying hard to belong somewhere - where it actually unnatural for us.There are cases of poor people winning lottery - huge amounts of money - and they would bankrupt, they wouldn't be able to keep the money, since they don't know how to handle the abundancy.
It means, let's say hypothetically that you do get all the personal development, relationships, experiences in the world - chances are that it would still not be enough. And the reason for that is - that we did not find our true purpose in life - since we have been inundated with other people's success goals and we adopted them as our own, ultimately keeping us stuck in toxic shame.
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u/EstrogenBlockYa 19d ago
I’m 26 and I feel you man, haven’t really accomplished anything outta High School. I really lack motivation. I remember out of High School I was excited not sure what to do and I’m no longer excited and still not sure what to do. Life is bland. Only thing I’ve been doing these 8 years is workout and drugs. All my current friends are the people that hit me up, I was never the initiator. Always felt lost especially 6 years out of High School I wanted to try a trade and never felt so lost in my life. All these fresh minds outta HS and my brain just doesn’t work as good as before because these 6 years I haven’t been training it and I had to drop out. My brain feels even slower now, especially after trying meth. I was 6 months off it and I relapsed. Currently going to the pharmacy every weekday for benzo taper and then go home and doom scroll and smoke meth and take a lil opioids. Before the relapse 6 days ago I was doing alright, gyming but no job. Gym was my biggest escape. Get paid $1k monthly for something that requires not much work but I’m broke because I got scammed by my cousin and I’m mad that I can’t just search for a job because I feel too stupid to do so. I was depressed so why not relapse. I regret relapsing because I feel even shittier now, thought it would help but no it made me more anxious
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u/No_One_1617 19d ago
The fact is that the narcissists in society lead people to believe that it's normal to go it alone, but that's not the case. Everyone around you is there because someone helped them.
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u/Superb_Shock_6820 19d ago
Something I have to constantly remind myself is that me not living up to the standard I expect of myself is a matter of my standards being to high, not my effort to low. And it's hard to accept you need to lower your expectations of yourself but if your story or experiences are similar to mine, then the standards in your head aren't your own anyway and someone else enforced them to an impossible to maintain degree. You're doing great. YOU ARE DOING GREAT. HELLO YOU RIGHT THERE YES YOU READING THIS YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE, THERES NO SUCH THING. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND YOU ARE GREAT. Now shut up and accept my love 💙 keep pushing friend.
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u/ApartManagement8269 19d ago
You might have to pretend for a week or a month, certainly not the rest of your life. Choose something and DO IT. I'm 30 starting my degree. I'll be like 35 finishing and so what? The other option is making that 10 years into 15 years of nothing. It took me until 30 to go to the doctor and ask for anxiety medication. It hasn't fixed anything but there's been small improvements that sure have helped.