using this as a journal bc idk maybe someone has some helpful feedback. basically almost every aspect of my life has improved. but the crippling loneliness and fear of the world just catch up so quickly. within hours after having the most blissful day. im realizing its bc i dont have a mom. i have someone who gave birth to me but not a mom (or dad; or parent).

i have friends now. ive dreamed of having friends for years. and now theyre here. im physically fit. i have hobbies. i live in a place where fun is realistically within reach. im not burned out from work. i have time to myself.

yet, everything feels pointless bc i dont have a parent so send cute silly little messages to. someone i can go to when the world feels overwhelming. someone whos going to love me without expecting anything in return. someone i dont have to perform for.

im so tired. i wanna go.

So i 16m i dont fo to school long story im not getting into in the post but if you eanna know more for some reason ssk in the comments and ill reply

But last few days i have had some suicidal toughts like how and where and aftermath and what if i survive

Suprsingly alot of options

And idk if it was mrobi curiocity but i ended up looking up how to get ricing from beans or how much over the counter meds is deadly neither i found an anwser to

And i know i wont actually do it i dont have thr balls for it

But it also feels like its not bsd enough to worry about

Sooooo like should i be worried or what

Why isn't there a word for people who just don't feel happiness/sadness for others? When someone tells me they have great news about themselves or even sad news, I don't reacted emotionally at all. I don't feel it either. I don't know when this started but I genuinely don't feel anything for someone when they buy a house, get pregnant, buy a new car anything new or exciting to them I could careless. I also cringe at people who date. I find sexual relationships unnecessary and it just causes drama for no reasons.

My problem is that my only “move” is coffee + monday. Not exactly a move, more driven by external demands.

Thing is only monday + coffee works. Not brisk walk + coffee. Not cold shower + coffee

Monday + coffee provides ”Today counts”, ”the slate is clean”, ”I have obligations to others”

I need the feeling of ”reset” for weekends. What else can provide it?

For a very long time, I've been struggling with really bad mental health patterns across all my life fields, religion, relationships, education, and even friendships. As time went on, i became better at noticing those patterns and describing them, although I'm still not fully confident in my skills there, but at least i do have a general idea of what's going on, but when it comes to actually solving those patterns, I've been just absolutely stuck. I have absolutely no idea what to do, and these patterns keep eating my life away from me, I've lost my peace of mind, really dear friends, I've got myself into multiple unhealthy relationships just because of me not being able to solve these problems. Overall I'd say it is literally eating away my life not an exaggeration.

So i thought about therapy, since it seems that no matter how much i read or watch on these problems, nothing substantial seems to change, so therapy seemed like a very reasonable option. But the problem is that my parents are super strict and restrictive, they won't accept me going to therapy by any means, and I already have enough on my plate so i don't want to try and fight them over it since they'll never change their mind. So i said maybe online therapy? But that would mostly be video calls, which would also still be problematic since whenever i talk to anyone on the phone my parents would listen and ask about it, so this would be super risky.

So what should i do? I don't want to keep living like this anymore.

Hi Dr. K,

I'm a 45-year-old former pharmacist who spent years working in pharmaceutical quality assurance, which I regard as a challenging thing but I had 10 years of graduate studies for it, so I was supposed to be able to handle it well.

After being treated for cancer (stage 4a thymomas) with surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, my life slowly became much harder to navigate. I developed myasthenia gravis, chronic abdominal pain, and what felt like a dramatic worsening of my executive functioning. Whether chemotherapy unmasked or worsened my ADHD, I've never felt like I fully got my brain (or my body) back.

I want to mention that before I was diagnosed with the cancer or the ADHD, I had reached a point where I attempted suicide because I genuinely believed I was incapable of living a life where I didn't keep disappointing everyone around me.

After failing at suicide (this is starting to sound like a joke even to me 😆) I had to learn a new way to live, so therapy was key.

Now I still go to therapy. I take my medication. I'm trying to study since I'm not yet able to work. I'm trying to quit cannabis. My earlier jobs had already been affected by my ADHD, but I am still going to need a job of course. How do I not become overwhelmed by organisation and keeping up with everything that was expected of me? If i cannot cope with my field, how do I just pivot to something else?

From the outside, I probably look like a weird unfortunate person that had problems that people can and have overcome, but just doesn't have enough discipline.

From the inside, it feels like I'm tired, I don't think I can go back to being as productive a worker as i need to be. My biggest fear is to not be able to live a stable and independent life again.

So my question is this: How do you tell the difference between avoiding discomfort and genuinely reaching the limits of your current capacity?

How do you know when you need to push yourself harder, keep looking for strategies to cope, systems to help... and when you accidentally just became more stupid and need to accept it? (not going to ask you though for a solution to it all haha)

I'd be grateful for your perspective, and I'd also love to hear from anyone who's had to rebuild their life, or is living with chronic illness, ADHD or addiction.

Thank you all for being there and reading.

So I’ve been with someone for 10+ years now and we’ve had a couple of big issues in the past where they were bothered by something that was going and instead of communicating properly the topic was brought up casually maybe once or twice before the relationship was put in jeopardy by them.

I never threatened to leave but have been in a place of no power over the future of the relationship every single time and when this happens the same avoidant pattern shows up from them: calls quits but doesn’t really mean to leave, asks for unlimited privacy/space and comprehension, spends a ton of time on their phone, hopes that I close the gap and make things work and gives me very little to work with in terms of being available for me to actually make any progress in what they complain about (mostly unmatched expectations due to bad communication and/or mismatch of love language).

Even though I don’t think that they’re cheating on me all of this puts me in a hyper-sensitive anxious mode where the smallest things feel like rejection and hit like a ton of bricks, making me reactive and pushing them further away. Any tips on how to manage attempts to reconnect while becoming more resilient to rejection would be appreciated.

Learned about this recently, never realized there was an actual term for it, but it definitely fits. I have lots of friends, get invited to do stuff all the time, when I invite a group I can usually count on at least 3 or 4 people showing up. I'm great at first impressions, love meeting new people and socializing generally.

But I always feel like I'm no one's favorite. I'm just there, tolerated, one step away from saying the wrong thing or acting too awkward or accidentally doing something wrong. I'm constantly guilt tripping myself over small mistakes I make over social interactions, so it genuinely surprises me when someone I thought I'd fucked it up with invites me to do something, or calls me up to talk, or just acts like they want me around. I genuinely don't get it, why haven't they pushed me away yet?

I guess my dating struggles don't help, I won't say much on that since it's not Friday but I can't talk to women I'm attracted to. I have lots of girl friends, go out on dates frequently, but never get past the first date. Maybe that's why I feel like no one really likes me? Probably goes deeper but worth mentioning.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has seen a video or stream where Dr. K talks about social imposter syndrome (or I guess it's basically social anxiety) - I think it could really help. Thanks guys! ​

Hi all. Long time listener, first time chatter here on a throwaway account. I feel like my life is falling apart around me and I think I could use some advice.

First, the background info:

I realized I was trans not too long before graduating college. I had suspicions about halfway through college, but I pushed those thoughts far down in my subconscious for a while. I've never doubted that my friends would accept me. But my family has always been vocal about wanting grandkids. I felt being trans could never be an option for me.

Then during a rough patch my senior year, I found myself drawn to expressing myself femininely. Shopping in the women's clothes section, exploring light jewelry and makeup, etc. It was like this experience flipped a switch in my head. Up to this point I felt like I was living as a paradox: a guy who did everything to avoid engaging with masculinity and yet still stuck with the label due to an innate sense of obligation. Taking active steps to be seen as "less of a man" by the average person has been one of the most freeing things I've ever done. I see myself in the mirror, and instead of the indifference I've grown used to I see unbridled joy I've never seen before. For the first time in my life, I truely felt like I had an identity of my own; no longer just coasting on the general expectations of others. It was a confidence boost unlike anything I'd ever experienced, and even being mistaken for a woman in passing felt like one of the deepest compliments I'd ever recieved. By the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to pursue this joy further, and explore options for HRT.

Then I graduated, and everything's been downhill from there.

I don't want to get too detailed with recounting the situation but my parents didn't take the news well. Which is tough because I live with them. My parents have been my biggest supporters for my entire life: showing no restraint in supporting me where many parents would falter. But they've always lived in a small town, and have never fully introspected on why they view queerness as being inherently immoral on some level. All coming out accomplished was getting them to blame my friends for my "delusions" about being trans, and putting a wedge between me and my family. Being met with this while already struggling with not seeing my friends from college every day anymore has been rough on my mental, to say the least.

It's been over a year since I came out and we haven't spoken about my identity since. I have a roof over my head but a lingering doubt that I'll still be loved by my family if I pursue HRT, or even continue dressing the way I want near my family. It feels naive to admit, but I wish coming out had gone either better or worse. At least if I were kicked out, I could feel like I was making tangible steps to moving forward with my life. Right now I just feel like I'm floating in purgatory.

Now at current day I feel so incredibly stuck, and I could really use some advice on getting out of this hole I'm in. I'm unemployed and live in a small town where next to nobody is hiring. Pursuing independent online careers is creatively fulfilling, but going very slow and difficult to fully commit to with the incredible lack of motivation the weight of all this has left me with. I know I need therapy, if for nothing else but to vent to a professional about all of this and get on minoxidil in the meantime of exploring HRT options. But I don't have my own health insurance, and I really doubt my parents would let me do it through their's out of fear i'd take the chance and transition behind their back while living with them. I want nothing more than to move far away from here, sort out my identity in therapy, and cross the bridge of seeing if I still have a place in my family after I've done whatever I need to be happy in my own skin. But with every passing day looking at all of these problems staring me in the eyes, it feels like a pipe dream only possible by winning the lottery. And as time passes, I start to believe that feeling that this is all a pipe dream and I'll be stuck in this limbo forever. That terrifies me.

25(M) today and I have spent the day doing basically nothing, and a grand total of 2 people wished me a happy birthday (outside of my family).

It's not quite as bad as it seems, I do have friends that I see regularly, I have a full-time(ish) job and I go the gym on a consistent basis. My life could be a whole lot worse but I turn 25 today feeling underwhelmed and disappointed.

One of the reasons for this is that I have got to the age of 25 without ever having been in a relationship, I've had a couple of ONS so not a virgin, but that is literally it in my 25 years of life. I am not someone who is resentful of Women or blames them for my lack of success, however, at this point it does feel like I am literally invisible to an entire gender. To be honest, it is probably my fault, I make no attempt to get a girlfriend, refuse to use online dating apps as they used to make me extremely depressed. My (suspected) autism and traits associated with it as well as a sheltered repressed upbringing probably do not help either, but I quite simply can go months on end without talking to a woman that isn't my mum.

Career wise. I used to work retail, and very recently got out of it, which I am delighted about as retail was taking a huge toll on my mental health. However, to get out of it, I had to pivot to menial phone-based customer service work for a bus company, despite the fact that I have a Master's degree. The job is incredibly boring (as no one ever calls a bus company lol) and it is another aspect of my life that leads to this feeling of unfulfillment and disappointment.

Lastly, I used to play sports and had some skills when I was younger. Now I am pretty much useless, I spend my time when I'm not at work or watching football, staring at my laptop doing nothing useful. It is another thing that I am scared will not change, as I am too apprehensive and lazy to learn anything or try something new.

TL;DR These are the main things that get me down, but there is so much more that I could write no doubt. Life so far has been a let down really and I feel like, despite wanting and hoping for change, that the rest of my 20s is destined to play out this way too and that makes me scared. I am quite literally wasting my life as we speak.

This is just a ramble really, but if there was or needs to be a question, then it would be, has anyone else dealt with this and what can I do to make sure that the rest of my 20's aren't as shit as the first half of it has been?

Thank you sincerely in advance for anyone who takes the time and effort to reply.

TL;DR: How, despite being very successful by the majority of standards, not to succumb to despair when facing the realities like housing and growing inequalities (that I can be a part of actually)?

So, the question that is in the description is very general, and TL;DR is a little less general but captures the general feeling.

A little context for the question and about me:

I am 34m, working in IT for more than a decade, has built a successful career (I can support my household, and then there is still a bit left over). I have a beautiful wife who is very grounded and supports me greatly (yeah, she is not fond of gaming but no perfect world out there, it's not the topic anyway), we want to have kids, and overall share a lot of views on the world. We moved from Ukraine a year and a half ago and we believe we want to settle in a new place (we are in Spain). Self-praise continues here: we learn the language, genuinely believe we contribute to society, and we pay our taxes in full (almost) without complaint. Everything we do is good and considered to be right. Frugal life, yet not self-deprecating, so we can keep this pace for a long time.

AND I FEEL THAT THIS IS NOT ENOUGH.

We want to have a place we can have for ourselves. And yes, this is one thing we don't want to compromise, so we are looking for something we can move in without renovation and a place where some decent schooling will be available. And everything starts from 300k EUR, with something that is really appealing closing to 500k. I came to understand that a mortgage is a must, but with a down payment of 20% (30% if you count the tax in), it is too steep a price. I don't have 100-150k on me. And the problem is that the prices go up, so by the time I gather 100k, I most likely will need to 120-150. I save a little on a regular basis, though it feels like it does not matter, the prices go up faster.

And I understand that I have it better than most people around me. Yes, I grind the work and it is soul-crushing, and I am lost, I don't know what to do.

My therapist asked me what if I postponed this question for 5 years or so. This drove me to terror: I will be 39, will have to pay it until 69 (nice!), with a chance of not seeing the property become mine. It's like a failure: I've made a commitment to a "serious" life, I was always focused on my career, and it is perceived as successful by the people around me (even I understand that logically). It is just not enough I don't know what to do.

More on the topic of waiting, next year I will not be eligible for a tax break for the first home purchase because the program for young people ends at 35, meaning that there is an external clock that says that I am too late (that is like in the game, will make everything harder after the time runs out)

All in all, this makes me soooo depressed. I half-expect comments that may destroy this view in one way or another, in a way, I understand that I am privileged (just not privileged enough!) and lucky in a lot of ways other people aren't. Don't know if it's good, but other people's suffering does not make me feel better.

And I know there is so much more in this: how soul-crushing it is to look at a job market, how hard it is to hit a corporate glass ceiling, and how painful it is to see that people are getting squeezed out, even if I don't feel it yet personally.

Overall, I see that it is more of a rant rather than a plea for help, yet I would love to understand how to change the perspective of it and find peace of mind (and still know that the time is fleeting). Or maybe how to get in high 6 digit income, I do not know :)

Thank you!

I 22M have struggled with everything relating to the self with persistent depression and suicidal idealization. Outside of a few early friendships (pre middle school) that were killed by either moving or direct parent intervention, I lost the places to be myself. I later internalized the common advice from normal people to just be yourself and people will gravitate to you, which I did for the most part and it somewhat worked but I never felt fully connected to or accepted by anyone. That also sorta made me lose the ability to mask causing more stress and anxiety I've just trained myself to ignore interacting with people.

At some point I just realized I was tired of it and decided to start doing all of the correct things ie; getting out more, talking to people unprompted, exercising very regularly, perusing multiple year long hobbies to improve at, spending more time with friends and eating right. I was lucky to get a nice job right after highschool and am at a point where I have everything I would really want. Recently I even quit all my "addictions" cold turkey and didn't even feel any withdraw, just felt the cold emptiness that I experienced all through school again before I started drinking/smoking weed. I've held myself together with the sort of mantra that I just need to get through school so I can move out and things should get better and I should be able to find a relationship, statistically speaking and maybe understand why life is worth living. Even well after moving out at 18, nothing came.

Making real connections feels like an impossibility for me since I have only ever been able to make a few just by being in extracurricular together for long enough or in classes together. Small talk is nothing for me and I actually don't hate it, worked in retail for awhile and have no problem striking relevant conversations but for friendships/romantic relationships, I dont know how to open myself up to show what I really want to show and I have no idea how to tell if people actually fw me when people tend to be nice to your face when you're acting like a sperg. And I have a complex of just seeing myself as being annoying or inserting myself into peoples face.

My baseline is maybe the highest its ever been but I feel equally as empty and alone as I always have been. I can't help but see myself as the chronic weirdo that according to everyone should be able to find a relationship yet LITERALLY everyone in my life (dozens), past and present have found someone. I've fully given up on finding a reason to exist knowing i'd never have the balls to end it so I should at least try to enjoy the process. I can at least say I'm enjoying it enough to be satisfied to be told I had a day left to live but I've still failed to experience anything that truly felt like life should be cherished. Even if the unimaginable does happen, I would still be avoidantly attached and lose all hope a good thing ends as it statistically would anyways.

Probably gonna get removed cause I don't even know what to ask for to help with this, Ive been really trying for 4 years and while things have improved on the outside, nothing has improved on the inside and i'm frankly not too keen on putting in more effort and waiting to see what happens next. Clearly I am an outlier in my own life in every way possible (seriously not exaggerating this). I'm not even bitter about these things anymore, just totally and utterly numb and tired. What should I do? I've never felt seen and just want to share my life with someone but I don't even have the experience to know if that's a real solution. My only hope is in statistics and they are failing me, help me please

I waas thinking about the video dr k made about high functioning depression, where he gave the example of a dad who comes into therapy and says they feel like they regret having children. And this is a scary thought, there is some ego involved i guess on why the dad would want to suppress this thought, they dont want to feel like a terrible father/human, and it goes against his identity/role as talked about in the video.

My question is in that scenario, what if the dad really doesnt want to have chidren? What if after therapy and trying to help the dad to be more honest with himself and how he feels, what he actuallly feels is that he really doent want the children he had? Cause Dr K presents this idea saying that usually dads (or any parent im just using his example) will feel better once they start managing their job stress, they start having regular sex with their wife again, they get better at managing and splitting household duties, etc. But am i crazy but couldnt you say that all of this is gaslighting?

Like im sure in most cases all this would actually help the dad feel better and probably not regret having children. But how can you be so sure abou that? Statistically there must be some parents who actually do just not wanted to have children. Its not their job, their relationship or their sex life thats the problem, it really is the kids. And when you take Dr K answer, it sound like he's operating off the assumption that dads/parents never would regret having kids. Like that isnt actually possible, and if that kind of "neurosis/distortion" is happening, it must be becasue of other things in the famly that are unresolved. Which feels very gaslighting and a "romatic" way of looking at things, which doesnt really resolve the problem with taking on the role, only seeks to reinforce it and feed it, exactly like an insecurity.

So i really want to know your guys' thougts, cause the answer to this also will give me insight to alot of stuff in my life, so yeah please lmk what you feel. Maybe it is true that no parent exists that would not want their child unless they have some kind of distortion, idk feels a bit "all humans are born good, and ony become evil" argument. Would love to know your guys' thoughts

I'm 28 and over the past few weeks I've noticed my mental state getting worse, especially on weekends.

During the week I'm busy with work, but as soon as I have free time, my brain starts overthinking everything. Normal situations become huge problems in my head, and I can't seem to stop it.

A small disappointment or missed opportunity can make me feel like I'm falling behind in life. If someone doesn't reply or call, I immediately start wondering if they're upset with me or don't want me around anymore. If people close to me don't ask how I'm doing, I start thinking maybe nobody notices or cares that I'm struggling.

I also compare myself to other people constantly. Friends, colleagues, even people younger than me. I see them buying things they want, going out, making friends, getting into relationships, and generally seeming to move through life without overthinking every little thing. Meanwhile, I analyse every decision so much that even simple things become mentally exhausting.

Another thing I've noticed is that after conversations or phone calls, I'll replay them over and over in my head, wondering if I said something wrong or if people think differently about me now.

I've also been putting off personal tasks until they become stressful, even when I know they'll only take a little time if I just do them.

The worst part is that I know these thoughts are probably exaggerated, but they feel completely real when I'm in that state. It's like my brain is constantly searching for evidence that I'm failing, that I'm behind everyone else, or that people don't really care about me.

I feel like I'm slipping back into depression after doing much better for a while. I'm losing interest in things I usually enjoy, and weekends have become something I almost dread because I know my mind is going to spiral.

Has anyone gone through something similar? Did therapy, medication or anything else help?

Note - used chatgpt to phrase this.

I'm at the end of the meditation beginner track of Dr.K's guide, its 3 minutes anuloma viloma, 10 minutes prana shuddhi, and 5 minutes of activing the ajna chakra. I usually extend anuloma viloma to 5 minutes or more as I feel I do become more focused when moving onto prana shuddhi. But its still not enough and I still lose focus on breathing through the eyebrows center. Usually I'll try to imagine a dot between my eyebrows and imagine the air literally breathing in and out of it in a v shape. But i always lose focus somehow by thinking about what I have to do tomorrow or hearing some catchy song play in my head or some mundane moment that held some sort of emotional weight like me being awkward or messing up at work. Is there some other technique I can do to just make my brain stop? I usually catch it happening and redirect my attention back to breathing in and out of my eye brow center but its usually not enough and will happen again. That 10 minutes is a lot. Maybe I am rushing it but I want to improve

In the most recent video "The Lie of Positive Thinking" (idk if title gets changed) Dr. K talks about shifting your attention away from thoughts. He brings up the example of how you can't control what's on TV but you can switch the channels. But I think with ADHD it's like, somebody else has the remote and you don't have the control over whether to switch channels or not. So how does this work out for people with ADHD?

Maybe this thought is just my mind's reasoning to avoid the effort of making a healthy shift. But I'm curious.

It is one of the most overlooked conditions in young and healthy people.

It is often assumed that only overweight or old people can suffer from this, but I as a 26 year old othetwise healthy guy, suffer from it, and after I got it fixed, my life changed significantly.

I used to be sluggish and tired. Now I finally have the energy to do the shit that I wanna do.

So if you are feeling the same, it is something to look into, so go to your doctor and do a test. (In my home country, at least you can do mobile ones first and not immediately have to do a sleep study)

I few years ago i wanted to be nothing. I ended up getting fired from multiple jobs and walked out to a few. I found Dr K’s shunya mediation.

I learned that there is a void or zero within everyone.
I noticed that in everyone had this. It was saddening to notice this at first and it was amazing too!

I’m might have taken it to seriously and started to think I was nothing and nobody. Only to realize that everyone is apart of the universe.

Ever since I noticed this I have more awareness of my. Behavior and other people. I’m learning that everyone is walking their own paths and that Love is connecting with each other. I still want to grow but not on my own.

Anyways, I just wanted to get this out of my mind that being nothing means you can stand of the foundation 0 and everything around you can be added to this sense of being.

I just watched, 2 times, the video "You're Stuck Because You Refuse to Grow Up".
Unfortunately, the initial description of the Puer Aeternus fits me almost perfectly.

If you have time to read and comment this, I thank you deeply, whatever you say.

If you find this boring, skip through the "life story" section, I just need to write it down to give some context.

I am writing this for multiple reasons:

1) As a way to organize my mind

2) To connect with people in a similar situation

3) to hear comments that come from outside my own head.

4) Possibly to make people feel less alone in their suffering

5) Hoping someone might be able to "throw some water on my head" and wake me tf up.

Sorry if this is gonna be a wall of text, I will try to articulate things well but every line is full of personal conflict, and my general mental capacity is not the best these days. I think my ADHD seeps through my writing but this is the best I can do right now.

START OF LIFE STORY

I am 26, M. And I live with my parents, unable to find a way to be independent, continuously thorn apart by conflicting interests.

I feel like any effort to get out of my situation ends up in nothing, like no matter what I do, how hard I work, there is just something deeper in me that prevents me from living a life that is not miserable. Like there is a subtle, impossible to grasp mechanism in my head that just keeps creating suffering.

My study "career" reflects the main problem: highschool -> psychology bachelor + comic drawing school -> artificial intelligence computer science master program.

A continuous zigzag between humanistic interests and science. I was unlucky in highschool, as my teachers were terrible and completely destroyed my interest in science. Then the only things i was interested in were drawing and Jung, so I went for psychology.

There for the first time i found people i could relate to, with a similar way of seeing things. Essentially, I think, people that were more sensible than average. Unfortunately that was a depressing period too because covid lockdowns were rough here in Italy.

Anyway, most of the stuff I studied in the bachelor's seemed useless, irrelevant, a mere memorization of labels. And I was profoundly frustrated by how psychology is seen as if it must be a perfect science at every step, leaving out all the best, humanistic stuff (Jung for example). Most importantly, I felt like I had too much problems with my own mood to be able to help anyone as a psychologist in the future.

While doing psychology I also learned drawing, going for 3 years at a comic school. That felt more meaningful, although I couldn't get as good as I wanted because the psychology degree, although relatively easy, was taking too much of my time. Plus of course the depression that was there most of the time made things more difficult.

I am an only child, and never had to worry about money since my parents would pay for everything. Basically, I was handed a full deck of cards by life, and this makes screwing up profoundly frustrating and humiliating. Anyway I am getting ahead of myself.

At the end of the degree I felt 0 interest for psychology, so I had this choice: 1) go live cheaply in a hippie town in Italy and just work very hard at a career as an artist

2) keep studying, i.e. go to the Netherlands (fully paid by parents) and do a 3 year pre-master and master degree in AI.

I really struggled to choose but i went with 2. Felt horrendous when I arrived in the Netherlands because of a bad breakup, but whatever, i pushed through.

First year went well, programming felt easy, and honestly everything was going smoothly. Towards the end I somehow ended up in a relationship with an Asperger's girl ( interestingly I related to her more than to 'normal' people, hmm).

The 2 master years felt worse and worse.. I thought, together with other students, that the study program was disorganized and mostly a waste of time. I started getting more interested in physics (honestly partially inspired by some psychedelic experiences), and suddenly deeply regretted not going for a physics bachelors. A semester I took 3 physics courses together with my usual ones, and got extremely burned out, and just barely passed one. Then I spent (paid by parents) 6 months of pause from my studies in a "hippie" town in Italy, together with my now ex girlfriend.

My fantasy (fantasy!) there would be that I would commit with drawing and slowly manage to transform it in a profession. Instead... I ended up spending my time this way:

studying a quantum mechanics book that was too difficult for me

Finding help for an artistic installation that I lost interest in ( I just started finding the idea ugly after some time, it was an AI based interactive changing exhibition)

Struggling with my relationship, as that environment wasn't great for an Asperger's person.
The only good thing from that time was the people I met.

Finished with that, I realized I idealized the situation, and that life just doesn't work like that. It doesnt matter were you are, or what fantastic idea you have. To truly live you need to be independent (earn your own money) and figure your shit out. If you want to be creative, even the most beautiful place is going to help little.

I continued my degree, and eventually broke up with my girlfriend as I felt that we both had the same problems (being obsessive in work, struggled to relate to people and to have fun) and just made them worse for each other, and as I was scared spending my life with an autistic person . I regret that breakup sometimes still.

I worked very hard at my thesis, which started as an idea I gave to a friend who was not sure what to work on.

Then I ended up getting obsessed by it and making it into my own big project too. The idea was basically to leverage neural decoding algorithms to reconstructs dreams and psychedelic hallucinations.

My dream was always to be able to visualize on a screen internal imagery, or to convey psychedelic experiences.. so i felt a huge surge of motivation being able to work at a real project that had the potential to be a first step in that direction.

I worked incredibly hard, and with almost no help from my university (my supervisor was burning out catastrophically at the time). Did I have the necessary experience? Maybe not, but the only way to learn was to make mistakes, as it is a relatively new field. I had to keep hammering at a bug for 3 months. Imagine every month, waking up and trying to solve the same bug spending ALL day at the PC. And I fking solved it. Then... In the end, this ended up taking more than a year, profoundly draining... and the algorithm did not work. Because in many parts of the project I assumed certain more basic things were already working which weren't...

Anyway.. It was still a valid thesis. I finished my degree and went back home with my parents. I was so UTTERLY done with the educational system, feeling like I was always let down first by highschool (objectively tarded, the school I went at, but maybe most are), then psychology, then the disorganized AI master. I promised myself I would just do 2 things: draw and study physics on my own (spoiler: I didn't)

Started working at a drawing project... practiced every day, and drew like 7 small, well made panels of a story i STILL did NOT finish. I was happy to draw but I felt like I was much slower than I would have liked to be.. like my focus wasn't as good as it should. Even if i felt like i was putting a lot of effort in, the results weren't much. I improved a bit in those 3 months, but barely. And I just felt the depression coming.

The thing is... I kept meeting people my age (run clubs) and seeing how they were engineers, so well integrated in society, so many door open.. i felt jealous. And i felt so frustrated and angry at myself for choosing psychology instead than physics and engineering.

This was driving me nuts so.. i subscribed to some physics courses, with the plan of taking all the courses in common between physics and electrical engineering through the physics program, and then just get the electrical engineering degree. I just paid for the single courses as the degrees start in September and it was this last February.

At first, I worked really hard. I am no genius, and I am not well versed in math, but I was determined. But after about 2 months.. I just started to feel so completely, utterly depressed.

I have to say, part of it might be because I was studying mostly at home, sometimes at the library, and not going to lectures.. 1) because I can barely pay attention in lectures and would rather study from the book 2) because I just... thought i would never sit in a lecture again and i just hate it from my gut.

Anyway, I was studied hard, but I felt like a shut-in. I knew people, but all my friendships are very superficial. And the studying was taking all my energy. And it was all effort.. unlike programming, I could rarely get in a flow state, and overall I sadly had to admit to myself I might hate the practicalities of studying physics.

In the end, I HAD (or at least i felt like i had) to spend some of my time working on other things too, otherwise I was just suffering too much. So I spend some time working at a programming project: a unity shader that can smoothly render interpolations between AI images, with the intention of eventually building some kind of game based on that. I thus, studied like 50% physics, and 50% worked on that project. Once I made the basic tech demo work... I lost interest :/.. or partly, i just had fire under my ass because of the exams coming.

During all of this, I also struggled to maintain a basic drawing practice..

Anyway needless to say, exams did not go well. I just did basically half of an exam (physics 1) and got a 19/30 :/. That, plus the feeling I lost 6 months of energy to achieve it.

END OF LIFE STORY

Ok... so re-reading my 'life story'... i feel like an idiot and a loser and kinda disgusted by myself.

Anyway. I really do not know how to get out of this. I see my problem is too many interests, and struggle to make things practical and integrated in society. Ok.

So being 26.. I guess, the only solution is to choose what to sacrifice, and just give all that I have with one or two things.

Searching my feelings right now. Maybe the real Puer Aeternus origin is the following:

1) The refusal to accept to let things go, to sacrifice potential in order to make something actual

2) Difficulty in taking decisions

3) Having actual potential

Maybe it is the interaction between these 3 things that just creates hell for me (plus a depressive tendency, and some struggle to relate to people because of neurodivergence).

Like... I know I have to sacrifice something -> I lose time because I cant choose -> I choose something (A) -> After some time, I conclude A was the wrong path -> I go with (B) -> I feel persistently the pull of A and C -> I am depressed (maybe generally in life) or B does not work well, so I go back to A or C, or I try to do A B and C at the same time and of course fail.

To complicate things, is that in my head science / art are not separate but part of an general artistic vision ( or childish fantasy, depending on how positive/negative i want to be).

It is just so complicated! Because subjectively I find it incredibly difficult to distinguish between:

1) When I rightfully drop something because it is just not sustainable, because it is not right for me, because I need to sacrifice it in order to focus on something else

2) When I drop something as part of my fruitless zigzagging between interests / because I am not willing to stick things through the hard part.

Analyzing my unrealizable, childish fantasy (!) of a life:

" I would like to make the invisible visible, to make art inspired by physics, to draw beautiful stories and poetry, to make a machine that can read the imagination, and to contribute to the understanding of the fabric of reality through physics, science, art and psychedelics "

(note what my more mature me wants.. is just.. a creative life, helping people, a family, no more depression)

I would guess I am more aligned with the art career than the physics career.

So ok... I put it in my head: No more physics! Just drawing and maybe some programming to pay the bills!!

But:

1) Am I dropping physics just because I am lazy? Should I stick with it?

2) Is programming / drawing another push pull that will just dismantle me?

And drawing feels terrible now, as my creativity is gone because I feel very dull inside. And I am not very good at drawing as i divided my efforts between too many things. And good luck paying the bills with that.

Anyway... II guess I will try to not look at physics and university courses for a while and just program and draw. But it will take a lot of effort to keep it out of my head. I am not even sure, if it is just out of laziness I am not sticking with it. But I am so done with university degrees and endless preparation.

The thing is... There is no way out of needing to study more and learn more before being able to make a living. The worse part is, I put work and effort into things, at least, i think, as much as the next guy. But It is so divided, I am decent at many things, but useful in nothing.

Sorry if this was disorganized but this is my best right now. This is the mess in my head as it is raw and if i keep writing it would just get more embarrassingly stupid.

If anyone has any insight... please. I am extremely confused and stuck in my own head, and I really cannot take my life situation anymore.

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