ProjectX:
well first of all...this is my first post! you my friend forced me to register and finally stop being a lurker.
I'm going through almost exactly the same thing as you right now.
I too feel like a failure, and often times see myself in the past. i compare myself to other people my age and think "what the hell have i done?" because in highschool i was basically the best student, and now everyone i know has finished some kind of degree while i've been in school attempting to finish a degree for more than 6 years.
i don't have any friends, and in general i avoid talking to people, because ultimately be it at work or in social situations people ask "so what are you doing" as in your education and job..and i have nothing to say.
and it angers me because in my heart i know what i'm capable of. i used to be the type of person who could accomplish anything, no matter how difficult, as long as i wanted it bad enough. and now i'm the kind of person who doesn't feel like doing anything to "fix" things. sometimes i get inspired, but the mood doesn't last very long.
My situation is slightly different though in that every miserable thing that has happened to me over the past few years WASN'T my fault, it was my familys fault because they made a bad decisions that basically ruined all the peace i had in my life. it is similar to your situation in that if i could go back in time i could fix everything, i could prevent myself from enduring the mental torture i endured for the last few years. i mean, i understand that you can't live in the past, you can't turn back time, but the last memory i have of having "peace" and having a normal life...is in my past. like you all i want is my past, i don't want anything extravagant, i never had that. i just want to be happy again, and i was happy with the simplest things...just knowing i was studying as hard as i could gave me so much joy, and now i can't do that anymore.
so the problem i'm having is pretty much the same as yours, i know i'm capable of so much but i'm not doing anything about it. i suspect that i have depression. i have my good days and i have my bad days. but in general i am not being as productive as i can be. i once reached a point like you where the only thing i wanted to do was sleep and watch tv, just to avoid "living". i have made improvements (a lot of which came from this site), i've built up my confidence because 4 years ago i actually believed i was worthless and stupid, and looking back i can see how absurd it was to believe that. right now i'm more angry/frustrated with myself for not snapping out of it.
i too am sort of in a trap, because i'm stuck in a program (at school) that i don't want to do...but because of my previous mistakes i have to grin and bear it...in 1 and a half years i'll have a degree. even if i don't really want that degree, i have to get it. or else i just know i'm setting myself up for more failure. but because its not the degree i want to do i'm finding it so difficult to stay motivated.
anyway, i hope we can talk about this more..maybe we can get through this together. just don't worry too much. i know what you're going through, and others do too. its places like this that make people like us feel a little bit better, because even if there is no physical person we can talk to we know there are people out there who understand our situation.
so anyway, hello to everybody else, this is rather an odd post to make as my first one
