I have an emotional struggle. It isn’t unrequited love, a loved one’s death, or social anxiety. It’s personal irresponsibility–I just don’t have a responsible state of mind. While it doesn’t usually leak out of my mouth, in my head I’m always making excuses and conjuring up silly explanations for things I do. I don’t tend to view mistakes that I’ve made as my own mistakes. I don’t tend to have realistic expectations or goals.
I’m trying to overcome this, but it’s really, really hard.
So I’m curious, what’s your current emotional struggle?
I met this guy, Joey, more than five years ago. We really hit it off and did a long distance thing for a while. We weren’t really “together” in that we weren’t making any plans or taking any steps to further what he called an “undefinable” relationship, but we did agree to sexual exclusivity and neither of us were seeing anybody else. Mostly though we were good friends, talking a lot and giving each other advice and encouragement (him more than me, but I was going through a lot at the time). Anyway, long story short…
I told him I love him… at some point. I don’t know, but it was a long time ago, within the first year, year and a half of knowing him. Fast forward to about a year ago and I told him I would marry him in a heartbeat if he asked. I think that’s when he finally realized the seriousness of my feelings for him, only thinking that I wanted to be his “girlfriend” before that despite the fact that I had mentioned a hundred times before then that I would move to be closer to him and blahblah.
After what I perceived as him trying to talk me out of my feelings for him and with still no emotional reciprocation, I reconnected with a guy from my past and we started casually seeing each other. I told Joey about him some and he did what I thought was some jokey sort of macho competition but I didn’t take him seriously at all because as far as I knew being with him was never an option and, really, I figured he was kidding.
Fast forward to a month ago when he emails me after having not really contacted each other for months. He loves me. The marriage thing? He’s given it a lot of thought. Kids? Open to conversation. I’m perfect for him, he says, and he regrets more than anything not being more open with me about his feelings for me. All this from the same guy who had spent the past several years telling me how much he enjoys being single. It blew me away.
The problem? That guy I was casually seeing last summer? We are most definitely together now, marriage, kids (due in the fall, actually)… the whole nine.
It’s not even an emotional “struggle” so much as just a huge loss for me. I’m happy now, don’t get me wrong, but I think Joey and I could have had something really extraordinary and to miss out on an opportunity like that is just so, so unfortunate.
Not sure if this is exactly what you are asking about, but I have a couple.
First, I am awaiting final word on a jobsearch/interview process that has been going on since November. Final decisions are expected the week of the 19th. if I get the job, it might require that I move to one of 5-6 different states. Really a struggle to keep myself from not dwelling on it. And I’m pretty aware that I’ve been kinda backburnering a bunch of other things awaiting this outcome. And sure is making me not terribly interested in my current job…
Had thumb surgery a few weeks ago, and will need a few more weeks of PT. Which has caused me to miss a bug chunk of the middle of golf season - probably my favorite hobby. So that has kinda got me down, and I’m not filling my time terribly productively.
My oldest finished college and moved out this spring. That’s causing a whole bunch of issues related to the different dynamics of her new situation.
But overall life is good. I’m just in a bit of a holding pattern right now.
One of my kids has social anxiety and has been struggling with it for about the last six years. Recently he’s on a new med which seems to be helping, but I’m still dealing with a LOT of fear and anxiety myself, concerning him. I’m on pins and needles - hoping it works out and afraid it won’t.
I also have a house full of kids. Three of ours, one daughter-in-law, a 3-month-old grandbaby and my 17-yr-old niece. I prefer peace and harmony in my house but of course that’s nigh impossible with this many people here. I’m also stressed out with worry about making ends meet with this many mouths to feed.
Icing on the cake is perimenopause which is wreaking havoc with my mood due to hormonal swings.
All that being said, this is by no means the most turbulet of emotional times for me. In other words, it ain’t so bad.
My current emotional struggle is that I’m too easily frustrated and stressed out. And I’m having a very difficult time not sweating the small stuff. I need to learn how to relax, but it’s been close to impossible so far.
My fiancee broke up with me a couple of months ago.
I have been a wreck since. I’m prone to depression, prone to self-medicating, prone to self-hatred and pessimism and procrastination. And they’ve all hit hard.
It took me five years to really recover from my divorce; this feels incredibly similar.
When it comes down to it, I’m probably still getting over being dumped by a girl in college. That was 22 years ago.
While I haven’t given up on life and don’t sit around mooning over this any more, I do think my life would have gone very differently if we had stayed together. Her life too. We would have been good together, and both our lives would have been better.
Mine is that we’re having trouble getting pregnant, and I’m tired of playing the waiting game. It’s been two and a half years of actively trying, and I just can’t help but think it’s not fair that all these other people are getting pregnant so easily when we struggle month to month. We’ve been diagnosed with unexplained infertility, so it’s not like I can get a surgery to fix it. On top of that, the wait list to get into the regional fertility clinic is seven months long, so though I was referred to them a few weeks ago, I won’t even get the call for my consultation until December or January, according to the nurse there. I’m currently on fertility medication, but I am still losing hope one month at a time. I’m just sick of waking up at 6 am every day to take my temperature, taking vitamins three times a day, taking fertility drugs on certain days of the month, seeing that my cycle is textbook perfect and my hormones are all in balance yet nothing is happening. And then people say things like ‘Just relax and it’ll happen’. Nope, tried that, and am sick of hearing about it.
I’ve no job and had to move into my parents’ attic three weeks ago. Going through a divorce, forcing relationships, drinking too much…not even too motivated; I’m restless, unsatisfied and I need a spark. I am very depressed and disappointed in myself…
I have a few brewing; one is that I’m interested in a girl that is way younger than I am, another is that I know I’m not realizing my full potential, another is that I’m feeling like eventually I’ll die alone, so what’s the point? Morose enough?
Sr. Olives and I decided to start trying for a kid. Basically everything around here – how we spend money, how we think about the future – it has all changed.
And as usually happens during major transitional periods, I’ve been dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety. I worry about everything that could possibly go wrong–infertility, pregnancy complications, money running short, postpartum depression–and I worry about transferring my neuroses to my child, either genetically or through poor modeling. I don’t want my kid to go through what I have been and continue to go through. Complicating the situation is that we agreed not to tell anyone IRL what we’re planning, so it’s sort of hard to find a sounding board.
This is pretty much the largest, most important and most terrifying decision I’ve ever made, and while I am 100% committed to it and want it more than anything, it really is doing a number on my brain.
Yeesh. Take comfort in knowing there is a special place in heaven for family members like you.
It’s not so much a struggle as a journey or a theme…for the last few months I’ve been working a lot with the idea of integrity.
I hang around some really scummy people who are in a situation where even their most depraved actions lead to fame, fortune and sex. My reaction to this has taught me that I actually am a deeply moral person. Previously, I thought that I had a strong sense of justice but in daily life was a little footloose and rather selfish. I’ve made lots of mistakes in the past, but haven’t really ever felt all that bad about them. Suddenly becoming aware that I value integrity so strongly has caused me to rethink a lot of my life. I feel like I’m looking at life through a new lens, and now I’m consciously on a journey to become a person who acts with integrity.
Just me vs. myself. How sometimes I can’t work or do anything productive without being interrupted with memories of times I’ve embarrassed myself or accidentally treated people really badly. How I hate my own degree of inertia - I never seem to be anywhere near as active as I could or should be, and just sit at my computer when I’m not working. Since I’m going to be a college sophomore in the fall and 20 years old in the winter I think I need to grow up a little bit, so this is my struggle - learning, slowly, painfully, to be more of an adult and get my shit together.
Dealing with my dad’s death. And my friends. And my life.
I’m having a hard time being normal. I’ve always been the one people would come to with problems or talk to when they needed an ear and lately, most of their problems seem so petty. Part of it is that I’m irritated that nobody is willing to shut up about their own lives and listen to me for a minute, so I start evaluating things like that- “is this really so important that you can’t chill out for a minute and listen to me?”
But here’s the thing. I know that’s bad. I know “my life is so shit that nobody can beat me at the shit life contest right now” is a terrible attitude (and not accurate). And I need my friends- supportive or not, I need to not get myself totally isolated right now. And I realize that having my life shaken up doesn’t give me the right to be totally self-centered and only want to talk about myself and my problems all the time. And that people don’t want to be around someone who is angry and depressed, even if that’s how I actually feel. And that the whole idea of death makes people uncomfortable. So I try to be as normal as possible, but that’s really difficult. Because things are really, really not normal for me right now.
Ending the friendship has made me realize what’s wrong with me. I was mirroring the qualities I hate most in myself when I was choosing female friends. So inevitably, they start irritating the shit out of me and the relationship slowly disintegrates. Combine that with the fact that I was hurt so badly by my best female friends 6 years ago that I haven’t been able to trust women since and I’m feeling rather isolated and lonely. Part of the reason I’m ending the most recent friendship is because I feel like my gut is telling me that I was sold out by her in a pretty big way. I feel like she pretended to care about what was happening to me so that she could encourage me to take a course of action that, finding out some of the stuff I recently found out, makes life easier for her and another one of her friends. And they left me in their dust.
I’ve always been a person that puts a lot of importance on relationships and friendships. But that’s not getting me anywhere, because I can’t seem to maintain a close friendship for longer than a couple of years since that life changing betrayal six years ago. It was 6 years ago and I’ve forgiven the two women it happened with, so I need to let it go and trust. It’s just very difficult when I can’t seem to find a female friend that really cares about me.
I can’t trust my own gender. So I miss out on a lot of the benefits of same-sex friendship. It sucks.
I’ve been in the same job for the past six years, and while it certainly pays the bills, it’s customer service, and it’s slowly pushing me to my breaking point. I’m very close to having the last of what I need to have paid off paid off, and then. . .I don’t know.
I’ve been living at home the past two years and change, and while I’m very close to my Mom, I feel awful still being here. And I want to go back to school, because I only have my BA, and a BA in English means absolutely dick. Of course, I want to get my advanced degree in something useful. Like. . .folklore! Sigh.
The entire idea of actually doing it though seems completely overwhelming. No way would I be able to get letters of rec from my undergrad professors; it’s been six years, I was only there for five semesters, and I doubt that they even remember me. I wanted to go straight out of undergrade, but life got in the way, and then divorce got in the way, and here I am, twenty-seven and doing a monkey job, and living in my mom’s basement, for fuck’s sake. And sometimes it seems like so much that I just want to give up and curl into a tiny little ball and surf the internet and do absolutely nothing. Which is a lot of what I do, seeing as I avoid both my mom and my grandma when I’m at home.
The idea that I won’t have any debt at all in four months is completely fucking terrifying, because then it means that I have to change the status quo. I need to start planning now, but I have no one to really bounce planning ideas off of. And the idea it’s so close is terrifying, because I’m quickly reaching the “enough” point with my work, and am afraid I’ll burn out spectacularly before I’m done.
I feel like a failure, even though my friends say I’m not.
I struggle with similar problems. Some of it DOES stem from social anxiety, but also anxiety in a broader sense. I’m not all that bright when it comes to problem solving, and I’m constantly second guessing myself. I must say, having a girlfriend helps a lot… I enjoy shopping for food with her, she helps me clean, and I see daylight now more than ever.
I’m also lazy, although I don’t want to be. Once I start on something I tend to focus on it WAY too much. Going to work terrifies me, (though I’m there an hour early most days), because of multitasking. I work at a grocery store putting away bagged bread, which would seem like the easiest job in the world, and it really isn’t THAT hard.
The learning problems I have slow me down, for example; knowing how much shelf space I have for a particular item, and how much of that item I have to put out, leaving room for whatever else goes on the shelf. Also, sometimes I have to visit the freezer in our store at some point of the day, but I can’t figure out what the best time to retrieve any frozen items because I’m so worried about the bread on the shelves running out.
I don’t take the garbage out as much as I should when I get home, because I’m socially awkward with my neighbors. A lot of the reason why I am is because I don’t learn names very well. I try to learn them, (OH GOD DO I TRY), but I always draw a blank with people I’ve been interacting with for many years. I’m like the ‘Boo Radley’ of my apartment complex. I know people talk about me never leaving the building. When I do take the garbage out, it’s at night, so I avoid run into anyone.
I don’t post on Straight Dope, even if I have something clever to add, because it takes me a while to compose a post. There have been times where I would start writing out a response to someone, (I use AOL because it has spellchecker), but when I reread my potential post, it doesn’t convey what I’m trying to say correctly. I avoid words I don’t know how to spell (when the spellcheck doesn’t list the right spelling for them because I’ve spelled the words so differently from how they’re really spelled). I often end up Googling words I’m trying to learn how to spell. I know this word, but if I were to try to write the word “knob”, but spelled it as “nob”, a spellcheck wouldn’t catch it because it is a word, but not the word I want. I would open up Internet Explorer and then Google type in “door nob”, and it would suggest that I might be trying to use “knob”. This takes a LOT of time. My posts often come out butchered anyways.
With names it’s ever harder. Michael and Michelle… and even my middle name, Nicholas are hard to remember. I have to search for on Internet Movie Database to look for actors with the same name, to use the proper spelling.
But all-in-all, I can’t blame my being lazy on these things alone. I just have a hard time starting things. I need to work on this.
I’m sketchy on the timeline. How long did Joey have to think things through before you started seeing your boyfriend? I still think you did the logical thing, you can’t wait around forever. But it sucks, and I’m sorry to hear it. Did you ever get to spend a lot of time with Joey one on one? If it was just long distance for most of the time, there’s a chance things might not have been as good if you had been seeing each other on a regular basis.
You’re stronger than I am. How old is your child with anxiety problems? I’m dating a girl who has a kid, and it’s freaking me out, I don’t know how I would deal with a house full of kids!! Part of that could be from my anxiety. That and I’m not sure I’m fit to be a authoritative figure/role model, (given the problems I listed above). My boss has a lot of kids under one roof and I have no idea how he does it.
Is this recent, or have you suffered from this for a while? On any medications, (if not too personal)?
Are you open to adoption?
I’m really sorry. I wish I could help you. The best thing I can think to say is to change what you have control over, (the drinking maybe). How old are you if you don’t mind me asking? Just remember that shit happens to good people. Take responsibility, but don’t punish yourself. I swear, if I believed it would help, I would be praying for you. If you’re a nice person, then I truly hope your find yourself out of this rut. Any prospects as far as work goes? PM me if you want to talk.
That’s all the inquiries I have for today. I didn’t want to be selfish and talk about my problems alone. I’ve talked about them in other threads and got some great feedback. I really feel lucky some Dopers have taken the time to give me advice. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I really just want to be the type of guy that not only gets advice, but offers it… or at least listen. I’m not saying you would want to come to me with a problem, but I’ll try to be here if anyone needs a stranger.
My daughter moved out last week. 21 years together and now she’s gone. It’s hard for me because we’re very close, and I think it’s much harder on her than she’d expected (considering she’s been here almost every day since she left!).
I’ve been trying to wean myself from zoloft but it’s not working out. Panic comes right back when I get to where I’m taking it every three days. I’m binging again. Bad. I’m miserable but haven’t yet found how to stop without resorting to something even more harmful.
I’m forty but have the emotional stability of a teenager. Seeing friends have successful lives, taking European vacations and talking of retirement when I’m unable to get to the store because we don’t have money to renew the car tags…and little money for the food once I get a ride to the store. When I was helping my daughter get ready for college I thought I’d like to go myself and expressed this to my beloved. He laughed and said I was too old to go to college. I know better but it was a real let-down to hear. It’s true though. Not that I’m too old, just that I’m too scatterbrained and exhausted from panic and stress and general life crap that I know I’d never do well in school.
And my Mig. I love him so much, but our life together is not easy. Every day I know he could be picked up and taken away from us. Every night I get antsy waiting, checking the window when I hear a car go by. When he’s late he knows he’ll find a panicked wreck and he’ll have to console me before he can even get in the shower and eat. That must not be much fun for him.
Life it going too damned fast for me. I think if I just sit here quietly I can make it slow down, but it’s going just as fast and I’m missing out. And I’m sick of myself, and my whining, and my excuses. I’m bored with it all.
