fbpx
Menu

Feeling Stuck In Life

HomeForumsTough TimesFeeling Stuck In Life

New Reply
Viewing 13 posts - 16 through 28 (of 28 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #146853
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    I will be back to the computer in 6-7 hours or so, will reply then. Take care of yourself.

    anita

    #146911
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    I re-read your previous posts and the last one but I am feeling unwell this evening. Typed several replies to you and erased each- just don’t have the presence of my mind- I am distracted, distressed. I hope to feel better and at peace tomorrow morning, in about ten hours or so.

    anita

    #146913
    Mandy Marie
    Participant

    No worries Anita. I hope you feel better. 🙂

     

    #146951
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    Thank you. If I am able to type and submit this message it means I am feeling better.

    In your original post you wrote: “But life kept getting in the way…”- the major life-getting-in-the-way event in your life: your father leaving behind a permanently disabled son, two daughters and a wife so to have a simpler life for himself, as I understand it. There were events since, some impersonal, like the recession at the time you graduated high school, all the way to your family members being sick in the last two weeks to your grandfather’s Alzheimer getting worse.

    Unfortunately, there will be more events, more people being unkind, selfish (in your personal life and impersonal life, as in the very people causing that recession you mentioned!)-

    What you did, as “life kept getting in the way” was to “eventually just gave up. I stopped taking care of myself, ate unhealthy junk… I started hiding from the world, and still am to this day.” (from your original post)

    Clearly, the solution is a change of state of mind from giving up to persevere.

    There is part of The Serenity Prayer that I like. It aims at gaining

    “the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to Change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.”

    Look at your life as it is now, what can you NOT change, and what CAN you change?

    You can ask this question regarding the big events in your current life and regarding the small, throughout the day events in your life.

    Can you come up with a list of things you cannot change and a list of things you can change, big and small?

    anita

    #147589
    Tee Crayton
    Participant

    Hi Mandy Marie,

    I’m so glad you were able to write this post. Just like you, I felt very stuck in life for many years and I felt like I kept going through the same things over and over again. This was my life from 16 to 36, a very dark time in my life and at the time I had no one who understood what I was going through or help me get out of that dark place.

    You have already received some great advice but I wanted to also share some tools that I used to get me out of that stuck place. You’re thoughts are keeping you stuck and if you want to get unstuck, start getting control of your thoughts.

    Do you meditate? If you don’t, you should start for at least 5 minutes a day. Meditating will help you stop being bombarded with all these worries.  There are all kinds of ways to meditate, please look into it. It’s not the answer to all your problems, but it will definitely help you start getting unstuck.

    Also, start a gratitude list. Write down at least 10 things you are thankful for right now and every morning for the next 5 days go over that list. Feel the gratitude in your heart swell up as you go over this list and embrace that good feeling of thankfulness. Being thankful for what you have will stir up some positive energy and hopefully ignite you to find more things to be thankful for.

    Start with these 2 things, let me know how you do. Feel free to talk with me about whatever obstacles you think your facing when you start to practice these 2 things.

    Lots of love & light!

    Tee

    #151190
    Mandy Marie
    Participant

    Sorry for my delayed response. Things have been a bit rough for the past month.

    I lost a good friend from high school in a horrible car accident and things have been pretty unbearable since then.
    After the initial shock of this, it threw me into a loop and now I’m dealing with a consistent fear of death. Not just for myself, but with my mom and the rest of my family. I’m still wide awake at nearly 4am in the midst of another breakdown, and it doesn’t feel good at all.

    This is horrible. I’ve lost an abundance of family members over the years, but I never really responded to them in an atypical way, but since the death of my friend, it’s slapped me in the face at how temporary everything is. It’s thrown me into an existential crisis mindset and questioning everything. It’s so hard for me to focus on one simple task. I was feeling fine yesterday, since I spent the day cleaning and going through some of my things, triggered quite a bit of feel good nostalgia, but now the dreaded feeling looms over me tonight.

    On a side note, I have been able to spend more time with my family, I’ve even started initiating more contact with my grandparents, and my sister who lives in another state. I’m still trying to muster up the courage to speak to my dad though, that’s one barrier that’s going to take a while to break, but I’m up for the challenge. I’ve even started playing the game I was once addicted to as a form of escape again, but in smaller increments. I’m even talking to some friends that I’ve played with since the beginning, it’s been great being able to catch up with them. I’ve also decided on a course that I want to try for online classes. I was thinking about getting my associates for web development and design. Culinary school is just too expensive. And since I live in NY, state school tuition will be free starting this fall, maybe this was the reason why I put off college after high school, better late than never I guess?

    I have been learning about meditating and breathing exercises to try to keep the anxiety at bay, or at least help remedy it a bit. I’ve been keeping track and even writing down things that I’m grateful for. But the one I wake up with every day is the gratefulness that I’m awake, my family is awake, and breathing. Every single day I’m grateful for that. I’ve even started writing them at night, but with experiencing such a loss at this moment, I’ve fallen off track. But I do plan on starting up again. I just need to let this out of my system before I’m able to pick myself up again and continue where I left off.

    #151236
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    Welcome back to your own thread, glad you are back.

    What you expressed in your last post is that perseverance I mentioned in my last post to you. I wrote there:

    “What you did, as ‘life kept getting in the way’ was to ‘eventually just gave up. I stopped taking care of myself, ate unhealthy junk… I started hiding from the world, and still am to this day.’ Clearly, the solution is a change of state of mind from giving up to persevere.”

    And persevere, following the last even of life getting in the way, you did: you cleaned and organized your things, spent more time and initiated contact with your family members, played a game in moderation, communicating with friends, researching an online course and earning an associate degree in tuition-free state university; you meditate, exercise breathing better and you keep a gratitude journal. Good work!

    anita

     

    #151306
    Mandy Marie
    Participant

    Thank you, Anita.

    I’m still struggling a bit to do these daily tasks, but I know I will get there if I keep trying.  It’s just a bit overwhelming when you have decisions to make that should have been made a while ago.

    I just wish things weren’t as painful as they are now. I lost a good friend because of a drunk driver, and I don’t know where getting my associates degree will take me.

    #151334
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    Most of the time, in my life, including the time I was your age, I operated in the dark, figuratively. Didn’t know where to go, which way, what to do. I realize now that a lot of people operate in the dark, you included, not knowing “where getting (your) associate degree will take (you)”, not knowing a lot of things and therefore being afraid to move, resulting in being “Stuck In Life” (title of your thread).

    This is why it is important to not look into the far future but look only a short distance to what is in front of you this moment, exactly where you are. If you do, you will take one small step at a time, slowly, attentively. This way, not rushing in the dark, you are not likely to bump into things and fall. As you take a step at a time, you will see a bit more, and then more, and more.

    There are no guarantees, no assurances, but then, this is true for everyone.

    Glad you are back to your thread. Will be glad to read from you anytime.

    anita

    #151608
    Mandy Marie
    Participant

    You’re definitely correct. I look way too far ahead into the future. I think so far ahead that it overwhelms me, and causes me to panic. I know I need to try harder to live in the moment, not in the past nor future. But it’s difficult to do so when you’re stuck in a perpetual state of fighting with depression and panic.

    I feel as though I’ve been wasting my youth because of this. I’ve seen my friends and family members move on with their lives, and here I am, afraid to take that first step because I don’t know where it will lead me. I’ve always been the type of person to plan things out, not go into them blindly. I know that life can and is completely unpredictable, and that’s where my problem lies. I hate not having complete control over it.

    I’ve also taken notice of how afflicted I am with the way this country and the rest of the world is. I know I’m not the only one affected by it, my entire generation as whole is as well. So it’s nice to take some comfort in knowing I’m not alone, but it’s definitely scary. Nothing is the way it was when I was my parents’ age. I’ve already exceeded the age of when my mother started having children. It feels as though we’re all lagging behind previous generations in everything we do, and it has definitely shaped us all in certain ways. This is what has made me think that college is no longer even worth the effort, I know it opens a lot more doors compared to just a high school diploma in terms of jobs. But why exactly does work even exist if we’re all here for a short time? What gains do we get from things in the form of monetary value? Shouldn’t we be able to think and do things freely without having to worry about keeping up with the bills? Buying houses? Buying cars? How I wish this world operated so much differently, where people are able to freely do as they please instead of punching in for work 8-12 hours a day, when that time could be used for other meaningful things like raising a family without having both parents working constantly, spending time with your parents, learning about a multitude of different things without being overly exhausted from putting in a day of work. Being able to enjoy yourself. But sadly that’s not the way things are.

     

    #151646
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    You wrote: “Nothing is the way it was when I was my parents’ age. I’ve already exceeded the age of when my mother started having children. It feels as though we’re all lagging behind previous generations in everything we do”- true people of your generation live at home longer than people of prior generations. But as far as being “stuck in a perpetual state of fighting with depression and panic”- plenty of people of prior generations were and are still stuck this way. My mother was, I was and still deal with anxiety, and these are the prior-to-you generations.

    Being “stuck in a perpetual state of fighting with depression and panic” is a painful way to live, distressing, unpleasant, and indeed lots of life remains unlived being stuck in fear.

    The issue of control is very important. You wrote: “I know that life can and is completely unpredictable, and that’s where my problem lies. I hate not having complete control over it.”- and this is key: if you figure what you do have control over and focus on exercising the control you do have, that will build in you confidence, hope and courage. The more you make things happen, the stronger you feel. Look for new opportunities in your current life, as is, and make things happen, however small.

    anita

    #151716
    Mandy Marie
    Participant

    Well, I finally took control.

    Feeling completely restless after 3am today, and finally decided to quit my procrastination and apply for online courses at a state community college. I signed up for the fall, so I will spend my summer trying to learn some of the basics that go along with the classes I will be taking so I don’t feel so far behind when I start.

    I completely forgot how much I enjoyed school before I graduated. Granted, I was going through some really trying and depressing times, but school was always the one thing I looked forward to. I loved learning.

    Now it’s time for me to continue that learning, not just for myself, but to also better my future. Rather than thinking so far ahead to the point to where I’m paralyzed with fear, I’m going to embrace it and try my best to see this through. I want to do this for myself, and feel proud of myself for my accomplishments.

    Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. There’s no backing down now, it’s now or never.

    #151728
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Mandy Marie:

    What a delightful post for me to read! Excellent thinking and motivation. Keep seeing what is in front of you, and when you start thinking about the future far ahead of you, bring your thoughts back to the very near future, what is right in front of you, a short distance ahead.

    You love learning, this is your motivation, to learn and take realistic control over your life, make it better. One moment, one hour, one day at a time. When discouraged, think of it as part of the process of moving forward, those moments will follow. Move through them, forward.

    anita

Viewing 13 posts - 16 through 28 (of 28 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Please log in OR register.