@brianjf: Your post really speaks to me. Thank you so much for sharing. Congrats on being sober for 8 years, that’s amazing 🙂 I’ve mostly given up on alcohol too, it really messed with me.

It’s so true what you say about working through personal problems. Constantly sharing is not bringing me much further, and everyone’s advice is different. Worse: it leads me to realize no-one can really help me.. I just do it because I feel I’m not fit to solve these issues, and I’m obsessed with them 24/7. It needs to get off my chest. But as someone recently told me: sometimes you have to let your problems ‘compost’ in yourself, so you can use it to grow a new version of you.

I think the teen isolation is a key factor. It did not allow us to connect to others in an experimental and truly social way. For me, it means I’m overly obsessed with myself, and it sounds like you are too. But I like that you’re working through it and have found a sense of optimism. You probably do have skills – at least your writing and life advice skills are competent to say the least! Are you engaging in social activities? Meeting new people?

The creativity pressure is a big thing. I’m attracted to creative people, and that makes the pressure higher. I’ve worked my way into the independent animation and game design fields, know hundreds of people there. They crowd my social networks and have a big influence on which events I attend. But it frustrates me to no end that I’m not really creative in these fields while dedicated others pass me by on all sides. Especially games are moving fast, and standing still means being left behind, which increases the pressure. It has squeezed the fun and excitement out of it. I’m completely frozen trying to figure out if I want to draw, design, do sound, produce or write, and after that: how the hell I’m going to make a living doing that. Several students that I advised 8 years ago are now world renowned designers. I don’t need to be, but I’d at least like to know what I want to do or be. How can I not know what I want to do at this age?

Fear of getting too old is what’s pushing me to run before I can walk.

I’m working to improve myself. My lack of discipline, my failure to plan ahead for the future. So for me, forgetting about the future is very hard to do – that seems like the thing I’ve been neglecting all along.

I’m working on making myself more stable every day, and recognizing my problems. Thus far, it has mostly led to me regretting the past, lamenting missed opportunities. My life feels wasted, even if people tell me that’s insane. I hope this will change, so I can constructively work on my future. Rationally I know there’s a future – I just need to find the optimism and fun again.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Peter.