Hi there Jen,
The problem is not that you have difficulty selecting a career path, it’s the self discipline that you lack. The career path is just an “extra” addition in your life and the lack of self discipline adds to or complicates it. I would go back to your first post and after rereading it, suggest journaling ALL your thoughts and feelings regarding both Chinese and Digital Design. It’s obvious from your first post that you enjoy language and culture. Not to mention that you already know a language from the nation that has been and will continue to be heavily involved with both the economic and political sectors of the world. With the culture career, you placed outside/external barriers to succeeding. With the Digital Design, you don’t even enjoy it.How do I know? You just told us. I would do some more self digging when it comes to a career in language/culture with your background in Chinese and DEEPLY analyze yourself in both the culture career and digital design career. As well working on your self discipline is your 1st key step and if you can afford it, maybe hire a life coach.
Thank You and Take Care
-AP85

Hi Jazzhands 805,

Your twenties, you’re doing them right.

If you want, please elaborate on what you think is the underlying cause of this anxiety and depression you are feeling, we’re all here to listen. In the meantime I have some advice:

Hear me out on this: your early twenties are not actually the best time of your life-that comes a little bit later when you’re close to your thirties after you have a few more things figured out. But life only gets better if you push through hard times like this and learn from your pain. And this pain is totally normal, everyone experiences it when they get out into life to find that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. But the difference is not many people learn from it. I believe by reaching out to this forum, you are willing to own your situation and change direction now to make your future better

When I was 22 I went through exactly the same thing and then I heard this: your life is like a boat on the ocean, it goes wherever you head it. And like a captain of a ship, if you make even tiny, tiny change in your heading now while you’re in the midst of the seemingly endless expanse of the ocean, your end destination will be radically altered.

So that means even though you feel like nothing is happening to make you feel better today, the choices you make can help you get to the destination you are seeking. Though the ocean may be rough, you’ve already made one great choice to go to counseling. Some other choices that will change your heading:

Simple steps to start out with (bear with me, they may seem silly but they helped me when I didn’t feel like I could get out of bed)
-Make sure you brush your teeth everyday
-Take a shower everyday
-Eat breakfast everyday (start with anything, even if it’s a donut, just get into the habit of eating in the morning)
-Drink lots of water
-Read a ton of books
-Find a supportive group on campus
-Wrap yourself up in fluffy pajamas and drink a ton of tea in the evenings, make sure you get enough sleep
-Keep going to therapy and tell the truth, the whole truth, never hide anything from your therapist because they can’t help you unless you tell them exactly what’s bothering you.

Some more advanced steps once you start to feel like your mood is evening out

-Focus on a sport or exercise
-Focus on your finances
-Attend meditation classes or yoga classes (perhaps your uni has free classes)
-Research internet resources (there are many on this site under the “home tab-helpful free resources” that can help you start to educate yourself about the root causes of anxiety and depression)
-Start working towards eating a healthy breakfast
-Start journaling or just writing anything
-Keep writing here, it’s a great place to vent

I’m just going to leave those there, it’s up to you to find what works best, these are just things that helped me. Just remember Self Care (the steps on the first list are basic Self Care steps that are easily eschewed during times of depression) is super important in this time and you deserve to do it for yourself!

Cheers,

M

I don’t know what I would add to what the others have already said, so I think I will just say thank you for your post.
I have been in and out of the valley of despair many times throughout my life. And although 18 is a long time ago, it still seems like yesterday (I suspect it will until I die). When in the valley I have learned to tell myself that although it seems hopeless and there is no way out, I have been here many times before and somehow I always find my way back out again and sooner or later I will find my way out of this one. Maybe it helps, but if it does, it sure does not feel that way when I am at the bottom. I am a good deal beyond 18 now, I am at the top of the hill (or a bit over to be honest) and starting to look down the hill. Yet once again, I find myself in a valley of despair. When I was younger, the despair ripped at my soul and burned deeply. Now that I am older, I have been tempered and don’t feel it as acutely. The tradeoff is the deeply felt disappointment that at this point in my life, I am once again in the valley. One consolation is that I do remember the times when I have climbed back out of the valley, up onto the mountain and looked back, I could see the beauty of the entire landscape. It all makes sense from up there. Yet when back down in the valley, feeling tired and beaten by life, looking up at the climb ahead, just to get back to where I once was, that beauty is just a distant memory and I always wonder if it was real or just something I imagined. Intellectually I understand that without the valley, the mountain top is not quite as high and the view is not quite so spectacular. The valley is a beautiful place to look down at from above, but a hellish place to be stuck in looking up at the steep climb before me.
Anyway, like I said, I find myself once again in a valley. I was doing a bit of journaling (well “we” were doing a bit of self-psychotherapy to be succinct) when an idea for a post come on me and when I logged on to post it, I stumbled across your post and the title drew me in. Your post reminded me that though I can’t see you, you and many others are in these valleys along with me, and that, for some reason does help.
So thanks for your post, and I hope you find your way out soon.

Dear midnight,

Were these worries always there when you started dating him or they happened more after the bad times started?

I have often observed that anxiety is more a learned response to a past incident – our mind and body are on high alert though we logically know that this response isn’t the appropriate one to the situation.

I see this anxiety in myself a lot too – especially in relationships – Its like my mind has some interpretation of me as the “victim”, the snubbed and God knows what. The irony is in the long distance situation, one day he behaves a bit distant (doesn’t reply to my texts, seems too busy etc), the Pandora’s box gets opened.

What i am afraid of is feeling like i am not needed, that i am a burden of some sort and to avoid feeling this, i have often been distant about my feelings to people – i hate appearing needy in any way but i cant stand being away from my partner either.

In essence, “I want to be needed but i dont want to need.”

See how these are contradictions which are inter-related too?

A good way to understand your inner contradictions is regular journaling – recording those raw thoughts, voices in the head and then objectively seeing what they commonly look like after a while and then to sort of work backwards and understand what are the specific moments that trigger this – sort of reaching the core belief behind it.

And then to question the core belief – sometimes its done by going into one’s childhood and sometimes its by a process of direct rationalization through various techniques. The childhood way didn’t work me, so rationalization it is for me – Having a critical mind has its blessings and curse.

I wont say that the insecure me is gone – she will always be here – that critical voice is there still, its just that I choose not to give her that kind of power anymore.

An analogy, albeit a strange one: It reminds me a bit of Josh Nash in a beautiful mind with those people he keeps seeing -Charles got created when he craved a friend, Marcy got created as an offshoot of Charles. The military man got created when he felt snubbed by the military for his ingenious contributions. they talk to him but over time, he knows they aren’t real and after a point, he learns to ignore them and gives them less power. There is more to his mind than these shadows, there is more to his life than what these doubts tell him.

My apologies for going off on a different tangent on this post – i hope that my experiences may have provided you with an idea or two.

Regards,
Nina

Hi Chau,

I have just signed up to this site only a few minutes ago so please forgive me if I am not following usual protocol or responding out of turn etc. Anyway, here goes….

I was in your shoes about a month ago and what I did helped quite a lot. Unfortunately, this situation is one of those things in which time truly is the best healer but a few things I did really helped. Also I appreciate that this advice might not be for you personally but you seem very insightful and intelligent so you will surely decide if it is for you 🙂

The first thing I would recommend is to completely eliminate the ability to ‘keep tabs’ on your ex and her current – delete her on facebook and completely erase her phone number so you couldn’t contact her even if you tried. Whilst this may seem viscous or immature it is merely a technique for eliminating that insecure feeling that is created by a mixture of hope (to re-kindle), uncertainty and overthinking (in my opinion). I will forewarn you that this is going to be really tough for anywhere up to a week but I promise that you will feel better much faster than you would if you don’t do this.

My next suggestion would be to pick something to devote your time to each day. I am not aware of your current working situation (student, full time, part time, etc) but take an hour ideally each day to do something which requires you to use your focus for a different purpose….some suggestions might be to learn the guitar, exercise, play some video games. listening to music usually will not help because you are still able to think and fantasise about the situation. Again I understand this isn’t for everybody but something great to try is martial arts, this is because it does wonders for your self esteem but it is very very difficult to be anywhere but there (to be in the present moment). Meditation is a great technique, as is journaling. I sat down and for about an hour just wrote down in my journal everything I was feeling, anger, resentments, how I see the future, what I want to happen, etc….writing it down makes the abstract (thought) become tangible so you can develop more objectivity.

Finally (sorry for the long post), I believe that you need to do two things. 1) be happy for your ex and let go of anger towards her current, 2) let out some anger via catharsis in order to feel the underlying emotion of sadness.
You can do the former by having compassion for your ex and being happy that she isn’t suffering, that she is happy…after all, don’t all humans deserve to be happy? I used to wish ill on my ex because why should she get to be happy when I wasn’t? believe me that this attitude is only hurting you and whilst it is tough, forgiving her and being genuinely happy for her will help drastically. pick something you admire about her current and list qualities that you like about him – this is tough (because the ego is usually in the way) but you will feel better; maybe even send him a message wishing them both well 🙂 as for the ‘catharsis’, you can remove your anger by hitting your bed, shouting, hitting a punchbag, etc….really let loose and let some aggression out (do not aim this at anybody or hurt anybody please) and you will find that shortly after you will feel depleted and you will probably cry….anger is our cover so we don’t have to feel our grief.

I really hope this helps, like I said, I have been where you are my friend and it isn’t nice but these things really helped me. Mindfulness meditation is so great for these matters.

Thanks
George

Dear Tessa,

All the things that you mentioned (too intense, too overwhelming) all sound like personal opinions rather than facts. You mentioned that there are people in your life that make you feel that your intensity is your power; those are the people that you need in your life. It sounds like they are the ones that truly understand you and like being around you. As for your best friend, I’m not saying to write her off, but keep being you. Maybe she will learn to love your passionate and friendly personality as your other friends have, or maybe things will change and you both will drift apart. If the latter happens, be kind to yourself and remember that “everything is as it should be.”

Floridajeanne did have a good point though that I could take for myself: sometimes when we are feeling anxious and have a million thoughts in our head and want to share those thoughts with someone we’re close to, it can come out as a little frantic and stressful. Journaling and mindfulness will help this.

All in all, continue being you. Don’t focus on not being something. Shift your focus more on the positive qualities about yourself and everything will fall into place.

Love and Light,
Chi <3

aww, surprisingly i know the pain. it was the summer i turned 24 i worked with a really cynical person, and something inside me woke up, i wondered “who am i, and what do i want?” so i began carrying a journal around and writing down anything i came across [a thought, something that caught my eye, a funny moment, or an aggravating one] but it wasn’t until the summer i turned 25 things started to get rocky [and another year before i heard the term ‘quarter life crisis’] i remember a week before my birthday i wrote a list ‘reflections on 25’ and i listed a bunch of ‘accomplishments’ in my life, but i wound up looking at the list wondering ‘that’s it?!’ [i was also now working with the cynic and her even more judgemental sister. long story, but the two would either not listen to me, or stand around berating my life choices up to that point. one was going to be a teacher, the other was about to graduate and become a chiropractor, and then there was me, still in the same crappy town working a dead end cafe job. what a loser. ha. ha. ha.] so i spiralled, i began questioning why i was so far behind, and everything began to seem hopeless.

anyway, one day i decided to put a filter on my life. [the two left in the fall and i stopped listening to negative influences.] if there were people who weren’t serving me, gone. i stopped watching the news [because it’s mostly death, death, death, natural disaster, cute aww moment, weather] but i started watching a lot more documentaries [always loved them] i also cleaned up Facebook big time, only keeping pages and following people that were informative, but also made me happy [TinyBudda, Kelly-Ann Maddox, The Cottage Witch, Sarcasm Society for a laugh] while i don’t ignore the news, i filter it so it’s news that matters to me. being flooded by everything will end badly. shut off the tap and slowly turn it back on. journaling really helped me, i would give it a try. meditation also helped, as well as deep breathing.

now i’m Canadian so we don’t carry guns for protection, but why do you feel you need to protect yourself? precautions are one thing [thumbs up moving in with your friend if you didn’t feel comfortable alone] but you were fine on your own before this metamorphosis. while you should be aware of your surroundings and keep at least one eye open [don’t leave your drink unattended, don’t walk alone down the dark alley, make sure your phone is charged and on you] you can’t control everything, you have to learn to take a deep breath and accept unforeseen things can happen regardless of how cautious you are. take precautions but don’t let danger rule your life. [to use one of my favourite Simpsons quote: people die all the time, just like that. why you could wake up dead tomorrow. goodnight.] i would take calculated risks to ease yourself back into a safety zone [like your friends go to a random new restaurant none of you have been to, or explore the city in the middle of the day, or sign up for a random class]

best of luck to you.

Lexie,

You are very welcome! I feel where you’re coming from, it’s so hard to objectively see a situation when you are feeling so hurt. I really hope things improve for you soon! In the meantime, journaling, posting, and answering those questions should help you sort out your feelings a little bit.

Best of luck,

M

iamfreee,

Well first off, the first thing that I want to commend you is choosing a great username. That little expression can help you on your journey to controlling your emotions. Next, if you are seeking help, I assume since you have graduated high school you have your drivers license? That being the case then you can always search for free trials by any psychiatrists or hypnosis therapists and take a visit for a free session/ 1 hr. etc. If that does not suit you, then there is always group sessions including depression and anxiety groups that meet to discuss their issues.
As for activities you can complete by yourself, the most common one would be journaling. If at any time you feel as if you are about to lose control of your emotions, instead of falling victim to them, quickly write it down in a journal. This can work at home or at school. When you feel your emotions raging, then stop and go to your room and write out your exact feelings you are experiencing. As for when you are outside, don’t be ashamed of bringing a pen and a small notepad. Carry it in your purse and write out your emotions. This will not work on your phone due to the fact that 1. You are not writing your emotions down and 2. If you try and do this on technology and there is any issue it will only frustrate you even more. If you feel embarrassed about taking out a pocket notebook and writing stuff down in public then just resort to a private area such as a bathroom, etc. All the best to you.
Thank you and take care
-85