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Lost who I am

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  • #59851
    Benjamin
    Participant

    Hi,

    I just wanted to get something out that I’ve been going through for a little while. 7 Months ago i got back from teaching english and travelling Southeast Asia for over a year. They were the best times of my life, and I have never been a stronger version of myself when I was over there. In the past I have always been a fun, positive outgoing person who was comfortable in any social situation.
    However, ever since I came home nothing has gone right in my life and as a result it feels like I’ve lost who I am. To give you some context, I got home, went to university, dropped out of university, got a job, and then quit that job. That fun outgoing person has disappeared and now I feel like every time I go out with my friends I am faking my own happiness. I am getting anxious around new people and am becoming unable to reach out and make new friends. I’ve lost my sense of humour and feel like everyone is judging me. I am generally just sad and it is making me unable to even carry on conversations with everyone in my life. I feel like people who I used to be close with don’t recognize me anymore, and honestly, I don’t even recognize myself. I just simply am not myself and it is making me anxious, depressed and angry. The positive and funny person is gone and I don’t know how to get him back.
    The problem is that I have forgotten how to let my natural self out. I have forgotten how to have a care free night with my friends because I can’t seem to get out of my own head. How do you find your best self again when you go through so much shit? How can I get back to being the positive fun person that I know I can be?

    #59880
    Big blue
    Participant

    Hi Benjamin,

    First, congratulations on your year away teaching. Do you have plans to go back? You sounded happy doing that.

    Second, leaving school and a job may be weighing too heavily on you if you feel you failed somehow. It is ok to go through these things. Find some lessons learned etc. and frame it as part of your life story.

    Could it be your age or experiences have changed you, and you are going through making sense out of it? If this is so, give yourself some time to adjust. Maybe seek out others who have traveled away like that to see what they experienced, how it changed them.

    Lastly, are there some suns and moons in your life? You are one. Your family? Best friend? A professor? The family friend from your childhood? Someone you can talk with to catch up. A rock in the changing world.

    Big blue

    #60869
    Mike
    Participant

    That is quite an experience you must have had, I am interested in where you came back to? I live in a small suburb of Detroit, lived here my whole life. I have a friend that went into the Marines and saw the world at 20 and when he came back not only did he have differences in him from being around War, but he would complain about “home” how people and things don’t change and how it is like coming back to a fish bowl it is trapping. The fish living in a bowl have no idea what is beyond that fish bowl, they are ignorant so it is pretty difficult for others who have seen the world and especially the struggles of others the world over and empathized with them to connect with those who live superficial lives complaining about how their internet doesn’t go fast enough or their new car. He was literally all over the world Europe and the Middle East in the midst of real people not just the places that are built up for tourism. Sometimes he would have to stay in houses with Iraqi families, and some welcomed them and some didn’t. He lived on a ship for a while chasing somalian pirates. When he first got out for good, he was depressed, anxious and felt alone and unable to connect. Now he has been out of the Marines for a few years, he went back to school for Arabic made it into Columbia, went and studied in Jordan has been to a few other places and has tons of friends all over.

    While you weren’t a Marine and didn’t have to go to war, I see somewhat that you come across as a restless spirit much like my friend. You were like a fish in the ocean and now you are back in the fish bowl and it is too small for you, because you have outgrown it and learned how to take care of yourself in the ocean you can handle it. I have noticed people aren’t much different than fish they grow (psychologically) according to their “world.” Put a small fish in a big lake and that small fish will grow big. Put that same fish in a tank and it will only grow as much as there is room for it. Something is holding you back though, whether it is a plan for what you are going to do to again be free or not I hope that some of this was somewhat helpful and gave you a different view of your situation.

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by Mike.
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