Good luck, Drew!
Can I ask all of you guys/girls who are in college, or just graduated, a question?
I started school about 4 months ago and something about being here is making me question why I'm even here. To put it bluntly and honestly, these past few months have been among the most miserable and frustrating times of my life. While I have met a few really nice people on my floor, whom I socialize with a good bit, I feel extremely isolated from every person around me because I have never met anyone that has anything whatsoever in common with me. I don't like sports, drinking, buying shit at the mall etc. I'm starting to "hate" people and that's really begining to worry to me a lot because I don't want to think like that, but I can't help it.
All of this seems to have completely sucked the life out of me. I have no motivation for anything. I have barely touched my guitar in months and all of the interest in math that I had prior to coming here is all but gone.
Is this normal? I thought all of this would get better after some time here, but I'm getting so neurotic, I have canker sores covering the inside of my mouth constantly (I don't know why, but I get them very bad when I'm nervous).
Sorry of this comes off as whiny/bitchy, but I'm really starting to part with my sanity.
I know those feelings all too well, so I guess I can sympathize. At this point in my life, I'm not socializing and, as a result, have no real friends with whom I hang out with.
I went through those same feelings you mentioned when I first went to college (and even worse when coupled with severe depression and a world that felt like it was melting around me) many times.
If it helps any, I'll tell you what I figured them to be. From what I could reason by looking back, my mind at that time had been completely unprepared for the new life experiences I was going through.
All of my previous programming at that time didn't seem to help me either, and that just made me feel like I didn't fit in or belong in that new 'world'. The only way to survive was to create new programs and adapt to (thus becoming part of through participation) my new environment. If any of that sounds familiar to you, then you can be assured that you're going through an adjusting process (adjusting to college life and learning to deal with new responsibilities) and that with a little time, and by taking on each task one at a time instead of all at once, you'll grow to be able to handle them. It's like when an animal is transplanted from one environment to another and it freaks out at first, but in a few weeks it's fine.
One other thing that you might want to look out for is noticing and dealing with past programming and mental/emotional issues that get stirred up as a result of your new environment (heheh welcome to yet another path of life. Our environments usually affect us and force personal growth whether we want it or not. The physical realm is a great mirror for reflecting our inner selves back to us). Speaking from my experience with myself, skipping classes not doing homework was sometimes part of an unconscious resistance to accepting responsibility (and thus becoming a full adult). I didn't want to move forward in life, I actually wanted to return to the stability of normal home life and the security of the social contacts I had from high school. My reasoning was, unpleasant though the past seemed, it was at least predictable and 'known' to me. Things that are known are always less scary and more manageable than things that aren't. My future was a wide-open frightening sea of uncertainty, and I was afraid of stepping out into it for fear that I'd sink and drown. I remember engaging my mind in many other enjoyable pursuits (such as videogames and music) to avoid my responsibilities every chance I could get.
Ultimately, it wasn't the new responsibilities that I was avoiding. I was actually avoiding facing aspects of myself.
All physical human action or lack of action has its basis within human thought - so if we're having trouble acting or responding physically to our environments in any way, then it's usually an indication of some inner problem that needs attending. It might just be that new programming needs to be created to deal with the new tasks, or it could be that past programming is getting in the way of completing new tasks.
BUT, to make a long story short and before I get too carried away with myself and turn this post into a novel, no matter how bad things get, as long as you concentrate on what needs to be done at any one moment and silence your mind so as not to worry yourself into oblivion, everything will work out fine.
P.S.: If you're not meditating already then you might benefit from doing so. I have found that taking a time-out such as meditation should give you just the kind of mental break you need to be able to continue on and do the things you need to do.
Just a thought from your mate.
Cheers!
