Hello BL. This blog post is an attempt to explain myself a little bit, and explain why I am often angry, agitated, and unhappy.
I think of myself as a failure. I have been successful in many things in life (games, sports, hobbies), but when it comes to school and work and life choices, I am a failure. I breezed through a gifted high school easily, and thus developed a habit of doing the minimum amount of work necessary to get by. This did not work when I applied the same approach at a challenging liberal arts college, and I flunked out after 3 semesters with a variety of disciplinary incidents in my file (nothing serious, just minor troublemaking and failure to respect authority).
For the next six years I did nothing productive, though I had a source of money with which to live on. I would make half assed efforts at jobs, though they never worked out, partly because I would get bored and frustrated easily, and partly because I have always had problems with authority. I shouldn’t say I did nothing productive – I cultivated a lot of my lifelong hobbies and interests, stared working out and became very good at racquetball and football, and became a recognized expert at a favorite board. But in terms of life progress, I didn’t progress at all.
Over those years I would self medicate with alcohol and drugs, but I never crossed the line into abuse, though my ecstasy use was pretty close. I have also been on various prescription meds over the years to treat various diagnosed conditions (ADD, depression, bi-polar, anxiety, OCD). Though, I always rejected the notion that I was bi-polar, even though all signs pointed to it. I always seemed to have ADD, but figured that was normal, and that I couldn’t concentrate because the material or work was really boring. When I was interested in something, I would lose track of the world around me and engage in that activity for hours.
The anxiety did not bother me much, because I didn’t have to deal with it. I had a girlfriend and close friends, and I did not need to deal with anyone I didn’t want to. Being borderline OCD didn’t bother me because, well, I think everyone else is weird for not being that way. I keep my place immaculate and have no tolerance for messes or thing being out of place. I like it that way. I do things a specific way and I don’t like interruptions to my routine and my space.
During these six years I did not cultivate any skills in dealing with the real world, interacting only with friends, family, and my girlfriend.
After six years of being this way, I decided to start doing something. I knew my money was running out, and that my girlfriend was losing patience waiting for me to fulfill my potential.
I returned to school and started working part time teaching SAT prep classes. I started over with school, and breezed through three years with a 4.0 average, and became one of my boss’s favorite teachers. I was not drinking often (I had always been a problem drinker) and was not using substances often.
This is where things started to derail. I don’t know if I burned out, if the years of using drugs and alcohol caught up with me, or if I just became more disenchanted with life than usual, but the last 5 years have been a disastrous serious of failures. I spent 7 semesters trying to finish that last year of school in three different programs (math, secondary education, and economics). I got numerous W’s, F’s, D’s, and C’s, and have nothing to show for it except thousands of dollars of debt and a GPA in the low 2’s. I walked away from the actuarial math degree despite crushing the first exam (no one else in my group even passed it). I walked away from the education degree because I couldn’t see myself interacting with teachers, students, and principals, despite the fact that my teaching and tutoring skills have always been praised.
My boss said I could take over his SAT teaching company when he was looking to retire in the very near future. I didn’t even pursue that incredible opportunity.
What did I end up doing? I walked away from all this so I could play online poker professionally. I have always loved games and cards and excelled at them, and I figured, “hey, I can make a living playing a game I enjoy.”
But I have failed, despite making $30 to $50 an hour and having the stats and ability to easily make $60 or $70 an hour. I lack discipline, and the emotional roller coaster of poker sends me to the highest highs and the lowest lows.
When I sit here clicking the mouse taking people’s money online, sometimes I hate myself. I feel guilty, and I feel like a failure. I could have done anything in life, and I am doing this? Taking advantage of people who are too stupid to realize how bad they are at a card game? It’s sad and depressing. But it’s a perfect job for me – I make my own hours and I have no boss. I don’t have to leave my home. And I can outplay and outsmart people and get paid to do it.
But my failure to make as much money as I should weighs on me. I am not getting anywhere, despite the potential to make $100,000 a year playing this game. I am deep in debt and struggling to pay my bills. Financial difficulties forced me to make four changes in my living situation in recent years, all of which were disastrous. I cannot live with people. I just can’t do it. I begin to resent them for things that bother me but that are not their fault. I need to live alone. Temperamental, OCD neat freaks who have a terrible time sleeping and work second shift and sleep at random times should NOT live with people.
But, I cannot afford to live alone. However, I cannot afford not to, because living here is putting me over the edge of insanity. I hate it here so much, and I don’t want to lose two close friends (whom I currently live with). My living situation is making it hard to play poker and my not playing poker is making it impossible to fix my living situation. I feel like I am stuck in a vicious cycle.
I am scared. I have given up much of my hope that I will ever succeed or get myself out of this. I don’t envision a happy future. I think about death a lot. I have physical and emotional pain that I carry with me from the time I wake to the time I go to sleep.
The emotional pain is the result of years of failure, of letting my parents down, letting myself down, letting my friends down, having my heart broken by most of the women I have cared about.
The physical pain is more problematic, as I have carpal tunnel syndrome and have had cubital tunnel syndrome. I had four surgeries for these (one on each wrist and elbow), but I am in constant pain and discomfort. It makes is very difficult to sleep at night, and impossible to sleep comfortably with a woman by my side (I need to sleep with my arms straight out to the sides, or else they start to hurt and I cannot fall asleep).
The pain and discomfort is aggravated by almost every single thing I like to do – games, darts, pool, sports, cards, weights, racquetball, and using the computer. I hate watching TV and don’t like watching movies. I just cannot sit still and I want to be “doing something.” But worst of all, I fear that this will prevent me from playing online poker, such that even if I do get all this other stuff sorted out, I will fail anyway because of this physical limitation. I just don’t know what else to do with my life, and that scares me and leaves me hopelessly depressed and anxious all the time.
I often don’t feel like living any more, though I would never do anything to hurt myself. But I am scared that I have nothing but unhappiness and frustration to look forward to. I am scared that the best times are gone, that my mental and athletic performance at the things I excel at is on the downswing, and will just get worse and worse. I am scared that I will never really fit in to this world; never find my place in society.
I hate leaving the house sometimes, it is just all so overwhelming and frustrating – traffic, hassles, dealing with authority figures who don’t see things my way, dealing with businesses who are trying to squeeze you for every dollar and ripping you off in the process, dealing with women who just hurt me and don’t understand me. I feel distant from my friends and family. Most of the time I don’t understand how they can stand to be around me, yet they care more about me than I do. I am scared that they will realize that I am not worth the trouble and that I will then be truly alone. I am scared that they are going to become parents and have no time for anything except their kids and their careers (This has already started to happen a little bit).
I decided to finally accept that I have bi-polar disorder and get help. I have resisted treatment for years because I was scared. Scared that it would change me, make me someone else, take away my edge, take away the manic highs and just leave the crushing lows. I was scared that I would never know if I was the one pulling myself out of the fog or if it was just the medicine. I was scared of the side effects, that they would mess with my appetite or my (at times) boundless energy or that there would be unpleasant sexual side effects (which there have been in the past with some meds).
But after my recent emotional meltdown, I have decided I cannot continue fighting this on my own. It hasn’t worked. I am going to allow the doctor to prescribe a mood stabilizer and an anti depressant. I am scared and apprehensive, but I am willing to finally give this a real try. I would greatly appreciate it if people would share any experiences they have had with this treatment, or if people would offer advice in general for what I should do at this point in my life, because I truly feel lost.
Thank you.
-FJones
I think of myself as a failure. I have been successful in many things in life (games, sports, hobbies), but when it comes to school and work and life choices, I am a failure. I breezed through a gifted high school easily, and thus developed a habit of doing the minimum amount of work necessary to get by. This did not work when I applied the same approach at a challenging liberal arts college, and I flunked out after 3 semesters with a variety of disciplinary incidents in my file (nothing serious, just minor troublemaking and failure to respect authority).
For the next six years I did nothing productive, though I had a source of money with which to live on. I would make half assed efforts at jobs, though they never worked out, partly because I would get bored and frustrated easily, and partly because I have always had problems with authority. I shouldn’t say I did nothing productive – I cultivated a lot of my lifelong hobbies and interests, stared working out and became very good at racquetball and football, and became a recognized expert at a favorite board. But in terms of life progress, I didn’t progress at all.
Over those years I would self medicate with alcohol and drugs, but I never crossed the line into abuse, though my ecstasy use was pretty close. I have also been on various prescription meds over the years to treat various diagnosed conditions (ADD, depression, bi-polar, anxiety, OCD). Though, I always rejected the notion that I was bi-polar, even though all signs pointed to it. I always seemed to have ADD, but figured that was normal, and that I couldn’t concentrate because the material or work was really boring. When I was interested in something, I would lose track of the world around me and engage in that activity for hours.
The anxiety did not bother me much, because I didn’t have to deal with it. I had a girlfriend and close friends, and I did not need to deal with anyone I didn’t want to. Being borderline OCD didn’t bother me because, well, I think everyone else is weird for not being that way. I keep my place immaculate and have no tolerance for messes or thing being out of place. I like it that way. I do things a specific way and I don’t like interruptions to my routine and my space.
During these six years I did not cultivate any skills in dealing with the real world, interacting only with friends, family, and my girlfriend.
After six years of being this way, I decided to start doing something. I knew my money was running out, and that my girlfriend was losing patience waiting for me to fulfill my potential.
I returned to school and started working part time teaching SAT prep classes. I started over with school, and breezed through three years with a 4.0 average, and became one of my boss’s favorite teachers. I was not drinking often (I had always been a problem drinker) and was not using substances often.
This is where things started to derail. I don’t know if I burned out, if the years of using drugs and alcohol caught up with me, or if I just became more disenchanted with life than usual, but the last 5 years have been a disastrous serious of failures. I spent 7 semesters trying to finish that last year of school in three different programs (math, secondary education, and economics). I got numerous W’s, F’s, D’s, and C’s, and have nothing to show for it except thousands of dollars of debt and a GPA in the low 2’s. I walked away from the actuarial math degree despite crushing the first exam (no one else in my group even passed it). I walked away from the education degree because I couldn’t see myself interacting with teachers, students, and principals, despite the fact that my teaching and tutoring skills have always been praised.
My boss said I could take over his SAT teaching company when he was looking to retire in the very near future. I didn’t even pursue that incredible opportunity.
What did I end up doing? I walked away from all this so I could play online poker professionally. I have always loved games and cards and excelled at them, and I figured, “hey, I can make a living playing a game I enjoy.”
But I have failed, despite making $30 to $50 an hour and having the stats and ability to easily make $60 or $70 an hour. I lack discipline, and the emotional roller coaster of poker sends me to the highest highs and the lowest lows.
When I sit here clicking the mouse taking people’s money online, sometimes I hate myself. I feel guilty, and I feel like a failure. I could have done anything in life, and I am doing this? Taking advantage of people who are too stupid to realize how bad they are at a card game? It’s sad and depressing. But it’s a perfect job for me – I make my own hours and I have no boss. I don’t have to leave my home. And I can outplay and outsmart people and get paid to do it.
But my failure to make as much money as I should weighs on me. I am not getting anywhere, despite the potential to make $100,000 a year playing this game. I am deep in debt and struggling to pay my bills. Financial difficulties forced me to make four changes in my living situation in recent years, all of which were disastrous. I cannot live with people. I just can’t do it. I begin to resent them for things that bother me but that are not their fault. I need to live alone. Temperamental, OCD neat freaks who have a terrible time sleeping and work second shift and sleep at random times should NOT live with people.
But, I cannot afford to live alone. However, I cannot afford not to, because living here is putting me over the edge of insanity. I hate it here so much, and I don’t want to lose two close friends (whom I currently live with). My living situation is making it hard to play poker and my not playing poker is making it impossible to fix my living situation. I feel like I am stuck in a vicious cycle.
I am scared. I have given up much of my hope that I will ever succeed or get myself out of this. I don’t envision a happy future. I think about death a lot. I have physical and emotional pain that I carry with me from the time I wake to the time I go to sleep.
The emotional pain is the result of years of failure, of letting my parents down, letting myself down, letting my friends down, having my heart broken by most of the women I have cared about.
The physical pain is more problematic, as I have carpal tunnel syndrome and have had cubital tunnel syndrome. I had four surgeries for these (one on each wrist and elbow), but I am in constant pain and discomfort. It makes is very difficult to sleep at night, and impossible to sleep comfortably with a woman by my side (I need to sleep with my arms straight out to the sides, or else they start to hurt and I cannot fall asleep).
The pain and discomfort is aggravated by almost every single thing I like to do – games, darts, pool, sports, cards, weights, racquetball, and using the computer. I hate watching TV and don’t like watching movies. I just cannot sit still and I want to be “doing something.” But worst of all, I fear that this will prevent me from playing online poker, such that even if I do get all this other stuff sorted out, I will fail anyway because of this physical limitation. I just don’t know what else to do with my life, and that scares me and leaves me hopelessly depressed and anxious all the time.
I often don’t feel like living any more, though I would never do anything to hurt myself. But I am scared that I have nothing but unhappiness and frustration to look forward to. I am scared that the best times are gone, that my mental and athletic performance at the things I excel at is on the downswing, and will just get worse and worse. I am scared that I will never really fit in to this world; never find my place in society.
I hate leaving the house sometimes, it is just all so overwhelming and frustrating – traffic, hassles, dealing with authority figures who don’t see things my way, dealing with businesses who are trying to squeeze you for every dollar and ripping you off in the process, dealing with women who just hurt me and don’t understand me. I feel distant from my friends and family. Most of the time I don’t understand how they can stand to be around me, yet they care more about me than I do. I am scared that they will realize that I am not worth the trouble and that I will then be truly alone. I am scared that they are going to become parents and have no time for anything except their kids and their careers (This has already started to happen a little bit).
I decided to finally accept that I have bi-polar disorder and get help. I have resisted treatment for years because I was scared. Scared that it would change me, make me someone else, take away my edge, take away the manic highs and just leave the crushing lows. I was scared that I would never know if I was the one pulling myself out of the fog or if it was just the medicine. I was scared of the side effects, that they would mess with my appetite or my (at times) boundless energy or that there would be unpleasant sexual side effects (which there have been in the past with some meds).
But after my recent emotional meltdown, I have decided I cannot continue fighting this on my own. It hasn’t worked. I am going to allow the doctor to prescribe a mood stabilizer and an anti depressant. I am scared and apprehensive, but I am willing to finally give this a real try. I would greatly appreciate it if people would share any experiences they have had with this treatment, or if people would offer advice in general for what I should do at this point in my life, because I truly feel lost.
Thank you.
-FJones
You have a lot going for you. To sort out what is holding you back, that is what proper diagnosis, treatment, and psychotherapy will figure out for you. Take care of yourself... its so good that you are giving this shot while you still have years of life left to enjoy. And I hope you will.
