Day 6
Hello again. It's been almost a week, and... I'm actually starting to feel better. What's changed? I believe it's my mindset. I'm starting to remember what I learned years ago; that I spend the most time with myself, so I should be nice to myself. It's hard on some days to be nice to myself, because I still have bad sleeping habits and I spend some days doing barely anything. But I've accepted that this is a part of the process. I need a break, I need some time to relax and realize that there is no rush to reach my goals. I've already made it quite far from where I was last year, and even more from where I was two years ago.
So I think today we'll delve deeper into my past, and what's changed from the past years.
2022: The start of a downward spiral
2022 was a weird year for me. During that summer, I started getting really into psychedelics, experimenting with different drugs. It started with weed. I found that the more weed I took, the more I had these weird experiences that seemed to open me up to different worlds that were available in my mind. I also had a crush on a girl, who showed clear signs of reciprocating that feeling. Slowly, I kept escaping the reality of things, that I messed up or that it was never meant to be, and was using psychedelics mostly to escape those feelings or delve deeper into them without actually acknowledging the reality of things. She was much more experienced than me, and since I was still a virgin, I didn't realize that it wasn't quite as deep for her. She just wanted to hook-up; after falling out with her ex-boyfriend, she was just looking to have fun and enjoy whoever came her way. I kept having conflicting thoughts about this, and eventually never went through. In hindsight, it was a good thing, but I kept beating myself up over it, and continued yearning for a deeper sense of connection. Once the summer ended, I moved to Montreal for a 4-month internship. At first I was excited; finally I can move out and experience something new. But quickly it turned out to be too overwhelming for me. Living in a new city, knowing no one and still dealing with my mental issues, I just kept falling deeper and deeper into the trap of drugs and escapism. Eventually I started dissociating hard, so I went back home after only a month of staying in Montreal. Suffice to say, this only made it worse. Once I got home, I just continued doing drugs. That was a long winter.
I kept having these thoughts that I should be the man of the house now; I'm 20, and by now I should have the maturity to be of use to my family and the people around me. That pressure I put on myself was too much, so instead I slept a lot, and continued escaping using drugs. I fell into a deep depression and didn't know what to do, where I should take my life.
2023: The start of something new
I spent the first few months of 2023 still quite depressed and hopeless. Eventually, I realized this is something I can't deal with alone, so I sought out a therapist. That was probably one of the best choices I made, and I'm still with that therapist to this day. Looking back, that school semester was also quite good. I did pretty well in most of my classes, and it was the only semester I took 5 classes. That was likely driven by a mix of things, including spending a lot of time with my courses and starting on ADHD medication. I didn't really want to do anything else anyways, and all I had to focus on was school and gym.
Eventually near the end of the year I finally went through with my plan of making powerlifting a real pursuit. I found a great coach, and we worked together to improve my technique to eventually go to a meet. That was the year I stayed consistent, despite my depression.
2024: Searching for something more
2024 was when I started searching for something else. Something more than this simple life of going to school and hitting the gym. I started trying to break my anxiety and talk to people. I finally felt a little less dissociated. It did mess up again though, as I fell in love with someone else, which was not really much help at all. I kept falling into this cycle of falling in love with someone, or maybe the idea of them, and then destroying myself over trying to get them to like me back. It never succeeded. I had my first powerlifting meet, which went quite well, and I was excited for what's to come. I also had a good internship lined up for that summer.
The internship didn't go as planned. Before the internship, I finally found a girlfriend. She was amazing, but unfortunately had to go to China during that summer. I tried to focus on my work and prove myself to the company, and looking back, although I failed to do so and put up a subpar performance, I still learned a lot. It was also a lot, the expectations they had for me, as this was the first time I was in a role like this and it was quite difficult to learn. Anyway, the internship went by quite quickly and that was the end of it. I think my problem at the time was I was too focused on keeping up with others and didn't give myself a break after work, so I ended up burnt out a lot.
School started, and I could tell I had no energy to do any of it. I barely made it through the semester without failing one of my courses, which was quite surprising looking back as that course was painfully difficult, especially for me who wasn't really interested in the topic. But I made it out. And now I'm here, in the 2nd semester, still having little energy to do much, likely burnt out from the accumulated stress of the internship, having my first girlfriend, and the difficulty of that course. And I never fully gave myself a break; video games felt like an escape from all my responsibilities.
So in the end, we're back where we started. I need a break, and yet I feel I can't give myself one just yet. I guess I'll keep pushing forward until I have some free time.
