I feel as though everything in my life has been a mistake. I feel as though I have wasted time and have never done anything right. I have just started my 5th semester at Columbia College Chicago as a film major and although I am enjoying it, I am 25 years old and I wonder if it's all for naught. Has my entire life been wasted? I might not graduate until I am 27 or 28. I feel like I am too old to be in school. I feel like I have floundered around for too long.
It's like, something happens to you when you turn 25. You begin to see the students around you that are 18 or 19 as actually being 18 or 19. You don't feel like you're one of them. You feel like you could be their grandpa. Columbia College is an art school, and I'm glad to be going there--but I wish I'd done it sooner. I wish I'd done it befroe my "mid-life crisis." Everyday I wish I had had a family that had nurtured a career in art, rather than trying to s**t on the idea. They always told me that a career as a filmmaker wouldn't get me paid--and since they had to pay for my early school, I felt like I should just go through the motions.
Now the part that p***es me off. It took me being crippled by OCD for them to finally understand the bird needed to fly--and so finally I was able to start pursuing what I had wanted to pursue. But the thing is is that now I doubt myself constantly and I wonder if I'm good enough to do what I want to do. I'm taking my film classes this semester, but I constantly wonder if I'm good enough to do it. The thing is that I also have Social Anxiety Disorder and all the seating arrangements this semester are circular, L-shaped, or what not, so that everyone can sit there and have a dandy 'ol time looking at each other. It's nerve racking. I always feel like I'm doing something stupid or embarrassing and that all eyes are on me. My doctor chalks it all up to social phobia--but I think it's more psychological than anything.
I was ripped on so severely by my classmates and teachers in junior high and I wasn't necessarily the most popular in high school. I was the gay kid nobody would get near with a ten foot pole. My classmates used to chant my name in gym class and my teacher would just stand there and laugh. My government teacher told me one day I had my head up my ass because I'm so shy (he really said that too). I just don't know. I still carry all those scars with me. It seems to me that a couple years ago, people started to accept gays/lesbians a lot more. So now the attitude is to just be COOL no matter who you are. That doesn't settle well with me. I see 18year olds now who can be openly gay in high school, and I'm glad for them, but I'm still P****D. I can't just be cool now. I was abused daily for being a "fag." Even by people who didn't even know my name. That still pisses me off. It sends me into anxiety attacks just walking down the street to this day. I still think people aren't going to accept me for me. I still think people will automatically judge me just for that. Not many people do anymore, but it still pisses me off that I think these f****d up things.
So now here I am. Am I just trying to now capture a childhood I never had? A teenagerhood I never expereinced as my true self because I had to constantly watch for signs on my back? So now my hair has thinnned out and that bothers me. I was such a frog in high school and now that I'm into clothes and stuff--I wish I could have a chance to be beautiful. I always feel like I'm inadequate around others, sometimes even too ugly to be in class.
I had teachers physically abuse me when I was in preschool, and after my junior high experience I just don't trust most teachers. And this semester I got a teacher who I don't think likes me. I feel like she can tell I'm older than most of the undergrads. Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Maybe I'm victim thinking. I don't know but today I feel like a joke, because I had a really shitty day at school. Even my screen name Modernboy makes me sick today. Modernboy. Sounds like a guy trying to be a boy.
If anyone makes it through this, thanks for reading.

Dave

In Babylon,
On the boulevard of broken dreams
My willpower at the lowest ebb
Oh what can I do?

Great journaling, Dave. Write like that everyday and get that "stuff" out of your head and on paper, and after you are through writing and you find all those thoughts coming in again, remind them that it is OK to have these thoughts and feelings and they can wait until (pick a time to journal). Don't allow yourself to focus all day long on this stuff - good grief, no wonder your miserable. But do allow it once a day and once a day only until you get so tired of it you don't even want to think about it any longer.

My father was 67 years old when he graduated from college. His professors could have been his children. They told him he was the joy of their classroom. He kept the professors hopping and researching because of all the questions he asked and the information he brought forth into the classroom. Be an asset to the class instead of dragging yourself down. There is no age factor to going to college. You want to learn - then learn.

It would also be a good idea to ask yourself on a daily basis (once a day only): Why do I love my story so much? What am I getting out of it? Don't answer it. Wait for an answer to come to you.

Blessings,
Bon

Mb - you are only 25 yrs old - you better pace yourself with the "all for naught" comments. You have a lot of life ahead. I was 28 when I graduated nursing school. That was 15 years ago. You can do anything you want right now. Don't let the hurts of the past stop you from living for today. It's good to vent, but realize your life is important to you - if not to others.

Forge ahead!
Tammy
Forum Monitor

PS - I appreciate your warning in the title of the post but I must ask you to edit out the swear words. Thanks.

Modernboy,

I'm 53, male, married for 25 years with an 18 year old son in college. There are many parallels from your post that I have had in my life.

quote:

I might not graduate until I am 27 or 28. I feel like I am too old to be in school. I feel like I have floundered around for too long.

I received a degree in accounting at the age of 24 and five and a half years of college. My last two years were hell. Six hours a semester was all I could handle. My mind was betraying me. Obsessive thinking and close to anorexia. When I recieved my final grade transcript I went to a park and just stared at it. I could not believe I only had a 2.6 something in my major. My overall was only 2.7 something on a 4 point system. I knew it didn't represent my intelligence. Or at least I hoped it didn't. I "should" have finished in four years, this was 1974. I "should" have only been 22 when I finished. College was one big "mistake". Panic attacks and depression before I started, continued for two years. I struggled just to stay in school. I went steady with a girl that I "should" have never dated on a regular basis. I joined R.O.T.C. my first semester because my friend "wanted me to go through the experience with him." After that the officers "talked me into" staying in. I signed a contract with the Army my junior year. I had spent the entire summer "not knowing what I should do" about signing a contract. After signing my friend came down with diabetes and he was disqualified. So, I've made a commitment to the Army which was all my friend's idea to start with. My senior year the Vietnam war was winding down. They had too many people in the Army. They were offering all of us three months active duty then you could be discharged. I "felt an obligation" to the officers to take the two year tour. Once on active duty, the first three months are training in communications. Again, I am offered three months active duty then I can get out. I still "feel an obligation" to stay in so I let it pass again. I served two years and though it wasn't what "I" wanted to do, I enjoyed the experience. But, it was two years away from my career, accounting. I'm 26 when I start my first job, four years older than the other guys. I'm an "old timer" in my view. But, the lower than desired GPA didn't prevent me from getting the job that I wanted.

quote:

It's like something happens to you when you turn 25. You begin to see the students around you that are 18 or 19 as actually being 18 or 19....You feel like you could be their grandpa.

During my last six months of active duty I was 26 and dated a very attractive 23 year old. I "felt" like I was robbing the cradle. Then we go to a club and there are 18 and 19 year old kids and you feel like a "parent" of these "kids." What's funny is that I also ran (jogged) with a 19 year old girl at the Y and didn't feel older at all. When I turned 25 I felt time "slipping" away and that I "should" be married by that time, but I was really just beginning my search. Fortunately, I was able to find a very desireable and loving wife who was a whole year older than myself. I got married at the "seemingly" old age of almost 28. She was one month away from 29.

quote:

I wish I had had a family that had nurtured a career in art, rather than trying to (my word) "squelch" the idea. They always told me that a career as a filmmaker wouldn't get me paid--and since they had to pay for my early school, I felt like I should just go through the motions. Now the part that "ticks" me off. It took me being crippled by OCD for them to finally understand the bird needed to fly--and so finally I was able to start pursuing what I had wanted to pursue.

In high school I had the privilege to be coached by one of the best basketball coaches to ever come out of North Central Texas. I knew at the time he was someone special. History has proven me right. The man instilled inside of me self-confidence and self-esteem. I believed in myself on the court. It was a small Class A school. The largest schools were AAAA (4A). We played for the class A state championship my junior year. I was the starting and only center for the team. We lost that game, but we never should have gotten past regional. We played against teams that had more talent, more height, but not better coaching, and not more desire. Two of us were 6 feet or better the rest were below 6 feet. We played against regional and state opponents that were on average 3 inches taller than each of us. One kid was 6'8". Three inches is a tremendous height advantage at 6'2" tall. Upon my graduation, a four year college called me to come and try out for their team. This was after I had come down with severe panic attacks and depression and I was taking meds for it. I wanted to do this more than go to college. On the way down I had several panic attacks. I had to stop my car and take care of me. My mother, who my family doctor said had held me "too close in the nest", was nagging me to turn around and go back home. "No, mom, I want to go to Sul Ross." I got bad enough at one point that I said okay. We turned around. Fifteen minutes go by and I'm feeling much better. "Mom, I want to turn back and head to Sul Ross." She said, "No, we're going back home." Notice who's in charge here? My mother, not dad. I didn't know any better. I "thought" I had to obey. Truth is, I had my own car so I had a way to get to the college to try out. I was old enough to make my own way in the world. I didn't have to obey my parents anymore. But, no one told me that. To some kids, like my son, they have what seems like an inborn instinct that tells them when to stop listening to their parents. I never got to try out. At least you finally got what you wanted and your parents realized, to some degree, that you not doing what you thought you should do would make you sick. My folks, loved them until they died, never understood that. My mother never understood that. I never understood that until I was in my mid-thirties. I have never understood what caused the panic attacks and depression, only theorized. I can see more clearly now after reading what happened to you. I wound up on the psychiatric ward of a hospital for about 10 days. Two things I remember the doctor said, I was a perfectionist and I needed to be out on my own immediately. I didn't understand at the time what he was saying and it just made mom mad. I spent six more years at home before the Army carried me away.

quote:

But the thing is is that now I doubt myself constantly and I wonder if I'm good enough to do what I want to do.

All it takes is over protection from a parent or parents to cause self-doubt and to wonder continually, "Am I good enough?" To this day the same self-doubt and wondering if I'm good enough tries to attack me. I've let it get the best years of my life. My mother over protected me growing up. The doctor thinks I had polio at two and my parents found me in a field, unconcious from insecticide spray, a year or so after that. My mother had another son about a year and a half before I was born. He lived less than 24 hours. My guess is that guilt from that death plus what happened to me caused the over protection. Dad was concerned, for example, when I purchased a motor scooter at 14 with my own money, and other events that I don't specifically recall now. But he never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do.

One more thing my mother did that I picked up and have passed on to my son. I think this can be just as damaging as over protection--criticism. It eats away at your self-confidence and self-esteem. I internalized it and I became self-critical, or self-rejecting. Another word that the Midwest Center uses for it is "obsessive, negative thinking." For me it became an addiction.

If you have waded through all this to here, Modernboy, I'll give you the answer to your problem which I sought all my life up to age 51. It is God that has revealed this to me and long before me to Lucinda Bassett, the founder of the Midwest Center. Buy the Center's tape or video cassette program. In my opinion it is worth all the money I could ever spend going to psychologists for help and that would be probably two to four years worth of weekly appointments at $100 a piece. Buy it, then go through it faithfully. You will know after a few weeks if it really works, and it does. Once you have gone through it, go through it again. Use it just like an alcoholic would use AA. Spend time daily and weekly working the program. The more effort you put in, the sooner you will overcome all the destructive "conditioning" or "programming" you have received in your growing up years. It's not easy, but it does work. At some point you will discover many answers to the questions that you have right now. You will begin to experience a positive self-image and along with that self-esteem and self-confidence. Give yourself time, four months to two years, to see the positive impact the program has on your life. You will see results within four months, but the full affect may take longer.

I believe that you have become an expert at self-sabotaging or being self-destructive. The same applies to me. You have been taught or learned as a child to get your self-worth from "external sources" rather than from yourself (internal). That's why all the taunts as a child and the hurtful words thrown at you hurt so much and the negative memories still cause you emotional pain. When you start getting your sense of self-worth from yourself, these external forces will have less and less an influence on your behavior. The program will teach you how to do that.

Anger, bitterness and unforgiveness are very powerful self-destructive forces. At some point, to get better, you will have to release it and forgive all those who have hurt you. When you can do that, you will be well on the road to wholeness. They may not deserve forgiveness. Doesn't matter. It's for you, not for them. Forgiveness releases you from the prison that you are in right now. You're going to have to learn to be unconditionally loving, accepting and forgiving to yourself. When you begin to learn this, it will be easier for you to be the same way to others.

Sorry for my long windedness. I do the best I can and that's good enough. The only way to know if you are good enough at anything is to try, try, try. You will learn from your experience. It's okay to make mistakes. Some people get out into the work world after having obtained a degree and find out it was an error in judgement and go back to college to get more education in another field. Life is a learning process. None of us are perfect. And don't beat yourself up by saying my whole life is a mistake, I should be out of school by now, I'm too old to be in school. You are being self-critical when you think that and say that. It's self-destructive. Don't worry about it, just get the program and begin learning. At some point, depending on how much damage has occurred, you may decide a psychologist is necessary. Seek as much help as you need, but I do think that this program is a very good starting point. I wish you success. You are starting 27 years before I did. You would think that I am the one who is slow and wasted so much time. I choose not to think like that. I am thankful I found the help I did, when I did.