Mentally not well!
Hey All, I am writing this to express how I am feeling since last 1 year now. This post will be a bit lengthy but I would be grateful if anyone could help me even a bit. I moved into a new company 1year back and due to bad work environment I left. I took a months break and joined a new company now. I have a total 5 years of work experience, my salary is extremely good. ( I don’t worry about this at all for now)
My problem is I don’t know what to do in my life. I guess I have quarter life crisis.
Earlier I wanted to do music and act , I took professional classes and left because I felt bored idk why. I felt like I need someone to guide me and handhold me since I know no one in this industry. Talking about my job I have always moved into roles I loved every bit of work and I m very sincere and hardworking. I stopped working out , I stopped cycling, I stopped painting. I stopped liking everything literally. Idk how to get back at things. I feel I am gonna die anyway why I need to do this , or that or etc etc. I even took counselling but it did not seem yo help me.
Idk what to do. Please share your experiences too and what I need to do.
Hey @LankyEmbassy , I would suggest why not do truth seeking towards these feelings. You said you love your job, right? Why do you love it? Why not do more and more in it? Why do you feel something is missing in your life? Is it because of social comparisons? Is it because of the damn social media? Do you feel you aren't living your life? You can define the standard or the life you want, there's no rule out there that life needs to be lived a certain way. If you think you aren't doing stuff apart from your work and you really want to, Just figure out what those are and go do it!
Thank you for taking out time and replying, it really means a lot. ❤️ I have come to a realisation that I have done all these work/job in my life because someone appreciated it, be it my manager or immediate colleagues and they said you’re good at it so you have to keep going or there was some kind of anger inside me. In my first job although I did the same work as folks from IIT, I was paid less and it was rubbed on my face that you’re not from IIT, hence the less pay and I felt like shit. I felt like IIt is everything and to overcome that I worked harder and made sure I reached the same salary as the IIT folks were paid. Soon after that I reached a stage where I earned more than I could ever imagine. Like my salary increased 200% and I was extremely overwhelmed and felt like hard work literally pays of everything. But, only to realise that all these dreams were never mine, I was forced to do all these because of how people treated me.
I have worked in 3 organisations so far. My experience in the third company has been bad because my managers were extremely bad and mentally harassed me. So I quit. I din feel like I was appreciated even a bit for all the effort I made and helped the company.
Also about social media, I am not on Instagram or Twitter or any other. I have stopped using all of this like 2 years back. I just listen to music on Spotify and YouTube.
I just don’t know what I want, my mind is just not working.
Why do you want handholding of something you like? I think if you really like some interest, you would learn it yourself by online content or by taking one time online classes. You just need to identify what you like and just indulge in that. It looks like you might have some level of depression, but we folks are not qualified to conclude that. You should visit some psychologist to ask the same. Because for normal folks, one at least has some interest to indulge in- either reading Books, or visiting new places, or watching movies, or Gardening, or keeping Pets. There are lots of things, which are interesting…
So I have been learning music , but when I said handhold, I meant someone in the industry could guide me. And I want to look out for that reference.
Yes, but you wrote something like “one to one guidance”, that would be a bit too much to expect in my opinion. There are several trading experts who undertake online trainings by charging hardly 20K or so. You can try one of those trainings and see if it helps.
If counseling didn't help you should try another counselor. This is exactly what they help people figure out.
Try speaking to Mahesh from InnerSight Bangalore, he's very experienced and good at his job - +91 98869 10917
Thank you. ❤️ will try to reach out to him.
I agree with that comment. Counselling guidance will differ from person to person. Try another psychologist. To my understanding u have reached ur financial plateau. If money is not something that will motivate u to live, find what motivates u.
Yes I did. But not helpful.
@LankyEmbassy I think you have to somehow challenge yourself for the next thing
Not job, anything which you want to improve or which drives you.
Not sure if this also can be done by a relationship maybe (just suggesting)
And at some point most people come across the big question of what they are doing with life, life is not roadmap so it’s okay if you get these thoughts sometimes
@LankyEmbassy start working out and things related to physical activities, this helps in giving mind clarity and overall health
I think you need to travel to find out happiness or whatever you are looking for. You will get to know that everyone have their own problems and it’s not easy for many people even to survive in this growing world.
Hey @Budapest I have been thinking of this lately as I read it somewhere earlier that it would at least give me a perspective towards approaching life like you said. I need to do solo travelling to realise this and speak to a lot of people.
Yeah, it actually helps. Telling you after my personal experience. And yeah believe me in the end you will laugh at you or your problem like what all are you thinking of.
@LankyEmbassy have you tried inner child reconciliation?
No, not heard of this. Could you give me a brief?
So there is an adult in us who knows how to deal with the world and the child that sort of gets ignored or we lose the connection because of our worldly ways. Eg - your boss is toxic with you we feel a lot of things during this time and ignore those feelings and act the way an adult knows and get out of the situation or deal with it without taking care of our emotions. Leaves us sore or not connected with ourselves. So on and so forth with different situations in life. Feels like we let ourselves down, or cheated ourselves. It doesn't mean indulging the child but taking care of it by being a responsible adult.
I went through many bad workplaces and bosses. They all thought I am a nice person no matter what they did to me. But I could not understand what is going on inside me.
Start with writing things down that hurt you or hard times that you went through from child hood till now and burn the pages off. This calls out to the hurt self or child. Buring signifies it doesnt exist.
Read this book along the process -
Inner bonding -
Margret Paul
This helped me connect with my self. No more disconnect or not being able to figure out what is going on inside. Feeling fresh and new everyday. Hope this helps you too.
If this intrigues you more - atlas of the heart by brene brown is a great book too.
I totally get where you are coming from @LankyEmbassy , sort of been there and it's hard to pin point when you are going through this but I can assure you this too shall pass.
I went through almost all bits on this post given how I resonate with this phase and share my 2 cents from my personal experience. The idea is not to follow the same steps, but maybe the context of why and what and how I did makes more sense and is helpful :)
- Self imposed impostor syndrome is real and the only way to deal with it is consistent mental effort to tell yourself you're getting there and good enough. When I say that, I know what it's like to feel you let down your parents just because you couldn't crack an exam. Trust me I spent years trying to make up for this with jobs and getting paid handsomely, but the reality is even now with all my hardwork and output, I still get underpaid compared to so many supposedly tier 1 candidates (nothing against them personally) but yes it hits when you are not presented the same opportunities as they are in unique interesting jobs or places, it does take a toll. Then it becomes a defense mechanism to be more out there to outdo everyone. Stop that! It doesn't bode well and i can assure you nothing is ever enough, i learnt you can't control every variable and this starts creating a toss internally despite your performance, salary, status quo or what not.
If it's about your parents, I know better now that all they care about is kids being happy and for them to be there when they need most. This opened up my eyes when I had to take care of them for months and all that mattered to them was the quality time I spent with them, the little things I did to make them feel included. My dad is a top IITian and yet the most joyous I've seen him in years was when we pursued his interests together. That's your first circle of influence and this will matter.
As for your second thing, life's purpose is all but transient. Sadly, we've been goat fed this notion
This notion that having a mission or higher purpose is what life is all about, it's BS to ensure you always hit for someone's dream!
Take pleasure in knowing like everything in life, life's purpose is transient. For my college life, my purpose was to be out there to learn everything I could and I did. After my first job, I felt my purpose was to work for a larger cause that brings systemic change in the world. Over the last few years, my purpose has been to do meaningful work that impacts only a few things but not at the cost of my own time & freedom. It's more about experiencing the wonders of the world than anything else :)
So don't fixate on purpose, focus on what soothes you in this journey at this time and go from there. Your purpose is like connecting dots, you don't realise it till it's the end point.
As for pursuing music or art, trust me when I say this. I sucked at music when I started, but I continued despite the mockery. Why? Because I felt connected to what I was doing, your art is your self expression and no one can take that from you. It's not for the masses, it's for you to connect and communicate better with what you feel is aligned to your trueself. Also, if people hate, let them. What people can't take away is the sanctity it will hold for you and your persistence. I sucked for months and months, till I didn't and then everyone felt I was natural. But that didn't matter, I was glad that I could persist and simply keep at it to make it work. That's what your passions are for, to feel like you can ride against the tide :) so embrace the feeling my friend
As for not being able to exercise or activities, you need to find those things that made it joyous for you. What worked for me, was simply finding those little things I am grateful for, being happy about things around me. Could be as simple as being happy about having a balcony with a view where you can sip you morning coffee in peace and listen to music.
I started aligning myself to what I wanted, I gym because I love this version of myself who is fit and ready to tackle anything. The idea is to find those little triggers that motivate you and help you with a positive feeding loop internally.
My workouts helped me to be fit, the fitness helped me to be sharper mentally, the sharpness helped me to pick tasks meaningfully and so on. I always look at how I connect these dots as a motivator to bring myself to be consistent and it helps.
Beyond that, maybe explore different things you otherwise wouldn't. Push yourself like how you would for you job, like go for a pizza making class, explore the local market. Anything that gives you a chance to build your own story in your mind and then connect with people beyond the norms. An open perspective is sometimes all it needs to break the shell and stop oneself from constantly putting a blocker.
Hope this helps you man :) Not as concise or structured as I would've wanted it to be, but the idea was to simply share your feelings and let you know it's okay :) Just keep at it one day at time and practice more self love than anything else in this world
Hope you are having proper sleep that will fix many things.
Apart from that I am also in same position so can't tell much
Hmm I do sleep enough buddy. I have tried monitoring that. But I think I have to figure out more and narrow down my thoughts to arrive at my root cause.
I wish you too recover soon. Don’t worry we are all here to help out each other. ❤️
Having good sleep is a good sign. I think one can safely strike off the clinical depression aspect, if one gets good sleep. I have had close contact with people with actual, medical depression, and they all had a common issue of not having good sleep. So a good sleep is a good sign.
Get married.
So I can transfer my burden of thoughts to the man ?
Getting into gender wars? Ruin your life no further. You lack a purpose in life. Marriage gives you that purpose. You share a sense of purpose with the man and with your kid. You will realise that all your value systems passed down to you make sense once you raise the kid