It's all good, sometimes this thread might be the best place to vent.

My parents had never permanently kicked me out, but I know what it's like to just not care anymore because it feels like no one else does. My first year at university, I left my hometown on my own for the biggest city in Alaska to attend school. The culture shock was incredible. My parents didn't agree with my major, I just got out of a really nasty break up, none of my friends followed me here, and every person I met here was so much more well adjusted to city/college life than I was that it made me feel like something was wrong with me.

You begin to just feel really insignificant. Like, even if you do well in school, no one really cares, right? You're just one person in a school, in a city, in a country, in the world - how are you special at all? So then I decided it didn't matter if I did well at anything. My grades really slipped, my health got terrible, I'm pretty sure I got a mild form of depression and maybe insomnia at one point, and I just felt really, really hollow inside. The only time I ever really smiled was when I was watching comedy movies of other people being happy. I was tired of doing things if no one cared. What was the point?

I stopped feeling emotions. I just went through the routine. But somewhere along the way, I got the crazy idea to do something for others again. But... not like before, where it was only for them. Like, I would do it for others, but I would also do it for myself. I never really did anything for myself up until then. Who's going to like this thing that I'm doing? Well, maybe I'll like it. You say you have no one left to impress, but even when literally no one cares about you, you can still care about yourself.

The greatest thing I ever learned - and I'm still in the process of learning it - was to love myself. For me, I began to learn that because I started drawing again after a 5 year hiatus.

I used to love art when I was younger and everyone "knew" I was going to grow up to become an artist, but I always drew to impress others. I'm not gonna lie, it still kind of do it to impress others - it's only natural when you're making something that's supposed to be seen by other people. But now, 80-90% of why I do it is to impress myself. I used to look at something I drew and I would think "How can I make people like this..." But now I go, "I like it. I can still improve, but I like it."

I can't tell you how to do it, but what you should be doing is learning how to do things for yourself. My grades skyrocketed after I began thinking, "I know other peoples' grades are better than mine, but how well can I do?" I just started going back to school for me, not for other people. After I did that, I had myself to say, "Whoa, I didn't know I could to that, that's fucking awesome."

I'm not saying you should never do things for others. I'm also not saying you should only do things for others if it benefits you as well. But if no one loves you, then love yourself. It goes a long way. For me, it went so far as to bring me happiness. I'm not a perfect person and I do get discouraged sometimes, but to me, a person isn't a failure if they stop moving - they're a failure if they never move again.





Sorry about how long that is, I'm probably gonna regret writing it in the morning. It's just, I'm kinda emotional right now; I just finished AnoHana and Toradora and I cried like a bitch.

Hey CH. Aren't there like book shops where you can go and read instead of just waiting in the park? Maybe have some overly expensive tea?

@Bloo

Hey, Toradora. Memories.


@CH and Bloo

I haven't been in a situation were I'm alone, but... I think I understand where you both come from.

I've always felt like my parents see my failures over my success; expectations are high, and I always let them down. Praise is hard to come by, and when its there it feels like a passing comment as it is followed by "You could have done better". I'd started to adopt that view of myself. A's turned to B's, which isn't good enough for what I want to do with myself.

But I've modivated myself recently with my PSAT score, so that's good.

@DH: I don't know if you do understand.

I think I do, to a certain extent.

Its hard to motivate yourself if nobody cares if you do well. You have to do something for yourself alone because nobody is there to be impressed. And motivating yourself is alot like doing something for the sake of itself. It seems meaningless to try and you stop caring about trying.

I mean, my view is different because I have someone to disappoint.


Edit: Its like keeping your head out of the water. If you have noone who cares if you sink, its so easy to let yourself drown.

@DH: SHE JUST WANTED HER PARENTS TO LOVE HER

WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP TELLING HER THAT SANTA ISN'T REAL

@ Bloo

:^)

Heheheheheheyes

Is that some signature anime wisdom? Because it's wrong. As usual.

@ DW


Whut?

About it being easy to let yourself drown. It won't be easy to let yourself drown because it's a relatively slow process that depends on your will to keep your head under water and your survival instinct will make you stop. You need a more powerful instinct or actual will to drown yourself, you can't just consciously let yourself drown for no reason. Even if you don't care whether you live or die, your body still cares.

For a second I thought the "signature anime wisdom" you were referring to was "believing in Santa."

Edit: The best anime wisdom I've ever heard was "that's your sister, you can't fucking confess to her."

First off, that was a metaphor and you know it. You just like being difficult :^)


Second, its not holding your head under water. Its giving up trying to survive. Your body's battered and broken, sometimes, its possible to live because you push yourself. If you give up, you're done.

Kmon man.

Hey, I'm deeply in love with you being alive too!! No fair!

All jokes aside, I care alot about you man. We need to talk more; I miss having conversations with you all the time.

@DH: It wasn't a metaphor, it was an analogy. It would have been great as a metaphor, but it doesn't work as an analogy. Also your body is mostly governed by instincts, not by your will. You need a very powerful will to tell the entire collective of cells that make up your body that it's better to die than to keep on living, as they would like to do. Because you are practically a colony of individual cells that work together to keep each other alive. Each of them does its part to help the others live. The only purpose you, the person, have is to be more intelligent than any other animal in order to more easily keep the body alive for long enough that it gets to reproduce. But you aren't really capable of managing the complex system that makes up the society of cells that is your body, because you use up a lot of energy and get tired, so the body has to make sure you stay awake at critical times, for example if you fall asleep while you're in a hot air balloon, it will slowly start descending and you will instinctively wake up because the body thinks you're in danger. It is possible to fall asleep in the bath tub and drown, I guess, but that's a whole different situation. Just letting yourself drown without strongly wanting it to happen is not possible because you will be overwhelmed with the desire to no longer drown, since your body still wants to live even though you don't care.

Perhaps a better metaphor/analogy is in order.

You're in a fast moving river, barely able to breathe at all and unable to climb out. You can try for a while, but eventually you'll succumb to the onslaught.

Your chance of survival in this case is much higher if you have a friend there to pull you out.



Then again, that's a bit different than the subject. But still, similar. Point of the matter is, I know what its like to feel completely unmotivated to improve yourself when nobody expects anything and your self-worth is all but nothing.

Toasted bagels are so great...

tfw no ban tomiko gf

Guys, I made a FB page.

Can you follow
Anime Reviews and Reccomendations
If you're a fan of anime? I think my first review might be NGE, an interesting place to start.

I started Serial Experiments Lain, and I'm surprised at how many times I've ripped something off without seeing it first.

Oh, but anyway, it was really interesting, I can't wait to finish it.

Have you seen the new NGE short? I haven't yet, but I guess it has really nice music.

@Bloo

You rip em off because you are inspired by media which was inspired by Lain.

Also, haven't seen it but cool. Do you have a facebook BTW? It be an easy way to communicate.