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Tired


TrishaCat

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I'm four years into college working towards a Computer Science degree and I really don't enjoy my studies or feel that I'm anywhere near where I need to be in understanding what I've been supposed to be learning.

I don't enjoy the problem solving aspects of programming. I like just knowing how to do something and then doing it, and most of the time I feel lost and/or don't know what to do or how to get from point A to point B when working on a program. I'll likely have to do a 5th year, possibly even 6th due to my ineptitude, and I'm already at a point where I can't stand what I'm doing and it takes all of my willpower just to keep working. I hate programming. I can't stand doing this anymore, but I'm 4 years in so I can't turn back. I want to switch majors or just drop out of college, but I can't bring myself to do that. I've already accumulated a decent amount of debt. I can't just accumulate all that debt and then have nothing to show for it. My family is poor and I live in an extremely small town (has a population of just a little over 2000 people). There's nothing where I live job wise aside from fast food restaurants, dollar stores, and gas stations. Were I to give up on college and grant me the rest I so desire, I would only continue to be poor and never be able to leave. I don't even have a car. Vehicles are expensive. I'd be stuck in this dead end town and poor forever if I gave up now. I don't want to be stuck on a minimum wage job. But I can't switch majors at this point either, otherwise I'll just end up with WAY more debt. I feel trapped, doing something I hate, something I loathe that I have difficulty bringing myself to do, and I have to keep doing this for another year. I don't even want to go through the next month and a half for the semester. Another year sounds nightmarish, and when I imagine myself as a programmer working at a job, struggling as I do now to understand what I'm doing, it horrifies me. I don't want to be a programmer. I don't want to suffer this constant struggle, this frustration and confusion that comes from writing code.

Originally, before I latched onto the idea of CS, I wanted to study meteorology and get into weather. I'm fascinated by weather, but I put that aside because I had aspirations to get into video game development. As much as I love games now, after all this time, I'm not sure I could bear to be a programmer. But I can't exactly go back. Its too late now. I can't afford to keep accumulating debt and spending even more time in school, especially since my GPA isn't exactly amazing. I failed and had to retake classes quite a few times in some cases. This is also why I'm behind and might wind up with another year. I'm terrified that I might even wind up with a semester going into a 6th as I said.

Though even beyond this, I feel like every inch of pride I used to have has died. I used to be so proud, feel so smart. I lack talent. My main source of pride in life was doing well in school. My 11th and 12th grade years I went to a new highschool and started to struggle, And once I got into college, the farther I've gotten, the worse it got. My pride has died. Everyone around me, all my peers, know more than I do about programming. I feel dumb and inadequate constantly. Group projects are especially terrible because everyone around me is discussing and doing work at a tremendously higher level than I and I feel completely useless. I want to pull my weight so that way I don't seem like I'm just trying to latch onto them for an A, but I have no idea how to help when I don't even understand what they're doing or what they want me to do. I get the feeling most of the people around me were programming before they came to college, while college for me was almost "just starting out to learn how to program" for me, minus an intro class I took in highschool that I didn't entirely understand. This is made worse when a teacher berates the class after getting a lot of bad grades or getting a lot of questions about a particular topic that he thinks we should know, going "You all should know this already!", making asking questions seem uncomfortable. But I'm at a point even where I'm not even sure what questions to ask in some cases, just plain not understanding what's being talked about in class. I'm falling apart here, struggling to latch onto things. I've learned some things in college to be sure, but not nearly enough to be useful in the workforce I imagine. But even trying to suffer through all of this, trying to deal with this confusion and lost pride....

I don't want to do this anymore. I want out of this field. I want out of this college. I don't want to go to class.

But I have to.

I'm trapped. I'm too far in to give up now, so I've put myself into a position of constant suffering and confusion. 

I wish I had someone to lean onto, to help me and guide me and go to when I'm struggling. If I wasn't so alone dealing with this wouldn't be so bad. But I don't have any irl friends to lean on that go to this school besides one, and she's constantly busy and with others. My parents used to be a source of comfort when I'm in need of someone to talk to, but they're hours away from my school. I'm completely socially inept; I have no idea how to make friends, initiate conversations, or anything like that. So I have no one to talk to when in need. Sure, there are people online, but talking to people online isn't the same as doing it in person. Its not a personal. Its not as comforting.

I hate being alone so much. It eats away at me. 

Beyond just needing someone to talk to, I'm lonely in other ways though. I often find myself craving a relationship. I want a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Someone to love and care about who'd feel the same way about me in return. But once again, I don't know how to talk to people. I'm terrified of initiating conversations. And I'm not attractive enough to have people throwing themselves at me or fawning over me. Some suggested I try online dating, so I did simple things like downloading apps like Tinder and Bumble. But I'm terrified of messaging people, and no one ever messages me, so said apps just became wastes of phone space. I've grown a fear that I might always be alone. Its gotten so silly. Looking at fucking pictures of anime girls of all things gets me depressed sometimes because its like "I'll never have a girlfriend like this" and whatnot goes through my mind. Seeing happy couples is sad. I used to love romance, and a part of me still kind of does, but imaginging couples being happy together while I'm not and am unsure whether I could or would ever experiences such makes me sad. I see online friends and people all happy dating, and here I am, so socially dumb that I have no idea how on Earth they ever wind up finding someone to date. I often feel like a lost cause.

What's the point of living? What do I have to look forward to? Video games? Granted, I love playing video games. But whenever I stop playing video games, I'm back to real life. I have to deal with real life, this real world where nothing interesting ever happens. Its all so dull and boring. There's nothing exciting about this world. Even watching anime or playing video games makes me sad since all these characters go on these amazing adventures, fighting bad guys and saving the world, being whisked off to strange and fantastical places. Yet I'm on Earth. I'm stuck here. And when I stop playing a game, I remember that. Its not like my enjoyment from games is even alone sustainable either. I've got to deal with real life at some point. I can't keep up such a hobby without making money of course, and I'm not going to be making money unless I make myself ideal for good jobs. And dropping out of college isn't exactly attractive. Nor is failing. 

I'm scared of failing. Right now I'm struggling to pass in Calculus III. I'm struggling to pass in Programming Languages. I'm taking a class I have no interest in and has no relevance to me called Cultural Geography and I'm doing poorly (but passably) in it. I'm suffering through Intro to Software Engineering due to a group project where everyone in the project is far beyond my CS knowledge level.

I've got until the end of April to deal with all this. And then another year. And then possibly another semester solely due to my ineptitude. I hate it. I hate this all. 

Admittedly I frequently think about suicide. But I'm not capable of it. I can't bring myself to actually take my life. In fact, I can't bring myself to let out these feelings at all ever beyond occasionally throwing it into posts like this online. I sometimes think about screaming in the middle of class, but then I don't, because that would be disruptive and cause trouble for me. I have trouble focusing in class whenever I am reminded of these problems, which only makes my already short attention span even worse when it comes to paying attention and actually learning in class. How can I ever pay attention when I feel like bursting out crying in the middle of class? Its enough effort just to hold myself together. But that, in its own way, is frustrating. I want to let it all out. I want to get help from somebody. I don't want to deal with all this alone. But I never let myself let it all out. I won't scream. I won't cry. I keep this all in, quietly to myself, silently and internally screaming and feeling like shit on a constant basis. 

Seeing a mental health professional might certainly help. I don't know. I sometimes wonder what they could possibly do. How they could convince me that everything is going to be all right when I can't convince myself. I don't know what the point of telling someone these problems is beyond just making me feeling better that someone knows.  They're certainly not going to suddenly make me not have spent 4 years of my life studying something that I don't enjoy and have trouble understanding. I did look into it though. But the only counseling available here would make me have to see a doctor first and pay a doctor's visit fee and then get recommended for it. The fact that one has to go through such a process, the fact that it costs money when my family is not rich and money for school is needed just makes the idea of such less than ideal. I may still do this. I'm seriously considering it. But for now I keep holding this all in and I hate it.

I have no one to lean onto here in real life. I'm all alone, and I'm just so tired. Tired of having to deal with all this. I don't want to go to class. I don't want to keep pursuing this degree. But I don't have a choice at this point really. I can't afford to be stuck with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, nothing to show for it, stuck in a dead end town with no decent paying jobs and no car. Such isn't the end I want. So I must suffer.

If you're reading this, I'm sorry for being such a downer. I needed to write this out and get it all out so that I could at least have some peace of mind. This won't make things better, but I can at least feel like I got my feelings out in some manner and grant myself a little temporary peace of mind. I"m not even sure this is appropriate to post here, but it does say "blog" so I figure I'd....well, blog. 

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