Usually if I'm in a funk it's one of two things:
Either
1. I'm being too self centered/self focused/self conscious, in that I'm solely focused on MY problems and MY feelings and MY bullshit.
Merely stepping outside of myself for a little bit and talking to an old friend or someone else about their shit. Truly listening to them, giving them my full attention and keeping the conversation about them. Taking my mind off of me and putting it to how someone else is feeling automatically cures me of this. In my experience this is the most common reason for the vast majority of feelings of depression for me and others today. We're just too self focused. Really think about how other people feel and suddenly your shit you felt mattered so much, really doesn't matter as much anymore and you realize you turned it into a bigger deal than it actually was.
2. I've been avoiding dealing with something emotionally that I've been distracting myself from for long enough, that any moment to myself is a chance for it to come leaking out. So I look for the next distraction, to get away from that feeling, rather than trying to deal with it.
Also a very common one. Especially since most people today train their brain on a regular basis to be distracted. Like how often are you texting someone, viewing social media, with the tv on at the same time. You're constantly breaking focus from one thing, to the next to the next. Part of that is just habit. But another part of it is feeling discontent with a certain feeling and seeking distraction away from that thing. It's super easy to do, but the feeling never goes away until it's addressed. You should be able to sit alone in silence completely content. The worst you should ever feel when sitting in silence is boredom. If you're sitting in silence and you're unhappy, then you have something to address. Boredom breeds creativity.
Yea, never go on vacation again because it's addicting and thus bad for us! I'm joking, this is step one... find something funny to laugh at!
I can only summize that you see how life is there and you don't have focus in your life so it's just...#@$!@ depressing. Kinda the problem "Dorthy" would have had if there wasn't just a yellow brick road but 600 roads going different directions and the scare crow had no sense of direction.
So, I think you dumb down your world to the smallest and do what you need to do to survive, focus on something to be successful at. Set some goals to improve and challenge yourself. Self care is important.
If there is depression going back in time, then that may be childhood stuff/trauma/losses/abuse.. and therapy or work on yourself. writing, opening up about it is a start.
Bottom line.. change... is stressful, but what is needed... in a good direction.
life changes every 10 years, solve this hurdle, there's another set ahead... good luck... may "the force" be with you.
In a way, yes. Though, my definition of it is the feeling of your years passing you by and getting older, and being a little freaked out by it and feeling like you've missed out on a lot and should make up for it before it's too late. I've felt small spurts of it a few times, and I regretted spending most of high school keeping to myself and not being very social, and missing out on some things I could've enjoyed then. However, I think most of the time I didn't miss out on much from that time, since honestly, the teenage years are pretty much a joke.
As for what you're going through, I'm unfortunately not sure. Sometimes you need to just let the funk pass, or force yourself to get up and do something productive that might make you feel better.
Yeah I think so because I am also in a bit of a funk in not knowing what the hell I want yet knowing yet not knowing how to get it or whether it is even possible. So I wanna be married by 25, have a kid by 27 and have a career, a home, a stable marriage, savings and go on a lot of holidays around the world. I also wanna complete my studies, learn a few languages, progress in my future career, get a few promotions and be earning at least 70K by 30. I don’t know how I will do all of that in nine years even though nine years is a long time and that frustrates me! I also want a big 25th bday bash and an even bigger 30th one and photoshoots for both to keep.
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Look I've been saying this. This is a new thing with Gen Y and beyond.
People are worse off financially than their parents at the same age. This is a fact in the US at least.
People are literally starving, sleeping on the streets, cramming into one or two bedroom, or even studio, apartments with 2, 3, 4 or 5 other people to bring costs down.
And, during this, people are either unemployed or, often, working two or three retail or temp jobs. Some do serving instead.
Other people may have a 'career' but they need to work 40-60 hours a week every week. Get up early, go to bed early and so on.
With social media people can compare their lives, and their bodies, with others. Combine this with the fact that aging starts around 25 onward. Female fertility declines sharply. Windows for kids begin closing.
This can all come together to make people feel like they somehow got left behind. That their best years are behind them. Part of the problem is that college runs until 22.
If people could get out into the world at 18 then by 22 they might not be in such a jam.
But by 50 they might be due to no education. But at least they could enjoy their youth, and have kids at the right time. And get a chance to build savings before aging begins.
The saddest part of all of this is that 18-24 are prime years. Our bodies are running efficiently in this time and for that to be thrown away acquiring debt, partying and whatever else it's just sad.
Likewise, working too much too young has the same effect.
Worklife balance needs to start at 18, factoring in everything from the very beginning. But at 18 nobody knows anything. And if you come from a first generation immigrant family, or a family of non-college educated people, in many ways your f*cked because our society does not extend helping hands to you.
I just cannot believe our country has been built on such cultures thus far.
It's not so much a biological phenomenon like say puberty as it is a sociological phenomenon that affects a specific demographic sharing a common timeline in their social development. For those who follow the conventional, primarily middle-class pipeline to entering the work force, starting shortly after birth from primary school to secondary school and culminating with university at an average age that coincides with about a quarter of our current life expectancy, the sudden lack of structure immediately thereafter can very much feel like a devastating betrayal by the sociological mechanisms that have almost certainly made you dependent on them to spoon-feed you your major life decisions. The "real world" as you've only seen it from a distance up until that point, is terrifyingly open-ended and bereft of guarantees.
The quarter-life crisis is a common reckoning young adults experience as a reaction to the stress and disenchantment that comes with losing the structure and certainty they most likely took for granted in addition to the mourning and regret that comes with the sudden realization of that loss.
Been through one myself. And a lot of the promises made to me in my early life, proved hollow. That sense of betrayal can make anyone feel void and empty. It comes from lack of any clear sense of having any goals worth having, or how to define what makes a goal worth having in the first place, apart from those set for you by others - whom you can no longer rely upon for valid input.
Sometimes, you have to let life surprise you. Try something you never expected to see yourself doing. Discover talents you never expected yourself to have. Your old life context is broken. You need to find a new context. But if the sadness and apprehension, as well as some issues with coworkers, leads to you jumping every single time a door opens across from your own, or unable to shake this unexplained feeling of certainty of impending doom - especially if you begin experiencing palpitations for no clear reason that make it impossible to sleep - may be time to invest in Zoloft. GAD can kill you.
QUARTER LIFE CRISIS is a thing. I am 25 and i am still experiencing this. It is life showing us to save money while you are young and use it when you are old. If you are working, you must be earning money. Amd you may spend almost all for the month and is maybe waiting for next month salary. It won't let us save money. And you may now know that money controls the world and without that even our parents don't even care about us. So do what it is needed. Save money and don't forget to enjoy yourself
Unfortunately, no. It used to be that Western culture stipulated roles and norms. Part of its post-modern cultural dismantling is these things becoming less set and more voluntary. Add to that the lack of cultural goals like the space program if the 60's, no agreed common enemy, like in the Cold War and the failure of government schools and the university to teach objectively and you have two generations of young people who do not know your asses from first base. The ones that still do have been raised in regulated environments; some good, some not.
I feel like it can be when a person is not where they want to be. I am sure I’ll be similar in a few month when I am 25 because I am only wrapping up grad school now and I haven't started my career yet. It will go away I am sure when you get the things you want and worked hard for :)!
Is it a start of the year thing? Were you feeling this way before Christmas? Sometimes January can feel like getting to the end of a marathon only to be told that it's also the start of the next marathon.
I think I've been having a quarter life crisis. A large part of my childhood was wasted due to depression, mental illness, bullying, socal anxiety, etc. I realize that I've never really experienced being a kid and a teenager, I just let those years pass me by.
There's a list of criceses, that people go through. The science is there. Google it. They happen so predictably, it's biological. I don't remember for sure, but the first one occurs at age 30. There's also things you can do to go through them productively.
The so called mid life crisis is only real if you believe in developmental psychology - at which during your midlife or so, you decide whether you're truly happy or not with what you've done. It isn't falling into a slight depression, its literally a crisis where people can change their jobs, area of study or even divorce their partner or feel the urge to get one. I don't think you're going through your mid life crisis rn and I think the term is incorrect given out
Quarter-life Crisis is very real! It happens when you realize that you've invested tons of your life to finding yourself, and realizing that you aren't any closer than you were 4 years prior.
I've had desperate crisis since i was a Teenager. Depression ate me every day alive and my Hunger tried to kill me. All while being penniless.
i wonder if i would have taken that over the mid life crisis. I'm not sure.
With all the world's pressures and insecurities about life and career, I'm sure it is.
Try to be more positive do anything that makes you happy go to
your happy place.
Yes it's a thing because it is an extremely important time for making decisions. nobody can help you apart from yourself and those you love
After a certain age, your entire life is a crisis. Its just moving from one existential problem to the next.
Quarter Life crisis seem to correspond around that age you're actually an adult. You're technically still a kid till around your mid 20's. You'll grow out of it, don't worry.
it's a thing. Shrooms.
Shrooms.
Figure out what's causing it and change it?
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