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Trying to deal with school/girl/life
Xego
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey. I'm a 23 year old guy finally taking the plunge into university life. I've been having a really tough time dealing with the changes going on though. I'm about to be broken up with by my girlfriend of 3 years and I'll be moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I know no one but my brother who'll be coming with me. I feel so overwhelmed with everything that I'm finding it hard to just sit down and breathe. I'm a good looking guy and I'm really friendly, but I also have anxiety problems and can become depressed really quickly, so I'm not sure how meeting new people will work. My brother is very much an introvert spending most of his time online. I'm just really worried about pretty much everything all the time now. I feel so disjointed and broken down right now. I don't know how to deal with anything.
Basically I guess my question is how do you start over? (sorry for being so incoherent, having trouble focusing)
Basically I guess my question is how do you start over? (sorry for being so incoherent, having trouble focusing)
Xego on
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Anyways, it's going to be hard. Don't kid yourself. You'll probably feel lonely at first, but with time you'll get past that. My advice to you is don't be afraid to be outgoing. Go join a club, or maybe look into the Greek system on campus. Force yourself out of your room/apartment whenever you can, and go do stuff on campus. College is great for meeting people, trust me. A lot of people will be in the same boat as you.
Good luck! It'll all get better.
2. Join an activity group. A friendly running or biking club, a walking club, whatever. Look for something which will have people your age and is a low-pressure social club. You can go the "happy hour" club route (lots of young professional groups that have that) but I had better luck with more activity groups that occasionally go drinking than drinking groups.
3. Yes, it will be hard, but most things that are worth it are hard. Just look at all the people around you who are managing to survive and get by. You can do that too.
Stage 1: Explore. Whether on foot or by vehicle, get to know what's around you. I make a habit of going for walks, really getting to know the nooks and crannies around where I'm holed up. Good convienience store, quick bite places, nicer restaurants, nearest night life.
For me, walking is essential because a new place feels strange, and physically going past storefronts and down roads etc helps build up my local neighborhood map in my mind. It locks in local landmarks, and gives me the ability to 'know i'm around the right place' when driving or walking back to my home from somewhere else. It also helps with that 'sweet, I'm home' feeling that I need after being out and about.
As your knowledge of the area grows, branch out further and further. When driving, take the residential loops and alleys instead of the main roads all the time. It will help fill in the gaps between main roads, giving a better sense of space and general locale. That way, if you should take a wrong turn at some point, you'll have a better feeling of 'thataway' when your trying get to somewhere specific.
Stage 2: Routine. Once you have a few places sorted out, setup a daily routine. A typical morning for me might be park, hit coffee shop, chat outside for a few minutes, pop in to the office, get the lowdown for the day from co-workers, and then get to actual work. At school, I'll chat with people outside my first class.
Routine helps you meet people that do the same things you do, and makes people easier to approach (if they dont approach you first) because they've seen you before. Generally I will observe people a few times before I actually meet and greet them, unless the situation suggests sooner or later. At that point, you're a familiar face, you've got something in common, and you've got lots to talk about (i.e. I am new, what's fun, cool, tasty around here?)
I'd say that in stage one, it's like 80/20 explore to routine. You'll find the best places to go, thus establishing the routine. Stage two is like 80/20 routine to exploration. You still want to get out and about, but you'll want to develop rapport with people travelling in the same circles.
Stage 3: Settling In. Ha just kidding, I never get past stage 2. I assume it involves housing and dinner parties.
Seriously though, you've at least got a part-time wingman which is generally more than what I get. I've had wingmen before, and they will lessen the strain or anxiety about meeting new people somewhat, but I will straight up recommend that you leave him behind sometimes. You've got this huge opportunity to be anyone you want to be, without being constrained by how people already know you. It can be pretty freeing really. You'll always be you of course, but if you've ever felt pigeon-holed, its an excellent time to branch out.
That's really all there is to it. Always be cool, which is to say, avoid conflict where you can. You wont know how things are socially connected, so tread carefully, but with purpose. Meeting people is awesome, and if you do it right there are very few negative experiences. Most people are cool with an introduction and a handshake, and you will know by the way conversation progresses whether or not they are open to more conversation.
Friendship is really about joining up with other people to travel through life together. Whether its a few miles or a lifetime, the same rules apply. Carry your own weight, contribute easily and willingly to the group, and if you agree to do something, always go the distance. Sometimes it's fun and sometimes its hard, but the important thing is that you were there sharing the experience.
You seem pretty solid, I'm sure it will all work out.
I come from a military family which meant a lot of moving around as a kid. You would think that because of that I would be used to packing up and going to a new place and dealing pretty easily with it. However instead I kinda saw everywhere I went as just another place I would move away from and didn't really make any connections. I did spend 6th-11th grade in the same town though and made some good friends there but then moved away senior year. After graduating I moved out and went to a community college with my old highschool friends which lasted a semester. During winter break I went home and noticed that my parents were fighting and doing well so I moved back in to take care of my dad/siblings. That move put me in a spiral of depression and working crap jobs for the next 3 years. I'm getting back on my own two feet by going off to college but I'm just super worried about anything and everything that could go wrong.
The girl situation is probably what is bothering me the most though. I dated a girl senior year of highschool and we broke up after graduation. This is part of the reason I ran back to my old town to go to school with my old friends. Anyways, we ended up back together after she graduated college and we have had the best 2 years together, at least I thought so. Apparently the last months we've been together I started really retreating into myself, probably because I was planning on moving away to college this semester and didn't know how to deal yet. Over this winter break I went to visit my parents back east and while I was there my gf and I got into a huge deal over everything, not so much fighting as her telling me all these problems that I didn't know we were having and how she didn't break up with me because she was worried I would freak out and move back in with my parents (probably true) and allllllll this stuff that just totally overwhelmed me. I had a nervous breakdown, didn't eat or sleep for about 2 weeks. I'm feeling a lot better now but my main thing is trying to get this relationship to work. I really don't want to lose this girl but I don't know if theres anything I can do about it anymore. We have too much history and feelings to ever just be friends and I'm doing my best to be sane and everything but it's becoming too much. I kinda just want to end it so I don't have to worry about it anymore. At the same time I would do anything to make it work out. Idk.
But basically, going through every scenario in my head, the answer for how to deal with any of this stays the same. Go work on myself, my schooling, and my life. How could I expect someone to want to be with me when I can barely stand myself right now as it is. I'm still just unsure as to how it's going to work out. I've never had to really start my life, I'd always had some sort of out. Either I wasn't planning on staying in one location too long or I just didn't care about myself enough to go out of the way to do anything about it. I guess I'm just scared... but yeah, I'd defiantly use more advice to how to deal with starting fresh in college.
Also, this "too much history to just be friends" is bullshit. I'm friends with plenty of my exes. Trust me, you'll get over it. Feelings fade.
I have two pieces of advice:
1) Break up with her first. There is nothing wrong with a preemptive strike.
2) Don't use the passive voice when you're writing for college professors.
You're inside your head a bit too much. Don't plan for a situation that cannot be controlled or planned. Moving is a big deal, but only as big as you make it out to be. Why plan on doing x, y, and z when the facts may be different on the ground when you actually get there? Have a general direction, have confidence, and everything else will fall into place.
I say this as someone who's lived a similar life to that of yours: moving every few years as I was growing up, and hey look I'm still on the go. Point is: you have an advantage here. It's not a BAD thing unless you want to make it out to be one. You're probably more adaptive than most. You're probably a better communicator, you're good at making first impressions, and you've probably got an open mind on your shoulders. Don't focus on all the things you won't have or don't have... focus on how the things you DO have can LEAD to the things you eventually want.
After all if someone gave me a hammer and told me to slice a lemon with it, I'm not going to cry about how the hammer is not a knife, I'll just find a way to make the hammer useful in the lead-up to slicing the lemon. Or, you know, bash the shit out of it to relieve tension. Whatevs.
As for your girlfriend, the relationship will only work over long distance if you are both open and honest about the shit between you. She's already kept a lot of problems from you. What others will she keep? Her dumping a shit-ton of problems down on you unexpectedly is not the mark of someone who cares about you, it's the mark of someone who was too scared to dump you even though she wanted to. It will suck to lose her, but you also can't "work on yourself" when you feel tethered to what this OTHER person might want or wish you to be.
My advice is that the relationship is essentially over, and you can continue to work on it being a shadow of what it should or used to be, but the fact is that it is no longer anything particularly strong or nurturing. Alternately, you can take THIS move (as opposed to the others) as a NEW START and work on yourself. If you were meant to be together, your paths will cross again. If not, whatever, you've grown as a person and probably have a much better idea of what you want from a relationship.