Trying to rebuild my life after being an hikikomori, and worries about college and age.

[Amile]

Hi, im a stage of my life where I'm really worried and anxious, I'm going to start college again in a new career very soon (like within 2 weeks) after being an extremely depressed NEET shut-in for 6 years, after i dropped out in my first try at college. I have been somewhat recovering the last months and this is a part of that process, but i still feel very uneasy about various things.

After all this time i feel like a alien around others and in society, not only i am in the spectrum and i am that weird guy, but i also feel like subhuman because although I'm still somewhat young (i have 23), i will be around people that will be way younger than me living in a stage that i never lived and will never live. I saw college and all of this as an opportunity to somewhat rebuild everything, to meet other people, do things, connect and belong to somewhere, maybe even love someone. But all of that seems now off reach and delusional.

I don't even care that much about my studies themselves, although I'm interested in my career (Computer Science) and in earning money with my camp of study i don't know if i will live that long and is very likely that i will be already underground before that matters. What i wanted is to give life a last chance and feel less like a waste of oxygen but i feel too old, too old to live as i wanted, to far off the only place i only ever liked being; when i was 12.
I will graduate if things go well like at 27 years old, or very likely at an even older age, that sounds humiliating, depressing and not motivational at all.

I'm obsessed with age and grieve not being a small boy like anything else, and all of this seems just adds salt to the wounds. I lived more than enough and everything after 13 is just an extra that i never asked for.
Specially any life after 20 feels like trash it would have been better to never have been lived, birthdays makes me suicidal to the point that i know that i will die before my birthday and i cannot stand knowing that I'm now 23.

What i can expect of the future? How i can learn to enjoy life and to let go the past?, or how i can accept having more than 20 years?.
i know that my problems seems pretty mild, considering so much things that one can see here in this forum every day, i'm just a hypersensitive loser.

 

[AAE]

I've been there when I was the same age. After lots of therapy and self reflection I realized that one simply can't judge or compare oneself to others based on their or society's view of the world. Only you know what it feels like to be you. Age is just a number and we're living beings, not statistics. There is no life template. If there's something I've learned in life, it's that one's life/time can be linear, but also logarithmic or spiral-shaped, yet we can only exist in the present. We all sense things differently. There are so many endless factors that makes us who we are, and trying to chase a life template set by society or just any other person will only cause stress because it's literally to move away from truly getting to know ourselves and acknowledge what we personally need. Also, I believe we don't "let go" of the past, we absorb it and it becomes part of who we are because we once lived it as our present time. The future to me is just a concept that creates even more stress and society keeps trying to shove it down our throat.

My best advice is to think deeply about who you are to yourself and what you would truly want your life to be like, and if you're not stopped by illness and disabilities like I was a bit later, go for your own true dreams and realize that no matter what happens, you are your own person, your dreams are yours and nobody has any right to ever steal them from you.

Finally: Try and not think so badly of yourself. You see failure where there's really just another unique person going through the difficulties of finding the life that suits them, and doing their best navigating this maze. If you feel like you're truly your 12 year old self on the inside, start from there and think of it as your natural self and maybe don't measure in numbers.

This comes from an autistic guy, "40 years old" whose most true identity is still my mom's little boy. Health issues and evil people tried to take our dreams and they took mom's life, but I won't stop dreaming that maybe I could have the life I want and need after this is over. I don't know how/if things will unfold for me but I think I'd give life a real shot if I had been in your position. But just like you, I'm a unique person with my own mind.

I hope this somehow comes across as encouraging in a good way because that's exactly how I meant it. I saw someone saying "help" and shared my own thoughts and experiences. I wish you all the luck and happiness in the world!

 

[Amile]

Thanks very much for responding!, it was very encouraging in a good way coming from someone that was in a in my place and is autistic too.
i guess i must calm down a little, although is a little hard sometimes, i can enter onto very bad meltdowns over this.