As a kid, I learned to “pause” my true self. School was the pause, and my hobbies, dreams, and passions were the unpause—something I’d rush back to during lunch or after class.
Over time, the pauses got longer. Tiredness and responsibilities crept in, leaving little energy to unpause at the end of some days.
At work, sometimes the pressure and the demands were so relentless that I couldn’t unpause for weeks or months at a time.
Then came marriage, fatherhood, and the joy—and work—of raising a child.
I want my son to get to know the real me but I worry that by the time he is grown I won’t have any “self” to unpause to.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time my life was on “Play.” I’ve been stuck in the same job so long it’s had two name changes and an acquisition since I started. It’s decent money and I can tolerate the work which is largely why I’m still there, because almost everyone I knew when I started has left or been fired. And I’m so afraid that if I leave or get let go I won’t be able to find anything else because the job market’s been absolute dogshit.
I’ve been experimenting with my gender presentation. I did a full body shave and picked up a skirt. I don’t think it’s helped me feel better about my body. I just kind of want to be a brain in a jar or a stuffed animal or something that doesn’t look like a complete pile of shit no matter how it’s dressed up.
That’s a disturbingly accurate description of how I’ve felt for decades
My rent payments aren’t paused
Yes, I know exactly what you mean. A lot can be explained by the lack of material resources (not all).
Neither me nor anyone else on internet is qualified enough to properly understand and give solutions. You should talk with your family your partner and a therapist.
Thankfully in my youth I was given the space to be my true self, so now that I have a job/wife/kids with a ton of responsibility and have to “pause” some of my self, I don’t mind it was I was really quite self centered and self absorbed for the first 30 years of my life. I balanced school with going out or doing my hobbies.
My true self now is a passion for my family and my job, and I know that long term my kid will become distant and I wont always work so for the moment I am happy to be “paused” and still carve out some time for myself 3-4 hours a week to enjoy my hobbies by myself. But the real trick is integration, my son knows that the real me is someone who wants to do a lot of activities with him all the time, and so I take the time to participate in his hobbies, and naturally he is very interested in learning mine or watching me do mine.
Yeah, but as others have said, your “true” life is both those periods of pause and play. Better way to look at it imho is how much you do for others vs yourself, and if you’re happy with that split.
I would consider your future self an other person as well, though obviously you do want to look after them.
I wonder what could be causing my depression…
I think I’m in the process of pausing myself.
Yup. Have been feeling like this for almost five years, since I started univeristy.
I started struggling with anxiety and depression shortly after I moved to another town. That, plus the exams accumulating and other minor stuff really did put my life on pause. After two years I was able to get sort of a break from uni, and I was able to unpause myself. I started going out with ppl and cultivating my interests, at least for a year. Now I’m trying to get my degree, and I should be able to in two months (shit it’s so close).
I’m still struggling with anxiety a lot, but I feel like the only way out is by finishing university. Once I do that, I hope I’ll be able to actually unpause my life, or at least find a good balance.
Sorry I don’t really have any good advice, but know that you’re not alone in this.
Also you went through that during a pandemic if I have my math right. I feel for all the youngsters that dealt with that during their most formative years such as university. I work at a uni and the kids were not OK.
The first year or so, yes. It really didn’t help making friends in a new city.
It doesn’t actually change being away from university.
The only way it changes is if you change your mindset.
Sorry friend, no clue what you are meaning.
I am only posting as motivation that it can be different.
Here is permission to unpause.
cliCC
I’m working on a 2.5 year degree to upgrade my credentials while working part time and i’ve been on autopilot/pause the entire time. I can’t remember the last time I did something because I wanted to do it and not because i had to or it was in my schedule. Oh well I’m almost done, my remedy will be a nice vacation and having evenings and weekends back.
Ever since I got home from getting kicked out of boot camp nothing feels real. Everything is on pause and I can’t enjoy my hobbies.
I liked manga and decided to buy some. But once I bought some I stopped enjoying it. I’ve always wanted a dirt bike, got that. Now I don’t even wanna ride it.
Assuming this was regular force equivalent, I can’t truly relate, but as a teen I got injured and RTU’d on CAF BMQ as a reservist, eventually lead to seeking a discharge because in the time I was waiting for the next course, I just wasn’t interested anymore and Burger King was the preferable part-time job.
One thing I will say is, as much as possible, enjoy the small things you can get away with not being in boot (assuming you’re living in purely civvy circumstances). Make your bed? Fuck that! Hospital corners are for orderlies! I don’t know what it was, but straight refusal to make my bed for like a month or two was cathartic as fuck.
Acronyms? Nah fam, say the whole god damned phrase, every time, for everything (obviously I didn’t keep this up, lol).
Mine’s a sillier example, obviously, but taking this perspective might point you in a useful direction, at least a tiny bit. Hang in there.
I dunno how long that’s been for you, but I got too injured while on the ROTP programme (that’s how poor kids go to school). And I was out with some non-transferrable skills (5.56 percussion, anyone? One-armed sign language?), surfing a couch and a little broken. This was early '90s.
You know what? You’re gonna second guess things for a long while, deciding things were or were not your fault. You’re gonna feel a little ‘flat’ about things for some time as well. That’s common and I remember it well. Like, the house could fall down around me and I was so dampered for adrenaline that I’d reeeeally not care but probably slowly cope with that too.
Save the manga. You’re maybe gonna like it again, along with other things too. Maybe, maybe not, but keep the options open.
Boot tears you down to pieces so they can build a soldier out of you, and getting dropped from a programme abruptly is super-jarring, but you have an opportunity to rebuild yourself as a pretty awesome human again. Decide who you are After Basic, take the good lessons and try to shed the OCD of boot and, um, Other Bad Shit, and see if you can build a You that is driven and goal-focused, but also invested in fluffy civvy stuff.
Then - in your own time - decide whats next with the help of your friends.
The question is, do you know the real you?
Unwinding is important, make sure to have fun time, both you fun time and you+others fun time. Involve the kid(s) when you can/want, even if it’s a cursory involvement. (I’m finding my kid loves watching me play some video games, like it’s a weird long movie)
My niece liked watching my dad play Diablo 2. He told her he was putting the enemies to sleep.
Thanks to YouTube, bad guys get booped
Can confirm. I used to sit on my dad’s lap watching him play Serious Sam and Diablo 2.
The question is, do you know the real you?
According to the Writer in Stalker, we never know who we really are or what we really want.
WRITER: I don’t know. Maybe. Anyway – I’m sorry, but… You are so foolish! You don’t have an idea about what’s happening here! And how do you think, why did Porcupine hang himself?
STALKER: He came to the Zone with a selfish purpose and sacrificed his brother in the “meat grinder” because of the money…
WRITER: That I can understand. But why did he hang himself? Why did he decide not to return – absolutely not after the money this time, but after his brother? Ah? Why did he give up?
STALKER: He wanted to, he… I don’t know. In several days he hanged himself.
WRITER: He understood here, that not all dreams come true, but only the most precious ones! And you’re just shouting in vain!..
WRITER: That, what is in accordance with your nature, your essence, is what comes true here! That essence that you have no idea about, but it sits in you and rules you all your life! You understood nothing, Leather Stocking. Porcupine was not overcome by his greed. He crawled on his knees in this very puddle begging for his brother. And he got a lot of money, and couldn’t get anything else. Because a Porcupine gets everything what’s porcupine-like! And conscience, throes of the soul – it is invented, it‘s brain work. He understood that and hanged himself. I will not go into your Room! I do not want to spill all the trash that has accumulated inside me, on anybody’s head. Even on yours. And afterwards run my head into the noose like Porcupine. I’d rather drink myself to death quietly and peacefully in my stinky writer’s private residence. No, Big Serpent, you are bad in sorting people out, if you lead such ones like me into the Zone. And then afterwards … ah… How do you know, that this miracle really exists? Who told you, that dreams really come true here? Did you see anybody, who would have been made happy here? Ah? Maybe Porcupine? And actually, who told you about the Zone, about Porcupine, about this Room?
Similarly, from the Don Hertzfedlt film “Everything will be Okay”:
Bill dropped his keys on the counter and stood there staring at them, suddenly thinking about all the times he’d thrown his keys there before, and how many days of his life were wasted repeating the same tasks and and rituals in his apartment over and over again. But then he wondered if realistically this was his life and the unusual part was his time spent doing other things.
I still don’t know what the takeaway from stalker is, and I’m assuming that’s an intended outcome from those that made it at this point lol Did they go into the room or not?
Nice. Thanks for sharing
