ARE YOU HAPPY WITH HOW YOUR LIFE HAS TURNED OUT?

I'm still pretty young so anything can change, but right now, I am reasonably happy with my life. Sure, there are plenty of things that I want that I currently don't have (like a new job, but I can't say that I don't enjoy having ~ t o t a l f r e e d o m ~ for a change), but I don't have anything to complain about, either. I'm just trying to take whatever small steps I can to somehow worm my way into my ideal career.

Funny how you should ask this question, I was just thinking on this during one of my 2am strolls for coffee.

I have occasionally come to forums for help on certain infantile matters, mainly GW; making occasional whining blurbs about my insane father, but I don't think I've ever gone into full detail like you have.

Well Tau, at the very least you keep your head held high, and are at least trying to get back on track. That's more than I can say for so many people I see and work with.

Where to begin... Hm...

To start simply: No. I am not happy, but I am far from the inescapable void. If anything, these last few years in solitude granted to me by my brother's marriage have given me time to learn about myself. Really: I just have a great deal of trouble dealing with average things a great deal of people take for granted.

For example; smiling, expression emotion face to face, eye contact, idle chatter... Basic social behaviors that's second nature to most people. On some days, certain acts are far harder than others for no discernible reason. It's a bit of a ride to be sure. On some days; I can be fairly normal. It's easy to talk and hold a conversation; I enjoy things and everything is normal... or as normal as things get for me anyway. Then there's days when I can barely keep an interest in anything. I also find myself incredibly hungry during these occasions... But I can't and won't blame all of my problems on these strange days I have.

I'm not fully sure why I became like this, the experiences that forge who we are is usually too complex to explain; but I'll share with everyone what I think had a great impact on my character... Starting with my earliest memories.

Yes, my first memory involves me standing in a crib. I was very hungry and there was a plate of sloppy spaghetti sitting in front of me. My father, sat there with his arms folded staring at me. Eventually, I climbed out of the crib and started eating. Apparently, this is how my father taught me how to eat on my own.

My next significant memory comes a bit later... Though it's a bit hazy. Me, my brother and my mother were out grocery shopping. We return home and my father becomes violently enraged that my mother accidentally picked up a diet soda / snack instead of normal. Hits were had. Things kind of get weird after that and I can't remember the correct sequence of events. My mother separated from my father at one point, not sure if it was caused by the mentioned incident. All I remember is sitting in the living room, bored with my brother asking about what's happening with mom and dad. He explained about separation and all that sort of thing. During this lazy afternoon they were out renewing their marriage or something along those lines.

Here's a good one that just came to me. I remember the details too. One day I went to doctors for a check up. The train ride was long and exhausting but the actual wait was short for once. We make it in and when I make it in to the doctor's office; for some reason I can't remember - I didn't breath in and out when he asked me... or something like that. My father stormed out of my office, dragging me in his wake. At this point it was the afternoon, and the streets were crowded with businessmen and school children alike. As he dragged me to the train station raining both verbal and physical abuse (in the form of kicking) people just walked by, paying no mind. Business as usual I guess.

My, this is getting a bit long. Oh well.

Not all of my memories are bitter though. I remember the day I was first introduced to the Nintendo by my older brother. It was a bitter winter morning, I had the chicken pox and I found myself bored and drawing on the 7 hecta-comb formed pox on the bottom of my foot when my brother poked me and showed me a game called "Double Dragon II" before he left for school. I had so much fun; that I was still playing when he returned. My older brother is probably the only true friend I have in this world.

Here's a collection of fragmented memories which probably explains why I have difficulty asking and accepting help from people. When I was in the fourth grade I asked my father for help with my math home work. After getting a division problem wrong several times he strangled me and slammed me onto the floor. Strangely, the strangling hurt more than the way he literally threw me onto the floor. It must have been the carpet. At school, it was frequently embarrassing to ask for help as someone who was painfully shy. On one such occasion, a cute girl was grudgingly forced to help me with some math problem. I feigned understanding of the subject just to end the humiliation. Ho HO! Women were/are sure repulsed by me.

Oh boy, that reminds me of every instance I class where we did the obligatory "GROUP EXERCISE" where you were forced into groups of 4/5 people. OR EVEN BETTER, where you were given the free choice to join any group you want; but since you were that freak nobody likes - you had to be PUT on a group by the teacher... publicly. Like the fat kid at dodge ball, only not fat.

My next experience comes much later; since I don't want to go over for the 50th time that instance where my father beat my brother so violently that he literally destroyed the room the assault happened in in the process - this was in high school.

My brother had gotten my father a dog for his birthday a few weeks prior... Though I can't say it worked out early on. My father was in the habit of beating our new beagle with a broomstick every time had an accident. One morning before school I got up and the little guy had an accident. His expressive eyes gazed at me with regret and he put his head down and wagged his tail nervously. I gently patted him on the head and let him do his business outside. It was about that time when my father woke up and asked "What's that smell? You took some of that cake for breakfast or something"?. "Y-Yes" I nervously replied, not giving a second thought to the blatantly transparent lie. He lumbered into the kitchen to find there was no cake; and that there was a small mess made by the dog over night. It was at this point when he pinned me to the wall and yelled "Where the hell is the cake?!". My mother, who was in the next room ran out and demanded "Put him down!". The sole instance when she actually stood up for us.

He then paused and put me down. Moments later he would exclaimed "We're getting rid of this dog! I'm tired of this shit! Tomorrow, I'm taking this fucking dog back to the pound!". The remarks, more than the confrontation itself filled me with a great deal of sadness the whole day. Everywhere I went, I saw pictures of happy animals; and I despaired at the thought of losing this wonderful little dog.

He later decided to keep the dog.

While I find it hard to smile and express myself face to face, I can always give an earnest and truthful smile to an animal. Dog, Cat, or otherwise.

That's enough of that though. I wasn't expecting this to run as long as it did; so I'll wrap this up as succinctly as I can. (Not very, in other words).

I'm 24 years old.

I'm working as a Scammer Resident Technician for Staples.

I still live with my parents.

I have a mountain of debt from a bogus college that gave me nothing in return.

I am not only a Virgin; but the last friendship I had with a women was in the third grade. I have never kissed a woman, nor have I held one's hand... Wait; actually that's not true. I was forced to hold a girl's hand in kindergarden once. My hand was so sweaty that the little girl had to get a tissue to wipe her hands clean of my filth... Sorry, almost went off there.

Things are shitty; but It's not hopeless... Not yet.

None of my loan payments are overdo, despite how terribly my job is I'm developing a reputation for having ironically good customer service and trouble shooting skills. I manage my money better than my parents; as I don't spend my entire tax refund on a television when I have hospitals calling to collect ER payments, and I've taken some really tiny baby steps into coming out of my shell in the form of subtlety* piggy backing off of my brothers alumni network. Things may get better... They might not; but I have a plan. If I'm still living with my parents at the age of 30; It would be a simple matter of disappearing one summer night and ending as a pile of blood stained giblets on the Staten Island transit system.

(* Probably not as subtle as I'd like but oh well!)

As a closing I'd just like to apologize to all those I may have alienated with past actions. There are quite a few people here I like; but have driven away with my usual behavior.

@NightBlade

I understand a lot of the things that you have sited SO well... particularly the social skills that people tend to take for granted (making banter) I just don't understand how people do it; I guess it doesn't help that all of the things that I am interested in are Niche to say the least... there not disturbing, but not everyones cup of tea...

@Nightblade and Tau...

Shit... I must admit I was lucky with my parents... they've been far too good to me... if fact probably the only ones in my life who have..!

But I do understand what it's like to have your trust usurped...

When I went to my first Secondary School (ages 11/12 - 16-18) there was this teacher, and although the memory if fuzzy, I seem to recall staying after class coz he told me I needed help with the subject that he taught me... then the next thing I remember I was bend over the desk, with my right arm being held behind my back, my school trousers round my ankles and him *ahem* rubbing up against me... the next thing I remember clearly is being at home and tell my parents that I was NOT under any circumstances going there any more...

I don't think anything happened... only because I do vaguely remember after the initial shock feeling this terrible rage inside of me and picking up this Stanley Knife that he kept on the desk to sharpen pencils and then stabbing him in the thigh... but I've never been able to work out if this is truth or a memory that I've made up to protect myself...

I'm 24 too now, which is depressing within itself (lol)...

Have never been able to hold down a job. The adrenaline gets me through the first 2 weeks say, but there's only so long that can last and after that I stop being able to talk to anyone so I just can't get anything done...

So yeah... *greets two new people in the same old boat* :-)

-J-

Well, once I've had even the tiniest lil' sip of the devil's water, I can deal with social situations and lucky I live in the UK so a more than a sip is more than mandatory... lol

My biggest part I guess is the after effects... I don't know if you've ever had a 'come down' but, after I socialise, without thinking I go over and over and over everything that I said, and every look that people have given me (I have an amazing memory) and even if I was the most witty, funny, sexy, articulate guy at the party I will still convince myself that I did everything wrong... so I don't get a high from socialising... its all down hill as far as I'm concerned...

yeah, such guys like that teacher should get locked up.... I guess you can never trust strangers.

@ Nightblade: Wow, I'm sorry to hear that but like tau said you should keep your head up. 30's still young plus it wont solve anything...

I can't really comment on the question since you could say I'm yet to be shitted on by the world lol, but so far I'd say I'm content not exactly happy or depressed yet.

My life took a turn when I was 9, before that it was as you could say perfect, My father past away. When he had met my mother he quit drinking but it was unfortunetlly too late and simply a matter of time before he died. Him being a doctor he already knew so he managed to pay for me and my sisters education untill collage with his life savings.

I was basically stuck in a school called rainbow, although it was a good school ( education wise ) and I respect him for paying for my education for the most part, it was just like any other school I guess, sucky.
Why I say school is sucky is simply because I would always get into fights, I almost stabbed someone who used to bully me and nearly cut my thumb off. I used to love watching Bruce Lee movies as a kid ( my dad had a collection of Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris westerns and Bruce Lee movies on video ) because he would stand up for the under dog, was a skinny dude but could kick ass and most of all was like my alter ego since I was beaten ( disciplined as they say ) as a child, I always had a burning hatred inside me and would fight anyone who pissed me off usually older kids who never had no respect ( like they would own the football pitch, steal stuff like my prized game boy and Pokemon and generally picked on younger kids for kicks ). Me trying to be like Bruce Lee and kick ass would happen in the opposite. I eventually formed a gang, I wasn't the "leader" but It was better than being alone. I was like 12 then. I bought a swiss army knife and like I said out of intense bullying I wanted to kill someone but thankfully didn't. After that day I told my mum about it and instead of me moving schools she told me I have to man up to life. Maybe we didn't have enough money to move schools or something but she was right...

So years went by ( I was now 14-15 ) and I eventually learned to control my anger and relax but not for long... Me and my friends went out during the weekend one day to the lake side. We would usually go there and smoke cigarettes, talk to girls, you know the whole bad ass mentality thats so embedded in "black" youth culture ( that in my opinion is over rated ). So one weekend we took a walk to a weird little mud hut, there was a one eyed hunch back guy sitting beside the door. My freind handed him a coin and in return he got this strange looking cigarette.
"Dude you gotta hit this", that was the first time I smoked some weed and I wont lie, it was the best moment in my life so far, Its like all of a sudden I could do whatever I wanted, talk to who ever I wanted and most of all felt like I was flouting above it all. No worries. Man did I love weed, at one point even more than girls.
I would buy and sell weed at school for extra money and just to be known as bad ass motherfucker once again hehe. There was this one time I bought a blunt from a friend of mine who passed away ( Noel ), he said he got it from a slum and it was reputation to be the hardest most bad ass weed out there. He never tried it and wanted me to "test" it for him. me being the pothead elite.

So I took this blunt home, it was a Friday so I definitely smoked up right away. This blunt was strange, It was laced with cocaine. It really mind fucked me, I started freaking the hell out. I remember time slowing down intensly, I could hear repetative patterns of sounds that where non existent but disturbing, Evrything around me felt like it was collapsing and my chest was in piercing pain and so was my head after around 30 minutes. My sister tried to cool me down and I threw a knife at her but missed. I was running around like a crazy person and though something was chasing me and going to kill me. I can never forget that day...

I never quit weed after that, infact I did more than ever. In a way I was chasing that height because it was the most thrilling also I thought I would be a pussy thing to do If I quit after that. My mom eventually found out and I became very apathetic, failed in school and generally didn't give a shit about nothing. All that mattered to me was getting high. I was taken to a psychiatrist and said I was just depressed, pulled the whole sob story about my fathers death. I don't know if that was really true or If was just lying. I had no emotion then
( 16 now ). I was prescribed Amphetamine, for some reason I was hoping I'd get E or Viking ( Vikadin ). I became a pill poper doing Amphs, got my hands on some speed too and also did heavy pain killers, laced weed and some stuff called "Kuber" which was a mixture of heroin, weed, cocaine and some indian drug stuff .

I overdosed on Amphs and Pain Killers one day, for like 2 days I never remembered what happened. The last memory was me passing out in my garden smoking a cigarette and my dogs over me... The next thing I remembered was I was at a hospital then passed out again... after that I was at home and it had been 2 days. I had a feeling like a deep hole in my mind ( withdrawal ) and remember crying myself to sleep after looking for my stash but it had been removed. I then, out of pure will, decided never to do drugs again when I saw how it affected not only me but my whole family. Whenever I'd walk into a room with anyone ( my mom or sister ) they would look miserable and even at times cry. I still had no emotion then but could see that this was going no where. I'd be as dead as my dad... maybe thats what I wanted I don't know...

Don't worry almost done.

So time came and my sister had to go to university, I had been clean for 8 months straight since and was feeling alot better about myself.
I could talk to girls again and have a conversation ( at some point I was a ghost and suffering from psychosis a mixture of paranoia and temporary schizophrenia ), I also used to isolate myself from people and play video games only. No talking, no smiling, no jokes, not even getting into fights.Nothing.

My mom said since I had quit drugs and was doing well in school again I could go do a foundation course with my sister in Malaysia, ( although I would smoke cigarettes and occasionally normal weed but for me that was as clean as Virgin Marys pussy ). I left after smoking one last joint. I made up my mind after that to quit smoking and focus on my education.
To cut a long story short that never worked out. We were living with my fat cousin Roland, I would call him Roll-and-smoke cause thats what he did and eventually I went back to my old ways. The weed in Malaysia is imported from Thailand, These guys want life time customers to they lace it, that got me hooked. I used to be addicted to laced weed seriously. So I stopped going to class altogether, living like a bum stealing my cousins stash and blowing my allowance on more. I was lucky the cops never got me. I'd be dead.
So onetime I was smoking a J watching Animax sloping on a beer and dominoes, my usual fix. My sister was in her room on skype talking with my mom. I never talked to her out of guilt. She, by mistake, left the audio on live and my mom listened in as we had an argument about my life. She came within a week and took me home...That was the end of my joy ride.

I was immediately slammed into a rehab with no exceptions. Guess I deserved it. I saw my future, a psycho junkie with no purpose in life but to make the ones who love you miserable. Thats when my mother told me how my father died. How he was a very smart and gifted man but alcohol killed him. I also learned how weed can permanently mess your head up especially if your a teenager. It's not the 60's man, weeds commercial with no laws to limit its potency or keep laced weed out.
There was this guy who was passed out, his eyes rolled behind his head, foaming at the mouth. Man I saw some disturbing shit, some crackhead smashed the T.V cause he wanted a cigarette, threw shit everywhere ( literally his doo-doo ) and knocked some guy out cold with the lunch bell. We were all half insane some of us zombies. I hard lined it for 3 months ( it was supposed to be 6 ) but I made a decision never to go back into drugs this time no exceptions, not even a cigarette on the side or half a J on the weekends.
It was fucking hard. I wont lie I smoked up late nights at 3:00AM and one time almost got caught, going back to that hell hole and generally looking pathetic woke me up. I said at least let me wait untill I'm older, have a good job and I'll see from their.

Right now I'm focused on school ( collage ) and getting my dream job in games technology as a character designer. I have hope for my life since I'm just 17. My life's yet to begin though. Either I can make it or I might end up dead early like father like son...

My life is great! Babes; bucks. I got it all.

Can't complain. It's alright. In college, got friends. The only two things I really want at this point are a girlfriend (one to marry later), and to start making my creative ideas--my art and stories--available for public viewing and consumption (like books, graphics, and animations).

Also, Nightblade, sorry to find that you had a shitty childhood. I'm actually kind of angry to find that you had a horrible father--wait, no--someone who acts like that isn't a father at all. He should be in jail.

My mother's a pain in the ass and my step-father isn't a great help either. I don't nearly have it as bad as I hear you did. My sympathies Tau, its amazing because i know that if i was in your position, i mightn't not lasted. Stay determined and always remember that there's people that have it way worse.

If you're completely satisfied with where you are in life then you're living it wrong. Ambition is a good thing. Goals are what make it interesting.

Short Answer: No.

But at least some of it is more unreasonable expectations than anything else.