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I'm becoming increasingly concerned about my mental, social, and physical health. This may not be an advice forum, but I think it's better to post here than anywhere else for obvious reasons. I'm 16 now, and have been using computers for 6/7 years actively, I enjoyed a social life with friends until around the age of 13, before my passion took over. For the past three years I've not been greatly social amongst peers, I used to see them at school, come home, and spend until midnight on the Internet/computer. I still had a great group of friends in school, even while being this geek creature that doesn't go out at the weekend, nor talk to parents, nor do anything else (a robotic existance). Even so I had a good sense of humour, and could generally converse with people well. The past 6 months have been different! I've started college doing a computing certification which I really tend to hate, due to the the easy nature (waste of time), heavy workload, and I feel as though my passion has been destroyed but even worse, I don't seem to do anything else anymore, I don't/can't talk to people very well due to having inept social skills, and I have become emotionless, depressed, and I get constant headaches. I'm unhappy with my image also! I've had to post this twice, due to not entering my e-mail the first time. I'm just wondering if anyone has had an experience like this, and seeing as you're mostly geeks, I was wondering if you would have any advice on how to overcome it. I don't know where to look anymore!

Anyway, I must drag myself into college, sorry for any mistakes. Any advice or stories to perhaps enlighten me are very welcome. Thanks..

I'm posting under anonymous.

Anonymous wrote: This may not be an advice forum, but I think it's better to post here than anywhere else for obvious reasons.

Well... this is the Everything-Else, which means that it's intended for everything but what the forum guidelines explicitly tell us not to. Giving advice is one thing that's not forbidden, so you're all set.

I'm 16 now, and have been using computers for 6/7 years actively, I enjoyed a social life with friends until around the age of 13, before my passion took over. For the past three years I've not been greatly social amongst peers, I used to see them at school, come home, and spend until midnight on the Internet/computer. I still had a great group of friends in school, even while being this geek creature that doesn't go out at the weekend, nor talk to parents, nor do anything else (a robotic existance). Even so I had a good sense of humour, and could generally converse with people well.

Around 50% (the OS dever half) can speak along, probably most with an even worse story.

The past 6 months have been different! I've started college doing a computing certification which I really tend to hate, due to the the easy nature (waste of time), heavy workload, and I feel as though my passion has been destroyed but even worse, I don't seem to do anything else anymore, I don't/can't talk to people very well due to having inept social skills, and I have become emotionless, depressed, and I get constant headaches. I'm unhappy with my image also!

You can change your image. That's not too hard. Living up to it is however. Try putting the computer away for only the bare necessities (such as checking at most two fora or news sites, and occasionally searching for information, plus answering at most 10 emails a day) and try to make friends at your new study. Most of us know what it is like to be at a school where the stuff you learn is something you've already learned, I only recently (2 weeks ago, on a 4-year study in its fourth year) have found something I didn't know and was interested in. You will too, that's not the point at this time.

Try to keep up to promises to old friends and try to stay in touch with them. If the sole thing, install MSN (or something they use, I'm saying this because it's the sole reason I have it) and keep in touch in at least one way. They'll remember you for who you are and probably come to you once in a while in any case. You can contact them too, about just visiting them if that's the best you can do.

I've had to post this twice, due to not entering my e-mail the first time. I'm just wondering if anyone has had an experience like this, and seeing as you're mostly geeks, I was wondering if you would have any advice on how to overcome it. I don't know where to look anymore!

Well... *shames* :-[ am pretty much in that situation, except that I've started to get back in touch with others and have had a nice weekend away with them last weekend. I also lived in a student home (place with between 3 and 12 students, mine had 10) and I still keep in touch with them, and if I have something to give away they're one of the first to hear (recently picked up my old laundromat). Plus, just occasionally calling them helps too.

If you always wear things with pocket protectors, you know damn well what the first step is.

..

I tend to get the same way if I don't get enough sleep for a few weeks (Easily done if you suddenly find you're going to bed at 5am every night). That normally ends up with me feeling depressed, the world kind of fading away, along with huge bouts of paranoia. Those feelings subside after a few good nights sleep.

It's unlikely you've got the same problem, but it's surprising how much someone's mood can be affected by something simple like that. Candy's advice about cutting down your computer time for a while is solid advice. Any routine can become repetitive, sometimes folks just need to try something new to break up the fixed patterns in their life.

As for the geek isolation thing. Yup, I'd guess a lot of folks on the board have been there. Thing is that most of the time it isn't other people seeing you as a geek, it's you seeing you as a geek. If you aren't willing to make the effort to make/see/call/meet friends then one day you turn around and find yourself feeling very lonely because there aren't any left (Happened to me, difficult to recover from, lost touch with a lot of good people).

Hope you figure out the problem, In the end you're the only one that can.

well, I canna say, that I am *not* somewhat geeky, but that's been this way my whole life - being impaired ( don't hear well) has impacts oin how one interacts withother ppl. For one you *listen* to what is said and meanwhile read body language ... For mosta pplsomething like mind reading, but thats nonsense.

I'm playing aroiund wioth computers for now 16 years. I do things out of passion and with dedicated straight-lined-ness. Distractions I only allow toget new inspirations, but I don't like them in general.

Well. My social abilities have never suffered. I can only recommendto stay communicative, goto meetings and maybe - get a GF/BF alongside. It helps. It helps a lot.

Stay safe.

Perica wrote: How can you justify the last 3 years of your life that you wasted learning all over again things that you already knew as well as the back of your hand ? (And no, "getting the piece of expensive paper" is no justification at all in my opinion...)

I am not in it for the expensive piece of paper. I learned to program in teams here (which was hard to learn on my own, for obvious reasons) and I taught myself to program in a whole lot of ways, as well as starting to develop, and doing a lot of development on, my operating system. It's no coincidence that it has developed so much the last few years.

As an interesting sidenote, I am doing two studies at once because I foresaw it to be boring as ****. I'm considering picking up a third one not directly related to computers to make it more interesting yet again (it's a study around the sole course that's interesting right now). Hoping to get it busy pretty soon.

Plus, I do agree with Beyond Infinity, although getting a GF or BF needs more people to cooperate but yourself. I can admit that it does really help, since I've met her I have "normalized" quite a lot. As a point in my life, that was 22 months and 14 days ago, about half a year before I came here.

Arrived back from college now, apparently it's a diversity week and two of my lessons were cancelled! Yes, I do agree with all of your views. It's important to just try and make the most of what you have even if it is dead boring, it does become difficult but then there will always be the interesting subjects.. e.g. for me it's networking which I wasn't 100% certain about some of the knowledge presented to me before. I want to start working on an OS, I've done a little on it, but not much. As for the girlfriend issue, it's rather complex but believe it or not I've got one, and she often checks up on me, so I'm not going to give you the full details. But the fact is I see her rarely (you may be able to guess the mechanics of the relationship). The people in my class, as much as I try to get along with them are generally not my type, I will talk but sometimes it gets to the extent where I lose focus and they become a major distraction. I had a presentation once in class a few weeks ago, I had no preparation and I had to stand up based on the idea that I was speaking to computer illiterate users, I failed miserably, I wanted to talk about cryptography and networking.. but I think I could if I had preperation. I've just had a massive distraction and forgot what I wanted to write after this, so I'll leave it here.

Sleep. Regular basis, during the night, and enough. It'll do wonders. Now to actually do that is a bit harder ;D

sleeping is always important. I remember having had times when I've seldom reached bed before midnight - due to some evening study I've attended. *gg* Imagine a zombie strolling throu the streets of vienna, then you have me after work *and* after the study. *yawn*

Here in vienna we say 'ferngesteuert' (remotely controlled) to such a state. Some used to refer to me as 'tod auf latschen'(death in boots).

I find myself trying to avoid work because the quantity of work to do is frustrating (thinking about how much there is), the work in itself isn't particularly hard, does anyone else find themselves often procrastinating over work, and leaving it to the last possible minute getting it completed/uncompleted? I find this is something that I've never grown out off, and perhaps i'm immature.

's Simply because you don't like the work Had that last year with writing essays and scriptions. This year, my practicums're programming things, and, although it can get pretty damn stressful and annoying to debug them (still don't know what the heck's wrong with my recursion in Java), I have a blast doing them and am looking forward to the next one to do. They put me into doing more things afterwards instead of procrastinating everything. Look for something you like doing in your work, and it'll be done with a smile

Anonymous wrote: I find myself trying to avoid work because the quantity of work to do is frustrating (thinking about how much there is), the work in itself isn't particularly hard, does anyone else find themselves often procrastinating over work, and leaving it to the last possible minute getting it completed/uncompleted? I find this is something that I've never grown out off, and perhaps i'm immature.

I have about a year's worth of open courses with only the practical stuff not done yet. Most people flunk the test and make the practicals, I got the test with a 9.8 out of 10, and didn't do the practical stuff yet. So yes, this is a quite familiar situation

My entire christmas holiday is already planned full of practical stuff, that should get me all those courses checked off. Luckily, among the teachers I have some sort of a reputation of this so they don't mind me taking about 1.5 year on average too bad

WOW!!! I reckon Candy could be a psychologist, like set up an online clinic, maybe even something like a simple thread in the ' General, Off-Topic and Everything-Else(tm)' board, and he could do wonders for everyone! yeah, sleep is the most important thing, at least 6 hours a night, which isnt too hard midnight till 6 o'clock, 8 hours is eeven better, 10 till 6. Unless you have a job that works late shifts you can't go wrong . If you want to make friends, just taking it one step at a time is the easiest way, picking out someone that you want to befriend, start with a simple 'hello' daily, and go from there! As has been said, MSN would work wonders, simply because you can stay on the net and talk, just as long as you're not on until some ungodly hour of the night.

Takeit easy!

Ok then, I just checked the dates on the last post, 14 December 2004... Well then this will probably be irrelevant to anyone and everyone now... well anyway.....

Anonymous wrote: I'm becoming increasingly concerned about my mental, social, and physical health. This may not be an advice forum, but I think it's better to post here than anywhere else for obvious reasons. I'm 16 now, and have been using computers for 6/7 years actively, I enjoyed a social life with friends until around the age of 13, before my passion took over. For the past three years I've not been greatly social amongst peers, I used to see them at school, come home, and spend until midnight on the Internet/computer. I still had a great group of friends in school, even while being this geek creature that doesn't go out at the weekend, nor talk to parents, nor do anything else (a robotic existance). Even so I had a good sense of humour, and could generally converse with people well. The past 6 months have been different! I've started college doing a computing certification which I really tend to hate, due to the the easy nature (waste of time), heavy workload, and I feel as though my passion has been destroyed but even worse, I don't seem to do anything else anymore, I don't/can't talk to people very well due to having inept social skills, and I have become emotionless, depressed, and I get constant headaches. I'm unhappy with my image also! I've had to post this twice, due to not entering my e-mail the first time. I'm just wondering if anyone has had an experience like this, and seeing as you're mostly geeks, I was wondering if you would have any advice on how to overcome it. I don't know where to look anymore!

Anyway, I must drag myself into college, sorry for any mistakes. Any advice or stories to perhaps enlighten me are very welcome. Thanks..

I'm posting under anonymous.

Are you my doppelganger from another dimension? That is my life story, except I've been using computers non-stop for about 14 years. (Yes, I was 3.)

It's severely damaged my social skills, made me actually AFRAID of people and large spaces (I'm slightly agoraphobic), afraid of girls (loathe to admit it, but true), turned me paranoid, destroyed any hopes I've ever had of being happy and affected my attitude in ways you wouldn't want to know.

I'm about the same age as you (17) and I'm at college in the South of England, doing an IT course as well. Don't get led by anyone. When you have low self-esteem, a bad self image and depression at that level, people will try to mold you into something you don't want to be. It actually happened to me, and I've spent the last year trying to recover from it. I was taken for a ride by people I really shouldn't have been hanging out with, and I spent most of my last year at school smoking pot and skipping class.

I'm constantly hit with migranes, feel that the work at college is beneath me and get depressed to the point that my parents believe that I have a mental illness. I, too used to go out with my friends all the time, but in the past year that's all changed. I became addicted to my computer years and years ago.

About your question about leaving work to last minute: Yes. I do. In school I had to do all of my coursework in 3 days. I've also left about 3 assignments to the last minute at college too. I have to get them all in by Friday, and it doesn't look like it'll get one done, and will have to complete it over the summer. I've become something of a class joker as well, but I've been using humor to hide my depression, which isn't good.

I actually lost a job due to the fact I have bad people and social skills (talking to customers, being freindly, etc)
I've actually become Ethan from CAD, and lots of people tell me that. I can totally relate, dude.

About the sleep thing: I sleep about 7-8 hours a night. No problems there. I don't feel tired, grumpy or anxious because of it. I believe my problems lie in the fact that I was bullied horribly for nearly 6 years when I lived in London. It's given me the fear of people, anti-social attitude and insular behaviour. I do not credit lack of sleep to anything in my case.

Anyway, sorry about the hijack. The advice I can give you from experience is;
A) don't be manipulated by assholes.
B) Try and be friendly to people, no matter how bad you feel.
C) Do the work. It's easy, and you'll be happier when it's done.
D) Meet people. Make some close friends. I wouldn't have survived the past year at college without certain people there.
E) If you don't like your image, take a look at exactly what you don't like about it. Change your style if it'll make you happier. I didn't like myself at all, so I went Goth. I'm happy now.

That's about it. Sorry about the hijack again.

EDIT: ****, this topic's been dead for ages. Sorry... :-[

Ha, old topic. I couldna give lest a damn on that ooold-thing, man.

Fear of large Places with lotsa people? Well I wouldna say I'm afraid of lots of ppl, but I utterly detest being in the middle of a big crowd. My GF has difficulties on a regular base to get a grip on that. It's because of my bad ears and other things I will not talk about here.

Oh, and btw: no need to be afraid of women. After all they're human too, even if they sometimes speak a different language we men seldom understand straight out of the box. But women tend to say the same thing about us men.

stay safe & don't despair. In life, situations show up and one has to deal with them. as simple as that.