The Urge To Make A Change

I've wondered for a very long time "Why am I the way I am?"

My name is Joe, I'm 23 and I'm a very inconfident person. I consider myself to have anxiety, to what level I don't know, but it's a level high enough to cause for me to be upset with myself and to find myself hitting blockades in life. 

It is self-diagnosed because a lot of people in this world fail to come forward and I won't come forward, not because I don't want the help, more because it's myself that's causing the issue. I find myself in a constant battle with my own mind and it's frustrating to the point I get tired, then I go to sleep and all of the things I planned to do on that night do not get done and that therefore causes further frustration. More-so, I cannot explain my anxiety, if you're reading this you're probably unsure of what direction I'm going. I don't know myself, I'm just writing as the words come into my head, hoping for it to make sense and hoping to document what is going on with me.

If you've found yourself on this side of the internet; on this random blog. I would think you've landed here dealing with issues yourself. How are you? Are you dealing with things yourself? I hope that this blog will be able to help you as I deal with my own problems.

Let me ask you two questions?

Do you want to make a change to yourself?

Are you willing to make a change to yourself?

Answer YES to both. If your answer is NO, why is that? How do you want to feel? I'm going to briefly go through my life story thus far to show how I've felt through the years and how I've grown to become who I am. Maybe once upon a time I didn't want to change, maybe I didn't feel like I needed a change.

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10 I'll start when I was around 10 years old. In school I was always very quiet, my quietness tended to make me a target. I wasn't bullied, luckily. I was however pushed around by my friends. It was a laugh and it was something that friends do with each other, however at times when I wasn't feeling it, I felt very upset and my quietness took away the courage I needed in order to make people stop. Instead I kept my head up, I smiled and laughed, I made myself seem happy whereas I wasn't at all.

I wasn't a ladies man. I decided that it was best that I didn't make an effort with girls at that age. I wasn't the best looking guy and I'm very sure people let me know that. Being told that you're ugly or seeing people laughing at you really destroys your confidence. I remember when I was in my final year of primary school and I was on the school yard, a group of girls approached me laughing and one of them said "my friend fancies you". They pointed to a girl who was laughing and shaking her head and they were all in hysterics. The fact I can remember a simple memory dating back more than 10 years ago really makes me feel that it adds to the many moments in life that made a dent and caused for me to be the way I am.

15 We'll skip to 15 now, I was a few years into high school. At this time my sisters joined a dance club and my family then became very friendly with the whole dance troupe. A few months further down the line and my house is hosting a party for all of the dancers, parents, etc. and at this point I was deep into my shut-in days. My summers consisted of sitting at my computer playing games, I was very unhygienic and I didn't really have much self-confidence. Now I was being thrusted into a very social place where I didn't really want to be.

It all started on the bus home from school, I was sat at the front of the bus and a girl who was attending the party started to speak to me. I felt myself freeze up, I felt myself going red in the face, I stuttered when I spoke and my body caused for me to gulp as I spoke. This is when I realized that speaking to a person of the opposite sex was going to be an issue for me. I really had a problem with it and it's not that I didn't want to casually get through the social situation, it's that my body simply refused to make it easy for me.

Back to the party, we get to the main event and everyone is talking, there's a few girls who are my age and I'm keeping myself to myself. I keep my head up and try to remain normal but when it came to talking, I didn't make the effort to try. I didn't speak to any of the girls and at one point I went upstairs to try and sleep my way through it, this ended up causing for my brother to come in and ask me what the hell I was doing. He didn't understand what I was going through, nobody did, maybe nobody ever will. Nobody needs to know. At one part of the night I was sat downstairs with a drink on seats we had laid out, all of the adults were outside and everyone else was upstairs playing drinking games, but I sat there alone. I didn't feel upset, I felt in that moment that I belonged in my own company and I enjoyed my own company. I did enjoy my own company, for years I felt that it was all I needed. I felt that being shut-in my room and being alone was what I destined to be.

In school at this age I had friends who pushed me around again. I felt terrored constantly on my breaks. Where I wanted the time to relax and enjoy my time, I felt always in harms way and I was the play toy of my friends. I know my friends were just having a laugh and if I questioned them to this day they'd claim they were just having a laugh. They mentioned on a couple of occasions that they were trying to toughen me up. I gave off an attitude like I was something, but I was actually nothing at all. I was weak, I didn't give any effort and I was still very quiet. Still here I don't feel that I was bullied, I just felt that I was a person very easily bothered and upset. I was an emo that didn't fall into the usual emo crowd. I didn't have the dark hair, I didn't listen to the music. Instead I fell into the general crowd, I had light blonde hair and I stuck to the mainstream when it came to anything.

I suffered very highly with migraines when I was younger. I didn't know what caused for my excessive migraines, however I've come to learn later in life that it was mainly due to stress. I was going to school and I didn't really care for my grades, I had goals and ambitions but I didn't have any ambition to make the effort. I'm thankful that when I was this age I did luckily gain a minimum in my GCSE results which at least allowed me to get a job that was good enough for my skills. I didn't get a job right away although, I went to college to begin with, which pushes it forward.

17 When I went to college I ventured on my own little journey. Instead of following my friends I decided to follow my ambition. This was a move that I made, a little bit of effort that I made to at least make something for myself in life. I was happy. I remember on the last day of school it was the same old day, but then all of a sudden it was over and I didn't have to worry about that anymore. In college I enrolled onto the Interactive Media course, this choice came from my ambition to work in the video game industry. As a youngster, being involved with video games was the only thing that brought my happiness and to be able to work with them is something that I would have enjoyed to do at that time. Following through college, I had worked out that in order to make it to the place I wanted to be, I would have needed to stick with the course for 3 years and then proceeded to enrol upon another course for a further 2 years. 5 full years of hard work and it was something I initially wanted to go along with, however a month or so into my Interactive Media course I came to realize that the path I was taking was something I wasn't enjoying, therefore I decided to make a change and moved over to IT.

I thought that IT was going to be the one for me. I had two friends in that subject, whereas I was alone in my previous. I enjoyed it for that time, however I didn't feel that I was gaining much experience at all. I understand that after the 2 years in which I had to complete the course I would gain a Diploma in the course subject and that could then be used to take up a job working in IT, however I could also move somewhere else and build up something new. So that's what I did. Just under a year into this course I decided to drop out and moved to a job working in administration. It was an apprenticeship and a whole new experience for me, not to mention I was also making money which worked out well for me.

19 Now I'm working, I'm earning a wage and I'm treating myself. I'm not saving any money at this age, I don't have enough knowledge about saving money to do it and I don't have the need to either. I've had enough trouble in my life, I may as well take the time to treat myself and give myself something back.

Work is good, I enjoy it and I get on with my colleagues, however I'm still very quiet and I'm still a little less sociable when it came to the girls in the office. I found that I always depended on other people in life. If I struggled in a situation there was always someone there to pull me out of it and that made me too dependable on other people and less confident in my own actions, as little action that I made. I did hate being quiet, I hated being locked in a shell. I wanted to break out and be what would be considered as a normal person. I did see myself as abnormal and I felt abnormal, but I never let it get to me and pushed it to become the norm. It was just after this age that I decided to make a change and came to realize that my life wasn't going too well. I was sat upstairs in my room on New Years Eve, it was ten seconds to New Years and I was going into the new year playing games, doing nothing new and having nothing new planned out for my future. My family were downstairs cheering for the countdown and I felt alone, I wasn't invited to join in, I feel that my family thought that I wouldn't be interested, but in that single moment I felt out of touch and I felt that I really wanted to feel the world as everyone else did... and in that moment for the first time throughout my life, I cried for what I had become and what I was missing out of in life. That's when I decided that in the next year I was going to make a change and that I did.

20 It's all closing in now and it's starting to look better. Seriously, it does get better and I have improved majorly over the last few years which I am happy with, but I still feel stuck and I know much progress is needed. At the age of 20 I now go out with people from work, go to the pub and enjoy drinking alcohol, going into clubs and having a laugh with people. It brought me out of my shell a bit and made me feel better about myself. It got me out of the house and gave me a new way to enjoy myself. Every time we went out was an amazing experience for me, not just for the fact that it was fun, but mainly for the fact that I was somewhere else, I was socializing and I felt that I was changing the person I am. A few months went by and I somehow managed to get my first girlfriend and from that I experienced many things for the first time, I went away on a holiday and enjoyed myself. I was outside and living life and nothing was stopping me, I was in the zone and I felt that nothing was pulling me down.

I felt the struggles of a relationship however, my girlfriend was sort of a quite person herself and it caused for many awkward silences between ourselves. She didn't really speak to much about herself and in the year that I was with her I didn't get to know her as much as I would have liked to. She did also have the habit of making stupid jokes that caused for me to feel uneasy and to hide her phone all of the time like she was hiding something. She also never wanted to do anything to build our relationship up. I took her to London as a Christmas present and whole-heartedly she was very thankful, but the experience of the trip was awful, thinking of it now. She would constantly say that the trip was for me since she had already been and I had no time to actually do any sightseeing since she would constantly walk ahead and not take the time to stop. I paid so much for her, but didn't really get anything back except a bad attitude. It was my first relationship and I didn't really know what I was doing or how a girlfriend should act towards you, so I played it off and allowed it to pass by. Thankfully, she cut off a year in because she didn't feel the same way as I did. That was a real shit move, I realize that now, but I was such a nice guy about it. I'm an idiot, I know, but it was all over with and it was time to move on.

21 Hey, I'm dealing with the pain of a break up, sure I had feelings and I was sort of heartbroken. A year relationship leaves memories and good times and that was all gone, so I was gutted that I'd lost something that I had. This caused for me to drop off the social scene for a while and I'd also moved job at this point due to being made redundant. I still spoke to my old work friends and hung out which thankfully gave me that freedom to still progress with being the person I wanted to be. Sadly, things took an even worse turn when my parents split up, my mum moved out of the house and all of a sudden I'm the person who's paying the bills since at that time my dad didn't work. I went from paying £200 a month to paying over £600 on my own to support the house I lived in. We had moved at this point and I felt like a ton of weight was piling onto me. I felt extremely anxious about my future and felt highly that I would crumble at some point.

Truthfully, my parents breaking up broke me in half. I was emotionless for a very long time following. On the night it happened the house erupted, my parents were screaming at each other and my mum walked out, once it came into realization what was happening I just felt so upset and I had a moment where I felt my head come down to earth and I just stood there shaking, my eyes were tearing up and then I started to cry to myself. It wasn't loud crying, I wasn't wailing, I was afraid and I was unhappy with the situation and everything went back to as they were. When it came to work, I kept my head up and none of my emotions came out, nothing was a problem at work, I was a real down to earth guy and really laid back according to them, whereas in reality I was breaking down piece by piece inside. I hate feeling that I have to hide emotion, it's a very common problem as a man, being told to "man up" happens to often and it shouldn't be a saying. In a world where females are fighting for equality, telling a person to fight their emotions like a man is going against equality and against what they are fighting for. At that same time however, work was my safe haven and a place where I could be happy. There was the longest period where I would walk home from work and I'd feel upset, I'd feel the lowest of the low and in all honesty, there wasn't really a reason for being sad, I just was.

I was suicidal, I hate to admit it, but I felt like if I had the means I would have brought it to an end. I didn't have the means, thank god we live in a country where bringing danger to yourself is quite a difficult thing to do. I wanted to do it all alone, I wrapped a belt around the top of the stairs and pushed myself into it. The stairs held my weight, but I touched the ground each time, it wasn't effective. I kind of feel that I wouldn't have done it, I just liked the feel of it in the moment. With no way of doing it, I did consider buying a pull-up bar to attach a belt to and attempt the same, but I never did. The reason I didn't is because I snapped into reality, I realized that life was probably my worth living and there probably was a more beneficial out to my problems.

22 So my dad tried to commit suicide, he lot a disposable barbeque tray and tried to smother himself in smoke as he slept. He woke up, went outside and played his guitar like nothing happened and acted all Mr Happy when police turned up. I came home from work and it seemed nothing was a problem, but I did know what he did. There's only so long you can hold in a world of pain before it comes screaming out and generally it's something that's not accepted. For one, I wanted my dad to be fine and slip back to reality, live life and be happy but for two, I struggled myself and I couldn't physically deal with the extra weight, on top of that, the only thing to fix it for him was my mum coming back and them fixing it up, but that couldn't happen, so it was beyond our fixing.

He tried again, swallowed a bunch of pills a few months further down the line. I found out just as I got out of work and was heading for a few drinks with a friend. I was upset but I didn't show it and I didn't let it spoil my night. He was fine and there wasn't going to be a problem. I came home that night and I was saddened by the packets of tablets on the floor, I picked them up and cleaned up, then give the hospital a call. He was asleep, but I made an effort to reach out at the moment and told the woman on the ward that "he needs help, anything, just get him somewhere safe" and even went as far to tell her that it was "affecting me". I was drunk and had a nice meal from the takeaway but I hoped really that my words worked, sadly they did nothing at all and nothing was ever mentioned.

Anyway, this is my story isn't it? I guess the past two paragraphs adds to the trauma for me. My god, it was tough. At the age of 22 dealing with something like that can affect you for life, I'm sure even at any age that can cause long-standing effect. 

We're skipping forward now to around March 2018, I was in the bar with two friends and they were getting a bit deep in the moment. They spoke about work and a career not having a "path" and mainly the fact that many jobs did not have a path and if you didn't move on you'd just be stuck in a constant situation of wanting to move somewhere but never having the chance to. It's a work scam that young people fall into all to often, wanting to build up to be someone and realizing the opportunities are slim is something quite depressing. Now I was enjoying my job, the work was steady and the people in the office  were fun to work with. After a lengthly period of time, one could say that the reason they stay at their job is simply because of "the people". I know for one that I have no path to move down,  but at the moment in time I was settled with what I was doing and as long as I was that, I may as well stay my place.

The conversation with my friends moved to "an escape" and how to make a move and go down a different path in life. I generally don't listen to motivational speech, I feel that words are words and implanting them into my brain isn't going to have much effect. However we were talking right now and in the moment I felt that maybe I needed something, anything to grasp to that will enable me to move somewhere. My friend had recently come back from a year of travelling in Australia and he spoke of how rewarding and life-changing it was.  That got me thinking and that thought process was given a thorough investigation, checking out the pros and cons and most of all, seeing how it would affect me in my current situation. That now brings me to current day and how I'm struggling with my new challenges.

It's November 2018 now. Around April 2018 I was in the bar with a few friends and once showed me a group of Japanese girls rocking out on stage with DragonForce, I was watching and it felt appealing to me, I thought it was entertaining. Drinks flowing, night ends and Monday morning rolls around again, I'm back in work taking it easy and working with the minimal workload I had. The thought of the music I watched at the weekend flashed my mind and I asked my work colleague if he'd heard of this band, I initially took the band name as a genre, however looking into it, it turns out it was the band name. I let it go for that moment, but I could feel that I had piqued an interest in something new. That night I started listening to their music and a few months further down the line, I'm completely indulged and it's a part of who I am. I ventured into the thought of Japan with following this band and ddiscovered the travel company BUNAC offered working holiday travel packages to Japan for a year. I did my research and thought thoroughly into it again and then within the next few months I've got a plan in motion. I've got myself a pathway to move to.

My interest in Japan spans further back than this band. Just after I left high school I started to play a game called Osu! which is a Japanese rythmn game, sort of like Guitar Hero but clicking circles to the beat. There was a lot of English music on the game, but a super high majority of the content was Japanese and mostly music from anime. This is when I took an interest in anime. It was weird before, Japan is weird from a far outside view, but if you peer in you'll see that they're just fun people enjoying life. So I watch a ton of anime, I buy a crazy mystery box of Japanese goodies this one time and very recently I ventured upon a draft of a blog I was writing back then where I expressed my desire to travel to Japan and learn the language. Looking at the timing, this draft was written around about the time where I got a girlfriend, so that idea wiped away within that year and was locked away in the back of my mind until now it seems.

I set myself to take a working holiday to Japan originally in 2020, then I realized that the Tokyo Olympics would take place at this time which knocked me off course. I didn't let it knock me too much and simply pushed my plans forward a further year to 2021, giving me that extra year of planning and saving up money. I have it in my mind to save up around £10k on top of paying bills, looking after myself and buying gifts which is very possible in the 3 years of planning. I started to save in April/June and now in November I sit comfortably at a total saving at £2400 which is fantastic, it gives me hope and the motivation to keep pushing forward.

I've set myself the goal of learning Japanese; I have the Genki Series, use Human Japanese and  also the Japanese from Zero book. I have the materials to learn from, but I don't have the mindset to learn. I can quite confidently count to 9999 in Japanese, that took a while to learn but it's something that's extremely easy. It's said to take approximately a week or two to learn Hiragana and Katakana, however months later I haven't been able to grasp the concept .I can say that I know maybe about 20 Hiragana, so that's a start but it's extremely slow progress. I was in the constant mind process of "I want to learn, but I also need to do this". I had shows I wanted to watch, games I wanted to play, but a heart fixated on something that my brain didn't want to do. I know they always say to follow your heart, but if you've ever planned to go to the gym at a certain time and in the hour before you plan to go your mind starts to go "I could leave it" or "do I really need to go to the gym" or maybe "I'll go next week, I'm in no rush", you would know that the battle between your brain and heart is frustrating and something it's better to win a a battle and clear out any obstructions before you continue with your heart. I have two years to learn, so in all honesty maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but I really need to get set up and moving soon.

We have two years and I have plans also within that time to make a change which I'll post in a separate post. I do hope that this wasn't as lengthy of a post as it felt like. I guess this blog is sort of a self improvement diary and at a point in time it would be good to look back and see how it was then to how it is at the current time - hopefully good, we will see, and we will try.