Sometimes I wish someone would just take my place

[Len]

Note: Just a rant, unstructured, probably not very coherent.

I don’t hate living, and don’t actively want to die either. I quite enjoy my everyday and the experiences that I get to have with my friends and family, which makes me quite guilty and conflicted that I have these thoughts.

I feel like I’m the epitome of what someone would call a “Strawberry, unable to take much hardship before breaking down and giving up. I procrastinate because I hate doing things I have to do, and then panic and break down even more because I couldn’t finish my work in time and delivered a ■■■■■■ result. Over the years I thought I’d be able to grow out of this, but here I am, who’s gonna hit 20 this year and still feels like a failure of a human being.

It’s not like I have a hard life or whatever, but it seems like I’m making my own life harder because of my habits. Why can’t I stop? Everyone around me says that I have potential, but my procrastination makes it hard for me to shine through. But like, potential for what? I don’t even know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I like to do, other than waste my time away playing games, doomscrolling or staring at my walls. I don’t have any ambition, and I don’t contribute to society. What is the point of me being here. I wish I wasn’t born, and someone else took my place. Maybe they would fare better with the same resources given to me that I waste away.

I don’t even care about life purpose or whatever. I just want to live my life doing things that I want everyday, stress free. But that’s a pip dream ofc. What takes up an adult’s life is just work, work and more work. Of course you can travel, be with friends and all that, or even find a job that you feel “fufilled” doing, but most of it will be still be work. Slaving away everyday just to be able to feed yourself and maybe your family, and occasionally treat yourself to something so you don’t get depressed with your current state and kill yourself.

Sometimes I wish I were a nepo baby so I could get whatever I want. Makes life’s responsibilities a bit more tolerable. It’s such a childish thought.

There’s many things to live for, and many people I still wish to continue interacting with, so I don’t think I’ll be offing myself anytime soon. Plus planning the whole thing is tiring to think about itself.

Sometimes I think that it would have been better if I were never here at all. All these annoyances that people go through on the daily just really isn’t it for me, but I want to see more of the world and see the sun rise everyday, so I keep going. I guess experiencing these joys makes “going through it more worth it”, but it would be nice if I never experienced it at all. It’s such a stupid thought. It always reminds me of an offhand comment someone said once, something about “You’d seriously kill yourself over a minor inconvenience?” Yeah, maybe I would. Isn’t it embarrassing? What’s even more embarrassing is that I haven’t done it yet.

no sad backstory, no struggles, no nothing. But why am I feeling like this? Just throwing stupid childish fits

There are so many other people going through worse in the world, even the people I know. Everytime I hear their stories, it makes me wonder why I feel this way. They’ve literally gone through hell and back, yet they still barely complain. Whereas on my end, if I fall, I just curl up and lie there.

But somehow here I am. I never thought I’d make it this far. I’m gonna be 20. I’ll have more responsibilities, and I will have to actually start taking care of myself. I’ve been feeling this way for god knows how long, but I’m still here. I don’t want to continue feeling like this forever. I feel like I want to be a little less negative this year, and maybe when I’m a little older, I’ll be a little happier with what I’ve done in my life.

Sometimes I wish I were a cat. I could just lie around in the sun all day.
But a cat can’t experience the joys of playing Roblox.
But then again, a cat won’t have to deal with fear procrastination.

Maybe in another life I’ll get to do whatever I want. To slack off all day and laze around.

I could be a selfish ■■■■ without a care in the world and be able to live however I see fit without any responsibilities. yay

In the meantime, I’ll just have to do my best everyday and maybe one day I’ll feel actually proud of myself.

But still though, why do I feel like this?

[here2hear]

Hey there, I’m really glad you said all of this out loud. Honestly, it didn’t read like a rant but a genuine feeling of letting the thoughts spill because holding them in is heavier than letting them be messy.

A lot of what you wrote feels… painfully relatable in a quiet way. Not the dramatic “everything is awful” kind, but the “nothing is that wrong, so why does it still feel wrong?” kind. That guilt of enjoying life, loving people, wanting to stay alive, yet still wishing you’d never existed…that’s such a lonely contradiction to sit with. It makes sense that you’d feel confused.

When you talk about procrastination, I don’t hear laziness. I hear someone who freezes when things feel loaded with meaning. Like every task isn’t just a task but a verdict. Pass or fail. Worth it or worthless. No wonder your brain wants to run away and scroll or game or stare at the wall. Those are the only moments where nothing is asking anything of you.

And the “strawberry” label, that sounds less like an observation and more like something you’ve been beating yourself with for a long time. As if struggling automatically means you’re defective. As if falling down means you should’ve known better by now. I wonder who taught you that breaking down equals weakness, instead of just… being overwhelmed.

The way you talk about adulthood feels really bleak, but also kind of honest in a way people don’t usually admit. The idea that life is mostly work, with small pleasures sprinkled in so you don’t completely lose it. That fear feels very real when you’re standing at the edge of “being 20” and everyone keeps saying responsibility like it’s a threat. It’s okay that part of you wants to opt out of that whole deal.

What really stuck with me is this: despite all the self-criticism, despite calling yourself selfish or embarrassing or useless, you still want to see the sun rise. You still want to play Roblox. You still want to travel, to laugh with people, to feel proud one day, even if you don’t know how. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s given up. It sounds like someone who’s tired of feeling stuck in their own head.

And the question “why do I feel like this?”, I don’t think it’s irrelevant. I think it’s the most reasonable question in the world when you’ve been carrying this feeling “for God knows how long” without a clear reason or a clean story to explain it.

You don’t sound broken to me. You sound like someone standing in between “I don’t want to disappear” and “I don’t know how to live like this forever,” trying to make sense of the space in between.

If you want, we can keep poking at this gently, of course not to fix you, not to force optimism but just to understand your version of this feeling a bit better. You don’t have to earn that curiosity. You already deserve it!!