YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

So I've been feeling very unmoored lately. Very homeless and distant and drifting and impactless and I don't know what this feeling is? I thought it was because I was in a different country, but then I went home for Christmas and I still felt this way. I mean, it wasn't the best Christmas in the world, but I was still among family in a familiar setting. I should've felt more...settled, I guess? But I wasn't. In fact, I remember feeling unmoored and impatient to leave. Like I didn't want to be there. (I mean, I didn't, but I couldn't really control that.) When I came back to England and started back at school, it got a little bit better, but every so often I felt like I wasn't "at home".

I mean, I'm not. I'm not at home. I'm in a dorm, surrounded by people I don't know and don't really talk to. (Flatmates are nice but I don't see them often and we're just not friends, y'know.) In two months, I will be back in the US, with my family. Three more months after that I will be back in the middle of a cornfield--I mean, college--for five months, and I'm really not looking forward to that. A month at home. Five months in the cornfield. And after that I'll be done with school and I don't know what's after that.

But I don't think it's nerves over what'll be happening over the next year. I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed and anxious and this isn't it. I guess this is...underwhelment? It feels very "meh"...not "bored" necessarily, but not sad and definitely a little apathetic.

So maybe it's got nothing to do with that? Maybe it's just been the past three years? College is such a liminal period and I just...I don't think I ever adjusted to the temporary nature of it. And the constant temporary nature. You are ALWAYS MOVING. Moving from the campus to home (if you live away from home) every few months.

Or maybe it's because I've achieved a life goal at 20 that didn't end up being what I thought it would be? I've attempted, achieved, and experienced a year (or just about that) outside of the US. I've always wanted to do it. And I did it. Go me.

I just don't know what I'm feeling right now. I don't really have anyone to go to, 'cause I don't think my family would understand and I'm really disappointed with my friends right now (who aren't even in the same city as I am right now, so...) and I can't go to the health services here at uni because they are a mix of incompetence and shitty policies. And I would really, really like to know that this isn't just me and that other people have felt this at some point in their lives.

Oh I feel this constantly and during the marathon conversations I have with a friend of mine, she expresses this all the time. Not sure what to say to help with it, but I definitely feel ya.

For me I think a lot of it comes from feeling like I am just going through the motions. That I could (and should!) do more with my life, a feeling like I'm putting no effort into anything, one day rolling into the next. I feel like I'm at home where I am now (not where I grew up at all) but I know I could leave in a heartbeat. Maybe it's not the same? The "float" you described fits.

I don't know if what you described is exactly the same, but it did sound a bit like what I was feeling. Like, the idea that I could leave at any moment, and that the days are just blurring into one another. But it's not exactly like what you described because it didn't feel like I was just going through motions, 'cause that manifests as impatience in me and I didn't feel impatient. I think what I felt was maybe almost evolved loneliness. That sort of, "you don't belong here, you don't belong anywhere" level. Which, I do struggle with loneliness, but I think that was to a newer degree than what I had experienced previously. Which is a little worrying.

But I went to work the day after I first posted and I was complimented on the job I did. Which really helped.

And it does feel good to know that I am not the only person here feeling this way. So thank you very much for responding.

I think I know what you're feeling. I just graduated last year and in the months before I finished I was constantly feeling restless. Just always uncomfortable and I couldn't place why. I called it my quarter-life crisis. I wish I could tell you how I fixed it or what I discovered -- but I didn't do anything. One day I just noticed I was giving a shit about things again. Sorry I can't be much help.