Personal Woes and Advice 3

[junglesteve]

Before I get started, let me just say that I have no idea where this is going, but I need to at least write this out for myself. With that said...

I've started feeling like my happiness is a lie. Any time I'm with friends, classmates, working on classwork, something for my D&D campaign, or anything else that I can distract myself with, I'm in a good mood. And then whatever that thing was ends, and I'm left with this raw feeling of *empty*. I can't even decide if I'm depressed (not necessarily clinical) or just numb. I've spent the last 15 years of my life (since I was ~12, for anyone keeping score at home) masking my emotions, I'm afraid that it's gone far deeper than I'd thought.

And when a night hanging out with people ends, it takes very little time for me to return from the happy, joking, upbeat guy that hangs out with people to the solemn, mopey, if-I-have-to guy that has become more common. Example: tonight, I had dinner with family for my mom's birthday, and then hung out with friends playing board games for a few hours. Overall, almost 7 hours of hanging out with people I love being with, joking, and having a good time. After I dropped my friend off at his place at the end of the night, it took all of ~3 minutes for me to be back in mopey mode. Potential mitigating factors on that, of course: been up for 18 hours on 6 hours of sleep, played 2 hours of soccer this morning (great for stress relief, not so good for energy levels) and my knees have been bothering me all day.

Overall, I've been going through various up and down cycles (I'm a science nerd, so I'd describe it as overlapping sine waves - non-science people would probably describe as small fluctuations on a more general fluctuation). Obviously, I know this is typical, and so I know that it shouldn't bother me as much as it does. Then again, I have no idea how much other people deal with these cycles, so I can't really compare mine to the "normal."

And now I'm rambling, so I'm going to stop and go sleep. Not sure if this post is trying to get feedback, or just vent my recent frustrations.

This is going to sound stupid but i'll say this: get outside. Start implementing an exercise routine for yourself. The ridiculous amounts of endorphins and other fun stuff released during and after will have you feeling like a confident fox.

---edit

I see you're doing soccer and complain about your knees. Try an hour of cardio on the elliptical. Push yourself and really feel it.