[choirgirl]

I think my issue seems to be something to do with accumulated trauma. I'm just reading about this (it's a rather heavy topic so I can only manage so much at once.) But that does seem to fit. So it's probably some kind of trauma in your formative years, plus (in my case) subsequent trauma/shitty things happening on top of that that push you to the point where you stop living and start existing, and just get stuck.

I was stuck for about ten years (at an age when it seems everybody else is building a life and becoming more confident in themselves). Then I got unstuck, but not enough, and now I'm stuck again. It's not that I did nothing to try and better my situation in the mid 20s to mid 30s years, but I didn't really maintain forward momentum sufficiently to get unstuck, largely because of social anxiety that would get better and worse in an endless cycle. And probably some other dark and murky stuff residing in my subconscious! And, to be frank, laziness. (Which is funny, because I was quite a motivated person when I was young!) Oh, and the endless self-doubt, a constant companion in my youth, which has improved with age. Maybe I should be doing this, not that, maybe I do just need to try harder, maybe I'm wrong and everybody else is right, maybe this other person knows more than I do, they seem so confident etc etc. Jesus Christ. And in my case I'm sure there's neurodivergence going on. I think I could have coped with either the neurodivergence or the trauma, but not both at once. And I'm very lucky that my early childhood was good because otherwise I don't know what kind of mess I'd be in.

I got partially unstuck because of a) panicking about my age and then b) panicking about the way the world was going and feeling, oh society doesn't care if I go and die in a ditch if I can't function normally 100% of the time and rents keep going up at the same time, great, which alerted my panic response. I'm a survival orientated person, not a 'FOMO' person. It would be nice to be both, but apparently I'm not. (I feel like society has become more composed of FOMO people, but that's another topic.)

I do agree with Greg that the age thing can be motivating but it doesn't seem to be consistently working for me at present. And it has to consistently work for me to get anywhere. It's the same with social anxiety. I have to be able to consistently manage it to get any sustained progress. The other problem I always have, is that feeling panicky is draining. One needs something else to keep going I think.

I agree there is a vividness to youth, where the good things are so good, and the bad things are so bad. And you don't get that back. (I suppose some people get a little feeling of it through their young children.) I think one needs something good to replace it with.

That was all very self-indulgent and long and rambly, I know!