I hate college and my life

I’ve already transferred schools twice. Im a year and a half behind the people that I started school with and I have no friends at my current school. I’ve never been more depressed in my life and I just moved back in with my parents and am trying to finish up my degree remotely. Everything seems so hopeless and so lost. I have no idea where I’m headed professionally and at this point I would just be happy to land any kind of job. I’m a senior and completely fed up with my studies. I feel like a failure. There is no sign of any romantic relationship in sight and I’ve already been burned by multiple women. I am barely functional.

I am also seeing both a psychologist and a psychiatrist; I don’t know what to do/

Take some time off and get your health stabilized. Remotely is not a bad idea. Seriously, don’t worry about women right now. Take care of your yourself.

Sounds like you’re very close to graduating. Congrats on making it this far! I don’t have any advice for you, but I wanted to let you know that your situation sounds really tough. Keep at it. Most people don’t ever get to the point where you’re at right now. It might feel terrible right now, but I wouldn’t consider your current situation a failure at all. Hugs.

Push through to get your degree done if you can – but it isn’t a race. Take the time you need to in order to get it done, and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing Follow the advice of your mental health caregivers.

I wouldn’t worry about relationships right now. Focus on the degree, and maybe trying to find an entry job a least a little bit related to your major. That job hunt can take a while, too. Don’t let it get you down.

Put on as positive a face as you can muster in your job search. Use LinkedIn and other networking/job search websites to try to find something that matches you skills.

It isn’t too surprising that you are having trouble connecting with people given multiple transfers. I’m only saying you aren’t alone, this is a common problem when people transfer. It isn’t just you. It is good news that you have a safety net with your parents. Not everyone can move back home when things get rough. Give them a little extra thanks for providing support for you.

I think you can do this. You’ve gotten to your senior year in college, which is a lot farther than most people get in their educations.

Lots of people have jobs in fields that aren’t remotely related to their major. Take advantage of your last semesters in college and utlize the campus resources - career counseling, internships, working with professors, etc.

That’s not really something I’m worried about. It’s more just that I’m falling behind and so desperately lonely that I can barely function anymore

Congrats to you for getting this far! You have made several brave choices (transferring schools, moving back home). That tells me you are motivated. Something inside of you knows that there is a future you are working towards.

I agree, listen to the professionals who are helping you stay on track. Ask them where you might get some social support from peers (like a group)?

Once you get out of high school, that timeline completely disappears. It is of absolutely no importance that kids who graduated with you are further along in their studies than you are… no one cares. It’s not a race, there’s no extra credit or extra points to those who finish first. So don’t sweat the “falling behind” thing.

As far as the lonliness goes- there I’ll defer to the professionals. I suspect that they’ve suggested that you find others who share your interests. If you can’t find a concrete interest, find somewhere to volunteer. You’ll meet the kind of women you want to meet-- the kind who are interested in helping others, in making the world a better place, as opposed to the ones looking to burn a nice guy. And doing for others tends to take the focus off all that’s wrong in your world, and makes you a person better able to start forging some relationships.

Above all, know you’re not alone. There are thousands and thousands of other kids your age who could have written the exact same post.

I feel alone and my situation does feel rather extreme. I left my school on pretty bad terms. None of my old friends will respond to my social media messages or requests, it’s like I have developed a negative reputation. It’s hard to not take personally. Not to mention, one of the girls has a restraining order against me that I foolishly broke, which has gotten me into a bit of trouble. But I just did it out of loneliness because she was one of the few people that have been nice to me. I just feel so betrayed.

Thanks for all of the compassionate answers

OK, that puts a slightly different twist on all this. Having a restraining order, and then breaking it, changes the focus from the actions of others to your own actions, and I think that at some point you need to take responsibility for them.

As I understand it, a restraining order means that someone in law enforcement agreed that you were, at a minimum, harassing this young woman and were ordered to leave her alone. Then you broke that order. So this isn’t about women looking to burn you, this is more about you harassing a woman, and apparently your mutual friends agree that it was wrong.

So where do you go from here? First and foremost, you work on yourself with the pros. Speak to your therapist, and see why you made the choices you did and how you can learn to make better choices moving forward. You’ll be able to work on feeling alone once you move your life in a positive direction and start making good choices.

Good luck.