/b/ - Random

Cry for help

Anonymous

loc-IN

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UPSC anon here. I am posting this in hopes that someone here will provide a solution after everyone else has been unable to. My maa-baap, my teachers, friends, seniors, psychiatrists, even AI have all heard this issue and given me some generic advice that either doesn't work or have simply failed to understand my problem. My issue is that my mind - or my body - literally refuses to function whenever I try to do anything connected to academic work - anything that will get me out of my current state into a better position. When I am doing mundane office work, my focus and indeed my obsession is great. When I need to clean around the home or polish my motorcycle or anything non academic, the mind wanders nowhere. When I open up a book related to my padhai however, the mind starts rushing to random stuff. Putting on some music that I enjoy, checking out prices of something I've been wanting to buy, Its not even the usual culprits like reddit or social media: I gave up on those things a while back. Have removed all apps and only install them during vacation time. Its like my mind wishes to do everything under the sun expect the task set infront of it. Funny thing is many of the things I do to waste time aren't even strictly speaking time wasting - some of the stuff I read might well be considered part of our job. It is however - always unrelated to the current most important goal. For example: reading a book that is otherwise very informative but not part of the UPSC syllabus and thus unhelpful in my goal I have watched a shit ton of self help content. Have been doing it for years. Cold showers, organising your room, mindfulness, breathing exercises, intentional living, syncing the circadian rhythm, taking in sunlight in the morning, blocking blue light, socialising, practising gratitude. Have done it all. Have even chewed on dry coffee powder as a stimulant. The most frustrating thing is, I do not even seem to enjoy these things I do. As I am wasting time reading the biography of Mussolini or browsing through the electric guitar section on bajao.com or watching a video on minimalist home decor, the constant sense of wrongdoing, anxiety and dread is always there. Its suppressed, pushed to the back of the head by the incoming stream of extern content but not for a single moment do I forget its presence. And as I hit the bed those thoughts came rushing to the front. I wake up the next morning resolved to spend this day in a better way but it just doesn't work. Even if I work extremely hard and manage to get 3-4 hours of study out of one day the next 4-5 days are guaranteed to be a waste. Its almost like my ego, the part of the mind that wishes to take action, has been put in a straitjacket, and is hoisted in front of a one-way window watching the unconscious mind wreak havoc. It cries, it weeps but cannot do anything since it is powerless to break the chains that bind it from taking action. Even more depressing is, I know this not working is responsible for basically all my problems. My anger at everything worldly, my pessimism about my future, my desire to just quit the world and go away forever, my rejection of socialising with colleagues or friends or my students is all stemming from this inability to perform a hard day's honest work. Work will set me free - this realization I have. But i seem to have no way to actually labour - nothing works. Pls don't shift this to /adv/ it's a dead board.