Half my life.......... wasted?

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Protek

Junior Member
Aug 26, 2014
46
23
8
#1
It's very easy for me to think that the past two decades have been a failure and a waste of time and life. So much has happened yet so much of it was unbearable. This is a new version of my story, it's one I have recited a number of times and in a number of places online as a coping mechanism.

This all starts in some way 19 years ago when I was off to college for the first time and broke up with my first and only girlfriend. I had some kind of love for her, probably puppy love, but I was ready to live it up as an "adult" with all of the things going out on my own could offer. I hit the ground running and got in contact with my best friend since I was 5 or 6 and he introduced me to an entire group of people. One day while at the gas station/carl's junior that many of the worked at, one of them came in the door with a shoe box with something fantastical inside, everyone crowded around and gasped when he opened it. They were ticket's to E3, a legendary rave. I wanted in at any cost and went to my first time in khaki's and a button up but wouldn't take my hoodie off in the 95+ degree abandoned k-mart because I looked nothing like everyone else in attendance. Though.... it wasn't long before I had all of the right clothes and knew the scene pretty well. I was going to raves and doing drug's once or twice every month. This lasted for a year and at some point it all caught up with me. Eventually my "best friend" blamed me for his long term rocky and dysfunctional relationship ending and he invited me over one night and poured acid in my mouth. That night was the most horrific night I've ever had and it took me many years to fully understand what he had done to me. I finally moved to another city for college but thing's weren't right, at one point I panicked in a class room and went into the bathroom to hold my ear against the adjoining cinder block wall to see if everyone really was talking about me. I stopped going to class and sat in my dorm room obsessed with my own face. This turned in to moving into my parent's basement the following year where everything got oh so much worse. For 4 years I had almost no human contact, was awake for 24 hours and unconscious for 12 and barely even went to the bathroom. The light outside the window blurred into getting light and dark with no rhyme or reason.

At some point during those 4 years I met Jesus with a vigor, finding myself in another state holding a bible in a very dark room. This in no way helped me as the second half of that stay in the basement turned into a waking nightmare, I was literally having nightmares while awake and honestly think I went a couple month's without sleep.

I was in a very deep hole but Jesus let me know that he was with me and he was next to my heart. He couldn't possibly cause me to forgo the suffering ahead of me, however he told me that he would never leave and that I was already saved. We had many one sided (mostly) conversations and his true heart came true. Jesus Christ, the lord and Savior of man kind isn't over us waiting to punish or judge us, he is deep in fox holes with each of us in this war. He cares nothing about what you've done said or thought, he only cares about you coming away from failing and into his dream for you. He doesn't even need you to acknowledge that he is there for him to love you, however when you recognize him........ it is so much easier to follow in his path.

When I learned this close and unending love........ I couldn't help but tell him.......... You need to bring me to someone else in a fox hole suffering as I am now, let me heal them and in turn you. I haphazardly put others ahead of myself as I was in no shape to take care of myself let alone someone else.

But after a couple years I found myself doing my best to be in public and work at a pet store. One day a customer came in the door and a co-worker told me..... "oh man.. her! don't talk to her, she will never shut up", and that was no lie. Oddly enough when she came to check out, she told me that she was looking for a computer, and again oddly enough the one thing I did for those 4 years was build, break and rebuild my computer. So I took her number but for some reason I waited a month to call. When I did she had a computer but it wouldn't work, turns out the hard drive was corrupt and I had to go to her apartment for a fresh OS install. During this time I was still not ok in any way but I pushed myself into new territory. Fixing her computer turned into computer lessons which turned into getting lunch which turned in to weekly visits, getting her groceries and eventually an expensive surgery to save her only friend a dog with a soccer ball sized tumor. Then one Sunday during my weekly visit she couldn't answer the door and I had to call 911 to get the fire dept to open up the door, she had gone into diabetic shock and couldn't function due to running out of food, I honestly saved her life. This was 5 years in to our friendship and the following two years I stepped up the groceries and called her every single day without fail.

Keep in mind that I was still a wreck but somehow I was tending to her regularly. On several occasions I told Jesus that I could continue suffering if he would only heal these other people instead of me, I continually denied myself and that is where my regret is currently. Along the way I was teaching a computer class at her people with disabilities class and me Joe. This was the only time Joe went before and after meeting him and when I first saw him, I thought....... Is he blind? Then realized yes he is. Turns out Joe had just moved to the state and his rather old laptop was non-functional. So again I got his number and brought him to my parent's basement and we spent something like 7-8 hours working on his laptop and getting to know each other. Today he has become a social butterfly with several social circles that I have introduced him to, he lives in my old house with his mom and all of his tech needs are taken care of.

The difference between these two cases being that while Joe made use of everything I did for him, Susan simply clung to me and wouldn't allow anyone else in her life. I tried to high heaven to get others involved in her life, even going to a number of HUGE Jesus parties at my church and none of it stuck. After I stopped talking to her, I dug out a number from my wallet of the lady who was taking care of her before me and she said "oh man, I wish you had talked to me, that's what she does is cling to one person and take everything she can from them".

Today I'm left wondering if I could have done more with the past two decades or so, I was to paranoid to take meds which kept everything going for far to long. Even today I am waiting for an appointment with my counselor to bump my meds one more time, I'm doing so much better but not good enough. I still want to look at those 7 years dedicated to Susan as a waste of time and get a little angry about it, however she had lost her mom a few years before meeting her and I was able to give her some companionship in very dark times.

Still, my deepest desires found in these times go unfulfilled, well I work with my father which was a dream and am close to my core family. But there is so much that I wish I had done by this age, I can't help but get a little upset.

Oh well, It doesn't happen on our time scale but his.
 

Adstar

Senior Member
Jul 24, 2016
7,426
3,477
113
#2
Thanks for sharing..

It's good for us to fight the battles ... But in the end Jesus wins the War.. fighting our battles just shows we are on His side..

If you brought support and hope into just one persons life during the past 20 years you have done well.. God knows each persons capabilities.. Some of us are very limited in what we are capable of some of us are more capable..

Mark 12: KJV
41 "¶ And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. {42} And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. {43} And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: {44} For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."
 
Feb 28, 2016
11,311
2,972
113
#3
for a true Christian, 'regret' should always be thought upon and then filed away
as an old vessel that has been used to bring us into our present life that we
live-in and walk-in for our Saviour...
 

OstrichSmiling

Well-known member
Jun 17, 2018
1,027
418
83
#4
Regret is a waste of time.

Stop whining!
You survived. Learn from it and make everything you experienced and made it through serve you.
 
Feb 28, 2016
11,311
2,972
113
#5
OS, you seem rather 'crude',,,in your speech... -
sit back and reflect on your own personal life's experiences,
please...
 

EarnestQ

Senior Member
Apr 28, 2016
2,588
310
83
#6
I feel I have wasted the better part of my life too. I "could" have done so much but have so little to show for it. Looking back I am confident that the reason I have accomplished so little is because I invested so little into my relationship with Jesus.

Had I, thirty years ago, for instance, been committed to developing my daily relationship with Jesus, I would have a whole different life right now.

Jesus can do very little with people who are not letting Him work in their life. Instead of spending quality daily time with Him in Bible study and prayer, I neglected Him and just puttered my life away day by day. It is now thirty years later and I am still neglecting my relationship with Him much of the time.

Even now, at age 62, I spend more time "puttering" than directing my attention to the one who died in my place on the cross and three days later rose from the dead.

We can't change the past that brought us to where we are, and condemning ourselves for being so stupid just handicaps us further. All we can do is seek Jesus whole-heartedly every day and let Him lead us to a future where we glorify Him more with our lives.

I am learning that the most important thing we can do is learn more about God's love for us and draw closer to Him in love every day. The second most important thing is to reflect His love to the world around us.

When we are doing this, our lives have value no matter where we are starting from.
 

mar09

Senior Member
Sep 17, 2014
4,927
1,259
113
#7
Hi protek,

I used to look back too much, or live in the past you'd say. Yes we can, to some extent, but God's word is more important. You can repeat to yourself til it's part of you: Forgetting the past, i run straight toward the goal, which is life in union with Christ Jesus.

Btw, came across this little poem recently:

Sins of Omission

It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
That gives you a bit of a heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender work forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's way;
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle, winning tone
Which you had no time nor thought for
With troubles enough of your own.

Those little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind,
Those chances to be angels
Which we poor mortals find -
They come in night and silence,
Each sad, reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a chill has fallen on faith.

For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all to great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late:
And it isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
 

blue_ladybug

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2014
70,869
9,601
113
#8
Regret is a waste of time.

Stop whining!
You survived. Learn from it and make everything you experienced and made it through serve you.

Ummm, did you not read the OP in it's entirety? I don't see him "whining" anywhere in it. I only see a selfless person who gave thanks through all the hell he's endured.. And used his own bad situation to better assist others who are just as bad off or worse..