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"Yeah? And? So? What?"

Haven't been around much lately here, just don't seem to find the will or desire to read anybody's opinions on things.
Not sure what tone this post will take, at the moment it's circling as a silent scream at the world - a fist smashed into the face of your god.

The best thing I've done in recent times was to walk away from a pointless office job where I sat and typed here all day being superior and sarcastic whilst telling myself I was a good person.
Then I realised I was just like all the other schlubs sitting at a desk waiting for 5pm/retirement/death. It hit me like a bucket of cold water after wasting 4 years and I walked away.
No concerns about £ or future, I dusted my hands together and walked. I know what I want to do, but I have to spend the next few years getting there with training/degrees/retaking exams etc.
Currently temping in some mindless office job whilst I figure out my next move, and I at least have the knowledge that I took a large fistful of my future and refuse to let go now.

I have zero interest in being chummy with the people that work at this place. I don't talk to them, don't make jokes, don't say "good morning" or "bye" when I leave, don't indulge in mindless chitchat to pass the time.
It's not an exaggeration or an attempt to be all "hey I'm so cool", I just refuse to pretend like it matters and play at being sociable. Everybody goes out for a fag at 10am, I go out when they come back in. I go home for lunch and have managed, for 3 days, to remain 100% silent all day long.
Why?
Because they're the antithesis of what I want from life. They might be good people, they might not. I don't care.
It's the same as you lot that post here, you may think there's a "community" or everybody's a friend/whatever, but (and I don't say this to be internet-toughguy), I really couldn't care less if 99% of you fell off the earth in the next 60 seconds.
It's just being honest with you/myself, same as you couldn't give a damn if I never posted here again - why should you?
But it's this fake idea of being interested/sympathetic with somebody simply because you are in the same job/forum as them.
Why? Why should I sit there and exchanged banal droning about the weather/the weekend/the kids/the television when I have no interest in being your friend?

Apparently my silence and non-interplay at work is "intimidating" and "anti-social" according to a woman that insisted on talking at me whilst I stood outside smoking.
I said to her "Look, I'm here to earn money and that's it. I don't watch your television programmes, I don't want to spend the next 40 years at a desk punching in and out. I'm not trying to be a pain, I just don't care at all what goes on here. It's a job"
She got all huffy and walked off.
Boo.Hoo.
I sit and listen to them. They spent an hour talking about "Corrie" and "Big Bruvver!!!" like it meant anything outside of a sedative pumped into your home 24/7. They spoke about characters in tv-land like they were real people.
Fair enough, whatever works for you. Just don't get sniffy when I don't join in your reindeer games because it does nothing for me.

I just feel, for the past few weeks, like I'm floating in a sensory deprivation tank. I feel cut-off and disinterested in playing along with the script we seem to be issued with and learn through years of school and social conditioning.
I was seeing a woman since last October time, but I haven't seen her for the past 4 weeks or so. I just can't be bothered to, I've run out of witty and erudite things to say to her. I say "I don't feel like it this weekend" and she gets moody with me for it.
Whatever, feel angry/upset. I just don't care.
It's not depression, don't think for one instance that I indulge in angsty hand-wringing and trying to express my loneliness and inner-demons with 3rd rate short stories or mediocre poetry that would embarrass a GCSE English student.
It's an awareness that I don't have to engage in pointless social ritual simply because it's expected of me.
I'm not miserable, I'm not sitting listening to songs that "totally express how I feel maaaan" or any of that moody rubbish.

I am angry however.
Angry that people seem to want to get in your face and offer advice when you stray from the path of least resistance to discover your own trail through life.
Why? Why do you present such a threat to the status quo if you say "Actually, 9-5/savings/mortgage/marriage/kids isn't for me thanks" and go off on a wander with your own map?
"Ooooh, he's intimidating and anti-social"
No, I'm just not going to waste time with purile conversation and smiling (even if it is nothing but teeth). So where's the problem? I'm not being moody, I'm not snarling and swearing quietly. I just go in, mind my own business and leave at 5pm. No I don't want to go to the pub, no I don't want to discuss what I did at the weekend with you, no I'm not interested in signing that birthday card and giving money to somebody I don't know thankyouverymuch.

And I'm also dealing with a family member being diagnosed with final-stage terminal cancer of the brain.
They'd been ill for a while, in-and-out of hospital and finally the doctor's discovered "secondaries" in the liver and lungs. If we're lucky, they say, she'll live for a couple more months. If she's lucky, she won't.
It's no state for a person to spend their remaining days alive, semi-coherent, rambling, crying, confused and asking where everybody is (try explaining that "yes you're dying rapidly, but visiting hours only permit us to spend time with you between a certain time!!!")
Please don't think I'm after sympathy or a hug or any of that crap.
I'm furious
I'm furious because when my cat had liver failure, the vet said it was best to have him put down.
But a person? A person that you've known since you can remember? A person who figures in your first memory? Oh no, they have to lay there in fear, a shell of who they were. And you get to watch them die before your very eyes!!!

Now THAT's entertainment folks!
Nevermind reality television with nobodies competing for cash prizes!
No no no no nononononono.
You want something that's really reality? Watch a relative die in front of you. You can see them getting greyer and less animated every time you visit!
You can see their stomach distend from the medication!
You can smell the cancer when they breathe on you, when you have to lean in so close because they can barely talk above a whisper!
So your poor likkle moggy can be gracefully induced to prevent further suffering, awwwwwwwww how ####ing considerate we are.
Just don't want to help somebody you love, nope. You get to watch them fade away, fighting for breath and sobbing because they don't know who you are.
Yeah!!! Fan-####ing-tastic caring sympathetic people we are!

Then I get to go into an air-conditioned building with people that think Eastenders is miserable.
That's why I don't talk to them, because I know it's just ritualistic mantra to ask "How was your weekend?".
What do I say? "Well on Sunday I had to see somebody I love not recognise me and moan because of the pain you can never imagine as cancer eats them with frightening rapidity. But hey, Big Brother eh? What a wacky show!"

Balls to that.
I'll sit there and wonder if today will be the day the phone rings from the hospital, and I'll do it quietly and minding my own business. I'll sit there having realised I could no longer work forever doing something I never wanted to do as a kid.
And I'll watch people talk about their breakfast and their television and their dog that keeps being sick on the carpet, and I'll mind my own business and quietly think about things.

I'm not sad. I'm angry. I'm not sleepwalking, I'm wide awake.
I'm going to bed.

Feel like I should join in.

You know what worries me? When people pick up a paper and start reading from the back... Jesus. Everything that is going on in the world, and some people feel they have to find out what manager has been sacked from what club over the weekend first.

Scares me, it really does.

having read it again, I can feel anger towards the hopeless, futile and cold-heartedness of the situation regarding your family members cancer.

family members dying is something we are all going to have to face some day. some days I dwell on little else. I wonder how, if at all, I'll cope, how it will change my personality and outlook on life, and whether or not I can see myself ever being happy afterwards.

I don't care about my own death, I don't want to die, but I'm not scared of it. I just hope that when it comes it comes with minimal suffering - a luxury not afforded to your relative.

serious thought needs to go into the subject of euthanasia - keeping people alive is the lowest form of cruelty in some situations. is it so much to ask to let them go with a little dignity, with their personality almost intact, and not eroded away over time, fear and pain changing them into someone you don't even recognise?

I feel for your plight Goatboy, and although you quite often say that not one opinion given on this site means anything at all to you, you can't deny it is in some tiny way comforting to know that others share your view.

As for everything else you wrote, you're going to find something you really believe in and enjoy doing, so that you feel whatever job you are doing is worthwhile. Being in a job you hate, with people you hate, will grind you down over time. It's bad news. Why not take some time off if you can and use the time to explore other possible options? Things you may not have even thought of doing before?

Anyway, take it easy, if you can.

I was going to post about the office work, talking to people and whether I care about them or not.

But then I got to the cancer bit and it doesn't seem so important any more.

I don't know.

Well, I think most people can identify with all the feelings you spoke about there.

Most people who have experienced death around them with family or friends will agree with you about the alienation, about how what you want to talk about is never what the other person wants to talk about. What you are feeling right now is important to you and it probably feels like nobody else can relate to you, but they probably have been through everything you've been through as well.

I think you should talk to people, however empty headed they seem to you. Talking to people on a chat forum might help but what you need to do is sit down and talk to someone you know and trust. The family member you have to remember, is going through everything you're going through but with physical pain as well, and she would probably be the best person to talk to. It should help you with the worrying, which is the worse part, and help you to realise that she's still the same person. She will know what you are going through more than anybody else and it will make it easier if you sit and talk to her. Those images are what you're going to remember of her so make them happy ones.

good luck

Talk to people, don't talk to people, either way I've got to keep going to work for a while so I make the most of it. But then again, the only person I tend to talk to now is a cynical bloke who knows he's in a crappy job, but doesn't really care as it pays him well enough to live a decent life outside of those hours. Fair enough. No BB talk, No soaps, just swearing every time they play some crap on the radio.

I spent 12 months in a warehouse job once and everyday I spoke to no one. But this is pretty normal for me as I can't stand or endure anyone for more than 5 minutes. They all thought I was "arrogant" and "aloof" - they were right, nobshanks.

Goatboy wrote:
> You want something that's really reality? Watch a relative die in
> front of you. You can see them getting greyer and less animated every
> time you visit!


Yeah, i know how you feel and it sucks. My gran died of throat cancer maybe 5 years ago now, i didnt really notice at first but i gradually picked up on the fact that she found it harder and harder to talk. Then she was diagnosed with cancer after getting a second opinion after her doctor told her it was just a throat infection.

I remember one saturday when we visited and we opened the front door and we couldnt hear anything, i think the whole family thought that she had died in bed. That was quite a scary moment, but it turned out that she was just feeling too weak to move.

Not long after that she was admitted to a hospice not too far away where she lived out her last days, in the last few days before she passed away we barely had the chance to talk to her because the medication made her so groggy, she would be part of the conversation and then just fall asleep.

There was one occasion where she woke up just before we left, i gave her a hug. She died the next day.

Erm well, I am sorry to hear that because I like you.

I can't really offer advice because I've never been in that position, I'm 18 and you don't want to hear. But yeah hope you're ok.

Oh well. That's life.

I'm off to live in Spain sometime (once the birth thing is out of the way), unfortunately it's full of English people.

You told me this a while ago and I think it's relevant to quote it now:

"Are you me?"

(minus the 4 years at the same job, I get sick of those sort of people/jobs far, far quicker so possibly count yourself lucky(?))

I'll probably comment in more depth later as I'm in the process of consuming some grade Z drink and wondering how the hell I'm holding down a job which is the opposite of a lot of things I want.

I guess you have to have to take some crap to get to the good stuff, which is porobably a good thing otherwise the good stuff would be... mediocre or something.