Lackluster of motivation and purpose after and during hard times in my life

06 September 2018 14:28, the last time I've been here. Actually that was for my only post, it was about the thing that set me in motion. First, I am going to explain my situation a bit better, it is probably going to be long so buckle up, I think you will find it interesting. September 2017, a quick description of me when I started the first year of high school, short, a LOT of acne, social anxiety, a terrible hairstyle, barely spoke to girls, 8 hours of video games daily, was considered a nerd, and the worst, the only friends that I had abused me mentally heavily for obvious reasons. Sounds strange when I type this out but that is how it was, I am going to oversimplify the story a LOT so keep that in mind, so here goes. The little nerd that I was started going to high school, with all of the perks I mentioned above, and the thing that got me to change, flipped my life 180 was a girl I met in my class. The most beautiful girl I ever saw. So, very simple, I quit video games and started going to the gym, that raised my self esteem to a tiny bit that I had enough courage to dump my friends and started chit-chatting with here and eventually started hanging with her (let's call her M), her best friend (let's call her V) and another guy form our class (let's call him G). May 2018, probably the best period of my life. The best is not actually a good description but I just dumped old friends and started hanging around with M, everything seemed more colorful, the food tasted better, the music was so good, a lot of you, even I thought that that is love, but it was just a sunshine after a long winter. So, one day while I walked her to a bus, as she was stepping in, I just told her that I loved her and that's it. Kinda weird, but anxiety was there and it is really a miracle how I even befriended them/her, I mean, years of games took their toll on my ability to communicate with people. But then I come back home greeted with a message that she somehow loved me back, so an ugly nerd somehow managed to hook up with a cute chick and I still don't know how did I manage it. From then on, things went down. I didn't know how to behave in a relationship, we didn't even kiss lol, and to no surprise (at least now when I think about it), she broke up with me after a month. Summer of 2018, was arguably the worst period of my life, the amount of mental pain and emptiness I experienced was enormous. I just couldn't let it go, and still can't 100% to this day, but more on that later. Long story short, the summer was really bad, but I kept being friends with the other 2. V and G are to this day my best friends. The emptiness and the bitterness of the life came down upon me and I couldn't handle it, so I turned to this website and it gave me hope. I realized that even because I left video games and worked a bit on myself, that doesn't mean that I am completely changed person, so to sum it up, the second year of high school was working more on my body, acne and social behaviour. It was still hard watching her every day though and feeling were there not to lie. Fast forward to summer, I had a few girls, and to be honest I became a mental beast. Funny, socially active, you name it, I don't want to sound cocky or anything but that is just how it is xD. I summed up the second year of HS but really, it wasn't this black and white and I though countless times of coming back here and searching for an advice, but I kept convincing myself not to, and really, I didn't have to. July came and I moved to Belgium leaving everything behind. Again to simplify, I still didn't feel 100% fulfilled, I was still looked with one eye as that old anxious nerd and no matter how good my jokes or some things I said were, a bitter taste was left after every one of them. It just didn't feel right, I wanted more, like to be ultra alfa, even a bit greedy. So there is my plan. around 31st of July of 2019 I started learning programming and I just knew I wanted to do something with it. Over the past 7 months I dedicated myself into becoming a data scientist and that is where the problem lies (also, I dumped all my integration efforts into water because of this). The thing is, sometimes I am not able to find any bit of motivation to do thing that I do. When I have, it's like 7-12 hour sessions of learning and programming and that can go on for a week, a month but then, those periods of me not having any motivation come, and they are terrible. It's like several days of nothing but procrastination and I really need to find a lot of motivation to continue and that was driving me crazy past months. I find motivation in looking back into my worst days, looking at M's photos to spark that old drive I had to do things (and even tho I admit there still is something, it is not as closely as present as it was), watch motivational videos, watch girls I couldn't get, sports videos, anything... But they all have a finite amount of uses before they burn me out. I really can't explain this. To be clear, I REALLY REALLY want to succeed, if I told somebody who has a good amount of knowledge in this subject what have I done in these 7 months, he would probably thing that I am like overachieving (again I don't want to sound cocky but I objectively think that is how it is), but I don't feel that way, I want way more (to give some insight of how intense my learning can get is that I completed differential and integral calculus in less than a month). It even sounds silly what I am requesting here, many worse things than this happened, but I just seem to not be able to handle this one, so I would really appreciate some help! And some other things that I need to point out: -I feel terrible in Belgium, it makes me wanna puke, unbearable family adds only insult to injury and that is why I want to get out (other part of the goal is to prove all people back in my town wrong). The plan is to keep learning, work as mad during my summer internship that I will hopefully get, they notice me and then, with few more internships I start to work, skipping college BTW. Canada and the USA are the goal to get to as of now but that is kinda out of scope of this post. -I still can exaggerate how badly I want to get out of here. The first thing that might come to mind to somebody who reads this is to advise me to get rid of the hate I bare inside and I am already quite aware of it and I am working on a fix. And even after trying to adapt here, let the past go, try to live normally, I still can't let this go. Being a massive mental boulder as I like to think I am, I feel like nothing can stop me in achieving my goals, I don't want to be here anymore and sometimes, I feel like I don't want to be me anymore. Still, when I get a feeling like that I just brush it off and keep going. So, if anyone had a similar experience, I would like to hear, or any advice at all. The way I look at the problem is that I have a lack of meaning, the passion. But whenever I try to look back, to remember why I started learning and working, nothing comes to mind. I should also note that I have overeating and sleeping problems here. I am still fit but I just can't stop eating and I need a minimum of 9 hours of sleep. I blame Belgium and the lack of happiness for this really. The first time I went back to my country to see friends and family, I lost my appetite (or rather it got back to normal) and I could function at 6 hours of sleep without any problems. And here, I have nothing to wake up for, kinda hard to find motivation around here if there isn't anything to fight for. With all of that being said, I would like to apologize for my lack of proficiency in English, and would like to thank everyone who reads and/or replies. Please, feel free to ask ,e any question that comes to mind. Thank you. (I am male, 17)

To be honest, you seem like nice guy. Be warned, I’m not the best at judging people which is why I’ve had similar experiences as you. At a time in my life where I couldn’t find the motivation for anything I started focusing on the smallest things that gave me any significant pleasure. Sweets, comics, games, anything that would make me smile even if only for a second. Are there any things like that for you? Even if they’re really insignificant it could really help if you tried to include these little things into your everyday life a little more. I hope this comment helped, I myself am really nerdy. It took me years, but I’ve finally come to terms with myself and have started moving forward. Being a similar age to you, I think or rather hope I can help. I really do.

Well, that is also kinda a problem since if I try to do that, I just end up procrastinating my whole day out. Food was a problem, I'm not fat at all and I am eating 24/7 which wasn't a problem till I lost my appetite a week or 2 ago and that combined with chronic headaches fills the 4th symptom of a burnout, at least I read. Nevertheless only problem is getting myself to stay motivated for the work I do, I can get hot and do 3 straight days of 12 hour hustling but then the burnout comes. I think I might be able to get over this, I can't get depressed so that helps but I would really like to finish with everything thay I do so I could land an internship soon. We'll see, but that is work related. Emotionally, I am trying to connect to old friends, spend more time with family and I think it will end up OK tbh. Any other advices you can give me to speed the process up would be helpful. Thanks anyways!