Hey Hey @magnesium100
How do I pull a redemption arc?
Need Support
This is my first post here, but I am in critical need of help…
Here’s a tl;dr, I realized that I have been a “bad” person for the past years and I really want to change for the better, where do I start and what do I need to do?
Today, my frustrations got control over me and I lost it in front of my family members, I pushed and hit them because of my decaying mental state and I regretted it. This isn’t the first that it has happened, in fact, it happened many times because of my anger issues. My family members are now really mad at me and to be honest, even if I can’t convince myself of it, it is really my fault for not being able to have more control over myself.
From a young age, the one thing that has been on my mind was good grades, it was the only thing that I have focused on because I wanted to become a doctor and enter one of the top universities in my country to study it. But in retrospection, my sheer focus on academics has put me in the veil of ignorance. I never took the initiative to learn some life skills such as helping the disadvantaged in society (I wasn’t being serious during a group project about visiting an elderly home), cooking, social confidence, etc. Moreover, the pressure to be the top in academics has kinda given me a “god complex”, in this case meaning that I implicitly get good grades to make myself feel superior to everyone else. In my schools, I lived in a poor socioeconomic background compared to the others so the desire to be the best among everyone else was something very rewarding for me. If things got in my way of boasting my excellence, I would get so mad and frustrated. Also, I was being the “weird” kid in my school to get attention from the others by annoying them sometimes and saying creepy stuff to them, but now I regret it. (Tbh, at this point I might as well be the next Chris Chan but I really don’t wanna end up like him) I had always wanted others to fail so that I can be the one who is the brightest among everyone. But now, I understand the repercussions of it.
Things got worse in 2020 and 2021. When the pandemic started, my family got more hostile to each other, and seeing that I will have my entrance exams in the next year, I started to do intensive revision on everything because it was my last chance to achieve true perfection so that I would be very happy with myself. And my dumb ass thought that it was a good idea to imagine a demonic god starting to send in monstrosities against me to ensure that I will fail. I did this in order to make myself mentally stronger to be a doctor. But instead, it made me more scared. It was so hard to study without knowing that something bad can happen again (arguments, things breaking, my monstrosities corrupting me). Also, the demonic god that I have created out of my own fear for an exam that should not be that scary put me into a mental cycle that even up till now still exists. Basically, the god is telling me that I have no place in reality and that bad things happen because of my existence. If I killed myself, everyone will be eternally happy. However, if I try to improve myself or study, people will suffer. There is evidence to prove this but I doubt it is true, but for some reason it is. Recently, I failed a quiz, but a sibling of mine got really high marks on a maths quiz. Also, when I start studying, bad things happen like an argument or something breaking. And for some reason, now whenever I study I get really sleepy even with sufficient sleep. Perhaps now the monstrosities have gotten stronger and that they are affecting my body to make sure that I stay on the path of self-destruction.
After the messy year of 2020, and the bloodfest of early 2021, I got the grades in my entrance test to enter medical school. The process of taking the exam was not as ambitious as I expected. If it weren’t for the generosity of the graders, I would have gotten lower marks. (Heh, I was so close to giving up on life then). I just got lucky. I studied but I don’t think I put a lot of effort into it as I was mostly contemplating how the exams will be the end of me.
That contributed to part of my “trauma”. Another one is when I had this toxic friend who manipulated me and made me feel bad about myself. I won’t talk much about it but that friend has been making me feel upset and questioning my morals and values and my behavior as a person. I could not confront him until my parents found out about his toxic behavior in me.
I am now in medical school and I find it so hard to even understand a single concept. In the lectures, my mind would conjure up god taunting me in the lecture theater. I try to avoid talking to many people because I am scared that they will think that I am too weak and unfit to be a doctor. I’ve tried rebooting my life so many times but the same thing happens, I realize that I am not worthy of being a doctor and existing.
I lived my life thinking that it was great, but after today’s meltdown, the illusion was gone and now I saw that I am a bad person. I could have spent time improving my social skills, critical thinking skills, humanity skills, leadership skills, and more, But NO, apparently I had to put them away and consider them a waste of energy and just focus on rote memorizing books and regurgitating info to get good grades and feel like a king. I thought I could ascend by getting to medical school but NO. God, I am so stupid. 2 months in, I could have been more sociable and more confident when facing people but instead, I saw them as worthless. I had been believing that I am better than my classmates at university and even tried to sound smart but they are smarter than me.
If this goes on, I don’t think I’ll be able to pass my exams and become a doctor. Actually, I’m now demotivated to go on. I’ve let my parents down. They have been working so hard for me to get me to this point and now I’m wasting it. I know that I can be better, but it looks so hard.
I am also scared of the others in my university. My parents told me not to seek counseling because they will kick me out of the medical programme. Also, everyone else may see that I am mentally broken while they are healthy and ahead of me in revision, so they may report me as well. Initially, I tried to look and sound smart but it has backfired.
I have been planning a redemption arc to fix myself but I can’t find a way to do it. I’m worried that my own biases will make it ineffective. So I got here to ask for help. How do I start my redemption arc and what do I need to do to have the grit and courage to go through it. What is the first step? What do I do after it? How do I get back up when something disturbs me?
Please… I just want to escape the monstrosity for good.
