r/Vent•
cartriidge

I'm Genuinely Lonely and Online School is a Joke

TW: Anxiety / Depression

Hey guys! Here's my situation as of the last 8ish months.
I (21 M) am currently in college to be an occupational therapist assistant. It's not exactly what I imagined myself doing, but I mostly enjoy it. What I didn't realize due to my own lack of research, was this program is online. 1 day a week on campus, 4 days online zoom classes. This has been mentally exhausting. Since I graduated higschool, I went from an outgoing, very expressive dude, to an anxiety riddled co-dependent hermit crab. I spend quite literally all day staring at a computer screen, to get off said computer screen to go to the gym, only to come back and stare at a computer screen till I go to sleep. Rinse and repeat 5 days a week. On the weekend I work the chicken barns near my girlfriends (of 5.5 years) house. After I'm done there I will either stare a computer/phone screen or hangout with my gfs little friend group. I am losing my mind. I am so co-dependent on my gf these days that when she spends time with friends on the weekend without me, I'm sitting here on a couch staring at the T.V. watching Youtube. I can't even complete future coursework because it doesn't open until Sunday. Like today (a Saturday), my gf is out with her friends while I sit here and sulk. I have to constantly ask for her reassurance that I am not a freeloading loser, because that's how I perceive myself on the inside. Due to school I've lost all interest and time management for my previous hobbies, I barely see my family, and when I do interact socially I feel as if I'm in third person. As if the interaction isn't even occurring or real. Two hours a day is spent thinking about my future and who I am (or am not) as a person, while the rest is spent completing coursework. I am genuinely so lonely, with no friendships outside of the one day a week I spend with real people. When I am there, I am a bursting ball of energy that I feel most people have a hard time handling. I can be overwhelming, because I love speaking to people to the point where I am annoying them. I am more than sure that my fellow classmates have talked bad about me behind my back because of my jester-like behavior. I love making people laugh, cracking jokes, and just not being that serious (I want to work in school-based OT pediatrics). But this seems to throw people off, and even myself sometimes. I constantly overthink about if my place in the program isn't taken seriously because I don't want to work in geriatrics. Basically, I have so little human interaction that I try to overcompensate when I am put into real life scenarios. I may be in school, completing a program for a future career, but I have completely lost myself as a person in the process. That's my vent! I don't feel based in reality most of the time, so shoutout to my gf for keeping me grounded whenever possible.
Thanks!

Posted Feb 7, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC

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