Hey. I’m also looking for friends with western mindset. I have relocated to Taiwan permanently. If you are in Taipei and want to hang out just to bs, hit me up.
Your depression is worsened by the alcohol for sure. So finding an alternative for evenings may be a good idea, whether that’s going for walks, signing up for an art class, starting a new hobby.
You say that you make plans but don’t follow through. I’ve been there. The hardest thing is also the most important - forgive yourself and try again tomorrow. It may be cliche, but every day is a new day. So today you did not go do X. Tomorrow, get up in the morning, forget yesterday, and go do the thing. Just start and you’ll keep going.
Re: Quitting the demon rum.
I wouldn’t say I ever had a “problem” with alcohol. A social drinker at best. I would over-indulge at parties, but that was about it.
4 years ago, on my birthday, my friends down at my local were buying me celebratory whiskies, coupled with maybe half a dozen Mooseheads. I was, let’s just say, feeling no pain. Then I smoked something I shouldn’t have.
I spent 2 hours talking to the ghods on the porcelain telephone, unable to lift my head above my shoulders, my feet splashing around in a puddle of my own sweat. I remember crawling into the shower to hose myself down, where I awoke some 3 hours later, still on the shower floor in the fetal position, naked and afraid. My body had clearly sent me a strongly-worded message: “Do this again, and next time, you don’t wake up.”
I stopped drinking the next day. In the last 4 years, I have had fewer beers than I have fingers. The idea of even sniffing hard booze forces me to recall an incredibly vivid sense memory of that fateful night.
Point is, I do not miss alcohol at all. It was an easy choice. I hope you can vicariously tap into my experience and make a smart choice for yourself.
Now, go for a walkabout around our beautiful island. Gaze across at Green Island from Doulan. Surf the waves of Waiao. Catch a Kenting sunset. And reassess your goals.
Taiwan is what you make of it.
Joining the army could well be a good choice at this point. You’ll have your decisions all made for you and that might be what you need, for a while at least.
It’s something I wish I’d done, but I’m now too old. If you’re going to leave Taiwan, then do that. However they don’t take people in as bad shape as you (unless you’re from Nigeria), so I’d try to get yourself together as best you can, before you even attempt that.
It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on your own psyche, and unfortunately it is very hard to manufacture motivation out of nothing or to discard self-destructive scripts. The lack of motivation associated with depression is absolutely horrible. But you can pull yourself out of it - as others have said, you have to take it one goal at a time.
Given what you said about the army, a desire for family, bad habits, and lack of confidence, I’d say the one thing you can do, right now, is to join the gym and commit to going there every evening - ie., around 5pm when you’d normally open a bottle. This will have an enormous impact on your general well-being.
I’m well aware that you can’t actually train hard 7 days a week (do split workouts, and keep it light) but it’ll get you out of the house and form a new habit. In fact you don’t even need to do a workout. Maybe some days just sit in the sauna, cogitate on your future, have a hot shower, and go home. I occasionally do that myself.
Oh, and don’t use "I don’t know how to … " as an excuse to not do things. Find stuff out. Watch YouTube (avoid those shouty guys who think they’re alpha males). Learning to look good is a learned skill like any other.
Nobody mentions the most obvious here. Go back and finished the 1.5 years of Uni if you can or learn something with a career in mind, don’t get stuck with teaching English jobs, find something you like. What were you doing in Uni?
I think he said he came here 1.5 years after graduating from university
@Uncreativeusername, curious where you live in Taiwan?
Quit drinking.
Take up a hobby with someone so you’ve an external reason not to give up.
Set a reasonable goal for a year from now. If you’re still drinking, not following through, haven’t met your goal… go.
Life’s short. Blink and you’ve been here twenty years wondering where it went.
Had two friends in similar situations , one went to Vietnam and the other to Thailand, both found the situation worse, dodgy employers that think they own you, pay not materialising correctly etc. Both now in HK and doing much better there.
Amen
Interesting, they’re both teaching English in HK? But housing is damn expensive in HK.
I agree. Army is made for people that don’t know exactly what they’re going to do and not from a wealthy background. It’ll give you skills and a purpose. And some cash saved up for after your time is up.
Yea, both teaching, regular school plus privates. Yea housing is a choice between living in a box or a big commute. Both are in the box. But otherwise happy with their situation. In HK the city becomes your living room.
I choose Taiwan for the best of both worlds.
It seems to me like you have some plans, like having a family and joining the army to work in your field of studies. For the second part you’d definitely have to go back to your country, so I think the options are:
a) Stay in Taiwan but look for a job that isn’t teaching. An office job, a food stand in a night market…anything that could give you a break from teaching and which could motivate you.
b) Go home and start following the path you have in mind
If you decide to stay in Taiwan it should be because you like it here and you have something that keeps you here, either a job you like or family or study. Otherwise, what you’re doing is just postponing the responsibilities that you see ahead of you.
I do like your army plan, I think it could help you a lot to overcome your insecurity.
Get out into nature, go river tracing or snorkeling or hiking in the mountains, go for cycles in the evening at the time you normally pop open a bottle. Doctors in Scotland have started to hand out ‘Nature Prescriptions’ for a range of illnesses:
If you really can’t get over the depression and you feel you need to then go back, then go for it, you can always return. However if possible, try to make some good memories before you go.
Here’s something somebody I knew wrote, equating depression with the “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match, it’s along the lines of “every day is a new day” way of thinking:
I like boxing.
Each man I meet who professes to share my interest in boxing checks out my stance then corrects it, so that in fact they are not correcting me, so much as correcting the last man who corrected me. Then they invite me to spar. I hold back but they laugh and ask for my best shot but when I land a punch that draws blood they hold their noses chins lips and wave me away when I rush up with tissues, upset. I am not in control. I am not a good boxer.
P likes boxing. He likes watching it, reading about it. He doesn’t like doing it. The other day P told me how he’d used Ali’s tactics against Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle as an allegory for his periodic bouts of depression when explaining it to someone who didn’t understand. It’s like this, P had said. Ali knew he was a dancer while Foreman was a slugger. Foreman expected Ali to dance around him. Ali told Foreman he’d dance around him. But he didn’t. What he did instead was just lie on the ropes and keep taking Foreman’s punches, taking them round after round until Foreman had exhausted himself. Then Ali hit back. He finished Foreman off. He did not dance. That’s what it’s like, P said, when you’re depressed. Dodging won’t help. You’ve got to just lie on the ropes and take it and take it and take it. Then you hit back. Then you finish it off. But first, you’ve got to take it. You don’t dance.
Taiwan like all places on earth is what you make of it, but there are certain aspects of it that make it more challenging for expats than other places in the region IMO. I spent a lot of time in Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan–and found Taiwan to be the easiest to navigate professionally but the most limited socially and culturally.
Australian girls are really attractive imo. Not a bad place for a single man to live.
Totally agree with you, and I have a similar experience. I still think its what you make of it though. Its like a bit a super easy vacuum. But in that vacuum if you get up off your backside there is stuff. (ive never actually gotten off my backside so this is hypothetical of course)
Im joking and exaggerating of course
As long as you’re above six feet. Aussie girls are TALL.
Get a therapist. Seriously, if it’s not $$$$$ out there.
You’ve been using sick leave as an excuse but tbh it is not an excuse, because fact is from your description, you’re not well.
Why should a toothache or a rash warrant more professional attention than your mental health? Just because it’s “invisible” doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.
And go explore. You’d be surprised how much you needed to breathe different air when you get to a fresh environment.