Thrasymachus
Well-known member
In junior high and the beginning of high school I used to want nothing more than to fit in. Concurrent to this I had delayed puberty, I was very short(I was about 5' tall as a freshmen), skinny and had a high pitched voice. In high school I felt like I never belonged, I didn't have a clique of friends or even a group to sit down with during lunch, at a table to be comfortable with. My desire to fit in eventually dissipated toward the end, I instead wanted almost nothing to do with my peers. I transitioned to vowing to not be like my unthinking peers after observing them as a more non-biased, non-participant and seeing their base callousness and "here we are now, entertain us", mentality.
Eventually I was diagnosed with depression when I was 17. After that things changed for the worse, I felt I had a role to play in life, that of a "depressed" person. Unfortunately for people victimized by psychiatry like myself, we learn to integrate our diagnosis as part of our identity, our being and allow it to regulate how we view ourselves and how we should fit into the world around us. Thus we have alot of negative, self-clobbering, neuronal associations accumulated over years, or decade(s), that we can get lost in for hours if we are not proactive. Eventually I dropped out of high school which furthered my isolation, at the time I could not have been more happy, though.
At this point, I decided I did not want to be a part of this society, but cognitive dissonance prevented my realizing it. I refused to work and began many years of mooching off my mother, unemployed. I did not the leave the house much during those years. I am 28 now, so my diagnosis and formative experiences in high school were over a decade ago, but I still cope with the same problems. While being isolated and having no-one may be fine for a few years, it eventually eats at you if it is too prolonged. Very recently I found this article: AARP Magazine: All the Lonely People, Our landmark survey uncovers an epidemic of loneliness and it made me realize the impact that loneliness imparts in my life. However, I still do not want to be like other people my age still gathering with and spending time with useless friends that cannot be counted for anything other mutual entertainment(and usually drug induced stupor), I do need to find others I can connect with.
My isolation I feel has made me more thoughtful and observant than the average person in this society, who tend to operate on automatic, transitioning from one thing that society expects to another, just repeating the dominate patterns like zombies. The intellectual Erich Fromm in his work The Art of Being, says that there are two types of people with different orientations to life. There are people who are happy consumers and producers of goods and services, who have the "having" orientation to life. They think life is about accumulating goods, services, even possessing other people and character traits like some bought commodity. Then there is a small minority of dissidents that have the "being" orientation to life. They try instead to improve themselves and those around them, instead of just looking to improve their material circumstances. While I feel my life situation and past is profoundly sordid in most aspects, I am grateful that at least I do not have the common problem of being surrounded with shallow, useless people that I can interact with, whom pretend to be friends. Alot of times the more sociable people are conniving users, whom should be avoid. Instead I would like to find some non-zombie friends with the "being" orientation, but at this point in life, I don't know how to go about connecting with anyone, let alone making friends.
Eventually I was diagnosed with depression when I was 17. After that things changed for the worse, I felt I had a role to play in life, that of a "depressed" person. Unfortunately for people victimized by psychiatry like myself, we learn to integrate our diagnosis as part of our identity, our being and allow it to regulate how we view ourselves and how we should fit into the world around us. Thus we have alot of negative, self-clobbering, neuronal associations accumulated over years, or decade(s), that we can get lost in for hours if we are not proactive. Eventually I dropped out of high school which furthered my isolation, at the time I could not have been more happy, though.
At this point, I decided I did not want to be a part of this society, but cognitive dissonance prevented my realizing it. I refused to work and began many years of mooching off my mother, unemployed. I did not the leave the house much during those years. I am 28 now, so my diagnosis and formative experiences in high school were over a decade ago, but I still cope with the same problems. While being isolated and having no-one may be fine for a few years, it eventually eats at you if it is too prolonged. Very recently I found this article: AARP Magazine: All the Lonely People, Our landmark survey uncovers an epidemic of loneliness and it made me realize the impact that loneliness imparts in my life. However, I still do not want to be like other people my age still gathering with and spending time with useless friends that cannot be counted for anything other mutual entertainment(and usually drug induced stupor), I do need to find others I can connect with.
My isolation I feel has made me more thoughtful and observant than the average person in this society, who tend to operate on automatic, transitioning from one thing that society expects to another, just repeating the dominate patterns like zombies. The intellectual Erich Fromm in his work The Art of Being, says that there are two types of people with different orientations to life. There are people who are happy consumers and producers of goods and services, who have the "having" orientation to life. They think life is about accumulating goods, services, even possessing other people and character traits like some bought commodity. Then there is a small minority of dissidents that have the "being" orientation to life. They try instead to improve themselves and those around them, instead of just looking to improve their material circumstances. While I feel my life situation and past is profoundly sordid in most aspects, I am grateful that at least I do not have the common problem of being surrounded with shallow, useless people that I can interact with, whom pretend to be friends. Alot of times the more sociable people are conniving users, whom should be avoid. Instead I would like to find some non-zombie friends with the "being" orientation, but at this point in life, I don't know how to go about connecting with anyone, let alone making friends.
