My lonely story...i wish I wasn't still pained...I shouldn't be.

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
N

Northern Lights

Guest
I have a hard time coping when things I've worked hard for result in failure. In all aspects of my life, I am a very hardworking, goal-oriented, and determined person. I've improved significantly in my social skills and went from a suicidal, depressed person to actually being pretty positive most of the time. The latter may be hard to believe since I reserve my outbursts and hateful spewing for here, but I don't think my online personality here truly captures the person I am in real life. On this lonely forum, you are my confidants and unfortunately, see the pained side of me.

I know I am now in a better situation than many of you here, but I was once in crippling, isolated and lonely circumstances a few years ago and for a long time. When I was painfully single, friendless, suffering mental and emotional anguish from 12 years of bullying, verbal abuse from family and in a toxic living situation...I was lonely to the depths of my core and wished for death every time I opened my eyes. 

I realized I was lonely and became very sad and withdrawn when I was 8/9. I suffered abuse and was ostracized because of my race. I was taught it was normal to be tormented by Whites because I was different and I was in "their" country despite me being born here. A few years later, my classmates would protest the signing of an anti-racism poster and participating in any anti-racism activities *promoted* by the school. I say promoted lightly, because the teachers did not put an end to racist discussions in the classroom (largely directed to Asians, Natives and Jews). It seemed that racism to most people meant hurting only Blacks which was not acceptable. No one cared about people like me. My feelings didn't matter. Now, things have changed though and people seem scared to be accused to be racist even if they are. I can say that...it's better now but people are more subtle. I can manage though. 

After years of constant disappointment, rejection, and too many nights of crying and having gripping chest pains at night...I hit the jackpot and found my partner. He gave me so many great experiences that I never had before. I never had someone that wanted to be with me and actually cared how I felt and what I wanted. With him, I want to live to 100.

Despite all of this...I find myself easily triggered by others. When I'm triggered, the hurt from my past comes rolling in like a storm. Sometimes it's not as heavy, but other times, it brings me to tears and I have the chest pains again. 

My colleagues who regularly share happy stories of their childhood, who are surrounded by friends of many years, who have their ideal career, who feel beautiful and so easily get what they want...it seems so easy for them. While I'm happy for them, I'm sad for myself. Why did I have to suffer so young and for so long? Why do I have to fight so desperately for even the small wins in life?

(I understand that I may not know their whole story, but reality is that not everyone has childhoods or lives marked with trauma and pain.)

Another trigger as of late are my struggles with making actual friends. It brings me back to my memories from being alone, constantly, on the playground. I would beg the teachers for a friend to play with but no one wanted me. It was so painful then and it still pains me now. To think that my innocent, young, child self was ostracized and hated by others. As a mother now, I cry when I think of any innocent child to feel so worthless and unaccepted as I did. My friendlessness state carried on and I've spent all of my teen and most of my adult years crying to sleep.

Overall, I can say that I am happy but I wish I could forget my past. I keep getting triggered. I wish I had friends to love me and that I could love back. I admittedly have spewed a lot of hate about people, but the truth is, I'm sad that they don't like me back. I don't register on their care meter or I'm used and discarded. I am in a better place, but when I'm triggered, it's like I'm back where I was before.

I wish I could let go. Maybe I'm just too broken. Maybe it'll take more time. I want to leave the hurt but like a shadow, it follows me wherever I go.
 
Hi N.L
Going deep in past can never change anything in present and also in future.My childhood spent worst ,but Now it doesn't matter to me cuz I know the more I remember that more pain I can gain.it'll only makes you sad.
Try to live in your present and be happy that you are good for now.
Hope you will get over this.
 
I realize that this is a post from seventeen days ago, but I recently started posting on here more frequently, so I'll still comment... better late than never, I guess.

I know I am now in a better situation than many of you here, but I was once in crippling, isolated and lonely circumstances a few years ago and for a long time. When I was painfully single, friendless, suffering mental and emotional anguish from 12 years of bullying, verbal abuse from family and in a toxic living situation...I was lonely to the depths of my core and wished for death every time I opened my eyes.

I realized I was lonely and became very sad and withdrawn when I was 8/9. I suffered abuse and was ostracized because of my race. I was taught it was normal to be tormented by Whites because I was different and I was in "their" country despite me being born here.

I actually endured a very similar situation around the same age; due to things that I was experiencing at home, I became virtually mute in school. I secluded myself from other students, only talking to the one or sometimes two friends that I would occasionally make (other isolated kids). It didn't help that I was one of, at most, two white children in any given class, and I was usually the only non-Spanish speaker in the classroom for the first five years of school. So, not only did I look different, not only did I not speak the language, but I was naturally uncommunicative due to the trauma that I was witnessing at home...

People are cruel to those that they perceive as different, especially when they're children. I wish I could say that adults are exempt from this behavior, but that would be a bald-faced lie. 

The latter may be hard to believe since I reserve my outbursts and hateful spewing for here, but I don't think my online personality here truly captures the person I am in real life. On this lonely forum, you are my confidants and unfortunately, see the pained side of me.

That's what this site is here for, really... it's better to vent your feelings here than to explode on some guy that cuts you off in traffic.

Now, things have changed though and people seem scared to be accused to be racist even if they are. I can say that...it's better now but people are more subtle. I can manage though.

The interesting thing about xenophobia is that I believe there is an instinctual reason why people naturally feel more comfortable around that which they have become used to. There is an inherit "us" versus "them" that seems to pervert the stance of seemingly everybody around us. It's tribalism at an instinctual level... how many times have you seen a fan of a particular sports team get mad at somebody for being a fan of a rival sports team? Or my country versus YOUR country, my religion, my choice of car company... my neighborhood versus yours. The key to diminishing xenophobia and bigotry, in my mind at least, is exposing oneself to the lifestyle of others. The more you're around people of varying cultural backgrounds, the less alien those backgrounds will feel to you...

...sorry, I could keep waxing philosophical all day and never finish reading the message that I came here to respond to.


Now, in response to the basic question posed by the remainder of your message "why me? why did I deserve to suffer when other people lived so comfortably?" well... there is no reason, really. You and I, and many others, were given a rough hand at life, while others still were given the cushy road through life. I will say that we're not only defined by the happy moments in our lives, but how we overcome the difficult times and persevere in spite of not being handed success. Every wrinkle in the pages of your story make you who you are, and have built your character to that of someone that has struggled, has suffered, and has walked through hell because it was the only thing that you knew how to do. You're who you are today because you were too god damned tough to do anything else... how do I know this? Because you're here now.

You watch your coddled friends when they have to file for bankruptcy, when a loved one passes away, when their house gets repossessed... people with gentle childhoods do not have the emotional survival tools to deal with the reality and harshness of life's pitfalls that somebody that has climbed out of hell will have.
 
Hi Northern Lights,

Boy, can I ever relate to what you said. Well, not the part about racism, because I'm white. And not the part about finding a partner, because I'm still alone. But the rest of it, absolutely yes, I understand how you feel.

I was also in a deep emotional hole just a few years back – after decades of bullying and verbal abuse from certain family members. I was deeply depressed, cried all the time, and didn't have a single friend in the world. Slowly, I crawled out of the hole… I read books, I worked on thinking more positive, and started to make a few friends.

Six months ago, I was doing reasonably well. I had two good friends I kept in touch with by e-mail and phone (they live far away), one good friend who were strictly e-mail because she lives in another country but we were friends for years, and two friends (a married couple) who live close by, and who I would see socially at least once a month. It was the happiest I had been in a long time.

I'll spare you the details, but in the past few months I lost one of my phone friends and also the married couple – and I'm about to lose the e-mail friend who lives in another country. And I don't have a clue why. They just got cold and distant and stopped liking me for no apparent reason. I've spent countless hours trying to figure out what I did wrong to make them not like me any more, and I'm clueless. I tried so hard to be a good friend to these people. Now I have to start all over again trying to get out there and make some new friends. But I am SO triggered these days it's insane, and I'm back to crying at the drop of a hat. I've been crying for two days because of my supposed "friend" in another country. Like you, I feel used and discarded. Like you, it feels like I'm right back to where I was before. :-(

I don't have any answers for you, except the advice I keep telling myself: Just hang on and don't do anything rash, and eventually things will get better. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible for people like us (that is, people who have suffered years of bullying and abuse) to ever forget our pasts. But we can learn from it, we can lessen the hurtfulness of the memories, we can gain a measure of emotional distance. In my case, I'm even hoping I can forgive them someday. Whatever works for you – the point is, you have come a long way, you've already overcome so much and you can do it again.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top