IgnoredOne
Well-known member
I'm 23. For the better part of my life by now, I've been engaged in intense periods of self-hate and hopelessness. Suicidal thoughts are not uncommon - I actually survived almost a year of essentially suicidal behavior. I often wonder what is wrong with me, and simultaneous find myself bereft of answers while overfilling with possibilities. So, if you would be as kind, skim over my rant and tell me what is it?
For starters, I have been intensely sociophobic. My parents felt that it was safest for me to be kept alone from the outside world until I was 16, when I applied and entered college at an early age. While I proved to be a good student, my ability to interact with other human beings was essentially nil: like a poster child for sociophobia, if forced into human interaction - I would actually feel a sense of paralysis, coupled with unreasonable fear and an overwhelming desire to flee.
I was fortunate in being an exemplary student, as many of my professors enjoyed someone who paid that much attention to their work and in a sense, began the first inchings of overcoming my disability there. Over time and with excrutiating effort with this phobia, I managed to make two friends in my senior year of college. When I graduated from college, however, both drifted away from me.
I like to think that now, I'm shy but not sociophobic. Being near another stranger still makes me uncomfortable, but it no longer drives me to cold sweat oraan impulse to flee. I've actually forced myself to engage others in conversation, and I honestly love learning about other people. I always feel that I'm being an annoyance, however, and somehow offending the other person by my presence.
I've even managed to be in quite a few close friendships - but here comes the second part of where I seem to falter.
I've often said that I don't know how to make someone else happy. Perhaps its not right that someone like me, with my flaws, should desire a romantic relationship with a woman - but I do. I've tried to suppress it consciously, but subconsciously it remains a very powerfu drive. And here's the thing: while I have had rather little difficulty in having female friends, even close friends, in EVERY single case, I have been rejected when I tried to pursue something more romantic.
At this point, it has been the tenth time. Ten close friendships, ten attempts to try to have someone see something more in me, ten times that I have had my heart stamped on the floor. Quite often, they wish to maintain the friendship, and I do so, and pretend to understand that I've been rejected and accept that its all right. But it isn't. Rejection feels like a rejection of my validity, and every time I speak with her afterward is a reminder that, she too, also doesn't think that I'm worth it.
So thus, the self-hate. I /want/ to be good enough so that I can be loved. I am nothing if not striving, and I've tried to change myself so that I'm less emotional, more logical, more positive, or whatever is the appropriate catchword of the day. I've put in effort, constantly, to improve myself because I'm apparently not good enough.
I've been working out constantly and I know that I've always been fit, but I can't help but wonder if ultimately its just my appearance and that I'm too ugly to be loved. I've always been a noble person, and the more that I've been hurt, the more sympathetic that I've become and the more understanding I have been of others. I've always tried to be a good person.
At the moment, I feel that everything I do, think or feel is wrong. Wanting to love someone is wrong, wanting someone to find me attractive is wrong, wanting to complain about life is wrong. Letting myself feel infatuated is wrong, letting myself feel down is wrong, letting myself lose control of my emotions is wrong. I must be a stronger person, I must be a better person, and I must be a happier person.
But it all collapses.
Deep down inside, I'm just a child unhappy not only that I'm still a virgin(I've been offered pity sex twice and turned it down twice since I don't want to make someone else suffer me), but desperately hurt that nothing that I have done can make myself worthwhile. To think that my touch is an abomination while so desperately hoping to make someone happy hurts, and to realize that everytime that I reveal my soul to someone I care about, she'll immediately edge away hurts. Its like I can't trust. I'm so sorry that I exist in this world and my desire for suicide is often connected to that. Not as much self-pity as it is a desire to correct the obvious mistake in my presence, and to allow for a happier world where I don't have to be here to bother people.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Please help. I just want to improve.
For starters, I have been intensely sociophobic. My parents felt that it was safest for me to be kept alone from the outside world until I was 16, when I applied and entered college at an early age. While I proved to be a good student, my ability to interact with other human beings was essentially nil: like a poster child for sociophobia, if forced into human interaction - I would actually feel a sense of paralysis, coupled with unreasonable fear and an overwhelming desire to flee.
I was fortunate in being an exemplary student, as many of my professors enjoyed someone who paid that much attention to their work and in a sense, began the first inchings of overcoming my disability there. Over time and with excrutiating effort with this phobia, I managed to make two friends in my senior year of college. When I graduated from college, however, both drifted away from me.
I like to think that now, I'm shy but not sociophobic. Being near another stranger still makes me uncomfortable, but it no longer drives me to cold sweat oraan impulse to flee. I've actually forced myself to engage others in conversation, and I honestly love learning about other people. I always feel that I'm being an annoyance, however, and somehow offending the other person by my presence.
I've even managed to be in quite a few close friendships - but here comes the second part of where I seem to falter.
I've often said that I don't know how to make someone else happy. Perhaps its not right that someone like me, with my flaws, should desire a romantic relationship with a woman - but I do. I've tried to suppress it consciously, but subconsciously it remains a very powerfu drive. And here's the thing: while I have had rather little difficulty in having female friends, even close friends, in EVERY single case, I have been rejected when I tried to pursue something more romantic.
At this point, it has been the tenth time. Ten close friendships, ten attempts to try to have someone see something more in me, ten times that I have had my heart stamped on the floor. Quite often, they wish to maintain the friendship, and I do so, and pretend to understand that I've been rejected and accept that its all right. But it isn't. Rejection feels like a rejection of my validity, and every time I speak with her afterward is a reminder that, she too, also doesn't think that I'm worth it.
So thus, the self-hate. I /want/ to be good enough so that I can be loved. I am nothing if not striving, and I've tried to change myself so that I'm less emotional, more logical, more positive, or whatever is the appropriate catchword of the day. I've put in effort, constantly, to improve myself because I'm apparently not good enough.
I've been working out constantly and I know that I've always been fit, but I can't help but wonder if ultimately its just my appearance and that I'm too ugly to be loved. I've always been a noble person, and the more that I've been hurt, the more sympathetic that I've become and the more understanding I have been of others. I've always tried to be a good person.
At the moment, I feel that everything I do, think or feel is wrong. Wanting to love someone is wrong, wanting someone to find me attractive is wrong, wanting to complain about life is wrong. Letting myself feel infatuated is wrong, letting myself feel down is wrong, letting myself lose control of my emotions is wrong. I must be a stronger person, I must be a better person, and I must be a happier person.
But it all collapses.
Deep down inside, I'm just a child unhappy not only that I'm still a virgin(I've been offered pity sex twice and turned it down twice since I don't want to make someone else suffer me), but desperately hurt that nothing that I have done can make myself worthwhile. To think that my touch is an abomination while so desperately hoping to make someone happy hurts, and to realize that everytime that I reveal my soul to someone I care about, she'll immediately edge away hurts. Its like I can't trust. I'm so sorry that I exist in this world and my desire for suicide is often connected to that. Not as much self-pity as it is a desire to correct the obvious mistake in my presence, and to allow for a happier world where I don't have to be here to bother people.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Please help. I just want to improve.
