I'm in my late 20's. I've been running myself into the ground as of lately.
I've been a social outcast as long as I can remember. My parents divorced at age 11 but I would cry myself to sleep as early as age 7 over the arguing and physical abuse I could hear my father inflicting on my mother in their bedroom. Obviously, my mother had custody of me and she raised a sensitive, pathetic young male. I was rejected throughout school, my birthdays were nothing but an 'expensive gift' in lieu of a birthday party because I had no friends. I also grew up poor as shit, we got donated gifts for christmas and I ate hotdogs and bread throughout my adolescence. I was also partially deaf and I was taught some sign language because the doctors thought I was going to be fully deaf by adulthood. Aside from that, my childhood was a blur.
I had a case of 'Senioritis' in highschool but it was merely a lack of desire to exist and I barely scraped by with my HS diploma. I went to a community college but failed at everything except indoor archery because I showed up. I joined the military because I had nothing else going for me. I pulled some mental gymnastics and managed to hide my social ineptness and sadness behind military bearing. I left after 6 years of being hazed and being borderline suicidal (honorable discharge, I stuck it out until my time was up). My last year in the military, I had an affair with a girl I worked and fell in love with. She saw the empty husk of a human being I was behind my defenses and left me for her 'former boyfriend'. She took my heart along with her.
I had developed savant like skills in electronics repair and I thought I had a shot at engineering. I've been going to another community college for the past 2 years and was doing great. I had also started a relationship with another girl I was off and on with for about a year.
She was the closest human connection I had since the previous girl and ultimately left me aswell, taking what little heart and spirit I had left. I stopped going to my classes because of the overwhelming feeling of futility.
The past two weeks I've had intense internal mental dialogue with myself; mainly about my hopeless future. My roomate has been wrapped up in this dialogue and I almost question if I'm living by myself and some form of psychosis has set in.
What should I do?
Don't ruin this for yourself. Get your shit together and fucking live
I like you, anon; you sound like a good person.
You survived through hell. Your mother survived through that abuse and did her best to raise you alone. Don't fucking give up now. Focus on how much you've accomplished with how little life has given you. You can pull through this once you realize romantic relationships don't mean squat in the grand scheme.
go see a therapist, getting dumped by a casual girlfriend should not make you completely lose your mind.
>>17145963
>I stopped going to my classes because of the overwhelming feeling of futility.
I know that feeling too well. Funnily enough also because of a girl who doesn't even want to look at me. But it is my fault but whatver.
Listen, if you feel like sliding into a psychosis it's time to visit a doctor or a psychatrist. Depending on their diagnosis, they can give you mediaction to relieve your mental stress and you can start focusing on your shit again.
Then, it's time to tackle your issues: You have to out there and find people who appreciate you. And believe me, they are out there. Hobbies, sports, political gatherins, whatever. Just go out and talk with other people.
Most importantly, learn from the negative experiences with other people, take your lessons from the relationsships that failed (especially if you might have done stupid things) and work on yourself, strive to be a better person. Meet new people with whom you can apply the lessons you've learnt.
All the past mistakes are only mistakes if you've not learnt anything from them. Since you can't change the fact that you made these mistakes because you didn't know better, you should be glad for all the bad things that happen, becasue everyone presents an opportunity to improve yourself and become a better human.
>What should I do?
It really depends what you want at this point. i await your answer, lets see if we can do.
also, try what >>17146079 said. Also start meditating daily.
if you cant get a therapist meditate regardless, if you want to make any move in the right direction you need to start disciplining your mind to not fuck you over.
>>17146089
>if you want to make any move in the right direction you need to start disciplining your mind to not fuck you over.
I really appreciate all the input. I felt incredibly alone before I decided to say anything.
I have an appointment with a psychologist this week. I'm really afraid of downward spirals and right now I don't know what direction my life is headed.
>>17146125
Listen, bro, don't be afraid of the psycholigist or anything. They will help you with stopping the downward spiral, even if it will take some time.
I was in a similar situation a bit more than a year ago. It takes time and effort do the therapy with a psychologist, but it's well worth it.
It took me months to open up to talk about a childhood trauma that I had never talked about before. When I left after that session, I felt so fucking relieved. It was a good feeling when everythign else just sucked.
Also, in case you have a mental condition, it may take some time to get to the right diagnosis. I started going to the psychiatrist in early 2015, I believe, but it was only two weeks ago that I had the correct diagnosis that I have a slight form of aspergers that's been impairing my life and my relationsships for as far as I can remember. Now I have some mediacation that help significantly, I keep going to the doctor as find out what I need to do in my daily life to improve myself and my condition, I will meet with people who suffer from the same condition, and so on, and so on.
Just, please, please, please, please, don't give up, especially in the darkest moments when you think you are completly lost and nothing will ever change for the better.
The world needs you. The world doesn't need people who haven't experienced any hardships. The world needs those who have been in a dark hole but managed to crawl out of it. Becasue they have then the experience, understanding and the kindness to then stand by others.
>>17146146
All of your words have been invaluable.
I saw a psychiatrist which lead to the psychologist referral (I don't want to take drugs). The psychiatrist made a guess that I might be living with a mild form of Autism. If you've gone through something similar and medication and therapy worked, that's really uplifting news. There's few people I can connect with, it's always seemed like I was missing something to properly function. It's just hard to accept that I can't live a normal life with the circumstances I've been given.
>>17146219
The only thing I can tell you is to go out and have many experiences as possible with people.
My problem (and maybe yours) is that I don't "understand" human interaction to some degree. I have a hard time understanding how to behave, what to say, understanding what the other is feeling, what my words might have an effect on the other person.
So, for years I've been alienating people around me without understanding what was wrong.
The good thing is that you can improve. The bad thing is that I only "get" what I'm doing wrong when it hurts me. When I fuck up horribly. So, it's a difficult process, but you can improve not only your behaviour, but also your self-esteem. BECAUSE I got out of that hole, I now have confidence in myself. Doesn't mean that everything I do is fine, far from it. I still fuck up a lot. But I know that with every mistake I make, I'll become a better human. I know that I have the ability to improve.
My other problem was that I had concentration problems for years. First year at uni, I had to drop out because I couldn't study. It was the same before, but I managed in HS. But at the Uni it just was too much. Turned out that the concentration disorder was a side effect of the asperger. A fucking miracle that I made it even this far with my impairment. Thanks to the medication I have now, it's a lot better, even if it's still not perfect.
And maybe that's a thing for you to remember: If you've had so much shit thrown at you and still came this far, that's because you are a capable, intelligent and skilled person. My psychiatrist told me that if I weren't as intelligent as I am, I would have never made it this far with my problems. I was a fucking officer in the army, for god's sake. Who had to lead 45 men. And I have fucking aspergers and don't know how to deal with people. I somhow survived, even if I got my ass kicked horribly. But I learnt things about human interaction that I otherwise would have never known or learnt.
>>17146219
>It's just hard to accept that I can't live a normal life with the circumstances I've been given.
I know what you mean too well. But even with that realization, I've always been hesitent to get angry because of this fact.
Here are a couple of things that I'll always remind me off.
-You'll understand the value of the good things in life because you'll know that you yourself got there. Life wasn't easy, but you made it better YOURSELF. YOU have the power to make your life better and worth living. YOU are in control of your own destiny.
-You'll learn to deal with shit. Everybody gets thrown into a ditch by life at some point. If you learn it now, and start appreciating everything that's good about it. You'll not only make more of it because you undestand its value while it lasts but you'll be prepared for the serious shit that's bound to happane later in life (ilnesses, death, etc.).
I try to take care much more of myself in the last time.Eat well and do sports. It's hard with the uni schedule we have, but I'll try to improve my behaviour next year.
-You'll stop being less of an arrogant asshole and be more empethy towards others. But being able to help them is complete other story as I had to find out the hard way. Just because you start understanding and try to help with the plight of others, doesn't mean that you have a right to do so or that you have any idea what you are doing. Chances are you'll make it worse if you're like me :)
-And fuck life being easy, man. Like, when you are on your deathbed do you want to look back having a life without hardships? In movies and books, we expect the MC to have difficulties and problems that he's supposed to overcome, so it is fucking interesting. But in our real lives we expect everything to go perfect. I fucking prefer to suffer and learn and to become a better human and have earned my good and interesting life instead of having it easy.
