I'm lonely, but I can't socially integrate.
I feel stuck. Lost. Confused. I've always been a solitary person, always felt angst in any social scenario. To be completely honest, I don't like people, I don't like having friends, and people typically don't enjoy my company. These normally aren't issues for me, but the last few weeks my loneliness has put on a new face, and is hitting me hard. I feel so conflicted, because I am becoming desperately lonely yet I still have no desire whatsoever to connect with people and I am truly afraid of the pain it always brings. Normally my loneliness is comforting in a way that makes it ok to be completely alone. Now I'm losing that, I'm starting to feel a genuine fear of loneliness, and I don't know how to handle it. I don't think I can initiate any socal connections without triggering an episode. This is a whole new bag of tricks I wasn't prepared for.
@Beardedj You just put into words what I've been trying to say my whole life. It's never an easy thing but I find people on the edges of the world have the best view and the most interesting stories.
@courteousTiger3900 thank you for speaking up. It's very reassuring that someone else is familiar with this problem. People usually just jump straight to accusing me of paranoia or delusions, but it's something else, feels instinctual.
@courteousTiger3900 I was re reading your reply and had a bit of intuitive insight I think. How much third world travelling have you done on your own? I got this weird image in my head of someone backpacking in eastern Europe and stumbling into a kind of cultural therapy and learning opportunity from a community of gypsies. Lol. Not sure where that came from but I was inclined towards intuition because of type of detail it showed. When I recall memories it's more of an emotional recollection and I recall sounds and smells and themes more than actual visual detail, and this mental image feels like that. It's familiar like a memory, only not my own. What a strange sensation.
I traveled intetrnationaly for the first time last year. I was just refuring to observing life anywhere but not really joining in.
@courteousTiger3900 yeah I thought that's what you meant, which is why that image/sensation seemed so damn weird. I still can't figure out why it popped up. It was like when you zone out so hard thinking about something that you almost start dreaming it. Gave me the creeps cause I haven't zoned out like that or daydreamed since early childhood. Lol. I'm just a little nuts, don't worry.
But I have always wanted to travel around Europe. Also I zone out like that all the time