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i know this is long but its everything that has been eating me alive and i just needed to get it out somewhere
I don't feel like I know who l am at my core so l feel extremely insecure, weak and useless. I cling onto others because of that. When I love someone, I feel like they become part of me and are the only truly good part of me. The threat of losing that is terrifying because I can't stand to be alone with myself. I hate myself too much to be able to bear it.
I hate that the smallest thing can happen and suddenly I feel like the room is collapsing and my chest is going to explode. I ask myself constantly how there are people that care about me at all. Because of that, I don't trust anyone. I don't believe anyone could love me for who I am so I torture myself wondering about people's motives and if they're using me or hurting me. I'm forever lonely and desperate for connection but I can't allow myself to feel safe enough to enjoy a relationship.
I feel like I feel everything at the same time. I can go from having too much energy to being completely paralyzed unable to have the tiniest social interactions in my bed because of the smallest thing. Someone takes too long to answer me, their tone feels slightly different, they look at me differently, I say something that comes out wrong, and suddenly I’m spiraling, convinced that everyone hates me. Everything gets amplified until I can’t tell what is actually happening and what is just happening in my head. And all of these ups and downs drain me completely.
I think I’m giving up on trying to fix myself, and even that feels like part of the same cycle. I spend so much time trying to change things about myself because I feel like there must be something wrong with me that needs to be fixed. For a long time, I thought that if I could just look better, feel more confident, become more interesting, or become more comfortable with myself, I would finally feel okay.
But I’ve realized that even when I manage to change those things, the feeling underneath them doesn’t really disappear.
I don’t think I’m actually trying to become prettier anymore. I think I’m trying to become someone I can stand being. I keep looking for something about myself that I can fix because I’m hoping that eventually I’ll reach some version of myself that doesn’t make me feel ashamed or insecure all the time.
And nothing ever seems to be enough.
I hate almost everything about myself. The way I look, the way I talk, the way I think, the way I interact with people. I have this constant feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. People can meet me and think I’m nice or funny or intelligent, but I always feel like that is temporary. They just haven’t known me long enough yet. Eventually they’ll realize that I’m actually boring, unintelligent, awkward, and not really worth knowing.I don’t even feel like I have a personality that belongs to me. So much of it feels like sarcasm and jokes and whatever I think will make people like me. I can have a good conversation with someone at first, but eventually I start becoming aware of myself again. I notice how repetitive I am, how little I have to say, how shallow my interests feel. I’ll become obsessed with something for a while and convince myself that it’s finally something that matters to me, and then I lose interest and feel like I never actually cared about it in the first place.I don’t know what I like. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Even my music, my interests, my career plans, everything seems to change depending on how I feel or who I’m around. There is almost nothing consistent about me that I can fall back on and say, this is mine.
I think that’s part of why I struggle so much with the idea of having an identity. I want to have interests. I want to be passionate about something. I want to be someone who works on things, creates things, joins clubs, meets people, builds something for myself. The idea of being that person genuinely excites me. I can imagine that life and feel something when I think about it.
But I can’t seem to actually become that person.
I’m doing engineering because everything else feels even more disconnected from me, but even there I don’t feel like I belong. I look at people who are able to work on personal projects, join clubs, build things, socialize, and genuinely pursue what interests them, and I want that so badly. But wanting it and actually doing anything about it feel like completely different things to me. I can want something desperately and still be completely incapable of putting effort into it.
And I know that things won’t just be handed to me. I know people aren’t simply born with some special ability that makes everything easy for them. I know that if I want a different life, I have to actually work toward it.
That’s what makes me feel so horrible about myself.
It feels like everything is technically within my reach, but I can’t make myself reach for it.And even when I do try something new, it rarely feels like it belongs to me. Almost immediately, I start thinking about how other people will perceive me doing it. I’m not just listening to music because I enjoy it. I’m thinking about what my taste says about me. I’m not just interested in something because I find it interesting. I’m thinking about whether it makes me seem intelligent or interesting or attractive or like someone people would want to know.Everything becomes a performance.I spend so much energy watching myself that I barely experience anything.
I do it socially, but it goes beyond that. I’m constantly looking at myself from the outside, judging how I’m acting, what I’m doing, what I’m interested in, how I’m perceived. I feel like I’m living my life while simultaneously watching myself live it.And I think that’s why I don’t even know which parts of me are actually me anymore.Sometimes I wonder if I even genuinely want anything, or if I just want the version of myself that other people would like. Maybe I want to be a musician or a creator because I actually want to create things, or maybe I just like the idea of being someone who is interesting and talented. Maybe I want relationships because I genuinely want to love someone, or maybe I mostly want to feel wanted.
I don’t know anymore.I’ve even started using other people’s desire for me as a way to temporarily feel like I matter. I’ll talk to men online, let myself be wanted, sometimes get close to them, because for a little while it gives me something to do and makes me feel less empty and unwanted. It’s like I’m using someone else’s attraction to me as a temporary antidote to the feeling that nobody needs me.But it never actually makes me feel better.Once it’s over, I don’t feel satisfied or even particularly regretful. I just feel exactly the same as I did before. Whatever I was trying to fill is still there.I know I’m basically using other people's desire as emotional medication, and I already know it doesn’t work.
The same thing happens with relationships in general.
When I first meet someone and things go well, I feel incredible. I become excited about them and about the possibility that maybe I’ve finally found someone who genuinely wants me in their life. But the closer I become to someone, the more they start consuming my thoughts. I become attached, sometimes obsessed, and suddenly their attention determines how I feel about myself.
Then I get scared.
I start thinking that they’ll get tired of me. I try not to text too much, not to see them too often, not to become too attached. And eventually I start looking for reasons to distance myself. Maybe they’re using me. Maybe they don’t actually like me. Maybe there’s something wrong with them. Maybe I imagined the connection entirely.
I know that sometimes the person hasn’t even done anything wrong.
But when I feel rejected, every little thing becomes evidence.
It’s almost like I need to find a reason to detach before they have the opportunity to reject me themselves.
And that leaves me in this horrible position where I desperately want closeness but can’t tolerate the vulnerability that comes with it. I want people to love me, but when someone gets close enough to actually matter to me, I become terrified of losing them. So I protect myself by questioning them, distancing myself, or convincing myself that I never really wanted them anyway.
I constantly monitor how other people perceive me too. When I’m around people, I’m rarely just there. Part of my mind is always watching me.
Did that sound stupid?
Was that joke weird?
Am I being boring?
Do they look bored?
Do they secretly dislike me?
What am I supposed to say next?
I feel like I’m constantly auditing myself while I’m trying to interact with people. I imagine myself being social and confident and involved, and I genuinely believe that I’m going to change. But when I’m actually there, everything disappears. I freeze, overthink, stand around, and barely participate.
It has gotten better. I know that. I used to be so much more self-conscious than I am now. I’ve become more comfortable with myself in some ways, but the underlying feeling never really left.
I still feel watched.
I still feel evaluated.
I still feel like I’m one mistake away from people realizing that I’m not who they thought I was.
And when I’m high, that feeling becomes almost unbearable. I can be happy and laughing, but underneath it I become intensely aware of myself. The way I walk, talk, breathe, move, everything suddenly feels wrong. I become convinced that everyone can tell that I’m uncomfortable and that they think I’m strange or stupid.
What frustrates me most is that I know these patterns.
I know that my friends probably don’t secretly hate me. I know that someone taking longer to answer doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve lost interest in me. I know that one bad day doesn’t make me ugly. I know that changing something about my appearance isn’t going to fix the way I feel about myself.
I know all of this.
But knowing it doesn’t make me feel it.
It feels like there’s one part of my brain that understands everything perfectly and another part that completely ignores it.
And I’m exhausted.
Whenever something changes emotionally in my life, the same cycle seems to happen. When things are going well, I feel happy. I become excited about my friends, my future, someone I’m attached to, or something new that has given me a reason to look forward to the next day.
Then something changes.
Someone becomes distant. A friendship feels different. I lose interest in something. Something doesn’t turn out the way I imagined.
And suddenly everything collapses.
I’m boring.
I’m alone.
My friends hate me.
My life is going nowhere.
There is something fundamentally wrong with me.
The thing that made me hopeful suddenly feels stupid and unrealistic, and I’m left with this horrible emptiness. Sometimes it feels like I’m constantly waiting for the next thing that will give me a reason to feel good again.
I think that’s why I cling so hard to people, relationships, fantasies, interests, and anything else that gives me something to look forward to. They make me feel like my life is going somewhere. They give me something to focus on besides myself.
But when that feeling disappears, I’m back where I started.
It’s like I’m constantly searching for something outside of myself that will make me feel okay.
And when I don’t have it, I don’t know who I am.
I hate that I can already predict the cycle. I can be at my lowest and tell myself that I’m giving up, but some part of me knows that eventually something will probably happen that makes me feel alive again. I’ll meet someone, become obsessed with something, have a good day, feel attractive, feel wanted, or suddenly believe that my life is moving forward.
And for a while I’ll think everything is fixed.
Then something goes slightly wrong and the entire thing starts again.
That’s what makes me so tired.
I don’t want to keep living between these extremes where I either have something to obsess over and feel hopeful about, or I lose it and hate myself and my life.
I want to be able to exist without constantly needing something to cling to.
I want to be able to like someone without making them the center of my entire emotional life.
I want to be able to have interests without needing them to make me seem interesting.
I want to be able to do something without immediately thinking about how other people will perceive me doing it.
I want to be able to talk to people without constantly watching myself from the outside.
I want to be able to have a personality that feels like it actually belongs to me.
I want to be able to want things because I want them, not because I think they’ll make people like me.
And more than anything, I want to stop feeling like there is something fundamentally wrong with me that I have to constantly fix.
I don’t know exactly what the problem is. I don’t know if it’s insecurity, anxiety, attachment, the way I see myself, or something deeper. I just know that I’m exhausted from trying to solve it by changing myself, controlling how close I let people get, looking for validation, becoming obsessed with people or interests, or finding something new to give me hope.
I think I’ve spent so much time trying to fix the symptoms that I haven’t really understood what’s underneath them.Maybe the problem was never that I wasn’t pretty enough, interesting enough, intelligent enough, or socially capable enough.
Maybe I’ve just become trapped in constantly needing external proof that I’m worth something, never believing it when I get it, and then desperately searching for the next thing that might finally convince me.
And that makes me feel guilty because I know that my life isn’t objectively empty. I have people who care about me. I have opportunities. I have things that I should be grateful for. I know that there are people who would love to have the things I have.
So I feel like the problem must just be me.
I feel guilty that I have all of these opportunities and still manage to do almost nothing with them. I feel like I constantly sabotage myself and then hate myself for the consequences.
Maybe I’m not as stupid as I think I am. Maybe I’m not as ugly or socially incompetent as I feel. But I can’t seem to get past the constant paranoia and overwhelming fear of rejection long enough to actually make anything of my life.
I keep throwing things away before I ever really get to experience them.
And underneath all of it, I have this horrible feeling that nobody actually needs me. That I don’t really bring anything to my friendships or relationships. That I’m just a socially awkward burden who wants to be loved but has no idea how to actually be a person outside of being loved.
Even the thought of dying feels strange to me because I don’t want my death to become another performance, another way for people to look at me and feel sorry for me or realize that I was struggling. But I also know that the fact that I don’t want that doesn’t make any of these feelings less real.
I don’t actually think my life is the problem.
I think I’m the problem, or at least that I’ve become so disconnected from myself that I don’t know how to live my own life anymore.
And I’m tired of feeling like everything I do is just another attempt to become someone who might finally be worth loving.
