I Hate Myself & I Hate My Life
I'm a cat lady in my mid 20s and I have had depression and anxiety for over 14 years now. I have a therapist, but that's the only support I have. I had one friend but she doesn't want to hang out with me anymore or talk to me much - I always have to initiate conversation, but they normally don't respond. Thats usual for me. I keep friends for a little while, then I get comfortable with them and show what I'm really like and how I feel, and then my 'friends' disappear because I'm too depressed/a downer/uncool/etc...
I only live for my cats right now. And the only way I can cope is by smoking weed to make my brain stop thinking/ruminating on bad things all the time.
I work freelance, it's stable for me because I work hard and I only have work in my life, but I often don't get along with my coworkers because I'm usually one of the youngest in the office. That is changing very fast and makes me feel worse - soon i'll be older and I still wont fit in. Im very socially anxious, so I'm scared to go out of my apartment and have people see me. I don't like being stared at, it makes me really self conscious. I have no self esteem and no confidence. Going outside makes me see all the things I want and can't have - like friends and love and fun.
Talking in person is hard for me because my words get jumbled. People make me nervous. Thats why I prefer talk online or text. I can't even call a suicide hotline because talking on the phone makes me nervous.
I've stayed away from people for so long that I don't really know the norms, especially for my age group, and that makes me feel even more freakish. I don't have much experience in life and human stuff. Ive tried internet friends but no one wants to talk to me and most of the time I'm so depressed that I dont have any interests. And I also dont know where to go to find people anyways.
The only people who have ever listened to me and cared about my thoughts or how I'm doing are my therapists. People I pay to care. That is very upsetting to me. I even feel pathetic writing this forum post as I know no one will read it and want to help support me. People don't comfort me anymore because I am so familiar with them letting me down and leaving me alone again.
I feel disgusting in my own body. Ive never been regarded as beautiful, so when random people on the internet tell me, I know its a lie just to make me feel better. "Everyone is beautiful" is the worst lie I've ever been told. My skin is too dark, my hair is too nappy, and I have no style or good clothes. Did I mention my hair is disgusting?
In short, I hate my self and have nothing to live for except useless capitalistic achievements and keeping my cats fed. Once my cats die, I wont have any left.
Going to group therapy makes me feel worse sometimes. I'm in a group with 3 others around my age but everyone else seems to be okay. They have family and friends and can leave their homes easily. I'm completely alone. Last time I talked about how I was stuck in a loop and the end result was being told that I was rejecting their ideas to get out of the house and get better. Only I wasn't rejecting. I was telling the others (who I've only known for 3 weeks) about how I feel when I leave my apartment and where my anxiety comes from and why I didn't do those things in the first place. Some people might say that race shouldnt factor into why I don't want to go to the hip coffee shop and sit for a while, those people have never been starred at their whole lives like they are out of place. When it's my weekend time I don't want to feel like a freak as I do in the week days. I don't want the stares of "why is she here? Does she speak English?" I want to be like a regular person, not an outsider in my gentrifyingneighborhood. So yes, I avoid the hip young people places bc only whites go to them. Why? Because I don't want to torture myself during the only time I have to myself.
You have to pray about it and then see what happens 👍🏻
Not religious. Please be respectful and don't ASSUME everyone is as religious and believing as you are
Try crossing your fingers instead. (Uh, was it that?) Believe in luck, renew a faith in possibility. Quantum possibilities: everything was a star and the dust that is only a star. In the next moment, we could return to that without warning. If that is possible, anything else can be.
Granted, our systems are a little more governed with pre-requisites like a class for which you want to attend but are several classes behind. Or an unreasonable moderater with a ban hammer. Or a kitten who likes you but refuses to see your offered hand as anythign other than an invitation to play bite. It's not as easy for them to see it your way when that isn't entered into their own logic bank.
Still. No harm in 'praying' for something, yeah? Atheism and or agnosticism (always mixed up, sorry) might be a truth but throw a coin 100 times. Law of proabbility says it most likely will be a 50-50 result. So. What if it isn't? :pp <--That's a mocking thumbs down if made in listeners' chat. This is a cheeky face that challenges you ---> : pp
Believe you can. Might be able to. You might just be able. Oh, and you don't need ta go to the hip places with automatically judging faces. Like you have judged them now. But! Go to the dankiest place in town. Where the proclaimed losers (not the dangerous sort!) hang out.Gradually work your confidence back up into the hip places. Best of lucks :D
I know I'm a lucky person : my birth mother didn't have me aborted after her rape, she put me up for adoption. That's my cursed luck. Lucky to live but cursed bc imliving.
And I don't believe in anything so I don't care who tells me, I'm not praying for shit. I'll pray to my cats bc they're actually real physical beings, not imaginary figures based off patriarchal views embellished to serve the purpose of keeping people in their place.
Oh dear. That's kind of horrible. Certainly not luck. I can understand why you so easily curse people out (at least here) when they give you advice that doesn't work or has not seemed to work. If that is your beginning. Not that you should still. If things don't work, you don't need to relate that in an unpleasant way. That can be discouraging for some others and make you hard to communicate with. Not that you should be all hippy about receiving advice or words that don't work for you.
You abhor and fear being judged yet you make your own judgements. The above didn't necessary have to be a religious statement. In my reply, it wasn't anymore. Because I too believe not in religion. Or anything at all. People use the term "bless you" generally as well to mean just that. ie. The moment your heart stops when you sneeze and to congratulate you for passing that possibly fatal moment. People use the word 'pray' to mean to believe, to hope for, to try asking someone, maybe only yourself, for.
For you to not lose faith in the now because of your past. The past. Faith in yourself, faith in others, faith in a future you might feel more included in, futures of which you might be more content in. Cats included. Well, at least you believe something or certain ones :D What is afterall, the harm in having a bit more belief? The higher we hope, the higher from which we fall? Yet at what seems rock bottom, one more such prayer won't make a difference. Do not disregard possibility for disbelief. If that were true, all of man's more lividly disregarded ideas would have been founded by no-one.
Religion wasn't made to keep people "in their place". Maybe 'a place.'. We all chose our candle in the dark. Like hobbies, we choose what to believe, like, live and like living to believe. Yours are cats and your therapist(?), mine are the era's morals, others are a god or the right to talk, vent and be heard and only heard. For them the restrictions are part of that self chosen way of life. Hardly convenient sometimes but something they are content with and continue with. A little like the arguments between whether a law is positive or not. Eg. Some like public censors, others don't.
If for example, your being heard and empathised with was a petition, that would've been a signature. One whose owner not necessary interpreted the reasons for founding well enough (or even the way it was meant) but someone who wants to help. Regardless of whether the reasons match with the founders .And or requestors.Given how hard it is to gather 'signatures' in this world, don't take it so harshly. They mean nothing bad. It is only unfortunate that such doesn't work for you either. No matter. If this coping or living thing was easy, there wouldn't be historically discarded studies for it. Or paid jobs to compensate it.
Don't curse your being able to or your living. Even if you think otherwise, it is a truly fortunate thing to live, And it is just sad to curse life. You don't need more sad letdowns in life.
Ionly have my perspective, so to me as a 21st century American - praying means religion. And thats not what I do.Its annoying to have assumptions put on me even when people mean well and want to help. I get that, but that doesntmean that its ok for me.I get that this site is world wide - but its still based in the western english set up in a sense that in the west - praying generally refers to organized religion.
I also dont want to belive in "higher powers" and that stuff because that would mean that i am really cursed and that Im here for some sick game. "Look at that sick pathetic fuck down there on Earth. Look how they struggle. Its so funny" Thats how the notion of god/gods makes me feel and I dont like it. Id like to just think that all my issues are my own fault and I can just beat myself up for it then I can change my entire self and be better. That way Im not a pawn. This is all my fault. That makes it something I can do to change it. I can chnage it. If I get the right information and can make something of it (both being impossibles right now, but whatever)
Sorry Im responding paragraph by paragraph bc I cant see what youve written while I type in the box that covers the page
I dont have "faith" I have the unyeilding feeling of embarrasment and failure that comes with my anxiety. I constantly worry about being a loser, giving up, failing, being fired, not being good enough. So yes I am going to pay extreme amounts of money for therapy that might not work. I will keep going to work even though I have no strength. i will keep buying self help books off amazon that make no sense. because if i dont I will be that embarrasment. My family with know. Old friends will know. coworkers will know. I dont want my headline to be "Loser Dies, Its About Time" - I was raised to believe that winning is all there is, and thats my influence. Win. Win. You dont get to die trying. You win and theres no other option.
I think gods is are hypocrites. Then he(?) could be dictator politician up there so high, having to make some decisions and having to withstand critcism for what he doesn't think. And there's the fact he's a 'parent' too. Always waiting for ourselves to pick up ourselves, find our own wings, etc. To not listen to you or lend you that himself is a lesson, they say.
Maybe he's just a fickle spouse. He has his own life too and is not really in the mood to argue with you. "But how was your day?" might come up when you're on good terms. But I'm a nihilist so this is all just speculating story for me :D This goes double for word intepretations. I have a habit of taking people very literally. I often don't realise that people can also read within their own contexts ie. your county vs. my dictionary english. I've been told I live under a rock, haha. Still struggle between the apparent same meaning of 'town' and 'city'...
Don't believe in religion if you want to, silly. I sure don't and often stump (eg. yesterday the kid who helped me get un-lost) people with conversational questions. It's good to continue to be open and continue to be curious about what you don't know. I would ask you about cats for example, but dunno where to begin. The tail is up and it jumps back whenever you go near. Still though and it comes rubbing. Argh..? There was a thread here recently where some kid told of their same mindset but then they turned to god eventually. People are different. You are fine the way you are as long as you don't spread the hate.
Anyhow, know like how you're cats before anything and everything else for reasons specific to you, they too have reasons and a life that brought them to that religion and base of thought. Being not them, we'll never know for sure if we'd have done the same.
That problem with the postings! YES. Argh. Haha. To wordpad it is then. Will try to make it seem less like "replying to each parrie individually and so confusing because first sector is independent of 2 and 3, etc" above.
Faith of success vs. Embarassement. Sounds like your usual day anxiety ta me. Means it CAN be fixed. History is not what it is for nothing. I have thought of an idea for your case. It's not so much advice as an alternate method of mapping out your thoughts, what you've tried, what doesn't work, what you do want to try etc. As I've said on profile, I'm new to a listenee who does not take to the 'mocking friend' well. Uh, that actually is nicer than it sounds? DX Yeah. So have brainstormed a few ideas of how we might correspond better. And how you might reach a sense of 'doing' before anything. Because always as always, just as words are only words to you, change will never be anything without action.Instead of staying your emotional rutt with that sense of "nothing, nowhere, embarassment, etc". And yeah, bear with me, 'k? <3
What you should know and have the right to quote to every one that gives up on you for little more than "not fast enough, too much, too difficult, etc" is that everybody has their own pace. If you take slower than they've expected you to be, so what? They're only an ear. They're not you. They have their difficulties and forever stalling for even mudane reasons, so can you. If that means it takes forever for you to even just say "Okay yeah, I'll try that." is okay too. Your decision always, your life always.
As said prior though, you have your life in check already more than you know. Schedules, lifeform balancing, work. One that requires attending office. Hiding your emotional moments well enough to keep working. Know this, you ARE holding on. It's all you can do for the now. From an ignorant outsider's point of view, you're only a 'normal' individual. Know that too.
Stop doing stuff that both disadvantage you and make you unhappy. That means yes, self-help books. Your precious dollars..! Dunno about you but only remembering the free brochure thingies I get from counsellor offices get me uncomfortable about myself. Don't need more reminders of how much more I can be. Or how much doesn't work. Or how much more bad I can be. Sometimes being in Rome, surrounded by romans makes you think you're one too. Which makes everything worse being 'roman' is to be irreversibly mentally sick.
The next time I went, I picked up a hypnotism booklet. Also for free. Not because I wanted to try it in case of nothing working (though that too) but because it was interesting.
"If you don't". What do the self-help books do for you exactly. Feel free to reply in private.
Just got your PM. Still typing. Not really my hour to procrastinate but eh, I have the night. See you there. Will leave your other threads (if they have been updated) for the later ;)
That really sucks!, what country are you in?. I find it rude people do that to you. I must really hurt your feelings alot.
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People always misjudge me
I envy dead people...
I feel like a giant assole. Im a huge jerk. Another failure in my self management.