Hi everyone,
I'm new here, so apologies if this isn't the correct format or the wrong place for this sort of post, but I thought I'd give this a shot.
I'm posting this mostly to try and get an outside perspective on my situation - Is this normal? I've always done my best to be open and honest with people and to listen and onboard any advice I can get, but recently I feel it's increasingly difficult to relate to people. I constantly struggle with a duality of the situation I'm in.
I'm in good physical shape. My career is going exceptionally well for someone my age. I'm in no way socially awkward and never struggle to make conversation with new people.
I'm incredibly socially isolated. While I have lots of friends, I'm not in regular contact with any of them, and they're in different cities. My social life is non-existent. I no longer have anything to look forward to. I'm on a treadmill, working for the sake of working, no longer trying to reach a goal.
How I got here.
I'm going to try to avoid giving my whole life story, so here are the important parts.
I'll start when I was 24, and on top of the world. I was a PhD candidate in Computer Science at a Russell Group University in the UK. I was President of the Kickboxing Society (formally the Captain of the Team). I was part of a large and active social circle, living in the house where most people gathered. I did very well with the ladies.
I got an offer for my Dream Job: a high-level researcher role at a highly esteemed organisation. I cut my PhD short and moved to the other side of the country - to a city where I didn't know anyone.
For the next year or so, I threw myself into my work. I no longer had much of a social life, and while I got along great with my work colleagues, they were all older than me, starting families and settling down. I enjoyed my work, but my homelife felt like I was sitting in a hotel, killing time before going back to work the next day. It paid off for my career, though. Over the next couple of years, I was promoted (twice!) and ended up leading a small team of post-doctoral researchers.
At some point, I moved out of the city centre to a house-share in a converted Barn in the countryside. This is where I met my Ex - entirely my chance, she just happened to move in around the same time as me. I also regained somewhat of a social life with my new housemates.
Life seemed good, but I was overlooking some very obvious red flags.
My Ex was Bi-Polar, with Borderline Personality Disorder, and (unbeknownst to me at the time) had 2 counts of domestic violence against her. At first, I was incredibly sympathetic towards her. I cried so many times listening to her recount all the terrible abuse she'd been through, and proud she seemed to have turned her life around. It was emotionally hard work, and, coupled with the stress of my Job, I began losing sleep.
Soon, it became apparent how incredibly controlling she was. "You've got enough friends. You don't need any more friends - especially not girls". That's a direct quote, and it's stuck with me to this day. She was constantly suspicious, regularly stealing my phone, laptop, or other possessions to scroll through my social media. If she found something she didn't like, all hell would break loose. She would purposely keep me up at night, shining torches in my eyes, threatend to kill herself (sometimes she would attempt it in front of me), and often got physically abusive.
Eventually, during a birthday party for one of our housemates, the sleep deprivation got too much, and I blacked out. I don't know how long I was out for, but thankfully, one of the guests was a nurse, and I woke up with her feeding me some chocolate. It's hard to explain what happened next, but when I woke up, I knew something was wrong with me.
Over the next 24-48 hours, I began acting irrationally. My flatmates became concerned enough to contact my parents, who drove up to visit me. My memory of this time is extremely fuzzy, but I had begun to experience Psychosis. I was driven to a local hospital and admitted for review.
I spent a week in the hospital. I can barely remember what happened, but I know I was forcibly sedated many times in the first few days. After a week, I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Within 30 minutes, I was re-assessed and discharged. Sent back home with my abusive partner, but now on a prescription of Anti-psychotic drugs.
I was quickly moved to the minimum effective dosage of the anti-psychotics, and taken off them after the minimum time frame (1 year). I had 2 years of therapy, in which I was assessed for many mental health conditions, but not diagnosed with any. The abuse at home continued, but I was emotionally dulled by the drugs. I managed to hold onto my Job, though colleagues noticed a significant change in my demeanour.
Eventually (after coming off anti-psychotics), I broke up with my partner. This went badly. She broke into my room and stole anything of value she could find. Threaten my with a hammer, smashed up my car, and then stole my car. The police were called, and she was arrested. They held her for 48 hours, then released her back home, under the conditions that she was to have no contact with me.
Shortly afterwards, my team was made redundant. I moved back in with my parents to the city where I was born and took some time to try to rebuild my life.
It took a while, but I found work again. I'm not a Senior AI/ML Technology Expert in a great company, but I'm back to having no social life. Any form of committed relationship now terrifies me. I'm still very social, but I no longer have a close circle of friends. I'm comfortable meeting and speaking to new people, but I find it difficult to connect with anyone.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of disconnect after a period of trauma or major life changes—even when you’re still “functioning” well on the surface? And if so, how did you rebuild real connections and a sense of meaning outside of work?
I’d really appreciate any perspective.