Hello, I hope this is the correct place to post it, I’m new to posting in reddit.
I need to vent and I’m also hoping to meet someone who can relate to what I say so we can maybe understand each other a little. I’d love to make one or more online friends.
I’ve been feeling deeply lonely for a long time, I’m about to be 21 (F) and I’ve had this feeling since I was around 10, however, as a child/teenager I used to get defensive and say I didn’t need people and that I’d rather be alone. I didn’t know or didn’t want to see how much it could impact mental and physical health. I’m still trying to grasp the scope of the impact.
I abandoned high school at 14, 12-13 I sometimes went, maybe 2 months spread over the year. I just took my final exams and didn’t interact with people there. It is important to note I got bullied. At the time I was clearly developing psychotic symptoms that got worse over time (now I’m much better) I remember having to go class to ask what they had been studying over the year so I could study it for the final exams and started talking to a classmate I “knew”, she was very intelligent and overall a nice person I think, and that short interaction already diluted delusions. I used to talk to a lot of people online. I had one friend, but he got too social and I just couldn’t keep up. I then had a friend for a few months but he wasn’t very reliable since he also was so lonely and would do anything to have people around, and then he got into pretty extreme online communities. I cannot remember why but we stopped being friends. I spent months completely alone in my room.
When I was around 17 or 18 I started to force myself to meet people, learnt a lot and made a huge effort. I could get to hang out with some people but I always was the weird one and when they got to know a little bit me they didn’t seem to like me. I’ve never had a boyfriend in real life, I could have had sex since many guys would have sex with any woman, but the sole idea of being used for that and abandoned makes me want to end it, so I never did it, which makes me feel I'm missing out on some important part of being a human. The same happens with social interaction.
I constantly try to force those small social interactions that apparently would make me feel less lonely such as at least talking to the cashier or trying to be around people, but honestly, it has never worked for me and I don’t even want to see people since it makes me be more aware of my loneliness. Also, the world feels too bright loud and tyring.
I’ve been trying to just ignore it and kept daydreaming about friends and especially a partner that would just love me as a whole, but it is just not possible anymore.
Life feels too heavy being alone, it makes it hard to study, sleep or concentrate, even eat. I feel I cannot cope. My body aches a lot, to the point they thought I might have fibromyalgia, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with this feeling, it gets better when I perceive that I might have met someone that will be there and worse when anything reminds me of this feeling, or overwhelms me too much. I cannot explain how much I feel like I'm drowning.
I feel fundamentally disconnected from people. My way to express myself and understand others is mostly logical and I people often end up thinking I’ve got no feelings so they don’t need to ever care for me. The effort it takes to communicate to people, including my own family or anyone is too great, It takes me more energy than studying any topic. I try to express myself and explain why I feel certain things or why I don’t agree with what they’re saying if we’re discussing something, I make a huge effort to remember all they say and answer everything, making it understandable, and it all gets wiped out by them saying that “I don’t care about their feelings” or that “Their style is as valid as mine” (as if I ever said otherwise). Since I don’t naturally show emotional reactions to others and remain “calm” I can never be “right” or what I feel doesn’t matter at all, is like in every disagreement the one showing off more pain “wins” or something, I truly don’t understand anything.
This whole situation of feeling disconnected and always being told I’m cornering people when I just try to express my point of view on something makes me end up needing to kind of “fact check” reality with myself if you know what I mean, which I feel impacts my ability to perceive it properly and I end up feeling trapped in own mind.
I always feel like I’m living “the trial” from Kafka, my whole life feels like that, I cannot explain why at least right now.
I think I’ve come to some kind of limit, I don’t want to talk out loud anymore. Especially to my mom with whom I live. She also has mistreated me (and everyone else she had any kind of power over) in severe ways so I’ve got more reasons.
I don’t want to be alone, and I crave having one safe person, a partner if possible, who actually wants to be with me and with whom I don’t feel like I’m constantly performing. But I fear I’ll always remain the same.
I hope this makes any sense, I’ve tried to explain my situation and background, and I don’t even know if I’m being coherent. If you feel like you relate in some way or maybe don’t relate but would still make a friend feel free to dm me.