u/Party_Passenger6534 — reddlx

I'm here for help. I'm 16 and I live in Venezuela. For as long as I can remember, I've had major problems socializing, mostly, I think, caused by traumas like verbal abuse at home, such as being told "you're a waste of time and money," or school bullying. Once, in first grade, they even stabbed me with pencils to humiliate me. At the same time, when I was 10, I ingested liquid mercury from a thermometer orally (I know it's not toxic in this case), but I didn't tell my parents for a year. That means I had to deal with the bullying, the mistreatment, and the idea that I was going to die from poisoning every single day. Although it's contradictory, the bullying hurt me much more than the mercury itself. By that time, I wanted to die. I wanted to die and for everyone to know it. I wanted to starve myself to death so everyone could see me dying of starvation. (Note: I'm mentioning this as background; currently, the domestic abuse has stopped, as have the suicidal thoughts, although what I struggle with most now is finding purpose and social connections.) Around the time I was 11, my grandfather became ill with diabetes and many other illnesses simultaneously. They could only be treated with surgery—twelve surgeries in total. Not only that, the house we lived in was rented by a friend of my father's. This friend urgently needed money and managed to sell the house. My parents were so anxious and worried that they forgot they had two children. Later, I learned that my father had suicidal plans to get the life insurance payout. At the end of that year, my grandfather died. It was a complete relief; we moved to an apartment—a light at the end of the tunnel. Classes resumed in a hybrid format due to the reduction in COVID cases, and I began to get to know my classmates. And although I was bullied (on a smaller scale), I managed to make a group of friends, from whom I gained validation if I shared the same opinion as the group's leader, Jose C. I became his puppet. When I turned 14, he and all our mutual friends stopped talking to me overnight—that is, everyone I knew. During those holidays, the only thing I focused on was playing basketball until I couldn't anymore. No matter how hard I tried, I was still the worst on the team. The holidays ended, and when I turned 15, I was transferred to a different classroom. A classroom full of people I already knew. Because of this, even though I wasn't good at communicating with the rest of the class, I managed to form my own group of five people. Within this group, I would meet the most important person in my life so far, and probably for the rest of my life. His name is Mattias Saturni, described by the rest of the class as a truly unique and irreplaceable person. Saturni has an IQ of 147. He has truly taught me about aesthetic sensitivity and our immanence in life. And the value of our experiences lies in how they felt. Of my entire group of friends, he's the only one left. And since the beginning of last year, he's made it clear that he doesn't want to be my friend anymore. I really love him; I've loved him more than anyone. I'm completely alone in a school where I don't fit in with my graduating class. This feeling of not fitting in isn't unique to this class; it seems to be a constant everywhere I go. I don't know what to do. I'm already in therapy and taking fluoxetine because I was diagnosed with depression.