Throughout my life I always new I was different. I didn’t make friends like the other children, and I was always alone. I was my own best friend. I ate lunch alone, and was alone throughout most of my childhood with the exception of my older siblings and my mom. When I was a teenager I had a slight breakdown because I remembered being molested as a child, but with the help of my mom I managed to get through it and piece what was left of my life together. I learned to throw myself into school, and I was the star student with a perfect GPA and was the model student at my high school. College was the same in regard to my performance etc. I didn’t have friends in college, and no one really ever noticed I was around for socializing. However, people did ask questions about homework and material from the course. If someone did speak to me, I always knew it was regarding a course and nothing more.
I was overweight in high school and at the beginning of college, but I did find a solution. I started running and smoking to curb my appetite — also I discovered bulimia. I went from being a 5-9, 200 lb male to 135 lbs. I thought that was it, I had found the solution to only realize nothing changed.
I graduated a year early from college, and moved to grad school and was once again the star; however, my inner unhappiness finally emerged. I started going down in terms of my research abilities. I had to switch groups which opened the door to travel to many places including California where I found peace many times.
I went through grad school and had acquaintances, but no real friends, and I never really dated. Who would want to date me anyway.
I graduated early with a Ph.D. at 25, and moved to many places, and I have always observed the same result. I wanted to go to California after grad school but that didn’t happen. I turned to many things to cope including alcohol and hard drugs, as well as, many many other things I can’t bring myself to talk about, but I haven’t filled the void of not having friends.
I am now 29 years old, a college professor, successful, and I am completely alone. My cell phone rings usually once a day because my mom likes to check in. I am a long distance from home. I used to run to the phone to see if it was someone else, but alas it never is. I have done a lot of things to just improve the way I look to make people want me or at least talk to me. I have done a lot of work to my teeth to make them perfect, I go to the most expensive hair place, plastic surgery, and I have a personal trainer. None of it has worked. In fact, I now feel more alone. I do have maybe three or four friends, but they don’t know how I feel. I am good at covering things.
I do a lot of good things for people, and I think I have made a positive impact on the lives of many students. My teaching record is the one thing that makes me smile. I have made a difference not to sound arrogant. I work hard to help others to fill my void, but there is no one who can help me. I am scared for the first time in my life. I am really scared. I know that no matter how much I help people there will always be this dark shadow within telling me that I am destined to be alone. I got a tattoo across my stomach of a black heart to symbolize my inner loneliness. Nothing can help. I have tried every facet known to people just to be hurt badly in return. I am never good enough to be around unless they need money or help in some other manner.
I don’t think I will see another new years. At work I think of how an “accident” could happen just to spare my mom of the pain. If she wasnt in the picture, my heart would have stopped a long time ago. Is there one reason why I should go on besides my mom? That is the million dollar question because I know in my heart and my soul that I am done with life. I will not be breathing in a year. I can’t withstand the pain of being invisible, being nothing, being unloved, unwanted, undesired, I am nothing but invisible or a shadow of a person who has already died inside. I am not asking for sympathy because we make our own lives and destiny. We engineer our own lives. I honestly believed that good karma existed. All I need is one reason to say ok I want to continue to wake up in the mornings. I can’t withstand the pain much longer without a good reason.
Dec. 24th, 2010 is my last day.
All things considered, I have decided that I cannot handle being alone. The void is consuming me. It is my dark shadow. That’s how I feel–I am a shadow of a human being. It hurts beyond belief. I run to the phone or computer or whatever just hoping someone wants to talk to me.
13 comments
Having suffered from depression, I can tell you two things: (1) Never give up, no matter what and (2) Seek for a deeper meaning in life. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly the Plan of Salvation, fills the void in my life like no other medication, counsel, or self-pity. Pray for help. God is there for you and He loves you. We all want you to find happiness. Please, don’t give up. Try your hardest one more time! I will pray for you. I know there are answers to your questions; but they cannot be found until you reach beyond who you are. Please, don’t give up!
I don’t know whether what I’m about to say will sound stupid, or will make sense. But here goes nothing,
Maybe try looking at your childhood, as those years of loneliness gave you the chance to focus on your work, and make a difference in many peoples lives. And I have no doubt they would be grateful for it, whether they show it or not. I’m not trying to convince you out of what you plan on doing, just, know that if you feel alone, there are people who you have helped over time who do care, just might not show it as well as they could.
From reading your brief post, I can tell that you are a very impressive man. Everything that you have said has really blown me away; the way you talk about having no one but still helping others and being determined to suceed. It’s hard for me to offer advice by just reading this small bit, but it sounds that you have done everything possible to get people to notice you, but have you ever thought that people are waiting for you to notice them? It’s kinda a “phone goes both ways” thing. I was like that for a long time. I thought, “if they dont want to talk to me, then their loss.” But I never talked to them either. That may be very ambigous advice, but from what I read, there is no reason that people should not like you. You seem like a very personable and intelligent man. So, maybe join a group where you know that you will know nobody and give a new persona a chance. You have to put yourself out there, you never know what will happen. It’s never too late to change.
This is not a comment meant to pat you on the back and say that “everything is going to be great,” or that you shouldn’t consider suicide “just because.” This is may not even going to help you with your sense of loneliness and worthlessness, but I really wish it would. I feel like I have to say this.
I admire you and really I wish I could do what you do. Actually, I might go as far to say that I envy you. I do not envy your circumstance and the pain that you are going through, but I would do anything to have that drive that has gotten you so far in life. In fact, just from what you have said here, I think you are amazing. Going through life hating yourself and, yet, being able to present yourself with such grace is something to be commended. Even though having managed to close the world out is hurting you deeply, the fact that you have managed to function at the level you have says something about you.
You some how survived the pressures of graduate school that rip many apart (and, no, it is not just because you are good at academics because graduate school takes more than just being a good student) and received your PhD at a relatively young age despite your emotional world collapsing around you. Even before that you somehow managed to keep your head together, or at least appear to have it together, in times of adversity. If the very fact that that you have that kind of iron-clad willpower is not worthy giving yourself another chance at life, I don’t know what is. You, of anyone, deserve to live.
You are 29 and a college professor and I am pretty sure that you mean something to the students you teach, to the university you work in, to the colleagues you work with, and (in some abstract way) to your field. Every time someone someone reads something you’ve published, or every time someone gets something out of one your lectures you have made a difference in this world. Actually, you are pretty far from unwanted.
I do not mean, in any way, to minimize the absolute pain and agony you have described in your post. Although I can never probably fully understand the pain you are going through, I feel worthless, unloved, undesirable, unwanted, and hopeless much of the time too and I came to this site because I was planning on killing myself tomorrow but this horrible ambivalence has gotten the better of me again and I probably won’t. Not to tell you what to do, I don’t think you should either. I think, sometimes, our brains are very good at convincing us that we are deadbeats and good-for-nothings who deserve to be alone for the rest of our lives when.
Have you sought professional help for what you are feeling? If not, I suggest you do and if so, I think you should try again (just don’t give up). You are worth another chance or a million other chances. You owe it to yourself to find those people who care about you. There has to be something better in this world than the constant loneliness you feel and you owe it to yourself to find it. If you die tomorrow, the people who will forget you will only do so because they never had the chance to know you. You are not an inherently unlovable person, it is just that you probably hate yourself so much (for what ever reason) that you may be isolating yourself.
Therapy and the path to finding and loving yourself will not be easy because hating yourself is a pattern that you have grown up with, but you are not a weak person and (if it means anything to you) I have faith in you.
If you need to talk, my email address is puliblahblah@yahoo.com.
– Priya
You aren’t as invisible as you think, because I see you. If you are still alive, well…*I’m* interested in talking to you. I know that what you’re going through hurts like hell, even though I can’t feel how you feel. It might be too late but in any case I am here, and I’m reading what you wrote. If you are not alive anymore, I hope you are at peace where you have gone.
i do not know what to say except that im begging you not to end it. dont. please dont. what you wrote brought me to tears because i care. dont end your life. life is so precious and beautiful get out there and volunteer to help and make a difference in someones life. find that hope and run with it. use this energy to help someone, you’ll find so much self worth. life is so beautiful and its such a mystery….everyday is a mystery and filled with reasons to be hopeful. please dont end up like my best friend….with a trash bag around your head, oxygen starved, left for a loved one to find you. dont. life is so hard to understand, who knows why were dealt these bullcrap hands. the journey is to find the strength to keep going….have strength! find that hope. i PROMISE its there for you. find it and hold onto it. it will get better. you are cared about. <33
Hello there,
I read your post and in many ways it does remind me of stages of my life I’ve been through. Being different, feeling lonely, empty.
This is a personal experience that may or may not apply to you, but in my case I believe that those feelings had a solid foundation; there are very few people who have the capacity to experience deep suffering, there are very few people who are unusually talented or creative (you may or may not agree that getting a Ph.D. requires talent but that is not the point; you can say it is persistence); there are even fewer people who can be both. And the suffering side, whenever has the chance to express itself, kills pretty much everything else.
The main advice that I wish I would have followed is not being afraid of trying something new. Sometimes deep depression/feelings of isolation are symptoms that you are not in the right place at the right time; if you wait too long before you make a move you may feel it will make no difference or that you have no choices. I am not sure what your options are, but if you want to go to California, take a semester off, start a new career, there are many choices out there. There are many people you have not met and some of them may be looking forward to having someone like you in their lives.
Take care
Silvana
Well for what it’s worth you’re a lot stronger than most. Like others have said you accomplished so much even with your depression and feelings of isolation. I’m envious of that. I’m 22 and I also don’t have any friends and have been alone my whole life. But I can honestly say that I don’t have any friends because I’m a fool and I say foolish things. And not in a funny “haha you’re such a fool” type of way but in a “you’re an idiot shut the hell up” type of way.
It sounds to me like you just have a problem with opening up to people. And you say that you have four friends (I wish I had one). Meaning associates I gather. Well how about trying to draw closer to those friends? If you have social anxiety maybe look into EFT. There’s plenty of existing help for social anxiety. Plus your experience could be of great encouragement to your students and to many people in the long run. You could write a book. Good luck.
I completely get your comment about running to the phone or computer hoping that someone cares. I do the same thing. Know you are not alone in that aspect.
I hope you are ok. I dont even know you, but I feel like we are going through the same thing.
I have basically cried out to everyone that I am severely depressed and I go everyday with no calls from anyone. I try to reach out to them but they seem to be too busy with their own lives to notice or care about the pain I am going through.
But I believe that there are people out there going through the same thing that we are who can relate and know our pain and do care.
I think the only people who can truely understand are those dealing with the same thing. Unfortunatly sometimes its not the people you are closet to in your life.
I hope you are well…
Is your mother a reason to stay alive? I’ve asked myself the same question.
The only thing that hurts me more than reality, is the idea of hurting my mom. It seems like you and your mother are really close. I would hang on just for her.
I could say how I’m impressed with what you’ve talked about, and believe me, I am, but I don’t know if it stacks to your mother. I agree with what people here have said, with how you’re strong, and successful, and you seem so extremely brilliant, but I just feel like I should say that your mother is an excellent reason to live on. Moms are friends too, you know. And they’re great, because they love you for who you are, no matter what.
Maybe you could even talk to your mom about how you feel. Let her in again. Good luck, friend.
i wanna talk to u if u wanna talk
e-mail mkafan12@yahoo.com
I wonder if u are still among the living…..are you?
I just saw myself in the mirror…. Wow… I hope you didn’t give up.