What a damn loser I am

So um, I guess I am kinda new here, ok? But eh… I kinda need someone to share this with. It’s been eating me for so long now.

So uhhh first, a bit of background: I am an “artist”. Which means I am a talentless amateur who can’t even draw a stick figure right! But whatever.

Have you heard of that site “deviantart”? It is frankly terrible. I frequent it.

So 2 years ago or so, there was this… it was kinda like an RP group. I was bored so ehh let’s join it. But applications were closed and you had to wait and they had a chatroom in there (all groups in deviantart have chatrooms of their own). And I… well, I was not the most social person. I have a recently diagnosed anxiety disorder and am borderline obsessive, and never had any friends tbh.

Ok then, there was a lot of people who wanted to join that group. And they all seemed to have the same idea as me since when I went into the chatroom they were all there too.

I have some history with bullying and a slightly abusive family (it is a long story, basically my dad is a tyrant and a few months earlier I had finally convinced him of moving to another city since he is kind of a deadbeat and had us living in a small, run-down house in terrible conditions. Though to convince him, I had to tell him I was going to major in something I actually didn’t want to mayor in, just chose it because the cesspool city we lived in at the time didn’t have such major so it was the perfect excuse).

Due this, I am incredibly friendly and outgoing with people I don’t know, mostly because I am really, really afraid of people. Surprisingly, this works in the chatroom, and I meet a lot of people and we kinda get along very well so we make a Skype group for our newly formed ragtag bunch of weeaboo misfits.

Things go great at first, as most things tend to go before they crash and burn like the Hindenburg. We had our problems too, our bad days, but we managed, we went through hard times together; closer-knitted group had never been seen (I am exaggerating with the last part but stay with me on this). Boy, how much fun we all had! But me? I am having the most fun. I am the center of attention, a charmer, I make all people want to be around me. I had never felt like this in my life. Suddenly the weird outcast was the ringmaster, the role-model, the cool kid. My kindness and humility, my attention to detail, and my encouraging words and positiveness, all born from fear at first, have transformed me into a people-magnet.

They are all an act, though, and nothing but. And everyone just… fell for it.

Surprisingly, I don’t regret it. I made these people happy, even if it was for a while, and the friendship I felt for them was absolutely genuine.

But it also brought me the problem I am here to talk about. Oh boy.

There is this lady. Wonderful human being, but with a shitty life. And we… kinda click, you know. I have sorta of a crush for her. And then, one night after she getting completely shit-faced, she tells me she is in love with me.

All the “bad idea” alarms go off in my head, but I ignore them. I had never been in a romantic relationship before, and honestly I am pretty ugly myself, so I thought, why not take the chance?

Why am I always so stupid.

She wants me to contact her everyday. She makes me download… you know that app, LINE? Well. Yes sure that surely is not difficult to use in a small-ass phone with only 0.5 GB of RAM but that is besides the point.

Since she lives in a different timezone than I do that means I sometimes have to stay up untill 4 am talking to her every. Single. Day. Whether I have school the other day is irrelevant, apparently. I am ok with this at first, but with time, it starts draining me. I start ignoring obligations and family just for her. I am just sitting in front of the computer for hours just for her. She is bipolar, so she has times where I have to contact her, via phone, to calm her down. Mind you, I am terrified of phones. But she doesn’t seem to care. She makes me grab the phone and call her, my phobias be damned. She also makes me tell her all my problems and what worries me, and guilt-trips me if I don’t. Keep in mind, I am a shy person and usually it is very very difficult and traumatizing for me to talk about past trauma. But what the hell. I have to do what she tells me or else…

Or else… oh boy, or else.

I went without internet for half a day. HALF a day. When I come back to the Skype group… my god. She had told all our friends she was going to commit suicide and if it wasn’t for this guy, let’s call him T, who talked her out of it, she would have killed herself. Poor T. I never got to properly thank him for it, he is a sweetheart but has a self-esteem as low as mine. We sometimes would engage in self-loathing competences to see who was the Worst Person Ever.

Ok, back on topic: I get internet back, and go ask her (let’s call her N, since we are at it) what is going on and if she is ok. As you might expect, I am the bad guy. I explain the situation, and after a while N apologizes for the outburst and suicide threats. But I come from an abusive family and bullying at school, I know how this works: they apologize now and the next day they are doing it again. I keep the thought to myself, but you know, if being paranoid was a paid job, I’d be a millionaire. I was scared and my anxiety disorders (which back then, still hadn’t been diagnosed) kick in hard.

We keep talking, but it is not the same. I keep having the thought, the famous Suicidal Thought, that N is better off without me, and that I am right about this because I know better. She tries to talk me out of it, saying things like “but I chose you, are you saying I have bad taste then?” which only makes me want to shout “YES” at her. Of course she is better without me. Everybody is better without me. I just know, and everybody who doesn’t think that is just stupid and can’t see it. My parents, my brother, even N. Especially N. By this time, I have entered a state of depression, I am neglecting my schoolwork and failing my classes, my parents are thinking of kicking me out, my old laptop,the first and only computer I’d ever had up to then, barely worked; and I found myself sleeping on a small mattress in the living room for months (it is a long story). Life was going great! I wanted to die.

So, the story goes on, and N’s father finally manages to make his old boss to pay him the money they owed him for years! And they all celebrate by going into a vacation! Hooray! So I stop texting N for a while, replying to her but not initiating conversation. Because remember, I am a Burden(TM) and she deserves time without me. Also I am really depressed and stressed and not feeling like talking to anyone.

In retrospect, that was kind of a dick move from my side. I ask N what is happening, why her text are all just 1-word-long replies now. And then she lashes at me. Tells me she had been crying every day. That she thought I didn’t love her anymore. Then I saw how much I had been hurting her with this, and decided to end it for the greater good. I decided to break up. That I wasn’t worth it, that she deserved someone better.

She told me I was a selfish person that just loved to wallow in self-pity. These words still hurt today.

N texts me again after a few days. She feels bad, asks me to call it a truce and tells me to go eat something and take a bath, and go talk to a psychiatrist because I deserved more. I followed her advice. She still cared for me. By this point my computer didn’t work anymore and I had no means to go back to the Skype group.

I try to do the best to recover myself, encouraged by N’s words. I try to go back to school. I contact a psychologist too, but therapy doesn’t work. After a lot of arguing my dad decides to buy me a computer as he bought my brother (since my major involves computers, I can’t do without one). I still fail the semester though, but I am moving forward! I even go back to the old Skype Group where my friends were! They are ecstatic! They missed me so much!

And then I see it: “N has left the group”. I was the only one who knew why. I try to casually talk to her, but she either ignores me or pretends she is busy.

Months go by, I contact a psychiatrist, she diagnoses me with borderline depression and anxiety disorders and prescribes me meds. I start taking them, and after a few weeks of not noticing any difference, they kick in. It is amazing. In my whole life, I hadn’t felt like this! Finally I know what a good day is. It is incredible. My relationship with my family improves so much! I always had a lot of aggression problems and no way to control my violence, but now? I can decide! I can decide how to feel, what to do, I can restrain myself! Everything is magical!

Then around my birthday, N contacts me. Apparently prompted by T (the guy who talked her out of suicide that one time and who apparently also knew about our relationship). She formally apologizes for how she treated me. I can see she really, really blames herself for it. I tell her I was at fault too, that we both were to blame. I invite her again into the Skype group. Everything is perfect!

Until a few days ago.

She apparently was asked out on a date by some girl she met. N comes into the chat, the chat she knows I am always at, the next day, and tells us all that apparently, she had found the perfect girl.

Ouch.

Try adding to that the lack of sleep because up until then, I had been taking care of an injured sparrow I had found in the backyard, AND I had just failed my semester AGAIN after all the effort I put on it.

All I had worked for these last 4 moths, all the recovery from my depression and anxiety, it all comes back like a HUGE wave and drowns me immediately.

I left the group chat. I did it not out of spite, but because I didn’t want to start a drama, and break the group apart over something as selfish as what I think of N’s new girlfriend. But all these months after we broke up, I had been bottling said feelings. Unlike N, I had nobody to tell this story to, I was alone. And I still loved her. I loved the way she talked to me, the way I meant the world for her, that she would always have time for me, always think of me, she was so smart and kind and mature when the situation called for it.

I can’t take it anymore.

I have yelled my parents again when they did nothing to deserve it (if anything, they have been nothing but supportive since I started with my recovery). I have locked myself into my room. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t talked to anyone.

I am a piece of shit.

I want to die.

Thanks for listening to my story, sorry if it is really long.