My mind keeps getting hung up on the idea of being in a relationship. I want so badly to not feel this loneliness anymore. For there to be someone who cares for me as I actually am. Who I can be honest with, and talk to, without this crushing fear. To be able to care for someone else, and make them happy. To share your life experiences with another person. Emotional intimacy.
Of course, opening yourself to any relationship means risking rejection. But for me, rejection feels like a certainty, every time. I can’t see any way I could maintain a relationship without a huge amount of constant deception. Which kind of defeats the purpose. I would still feel just as scared and alone, even being with someone.
Because the truth is, I don’t deserve to be in a relationship. I’m not fit to be around other people. I’m a repulsive waste of human potential. A non-person. And I can’t see any way of changing that now, no matter what I do. I can’t undo the things I’ve done, unsee the things I’ve seen, or unthink the things I’ve thought. They have a grip on my mind now, and there’s no going back. There’s no return to innocence. That’s who I am now. And it’s not fit to be around other people. I wouldn’t want anyone I cared about to be with me.
I wish I could just let it all go. Concentrate on finding whatever satisfaction I can from life. But everything else feels empty and trivial. All I’m left with is the crushing weight of my loneliness. It’s just me and the black expanse of space. Me and the slow decay towards death. Me and the futile machinations of my primate brain. When it’s just you, nothing matters. There’s no one to care for. Nothing to invest in. Nothing to work for. Nothing has significance.
Maybe in the end we’re all left this alone. But perhaps it’s only the truly lonely who are cursed to see it before the end, and left trying to live with it.
What the fuck am I doing here?
4 comments
I relate to every single word. I do not have the energy to maintain friendships or even a relationship. Too much rejection left me broken too. With the last time I dated, I tried to control the situation too much because I didn’t want to be crushed again. But it’s completely out of our control. There are no guarantees with dating or anything else in this life. I’m trying to learn to let go. That loneliness though, I literally feel the pain in my chest. I have to take one breath at a time to make it through the day.
I think some people have experienced too much heartache and pain to the point where living is worthless. Like you said, there are others who haven’t reached that point yet. Maybe they have actually found love and have a job or kids, something they want to hold onto. But people like us are left to wallow in the nothingness of it all.
As someone who had been in a similar place, husk, it sounds to me like you want intimacy but your social anxiety keeps you from it and the existential depression is a result of that.
It sounds a lot like me over the past 5 years. My advice is to look for the underlying causes of the social anxiety.
I had to go deep into my past and not so far and admit a lot of things i’d been locking off in my brain (bud helps), but once i identified my real problems my anxiety began to lessen and i’ve started making friends and taking positive steps towards a relationship.
For me ive had a deeply self-denying personality which caused all kinds of havoc but mostly prevented me from connecting with other people. That led to anxiety –> depression –> antisocial feelings and behavior –> suicidal feelings –> existential angst etc. etc.
I don;t know man. If i had any advice it would be to identify your real root problems. A good trick is to scrutinize the things you’re anxious about or that you get defensive about. Also the things most symbolically important to you.
It;s hard and it takes a while to get out just like it takes a while to get in, but once the ball gets rolling you may be able to build enough momentum to get it over the top, and then gravity’s on your side.
I’m getting pretty close to that point and suicide, depression, etc. is looking smaller and smaller in the distance behind me.
My family has suggested hypnosis. Maybe that would actually be helpful. Something is holding me down like a weight.
Just look up hypnosis in my state and found a place close to me that has 5 star reviews. People are raving about how hypnotherapy helped them lose weight, quit smoking, be free from anxiety and loneliness. That’s what I need to try. Maybe it would work for husk too.