I am alone because I isolate myself. I isolate myself because I feel like shit when I’m around other people. I feel like shit around others because I feel exposed and vulnerable and out of place and stupid. Because…I’ve spent so much of my life avoiding people that I’ve never learned how to handle the unexpected little complications that they inevitably produce? Or because I’m just intrinsically socially inept? Or because I’m so insanely self-conscious and socially anxious that the tiniest little thing sticks in my mind & ruins my day?
It’s not something I feel I can solve through exposure – there have been extended periods in my life when I forced myself to be around the low-level chaos of others day after day. I never stopped feeling anxious & out of control & stupid. It never got any easier. I never learned how to deal with it. All it takes is the smallest thing to go not to plan & I freeze. My ability to act like a normal human being stalls. The software running in my brain encounters an error and needs to close. And I feel stupid, and childish, and helpless, and pathetic. And I act like that. And I hate it. I hate me. I hate my thoughts, the way I feel. I hate being this. I guess I just don’t hate it enough to overcome my fear of death.
So I’m alone. Pointlessly, terminally alone. I can’t interact with others on anything beyond a superficial level, and even then, if they say or do anything even slightly outside my expected parameters, my simulated social skills shutdown. I am a waste of a life.
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This is such a travesty because you express your feelings so beautifully. You’re clearly a very intelligent person, but the worry here this way of life isn’t healthy for your wellbeing as it leads to ‘cabin fever’ and isolation.
Do you have friends you can speak with online ?
That’s nice of you. It’s not healthy, but I’ve been doing this for decades to a greater or lesser extent and it’s who I am now. I have no friends, even online, because I’m not able to connect or engage with people genuinely.
This is a blow by blow account of how I feel. COVID and its encouraging isolation has made it worse. It doesn’t extend to internet interactions for me. I’m really sorry it does for you.
What helps me is absolving myself of the hate, so to speak. The hate here being those perceptions you have of yourself as behaving stupidly, childishly and so on. I let it go. There will always be another time in life when you’ll feel small and stupid. It’s fine. Focus on the times you don’t do so badly. The other skill I’ve learned is not giving a shit what people think of me. Can’t emphasize enough how much this helps. For this and life in general. Of course, you’ll always have a select few people whose opinion you care for, but the rest of the world’s doesn’t matter. It’s a really freeing way of seeing things. I try to talk for myself now. Say what I want and not bother how it’s taken.
Another thing I’ve come to realize, you don’t sound as terrible as you think. It’s just the novelty that comes from not using your voice a lot. Take confidence from that. You sound just fine.
The last thing I’ll mention here is the ‘real and ideal’ self dilemma many people have. Read up on it if it interests you. This one hasn’t really helped me with concrete change, but it is insightful. The lesson we’re supposed to take is to accept ourselves as we are since we can’t ever really be the ideal people we’d like to think we are. But I find it a little stupid. Nobody’s perfect, but it doesn’t mean I stop trying to be better.
Anyway, I hope some of this helps you. I really feel for you because I’ve been where you are and I know what a roadblock it is. It’s not a cure, the feelings come back sometimes, but I’ve got better tools to handle them now. You can find ones that help you too. Good luck and have a nice day.
I’m sorry that your experience is similar. It sounds like you’re on a road to overcoming it though – I think the earlier in life you can do that, the easier it is.
It’s really hard for me not to hate myself, just generally. I know it’s counterproductive, but I think I internalized a lot of the disdain peers had for me growing up, so when I act in a way that used to provoke that reaction, the self-hatred triggers. It’s like a defective warning mechanism.
It’s also hard not to care what people think. I want people in my life, but I’m completely alone. On some level I need people to like me, but it’s clear the way I typically act in social situations doesn’t lead to that.
There is definitely a huge disparity between my ideal and real selves. But again, it’s really hard to accept the reality of who I am, because the “real” me is desperately lonely, and it feels like it’s defects are constantly being highlighted by society.
But thank you, maybe there’s some way forward there.
*angelic singing, I float through the ceiling and grab your hand so we can do karaoke at a bar together
*you ‘ re somehow wearing fishnets and crocs at the same time and we match like twins in a 90s movie.
*how did you do that? “I didn’t”
It was the damn magic*
*we get beat up after singing badly and smarting off in fishnets