Left Behind… – My struggles with Depression and Social Anxiety

This is a sad story of a now 26 year old man who was “Left Behind” by everyone. I am sorry, it is a bit long, but I respectfully put it all in one post. If you have these same problems, read this. Especially if you are currently in school.

For those of you who don’t know, I have Depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, and ADD. This story revolves around how I believe that the public schools I went to are responsible for plaguing me with this third disorder – which doesn’t help the depression one bit.

Way back in grade school (jk-grade6) I was having issues with ADD. So anyways, my Mom was trying to deal with these problems I was having at school. I had a teacher that was arrogant, and liked to call people names. “stupid” at that age does hurt a lot, especially from a teacher. All throughout that school, I was picked on and teased and it caused me to keep to myself. I made only few friends. My social circle was small. I had problems with lots of teachers, especially seeing as most of their method of teaching involved writing on a chalk board and making us write it all down. That was difficult for me, having ADD. I was finally given “special” treatment from teachers, and they gave me printouts while everyone else frantically copied the stuff down. I hated being treated differently, and I was even tormented by others because of it, but it was the only way I could make it through school.

Anyways, I made it through that school and moved on to middle-school (grade 7&8). In middle school, I continued to struggle with note taking and learning. I was still the joke (not the joker) of the class. Everyone always picked on me, and I never knew why. By middle school, people had already nick-named me, “read-a-book” because my last name was “read”. At my current age it seems stupid to be bothered by that, but at that young age it seemed to me like an insult – and it hurt. I kept my small social circle through middle school, and didn’t make any new friends. I just kept the ones I had.

In grade 7 or 8, I remember we had the flu shot day. I always will remember this day, you will soon know why 😛 For those who dont yet know, I am afraid of needles, knives, pain, surgery, doctors, dentists, and the list goes on. So anyways, I was in class and it was our classes turn to go down to get our shots. At the time, it was made mandatory by my mother to get all the shots. So we all went down and lined up outside of the gym. As I got closer and closer, the fear of what was about to happen got worse and worse, just like all the other shots I was given. I eventually was next in line. They called me over, I sat down. They jabbed me with the stupid needle, and gave me the shot. I stood up, and on the way to the exit there was a sign saying to sit down for 15 or 30 mins before leaving because some people may feel light headed or whatever.

Anyways, I decided to sit down. As I sat there, nothing seemed amiss. After waiting long enough, I stood up and proceeded to exit back into the hall. On the way out, I started to get hot, and everything faded to red. I dropped to the floor right in the middle of the hall in front of everyone. Next thing I knew, my teacher had propped my head up in his lap, and I was throwing up all over his pants. They moved me back to the gym, and gave me a spot to lie down. They then put a hockey net beside me with a blanket on it so no one would stare and ooh and ahhh and stuff.

Since then, I have stopped my immunization. I told my Mother that I would never get another immunization again. This was partially because of the reaction my body had to it, but also partially because of the shame and embarrassment. Later on, my family doctor claimed that they had a “modified” version of the shot that supposedly wouldnt make me react the same way. My Mom put it in the cupboard, on the top shelf. I let it stay there a long while, then when she wasn’t around and I was sure she forgot about it,  I grabbed it and threw it out. Never again would I let someone stab me with a needle. It strengthened my fear of needles so much so that I even get lightheaded and nervous as hell just going to get blood tested. I have even fainted after a blood test too.

Anyways, moving on to high school, the “cool” kids continued to tease me. I took up smoking tobacco, and marijuana as a habit – for everyone reading, I know from experience this does not make you “cool”. I was tormented day in and day out just like in grade/middle school. Only it was even worse, because their vocabularies exploded in comparison to grade school. They had more words to choose from to shoot at me like bullets. Each one pierced my heart, and soul. I had lost many of my friends from grade school because they all went their own ways at high school. I never (to this day) have made any new friends. Mostly because it’s too much work for me to keep track of all of them and names, birthdates, phone numbers, etc. but also because of my negative experience throughout school.

Now, fast forward to age 26. I still smoke tobacco, and continue to (and will never stop) smoke marijuana. It helped me EVERY time. In fact it was the only thing I could credit to making me happy, and fixing my problems. Anyways, I feel like I was “left behind” by everyone in highschool, considering no one wanted to be friends (so I assumed because of the tormenting) with me. Because of that, I never asked girls out…. I never made friends… I never learned to be “social” like everyone else. I always kept to myself (and continue to do so). I kept everything, and I mean _EVERYTHING_ inside. Nothing came out of my head, everything potentially embarrassing or saddening was locked permanently into my brain. I locked my mind down tighter than fort knox or alcatraz, and because of this I can’t speak out. I rarely speak up for myself or defend myself, and when I try defending myself verbally, I mess up and make things worse. Either by saying something stupid, or wrong.

I have only had 1 girlfriend (yes, at age 26 I have a total score of 1). The only reason we met was because my Mom forced me to go to church, where I met her. She was a foster child, in a home in which I did make a few friends, because I felt bad they were there in the first place, and figured they would be  a little better match for a “friend”. Anyways, two other girls that were friends of mine basically hooked us up. We were on and off for a while lasting only a week or two (if that) and the last time we went out only lasted 4 months. She then slept with a friend of my brothers, who was indirectly a friend (not close) of mine. After that I was hurt so much, and ended up cutting her out of my life entirely. I never spoke to her at all. It was as if I had dropped off the face of the earth (to her). FYI, we only slept together  3 times, in the 3-4 months we were together. It was hard for me to initiate anything with a girl, making out, sex, hell, even a conversation was hard for me.

Now, I am not able to speak to girls, and the hotter they are the more shy and quiet I get. For a while I could hardly even look directly at one. Then I was able to look at girls, but as soon as they or someone noticed I would look away.This led me to become very lonely, because I was avoiding making friends & girlfriends. Hell recently, I started talking to my xgf, and I had to ask her if she was willing to try things again via a text message… I couldn’t even ask her… I started thinking things like “I will never get laid” and “I probably couldn’t even get my xgf in bed”. I now also cannot make direct eye contact with ANYONE for more than a split nano-second. This will be a problem if I ever go to court, but that’s the least of my problems. Nowadays, I believe I will die alone, and miserable. Unless of course, my xgf decides shes willing to try again and we last till I am dead (yeah right)…

Places with people make me anxious now, because of all the negative experiences in my life with people. I hardly go outside of my home, except for working, and the occasional time buying food. When I did go shopping, I would get anxious to get out of the store as soon as possible, without making eye contact with anyone or meeting anyone. If I talked to anyone it was just to get what I needed done, and that was it. Even places like McDonalds make me anxious, and it doesn’t help when it’s busy, and more so when its packed with hot girls.

To this day, despite of all the medication, treatment, and “courses” the hospital puts me through, its all the same. It doesn’t work.

I am going to end my story here. Although I did spend a few hours writing this rather than cutting myself, I can assure you it didn’t help much. It does feel a bit good to get my life story off my chest but I can assure you all my condition has not changed for the better or gone away.

And to anyone who made it to this line, thank you for reading, and caring. Once again I am so sorry for the length of the story.

SYOTOS
~kthx