I can be miserable all day, but it’s only at night that I’m really forced to stew in my unhappiness. I don’t have any energy left to avoid or deflect or distract myself. I need to sleep. I can’t sleep. So I’m stuck with this lingering ache, this longing to not be alone anymore. It’s at the core of all my unhappiness, but I can’t connect. I can’t trust other people. I don’t like other people. Being around others forces me to confront how much I hate myself.
It’s insane how much a simple thing can come to dominate your experience of life. Things are fundamentally not ok, because I am alone. I am an evolutionary dead end. I am vulnerable. I am isolated. I am the lone wolf who starves during winter.
I want to feel some kind of connection to somebody, but I can’t. I can’t let anyone in, ever. No one can be allowed to see how disgusting and worthless I truly am. And no one could stand to be around me if they did see. I am fundamentally unacceptable.
So many fucking years of my life I’ve wasted this way. It’s weird to contemplate what life might be like not feeling this alone all the time.
The idea of freedom from these burdens seems ever more appealing, even if the freedom only lasted for a minute before death. To be a person again, without the dark shit constantly weighing on my mind… the relief of not having to carry that anymore. That seems nice.
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You are not alone. I have dark shit running through my mind too sometimes. *REALLY* dark shit. So dark, in fact, that I had to ask my therapist about the reporting policies before I told her, because some of the things…well. I imagine I don’t have to get too far into it with you. You sound pretty similar to me.
I have a general distaste for people, but the people here on this website have been nothing but kind and supportive. Even you have helped me before, Husk. I’m sure of it.
The fact that this place is here is evidence that there are plenty of other people in the world who feel the same way. There are apps for making friends, similar in operation to dating apps. Maybe trying by something like that could help you find an in-person friend. Until then, don’t stop coming here. I don’t always have the best things to say, but but I’ll give you my very best, because I genuinely want to help.
Thanks dude, I appreciate that. That’s brave of you to explore that stuff with your therapist, I hope she can help you with it.
I think my problem with friendships is I have trouble feeling a sense of meaningful attachment. Because I feel that if they knew the truth about me I would be rejected, I tend to keep people at an emotional distance. I might go through the motions of friendship, but even when I’m around people I feel just as alone. I might hug someone, but I don’t really feel the warmth of acceptance.
I should probably try to make new contacts though, to at least give myself the illusion of a social life. My social anxiety makes it seem pretty daunting though. I had thought about joining a social anxiety group as a low pressure way of meeting people, but I live in an isolated rural area and the nearest group seemed like it never actually did anything.
I’m sure I won’t stop coming here, because this is where I bring all the feelings I don’t know how to deal with. I recite them into the void, and sometimes the void answers back with encouraging comments or useful advice, which is nice. But either way, just saying something into a space where someone might be listening is a way of processing things and getting them out of my head for a while.
Night is worse for me too, even with my sleep meds I must still endure at least five hours of dark depression. Right now I can’t even do my go to, video games, because my eyes hurt so bad it has become the center of my existence.
I don’t hate people in general, but I also don’t trust them. I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me so many times, people so often promise kindness and deliver cruelty. Maybe that’s the comfort us outcasts can have, can you imagine the insanity of believing the system works? that there is some social contract that if you abide by you’ll be successful? Poor rubes, I hope they never find out what I know.
My current solution is to attempt to cease to interact with reality. I plan to create a fantasy world so compelling it is impossible to pull me back out. That way, my body lives, I’m not breaking any rules, but perhaps I can be free. Perhaps, even myself I distrust.
If you can manage to consistently convince yourself of your fantasy that would be pretty impressive. I’m afraid a small part of my brain insists on undermining any pleasant fiction I construct.
There’s a saying I once heard: “Never trust any decisions you make after 10 pm.”
Life sucks and we feel it 24 hours a day, but something about nighttime amplifies the suck. Think of it, suppose it’s 2 in the afternoon on a warm sunny day, outside you can hear the faint bustle of activity, neighbors mowing their lawn, whatever. You can be alone in the middle of this but it can be a comfortable sort of alone. It’s as if you’re insulated.
But come nightfall, everything goes black, silent, cold. People scurry off to their various loved ones for warmth and companionship and suddenly you realize you have nothing. Not even the sound of your neighbor’s lawn mower to keep you company. Yes these are the times we feel like a total waste, regrets pile on regrets, and the pain is unbearable. I wonder if anyone ever did a study on what time of day most suicides happen.
Add insomnia to the mess and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. Or a recipe for freedom? I dunno. It’s well past 10 pm where I am, and I’ve already made a cascade of bad decisions tonight. It feels like suicide is the only rational thought left.
Yes, maybe partly it’s the realization you have no one to hold you or look out for you during the long hours of cold and howling wolves (or screeching foxes in my safe 21st century bubble.) And suddenly the question “what the fuck have I done with my life” seems very pressing.
Hope your bad decisions are relatively reversible. I made it through to 10am here, think I got a whole hour of sleep to last me through the 8 hours worth of work I have ahead.
When I’m awake in the middle of the night, if I really can’t sleep, I do other things to distract the mind. Do you write? Play video games? Maybe find a youtube channel based on something you like personally? Distracting myself tends to help keep the bad thoughts away when I’m alone.
Sleep issues, depending on the severity though, may require OTC meds or a machine, depending on your specific situation. Sometimes, it’s as simple as making your bed and room simply for sleeping, ie, no blue lights in the night, don’t work or eat on your bed, etc. Hopefully something here helps.
Your friend,
Trey, the mindless gamer
Thanks for the tips. Distraction is good up to a point, but when I get tired enough it becomes impossible. I tend to only write about stuff that troubles me (like I do here.) I like video games but they require a level of concentration to enjoy and I find playing aggravates my back problems. I watch a fair bit of youtube & twitch but there’s a limited amount of stuff I actually find interesting.
I do take OTC pills, but they lose effectiveness the more often I take them, and they leave me drowsy the next day. What kind of machine are you referring to? I’ve tried to focus a lot on routine and sleep hygiene stuff (blue light etc.) in the past, but never really found it made much difference.
CPAP machine, but that’s more breathing problems though.
Thanks, my bad decisions were nothing exceptional, just sort of a status quo of bad decisions in my continuing spiral. Sleep deprivation can really kill. I ended up getting about 2 hrs sleep which is a decent night for me. If you only got 1 hour that can come back to haunt you throughout the day (I think sleep experts say a full sleep cycle must be at least 90 mins, otherwise it’s pretty worthless).
It’s that question “what the fuck have I done with my life” that keeps getting louder every night isn’t it? Unfortunately it’s not the sort of thing that can be cured by ignoring it. Maybe the answer is to accept that it truly doesn’t matter? I don’t mean in a cynical way but I mean an honest, emotionless acceptance that life has no point so we might as well stop worrying. Hm, that sounds cynical no matter how you say it. Anyway good luck at work man
Hmmm, I suppose it only matters to the extent that it effects our experience (and those we’re involved with.) If you can maintain that kind of emotionless acceptance I think that would be pretty powerful, but I tend to degenerate towards my emotional animal self when the evening closes in. I think continuing to live in a purposeful way while truly accepting that life has no purpose would be a balance that would require a degree of wisdom I don’t yet possess.