How I feel today, sigh...
Hello everybody
I'm at home in front of my PC while my cousin is chatting to my brother in another room. I'm sitting here feeling like an outcast with extreme anxiety expecting one of them to come and talk to me.
Here's my story:
I'm 22 and today found out that I suffer from a social phobia. I've always expected something was wrong but when someone in the profession tells you then it REALLY HITS YOU.
You see, I'm 22 and have always been the cool guy (by just being myself i.e. without impressions) and throughout Primary School and the beginning of High School, people naturally liked me because I WAS MYSELF ALL THE TIME.
For example, I grew up listening to metal, rock etc... when everyone listened to hip-hop and rnb. However, I was part of the minority but I didn't feel like an outcast at all in fact, I ended up making people like the music! And friends came in numbers!
I ran 100m, 200m and did long jump for 5 years, played soccer for 7 years and did Capoeira for 2 years while being graded as well. However, it all started changing in grade 8.
In grade 8, I started doing drugs everyday (at school and after) as well as drinking at school with a group of friends. I liked the feeling (don't get me wrong) but the more I did it, unconsciously I became...less of ME and started becoming a different person - the person I am now and wish I had never become (the uncool introvert). I ended up quiting the soccer team, quiting the athletics team and quiting the Capoeira team and being kicked out of school.
And I am now so sad because if I had not excessively done drugs, I WOULD have made the South African (SA) national team in soccer, made the provincial team (or state as you would call it) in athletics, been of the first group in SA to have been graded in the art of Capoeira (which I am now but could have gone further) and it goes on... Living with this is a nagging regret and frustration.
I'm so angry with myself because I have/had the talent to become what other people dream of becoming...without being much of an effort for me - It came naturally to me to excel at everything I do and people generally looked up to me as a role model, even people older than me.
Now...the confident, bright, vibrant young person that walked the right path, did the right thing and basically lead from the front, is the total opposite.
I'm now one of the people that looked up to the "healthy" me, wishing that they could be like me but knowing or thinking that they could never. It's funny because ... I am that person and am now looking up to the "good" me, hoping one day I could be like that person.
