shut_out_of_life said:
I haven't had a social life for the last 21 years. I haven't had a single friend since the age of sixteen. My social phobia has completely destroyed my life - I don't have a college education, I can't drive a car, I have no skills or talents, I've never been in a romantic relationship - I've never even had any physical contact with a woman, I have a pathetic work history, my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) has written me off - they pretend like I never existed, my immediate family (parents and siblings) ignore me completely, I have severe depression (I think it's exogenous depression), I'm saddled with a mental health history - it's a major stigma, and I only leave my apartment once every two weeks or so to go to a worthless talk therapy session. Now that I'm in my late thirties (37), what little hope I had when I was younger is gone.
I have an older brother who turned out just like me and two "old maid" sisters who have never dated. Looking at the way my siblings turned out, I feel like I never had a chance to have a worthwhile, normal life. I don't know any other families where all the children ended up never having sexual relationships. All of my siblings are depressed and none of them have benfitted from therapy and/or medication.
The only people who will have anything to do with me are mental health case workers who get paid for every single minute they're around me. The case workers repeatedly make light of my social anxiety disorder and tell me that they've known women who were raped so my problem can't begin to compare to the trauma of people who have "really" suffered.
I only ever had one caseworker who did take my problem seriously. Back in the mid-nineties, this caseworker tried to get me an appointment with a trauma therapist because she said I exhibited symptoms of someone who was suffering from PTSD. The trauma therapist spoke with my caseworker and agreed that I sounded like I had PTSD. But when my case worker tried to get me a referral, she was turned down by her boss because the costly trauma therapist was needed for "real" trauma cases like rape victims. So that was the one and only time I had someone look into finding a specialized treatment for me.
I was physically beaten up many times throughout my elementary and junior high school years. I was also constantly insulted and ostracized by all my school peers. But according to most of my caseworkers, I never had a truly traumatic experience - its seems you need to be a rape victim, combat veteran, or cancer survivor to be a "true" PTSD case.
I know I was a completely different person before the non-stop bullying and social exclusion of my school years. I think my developing brain was flooded with stress hormones and permanently damaged during my childhood and early teens. My older brother was bullied and ostracized just like I was and he turned out the same way.
I'm sick of social phobia being seen as an insignificant problem. I've been around rape victims and every rape victim I've known has been more confident and higher functioning than me. They all had husbands and boyfriends, they could all laugh, they all had jobs, and they all had active social lives. Most of the rape victims went on to start families with their husbands.
Who is worse off, a person who suffers a traumatic experience like rape but still goes on to have a normal life with a spouse and children, or a person who is a social outcast in his teens and remains involuntarily single and alone for his entire life, while all the normal people label him a loser and a freak?
I've been told I'm a horrible person because I think the involuntary life-long social isolate has it worse than most other people. The few loner geeks I know have terrible lives compared to all the well-rounded, socially normal people.
I really wish I was dead. If I wasn't a coward, I would have killed myself a long time ago. I've been around too many failed suicides during my hospitalizations for depression. After seeing the brain damage, physical disfigurement, and chronic pain suffered by the failed suicides, I'm afraid to make an attempt myself.
I should be dead. My life's been over for over twenty years.
Hi friend. I'm only 18 so don't take my advice for holy words but, this is all I can think of:
Get a hobby. Get a time-consuming job (if you'd rather not deal with people, maybe something mechanized, factory work or something). Whatever you do, do NOT keep staying in your apartment. The only way to end the state you are in is to busy yourself with anything, even if it seems like bullshit. Learn martial arts, learn to play an instrument and take private lessons. Join some organization, political, charity, whatever. Just be a part of SOMETHING. End your therapy sessions because they appear worthless. Go to a university; where I go there are a whole group of people in their 40s attending, who keep to themselves but hey- better than nothing. Try moving to a big city. You'll be surprised; I'm probably as lonely as you, albeit younger; you take a stroll through Washington Square Park at night, and you'll find yourself making friends with dozens of random men and women, all the same age as you, or younger, or older, all drunk, happy, open, willing to listen- a better therapy than the therapists you describe. If you keep yourself busy something will have to happen. You will end up getting to know someone. I know a guy who met his to-be-wife when he was 40 because she and he were shopping at the same flea market and found some album they both wanted, and they were both single and lonely, and now they're a relatively happy couple. Don't let anyone tell you it will last like this forever. Just please listen and keep yourself busy as hell, constantly doing some chore, some job, some work, some favor. Things happen from there. As far as parties and that sort of thing- I too avoid situations designed for socialization, but it's better to at least be visible than hide in your home.
I was bullied up until 3rd grade. During middle school I had a female bully, who actually liked me, but her form of liking me was controlling me, making fun of me, embarrassing me at every oppurtunity, and treating me like I was scum at her heel. And since I was so terrified of fighting back, I have major problems right now; I can't be in a healthy relationship unless I feel like I'm being exploited or am submissive in some way. Bullying can really **** up the mind in horrific ways, and it has its effect on all of us. I haven't been able to cure myself so I doubt you will, but people are more mature at your age, at my age...try to at least mitigate feelings of dread.
shut_out_of_life said:
Zipper said:
Where do you think the sexual anxiety comes from? Have women made you anxious? How did your parents raise you to relate to women? What did they teach you about relations between the genders?
I got put down by my female classmates throughout my teenage years. I ended up becoming self-conscious about my physical appearance because of their insults. Now, I can't stand to look in the mirror, and I haven't had my picture taken in years. Approaching a woman to ask for a date is the most nerve-grinding thing I can think of. I have no doubt that I would get turned down every single time.
If a young male hasn't started dating and kissing by his mid-teens, he quickly falls behind socially, while his peers leave him behind in the dust. Most high school and college girls hate inexperienced "geeks," so it's next to impossible for an introverted late-bloomer to get a girlfriend by his later teens.
The situation only gets worse after high school/college. Once a man hits his mid-twenties without having so much as kissed a girl, no female will have anything to do with him. He gets labeled a creep by all the geek-hating female snobs.
CREEP is the word most snobbish women use to dehumanize timid, introverted males.
I just want you to know I'm pretty much the poster-boy for everything in this post. I'm in my late-teens, no experience in mid-teens- left behind in the dust by friends, everything. Hell, my roomate's girlfriend is in the room 10 steps from me. She gives me looks of disgust. Most girls give me those looks. The only ones who don't are the homeless girls I hang out with on some nights. Every *pretty* girl I pass by, even when I'm not looking directly at them, making any comment, or doing anything disrespectful, make this sort of facial twitch like a demon just groped them.
I fear I'm heading down that path you laid out so well. So hey- there's many of us you know...we just come from the depths...so we're not seen as often. We're specters
All I really want to secure for myself is a kid. If women still treat me like dirt by the time I'm your age, I'll get a mail-order bride. When she cheats on me, I'll divorce her, and the kids are going to be with me, and I'm going to do everything I can to prevent them from coming to my psychological state when they reach their late teens.
Wow, two posts and I feel like you're my kin!