Lost...isolated...and afraid

[MikeW]

have you tried professional help

anytime I hear this, I feel like I'm crazy and insane. Which I probably am. I'll admit, I've done some insane retarded things before because of this. Like trying to cast black magic to kill myself. See? crazy. Yeah I know what you're thinking insane loony bastard. This explains my lack of social skills now.

I can't describe how I feel right now :'( A part of me wants to look up and crawl to the other side of the light that shines and go too it, but the rest of me wants to remain in the darkness, wondering if this is just a mask.
Are you sure people will like me if I try to come out? I mean, I know I'm the worst person alive. I've tried to be a social and talk with people, after a few moments they realize I'm not the person they'd like to to keep in contact with. Something about me makes me unwanted to everyone. I've narrowed it down to two things: Gay
appearance. Maybe the to just don't match. I do't know for sure. All I know is that darker half always finds a way to pull me back into the darkness.

IDK... you're getting a ton of good advice here. I hope you listen. As others are saying, 1) you are not alone and 2) you're not the only gay young man who has gone through this or feels this way. I can name several I know personally... myself included. I was a very fucked-up and depressed kid. There's one 26yo who posts here occasionally that I've been online friends with for over a year now. He has several DIAGNOSED issues and when he gets negative he's very much like you. Inconsolable. Stuck. Feeling there is no way out except suicide.

Well, for someone your age, suicide should be THE very last option on your list of strategies for dealing with your pain. That's what this is all about. You're in intense psychological/emotional pain. This does NOT mean you are "crazy". And, no, we don't think you are, even if you may think you are... Crazy people aren't so articulate. Aren't so self-aware or judgmental. I tried to commit myself to an insane asylum once when I was a bit older than you. The Dr on duty that night said to me, "If you think you're crazy enough to belong here, you're not crazy enough to belong here." LOL!!

IDK your circumstances. I grew up on a farm in the mid-west (Indiana). A long time ago. I didn't even know there WERE other gay people (see the link in my signature about how I found out). It was a different era.

The world has changed a lot since then. Yet, in some ways, it hasn't changed at all.

You're right about one thing: Many gay men tend to be very superficial and judge other men solely on their appearance. The thing you need to try and understand though is this is not ALL gay men. Today with the internet we are so saturated with porn--and hunky 'gay for pay' guys getting it on with one another--that it is difficult for the average guy to believe he has a CHANCE.

Well, I'm here to tell you, you do. Does it matter how you look? Yeah. It does. That's an unfortunate fact. BUT the good news is a) it doesn't matter as much as you THINK it does and b) appearance is something that, to a much larger degree than most people believe, CAN be changed -- if you want to change it. There are limits of course. If you look like the elephant man, then, yeah, you have a problem. But even elephant men DO find lovers. That's because, ultimately, when you get right down to it, what people LOVE about us has little to do with our physical appearance.

What it DOES have a lot to do with, however, is our emotional *availability*. This may be a foreign concept to you. But if we're not OPEN to feeling love for someone and allowing them to feel love for us, then it is guaranteed NOT to happen. We make sure it doesn't.

I don't know you but I bet this is what's going on when you get to a place where you feel "unwanted". Yeah. Very likely you're setting up a situation where you WILL feel that way. Where you WILL be rejected.

There is so much here you don't understand yet. About yourself. You think you're ugly and a monster and this and that... none of it is real or true. Where does all this negativity come from? That's the question you need to begin asking yourself. WHO (or what) in you is telling you these lies? What are you actually afraid of?

I bet anything the truth would shock you. And it isn't what you are afraid MAY be true, that you are somehow an evil monster. I bet anything the TRUTH is you're AFRAID to let yourself feel your passion, your love, your joy, your happiness. The very idea is so alien to you it sounds like non-sense.

It isn't.

I can say this because once upon a time I, too, lived in my own private hell. Many of us here have. Some still do. I'm here to tell you you don't have to. You can stop it. Just stop it. Stop "talking" to yourself that way. I know. It isn't easy. It takes practice. But whenever those thoughts come up, just stop. Even if they go on, even if you can only stop them for an instant... that instant can grow to become a half second... and that can grow to become a full second... and so on and so forth.

It's brain function. It's laying down new pathways of thought in the brain. Discovering that it is actually possible to be free from our own self-hate and self-loathing.

It isn't easy. It doesn't come all at once. But it can happen. IF... BIG IF... you are willing to try and keep trying no matter how many times you fail.

Your life, and your happiness, depends on it.