Lost...isolated...and afraid

[dwightc]

I- I've been feeling isolated lately. Really, really isolated. Maybe it started when I told my dad who I really was. I don't know... I feel alone, afraid and scared. This feeling of being gay... is tearing me to shreds. I'm always alone, I purposely shut out everyone around me. I feel alone in an empty cave everyday. Dark, but sometimes a day will come when I'll light the torch and see little light around me, but it'll never last long; as I'm back to feeling isolated. I feel like I don't fit in, nobody likes me, nobody will ever like me. I hate looking at myself. Anytime I see myself in the mirror, I cry. Because I'm so ugly. I don't even look at myself anymore. I refer to my reflection as the darker half. Just a shadow, filled with hatred and sorrow. I feel like I'm not worthy of being gay.
Confusing. I guess that ties in with the hatred everyone feels towards me. I feel weaker for not succeeding in killing myself; when I tried sleeping on a bed of knives.

Even sillier when I say it. I have no social skills; I can't talk to anyone, nobody wants to bother listening to me, nor would they care. I feel like a ghost with no spirit. Just floating around plaguing the world everyday as I exist. I don't enjoy anything in life. I just hate myself in everyday. I write long stories of how pointless, useless and horrible I am and how the world is in such a disaster because I'm alive. And the only way for that disaster to end, is if I leave this mortal coil. But there's something keeping me alive. Is there someone there that would care?

[ceez]

you are not alone, sometimes I feel the same way but for me it usually doesn't stick around for long. have you tried professional help or talking about it with other people? I feel like I'm not being much help but hopefully others will join in. please stick around and post more, there are some great people on this forum.

[dwightc]

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.

[IanSaysHi]

Have to say, you write well. Very descriptive. Maybe keep venting these emotions into writing because you seem to have the ability.

I was the same when I was a little younger than you, however I also had a sense of humour that got me through. I had to take little baby steps in making friends; because of my horrible time at school I'd not built the best set of social skills so I had to test what was appropriate and inappropriate to say around the various people who started to enter my life.

Work was a major factor in getting me out of my shell; I find that the right job means you can meet new people, make friends and if you put in enough hard work you'll get back some appreciation and validation which it sounds like you need. People will often say "yeah but my job sucks and no-one there likes me and bla bla bla" - you just have to find the right one.

My main point is - baby steps. Celebrate the smallest wins. Keep a diary or some way to vent these negative feelings. Coming here will help, they're a good bunch

[Insertnamehere]

I say that you're enveloped in a cloud of foggy negative feelings and to adress the problems you seem to have you need to start deconstructing them. Divide and conquer.


First, adress the conceptions you have about being gay:

"the feeling of it"? There's only attraction to the same gender and that's about the only thing that defines being"gay".

I assume you mean how you feel about your sexuality. Does it cause you anxiety? That would be normal. But whatever your feelings about it you will have to come to terms with it. It's out of your control. The sooner you accept that the sooner it will stop being a problem for you.

"worthy of being gay"? Being gay is not an accomplishment and no one hands it to you so it has nothing to do with your personal traits. It's there and that's that.


Lack of social skills, feeling isolated? More common than you think. And the thing is, it's ok. You don't have to play everyone else's game. I don't.

You self-perception is damaged. You think you're ugly. I bet that more than one guy out there will think otherwise. While no one can be attractive to every single person, we often see ourselves in a worse light than others do. I certainly do.


So, you summarized a handful of things that are negative. How about we do this? Why don't you continue your introduction to us by telling us positive aspects about yourself. Things you're proud of, things you've achieved. Focus on those and handling the negative aspects of your life will be easier.

That is, of course, if you are interested in doing that. You have to want to get out of this negative streak and seek better things for yourself. You have to want to help yourself first.

[dwightc]

Feels like nightmare with no end. A nightmare where each monster is a negative aspect of myself. Morphed into some hideous creature. My sexuality causes too much anxiety. If I think about it too much I sometimes go into denial, sometimes I'll hit myself repeated until my mind is blank, or I'll just sit there and sink into a pool of despair. I want to accept it, but the monsters forced around me think otherwise. Even one threaten to punch me in the chest until I decide to be a man. :'( Worthy of being gay: I always thought that being so ugly meant you couldn't even be gay. I always believed being ugly is not welcome in the gay community.
Social skills; everyday I shut everyone out. sometimes, the only little ray of sun shine that peaks at me is when I'm all alone. Writing these stories about the darker half and I. The Darker Half would constantly tear me down with hurtful words, and would summon monsters to kill me, and I'm always fighting back all RPG style, but can't ever seem to defeat the darkness. What's the point in fighting a battle you can't win?
I have a strong feeling no one out there thinks I'm not ugly. Yesterday I went out for a walk and it feels like everyone's staring at my ugliness. Talking about it and avoiding me as much as possible. Anytime I try to talk to someone I feel the resistant.
I've never said anything positive about myself because there's nothing positive to say. I've tried to look back and remember something positive; nothing comes to mind. I mean, writing a bunch of lengthy stories is positive? Okay.

[kindy64]

Baby, you sound like I did when I was your age. Being bisexual I got to feel rejected by women, and to frightened to even think about asking a guy.

The dark monsters in your head aren't you, they sound just like some of my demons in my head
The worst has always been one that sounds like a drill sergeant from hell, always yelling at me how worthless I was.

All signs of my depression.

Don't feel like you're all alone, there are plenty of people who have similar backgrounds. There are people here who truly want to help.

[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.

[dwightc]

I guess its safe to say, I want to be alone. I can't connect with people in this world. Things were better when I was quiet, but now that I've spoken out, it feels like a constant pain all over. Like have something worse to worry about. There was the reason I was so hesitate about saying anything here. I new it wasn't right for me to do it, knowing I wasn't going to take the advice. I know, stubborn I am. Everyone is so confident and comfortable who they are. I'll never feel that way. I must wait for the worst to happen before any "change" may happen.

I am sorry for wasting your, and everyone else's time, you all gave so much good advice and I refused to take it. Shameful for I to do so, but I have thing of doing that.

[MikeW]

I guess its safe to say, I want to be alone. I can't connect with people in this world. Things were better when I was quiet, but now that I've spoken out, it feels like a constant pain all over. Like have something worse to worry about. There was the reason I was so hesitate about saying anything here. I new it wasn't right for me to do it, knowing I wasn't going to take the advice. I know, stubborn I am. Everyone is so confident and comfortable who they are. I'll never feel that way. I must wait for the worst to happen before any "change" may happen.

I am sorry for wasting your, and everyone else's time, you all gave so much good advice and I refused to take it. Shameful for I to do so, but I have thing of doing that.

OK, well, w/e. It is YOUR life after all. Shame to waste it. LOL... like you think you'll get another one?

Not likely.

The way I figure it is like this:

As crazy as it seems, there is a sort of REASON we are born into our lives. IDK how it works exactly. I don't like the idea of "fate" or "karma" or even "soul" for that matter. I don't believe that's it.

I think it is something far weirder. Something more along the lines of quantum entanglement. Basically it boils down to this: We're born into the universe and 'recreate' the universe through our perceptions of it. The universe we experience exists to us as long as we do. When we're gone, 'it' is gone. But of course, not exactly. It goes on in the lives of all the other 'idiots' that exist (wherever, whenever they may be in the whole big fucking universe). The universe they experience is both the same and not the same as the one we do. So it goes on but we know nothing about that. To us it is no more because WE are no more.

And then it happens. We're re-born and the universe exists. Why? Because ONCE it has had the existential audacity TO exist, it cannot NOT exist. Every moment is, in a sense, eternal.

And as weird as that is, that isn't all there is to it because its existence isn't limited by time and space. IOW, there are an infinite number of parallel universes with "ME" in them... precisely because THAT universe can not exist without ME in it to give it its absoluteness of BEING EXPERIENCED. Without that 'experiencing', for all intents and purposes, it does't exist at all.

BUT because it DOES exist it can not ever NOT exist.

I don't know if you follow that.

So... lets say I stick a gun in my mouth and blow my brains out. My best friend did that a few years ago, BTW. Really pissed me the fuck off... but that's another story.

The way I look at it is, If I DO that, then, well, nothing really happens. Yeah that "me" and that "universe" I was aware of is gone. BUT... because there are infinite parallel universes, I STILL exist.... and... all the things that make me, ME... which has to include all the pain and angst <<< (be sure to look up if you aren't familiar with the concept)... pain and angst that I identify with as being MY OWN. My own personal hell on Earth.

Bottom line, as an exit strategy, Suicide does NOT work. I pull the trigger but as soon as I do the whole thing is set to GO again. That little sperm gets shot out of my daddies pecker, fertilizes my mother's egg... and the whole damn phylogeny recapitulating phylogeny starts all over again. Remember, because it has existed, it cannot not exist.



So... what that means is, you HAVE to change it at some point. NOT doing so isn't even an option. You have to. Why? BECAUSE that IS the only way "out". CHANGING YOUR REALITY really is the only way to change your reality. You can't just turn it off like a light switch or a TV show. It's always "ON". It isn't even up to some nonexistent god-like being to change our reality. It's all up to YOU and I. US.

So. W/e. You come, you go. Someone else takes your place. IT goes on. IT GOES ON... as the Beatles once said: Within you and Without you:

(PUT YOUR EAR BUDS IN OR YOUR HEAD PHONES ON AND TURN IT UP, WAY UP! YOU AREN'T GOING TO WANT TO MISS THIS!)