I'm not sure I belong here

[arghh]

But Hi anyway.

I've tried initiating positive changes in me for years and nothing has worked. I've told myself that I'm just lazy that I can change whenever I want to, but it's long past the point where I realize that either I'm too lazy to deserve to be saved or there's a legitimate problem that I am unable to conquer on my own. Parts of me seem to be getting better, only slowly though. I've still a lack of energy, lack of motivation. I used to love to draw, used to have more memory and more creativity too but now I just feel dumb and slow.

I don't really know if I enjoy my art any more. Nothing I do seems good enough, I cry at the drop of a hat, I am stupidly sensitive and afraid of all human contact. I feel secretly judged for failing so many things in life and I feel like nothing will improve or get better. I've had several moments where I felt like suicide would be the only answer, but I couldn't do that to my parents and a part of me is too afraid to end my life too.

I avoid everything in my life because i'm afraid and I just feel like I'm falling into this hole of my own making and that I don't belong here because I don't deserve to be helped like everyone else. Because I feel like I'm just a terrible person who has made all the wrong choices and deserve the results. Because maybe it's not that I have a true problem but that I'm just...incapable of changing.

This was super ranty and heavy for a intro post. I'm really sorry, but I feel like I'm too old to be struggling with this...and that if things don't change soon...there might not be any real point in trying to change. I feel like I'll be alone soon. I feel like everyone will leave me because they'll realize just how pathetic I am. How helpless and hopeless and useless and pointless.

[windlepoons]

Have you considered that you may have Social Anxiety?
You do deserve help, and I hope that you get help and support here to allow you to become happier.
Perhaps you could try being less harsh with yourself, it seems you judge yourself negatively?

[jimk]

Hello Arghh.. A warm welcome..you fit here well.. Many others have same problems and feelings.. Means we sort of in this all together.. Sounds like you are fighting a very real case of depression.. Have you tried professional mental health help and meds yet???

If not I highly recommend it.. Has helped me a ton and most days have some ok times.. Please look around the website.. Lots of forums for just about any subject and chat rooms usually have someone there..

Try to keep talking now that you have started..get any questions please let us know..take care, Jim

[total eclipse]

Hi hun i can relate toyour post i too used to love art poetry but all went away with my depression I hope you hun get some help ok to crawl out of the darkness y our in.
One cannot fight it alone hun talk to you doctor ok it takes strength hun to reach out for help like you are doing now hugs

[arghh]

Thanks for the support...I do realize I have Social Anxiety. I don't remember when it's gotten so bad. I remember being shy every since I was young, but I don't remember it ever being quite this bad. It got worse during college, but easier to delude myself when I had a close friend around but now I'm with family and I can't trust myself around them. I've tried suicide when I was much younger, I don't remember why, I just remember feeling acute despair and I most likely wanted some positive attention from my mother at the time. It was the usual teenage drama, so I wrote it off as something stupid. And then in college, much of my last two years were filled with fantasies of killing myself and ending it all. I used to spend time staring longingly at a bridge at a distance because I wanted it to be that exact bridge I jumped off of, if ever. I used to speak to my close friend of wanting to end myself and she used to agree with me...but I never felt that she was serious in a way I was. I have this feeling that if she had truly agreed with me, I'd have done it then.

I've always wanted to ask for professional help...but I just couldn't figure out a way I could. I've told my mother many times that I've wanted to see a professional, that I've had so many thoughts of wanting to kill myself before, but it's only made her angry. She'd lashed out (in what I know was fear, logically I understand her reactions) and told me how ungrateful I am and how I just take and take and never give back... and that I run from everything. Honestly, the only reason why I haven't resorted to suicide is that I hate the idea of proving everyone right and truly running away from everything in a way I can't take back. But I'm so miserable. I can't talk to anyone who won't tell me that I'm being dumb, that I'm not trying hard enough. I've had my close relatives gather together many times to discuss what an utter failure I am under the guise of concern one to many times. I feel so emotionally raw and vulnerable. My brother told me just last night that I was a pathetic human being and I couldn't say anything in return because I knew in my gut that he was right. I've snapped awake and took a look at what I am and I hate what I see so much and I don't know how to ask anyone for help because I'm utterly helpless and ashamed and too old to rely on people so much but I can't even survive a dumb job interview because of my anxiety. I come off pathetic and weak and incapable and unconfident because I wear my emotions on my sleeve. If not that I come off apathetic and uninvolved, and truly uncaring of everything.

Anyway. I'm sorry, I just have a lot I've kept in me and they keep coming out as I type them and I want to get help but I don't think I can afford anything and I'm truly afraid that the doctor would only tell me what I fear in that I'm truly beyond repair because this isn't an actual depression issue. Or a social anxiety issue. That I'm just this broken because it's my fault and the results of my choices. That I'm stuck with whatever I have for the rest of my life. I don't know what I should do. I don't know what anyone can do for me. I'm just so afraid of everything at this point that I'm constantly using words such as coward and pathetic and useless to describe myself but it's not that I don't want to change. I want to live healthy and confident and happy for a change but everyone thinks I'm doing this to myself because I want to.

I don't mean to come off all whiny and ungrateful though. This was probably too heavy for a welcome thread, but thank you for the kind reception all the same.

[windlepoons]

I relate to a lot of what you wrote arghh. I would like to recommend 'Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness' by Gillian Butler. It really did help me.

Please stop using those words to describe yourself, no matter how much you think they are justified they are unhelpful.

[scromlette]

arghh,

I understand what you mean about not being able to ask for help. There are times when I can just absolutely lose it and I know I need help to get through, I get as far as looking up a doctor or calling somewhere to find out my options, but at the last second, I rationalize that I don't really need help, or that there's nothing wrong with me, etc, etc, etc. But if you are able to finish the steps I never could, try to be open about it and realize it may take a few tries to find the right fit.

You said in your post "Honestly, the only reason why I haven't resorted to suicide is that I hate the idea of proving everyone right and truly running away from everything in a way I can't take back." And I hate to say it, but if this keeps you from an attempt then hold on to it. But maybe change the words a bit. How about "Honestly, the only reason why I haven't resorted to suicide is that I hate the idea of proving my insecurities right and truly running away from everything and any goodness that may come my way in a way I can't take back."

Is your av some of your work? If so, it's quite beautiful. If you have lost passion in art it's because of the disorder, not because of a lack of talent.