What to do when you can’t talk to anyone

Before she left, I asked my psychiatrist what I should do when I feel like this. Like nothing can help me and all I want is an end to it all. I’ve got the number for the crisis team but seeing as how one of the main problems I have with my SA is a fear of making phone calls (even simple things like ordering a pizza are out of the question and when I’m forced into making one, it takes me a long time to psych myself up enough to do it and I spend hours obsessing over how foolish I must have sounded afterwards) I just can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t lay bare my dismal view of myself and how bad the future seems, knowing what a privileged life I have. I’m not beaten up by my parents, I have a roof over my head. What business do I have being this depressed?

I talk to some people that I know online, but I don’t want to burden them with the full extent of my suicidal mood. If I had the pills right now, I’d be taking them. There’s no way I can scare my mum by talking to her. She almost had a fit and made me come back from university the last time the subject was even mentioned.

There’s a big link between social anxiety/phobia and depression, it’s easy to become depressed when you have no contact with other humans, and it’s even easier to lose hope when it seems you have no-one to help you when times are hard. I’m not even sure I want to be helped though, I just want an escape.

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What to do when you can't talk to anyone

Before she left, I asked my psychiatrist what I should do when I feel like this. Like nothing can help me and all I want is an end to it all. I’ve got the number for the crisis team but seeing as how one of the main problems I have with my SA is a fear of making phone calls (even simple things like ordering a pizza are out of the question and when I’m forced into making one, it takes me a long time to psych myself up enough to do it and I spend hours obsessing over how foolish I must have sounded afterwards) I just can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t lay bare my dismal view of myself and how bad the future seems, knowing what a privileged life I have. I’m not beaten up by my parents, I have a roof over my head. What business do I have being this depressed?

I talk to some people that I know online, but I don’t want to burden them with the full extent of my suicidal mood. If I had the pills right now, I’d be taking them. There’s no way I can scare my mum by talking to her. She almost had a fit and made me come back from university the last time the subject was even mentioned.

There’s a big link between social anxiety/phobia and depression, it’s easy to become depressed when you have no contact with other humans, and it’s even easier to lose hope when it seems you have no-one to help you when times are hard. I’m not even sure I want to be helped though, I just want an escape.

Loner

I’ve been arguing with my family again; I don’t know how they can ignore the fact that I am not the kind of person people want to know or be friends with, despite all the evidence that supports it. I know it’s hard for them to know what to do, deep down I think they know I am a weirdo and people won’t want to know me, but they don’t know what to do about it so they just keep lying to themselves and me.

People can’t read minds, all they know about you is what you say to them and I can’t say anything. I am totally useless at communicating with people in person. The only reason I have any of my online friends is because we spoke online first. For someone who only spoke to me in real life, I might as well be a robot because I can’t and don’t give anything away about myself.

I have no idea what a person who has no friends or acquaintances can do to make friends here, I’ve tried the clubs/socieites but people already have friends there. I don’t think there is anything, everyone else already knows people so they can go places together and not look weird. Nobody wants a creepy loner to come up to them, especially someone as socially awkward as me, that is a fact that has been proven by my experiences over and over again.

I don’t know whether it’s because I just started the higher dose of my meds and it can have this effect but I really feel slashing my wrists at the moment.

Deterioration

I’ve been feeling awful for the past week, I mean really bad – I’ve been planning my suicide seriously. As my university start date gets closer I can’t help thinking about what a disaster it will be if I decide to go. I’m going to struggle for money because I’m having to pay all of the tuition fee myself since they wouldn’t give me a loan for it. I did plan on getting a job as soon as I get there but given how hard it’s been for me to even be considered for an interview over the past 18 months, I wouldn’t hold out too much hope. Then there’s all the other social stuff, I don’t know if I can handle rejection and being a laughing stock to everyone again, I’ve had enough of that at school and work. The course itself is going to be hard, but that’s really the least of my worries.

My life will not be worth living if I can’t get a degree, I’ve already decided that I’m not carrying on living if I can’t go to university now. I cannot stand another year of this, it would be too much. I told someone this, and they said why am I not doing everything I can to get help and go to uni then? The truth is, like I said in my previous post, I truly hate myself and I don’t think that my life is going to turn out any different from the horrible drudgery that it has been for the past 20 years.

Always being alone and unwanted by anyone is a difficult existence. It infuriates me when I hear people say things like “I’ve been single for months now” as if they should be pitied. I have never been loved or found attractive by anyone, I find it hard to pity others when I am fundamentally disgusting and unloveable myself. I’ve never known the happiness of having someone care for me and having someone to care about, I haven’t even ever held a girls hand, let alone kissed anyone. Pretty pathetic for a 23 year old and I doubt things are going to get better, I simply become more of a freak with each passing day.

I don’t want to be saved, and I don’t understand why people insist that I should try to prolong this miserable existence for as long as I can. There is nothing to look forward to except more disappointment. Disappointing my parents with my failures, constant isolation, watching everyone else get on with life and having fun while I just sit here wishing to be dead.

I am a horribly bitter and jealous person now. I feel awful whenever I see people out with friends, and especially couples. It seems as though everyone has at least a little pleasure to look forward too no matter how hard their life is, at least they get to experience friendship and love. I know that I have things a thousand times better than most, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, but it is hard to feel happy when that is it. No living person outside my family cares whether I live or die, I have no experience of intimacy or sharing my thoughts with others. Most people would find it hard to imagine not having a single friend in their teenage or adult life so they probably can’t understand how crushing the loneliness is for me. I recently made a poll on an SA forum that I visit, and even compared to other SA sufferers, I am in the extreme minority because I have gone out to places with people (besides family) less than 5 times since I was 13. Someone there even made fun of me because of it, even to other socially anxious people I am a target for mockery because of my social inadequacy.

Tonight might be the night it all ends, I haven’t decided for sure yet. I’ll have to wait until my mum goes out anyway. Time to finish those notes.

Reality Sinking In

I got my university accommodation contract to sign this weekend and I have to phone up and pay my deposit tomorrow. This has brought home the reality of the situation to me, I will be leaving the house that I’ve lived in since 1991 and I thought I would probably waste away in. I am so scared about being on my own. I have not lived away from home before and I am starting to doubt how well I am going to cope. I really want to do this and get my degree, I don’t think I’d want to live if I drop out again, I’ll never have a third chance. 

An internet friend of mine told me that there will be other people there who aren’t into the whole partying and drunkenness thing like me, but I find it incredibly hard to believe. I can just envisage myself being an outcast because I don’t like that sort of thing, not to mention all my other shortcomings and weirdness. It seems like that is one of the main reasons people look forward to going to university for, and I am so worried about appearing stuck up or holier than thou for not wanting to be involved with that. I don’t look down on people or think I’m better than them (quite the opposite in fact) but from what I’ve read on the internet, non-drinkers are almost universally reviled.

Friendship

I wanted to write a bit about friendship for a while but didn’t really have any energy after hardly sleeping at all over the past few weeks. The last time I can remember having a proper friend, someone who I didn’t dread seeing in the street or hide when they came to the door, was when I was 11 years old. My next door neighbour and I used to hang out most days after school and during the holidays. We were both really into computers and I guess you could say, nerdy. We got on very well and had a good time playing out on the street with the other kids and spent probably longer than is healthy playing computer games together. He got me into adventure and strategy games which I still like today. 

Once I started at secondary school we drifted apart. I was often depressed because of the huge shock of being around so many horrible people and probably wasn’t very good company. I did attempt to become friends with him again later on but he didn’t really want to know. He basically blanked me if I ever said hello at school, most likely because he didn’t want to be associated with one of the biggest freaks in school. I haven’t spoke to him in years now even though he still lives next door when he isn’t at uni. I’ve looked at his Facebook page and he is completely different now. I should really stop doing that, it only depresses me to see how much people have changed and moved on in life whereas I am still the same pathetic loser that I have been for years. I had some so called “friends” in secondary school but as I have mentioned in previous posts, they were just about as horrible to me as the others who bullied me and I never wanted to see them if I didn’t have to. 

So over the past 12 years I have been effectively friendless. I didn’t even have any internet friends until December 2007. It’s hard being alone all the time. What little social skills I had have atrophied and I haven’t have any experiences that most people had as a teenager. People talk about it as a fun time that they spend being rebellious and taking the first few steps into adulthood. I basically spent the whole time at home with my parents. I never went out anywhere in the evenings, I only went to a pub with people for the first time a month or so ago. It is hard for most people to comprehend such a life, I mean it could have been a million times worse. I spend a long time each day feeling guilty about being depressed and anxious when I have life comparatively easy compared to 90% of the population. Having at least one friend is something most people seem to take for granted and I am constantly fearing that I will be rejected when people find out I am such a loner, in the truest sense of the word. I don’t know how to come up with excuses for the vast expanse of my life that is completely empty.

It has gotten to the point where I just can’t see anyone ever wanting to be my friend. This may sound like something an angsty teen might say, but I am 23 now and while people a lot younger than me are married, have kids and careers etc., I feel wholly inadequate. Not that I envy them for being married or parents, that’s not something I want right now! It is just so pathetic to be like I am at this age. I think I might be able to survive short term social interaction like I have done over the past few months, but there is really no depth to me or anything that would make anyone want to actually be friends with me. I don’t want to spend another decade like this…