T

typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
There is a need inside me to tell the story of how I got here. I've told bits and pieces to others, but it always comes out censored or cherry-picked whenever it's told to anyone I know or interact with in real life. I feel like I can probably be more honest on here than I can anywhere else. I'll try to keep it as short as I can.

Thank you to anyone who reads this.

The family I grew up with are/were all heavy substance abusers. Booze and pills mostly. I've also heard stories about my great-grandparents that hint at some really dark stuff involving sexual assault. Depression, misery, screaming matches, emotional coldness, and talk of suicide were always around as I grew up. I was yelled at, ignored, and given no boundaries. I was the golden child and given everything materially. I was a spoiled brat and a target of manipulation and anger. Sort of a prize to be used in the constant games and power struggles between my mom, grandma, and grandpa. Looking back I can see that a defeatist and excuse-riddled perspective was handed to me pretty early on.

I kept a tough guy exterior to try and pretend like my upbringing hadn't affected me and that everything was just fine. But everyone saw through it. Looking back now, it's easy to see how screwed up I was. What I really was was a selfish and emotionally cold 'addict' who did everything for himself and no one else. I've been incredibly lonely my whole life. I've never made friends easily. Especially as a child, massive anxiety and no real understanding of how the social game works. As I got older I became goo at making friends but with little to no ability to maintain relationships. Truly, an abrasive and obnoxious person. I've always gravitated towards empathetic people as they seemed more able to put up with me. People of a more aggressive or dominant nature, I am scared around them. And that's the lie of a lifetime. Believing myself 'tough' while maintaining as much distance as possible from anyone who would interrupt the fairy tale I used to maintain the illusion. The older you get, the thinner the lie becomes.

There have been 4 times in my life where I've had MASSIVE panic attacks. I'd escape into something, and once the attack stopped, then that must be the right decision. And eventually I'd get back to my old self-destructive ways. Never completing anything. Never really thinking about the future. I was driven by pure animal fear to run and hide. So I'd escape into school or whatever it was. Always running. But there is no escape from life. So I moved from Eastern Canada to Western Canada, and to the big city. It was a constant cycle: arriving, feeling happy, then drinking and spending my way to ruin. Making friendships and then having them fall apart. Either by me actively being a prick or simply by lack of maintenance. Two years ago I had a complete mental collapse and invented a new persona. It was born out of fear of the world around me. Of being scared all the time. So I became aggressive and, really, a cartoonish villain. It was all a lie. Just a false version of myself. It eventually collapsed as reality came knocking.

I floated my hollow sense of self on two premises: that I was very smart and that I was tough. Now they've both collapsed and I'm exposed to myself. And boy do I ever hate what I see. I've been either cynical or insanely hopeful my whole life. There's never been that middle ground that I suspect well-adjusted people spend most of their time in. I'm honestly shocked by how stupid I am. I think there was a time when I was young when I may have been around or below average. But the fear of the deep shame I felt at being wrong kept me from listening to people who were willing to teach me. So all I really ended up with were a mind full of ridiculous opinions. But now I feel incredibly slow and with what feels like almost no short term or long term memory.

When I looked back I finally started to see the truth: I'm 34 with no skillset. The one industry I had any passion and love for I managed to get myself kicked out of. I have $30 000 in student loans and no degree (not that a philosophy degree is worth much). I am in bankruptcy, live in a shoebox, and can barely hold onto the job I have. I have no friends and am not going to be making any more. I am constantly rude and defensive to the people around me. I don't mean to be and I don't want to be. But everything they say hurts me. I know it shouldn't. But I am wallowing in a lifetime of shame at my incompetence and arrogance and everything reminds me of how much I've failed. I hate myself, yes. But I hate myself even more for being such an asshole all time. I spend most of my time isolated in my room. The outside world and people scare me. I used to be an 'outdoorsy' type guy and it disgusts me all the more that I am this now. I'm trapped. I've become my mom who lives on disability, pops pills, and wants to die. That old standby, hope, is definitely gone.

I realize now that there is nothing inside me. I'm a hollow person. I've just been one caricature after another. As someone once told me 'stand for something or fall for anything'. Indeed. I've never been grounded in anything but my own lies. And now that they are exposed I see how shallow and judgmental I've been. And I hate myself for it. I know others who are not like this. I now see this isn't how people are supposed to treat people. Every day is a fresh hell of regret, shame, and fear.
 
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L

Lisa

Specialist
May 9, 2018
304
I dreamt once that I looked in the mirror only to find this awful person staring back at me. It terrified me in the dream and I ran and screamed and I couldn't believe that was me. Life
 
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T

typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
I dreamt once that I looked in the mirror only to find this awful person staring back at me. It terrified me in the dream and I ran and screamed and I couldn't believe that was me. Life

Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Just absolute shock and disgust at what I actually am.
 
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N

Nausea

New Member
Jun 1, 2018
2
You sound like the guy in Notes From Underground. Self-loathing and lack of love. I can relate.
 
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typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
You sound like the guy in Notes From Underground. Self-loathing and lack of love. I can relate.

Hah! It's funny you would say that. I read it about 3 years ago just on the cusp of things really starting to spiral and I can remember seriously identifying with his character. I reread some of it a few months ago and the connection was even stronger.
 
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elena

New Member
Jun 1, 2018
2
Your story is beautifully composed, your thinking lucid, your honesty a rare and shining jewel. Perhaps you are destined for greatness... your cry in the wilderness, first a lament, through the alchemy of literature may become transformed and transcendent and reach across the generations, across the emptiness of years and fill the silence with music. Perhaps you will write the next Ulysses, the next Crime and Punishment? Don't rob the world of your vision, your talent.
P.S. Have you read The Book of Disquiet?
"Art as the redemption of the sufferer—as the way to states in which suffering is willed,transfigured, deified, where suffering is a form of great delight." Nietzsche
 
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typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
Your story is beautifully composed, your thinking lucid, your honesty a rare and shining jewel. Perhaps you are destined for greatness... your cry in the wilderness, first a lament, through the alchemy of literature may become transformed and transcendent and reach across the generations, across the emptiness of years and fill the silence with music. Perhaps you will write the next Ulysses, the next Crime and Punishment? Don't rob the world of your vision, your talent.
P.S. Have you read The Book of Disquiet?
"Art as the redemption of the sufferer—as the way to states in which suffering is willed,transfigured, deified, where suffering is a form of great delight." Nietzsche

Thank you for your post :-) No, I haven't read that book.

I actually wrote pretty heavily for a while. But it doesn't give me any pleasure anymore. Plus, it was all just a front. At this point, it's just dead air inside. It seems that if you are empty then you don't have much to say.
 
F

FakeNews

Student
Apr 30, 2018
149
I appreciate it. But I don't really agree.

Hate to be so blunt, but if you can only identify one option, you really aren't smart.

Of course, there may always be a best option, but that wasn't what was suggested.
 
E

elena

New Member
Jun 1, 2018
2
Well, for what it's worth, reading your post made me feel less alone. I, too, am in my 30's, hungry for death, adrift, a child of privilege and scorn, one whose beauty blossomed early and was violated... now trapped in a prison of shame, alone and unloved. I have attempted to end this misery several times and failed, of course. My self-loathing knows no bounds. You were a Philosophy major? So who was right-Nietzsche or Schopenhauer? Is suffering ennobling, an emblem of strength, a purifying flame? Is salvation, or at least transcendence, achieved through an abnegation of the self and its desires? Or is the will to live, to create, to endure, in spite of the agony, the emptiness, the futility of it all what gives life its peculiar beauty?

I think I will give it another go today, I have my bus pass:)
 
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typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
I think there's more than one for you.

theres more than one answer

It feels like I've tried everything, you know? And that whatever decision-making system I have inside me is geared towards doing things that only make things worse. Every decision I've made has been based on feeling good in the short term. With little regard to the future. And even less regard for the advice and perspective of others. I remember once a customer at a store that I worked at that I had cornered and was blabbing to uncomfortably told me "Well, if your life is getting worse you're doing something wrong." How right he was. But it was always movement and change for the sake of short-lived fresh hope. Never with a future in mind. Just chasing some vague notion.

I guess that's why I feel like there are no other options now. I've burned through every opportunity and am now cornered by my own decisions. And I really have no clue how to operate any other way than what's brought me to this point.
 
L

Lisa

Specialist
May 9, 2018
304
It feels like I've tried everything, you know? And that whatever decision-making system I have inside me is geared towards doing things that only make things worse. Every decision I've made has been based on feeling good in the short term. With little regard to the future. And even less regard for the advice and perspective of others. I remember once a customer at a store that I worked at that I had cornered and was blabbing to uncomfortably told me "Well, if your life is getting worse you're doing something wrong." How right he was. But it was always movement and change for the sake of short-lived fresh hope. Never with a future in mind. Just chasing some vague notion.

I guess that's why I feel like there are no other options now. I've burned through every opportunity and am now cornered by my own decisions. And I really have no clue how to operate any other way than what's brought me to this point.
I totally understand

Someone I love more than anything is like you in some ways

Life is very strange

Understanding why we are wired a certain way isn't always easy to do or even necessary

Just be gentle with yourself love
 
T

typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
I totally understand

Someone I love more than anything is like you in some ways

Life is very strange

Understanding why we are wired a certain way isn't always easy to do or even necessary

Just be gentle with yourself love

Thank you Lisa. You seem like a really kind person :)
 
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typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
That's sweet thank you

You do too

It's all heartbreaking

I thought I was. But I don't think that now. I just can't seem to be good. It's just not in me.
 
T

typx

Specialist
May 4, 2018
381
Well, for what it's worth, reading your post made me feel less alone. I, too, am in my 30's, hungry for death, adrift, a child of privilege and scorn, one whose beauty blossomed early and was violated... now trapped in a prison of shame, alone and unloved. I have attempted to end this misery several times and failed, of course. My self-loathing knows no bounds. You were a Philosophy major? So who was right-Nietzsche or Schopenhauer? Is suffering ennobling, an emblem of strength, a purifying flame? Is salvation, or at least transcendence, achieved through an abnegation of the self and its desires? Or is the will to live, to create, to endure, in spite of the agony, the emptiness, the futility of it all what gives life its peculiar beauty?

I think I will give it another go today, I have my bus pass:)

Privilege and scorn.. that's a great way to sum it up. Shame is a constant companion for me now. For years and years I kept it at bay. And it would almost work as long as I didn't look too closely at myself. But once the world becomes real you can't go back. And I have no skills or desire to live in the real world. All I feel is a longing to escape to something that doesn't exist. I can't go home.

I was rereading more of Notes from the Underground and a part that really stuck out is how he can't be a worm or a hero. And that's this feeling. I am unable to become anything. Just a self-loathing introspective mess who could never allow himself to become.. for better or for worse. And it turns out if you sit still long enough the decisions are made for you. And of course, the reason to sit still.. moving causes suffering. It causes mistakes, failures, criticisms, mockery and normal experiences person's life. But the deep, deep shame and hate that comes with those normal processes is to be avoided at at all cost. You suffer either way, of course. But growing from suffering.. gaining strength as you come through it.. that's something I've never been able to handle. I really, truly, and honestly tried to be a real person (last ditch effort to escape), but it failed. It simply isn't in me. And real-world results are the proof. Giving suffering meaning.. I tried and I failed.
 
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Lisa

Specialist
May 9, 2018
304
I thought I was. But I don't think that now. I just can't seem to be good. It's just not in me.
Don't worry about that

Whatever we are or have become just is
 
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