I've been miserable most of my life, and feel I need to open up about it

[Dame Ningen]

@Obsidian Soul

If your life is a mess and you're depressed, time to try and fix your life. If your life is in a good state and you're depressed, you probably have to get medical treatment.

 

[TedEH]

getting a woman [...] got promoted [...] got a nice car [...] I bought a new [...etc]

I feel like some of this is missing the point of the advice. The point is not to say that you will magically be happy because you've checked all the requirements for things you should possess to be happy (and I'll reiterate that you shouldn't think of a relationship as a posestion), the point is that you're suppose to create a value/meaning for yourself and invest in it.

Like exercise is not about "I am fit now, so that should mean I'm happy right?", the point is that the act of exercising is an investment, and the feeling that you're doing something positive and making progress for yourself is the return on that investment. It doesn't make you happy because fit=happy, it makes you happy because you're progressing towards something you've attributed value to. It's not the end result that matters necessarily, it's the process, and the fact that you are moving towards a goal. If you just stop because you happened to reach an arbitrary goal, then you probably didn't want to do that in the first place, and need to pick a more appropriate goal. Or if you enjoyed the process, then step it up in some way. Get MORE fit. Learn MORE skills for your job. Start upgrading the car. It doesn't matter what- but make some progress towards something that holds value to you. You need a clear and achievable goal, and to move towards it.

Step 2 is to recognize that it's not realistic to expect to be happy all the time. Life isn't happy by default- you have to create that for yourself, and not be so hard on yourself when not in an ideal state of mind. Give yourself a break.

 

[budda]

Pro tip for leaving the house and feeling fulfillment: volunteer.

 

[A-Branger]

theres no set rule on what makes you happy, forget about what society tells you to what you should be doing example (getting a woman [...] got promoted [...] got a nice car [...] I bought a new [...etc]).... why having a "nice car" equals being happy?.... and what exactly its a ncie car for you?

I have been driving my same little 4wd for the last 8 years and I fricking love it. Only reason I would like to sell it is because its getting old till the point to fix everything/add extras for 4wd/camping, would cost more than the car itself. And if I sell it I would get a newer version of the same car.... I dont need a 5 ton hugeass 4wd to go camping, my little 4wd can do it on a laugh. And I dont need a BMW to make myself feel "happy", I jsut need a bull bar and bigger tires lol...... Seriusly, why its "good" to have a car with all that stupid stuff nowadays?, oooh look I can open the booth if I wiggle my foot under the bumper, and it closes with one button....... serusly?... I turn my key to open it and I use my hand... and Im happy about it. The less electronical things the better for me

Point is, everyone is happy in a different way. You dont need to "get promoted" and have a X or Y job to find "happiness", if you ahve that mentality you are gonig to get stuck on the endless road to find that promotion that might never come. And you would be forever miserable, and even IF you get it it might wont be what you were xpecting. Like GASing for X guitar for 4 years only to finally pick it up and discovering you dont like to deal with a floyd or dont like the neck shape, or simply be happy and then honeymooon finish and then you are like "Im not happy and now Im $$$$$ in debt for it"

As long as you have an income you can live with and have your basic needs check, the rest is up to you. Do what YOU want the way YOU want it, and give 0 fucks about what everyone around you thinks about it.... Thats the secret of happiness (or at least the start point of the journey)...... if something happens "cool", if it didnt happen? then "cool" too


also, never be afraid to change/flip your life/enviroment. Just because you were born/grow up on a certain place or have 2 friends/family there, it doesnt mean you have to HAVE to live there forever. You dont owe anything to anyone, you are you, and you do you first. If you hate the place were you are, then move away. Go work a summer season somewhere, do a winter in a remote freezing place, go work on an island, do a year on a cruiiseship, go live on the beach, or on a boat if thats what you like. If your dream was to do snowboarding, then move to the mountains and do a season there, move to Orlando and work a year on a Disney park if thats the only place in the world that makes you happy, you like hikking, then move to a place with the best mountain tracks around you........ I know these are shallow examples but hope you get the point. Dont be afraid to change your life and your environment to chase a place/job/lifestyle that you actually like

 

[IGC]

I've talked about this a little before in some of the other threads in this forum, but only little bits of it, and I feel I need to make a proper topic about it and go into more detail.

I have never really talked about this in depth with people before, anywhere actually. I've been feeling miserable, mentally, very often, for as far back as I can remember, but it's been worse the last 7 years.

I've spent just about all of my life with no friend, and have never had a girlfriend either (and I am attractive). I've never even had a kiss with a girl. I have nothing in common with anyone in my family. Basically in a nutshell I've been isolated, and alone with no meaningful connection with another person my entire life and I'm 34.

The only regular social interaction I ever had was the 9 years I was in school. When I was little (before I started school) I mostly just did things alone by myself (from the few memories I recall). During school years I was almost always doing things alone in my bedroom after school. I never had a real friend the whole 9 years. Got picked on from 4th grade onward. Ended up developing a debilitating general anxiety disorder which was so bad by the time I was done school that I wasn't able to work, and I applied for disability.

Since then, I have spent the last 16 years isolated in my small bedroom (person I live with is annoying to me, but is all I have, and I don't do well mentally when living alone). At first it was because I was happy to finally be free from school, and from people picking on me, but after about 9 years of that I started developing a desire for an intimate relationship. Problem was, I had no desire to go out anywhere. Eventually I started to become depressed and super agitated, the agitation got worse until it peaked 2 years ago, at which time I started becoming apathetic. Since then the agitation has decreased in frequency, but the depression has gotten worse and the apathy has gotten way worse.

I'm now at the point where all I want is to be with my soulmate (whoever she is), but I have been mentally unable to force myself to do anything that I don't feel like doing, and I still don't feel like going anywhere outside of my bedroom, after 16 years of being in it (obviously not constantly, but like 95% of the time basically). I have been to counseling, I have tried different medicines, I have even been hospitalized on multiple occasions. Didn't do anything to help me. Still no desire to do anything outside of hobbies in my bedroom, but still lonely, and depressed and longing for a romantic partner. I know my apathy would go away immediately if I had and lived with a partner, but the problem is... there appears to be no way to get one while the apathy or lack of desire to (and lack of ability to force myself to) go anywhere is still present.

So this is the deadlock that I have been in now for the last 7 years (since I first started desiring a relationship), and it seems like there is no end to it, and that I might end up living my entire life in a small bedroom, with only myself as my company, and then die without ever having lived a single moment of life in which I actually wanted to be alive... in which I actually didn't wish I didn't exist... in which I didn't wish I had never been born... in which I didn't lay in bed and wish that after falling asleep that I wouldn't wake up ever again... in which I felt happy to be alive... in which I felt like I was anything special to a girl that made my heart race... in which people actually were interested in getting to know me... in which I lived at all.

I have been extremely depressed and discouraged by this deadlock that has been going on for 7 years now, without having found a way to break it. This feeling of hopelessness, and depression I haven't been able to control or make go away for that long (and I take medicine for depression every day). I feel like I'm the most miserable living thing that exists anywhere. This is how I've been feeling lately, and that's why I haven't posted (or even been) on here for a while now.

You mentioned that you consider yourself "good looking" ? You havn't by any chance had instances, where people maybe don't like you or you feel like people don't like you because of how you look?

 

[NateFalcon]

Inner chemistry, man...I’d be happy in a tree fort -I’m just wired that way. I don’t have it in me to stay mad or even upset for long. Some people are wired opposite...but a guitar forum is NOT where you’ll get help for these kind of issues. Learning yourself is the hardest puzzle sometimes. Counseling doesn’t mean you’re weird...go talk to someone, you might be surprised what you learn about yourself. You’re on the right track already...

 

[Yul Brynner]

Get out of your comfort zone. It's scary but that is the point otherwise it would still be inside your comfort zone. I started out on the same path. Learning guitar when I was 14 got me a few friends and girlfriends. People in general and I still have a mutual dislike these days but I have a great wife and kids. Anyone that lives with you is going to annoy the hell out of you. My wife and kids annoy the hell out of my but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am not good at all with people. I hate everything normal people like. I am not religious. I am not far enough left or right politically to get along with anyone. I don't see the point in small talk or putting up a facade to make guests feel welcome. My 35th birthday is Monday but I told my wife I don't want to do anything because I don't want to deal with inviting people over but of course I am expected to... Idk I just don't really like people and they don't seem to like me either. On the other hand I have noticed that if I drink enough to get buzzed but not pissed, it removes the stick from my ass and I become a normal human being.

My cousin is the same only he always refuses to leave his comfort zone and wonders why he is lonely. He isn't bad looking but he seriously dresses himself up for failure. When we were teenagers I tried to get him to put some gel in his hair. He did it in the bathroom and actually looked presentable. Then he freaked out and washed it away and never touched it again. It's the same with his 1980s child molester bifocals.

Nothing is going to happen for you at all until you push yourself outside.

 

[budda]

I find it interesting the OP hasn't replied.

 

[Yul Brynner]

I find it interesting the OP hasn't replied.

No longer in his comfort zone I guess?

 

[TedEH]

I find it interesting the OP hasn't replied.

It's not very surprising though. The impression I get was that for OP, posing the question was an opportunity to just dump the feelings somewhere when such a release was needed, but there was never any intention to follow up on any responses. Which is fine. Whatever.

 

[budda]

It's not very surprising though. The impression I get was that for OP, posing the question was an opportunity to just dump the feelings somewhere when such a release was needed, but there was never any intention to follow up on any responses. Which is fine. Whatever.

I wonder if he thought we were all going to say something different than what we said, and if that affects his non response. Or like you say maybe he wasnt going to reply anyway.

It did get others to open up though.

 

[TedEH]

It did get others to open up though.

I'm all for a thread in which we explore/examine/deconstruct the general pursuit of happiness.

 

[EverDream]

Guys after I made this thread I left the forum, and I haven't even been on this site since then.

You want to know why it has taken me 34 years of life to open up with strangers? Because I figured it wouldn't do any good, and that people would just tell me the same stuff all the counselors I've ever seen have told me. I finally got to the point where it is something that I feel if I don't make this post, nothing would ever change because nobody even knows about me so as to influence me. Well the only problem is, just about all of this advice is the same stuff that I've heard countless times by counselors and therapists and doctors. What does it mean? It means people still do not understand how my brain works.

When I wake up each day, I immediately go and do whatever it is that I feel like doing. Up until this point in life going out has never been something I have felt like doing. I only feel able to do what I feel like doing without thinking about it. I feel like being with a girlfriend, but I don't feel like going anywhere, so there's the problem in a nutshell.

If the only advice I'm going to be given is to go do the thing I just said I'm unable to do, then that is not helpful, and that's why I don't see counselors or therapists. My medicine does work... I'd be way worse if I didn't take it... but it's not good enough... medicine is not good enough.

I don't think about these things that make me desire intimate relationships, I just start feeling them involuntarily.

About the fear. I'm not afraid of leaving my comfort zone, I'm not afraid of being uncomfortable. I don't feel like going anywhere because there is nothing I'm interested in doing outside of my hobbies, and they all involve being at my computer.

It looks as if my 1 last thing I hadn't tried in life to save it from being a waste is going to be a failure because people think they know what my problem is, when the truth is nobody has a clue how I feel or I wouldn't be hearing the same things I always hear.

Honestly the reactions on here have only discouraged me even more. If no one is willing to be open minded to understanding how my mind works, then there is no hope for me. I know nobody owes me anything, nor have I ever had that attitude.

If nobody is interested in my life on a forum, then they wouldn't be interested in me in person either, so there's no point in ever leaving my bedroom as long as people aren't interested in me. You are telling me to be interested in other people first? I have done that all throughout my 20s and every time I did the other person made me feel as if they weren't really desiring to talk to me or interact with me. I got to the point where I was like "I'm done being the person to initiate the interest in another person, it's somebody elses turn now". All being interested in other people was doing was leading to me feeling like I was unwanted, I'm not going to keep doing that over and over forever, and I did it as long as I could and now I'm through, if someone can't be interested in me first, then just f*ck everything to hell.

 

[Yul Brynner]

Do you ever wonder if there may be a reason everyone says the same thing?

 

[TedEH]

Sweet jebus dude, there's been some really stellar advice in this thread, and all I can get from your last post is that you don't want to try any of it. That's 100% your own fault. It's not anyone else's job to fix your life, YOU have to do it.

You want to know why you're not meeting someone who wants to initiate a relationship? Because this is what you put forward:

f*ck everything to hell

That's not attractive. It's exactly the opposite. If you were putting the effort in to put yourself out there, to be available to meet someone (I doubt you are), then this attitude is an immediate turn off for any potential partner. If you want someone to want you, you need to offer something for them to want.

You asked, we delivered. You can either take the really good advice you've been given and run with it, or nobody can help you. It's blunt, it's unpleasant, but it's the truth.

 

[NateFalcon]

Guys after I made this thread I left the forum, and I haven't even been on this site since then.

You want to know why it has taken me 34 years of life to open up with strangers? Because I figured it wouldn't do any good, and that people would just tell me the same stuff all the counselors I've ever seen have told me. I finally got to the point where it is something that I feel if I don't make this post, nothing would ever change because nobody even knows about me so as to influence me. Well the only problem is, just about all of this advice is the same stuff that I've heard countless times by counselors and therapists and doctors. What does it mean? It means people still do not understand how my brain works.

When I wake up each day, I immediately go and do whatever it is that I feel like doing. Up until this point in life going out has never been something I have felt like doing. I only feel able to do what I feel like doing without thinking about it. I feel like being with a girlfriend, but I don't feel like going anywhere, so there's the problem in a nutshell.

If the only advice I'm going to be given is to go do the thing I just said I'm unable to do, then that is not helpful, and that's why I don't see counselors or therapists. My medicine does work... I'd be way worse if I didn't take it... but it's not good enough... medicine is not good enough.

I don't think about these things that make me desire intimate relationships, I just start feeling them involuntarily.

About the fear. I'm not afraid of leaving my comfort zone, I'm not afraid of being uncomfortable. I don't feel like going anywhere because there is nothing I'm interested in doing outside of my hobbies, and they all involve being at my computer.

It looks as if my 1 last thing I hadn't tried in life to save it from being a waste is going to be a failure because people think they know what my problem is, when the truth is nobody has a clue how I feel or I wouldn't be hearing the same things I always hear.

Honestly the reactions on here have only discouraged me even more. If no one is willing to be open minded to understanding how my mind works, then there is no hope for me. I know nobody owes me anything, nor have I ever had that attitude.

If nobody is interested in my life on a forum, then they wouldn't be interested in me in person either, so there's no point in ever leaving my bedroom as long as people aren't interested in me. You are telling me to be interested in other people first? I have done that all throughout my 20s and every time I did the other person made me feel as if they weren't really desiring to talk to me or interact with me. I got to the point where I was like "I'm done being the person to initiate the interest in another person, it's somebody elses turn now". All being interested in other people was doing was leading to me feeling like I was unwanted, I'm not going to keep doing that over and over forever, and I did it as long as I could and now I'm through, if someone can't be interested in me first, then just f*ck everything to hell.

Maybe a comfort pet?

 

[DudeManBrother]

@EverDream Has anyone ever told you that your Thyroid, parathyroid, and thymus glands sound like they’re in total failure mode? Do you have anger issues as well? That’s probably kidney failure if so. Medical doctors only work with suppressing symptoms, not actually healing people, that’s something only you can do for yourself with strict discipline. I’d talk to you in private more if your serious about ideas on getting better, but most people prefer to hold onto their pain and suffering like a baby blanket.

 

[Necris]

You don't seem to have any interest in making any effort and your resistance to what is the only logical answer makes it appear that the only "solution" you'll accept is one that's pure fantasy: That one day, as you sit at your computer, a woman will show up outside of your apartment, walk in and lavish you with love, attention and understanding without asking anything of you and allow you to occupy yourself only with those things that you "want to do" while you give literally nothing in return.

If no-one took an interest your post would have gone completely unnoticed and no-one would have made any effort to address your issues and this thread would have no replies. Your assumption that no-one could possibly understand where you're coming from is self-serving. You can keep believing that yours is a unique problem that requires a unique solution, but it's not. Stop trying to shift responsibility for your situation away from yourself. No-one here has failed you, any therapists or counselors who gave you the same advice haven't failed you, and your medication hasn't failed you. You're the common denominator and it's ultimately you who bears responsibility for making the changes that need to be made. As of today nothing has changed, and that's on you.

 

[mpexus]

Venting your frustrations to total strangers (being it on Forums, Bar, Groceries store etc) is a sign of Depression and a Sign that you are in need to be heard. Not accepting or not having the will to also change is the biggest sign of Depression... I know what im talking about and i will tell you to go do things you wouldn't normally do(go run, walk, skate, clean the beach sand of cigarette butts, something), doesn't matter if they look like a drag, its the forcing you to go do something that will start to make the "machine" work and one thing leads to the other and it will start to change your perception on things.

Being depressed makes us close inside a damn bubble that we dont allow no one to even touch most of the times. This invisble barrier makes it extremely difficult for outsiders to even know how to communicate... because in reality no one understands us, but they do, they just dont know how to express it, the same way we seem to forget on how to communicate with the "outside" people.

I seriously tell you to seek proper help, its makes a huge huge difference to have someone on the other side that, wont judge us and will make us understand and know ourselves so we can start changing or adapting our behaviors. It certainly helped me almost 3 years ago, made me had the guts to go do something different and it was breath of fresh air on my life to be honest. I Should had seek proper help years ago.

We are our "worst enemies" when Depressed and although outside help really helps, we as soon as we start to feel stronger, have to also make the effort to keep going. One thing leads to another and so on.

Wish you can find what you are looking for.

 

[budda]

He has seen professionals who said what we have said here, and his decision was to keep doing what he's doing.

No one can help you if you dont help yourself.