Depressed, and a very weird life

[elusivejc]

Hi, I'd like to tell my story and see what people think of it, because from where I stand I don't see a solution... anywhere. It's a long post so get comfy.

 

OK I'm 21 now, and I'll start my story from approximately 7 years old.

 

One day I came home from school to find my brothers fighting with my dad who was drunk at the time, they would have been 14 and 17 at that point. I didn't know what the fight was about but my dad needed to be restrained and was being a complete maniac - That is one bad of many usually good memories I have of my early childhood.

 

Another memory I have is being all keen to help my mum sharpen our kitcken knives because my grandad had taught me how to once, so I spent hours grinding our knives nice and sharp. Strangely when I was about 16 I was recalling those memories in a random conversation and my mum tells me that everyone distinctly remembers me sharpening the knives the day after I saw my dad and brothers fighting, as though they were related. I thought that was very odd, especially that I had never remembered them being related.

 

Anyway, while still 7 or 8 I would often see dad getting drunk and argumentative, usually ending up in holes in the wall, black eyes on my brothers, and the occasional broken window. This went on until I was 9, when mum finally dicorced him, and took us four kids to live in a new suburb. My life changed entirely, the people and basic idea of the place was totally different, the old suburb was kind of homely, all the neighbours knew wach other, it was small. The new place was close to being the richest suburb in Australia and we rented probably the crappiest thing we could afford. I'm not sure why we moved there, we just did, we weren't really of means to do so but we got by. But being only 9 and trying to interract with snobby try-hard rich kids I had no hope, and quickly noticed how I didn't just fit in at school, but didn't fit into the suburb at all. None of us did and I think we all got affected in our own different way.

 

My mum would work 16/h day to keep us fed and alive, so was never there. My oldest brother (19) moved out and we barely saw him, the next oldest (16) had dropped out of school and taken up drugs and would be out all the time, or else hiding somewhere getting stoned. Then my 12yo brother and I would be the only ones left and would have to fend for and entertain ourselves. He was in early high school so managed to take advantage of everyone building up groups of friends, but in my school, everyone had their place, but me. So we would occasionally spend time with the people he'd met, but mostly we'd just do our own thing, that was technic lego and took up a lot of time.

 

Other strange things happened like my dropout brother secretly confiding in me a heroin addiction, and telling me that he 'stole' our old family car, accidentally crashed it one night while stoned, and made it look stolen.

 

So from an early age I'd already started putting up barriers between me and the world, so that I could cope with feeling so horribly different. Often, while 9 years old, I'd wonder if people would miss me if I just jumped off a building near us, and concluded that mum probably might. I often considered it, I'd also find myself etching messages into things like 'my life sucks' and 'I hate my life'. Even now I remember all the places I wrote it, almost like I was seeing if anyone looked hard enough and if they did they'd see what I'd written and know, otherwise they never would. Noone ever found them.

 

So when mum would come home late from work and ask how was my day I'd say 'goood' like I always would, but even at 9 I was hiding something. Unknown to me that would be the start of living a life completely cut off from everyone I've ever known, putting on some superficial act to cover up what I truly felt, and knowing that noone really knew me at all. So as the years went by, I'd be adle to laugh off anything, like I'd accepted in myself that I'd never really have a close friend like I did in my old suburb (I call it my old life, as though I've been reincarnated), accepting that I'd never have a girlfriend. By then I had such a thick skin that nothing hurt, I'd just accept that I'll never have any of that, I was content with my own company, and go about my life goal without distraction. I lived at Australia's most popular beach for 7 years and I don't know a single girl's name. And I was blissfully happy, graduating high school, having pushed all my pain into a box and I was a happy, emotionless ball of nothing, that had one life dream to conquer that's it. I think now that I'd almost completely forgotton about that small box that was holding the real me who's life was paused at age 9, and was living this strange new life where I was 'different' before I even spoke like it was tattooed on my forehead.

 

The result seemed to be that I'd lived my life being completely emotionally unattached to anything, and was like I was some ghost floating around the real people. I was once sitting on a school bus staring into space when everyone noticed, and one kid I knew said 'oh he's in his own little world again'. And that's exactly how life felt, like there was some invisible barrier separating me and the rest of the world. I think my whole social development has grown up all skewed and distorted because of it, I don't really know how people operate, or how the world works, I feel like an alien. I did not feel like a human.

 

The problem: unfortunately I was put in the very unlikey situation about 18 months ago where I liked a girl, who eventually liked me back and we hit it off somehow. Eventually my cold hard emotionless exterior melted and I learned to feel love and caring and all that wonderful yummy stuff, felt like my soul was being tickled and it was waking up. She was the first person I'd gotten close to since I was 9, and she was part of my world. She was also part of the real world, and I could feel myself migrating out into the real world and growing into a normal person, though my 9yo self had a lot of growing up to do and fast. This was all good until she decided at christmas 2003 that she was to embarrassed by me to be with me, and essentially said, 'yes we have lots of fun together, but I get ostracised by my friends for being with you'. Now she barely knows me and by all accounts is trying hard to forget me.

 

This growing human of mine had been dealt a mortal blow, and I was starting to feel myself slip back out of the real world and put up the happy front that I alwas used to. I feel like such a distorted mess of a person, that is too far behind in its development to ever have a chance of catching up to its peers, I don't feel 21, I'm maybe 16. Unfortunately this barrier between me and the world means that I have a very introverted personality, and no real friends. I'm socially incapable, and have still not yet learnt the art of small talk. Because of this it's hard for me to live, getting a job that I can do successfully for instance. I am at uni studing and don't have any really friends to study with. I'm only an average student at best, I have trouble keeping focussed, and it's hard to keep at the social grindstone in the hope I might develop because I don't seem to get anywhere.

 

So my life is getting more difficult, I have no social life, I have no stable job, am an average student, and don't have anything else anymore. I also now have to push all my emotional crap into a little box all over again because I know I'll never get another opportunity to meet someone who I can release it on, at least not for the next decade. I used to be happy with my own company, now I feel lonely. I can't live like that and need to squash it and compress it all to cope.

 

I want to move out of home, I think it might help me, but I then have to worry about my mum getting lonely because my brothers have all moved out and to other countries, with me being her youngest and the only one left.

 

Unfortunately this is all making me depressed and I can't see how my bright future can even happen if I can barely interract with the world at all. And my mum likes to mother me which certainly isn't helping, but I don't want to push her away because it will hurt her, and I know what emotional pain feels like now.

 

I had a deja vu experience the other day while cooking dinner, it was a cold late afternoon and I was home alone cooking dinner. I was standing over our old gas stove stirring something in a pot, it was a very depressing scene and I was in a sad mood. I remembered that exact same experience when I was 9, I was at home alone cooking on our gas stove, stirring something feeling sad and lonely. Then it hit me. I could never explain my feelings to myself when I was 9, I didn't know why I felt like killing myself, or why life sucked so much, I just felt it for some reason. Now while I was cooking, it dawned on me that at the age of 9, I was depressed... And I never knew it. I just started crying so much it hurt, to think I was so young, in so much pain, not understanding it, and putting it away and ignoring it. And for the first time I actually believed depression really did exist and was not just some fancy unproveable excuse people had.

 

Now I get even more depressed because I am in the same situation all over again and don't know how to deal with it. I often feel like there's nothing worth living for anymore, like my personality has already splattered on the pavement before my body has. I'm so lonely, but I have noone to talk about it with, I can't even consider getting close to someone because I know what will happen will end up hurting me, and all I do whe I see people now is try to act normal. The only reason I've come up with so far for not attempting to fly from a tall building is that my family would get upset and possible destroy all their lives. They'd have to come back to Australia to keep mum consoled about her suicidal son that she never knew about. All I can think now is if someone else killed me then my mum would never have to know how I feel.

 

I don't want to live and I don't want to kill myself. I'm so sad.

[badburnz]

Reading your post,I think I can relate.Sounds like youre feeling some very similar stuff to myself.My early family life sucked,Ive never really fitted into any particular social group,and like you I taught myself to bottle things up,live behind a front.I spend an unhealthy ammount of time bouncing around inside my own head and up until now thought that I was quite happy being alone.I just started dating a woman who has unlocked a lot of emotion I wasnt even aware I was capable of feeling,and have reached the conclusion that I dont want to be an Island anymore.The biggest stumbling block for me is trust.The whole reason I built this wall was for protection.When you spend a long time not fitting in,or your family do things that hurt you,you develop an expectation that everyone is out to hurt you.Could this be the case with you?

[qt]

hey

 

i added you to my msn, it mite be a problem to talk cos u live in australi and me in the uk, but if you do want to talk to me, ill try and do my best and be there 4 u

i realise that life can be difficult and after reading your message my initial response is that you should go and see a counciller or a therapist. that way by talking to someone, you can open up that box of emtions that you kept hidden and start to begin developing yourself again. it will take time though but as long as you kp positive however you can you will get through this stage in your life

 

qt xx my msn is email removed

[mysteryman]

suicide is never the answer...ull go to hell plus itll really affect the people around you...take up christianity and go and get saved

[elusivejc]

badburnz hehe I can so relate. With my ex one of the biggest problems was that she had most only guy friends, and any time they were out I had totally uncontrollable fear that she'd do something with one of them. I'd talk about it to her often, trying hard to explain how I can on one hand totally trust her, but on the other I can't get the courage to trust her. It would upset her to think we were really close and yet for some reason I couldn't let go of the fear, I just managed to make it a bit smaller and consciously tell myself to trust her even though my instincts didn't work that way. In hindsight I think I had nothing to worry about, but at the time any small doubt would grow and start pounding about inside my head.

 

qt I see what your saying, but what I've said here is pretty much the result of my self therapy and I can't think of anything more, I think what's in the post is the contents of my box, if you will. Thanks for the msn offer, uni goes back next week so I'll be busy, and my computer died recently, but when I reinstall messenger, I'll get in contact k?

 

I had one (relatively) funny thought the other day, and that is that it seems like of all the people in the world in my position, half of them turned to religion and changed their life, the other half, shot themselves, and right at the moment, I'm feeling distinctly atheist. Besides, if it's god's fault for putting me into this life, then I don't see what following him will help.

 

Thanks for the posts guys,

ElusiveJC