no one wants a sad person

[Caterina]

I don't know what to do. I am very deppressed. Everyday I am verbally abused by my family and it is breaking me down. On top of that, I have no self esteem. Even when I do try to flirt, I feel as though I am always rejected. Only people who have no belief in themselves like me. I don't think I am a loser, but I am treated as though I am one at every turn. I will never find love, I wish that there was some sort of alternative to this life I am living. I want to please people too much perhaps, and feel oppressed by their opinions about me. I don't know what is wrong with me, I am attractive, extremely smart, funny and nice...maybe its my weight? I weigh 145 and am 5'6''...I don't know...

[Boricua7]

It seems you're having problems accepting yourself for who you are. I'm sorry to hear that you're depressed. Maybe you're focusing too much on finding love and how nothing seems to be going your way at this point in your life. I was doing the same thing you're doing now and it made me miserable! Here's an analogy: You know how you can look everywhere for something you've lost and you can never seem to find it but the second you stop looking, BAM, they're right in front of you (and sometimes in a place you've looked a million times)? Same thing goes with love. The second you stop focusing on negative things, someone's just going to appear in your life and make all the lonely days worth it. Why not now? Because you need to be happy with youself, alone, before you can be happy with someone else. I know it sucks and it's hard, but it's true. I never though I'd find anyone to love me the way I wanted to be loved. So, I gave up on it and decided to just focus on myself. When I least expected it, my current boyfriend just randomly came into my life. I was finally happy with myself before I met him and now I'm even happier now that I'm with him. You need to be able to be happy as an individual. It took me a long time because I was constantly verbally and emotionally abused by my control-freak father, just like you. Don't let it get to you, because you are an amazing person. It took awhile for me to build up any kind of confidence and to realize that I couldn't (and often time didn't even want to) live up to some people's expectations of me and that they would just have to suck it up. How exactly are you being verbally abused? Like I said before, you need to thin positive no matter what. It's hard when so many things seems to be going wrong but being optimistic will help you get through the pain and will also draw people to you.

[ShySoul]

I am attractive, extremely smart, funny and nice..

 

Caterina, you just mentioned there many of your good qualities. Keep thinking of them, try not to focus on the negatives in your life. I know its hard to do. I've spent many a night crying myself to sleep wondering why I'm so depressed and lonely, why I should have to feel like this when I know I am a good person. You are a great person, don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Yes, sometimes life is unfair. Sometimes it seems like nothing ever goes our way. But there is always a rainbow at the end of the storm. Better days are coming, and you are a strong person who will survive to see those days.

 

Family has often treated me as if I shouldn't be listened to, mainly cause I'm the youngest and thus I can't know nearly as much as them. I've had to endure them taking our their problems with themselves on me, just as I'm sure your family is doing to you. It's not fair and they are wrong for doing that. But deep down they do love you, even if they don't know how to express it. Try not to take what they say personally, though I know they are your family and it hurts deeply.

 

You will find love. And when you do it will be a great love that was worth all the wait and the pain. You do need to stop letting what others say about you affect you so much and start believing in yourself. Focus on those good qualities. Do the things you enjoy and are good at. Realize that you are an amazing person, and that no one can put you down without your consent. If they want to say something bad about you, they are just missing out on the great person you really are.

 

I don't know if its any help, but I believe in you.

[skyjuice]

Hi

 

Just want to tell you that my height is shorter than you and my weight is heavier than you. So you are not as bad as you think.

[armchairshrink]

Because you need to be happy with youself, alone, before you can be happy with someone else.

 

Well said, Boricua!

 

I also know how it feels to be emotionally abused by a control-freak father. My mom and brothers were great to me, but by themselves they couldn't outweigh the negativity and destructiveness of my father. Fortunately, I found friends that loved me (and still love me decades later), who would help me up when I was down and remind me that I may not be perfect, but I was already a better human being than my father was. They reminded me of my other good qualities, too. One of them even stood up to my father for me! So I found comfort with my friends and peace within myself -- and then I found love.

 

My brothers taught me to treat my father as an acquaintance, rather than someone important. I didn't get it; he's my father, he's supposed to love me. It took years, but they finally convinced me that although he might love me, he has no clue how to show it. And that the best defense was not giving his words and actions the weight that I would normally give them. I guess it was a form of emotional divorce. It saddens me that I had to put such a barrier between myself and a parent; but I also think that's the only reason I'm not living in a mental hospital.

 

Your family is wrong to mistreat you. You need to realize that, too. And they're not just morally wrong; they are also mistaken about you. Once you realize that it is their mistake, not yours, it goes a long way toward setting your spirit free and lifting your self-esteem.

 

And if you feel like you need more help, there's nothing wrong with talking to someone: a school counselor, pastor, friend, aunt or uncle, or even a therapist. And of course, enotalone. We're glad to help, but we can't hug you. Or, we can only send you virtual hugs, which I send right now.

 

BTW, 145 at 5'6" sounds pretty darned good to me.

 

I do hope this helps. Please keep us posted on how you're doing,

[Caterina]

I almost cried at all the sweet responses I received. I have been feeling so rejected, and despised by the world. I have to live with my parents because I am not financially stable. Every day I endure criticisms about who I am. Every day I try to please them and try to love them. I find that I am exactly that: spent. I have become calloused towards them, I am stronger that way, but I am not living. I long for ...a saviour I guess. I am drowning in sorrow. My father sounds much like your fathers. I have always looked for validation in men, I think, because I was never accepted by my father. He does love me, I really do think so, but he does not know how to show it. Its difficult to accept the few times he is kind to me, and helps me, when he says such cruel things to me, or worse. I don't like being afraid of my parents. I used to have a happy personality, that attracted lots of people, now I see that I have lost it, I have very little hope in things. Men seem to reject me at every turn. If I am interested in them, they seem to lose interest the moment that happens. Even if I flirt, I feel as though they view me as a nuisance. I have been trying to flirt lately, because I am tired of being shy. Being shy has gotten me no men, I would rather take the risk. But the feelings that come from a percieved rejection are so painful. Its perhaps, a self fullfilling prophesy. Mostly, its me. I am dying, dying, dying for love. I am desperate for love because I have never never received it. Even as a child, all the children hated me. People think I have a persecution complex, and they don't want to be around me when they hear the pain I have gone through. So then I suppress it. But I never have had anyone love me, love me for who I am. I am utterly alone in the very essense of teh word. Men think of me as being too emotionally unstable, and I scare them away even if they are originally attracted to me. The only relationships I have been in are with people who were aggressive and abusive. They liked to manipulate and control me. I decided to shake off those relationships, and for two years ahve been alone because I refuse to date anyone who comes even close to having a glimmer of the characteristics tha tmy father and those other men had. But kind, gentle men don't like me either because they think of me as being emotionally unstable. I think you have a point about me focusing on negative things. I definetly do that a lot. I tend to pick out a negative thing, and then build up that negative thing in an avalanche, domino effect sort of way. My family tells me I am worthless, the world tells me I am worthless. I try to fight it, but indicators seem to affirm it at times. Its 149 at 5'6 occasionally 150, I know that sounds trivial, but yeah, thats one of the things my father says, that I am too fat, that I need to lose twenty-thirty pounds. My brother also. And men seem to be the same way since they aren't as nice to me...

 

Your responses were very healing. I feel unaccepted and you helped me...I long for acceptance, so very badly. Thank you for relating and hellping.