Dying Inside.

[Sylph]

Okay, this isn't normal for me. Normally I would never bother with anything like this, I actively avoid expressing feelings in such a public and out spocken kind of way to such a number of people. I'm only doing this because I need to. For lack of a better word I feel like, I'm choking, I've felt like this many times before but I've usually had a way of expressing it that would satisfy me at least for a little while. The chances are I'll just say all this and then never say anything again, as I said I just need to do this one thing.

 

Let's see, where to start. A little bio first; I'm male, 17 (about to turn 18 on the 26th), living in London and am in a working class family. I have dyslexia, depression and agoraphobia. I'm also a "strict" atheist if that's note worthy. Right now my life consists of going to college, doing a Level 3 ICT Suport training course and trying to find a placement for an apprenticeship at entry level. When I'm not in college I spend almost every second of the day at home, in my room trying to escape from the reality and the real world.

 

I have very few friends and I'm close to no one, the only friends I do have I know from the internet and rarely talk to now anyway, friendships always seem to slip into nothing in the end anyway. The only person I've truly actually been close to never exactly existed in the first place, I'll explain. Recently I found out that the person I'd been talking to for the last 3 years and had grown extremely close to, purely on a friends basis (it was already established that there was no want for any kind of a relationship) was someone else. Female, 19 year old [insert Name] was infact Male, [insert Name], 16 years old. A compulsive lier with the intelligence like I've never seen before. For your information I never had any reason to suspect the person of being anyone other than who they said they were, I had 10-20 different pictures and 2 voice recordings of a female voice that mentioned specific names of people, including mine. That said that little event crushed me in ways I have refused to come to terms with properly in an attempt not to feel anything about it. I only feel pathetic about the whole thing now.

 

Moving on. I'm an only child and I live with both of my parents, I have extended family in other countries that I don't have any desire to have any contact with. This is pretty much the same policy I have with my own family, my father doesn't have anything to do with me, we hardly ever speak to each other and that suits me fine. My mother is largely a good person but seems to have the idea burnt into her that she gets to make executive decisions about my personal life. She treats me no more than a child and consistantly fails to understand how difficult my life is made by my dyslexia. Generally she knows nothing much about me, nothing of my depression or agoraphobia. I have no intention of telling sharing it with her either, I don't accept that just because my parents are who they are I should automatically want to have anything to do with them. To me they're just strangers. Oh and whenever I talk about them like this I can't help but feel deeply paranoid that I'm just a ungrateful little brat.

 

Onto my mental health. My depression stems for years of bullying, disappointment and rejection. Pretty much from Year 5 of school (I don't know what grade that is in America) til I finished school in Year 11 I was bullied, and yes, from that far back. I was bullied and isolated before I could even understand the concept of bullying. There isn't much else to say, I'm sure you can imagine what it was like to wake up every single day, hate yourself, be bullied all through out the day and get bad grades no matter how hard you worked. The bullying itself was mostly verbal and physical abuse, thankfully I avioded being seriously hurt on any occasion. I really don't know how I got through school, for years I just knuckled down and put up with it. Simply as that, looking back on it I'm surprised I didn't kill myself a long time ago. God knows it crossed my mind though.

 

I left school with largely mediocre grades (2 Bs, 6 Cs and 2 Ds if I remember correctly, which I probably don't. Ironically one of those Bs was in English). They were enough to enroll me onto the college courses I wanted to take at college though so at the time I was pretty glad, I was leaving behind years of torment and onto success. At least I was praying that would be so. As a note I took Philosophy, Religious Studies, Politics and ICT. They were all topics I really took some pleasure in. unfortunately, in another turn of irony, they were exactly the wrong topics to take. At first I liked them, the subject matter was interesting and we weren't being given that much work to do outside college. Jump ahead about half a year by now I'd done as much as I could and decided I couldn't go on, like an idiot I tried to solve this problem by going home and hiding in bed. By now most of my essays given to me to complete from Philosophy, Religious Studies and Politics were just copy and paste jobs. I still found the subject matter engrossing and took an active role in classes but when it came to doing the essays I just couldn't seem to do well no matter how hard I tried.

 

It was about then I started seeing the college counsiler. Which again, for a while worked out okay-ish, mostly the sessions were pretty forced, I spent a good deal of time staring at the floor. I continued going to classes and doing the same old copy and paste jobs. Eventually at some point I decided to voice the theory that I might be dyslexic. Now this was my own theory, no one had ever even mentioned the possiblity. Since it was paid for by the college I had an assessment which returned what I thought, I was dyslexic and have always been so. About now I'd like to say a personal thanks to all the teachers that failed to recognise a learning disability in me for more years than I care to remember. Nothing much changed after that. I was too far into my courses to just give up so I decided to go ahead and struggle with them. My parents response was mixed, my father's response was, and this is a direct quote, "No you're not," only after showing him an offical letter saying that I was he accepted it. My mother accepted it but refused to have any understanding of how much it affected me, eventually I made her read a book on the subject I'd finished reading myself. Not that that did much. At college I started going to what was called the 'Learning Skills Workshop', that was a joke. I was pretty much given lessons on spelling and grammar, rather than anything aimed at tackling dyslexia itself. After a while I gave up counsiling and then the extra lessons feeling abandoned and let down.

 

More time passed, I took my exams and then had the summer holiday. Eventually results day came along and I got my results. Two Ds, one E and a U, a year of hard slog and I got worthless grades. The only thing I could do with those was shove them somewhere the sun doesn't shine. That was pretty much mimiced when I went in to be enrolled for whatever courses I could take at the same college. At that time I found out that I couldn't change my course options now because I have the chance to do that on 'Revision Day', a day I didn't have because my form tutor was in another country at the time. Thanks, really. More feelings of being let down hit hard right about here.

 

After going through about 6 more people thankfully I was able to enroll on a course called 'Gateway to ICT Support', all pratical work on a subject I could do really well at. That being said I completed the course early this year after, coming out top of the class, finishing a week early simply because I was that far ahead. And I know I'm boasting here but that was my first piece of acedemic success ever, I have the right to be proud. Of course good things never really last, the plan was for me to go onto an apprenticeship, learning and working in a business environment. A month and a half passed and the college got me one interview which I failed to secure the placement for reasons I still don't know yet, feed back is still pending apparently, I doubt it though. They more or less stopped communicating with me and when I tried to find out what was happening I managed to get the blaim, don't ask how. Insert even more feelings of being let down. So basically after trying to do their job for them I started doing some searching, calling companies whose names I gave to the college. Of course nothing got done about that so I re-enrolled on the college and took the course I'm doing now, even though I have 6 weeks catch up work to do and am having to work double lesson schedules.

 

Enough of that subject.

 

I've sort of run out of steam now so I'm going to finish this soon. God knows you're probably sick of listening to this by now. I won't blaim you if you go do something else at this point.

 

Agoraphobia. There's very little to say about this, I suppose I've had it for ages, just only recently have I been able to give a word to certain things. I get anxiety that I simply can't control, whenever I go outside I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, I get extremely nervous around people even if I don't show it. Which I usually don't. Even when buying things from a shop I stutter my words, begin to sweat and my hands will shake long after I've done my business and left the shop. It sounds so pathetic too, but I can't control it at all. I've done my best, I've certain of that. Like with dyslexia I've just done my, best figuring it's this hard with everyone and I'm just dumb or something. Public transport is a sore spot too, I like traveling, I like to look out of the window even if I'm taking the same route every single day and it's just the same old sights. But I'm haunted constantly by the idea that I might do something wrong, like maybe the ticket inspector will come along, ask me for my ticket and tell me it's wrong and I'll just be stranded. Even though it's never happened to me once, I've only been asked once for my ticket and then it was valid. It's only made worse by the fact that I get confused easily in those kinds of situations and generally people treat me like crap, if I look vunable people usually take it as a chance to made me feel worse. I imagine it's just a 'having power over someone' else thing.

 

Very briefly I'll go over past relationships, it's not much of an issue to me now, I'm at a point where I'm not actively looking for a relationship with anyone. I think love is something we make up and want to believe it, like God (and I apologise in advance for the two groups of people I've just offended; couples and theists), so it's not like I'm looking for love. If the right person came along maybe I'd consider it though.

 

Okay, on the point. My first relationship was when I was 15, long distance, about a 4 hours high-speed train journey away from each other. In short that lasted three months (to the day), ending with her cheating on me, telling me how we can never see each other again and spending the next year randomly sending me emails and text messages detailing how much she still loves me. Didn't reply to a single one, I hope to tore her up inside.

 

Second relationship was slightly better, only about an hour of trains journeys accross London. That was all sunshine and tweetie birds until she decided that even though she said she loves me and though she wanted a serious relationship, she actually would rather just go to parties and sleep around. That ended in a really long argument, never spoken to her since.

 

And now I'm seeing someone, we're not so much in a relationship as just having sex. But don't get me wrong, we get on fine, there's just no emotions involved.

 

I guess I lied about wrapping this up shortly. One last rant, I promise.

 

One of the main things that's making me feel like I'm sufficating is my complete lack of artistic out put. This isn't because I can't think of anything, I can, I pride myself on my imagination. Being dyslexic I have an extremely vilid vision imagination and use it as much as I can, I also spend a lot of time just writing out conceptual ideas for storylines I might have. The thing that kills me the most is that I can't, no matter how hard I try, act on them. It's probably difficult to understand for someone who isn't dyslexic but I feel like I'm being blocked by a brick wall the moment I try anything creative. Writing creatively is an extremely taxing task that I can do but not only takes up a huge ammount of time (I could spend 6 hours writing and end up with a single paragraph) it's draining. When I stop it barely seems to effort.

 

With drawing it's more or less the same story, I have imagine perfectly what I want to draw and even see it on the page but the moment I put pencil to page it all goes pear shaped. I consistantly fail to understand the basics of drawing anything that isn't right there infront of me. No matter how vilidly I see something in my mind I can do anything about it. That kills me in ways I can't describe with words.

 

There you have it, that's me. Congratulations of you've got this far and haven't died due to bordem. Since I can do this fairly anonymously ask any questions you like, I don't mind answer thing. It'll make me feel validated and give me something to do.

[Daddy Bear]

Sylph, i read every word of your post (took me two cigarettes to finish, but hey, it was worth it) and i have some random observations that may or may not be of some use.

 

enotalone: this is an anonymous forum, or at least as much as you want it to be, so i hope you stick around. there are more people here just like you than you can begin to imagine. i'm sure many of them would be glad to hear from someone like you who is going down some of the same roads. you may find more friends here than you know what to do with, and i'm glad you signed up.

 

dyslexia: you are one fine writer in spite of having that setback. damn good sense of humo(u)r, too.

 

agorophobia: i know exactly what you mean about the sweating and stammering, the conductor and all of that. been there, brother. by the time i hit 28 or so, though, i had developed a lot more self-confidence and it was pretty much all behind me.

 

atheism: you're thinking for yourself. there is no need to be apologetic.

 

bullying: youngsters (including brainy but twisted 16-year old males posing as females) can be cruel and ignorant. your adult life is right in front of you now, and you will see much less of that, if any.

 

relationships: the first few are usually pretty short. that's totally normal. you have many years ahead of you to find one that "suits you, sir." i've trod on a few girlie hearts, too; you just have to learn from your mistakes and apply those lessons to the next cutie.

 

school and parents: temporary problems. slog on.

 

artistic output: i can tell by your monologue that you are a bright and talented person, and i would encourage you to use the gifts that you were born with. myself, i have a nastily short attention span, so i use poetry to tell people how much i would like to see them buggered. in fact, there's a poetry forum on this site and i've posted there more than once.

 

well, i don't suppose that i covered everything--short attention span, remember--but i hope it helps a little.

 

oh, and happy birthday on Wednesday!

 

cheers,

 

sb from California (a very real person)

[Sylph]

dyslexia: you are one fine writer in spite of having that setback. damn good sense of humo(u)r, too.

The only reason I can read and write now to any sort of degree is out of sheer persistance. As I said before I found out that I was dyslexic I just figured reading and writing was this hard for everyone so I persisted. The fact that I spent a lot of time reading books too also helped quite a bit, it's a difficult process though. I still make typos that I never notice.

 

agorophobia: i know exactly what you mean about the sweating and stammering, the conductor and all of that. been there, brother. by the time i hit 28 or so, though, i had developed a lot more self-confidence and it was pretty much all behind me.

I don't really see any solution to this problem, I understand that my fear is largely irrationial but it'll probably keep on being fed if the public in general continue to treat me like crap. And if you live in London you'll probably know how often that happens, people are quite bent on making each other miserable.

 

bullying: youngsters (including brainy but twisted 16-year old males posing as females) can be cruel and ignorant. your adult life is right in front of you now, and you will see much less of that, if any.

Well, as I said. Adults haven't treated me any better so far.

 

relationships: the first few are usually pretty short. that's totally normal. you have many years ahead of you to find one that "suits you, sir." i've trod on a few girlie hearts, too; you just have to learn from your mistakes and apply those lessons to the next cutie.

I don't worry about this so much. I'm pretty sure the failure of these past relationships haven't been my fault, which is probably self-indulgant tripe but whatever. I still have the odd, illogical infactuation so maybe there's still hope for me.

 

 

school and parents: temporary problems. slog on.

Probably.

 

 

artistic output: i can tell by your monologue that you are a bright and talented person, and i would encourage you to use the gifts that you were born with. myself, i have a nastily short attention span, so i use poetry to tell people how much i would like to see them buggered. in fact, there's a poetry forum on this site and i've posted there more than once.

I've never liked poetry, I could just never get my head around poems for reasons I can't pin down. The only time I have any flair for writing is when I'm complaining, writing down my train of thought is easy enough. When it comes to artistically expressing myself it all goes wrong. Really the only way I think I could get anywhere would be to have someone personally teach me. And since I'm broke, I can't afford that.

 

oh, and happy birthday on Wednesday!

Thanks I guess. I always play down my birthdays when it comes to it. Chances are it'll just be like any other day.

[Daddy Bear]

I still make typos that I never notice.

yeah, so do i. so does everybody. that's why i preview the living * * * * out of my posts here.

I've never liked poetry, I could just never get my head around poems for reasons I can't pin down. The only time I have any flair for writing is when I'm complaining, writing down my train of thought is easy enough.

same here! i just make it sound like poetry sometimes in order to get people to read it.

 

Thanks I guess. I always play down my birthdays when it comes to it. Chances are it'll just be like any other day.

and right there at the very end i caught a glimpse of your real problem, the one that truly holds you down.

 

dude, you're a pessimist, aren't you?

 

that program needs to be deleted. now that you're not a kid any more, you can re-write your whole script and start giving yourself the support that you find lacking in others. when people see that you believe in yourself, it makes it easier for them to believe in you as well. chew on that for a bit and let me know what you think.

[Sylph]

I prefer the word 'realistic'.

 

Not that I'm knocking you but that's very all easy to say, it was that easy to just change your out look on everything I'm sure I would have done it a long time ago. I can pretend that I'm fine to everyone around me but to try and act optimistic and truly believe it would just be lying to myself. I'd just feel like a fake.

 

To be honest I'm fine with my apperance to the outside world. Online I'm fine. I can appear any way I like and I usually come accross as everything I'd like to be if I weren't so agoraphobic of social situations in the real world. In short I'm not really sure I want to change, I don't have the motivation to do so. I doubt I will any time soon anyway.

[Daddy Bear]

I prefer the word 'realistic'.

spoken like a true pessimist. i used to use that exact same line myself.

 

Not that I'm knocking you but that's very all easy to say, it was that easy to just change your out look on everything I'm sure I would have done it a long time ago.

actually, it's not that easy to relive my own painful memories this way, and i don't mean to suggest that changing the way you think is like changing a pair of socks. i just know that it can be accomplished.

 

In short I'm not really sure I want to change, I don't have the motivation to do so.

i have known a few people who don't want the crutch of convenient excuses kicked out from under them. but you, Sylph, you took the time to write a sincere-sounding and fairly lengthy post called "Dying Inside" because...?

 

...writing assignment??

[Sylph]

I did it because I wanted someone to listen to me, not because I wanted to do anything about my life.

 

This thread is just a vent.

[Daddy Bear]

i understand completely. consider yourself heard.

 

ciao

[Süsser Tod]

I did it because I wanted someone to listen to me, not because I wanted to do anything about my life.

 

This thread is just a vent.

 

 

Buahahaha!!! I readed it all. Nice pesimistic self indulgent post!

 

I'm 10 years ahead of you on this game, and I was bullied, since I was 9 all the way to 15 y/o, I am also dislexic, and now I can clearly say I'm bipolar plus OCD and other things I can't remember, but make psychiatrists love me.

 

Soooo...

 

Huh? What was the point of your post?

 

 

Ah right, you don't want to change. Matter of fact is, you do want to change, but you are scared to death about it.

 

Sooner or later you'll face reality, and unfortunately for you, it is not as bad as you want it to be.

 

Remember this, life is nothing but time, and every day you spend hidden on your room being pathetic and trusting your feelings to whatever is on the other side of the screen, will be a lost day of your life, that you'll never be able to recover.

 

Wish I could go back in time and live that time that I just left slip off my hands, but I can't.

[AntiLove_SuperStar]

now I can clearly say I'm bipolar plus OCD and other things I can't remember, but make psychiatrists love me.

 

HAHA! I get you on that one, S.T. I've just ended my relationship with my second psych. She loved me, though.

[Sylph]

Remember this' date=' life is nothing but time, and every day you spend hidden on your room being pathetic and trusting your feelings to whatever is on the other side of the screen, will be a lost day of your life, that you'll never be able to recover.[/quote']

Since you seem pretty confident in your ability to assess me, care to offer any advice then?

 

HAHA! I get you on that one, S.T. I've just ended my relationship with my second psych. She loved me, though.

You've just been waiting for an excuse to post in this thread =3

 

EDIT: I just released that second comment sounds kinda rude to anyone who doesn't I know you. So yeah, it wasn't >_>;

[Süsser Tod]

Since you seem pretty confident in your ability to assess me, care to offer any advice then?

 

And care to elaborate how you want me to give you the answers that I haven't been able to find for myself?

 

All I can do is share my experiences and hope you don't make the same mistakes.

[Sylph]

Then I'm sure you'll understand when I say that it's easier to say than do.

 

I don't know how to break this cycle. And I might have to accept the possibility that there isn't a solution at the moment. Maybe when I start earning a little money, enough to afford my own place (saying that the chances are I'll have to share with two or three other people if I want to live in London) I'll pluck up the courage to at least visit a mental health clinic or a GP, if I'm feeling daring.

 

For now I don't feel any realistic solution has made itself apparent.

[Daddy Bear]

 

For now I don't feel any realistic solution has made itself apparent.

perhaps that is because you're not looking for solutions, just sympathy. that's a valid need but no cause to dump on us, brother mine.

 

and i bet you didn't even do anything nice for yourself for your birthday, did you?

[Sylph]

Don't get me wrong, I'll admit that while I did just want to be heard at that moment I was looking for recognition by other people. But this is just on this occasion, this must be the second time I've ever out spokenly admitted personal problems. I don't really get what you mean by dumping on you though... If I sound annoyed I'm not.

 

And no, I didn't do anything for my birthday. I didn't want to do anything, I certainly didn't want to go out. Not that I had anyone to go out with.

[Daddy Bear]

cool, Sylph. i have no problem with you. i hope that you will begin to treat yourself as you would treat a friend, though, and try to work around your shortcomings rather than declaring them insurmountable.

 

you sound (and look) very much like my lonerish but cool as * * * * friend Mike who shot his own head off at around age 30. if only he could have found a way to believe in himself, we could still be hanging out...

[Süsser Tod]

Then I'm sure you'll understand when I say that it's easier to say than do.

 

Its easier said than done, what? I'm not telling you that you have to wake up one day being a completely different person that is able to do every single thing you havent been able to do in your entire life.

 

You have to take small steps, one at a time. As small as each possitive thing you do for yourself may look, the sum of all of them will get you where you had never thought of being able to get to.

 

I don't know how to break this cycle. And I might have to accept the possibility that there isn't a solution at the moment.

 

Yeah, more pesimistic BS. Fact is, you can't break it, and whoever tells you that you can, is out of his mind.

 

Road towards being better is a long journey, and I don't think it ever ends, but that is a different topic, however, small steps while being in that circle will help you feel better, and feeling better may end up leading to an exit.

 

Dunno, I haven't reached that point yet, but at least I'm not crying on my computer every single day at night, so I am WAY better than how I used to be 10 years ago.

 

Maybe when I start earning a little money, enough to afford my own place (saying that the chances are I'll have to share with two or three other people if I want to live in London) I'll pluck up the courage to at least visit a mental health clinic or a GP, if I'm feeling daring.

 

Excuses, you and I know it. At some point of my life I had to take control of my actions, and chose my own path. Even had to drop out of college because of that.

I don't regret anything, not a little bit, I don't even want to think what could have happened if I hadn't dropped out of college to follow my own way.

 

Maybe it can be easier for you, and not so hard as it was for me, as I did it when I was 23, not 17.

 

For now I don't feel any realistic solution has made itself apparent.

 

For now, a realistic solution can be banging you on the head, and you won't notice it.

[Sylph]

You have to take small steps' date=' one at a time. As small as each possitive thing you do for yourself may look, the sum of all of them will get you where you had never thought of being able to get to.[/quote']

But I don't even know where to start, that's the point I'm trying to make. Even if I do have enough motivation to do something I really wouldn't even know how to approach the problem.

 

Yeah' date=' more pesimistic BS. Fact is, you can't break it, and whoever tells you that you can, is out of his mind.[/quote']

I'm just exploring the possibility...

 

Excuses' date=' you and I know it. At some point of my life I had to take control of my actions, and chose my own path. Even had to drop out of college because of that.[/quote']

Well not really, if you want to know I've been trying to get an apprenticeship placement for the last eleven or so weeks, that means work, that means pay and that means a positive direction. Even now still in education, you know, it's not like I'm just sitting at home every day being lazy. If it were up to me, yeah, I'd be in a job working to try and get a place of my own but at the moment because of events beyond my control I haven't been able to get one. I am trying.

 

For now' date=' a realistic solution can be banging you on the head, and you won't notice it.[/quote']

I guess I'd like to think that I'd see that something, but if I don't then I guess I don't.

[teacup]

ahaha. ur post.......no, it's not funny. but it just relates to mine in some ways that i had to laugh. it hurts. life hurts.

 

im an ocean away from my extended family, my dad is a crabby grouch who is pretending i dont exist right now and i dont really care, i lost any real friends i had, i was bullied from like fourth grade all the way through highschool. and then in college i got into abusive relationships with men who used me, hurt me, abused me and beat the * * * * out of me. hahaha. no wonder im a little crazy.

 

but hey, every once in awhile i look in the mirror and realize how pretty, smart, social and how much potential i have....if i didnt have such a nice body, so many men wouldnt have abused me and wanted to sleep with me before dumping me.

 

how's that for ironic?