u/Acrobatic-Pen-6741

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life watching humanity through glass.

Ever since I was little, people never felt fully “real” to me in the same way they seemed real to each other. I would sit in classrooms and watch everyone harmonize naturally while I felt like I somehow wasn’t supposed to be there. Like they were actual members of the cast and I was some strange extra accidentally placed into the scene.

The weird thing is I know exactly how insane this sounds.

But when I observe people, the way they walk, smile, react, talk under pressure, laugh with friends, it all flows so naturally. Their facial expressions even look “correct” to me, cinematic almost. Like they belong in the world effortlessly. Meanwhile I feel painfully self-aware of every movement I make. My expressions feel off, my reactions feel delayed, under pressure I freeze or visibly panic while everyone else seems to continue the script naturally.

It feels like I became trapped in observer mode very early in life and never fully returned from it.

And I think that’s where a lot of my inferiority comes from. Because in my head, I already processed other people as characters in a movie long before they ever processed me as a person. So now when I enter social situations, I already unconsciously assume everyone sees me as the awkward irrelevant side character too.

I know people will probably say “everyone feels this way sometimes,” but I genuinely think mine is more extreme because I’ve dealt with dissociation, OCD, anxiety and chronic self-monitoring for years. I don’t feel immersed in reality. I feel like I’m constantly watching myself exist from the outside while everyone else gets to naturally participate.

And honestly, it hurts a lot more than I let people see.

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life watching humanity through glass.

Ever since I was little, people never felt fully “real” to me in the same way they seemed real to each other. I would sit in classrooms and watch everyone harmonize naturally while I felt like I somehow wasn’t supposed to be there. Like they were actual members of the cast and I was some strange extra accidentally placed into the scene.

The weird thing is I know exactly how insane this sounds.

But when I observe people, the way they walk, smile, react, talk under pressure, laugh with friends, it all flows so naturally. Their facial expressions even look “correct” to me, cinematic almost. Like they belong in the world effortlessly. Meanwhile I feel painfully self-aware of every movement I make. My expressions feel off, my reactions feel delayed, under pressure I freeze or visibly panic while everyone else seems to continue the script naturally.

It feels like I became trapped in observer mode very early in life and never fully returned from it.

And I think that’s where a lot of my inferiority comes from. Because in my head, I already processed other people as characters in a movie long before they ever processed me as a person. So now when I enter social situations, I already unconsciously assume everyone sees me as the awkward irrelevant side character too.

I know people will probably say “everyone feels this way sometimes,” but I genuinely think mine is more extreme because I’ve dealt with dissociation, OCD, anxiety and chronic self-monitoring for years. I don’t feel immersed in reality. I feel like I’m constantly watching myself exist from the outside while everyone else gets to naturally participate.

And honestly, it hurts a lot more than I let people see.

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life watching humanity through glass.

Ever since I was little, people never felt fully “real” to me in the same way they seemed real to each other. I would sit in classrooms and watch everyone harmonize naturally while I felt like I somehow wasn’t supposed to be there. Like they were actual members of the cast and I was some strange extra accidentally placed into the scene.

The weird thing is I know exactly how insane this sounds.

But when I observe people, the way they walk, smile, react, talk under pressure, laugh with friends, it all flows so naturally. Their facial expressions even look “correct” to me, cinematic almost. Like they belong in the world effortlessly. Meanwhile I feel painfully self-aware of every movement I make. My expressions feel off, my reactions feel delayed, under pressure I freeze or visibly panic while everyone else seems to continue the script naturally.

It feels like I became trapped in observer mode very early in life and never fully returned from it.

And I think that’s where a lot of my inferiority comes from. Because in my head, I already processed other people as characters in a movie long before they ever processed me as a person. So now when I enter social situations, I already unconsciously assume everyone sees me as the awkward irrelevant side character too.

I know people will probably say “everyone feels this way sometimes,” but I genuinely think mine is more extreme because I’ve dealt with dissociation, OCD, anxiety and chronic self-monitoring for years. I don’t feel immersed in reality. I feel like I’m constantly watching myself exist from the outside while everyone else gets to naturally participate.

And honestly, it hurts a lot more than I let people see.

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life watching humanity through glass.

Ever since I was little, people never felt fully “real” to me in the same way they seemed real to each other. I would sit in classrooms and watch everyone harmonize naturally while I felt like I somehow wasn’t supposed to be there. Like they were actual members of the cast and I was some strange extra accidentally placed into the scene.

The weird thing is I know exactly how insane this sounds.

But when I observe people, the way they walk, smile, react, talk under pressure, laugh with friends, it all flows so naturally. Their facial expressions even look “correct” to me, cinematic almost. Like they belong in the world effortlessly. Meanwhile I feel painfully self-aware of every movement I make. My expressions feel off, my reactions feel delayed, under pressure I freeze or visibly panic while everyone else seems to continue the script naturally.

It feels like I became trapped in observer mode very early in life and never fully returned from it.

And I think that’s where a lot of my inferiority comes from. Because in my head, I already processed other people as characters in a movie long before they ever processed me as a person. So now when I enter social situations, I already unconsciously assume everyone sees me as the awkward irrelevant side character too.

I know people will probably say “everyone feels this way sometimes,” but I genuinely think mine is more extreme because I’ve dealt with dissociation, OCD, anxiety and chronic self-monitoring for years. I don’t feel immersed in reality. I feel like I’m constantly watching myself exist from the outside while everyone else gets to naturally participate.

And honestly, it hurts a lot more than I let people see.

I genuinely hate humanity sometimes.

Not every individual person maybe, but what humans become when they gather together. The conformity. The desperation for validation. The fake personalities. The way people slowly abandon themselves just to fit in somewhere. Same slang, same behavior, same empty social rituals repeated over and over until nobody even knows who they are anymore.

And the worst part is I feel like I spent years trapped in an environment that poisoned my mind slowly. I never wanted this. I never wanted to become this angry, detached, paranoid, obsessive person. I wanted a meaningful life. I wanted authenticity. I wanted something real.

Instead I watched people around me become copies of each other while mocking anyone different. They call you “special,” “odd,” “quiet,” make assumptions about you constantly because they cannot stand someone who doesn’t completely merge into the same identity as everyone else.

Even my own brothers changed from it. I can see it happening in them too. The same social contamination. The same loss of individuality. And it makes me furious because I feel like I fought so hard not to become like that that I completely destroyed myself mentally in the process.

Now I’m left with depression, OCD, anxiety, dissociation, self hatred, emotional numbness, and constant rage at the world. I feel disconnected from almost everyone. Sometimes I feel like I’m observing humanity from outside instead of actually being part of it.

And yes, before anyone says it, I know this sounds insane or arrogant or edgy. I know humans are imperfect and adaptive and social creatures. I know some of this comes from my own mental illness and isolation. But that doesn’t stop the feeling. The disgust feels real. The disappointment feels real.

I’m crying writing this because underneath all the anger I think I’m just grieving the person I could have been if my mind didn’t spend years rotting in environments that felt spiritually dead to me.

I wanted life to feel meaningful so badly.

Instead I feel like I became psychologically infected by the very things I hated.

i got diagnosed with OCD today, and all of sudden, everything makes much more sense. I am 18 years old and I already feel mentally exhausted from existing.

Every day feels the same. Wake up tired after barely sleeping because I work late shifts washing dishes for hours covered in grease, sweat, dirty water, chicken scraps, and exhaustion just to repeat the same cycle again the next day. Then I drag myself to school around people I can’t even connect with. Everyone feels fake to me. Same personalities, same slang, same masks, same desperate need for approval. It feels like people abandoned themselves years ago just to fit into a group.

And somehow I hate myself even more than I hate any of them.

I overanalyze everything to the point where my own mind feels hostile toward me. I can’t even experience happiness normally anymore because the second I feel anything positive, my brain immediately attacks it. If I like a girl, my mind calls me pathetic. If someone compliments me, it feels like an error message in my brain. If I accomplish something, I feel absolutely nothing.

I got accepted into the university I wanted and still couldn’t fully feel proud.

I spend most of my life trapped in my own head questioning everything: identity, meaning, emotions, society, conditioning, reality itself. I keep obsessing over whether humans are just products of biology and environment pretending to be unique. Every emotion gets dissected until it loses all meaning. I don’t even trust my own happiness anymore because my brain instantly labels it as fake conditioning.

And the worst part is I know I sound insane.

I watch gore and disturbing content because it’s one of the only things that cuts through the numbness and makes me feel something real for a moment. Then afterward I spiral even harder. I’ve become so detached from myself that sometimes I feel like different versions of me are taking turns existing. Severe dissociation, anxiety, depression, OCD — my mind is just constant noise. Constant tension. Constant self-awareness. Constant war.

I don’t even know what it means to “be myself” anymore because I feel like I’ve spent my whole life analyzing myself instead of living.

People tell me I’m smart, deep, self-aware, resilient. I genuinely cannot emotionally process any of it. My mind rejects every positive thing automatically and replaces it with shame. I hate how I look, how I sound, how I act, how sensitive I am, how disconnected I am from everyone else.

And despite all of this, some stupid part of me still refuses to give up.

That’s what confuses me most.

Because logically I feel like I should have collapsed years ago, but something in me keeps fighting no matter how much I hate existing like this. Maybe it’s survival instinct. Maybe ego. Maybe fear. Maybe hope. I honestly don’t know anymore.

I just know I’m tired.

Tired of living entirely inside my own head. Tired of feeling detached from reality. Tired of being unable to feel peace without immediately destroying it. Tired of trying to figure out if anything about being human is actually real.

I don’t even know what I’m asking for anymore. Maybe I just wanted to know if anyone else has ever felt this disconnected from themselves and still somehow managed to come back from it.

I watch gory content, like people being decapitated and mutilated on reddit content because it’s the only thing that makes me feel anything at all. Whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter anymore. It just makes me feel alive and aware. With it, I feel like I can see the world differently, like I’m looking at it through some kind of third eye that most people don’t have. Its the darkest extremity a person can consume. How much people do you think sees both sides of the world the darkest and lightest everything noe days is sculpted and curated to be kn thr light side. Wanting to see the dark side is not wrong if snything its neccary to have a ge line undersataing of the world and not an biased one. You can't say this is your true self without having experience ces everything this world has to offer whether its terrifying or heart warming.

And once you start seeing things that way, you can’t unsee it. You begin to question everything. Humans start to look like nothing more than fragile bodies. Just sacks of meat. Easily destroyed. And from there, every realization leads to another one that cancels it out. You realize something, then you question that realization, then you question the doubt itself. It never ends. It’s just a loop.

I feel stuck in that loop. Everything eventually dulls into meaninglessness. I don’t know what it means to live anymore. I don’t know what freedom is. I don’t know what happiness or sadness really are. I don’t even feel like I know anything at all. I don’t know my family, they don’t know me, and I don’t know myself. It feels like I never will.

What makes it worse is that I still react like a human. I still feel things in certain moments. I can watch my favorite team win and feel something. But then immediately, I question it. Why am I feeling this? What is this feeling? Does it even matter? And just like that, it disappears. Every emotion gets dissected until there’s nothing left.

It feels like I can’t commit to anything, not even a single thought, without doubting it. Every side of myself feels unstable. Acting, not acting—it all feels irrelevant. Nothing holds.

And the more I think, the more it feels like there is no solution. I’m not even asking for one anymore. I’m just trying to get these thoughts out of my head because keeping them inside makes it worse.

The strange part is that I’m still human underneath all of this. I still feel deeply. I still have severe social anxiety. I still get nervous talking to people. I still worry about how I’m seen. And I hate that, because it feels like even after everything I’ve realized, I’m still stuck in the same human patterns.

But at the same time, it feels like if I truly followed this way of thinking all the way through, I wouldn’t even be human anymore. I would become something else entirely. Something detached, something that can’t function in normal life. Something that wouldn’t be able to have relationships, or be part of society, or even connect with my own family.

And that’s where it gets worse. Because if I want to live any kind of life, I have to play a role. I have to fit into a system that already exists. I have to follow expectations that were set long before me. And being aware of that makes it feel even more empty, like I’m just acting through everything.

It feels like the only way to live is to force myself into believing something. To choose values, choose meaning, choose a version of myself, and commit to it, even if I know it’s constructed. Almost like I have to manipulate my own mind just to function. And that thought alone feels wrong, like I’m betraying something.

But if I don’t do that, I just fall back into the same patterns. The same thoughts. The same emptiness. It feels like I’ve already wired my brain in a certain way, and now I’m stuck with it.

Real or fake doesn’t even matter anymore. It feels like everything is fake. Being “real” is impossible. Even something like grief—if someone I loved died—i would question whether that feeling is even real, or just something I was conditioned to feel.

And that thought alone is terrifying.

Because it makes me feel like I’m losing something fundamental about being human.

I don’t need to argue about whether I’m right or wrong anymore. That doesn’t change anything. The only thing that’s real to me right now is the fear.

I’m scared. Not just a little—I’m genuinely terrified.

I’m scared that this won’t stop. That this way of thinking is just going to keep going and getting worse. That I’ve gone too far into this and I won’t be able to come back. I don’t know what to do.

Part of me keeps thinking—if someone truly saw the world for what it is, they wouldn’t be happy. They would feel like this. They would feel empty. So does that mean this is the truth? That depression is the actual reality, and everyone else is just not seeing it?

Or am I just stuck in something I can’t get out of?

I don’t know anymore.

All I know is that I wanted to understand everything, and now it feels like that understanding has turned into something I can’t escape from.

And I feel like I’ve broken something inside myself.

Ps. I am not looking for a solution from you people, there is no final answer. At this rate i will lose myself snd everything i hold precious. And just so you know i need your fake biased opinions on this. I am fake you are fake. There is nothing thst will just turn us to "real". It feels like everything in this world ultimately comes down to one thing, and that's everything is meaningless, but even thinking that is fake.Even after you read that, you want to speak to me? You don't think im a sociopath? serial killer? I gave up on trying to find an answer. Those responsibilities you mentioned is what I hate the most. We can't even live with coherence in our selves because of our biased/fake experiences and upbringing. We have no choice but to give in and revert to our fake self, i understand that. It's the same for me. Escaping means abandoning your awareness, as this awareness we have is the root cause of our suffering, some people might see and understand, but they don't feel the true weight. Its a constant pain, something that's constantly weighing on your chest, just breathing sometimes feels hard. The pain could be different for each people. Selfish, you say? To talk to me? Do you expect to find some sort of solution from talking to me? I have nothing to offer to anyone, not in this fake world.You are right about all of that. But we cannot blame or despise other people, just because they are fake. We are fake, these thoughts and conversation is also a byproduct of the fakeness imbued in us, I do understand why it feels real to you, it does to me too, but its still fake. that's the paradox, and unfortunately we cannot do anything about it, Can fake ever -> Real. No, because there is not a "real". Even if there was another world where we did not have such thoughts like these and happily lived life, it was merely one fake possibility out of the infinite. And we never got an say at what we really wanted, it was already decided for us. Us being fake is inevitable as we are intelligent beings, and when logic and emotions come into play, ultimately there is a negative conclusion, It is much more easier to end, than preserve, which also means our extinction is also inevitable because of us. It wont be too long, its around the corner. I anticipate I will be there to witness the end. Maybe you too, but I don't know how old you are. Furthermore, so just because everything is fake, do we give up? Do we just give up control and revert to our fake selves? I wish I can find a reason as to why we shouldn't give up, but there is not any, if anything giving up is the best choice for us. From most humans perspective our internal battle means absolutely nothing, its unnecessary. If you just think differently you wouldn't suffer needlessly, we are suffering in our mind. That's right. They are right. If anything is fake, might as well align myself with the systems this world runs on, I feel like giving up, its an impossible battle. I will naturally give up overtime, even someone as self aware as me, because i don't want to suffer. I'm still human, and i want to live a life where I am generally happy, they say with age comes wisdom, no that's wrong, with age comes delusion, disguised as wisdom this is the tragic truth of humanity.

Do you still relate to me now? i would be surprised if you did. It means we are so similarly fake.

I watch gory content, like people being decapitated and mutilated on reddit content because it’s the only thing that makes me feel anything at all. Whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter anymore. It just makes me feel alive and aware. With it, I feel like I can see the world differently, like I’m looking at it through some kind of third eye that most people don’t have. Its the darkest extremity a person can consume. How much people do you think sees both sides of the world the darkest and lightest everything noe days is sculpted and curated to be kn thr light side. Wanting to see the dark side is not wrong if snything its neccary to have a ge line undersataing of the world and not an biased one. You can't say this is your true self without having experience ces everything this world has to offer whether its terrifying or heart warming.

And once you start seeing things that way, you can’t unsee it. You begin to question everything. Humans start to look like nothing more than fragile bodies. Just sacks of meat. Easily destroyed. And from there, every realization leads to another one that cancels it out. You realize something, then you question that realization, then you question the doubt itself. It never ends. It’s just a loop.

I feel stuck in that loop. Everything eventually dulls into meaninglessness. I don’t know what it means to live anymore. I don’t know what freedom is. I don’t know what happiness or sadness really are. I don’t even feel like I know anything at all. I don’t know my family, they don’t know me, and I don’t know myself. It feels like I never will.

What makes it worse is that I still react like a human. I still feel things in certain moments. I can watch my favorite team win and feel something. But then immediately, I question it. Why am I feeling this? What is this feeling? Does it even matter? And just like that, it disappears. Every emotion gets dissected until there’s nothing left.

It feels like I can’t commit to anything, not even a single thought, without doubting it. Every side of myself feels unstable. Acting, not acting—it all feels irrelevant. Nothing holds.

And the more I think, the more it feels like there is no solution. I’m not even asking for one anymore. I’m just trying to get these thoughts out of my head because keeping them inside makes it worse.

The strange part is that I’m still human underneath all of this. I still feel deeply. I still have severe social anxiety. I still get nervous talking to people. I still worry about how I’m seen. And I hate that, because it feels like even after everything I’ve realized, I’m still stuck in the same human patterns.

But at the same time, it feels like if I truly followed this way of thinking all the way through, I wouldn’t even be human anymore. I would become something else entirely. Something detached, something that can’t function in normal life. Something that wouldn’t be able to have relationships, or be part of society, or even connect with my own family.

And that’s where it gets worse. Because if I want to live any kind of life, I have to play a role. I have to fit into a system that already exists. I have to follow expectations that were set long before me. And being aware of that makes it feel even more empty, like I’m just acting through everything.

It feels like the only way to live is to force myself into believing something. To choose values, choose meaning, choose a version of myself, and commit to it, even if I know it’s constructed. Almost like I have to manipulate my own mind just to function. And that thought alone feels wrong, like I’m betraying something.

But if I don’t do that, I just fall back into the same patterns. The same thoughts. The same emptiness. It feels like I’ve already wired my brain in a certain way, and now I’m stuck with it.

Real or fake doesn’t even matter anymore. It feels like everything is fake. Being “real” is impossible. Even something like grief—if someone I loved died—i would question whether that feeling is even real, or just something I was conditioned to feel.

And that thought alone is terrifying.

Because it makes me feel like I’m losing something fundamental about being human.

I don’t need to argue about whether I’m right or wrong anymore. That doesn’t change anything. The only thing that’s real to me right now is the fear.

I’m scared. Not just a little—I’m genuinely terrified.

I’m scared that this won’t stop. That this way of thinking is just going to keep going and getting worse. That I’ve gone too far into this and I won’t be able to come back. I don’t know what to do.

Part of me keeps thinking—if someone truly saw the world for what it is, they wouldn’t be happy. They would feel like this. They would feel empty. So does that mean this is the truth? That depression is the actual reality, and everyone else is just not seeing it?

Or am I just stuck in something I can’t get out of?

I don’t know anymore.

All I know is that I wanted to understand everything, and now it feels like that understanding has turned into something I can’t escape from.

And I feel like I’ve broken something inside myself.

Ps. I am not looking for a solution from you people, there is no final answer. At this rate i will lose myself snd everything i hold precious. And just so you know i need your fake biased opinions on this. I am fake you are fake. There is nothing thst will just turn us to "real". It feels like everything in this world ultimately comes down to one thing, and that's everything is meaningless, but even thinking that is fake.

I watch gory content, like people being decapitated and mutilated on reddit content because it’s the only thing that makes me feel anything at all. Whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter anymore. It just makes me feel alive and aware. With it, I feel like I can see the world differently, like I’m looking at it through some kind of third eye that most people don’t have. Its the darkest extremity a person can consume. How much people do you think sees both sides of the world the darkest and lightest everything noe days is sculpted and curated to be kn thr light side. Wanting to see the dark side is not wrong if snything its neccary to have a ge line undersataing of the world and not an biased one. You can't say this is your true self without having experience ces everything this world has to offer whether its terrifying or heart warming.

And once you start seeing things that way, you can’t unsee it. You begin to question everything. Humans start to look like nothing more than fragile bodies. Just sacks of meat. Easily destroyed. And from there, every realization leads to another one that cancels it out. You realize something, then you question that realization, then you question the doubt itself. It never ends. It’s just a loop.

I feel stuck in that loop. Everything eventually dulls into meaninglessness. I don’t know what it means to live anymore. I don’t know what freedom is. I don’t know what happiness or sadness really are. I don’t even feel like I know anything at all. I don’t know my family, they don’t know me, and I don’t know myself. It feels like I never will.

What makes it worse is that I still react like a human. I still feel things in certain moments. I can watch my favorite team win and feel something. But then immediately, I question it. Why am I feeling this? What is this feeling? Does it even matter? And just like that, it disappears. Every emotion gets dissected until there’s nothing left.

It feels like I can’t commit to anything, not even a single thought, without doubting it. Every side of myself feels unstable. Acting, not acting—it all feels irrelevant. Nothing holds.

And the more I think, the more it feels like there is no solution. I’m not even asking for one anymore. I’m just trying to get these thoughts out of my head because keeping them inside makes it worse.

The strange part is that I’m still human underneath all of this. I still feel deeply. I still have severe social anxiety. I still get nervous talking to people. I still worry about how I’m seen. And I hate that, because it feels like even after everything I’ve realized, I’m still stuck in the same human patterns.

But at the same time, it feels like if I truly followed this way of thinking all the way through, I wouldn’t even be human anymore. I would become something else entirely. Something detached, something that can’t function in normal life. Something that wouldn’t be able to have relationships, or be part of society, or even connect with my own family.

And that’s where it gets worse. Because if I want to live any kind of life, I have to play a role. I have to fit into a system that already exists. I have to follow expectations that were set long before me. And being aware of that makes it feel even more empty, like I’m just acting through everything.

It feels like the only way to live is to force myself into believing something. To choose values, choose meaning, choose a version of myself, and commit to it, even if I know it’s constructed. Almost like I have to manipulate my own mind just to function. And that thought alone feels wrong, like I’m betraying something.

But if I don’t do that, I just fall back into the same patterns. The same thoughts. The same emptiness. It feels like I’ve already wired my brain in a certain way, and now I’m stuck with it.

Real or fake doesn’t even matter anymore. It feels like everything is fake. Being “real” is impossible. Even something like grief—if someone I loved died—i would question whether that feeling is even real, or just something I was conditioned to feel.

And that thought alone is terrifying.

Because it makes me feel like I’m losing something fundamental about being human.

I don’t need to argue about whether I’m right or wrong anymore. That doesn’t change anything. The only thing that’s real to me right now is the fear.

I’m scared. Not just a little—I’m genuinely terrified.

I’m scared that this won’t stop. That this way of thinking is just going to keep going and getting worse. That I’ve gone too far into this and I won’t be able to come back. I don’t know what to do.

Part of me keeps thinking—if someone truly saw the world for what it is, they wouldn’t be happy. They would feel like this. They would feel empty. So does that mean this is the truth? That depression is the actual reality, and everyone else is just not seeing it?

Or am I just stuck in something I can’t get out of?

I don’t know anymore.

All I know is that I wanted to understand everything, and now it feels like that understanding has turned into something I can’t escape from.

And I feel like I’ve broken something inside myself.

Ps. I am not looking for a solution from you people, there is no final answer. At this rate i will lose myself snd everything i hold precious. And just so you know i need your fake biased opinions on this. I am fake you are fake. There is nothing thst will just turn us to "real". It feels like everything in this world ultimately comes down to one thing, and that's everything is meaningless, but even thinking that is fake.