I feel very alone and misunderstood, I just want to not be different.
Hi, I’m gonna keep my name anonymous and other people in this post just for the sake of security and not wanting anyone to figure out who I am. (Just in case, I’m gonna be spewing some really personal stuff, some of it being topics I’ve never told another soul) it’s gonna be kinda long and if you do take time to read it, I really appreciate it. Just for a warning, I will be bringing up SA and DV in this so if you are sensitive to that. I don’t suggest reading this.
but for as long as I can remember, I couldn’t never for the life of me fit in to any crowd. I always feel like I stand out like a sore thumb. And I’m not talking about because my appearance is just way out there, I honestly feel like I look like an average person. I have no deformities or anything of the sort other than I had extremely crooked teeth before I got braces a long time ago. When I say I feel like I stick out, I mean it personality and socially wise. And I don’t mean this as in “I’m not like other girls” or “im just soooo different from everyone else” or “I’m special because I’m different”. I mean it as in, I’ve never felt apart of anything in my life and I’ve always been treated differently. Whether it’s bullying or It’s just flat out their interactions with me are heavily different than how they are with everyone else. I feel like most of the friendships I’ve really ever had (which isn’t many) have been just because of 1.) they want / need something from me, 2.) they feel pity because I’m isolated and include me just out of pity, or 3.) they just want to fuck or have a romantic/sexual relationship with me. And I just really want genuine connection from someone who actually cares and doesn’t want anything from me other than my friendship. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I can be very emotional, I’ve always been like this and I know partially that’s probably why no one likes to stick around. I can be very people pleasing, I’ve gotten a lot better with it as I gotten older. But I find that now that I’m not bending over backwards for people and I’m putting up boundaries, I’ve pretty much lost the few friends I’ve even had. And now I talk to absolutely no one other than one friend. But even then me and her friendship feels strained. I feel like I put too much dependence onto her being available to do things with me and talk with me. Of course if she can’t, I don’t make her feel bad or anything. I know she has a life and friends of her own. But lately her being busy has put me more into thought about how lonely I really am. If she’s busy, that’s it. I have no one else to ask, no one else who would even really care to talk with me. I’ve tried putting myself out there and getting myself out my comfort zone to at least try to get new friends. That hasn’t worked.
I went to cosmetology school 2 years ago and I thought “I can make friends here since we probably have similar interests in cosmetology”. Well, I kinda befriended a small group of 3 girls and they would sometimes include me in conversations and group activities. And I thought a friendship group was blossoming with me apart of it. I felt really really happy that a group of girls actually wanted to be my friend and didn’t think I was weird or a freak. Well sometime this year, after we all graduated, I saw that same group of girls all hanging out together as a group again. And I didn’t get included, not even a mention they were doing it. I really thought I was apart of them but I feel like I was just disposed of. I’ve tried keeping in contact to afterwards and tried making plans. They usually had excuses on why they couldn’t hang out that day and I’d always be understanding. Until this happened. I know they aren’t obligated to invite me, but I actually felt like I was connected and getting along with a group just for that to happen. I was pretty devastated. And I know the thought of me probably didn’t cross their minds once. But I’ll always remember that moment of seeing them all together having fun on Snapchat. Like I didn’t exist. I feel like a ghost among people, no one sees me or acknowledges me unless there is something to gain. I’ve already tried being more extrovert and less shy, putting myself in uncomfortable social situations just so I can try to gain some kind of friends.
It’s always been like this for as long as I can remember, even in elementary school I was being bullied and isolated by peers. I started having to go to therapy in elementary school because of this, on top of, I didn’t have my father in my life, he was a deadbeat. So that added to my issues as well. I remember in elementary school I would tell myself “why would anyone want to be with me if my own dad didn’t want to” and that thought stuck with me throughout my whole life, even today I still think this.
My own birthday has became so depressing, every year around and on my birthday, I get so so depressed. Not even because I’m getting older, but because I know how little I matter and how much my own birthday really just doesn’t matter to anyone. It’s already hard to do anything on or near my birthday because my birthday lands near/on thanksgiving. But every time I tried to do a party or anything for my birthday. There is always an excuse on why people can’t come or they will just ghost me the day of even though they said they would show up. The only person who ever stayed consistent with me and our friendship is the one friend I currently have. In elementary school, I threw a birthday party during the summer. My sister also shared the same birthday party since hers actually was in summer. My mom did this so I could finally have a birthday party (I never had one until this one, and I was around 7-8 years old during this summer birthday party) so my sister invited all her friends and I invited everyone from my class to try to get friends. Well during this party, everyone I invited enjoyed my sisters company a lot more and all of them pretty much hung out with my sister the entire party (I wish I was exaggerating). Everyone seemed a lot more happier about her birthday compared to mine. I think that was the day I started comparing myself to my older sister (she is 5 years older than me).
My sister is the complete opposite of me, she is very out going, charismatic, joyful to be around. She always had a ton of friends and always had fun plans with friends. Everyone loved my sister, even my own family seemed like they loved and understood her a whole lot better than me. I am pretty much the black sheep of the family, I’ve always been different and thought differently. My mom she would constantly try to force me to be into the same stuff my sister and her were into it. I remember having a heated argument over converse shoes because I wanted a new pair for school, but vans were really big at the time and my mom and sister wore vans. She got so mad all because I didn’t like vans and wanted converse.
My sister and mom would also basically bully me. So I’d go from being bullied at school to coming home and getting made fun of again by my own sister and mother all because I liked different things and I acted differently. I’ve never told them but I know the years of them bullying and making fun of me contributed to my confidence issues growing up. After a while I stopped sharing anything I liked or anything about myself to them and other people. I knew I’d just get made fun of again because it isn’t “the norm”. And now (I’m 24 now) I have a very weird relationship with my own family, I have to throw on the “family mask” and be someone I’m not just to feel comfortable around them. tbh my own family barely knows anything about me. They think they know me well but they really don’t. There’s a lot I’ve never said / told them about.
One of the major situations that really took the cake and made me not want to tell them anything anymore is when I was SAed by a friend of mine when I was still in elementary school. After school, I used to go to a karate class and I had made a friend there who was around my age. One day, she invited me over and I went over, mind you, no one ever invites me over to their house and I was around 9-10 years old when this happened. When I went over to her house, at first, it was like a normal play date. It wasn’t until she started asking to do weird things to me, and being a young child who barely had friends, I thought I had to accept and that what she was doing was normal. Later I told my mom and sister because I was incredibly bothered and uncomfortable by it, on top of I didn’t understand what she was even doing to me. My sister, cracked jokes about it and practically made fun of me because it was a girl who was doing it to me. I never went back to her house after that and I pretty much stopped being interested in karate. And I stopped bringing up anything wrong with me since then. I pretty much isolated my feelings and thoughts, building up walls that even my own family couldn’t get through. I didn’t trust them anymore, at least not with my emotions and what’s going on with me.
In middle school, bullying got a lot worse. My mom got married over the summer in between 5th and 6th grade and we also moved. so I started middle school in an entirely new environment with new people. The new kid. And I was a major target. I was tripped in the hallways and always picked last in group activities because no one ever wanted me on their team. In 8th grade, my depression and isolation got so bad I had to be moved out of gym into another class and I had to start seeing a therapist. This was the first year I really started contemplating suicide, it just got so bad. I did make a good friend in the beginning, or so I thought. I met her in 6th grade and we were friends up until the beginning of 8th grade when she decided to go behind my back and date someone she knew I had feelings for. We were never the same after that.
In high school, I was constantly in and out of the school psychiatrists office because everyday I had mental breakdowns that would leave me balling my eyes out for hours because I was just so depressed and I felt so alienated and isolated from everyone.
Trying to connect to people has always been an issue my entirely life and I’ve never understood why. I’ve changed who I am so many times that I don’t even know if I know my own self anymore. All I ever wanted was for people to like me and for me to fit in. Feel normal for once. I wanted to be like my sister, everyone loved her. no one thought of me. Sometimes I used to pray at night that I’d wake up in the morning as someone else because being me felt so alone. I didn’t even like myself anymore. I didn’t even want to be around myself. Even today I still feel this way. Why did I have to be the weird one? Why couldn’t I have been as pretty, talented, and as loved as my sister. The only reason I was even born was because my mom thought having me would fix her and my dad’s relationship. Yeah we see how that went, I don’t even remember a single day of them being together in my life. They were always separated as long as I can remember. They separated around a year after my birth, sometimes it feels like my fault. Idk why because it isn’t my fault but it feels like it.
During cosmetology school 2 years ago, I remember this girl came in super dressed up wearing a birthday ribbon on her dress with several balloons and presents in her hand. And usually at the school, for students birthdays, the teachers and other students will decorate the birthday students station and celebrate their birthday in the morning. And this girl that came in all dressed up with birthday gifts and balloons, started crying right after everyone started cheering and singing happy birthday to her. She said “she didn’t think anyone would even remember her birthday”. Usually I’m a very understanding and empathetic person, but her saying that lit a fuse in me and I remember thinking after she said that “you got to be serious. Just wait till it’s my birthday, they will all forget” this girl came in with several gifts and balloons along with a birthday ribbon. It felt like a kick to the face, especially with my experiences with my birthday. And sure enough, on my birthday, nothing happened. No happy birthday from anyone, no mini celebration. Nothing. I cried in the bathroom that entire day, thinking about what that girl said about her thinking people would forget hers. People actually forgot mine and honestly probably didn’t care. I did absolutely nothing for my birthday. It was just another day. Only my family said happy birthday. I know it’s only a birthday, but I just wanted someone to care and actually have a thought about me on my special day.
I don’t feel like I matter to anyone. Sometimes I’ll get angry thinking about my own suicide if I did do it because I know there will probably be fake people saying “I wish I reached out” “if only we knew what was happening” “mental health matters”. And it irks me because tbh the signs are there, I feel like it’s pretty obvious I’m depressed and have been for a long time. And I’ve reached out to talk numerous occasions to “friends” only for them to think I “overshare”. I’ll never forget in high school my “group of friends” were doing this voting thing among the group (ex: who is most likely to go to jail, who is the most extroverted. Those kind of questions) and I was voted “who overshares the most” that was the only thing I was actually voted the most on. I never brought up anything else going on with me again. Just created another mask for myself that they would like so they didn’t see me as oversharing or trauma dumping.
Right After Graduating high school, I did stay friends with that same group. During that same time, I met a boy at work and we started dating. Well to make a long story short, he was very very abusive. He would SA me practically on the daily, threaten me, beat me, lock me in the bathroom or his bedroom whenever I wanted to leave because he was scaring and hurting me. I would literally have to pretend to be happy and forgive him just so he would finally let me leave. The very last time I ever saw him, he nearly killed me. Like choked me and slammed my head in a wall. He even threatened me with a knife if I tried to leave him, luckily I managed to calm him down and think I was not mad or scared of him. Then I left and never came back, I ended it right then and there before he really did kill me. My friends… not supportive at all. I didn’t tell them at first in the beginning because again, I didn’t want to “overshare” and I didn’t even know how to tell anyone about it. It was traumatic. I did end up telling them finally after I had already ended the relationship and not much was really said about it. They kind of treated it like it was just another bad day. I was not okay after that relationship. I started dating on tinder and bumble, getting into one night stands and flings only to be ghosted afterwards. During this time, I also got into ❄️ because of one of the guys I was trying to date. All I wanted was a loving genuine relationship and all I got was boys who wanted nothing but to use my body for sex, then ghost me like I never existed. I would even try to decline having sex until we were at least together for a couple months, but no man wanted to do that. It was sex or they were ghosting me. So I would allow sex since that seemed to be the only time anyone was ever interested in me. And now I struggle like hell with my sexuality because I feel like the only worth and purpose I have is for sex. Other than that, I don’t matter. All I am good for is sex. Me and sex do not have a healthy relationship at all. It’s very love hate. Sometimes after sex, I just feel gross and disgusted with myself.
I have gone to therapy 4 years ago and I was diagnosed with PTSD (because of my abusive relationship), Bipolar ll, and ADHD. My PTSD now is a lot better, I still have to avoid things that will trigger it, but for the most part it isn’t affecting my everyday life like it used to. On the other hand, my bipolar is off the walls. Medicine helps with it but I haven’t been able to get medication for it rn so I’m really struggling. And I honestly have no one to talk to about any of this. I don’t know what I really want from posting this, but I’d like advice or even just someone to lend an ear to hear me out. I’m tired of feeling voiceless and so powerless in my life and just feeling like I don’t matter to a single soul. I’m very lonely and I just want someone to care. I’m always there for everyone when they need me but no one is ever there for me. I want to matter.