i don't really want to talk about my own trauma right now because people will probably mock me for it, but anyone else relate?
Someone else also said that "physical pain" is the only valid kind of suffering, and I also found that quite hurtful. I really don't like "tough-lovey" people at all
i'm not really in the place where i can apply to decent-paying jobs, despite having a university degree with a good GPA. i've been unemployed for six years, and for whatever reason, no one wants to be my reference. there are some volunteering organizations that require two references, and I don't even have those two. apparently I'm not even qualified for unpaid positions, fml.
not to mention, everyone that I used to know already left me and it's so fucking hard to make close friends offline. no one wants to be more than acquaintances with me, even at those stupid "board game" meetups or whatever. no one gives a shit about me.
and so, I recently made a post in a platonic friend-finding community in my city. i said I was specifically looking for other girls to talk to, who were somewhat close to my age, but everyone who messaged me was married and had good-paying, busy careers. it just kind of made me feel like shit, honestly.
why do people feel the need to sound impressive and polished when they're reaching out? why do they feel the need to be curated? I always mention that I've been out of the workforce for a long time when I make these posts. I mention that i'm looking for women who are also quite isolated and are looking for close friends, and it's infuriating how I keep attracting the wrong people.
i don't know. i hate it so much.
i don't want unsolicited career advice. i'm not in the headspace to be spamming CVs on indeed that never get responses anyway.
READ FIRST: I am strictly looking to connect with other single women. If you have a husband, a fiancé, a romantic partner in general, or a highly active inner circle, please do not reply. I'm not looking to be a casual weekend supplement for someone who already has their favorite person back at home. (Also, the reason I prefer talking to women - cis and trans - isn't because I want to date girls; it's more like I don't feel comfortable talking with most men.)
Hey, readers! 🙋♀️ I'd love to connect with a warm, gentle soul who also happens to enjoy games. I mainly play singleplayer games, because I don't actually have anyone to play multiplayer games with, haha… Although, maybe one day, that'll change. It would be a lot of fun to play a silly game with a close friend, a game where we can both act stupid and laugh about it the whole time.
Anyway, some of my favorite games are:
In general, I enjoy JRPGs (and turn-based games in general) and puzzle games, but I also like music games, adventure/mystery games (like the Chzo Mythos series) and occasionally action RPGs. I don't usually enjoy competitive PvP games like League of Legends or Counter-Strike, because the communities are almost always too toxic for my tastes. When I had other people to game with, I'd enjoy Lethal Company (even though I'm really bad with horror games in general) as well as Monster Hunter World**.** ⚔
I am also a bit of a cinephile, although I'm not pretentious about movies. What I mean to say is that I generally take an analytical approach when reviewing or critiquing films. My two favorite films are Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. 🔫 However, I also enjoy most genres except jumpscare-heavy horror (like The Ring or Evil Dead).
As for the real world, I've been unemployed for six years, I'm seeing a therapist to try to overcome my social traumas, and my baseline energy level is relatively low, both physically and mentally, so I'm not exactly what you'd call "hyperproductive". I'm also considering volunteering once a week or so, like at a food bank or something. I don't handle stress particularly well, so paid work, especially full time work, might be too overwhelming for me.
I try to be compassionate towards others, trying my best to make the other person feel heard and understood. I want to be an empathetic person, because I myself want to be understood. I want to talk to someone who wouldn't mock me for my social struggles, someone who would see the worst parts of me and accept me anyway. I've been wounded by so many people over the course of my life, so I might be a little difficult, but it would be really nice to have a long-term friend who's always in my corner.
As a final note, I really don't like being ignored consistently (which includes being ghosted). If you're the type of person who ghost as soon as you decide that I'm no longer worth talking to, then please let me know before you cut things off. I'd rather you be honest and tell me how you feel. In fact, I prefer people who are candid about their feelings in general.
If I seem like the kind of person you could get along with, please send me a DM! 😊
I don't really want advice. I don't want to be lectured. i just want people to understand what I'm talking about
and please spare me the "don't take it personally" bs. I'm a very thin skinned, emotionally sensitive person, and I don't think its fair that only thick skin is acceptable in this world. if people were less hostile, then thin skin wouldn't be seen as a weakness.
sure, i live with a terrifying, abusive mother, and I'd love to get some kind of disability housing to get away from her, but I've also never really had emotionally close friendships, esp with other women. i never got to feel like "one of the girls", so that's what im prioritizing at the moment.
besides, i have such a low tolerance for stress now, i get emotionally overwhelmed very easily by the smallest amount of adversity. even if i was lucky enough to get hired somewhere, i would probably get fired within a week 😅
for context, I'm living with various disabilities that I don't feel too comfortable sharing, so I haven't worked in over six years. because I'm unemployed, I also live with family, and I don't go to school either, so I'm totally isolated.
I tried book clubs, board game events, DND one-shots, volunteering—I just don't click with anyone. and no one takes an interest in being friends anyway. it might be because I'm neurodivergent and don't know how to mask. but when I make posts looking for friends online, I keep attracting all the wrong people. people who are married, people who are functional and wouldn't know what it's like to be isolated for such a long time. and because of feelings of envy, I don't really feel safe talking to these strangers anyway. I feel like I only get along with other "misfits"—people who aren't conventionally successful, people who don't have saturated social lives, people who know what it's like to be different.
I guess I'm just having a really hard time with all this. I just wish there was another girl in my city who'd hang out with me and give me a warm hug. 🥲
or am I the only one? lol
i know that often you have to take action in order for your life to get better. like, going out for a walk, meeting new people, whatever. but I also hear things like "stop dwelling on the past" or "there's nothing you can do, so move on". while it is true that people cannot influence the past, some of us, many of us, struggle with traumatic experiences, whether it be big T trauma (like physical abuse) or little t trauma (constantly being excluded by others).
I don't think it's fair to ignore the past, because trauma needs to be unpacked and processed. if past traumatic memories influence how you think and behave today, then if you don't do anything about the trauma, the it becomes a lot harder to make meaningful progress for the future.
ruminating on your past is your brain trying to tell you that there is a problem. one reason we keep ruminating on a certain event is because there were lessons we've learned from the event about ourselves and about other people. there are other reasons too, but they all point to an unresolved scenario that doesn't appear to have any closure.
so, in conclusion: yeah, if you want to go outside, make your life better, then there is nothing else to do but try. however, practically speaking there are mental barriers that get in the way, many of which come from our past. it explains why we don't want to go out, why we want to isolate, why we can't or won't trust anyone.
Hey, I'm Lily, age 34, and I'd really like to connect with a warm, thoughtful soul. 🙋♀️
(I'd prefer to talk to other women who live in Burnaby or Coquitlam, but I am definitely okay if you lived farther away. I don't own a car, though, so it might be hard to visit you if you live in Langley, for example.)
I'd really like to talk to someone who understands long-term isolation. Someone who's felt like an outsider and has struggled finding closeness among their peers. I've personally found it quite difficult to connect with "normal" people, like people who've been accepted and loved by their friends their entire lives. I live outside the typical career grind, and have been away from the workforce for six years. I also navigate chronic health and internal barriers, which makes my daily life quiet and slow-paced. I'm not a particularly ambitious individual, and I don't enjoy productivity culture, which has caused me nothing but stress.
Even though I'm not "conventionally successful", I don't believe that a person's worth is defined by their career, or how well they hustle in life. I'm someone who genuinely wants to make people feel cared for. I'll make you cookies and brownies. I will never forget to remind you that you matter. I'll remember your birthdays and try my best to make you smile. If we ever met in person and you really wanted a hug, I will hug you for as long as you like. 🤗
In terms of interests, I really like video games, mainly JRPGs (Japanese Role Playing Games) and puzzle games 🎮. I don't play competitive PvP games, probably because I myself prefer slower paced environments. Speaking of games, I also enjoy board games, card games and tabletop RPGs. I read a little bit, but nowhere near as much as I used to. I'm also studying Japanese so I can take the JLPT exam at the end of the year. As for creative hobbies, I don't consider myself a particularly creative person, but I do some light creative writing, even though I've never published anything (not even online).
I'm also a bit of a cinephile! 🎥 I love watching films and TV series from a slightly analytical point of view. One of my favorite movies, Blade Runner, stands out to me as the quintessential cyberpunk film, which discusses the value of artificial life while also featuring an immensely beautiful, yet gritty atmosphere. I'm also enjoying From, a TV series which combines horror, mystery and thriller all at once. The part I like most, though, is the profound expression of love, hatred, anger, fear, paranoia, despair and camaraderie among the townspeople.
I'm looking for a friendship where we can be radically honest with each other. I've never been good at reading the room, and I don't like typical social contexts where I have to mask and constantly act cheery. (It's really exhausting, and even if I act like that, it's never led to meaningful connections anyway. 😥) I don't want to feel like we're only allowed to give crumbs of vulnerability to each other. I'm not going to trauma dump on day 1, but I also don't want to be in a friendship where we have to be talking about surface-level hobbies for 6+ months before we get to talk about something real.
It's not a must, but it would be really, really nice if we got to play games together too. I bought this co-op puzzle game called We Were Here Forever on PC, but the person I was playing with no longer talks to me, so I want to start from scratch. I also play a bit of Nightreign, but am a total novice. Finally, I am terrified of horror games, and yet I had a lot of fun with Lethal Company. Peak is fun, too, even though the game seems to have gotten harder in recent patches! (Also, I love retro games, like Nintendo 64 and GameCube, so I'd love to play couch co-op games with you too, if we ever become comfortable enough to have opportunities like those.)
We could start off as an online friendship at first, and if we hit it off, maybe we can hang out at coffee shops, go for lunch, whatever you feel like. We could also do voice chats over discord, though I do get a little nervous about my voice.
Finally, I really do not like being ghosted, so I want you to be honest with me if the connection isn't working out. I promise to tell you directly, so I hope that you will do the same.
If this resonates with you, please DM me! 😊
i feel so isolated and broken, and my chronic pain is so hard to deal with, and it doesn't even feel like im alive anymore.
also, every time i make venting posts, other people hijack them and make it about themselves. that makes me feel really sad, too.
I wanted to open up a conversation about toxic positivity. you know, people who think that many of us unemployed folks are wallowing in self-pity, who act like "crabs in a bucket". I've mentioned this many times before, but it's crucial that people who are genuinely suffering get to have a safe space where they talk about their feelings and experiences.
and for suffering to be reduced down to complaining, it's minimizing and harmful. if someone was suicidal, talked about how there's no hope for them in this world, they need compassion. they don't need to be told that their struggles are a "mindset problem".
what are your thoughts? let's all try to be respectful here, please ☺️
many people overrate the importance of "social skills", and especially neurodivergent (ND) people will believe that they genuinely lack social skills. however, from my perspective, a lot of what gets defined as "social skills" is "the ability to not make other people uncomfortable".
some aspects of social skills are genuinely important, like not monopolizing the conversation (only talking about yourself), or caring about what the other person is saying. however, certain behaviors, such as small talk and making eye contact, are norms that have been socially constructed and agreed upon by neurotypical people (NT).
if you are not feeling happy, you are still supposed to say that you're doing good when someone asks you, "How are you doing?". if you instead say, "actually, I'm feeling kind of under the weather right now", you get accused of having "poor social skills", because you made the other person uncomfortable by being honest. I'm not saying that tact is not important, but how much does one have to make themself smaller just to be palatable?
if you are neurodivergent (ND) and struggle with non-verbal communication or vibe checks, NTs will often claim you are "socially deficient", when it's more to do with the fact that you communicate differently from NTs. this is known as the double empathy issue, which describes communication breakdowns between an ND person and an NT person.
I personally don't believe that there is a single, socially acceptable way to socialize. different people socialize in different ways. some people don't like being vulnerable about their feelings, and other people (like me) tend to be an open book about their personal life. different people gravitate towards different styles of communicating, but unfortunately, many NTs adopt the same kind of socialization pattern, which has become the consensus. that consensus becomes the basis for "social skills".
i saw a thread earlier today about how therapy/counselling is a conspiracy theory to get people to become "productive members of society", when it's really about healing from trauma and other psychological struggles.
therapy doesn't magically make the client happier and solve all of their existing adversities. it cannot conjure up a best friend or a soulmate, and it can't give you that six figure, relatively stress-free career. what therapy does offer is a safe space to talk about your deepest, most painful memories, things that you can't talk about with most people because they're unwilling or incapable of giving you that safe space.
therapy can also be helpful in helping clients get "unstuck" with their life. by unstuck I don't mean "becoming productive employees", but rather things that matter to the client deeply, such as: finding opportunities for potential close connections, overcoming social anxiety, getting out of the house (if you are a hikikomori), forgiving herself if she experiences constant shame and guilt, and yes, potentially putting herself out there to search for jobs again, especially if she has been traumatized by the job market.
it is absolutely unfair that people who have been wounded by others are the ones who need therapy, because it is the other people's fault—the ones who traumatized you, hurt you, made you feel like garbage. it's also not fair that for many people, they have to pay money to get a chance at healing from the wounds that were inflicted by other people. if you are paying for therapy and aren't making progress, you're right to feel frustrated. nevertheless, intense, long-lasting psychological torment can seriously reduce one's quality of life.
healing is not guaranteed, nor is it quick, but it's probably one of the very few ways in which people can move on from traumas that are burdening them. I don't like how mental health support is commodified, but it doesn't mean that therapy is a capitalist scam.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is frequently defined as the ability to demonstrate tact and "read the room". EQ originates from Daniel Goleman's book, which was primarily targeted at business leaders and executives. (on a similar note, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was not actually written for socially awkward people to make platonic friendships, but rather for corporate employees and professionals who attend networking events)
as a result of how EQ is defined, it directly correlates with corporate productivity. having high EQ keeps projects moving and minimizes friction between team members. but even outside of professional contexts, EQ is often valued in casual social contexts, because people with high EQ tend to be agreeable and not make other people uncomfortable, which i talked about earlier in the section about social skills.
however, there is another kind of emotional literacy, such as human compassion, emotional empathy (feeling what the other person is feeling), and holding space. (by "holding space", I mean the ability to simply listen to the other person's hardships without jumping to advice-giving or fake positivity.)
it's a little sad that "reading the room" is seen as the "gold standard" of emotional intelligence, while empathy and compassion are deprioritized. it's not that surprising, because the second type of emotional intelligence is not directly related to productivity culture. like, with me, I am comfortable showing the second category of EI, while I struggle with the first category. and because people only seem to care about the first type, they treat me as if I don't have any kind of empathy. and that feels very hurtful.
im not gonna mention any names, but there have been a few people I've met online. they're also isolated, they've been rejected, ignored, and bullied like I have. they never got to feel like normal people, just like how I never got to feel like a normal girl. the main difference between me and them is that they often close themselves off from connection entirely, while i still yearn for close connections, even despite being burned by so many different people.
it's a little sad that the people who would understand me the most are the people that are most difficult to reach.
but it's fine, I guess. i still haven't given up. i don't hate who i am. i know what i really value in life. and hopefully, that inner compass will point in the right direction. ☺️
i don't really go out to socialize, and even though I have tried recently with book clubs and tabletop groups, I could never connect with anyone. but even if i made friends from those groups, they wouldn't be close to me, they could never hold space for all of my suffering and traumatic experiences.
i just want someone I felt safe opening up to. my therapist won't hug me, and it just makes me feel like she doesn't actually give a shit about me at all.
so many online people have left my life recently. ghosting, burnt bridges, exclusion. I'm really sensitive to rejection, so every time someone I cared about left me, it broke my heart.
i can never be desensitized to this. i can't toughen up because i am an inherently emotionally sensitive girl, and there is nothing wrong with that. but society constantly treats me as if there IS something wrong with me, that I'm too much.
it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
sometimes, I see posts of people who have struggled to make friends their entire life, or have been abused by family members physically or verbally. people who have been betrayed by others nonstop, people who just couldn't catch a lucky break. people who kept getting battered over and over and over and over again until they realized that it was pointless to try.
these posts make me really sad, and I wish I could hug them. i can really empathize with their pain, because I've been through a lot of what they've been through. im also an emotionally sensitive individual, and while that's generally seen as a bad thing in society, it allows me to empathize with others at a deep level.
it just makes me feel like i don't matter to them, which then makes me feel like i don't matter as a human being, period
im not looking for advice here, so please don't.
the chronic neck and hand pain sucks, but I wouldn't call it absolutely debilitating in the same way as my stomach conditions. more specifically, my hypersensitivity to stress and how it really pisses off my gut. and since the vast majority of paid work is stressful, I feel like I would just break down and cry if there was too much pressure on me.
even writing a long letter also stresses me out, even though it's probably considered nothing to most people here.
i really am cooked aren't i? 🙂
of course, feeling guilt for every single unanswered DM would be too burdensome, and there were a handful of people i genuinely no longer wanted to talk to for various reasons. but for the people who were kind-hearted, warm, and friendly—i sincerely apologize.
(btw, this is NOT an AI post just because i used an em-dash. if you type the Windows key + period, it comes up with an emoji prompt where you can find the em-dash)
yeah, I know this sub is overwhelmingly straight men here, but there have been a handful of girls here that I wanted to talk to, but they don't seem to be very receptive. the girls I have gotten along with in the past either ghosted me without warning, or burned bridges with me.
i guess I could try going on r/neetr4r again. seems like a lot of girls who post there also looking for friends are early twenties, and I'm already in my thirties. 🫠
i know this post isn't completely related to unemployment, but I think many people can relate to the feeling of isolation, so yeah. feels like many ppl here, regardless of gender, are quite avoidant, which only makes the search even harder
I've been receiving tons of hostile comments that get immediately deleted (check this other post: https://www.reddit.com/r/NEET/s/A2EtaMwlBr ), not to mention people constantly fixate on this one attribute that hardly defines me, trying to minimize my experiences or argue that "my experiences don't count".
should i be grateful? idk. im still very sensitive to rejection, insults and criticisms, as well as having my experiences and feelings being dismissed, but this "trial by fire" is making me give less of a fuck about what other people think of me, especially those who don't even know me.
but yeah, let's call this a "success" for now. 👸🏻