nouseforlife
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User ID: 4071
nouseforlife
6d ago
How much have you talked to them during practice?
We know each other since I was 8 y.o. so yes, I've talked to them, but with one exception several years ago, it never materialized in some kind of relationship outside practice.
With two of them, I spent an entire summer during my middle school years going to the beach and hanging out, an experience that was never repeated in the years that followed.
I also remember that, during high school, I tried inviting some of my classmates to come to the beach, since we had a house in a seaside town. No one ever accepted.
I don't blame them. There is probably something very unappealing in myself that make me hard to get fond of. It has been that way since kintergarten: my first bully was the kindergarten "teacher" that told me that I was retarded (literal word she used, told to my mother too) despite showing some sign of precociousness. And indeed by 3th grade I had taught myself French, Latin, and analytic geometry. Then I saw that nobody cared, on the contrary, I attracted negative attention, so I stopped, and coasted with raw talent until college, where I started studying some more because the material was finally more challenging. But at that point I had lost all my motivation to live and studying was the last of my problems.
Also what instrument do you play?
The clarinet. I used to play the saxophone and the flute too.
nouseforlife
6d ago
Also, did you seek any kind of psychiatric care? Did your parents try to do it on your behalf?
Tried theraphy when I was 16 and last year, it didn't work. On the contrary, having to pay someone to listen to me was a source of great shame. I want to try medication, but my parents fircely opposed because "they will give you pills". So, yes, I've lost the best part of my youth and I am actively suicidal and planning, but at least I am not taking crazy pills.
Do you ask your coworker if he wants to go for a coffee?
Yes. We agreed for the next day. He told me it will text me time and place. This was the 19th of October. I think that is a quite clear message.
Either going outside and joining some kind of club
I resumed playing in an orchestra. I try to, you know, make myself available. Making plans, organizing something. Either going outside and joining some kind of club. They know I'd like to participate if they organize something, even just going to a pizza place, nothing fancy. All of them have my number. It has been 3 years since I've resumed playing and nobody has ever called. So, my invites are refused and I will note get invited. It basically become a job: I get in, I reharse, the day of the concert I play then I go home. I think that's why I left all my activities in the first place: I was always on the sidelines, always an afterthought, an extra. I have had the exact same experience in whatever group I've tried.
Ultimately, having social links is the most important thing from my perspective. It doesn't need to be in person, they don't need to be close by, but it has to be someone who is there to talk to you pretty every day day, ideally for at least like an hour a day too.
I don't know how it's even possible to have this kind of person in my life. I've been this person: people love to dump their problems to me, and for a while I was even happy because I took it as a sign of trust; but better do not dare to do the same, otherwise I am needy and selfcentered. I completely lost the ability to even give importance to my problems. I can vent but I accept that there will be noone to save me or to help. I could go to a psychiatrist, but I'm afraid that (1) he will report me and I lose the ability to have a job, a driver licence, going to university, (2) I don't really care anymore about my problems. I have not the strength anymore to keep pushing. For whom? With whom shoould I celebrate my life? What "why" do I have to keep going? To accumulate a huge salary? To open my engineering firm? To go on vacation. Social links are really important, yes. But it seems like they will not be part of my life.
In synthesis, the only call I receive is for work, text for the reharse practice timetable, and when some class mate needs something from me, because, despite being a great procrastinator, I still get excellent grades. I am basically a tool in people's life: you don't keep a drill in your hand if you don't need to make a hole, so you don't call me if you don't need my services. All the relationships are transactional.
nouseforlife
6d ago
I would also ask you whether or not you really can't remember anything? Like my memories of my 20s are extremely spotty, (not as spotty as my teens though) but overall, I can still kind of remember periods where I did a particular thing (lone hobby), or talked with a friend of mine, or played some game. All of these are petty events that nobody would write down except in a journal, but they still make up your past, and part of who you are.
Before the hiki-period I used to do lots of things: going to school, going to the gym, swimming, playing in an orchestra, having some semblance of a social life even though I was always at the periphery of others' life. This all disappeared at 19 when I closed myself in my room for some kind on unspecified reason. And everyday would become ever more difficult to go out.
It started at 17 when I stopped playing music, then at 18 I stopped going to swimming practice, then went the gym. The thing that hurts the most is that nobody noticed: "Where did nouse go?". Nobody cared, nobody texted me, my parents didn't even noticed. During COVID lockdown, before we knew that the virus wasn't that dangerous and I thought I could die, my only thought was that if I did die because of it, nobody would care, or worse, notice. I did not have a single phone number, a single person to call and check-in. I still have no-one to call for a coffee, for a beer, to go to the beach. I try and try and try. Even now, my favourite colleague, with whom I thought I clicked, has been elusive as to why he cannot have a coffee with. And it was him that proposed the all endeavour of having a coffee. It was pity? I don't actually know. I don't even care anymore. Or better, I care, but to what purpose? The story repeats, always the same, it goes in circles and on and on and on and on.
I stayed inside a prison of my own making for 10 years. I completely lost my 20s. When I say I have no single memory, it is not a literary device: I have not a single memory but watching junk tv, eating junk food and having junk thoughts. The only knowledge I've accrued in these 10 years are various suicide methods and their lethality.
The fact is, I don't even know how I can function. I go to work as a fucking receptionist, and I can smile, I can socialize, I can be funny. Many people have tipped me well and left glaring review for my job. This somehow makes it even worse: if I did dare to go out at 18 could I have had friends? If I did take the job as a beach boy at 18 I could have had colleagues that could have become friends? I dare to say it, could I have been popular and loved and involved in my community instead of a grieving, desperate husk of a human being already dead before death?
And more importantly, the one thing to keep in mind is that as long as there's a difference between today and a month ago, and if you generally feel better, or you're doing better in other ways, that's good enough for now.
I do not feel better. I don't even know how it is possible to recover from the loss of unlived youth, a loss of my own making: I wasn't sick, I didn't go to prison, I wasn't on a coma, I wasn't involved in an accident. I simply stopped living. A living death. I have more money, I have resumed my studies, but I cannot function on a spiritual level. It feels so over. Every thing that I do is colored by the filter of grief, of loss, an all-devouring void: when I talk to people I envy even their toxic ex-es, their bad memories, their pain. I knew a guy who went to prison for aggravated robbery and then found his path and he's doing better: I envy him too. I envy ex-cons too. Because anything is better than absolutely nothing. I cannot tell a story. I don't actually know who I am. I have no reference system to guide my behaviour.
Also, there's also the Type-3 group, like ToaKraka, there are people who genuinely are okay with being alone. But I'm not one of them, even if I thought I was when I was younger.
This was my greatest error: being so involved in my identity as an introvert that I didn't even recognize my social needs. I now think I am actually and undersocialized extrovert. Add to it socially inept parents who couldn't guide me on anything really, I basically nurtured myself since first grade, and I failed miserably in being a parent to myself.
nouseforlife
6d ago
I used to scoff at the famour Tennyson's quote: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all", but now I think it is fundamentally true.
In a comment I described briefly my story. The main grief of such a story is the agony of the life unlived: all the story I will never get to remember. In my experience, a bad company it's still better than no compagny, contrary to "popular wisdom". I find that sentences like "better be alone than in the wrong crowd" are uttered by two kind of people: (1) copers, like I used to be, who cannot find meaningful relationships, independently from whose fault it is; (2) people who actually have a lot of relationships and cna pick and choose, and when they say being alone, they mean, not going out to party one Saturday, fully knowning that the next day they can organize a coffee date, a soccer match, a car trip or whatever.
Type-1 people call themselves "introverts" as a coping mechanics. As a self-identified "introvert" for almost all my life, I do not think of it as a true existing phenomenon. I think many of them are crying and seething, like I was, and like I always read on the reddit subs dedicated to "introverts".
Type-2 people cannot really comprehend what it is like to have a life of no memories: no joy or sorrow to share, no parties or funeral to attend, just the slow passing of time, waiting for death.
Returning to Stoner: yes, his life was depressing. But there was a life. He did things, had relationships, was implicated in the buffoonery of office politics. All of this is preferable to me to the nothingness I've lived. My last memory was at 19 when I entered University. And then I wake up at 29. I often I have panic attacks when I think about it. I cannot have social media because if I scroll people photos and look at the past, all I see is what I've missed. Where are my photos? Where is my story? Why did I let it happen? Why was I so stupid?
That's why I envy Stoner's depressing life: because there is a life. A corrupt bleak life, but there is something. I am now 31, and in the past three years I have more memories than in the preceding 10, but they are all related to work and study, many of them are bleak. And even this way, it is better than the Void. If I ever were to return to the Void, it shall be with a rope around my neck: never again I will live a dead life.
nouseforlife
6d ago
I think you nailed. As I've written in a comment to another user, I actually do pleanty of stuff. They seem to not matter to my sense of satisfaction in my life. There is no will to go on: my past is always there, lurking behind me, reminding me of everything I didn't have. I don't even know for what or whom I should even make those changes: it's not like I will be really missed by someone, it's not like someone will cry at my funeral, it's not like I have people depending on me. The only reason I haven't hang myself yet is because of the fear of messing up and becoming disabled.
I don't say that like you can just will a friend group into existence, but you don't live in the wilderness (I assume)... there are people
I actually live in an island with less than 2000 inhabitants. I already know most of my "potential friends". It has not working out very well. Somehow, living in the city where I go to University it's even worse: it's a very bleak and alienating place with very few jobs. Many prefer to searching for job on the island because it's a tourist hotspot, so you always find some kind of service job.
I don't think moving will be useful: I lived in 5 different cities already, all compressed during my pre-hikikomori period. And this feeling of not being fully integrated in society I've had since kintergarten and wherever I go, there I am. I am not that great of a company.
nouseforlife
6d ago
I copy and paste a comment I already wrote in responde to another user.
COMMENT:
I already do all of this. I used to exercise too but I'm injured and I have inguinal hernia so I'm waiting for surgery. My problem is not that I cannot be disciplined or maintain a routine. The problem is that I do not see a reason to do anything. We can talk all day about how I have the rest of my life. But I lost a very important and very peculiar part in the sense that during your 20s there is the unique mix of low responsibilities, some income and easiness in making friends that allows people to hit their social milestones. ChatGPT summary didn't really do justice to some parts of my journal. One thing I always regret was being too serious during my teenage and early 20s. I was obsessed with studying and productive and think that I didn't really need relationships if I was successful. I wish I were wilder instead, I wish I would get more drunk, I would try more drugs, I would talk to more people, I would go to more parties.
I already tried all that. I have an alarm clock set a 9:30pm to remind me to turn off the wi-fi. I did it for years. It did not make a difference. I count calories. I have achieved to 10 kg at a fairly steady pace. It did not make a difference. Because of my injuries I took up walking as exercise. 2-3 hours a day. It did not make a difference. Even procrastinating, I still have really excellent grades. It does not make a difference. I tried therapy, for 3 years. It did not make a difference.
There is this 10 years black-hole that pulls back everything I do. I see every event in my life through the lens of what will never be. I mourn an unlived life and, even when I'm trying and succeding, the thoughts are always there: "I am a 31 y.o. with life experience of a 14 y.o." And this will not change: I actually am the man who lost completely his youth. There is no turning back from it.
nouseforlife
6d ago
I already do all of this. I used to exercise too but I'm injured and I have inguinal hernia so I'm waiting for surgery. My problem is not that I cannot be disciplined or maintain a routine. The problem is that I do not see a reason to do anything. We can talk all day about how I have the rest of my life. But I lost a very important and very peculiar part in the sense that during your 20s there is the unique mix of low responsibilities, some income and easiness in making friends that allows people to hit their social milestones. ChatGPT summary didn't really do justice to some parts of my journal. One thing I always regret was being too serious during my teenage and early 20s. I was obsessed with studying and productive and think that I didn't really need relationships if I was successful. I wish I were wilder instead, I wish I would get more drunk, I would try more drugs, I would talk to more people, I would go to more parties.
I already tried all that. I have an alarm clock set a 9:30pm to remind me to turn off the wi-fi. I did it for years. It did not make a difference. I count calories. I have achieved to 10 kg at a fairly steady pace. It did not make a difference. Because of my injuries I took up walking as exercise. 2-3 hours a day. It did not make a difference. Even procrastinating, I still have really excellent grades. It does not make a difference. I tried therapy, for 3 years. It did not make a difference.
There is this 10 years black-hole that pulls back everything I do. I see every event in my life through the lens of what will never be. I mourn an unlived life and, even when I'm trying and succeding, the thoughts are always there: "I am a 31 y.o. with life experience of a 14 y.o." And this will not change: I actually am the man who lost completely his youth. There is no turning back from it.
nouseforlife
6d ago
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Stoner from John Edward Williams. I haven't finished it yet, but to me Stoner's life was too successful to feel any kind of connection with the protagonist. For now this is the only analysis I can give. I thought it was more like No Longer Human from Dazai. I really liked that, I have felt 失格 (shikkaku), unfit, in being a person since I was in kintergarden and my only regret is not having given in to vices sooner as the protagonist did.
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The World of Late Antiquity from Peter Brown. Still few pages. Despite being a more academic book, it seems really easy to read and I'm enjoying the little anecdote of daily life intermixed in the big events.
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Mattanza from Theresa Maggio. A nonfiction book about a disappeared tradition fishing method on a remote island (set of Nolan's Odyssey). It made me nostagic for a past I've never lived. These are feelings I am accustomed to. My baseline state, if you will.
nouseforlife
9d ago
Disclaimer: The original journal pages is 12 pages long and I am still writing it, it will probably reach 30-40 pages and it is not written in English. This post is a summary of my experiences and previous writings, put together with the help of ChatGPT and subsequently edited by me. I apologize in advance for any lingering ChatGPTese. The experiences, feelings, and questions are entirely my own; I just used AI to translate and help me to organize my thoughts into something more coherent and readable.
TEXT:
I've been writing in these Wellness Threads almost since the beginning when we were on SSC. About five years ago, I stopped posting because I decided that I needed to change my life and cut my Internet usage almost to zero. I don't even remember my original username. Well, five years have passed. I'm now 31, and I'm back because, despite all my promises to myself, very little has fundamentally changed.
I spent most of my twenties as something resembling a hikikomori, basically missing out every single social milestone that makes your 20s the building blocks of your life. Between the ages of 19 and 29, I essentially withdrew from society. I occasionally attended university, passed exams, and maintained a minimum level of contact with the outside world. But I had no meaningful social life, no romantic experiences, no independence, and very little to show for those ten years. A 31 y.o. virgin with no friends and no story. An incel, in modern lingo. Most of my time was spent at home, consuming entertainment, overeating, browsing the Internet, and promising myself that tomorrow would be the day I finally changed. Obviously that day never actually came.
I don't want to pretend that absolutely nothing has happened since I last posted here. I got my first job at 29 (always a great shame, I try to always disengage when we talk about our past lives with colleagues) working as a seasonal hotel receptionist in a 4 star hotel during the summer season. In the meantime, I've continued studying marine engineering. I've managed to save some money. For the first time in years, I was regularly interacting with people, fulfilling responsibilities, and participating in something resembling ordinary adult life. These are genuine improvements, and I recognize that. But they haven't translated into the kind of transformation I was hoping for. Especially, the more I keep going, the more I feel the pull to look back and despair.
When I'm not working, I tend to fall back into the same habits: spending hours browsing the Internet, watching television, eating junk food, neglecting my physical health, procrastinating on my studies, and fantasizing about the person I could become, this is when I do not think of suicide, obviously. I make ambitious plans, follow them for a day or two, and then abandon them. Sometimes I spend weeks or months doing practically nothing. I'm still overweight, still living with my parents, still lacking the discipline and consistency to pursue my goals. Still planning my suicide.
The worst part is the loneliness. I've never had what I would consider a genuine, lasting friendship. Since childhood, I've consistently found myself on the periphery of other people's lives. I've had classmates, acquaintances, colleagues, and people I genuinely cared about, but those relationships rarely survived the circumstances that brought us together. I've always felt like an extra in other people's stories. For a brief period, I thought things might finally be changing. Two colleagues seemed to take a genuine interest in me. We spent time together outside work, and they even took me out on my thirtieth birthday. It was the first time in years that I felt someone might actually want me in their life. A few weeks later, however, those relationships began to collapse, and eventually both stopped speaking to me. I still don't fully understand what happened.
That experience devastated me more than I would have expected. For a moment, I had caught a glimpse of the life I'd always wanted, only to lose it again.
I'm also gay, have never been in a relationship, and am still a virgin at 31. My relationship with my appearance and sexuality is complicated by years of shame, body-image problems, and social isolation. Let's just say that if there was a conversion pill I would have gladly taken it in my 20s. I struggle to imagine anyone finding me attractive, let alone wanting to build a life with me. When I look in the mirror I just feel extreme shame and disgust. I dissociate and sometime I vividly imagine myself as a more attractive version of myself.
However, what hurts even more than my current circumstances is the knowledge of everything I've missed. I cannot stop thinking about my adolescence and twenties. The friendships I never formed, the parties I never attended, the relationships I never experienced, the adventures I never had, the memories I never created. I watch people my age discussing their lives, their partners, their old friends, their youthful mistakes, and I experience an almost unbearable combination of envy, grief, and regret. The lack of a story
I know the standard response: "You're only 31. You still have plenty of time." I cannot accept that. Not intellectually, nor emotionally. I don't simply want to have new experiences at 31. I want to have had those experiences at 16, 20, and 25, because I believe they would have helped me become a different person today. I feel as though I've missed the formative experiences necessary to develop a normal adult personality. I cannot go back and give my younger self the life he deserved. And I don't know how to mourn something I never had.
As I said before, I also struggle with severe self-criticism, anxiety, and depressive thoughts. I seriously contemplated suicide, including making plans for my thirtieth birthday: I wanted for the date fo my birth and death to coincide.
The frustrating thing is that I still have ambitions. Very large ones, in fact.
I want to finish my engineering degree with excellent grades, become genuinely competent in a technical profession, achieve financial independence, and perhaps eventually build my own business. I want to become physically fit, attractive, well-dressed, knowledgeable, cultured, and socially confident. I want close friendships, intimacy, meaningful experiences, and the feeling that I'm an active participant in my own life rather than someone watching it pass by.
I have relatively few material obstacles at the moment. I'm not working year-round, I live with my parents, I have some savings, and I have a great deal of free time. On paper, I have an excellent opportunity to rebuild my life.
And yet I cannot seem to make myself do it. I've tried the usual advice about starting small, setting achievable goals, and gradually building habits. I understand the reasoning behind it. My difficulty is that I repeatedly abandon even modest commitments, and once I miss a day, the whole structure seems to collapse. At the same time, I have an almost pathological need to excel. I don't simply want to become an average functioning adult. I want to make something exceptional of myself, partly because I feel an overwhelming need to compensate for the years I've wasted. Consequently, anything less than a complete transformation feels inadequate, which probably contributes to my paralysis.
So I'm returning to this thread to ask for advice, particularly from people who have experienced something similar or have managed to recover from prolonged stagnation, isolation, or depression.
I have a few questions, fully knowing that the answers will not change anything, I've already tried. I just feel so alone that I think I will snap, so a parasocial Internet connection seems like the less worst deal:
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How do you reconcile yourself to irretrievably lost time? Is it possible to grieve an unlived youth without allowing that grief to poison whatever future remains? In my experience that is not possible.
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How does someone with almost no social experience build genuine friendships and intimacy in his thirties? In my case I do not think it is possible, I've never had friends even as a child. Why would I make friends at almost 32, while other people are building families and getting on with their career.
I'm not expecting anyone here to solve my problems, nor am I looking for reassurance that everything will somehow work out. I know it will not. I've spent enough years reassuring myself that tomorrow will be different.
I disappeared from these threads for three years because I wanted to come back as someone who had finally turned his life around. Instead, I'm back asking essentially the same questions.
After my rant from last week I've decided to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. It will cost some money and meds can have side effects, but, you know, I wouldn't need money and sex drive in the grave. Friday I have an appointment for inguinal hernia surgery and next week with a radiologist for my probable cervical hernia. I'm considering glp-1 agonists but nobody prescribe them here, it is still common the moral failure view of obesity.
I bought a paper planner to reduce my doomscrolling and, honestly, I like the aesthetics and it makes easier to visualize what I have to do.
I'm prioritizing my health and studies at the moment. I still don't know what to do with socialization.
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