Where to start.

Shared experiences of life, and the path that has led you to where you are.

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Xarvon1412
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Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:33 am
Location: Utah

Where to start.

Postby Xarvon1412 » Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:50 am

Alright, here it goes. I wonder how many of these actually get read because of how long they most likely tend to be...well, in the hope that somebody can help me, here I go. I started out as a pretty normal kid I guess. I don't really know to be honest. School was truthfully where things started to go wrong. I was never really good at social interaction, including, and especially, with other children. I wouldn't say that I was impaired when it came to communication, I was simply an introvert in an extrovert ruled world. There really wasn't anything wrong with me, I just never quite got the whole talking thing, and when you don't talk to others, others don't really talk to you. So my life in elementary school wasn't the easiest, but I got through it, and managed to make some really close friends as well. I didn't have lots of friends, but the ones that I had I held on to for dear life and wouldn't let go. The one friend that is most important to my story is my friend uh...Stacey. Sure. I know that the possibility of you finding out who I am is really rather low, but I'd like to refrain from using real names, just in case. Stacey was a girl that I met in fourth grade, and boy did I hold on tightly to her. She really was one of my only real friends in elementary school. I very quickly fell in love with her, or whatever kind of love an elementary child can fall into. I talked with her constantly, we went everywhere together. I adored her, hell, I basically worshiped her. Then came junior high. Oh what an awful, awful experience junior high was. Suddenly everything started changing. My friends and I got separated into various other classes, and I lost touch with Stacey very quickly. She found other friends, other people to hangout with, and I was lost trying to find my way around. Every time I felt like I had finally found a place to push myself forward, someone just knocked me back. Every time I finally felt like I really began to fit in, turns out that I was the wrong puzzle piece, and I was just trying to jam myself in with a hammer anywhere that would take me. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere, but there were a few places that held me more tightly than others. Eventually I finally found where I fit, or at the very least the closest thing to a fit that I could find. I was content. There were friends from elementary, there were new kids I got to meet, but most importantly, there was Stacey. We ended up in the same clique in junior high, which was a huge relief to me, because it meant that I finally maybe had a chance to actually be with her. This was also the time when I started wear jackets constantly. I do not mean only at school. I mean all the time, always. I would be out in 90+ degree weather in the middle of summer wearing a jacket because I don't know, it just made me feel good. It made me feel like I had a place to hide from the horrors of the real world. Jackets became my portable safe haven. Alright, so now I have finally found my place, and I'm finally within talking distance of the girl of my dreams, when suddenly my life gets thrown into a new layer of hell. Come around the beginning of ninth grade, Stacey has found herself a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend either, no, some awful excuse for flesh that I will refer to as...Jeremy. Yeah. So Jeremy and Stacey are together, and boy does this get my blood boiling. This actually kills me on the inside. I actually create a journal where I basically write down how upset I am with their relationship day after day. This was probably my lowest point in my life, a time that I am not very proud of, and hope to never return to. This was where I also began to delve into something that would become my drug for the next three years. This was when I drew the first line of blood across my wrist. I had never found a relief quite like cutting. This was the only way that I could get through this without completely losing myself. Well at least that's what I thought. Anyway, fast forward a bit, Stacey and Jeremy finally break up, because she realized what an undeserving piece of shit he really was. This is not residual hatred by the way, no, no, this man was a jerk to her and everyone around him. He threatened her with suicide if she left him. I don't mean saying that she was his life. No, I mean that he said that he would kill himself if she broke up with him and blame it on her. What a pleasant guy, right? Regardless, Stacey was free, and I didn't want to crush her newly discovered freedom just yet, so I decided it was time for me to get a taste of the other side, away from Stacey. Oh man, what a bad decision. This was where I met a girl named Krystal. Krystal was a girl that I had known for a little bit, but had never really had the chance to talk to, until my friend told me that she really liked me, and turns out, that I kind of liked her too. So by means of notes and my friend's intervention, Krystal and I got together. It was actually a really fun relationship for the week that it lasted. We talked a lot on the phone, we hugged twice, then I broke up with her. Why? Because Stacey said that she was jealous and that she wanted to be with me. Man, I was a bad person. Don't get me wrong, I think it was a necessary decision for me to mature in my life, but boy do I think it was scumbaggy. So I broke up with Krystal, and finally got together with the girl that was supposed to be the love of my life. Ha. Alright, so, there's a lot to the story of Me x Stacey, which I might make a whole different post about, but to make your reading lives easier, it didn't work out. We dated for nine months, nine months where I was so damn love struck that I couldn't see our relationship falling apart. We dated for nine months, and then she proceeded to break up with me over a note. Kay. To be honest though? I still love this relationship. I still love the time that I got to spend with her, and I treasure it and hold it very close to my heart. She was my first kiss, my first love, my first everything. I was in love with her before we even started dating, and I was in love with her for a time after as well. So anyway, that ended, and guess what I did? Well, first I cried, a lot. Like, you know those scenes in movies where the teenage girl gets broken up with and they have bucket of tissues next to them? Oh man, I was at least three of those teenage girls. This was when my cutting got the worst. I carved myself. I had hundreds of cuts branding my arms, my chest, my legs. Anywhere that I could cover with clothes, I would cut. They were deep, they hurt, they weren't good for me, but oh damn did they do wonders for my emotional state. Sure, they're not healthy, but they kept me alive to be honest. I will never go back, ever, but cutting really is a tool that helped me live for a little bit there. Alright, so at this point I am a sophomore in high school. After Stacey broke up with me, I really didn't know what to do with myself. So I cried for a long time, just felt broken. It felt good to be broken again. When I was with Stacey, everything felt too right, too perfect, I felt too whole. Imagine that. So I broken for a while. Then guess who came along. Do you remember Krystal? Well, she came along. That beautiful, amazing, perfect girl came along and fixed me. I knew that I had to change something, anything. So I changed me. I decided to try the other side again, and I asked Krystal to take me back. That sweet, kind, caring girl took me back. She took me back and was happy to do so. I adored her. I still adore her. Krystal and I took on the world together. When we first started out, things were awkward, but they became so easy. Do you remember my puzzle analogy? Well we were two puzzle pieces that didn't care where we went, and it didn't matter, because we matched each other perfectly. We had found a place where we belonged, and it was beautiful. It was the most serene and happy time in my entire life. Things were easy, so easy. Stacey may have been my first love, but Krystal was the first and only time I had ever felt right. Stacey made me feel too whole, that was because I had filled my mind with the false grandeur illusions of her. Krystal was the real thing. Krystal was the only person that took the time to make me feel alive. I quickly came out of the shell that I had been hiding in for so long. I threw off my jackets, I spoke more, I did better in school, I tried so hard to be the person that I knew that I could be. The happy me that I could be. Why? Because damn it she deserved it. She deserved the best, and I was going to do what I could to give her the best. I fell in love with her before I even knew what was happening. That was my favorite time of my life. I would never ever give up those memories for anything else. Have you ever read a love story and just wondered what it would be like to have a love so perfect? To have a love where you literally want to spend forever with them? To have a love where other people will see it and wish for it to fail because it's just too perfect? This was the love that I had. This was the relationship that I had. Then I f***** up. Then my f****** brain decided that I wanted more. I had the f****** world and I thought that I deserved better. Alright, so to give you a better understanding, Krystal and I worked at the same place. There was a girl that we worked with, we'll call her Karen. Karen was rather pretty, she was a really funny girl, smart, kind of rude sometimes, but in a sarcastic way that meant she was joking. Well, I happened to slowly develop a crush on this girl. I actually began to lose sight of perfection, for change. Long story short, after two years and a few months of perfection, I ended it. I ended the relationship that had helped me more than anything else in this entire world I ended the relationship that stopped my suicidal thoughts, my cutting, everything. I ended it. So there I was, sad and alone, when Karen comes swooping in. She made me feel better, she made me happy. So I jumped on the opportunity. I waited about six months before I ended up in a relationship with Karen, because breaking up with Krystal had messed up my world more than you can ever imagine. All of me hurt. None of me was okay. Nothing was right. I found myself crying at night for hours on end. I feel like that should have been my first clue to just go running back and apologize a million times. Hell, maybe I should have just proposed to her. I didn't though. I stayed with Karen. Karen truthfully is an amazing person. She is kind, though again, she has her moments where her insults sting a little more than I'd like. She's smart, and funny, and beautiful. But honestly, things just aren't the same. I don't have that love that I did with Krystal. It doesn't feel like I'm walking on air anymore, it just feels like I'm walking. I don't wake up happy to be alive, I wake up and get up because I have to. This is where I'm at right now. I feel myself less happy than I used to be, and as of recent, rather depressed actually. I know that I've just hit a bad patch, but it's hard to get out of, and I need to get everything off of my chest where people can't force me to do anything, and where the names of people can be changed because they don't know these people. So, faceless internet, sympathize with me. Tell me what I should do. Tell me what you think of my awful story. Quite frankly, this isn't even all of it. This leaves out the whole Me x Stacey, as well as the Me x Krystal relationship stories. This leaves out a lot of friend stuff. This leaves out my therapy, a lot of cutting stories, and my suicide attempt. This leaves out quite a bit, but if I put all of that into one post nobody would ever read it. Maybe I'll put them in future posts, I don't know. So thank you for at least getting to the bottom. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

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specter
Posts: 131
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:13 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Dry Eyes

Postby specter » Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:31 pm

I tend to suffer from dry-eye, but I wanted to read it all, even if it took a while. Finally did.

From my POV, I can't relate to anything that has to do with relationships. The only response that I have to your post is that ... a few years back, I started to feel that friendships were pointless ... and I haven't had a real "friend" in about ... two years. The last friend I had was a grade school acquaintance. The only thing we had in common (was, but is no longer) our affinity for crystals and minerals. The last time I saw her was at her house. I gave her an amethyst cluster, some garnet, and a chunk of black tourmaline. That was a period in my life where I no longer wanted to keep them.

The 'friendships' that I have had in the past all ended up in a massive falling-out. It's the very reason why I'm highly hesitant to generate new friendships ever again. From what I know, I do not have any, but there are a few people, scattered online that I communicate with, although we don't have a lot in common. We normally have one or two interests that we share, but it doesn't go that far. I think it's better this way. There seems to be a lot less drama in my life. My personal problems are worse now than ever, though.

Admittedly, I would love to be capable of being intimate with another person. Something more than a friendship. Bonding with people has always been and probably always will be a huge obstacle for me. My upbringing was incredibly toxic. Being in any type of relationship with another person, be it a friendship or a romantic partnership, would take a lot of understanding, compassion, empathy, a ton of self-awareness, and working on ourselves. It would be necessary, or I'm afraid the relationship would fall flat on it's face.

Again, I'm 25 ... and I have never had any romance in my life. No kissing, no hugging, no cuddling. I don't know what that feels like. I'm curious and lonely, but if I'm honest with myself, which is important if you care about another person, I do not want to end up using that as an excuse to cling to someone and not even be attracted to them or in love with them. It's not healthy and it inhibits the personal growth of two or more people. I don't think that would be OK to do to someone. And that is a tendency that I would have to pay attention to and work on.

There's also this rather significant (problem?) I have of "living in my head". Basically, I am mildly aware of the outside world and I can somewhat engage in it, but I'm not as capable as other people to be fully submersed in it, which causes a rift between me and the ability to get to know other people. It's a hindrance to my socialization, not to mention the fact that there isn't anything going on in my life and that I most-likely deal with social anxiety. I attribute that to my other forms of mental illness.

Essentially, this is neither good nor bad, but it's a part of who I am, and I can't make myself be interested in things that don't strike my fancy.

I wish you luck in finding new friends and partners who you can get close to and with which you can share wonderful moments of your lives. :)

100footpole
Posts: 477
Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:26 pm

Postby 100footpole » Sat Mar 12, 2016 12:31 pm

Specter and Xarvon1412,

I have self-diagnosed myself as having a mind that is more than one standard deviation up the Asperger's scale.

I think I get this:
Basically, I am mildly aware of the outside world and I can somewhat engage in it, but I'm not as capable as other people to be fully submersed in it, which causes a rift between me and the ability to get to know other people. It's a hindrance to my socialization, not to mention the fact that there isn't anything going on in my life and that I most-likely deal with social anxiety. I attribute that to my other forms of mental illness.


I understood where Xarvon was coming from in his post. I worked very hard not to become infatuated with my wife before we were married. I acted in ways that were extreme (but not permanently disfiguring, or harmful to others) for the first five years we knew each other. Two years into that relationship I did become infatuated, and I remember the event when that infatuation "broke".

I think nenkohai2 share this feeling to a certain extent. I am not as close to my wife as I was in 1987 or 88.

So the way that I get this:

I do not want to end up using that as an excuse to cling to someone and not even be attracted to them or in love with them. It's not healthy and it inhibits the personal growth of two or more people.


Is I don't self-mutilate, and when my "infatuation" popped, I made a conscious decision to NOT try to regain that feeling. Specter, for me "personal growth" is the greatest good.

To be allegorical again, I think we are all trekking in the wilderness, like trappers in the west until 1860 or so. I view therapists as "indian guides", some helpful, some malevolent, but ultimately the choices of "good and bad" are our own.

The thing that is important (to me) is to keep going. This allegory is relating to the movies The Revenant, or Man Lost in the Wilderness. The first rule of trekking is to be aware of your environment, but the second rule is that you have the power to recover from SITUATIONS, some of which you contribute to, and others that you don't. What happened before does not limit your power to RECOVER.

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specter
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Location: Ohio, USA

Postby specter » Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:14 pm

I have self-diagnosed myself as having a mind that is more than one standard deviation up the Asperger's scale.


I've mentioned this to other professionals. I had a psychiatrist tell me that I absolutely do not seem autistic. I've been questioning whether or not -- at a point in my life, I believed I was autistic, and people in my 'family' were being told this, so unfortunately I think they still believe it because we don't talk (thankfully) -- I might have Asperger's or high-functioning autism. The fact that I'm reclusive, I have odd body movements when I'm stressed out or lost in thought, and that I find it hard to relate to people are what lead me to question this possibility. Doctors that I have seen plus my therapist plus the last psychiatrist -- and hopefully it stays the last -- all do not believe that I have any form of autism spectrum disorder.

I think my mysterious actions stem entirely from trauma. Strangely enough.

No one can say for sure, but unless I'm tested for it by someone who believes I show symptoms, then there really is no way of knowing. I admit that there is the possibility that I am somewhat autistic. It's also my inclination to believe that my mind only understands the confines of my mind. It's because that's the only place I (safely) permitted myself to be for the past couple of decades.

Specter, for me "personal growth" is the greatest good.


I'm glad that it's important to you. I often wonder, if the whole world were interested in personal growth, what would come of it? Would it be a different world that the one that we live in today? How would quality of life be for everyone?

100footpole
Posts: 477
Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:26 pm

Postby 100footpole » Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:54 pm

I often wonder, if the whole world were interested in personal growth, what would come of it? Would it be a different world that the one that we live in today? How would quality of life be for everyone?I often wonder, if the whole world were interested in personal growth, what would come of it? Would it be a different world that the one that we live in today? How would quality of life be for everyone?


I wonder about this all the time. I do think that people can focus too much on immediate happiness or gratification. These people make me REALLY uncomfortable. One sign of people like this is that it is hard to just have a conversation with them ... beer, food, entertainment needs to be involved. A side effect of this is that you end up "meeting" them places.

I don't call it "hanging out" unless we are at one of our houses, and I don't call it hanging out if there is more than one conversation going on in any given room. People who are obsessed with gratification say thinks like "We JUST hung out ..."

One of the questions on the online, non-scientific, test I took was would you rather be at a party or a library? That is a no-brainer. I would rather be having my teeth cleaned than go to a party. [/quote]

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specter
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Location: Ohio, USA

Postby specter » Mon Mar 14, 2016 5:31 pm

I think I know what you mean? I no longer know who I am anymore. ... I'd pick "neither". Not in the mood for parties, but not in the mood to be in a stuffy library.

I'd like to be ...

    - On a rooftop in N.Y.C (at night)
    - In a Nevada desert
    - In the city in Vancouver
    - In a forest in Newfoundland
    - Anywhere but home

100footpole
Posts: 477
Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:26 pm

Postby 100footpole » Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:41 am

:D

You're right. Given a standardized test without a good answer, fill in "other".

travel2020
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 7:11 pm

Re: Where to start.

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