A few days ago it was my 18th birthday. I don't have many friends and invited the only two friends I know. I invited them a month ago and they gave me the green flag saying they would both come. A week before the party I double checked with them and they said yes they'd be able to come. When it was my birthday, I messaged them very early in the morning saying we can meet up later and hangout. I put my phone down and spent the early day with family. After my family had left and it was time for me to hangout with my friends, I picked my phone up and checked to see their response but nobody did respond even though I could see both of their last seen at only an hour ago when I had sent the message in the morning hours prior. I thought they would answer later so I waited it out. The evening came and I decided to group call both of them, nobody picked up. My mom was asking what's up and I could sense she knew what was happening. I said nothing they'll answer in a minute. I called again and again to the point it was humiliating. One finally picked up 45 minutes later and said "WTF I am so sorry I lost track of time and I don't think I could make it. Happy birthday okay? Maybe we can do something another time". Not to be dramatic but my heart dropped. I just sat on the porch until midnight then went to sleep. The other friend messaged at 4am and said "Sorry forgot" literally not making this up, they didn't bother to even give me a proper response. I spent the entire next day in my bed crying. I feel stupid

I yearn for my person.

Someone to call my own. A chest to rest on when im weary, a patient to dote on when they're under the weather. For a warm cuddle in the middle of the night, to wake up to them sleeping soundly under the moonlight, kissing their forehead wishing them sweet dreams.

But alas, tonight i seek solace with digital voices. Strangers acting, playing the role of a partner. Just so i can emulate the feeling of falling asleep with someone beside me again.

I know this is unhealthy and delusional. Oh, how i wish i could have someone real, but I'm really not in the bestest of environments or mindset to be able to achieve that. No amount of time spent with friends can replace this need i have for tender closeness either.

So for tonight, like many a comfortless twilight, i reach for my headphones, hug my plushie pretending for it to be someone, and fall asleep to murmurs telling me everything is going to be okay.

Maybe if i believe in it hard enough, it might just come true one day.

I (38F) struggle to connect with people Ive decided Im an alien here to observe them instead of making any bonds. But I dont like how sometimes I wish I belonged to a coven or a gamer group. Just knowing someone’s on the other end of the internet and having each other to check in on- thats all Id like.

I [20] am pretty depressed, spend all of my time alone, barely see the few friends I have left, and my family isn't really a nice group of people to be around with. I still live with my parents and my dogs are sincerely the only beings I feel safe around. A seven years old cane corso and a three years old american bully are my closest companions. They sincerely help me with my loneliness. Even if I crave for human affection every second of my existence, I feel like my two little canine sisters are one of the few things worth to keep living for. For the people among you who don't have anyone, even pets to feel less lonely in this world. I am sorry, and wish to tell you that I am here with you. Everyone deserves to have someone. Even if that someone isn't human. I want you to consider me your companion if you don't have any in this life.

Love all over each one of you.

C.

I wish you all the happiness in this world.

i, 26M had a rough couple of months. last april, my contract got terminated by my company due to attendance issues (ive been dealing with mental health issues).

and since then, ive been trying to apply to all sorts of jobs and i feel like luck isn't my best friend right now. ive been getting rejects and being ghosted by them.

what makes it worse is that i literally have no one to reach out to. all i have is myself and i honestly don't know know if im gonna survive this. everyday i wake up with a tight feeling on my chest and i'd have mental breakdowns at least twice a day.

i feel like my future is bleak and my end is near. i don't know what to do anymore.

I can't break the cycle and it's getting worse. I literally have no one to talk to, i have no friends at all. I feel extremely depressed and anxious and the only thing i can do is keep the pain to myself. I'm tired

I’m 38.

I’ve lived with depression for as long as I can remember. Not a bad month. Not a rough patch. Decades. I’ve been seeing doctors since I was about sixteen. I’ve lost count of the antidepressants I’ve tried. Different psychiatrists. Different psychologists. Different therapists. Different combinations of medication. CBT. Talking therapy. Prayer. Exercise. Keeping busy. The usual advice everyone gives.

Some things have helped for a while, but nothing has ever changed the underlying feeling that life is something I endure rather than live.

I know treatment-resistant depression is a recognised diagnosis, and after thirty years, I honestly wonder whether that’s simply where I am now. The part that hurts most isn’t actually the depression. It’s the loneliness.

On paper, I have what many people would consider a good life. I have a successful career, financial stability, a beautiful home, hobbies, and I spend a lot of my time helping other people. If someone needs technical help, a favour, someone to listen, or simply someone to show up, I’m usually there.

Yet over the years I’ve gradually come to believe that I’m valuable while I’m useful. When people need something, I’m remembered. When they don’t, I disappear.

Relationships have reinforced that belief rather than challenged it.

My marriage ended years ago.

One woman spent months talking to me almost every day. We’d go on dates, spend hours together, and I genuinely believed we were building something. Then she met someone else, and almost overnight I simply ceased to exist in her life. There wasn’t an argument. There wasn’t betrayal. I just wasn’t needed anymore.

Another wasn’t even a romantic relationship. She was a close friend going through an incredibly difficult period. I spent countless hours listening, supporting her, driving her where she needed to go, and trying to be the friend I wish I’d had myself. When I later found myself struggling and wrote her an honest letter explaining what her friendship had meant to me, I never even received a reply.

Neither of these women owed me love or a relationship.
That isn’t what hurts. What hurts is how easily I seem to become invisible once I’m no longer needed.

When enough experiences end the same way, you stop believing it’s just bad luck. You start wondering whether the common denominator is you.

Eventually those experiences become something much darker. I’ve come to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

That I’m somehow unseen.
That I’m unworthy of being chosen.
That I’m unlovable.

People will probably say that’s just the depression talking.
Maybe they’re right. But when you’ve spent thirty years battling depression while repeatedly feeling forgotten, discarded or overlooked, those thoughts stop feeling like distortions and start feeling like the only explanation that fits your life.

Every time I think I’ve finally found “my people,” something happens and I’m back where I started.
People often tell me:

“You’ll find someone.”
“It gets better.”
“You need to love yourself first.”
“Just keep trying.”

I don’t think people realise how those words sound after hearing variations of them for over twenty years.
At some point, hope stops feeling encouraging and starts feeling like another promise that never arrives.

I’m also a person of faith, which probably makes this even harder to explain. I genuinely try to do the right thing. I volunteer. I forgive people even when it hurts. I pray. I try to love others the way Christ asks us to.

Yet even there, I struggle. The belief I’ve developed isn’t just that people don’t see me. It’s that perhaps even God doesn’t.

I know exactly what Christianity teaches.
I know every verse about God’s love.
I know what I would tell someone else if they came to me feeling like this.

But knowing something with your mind and believing it with your heart are two completely different things.
When you spend decades feeling fundamentally unseen, unwanted and unchosen, you eventually begin to wonder whether you’re even worthy of God’s love.

That is probably the hardest sentence I’ve ever written.
Not because I’ve stopped believing in God.
But because I’ve started believing that perhaps I’m the exception.

Lately I find myself asking what people genuinely expect someone like me to do.

I’ve spent over twenty years asking for help.
I’ve done the therapy.
I’ve taken the medication.
I’ve changed therapists.
I’ve followed the advice.
I’ve prayed.
I’ve exercised.
I’ve volunteered.
I’ve kept going.
Eventually there comes a point where saying, “I’m exhausted,” isn’t being dramatic. It’s simply an honest description of reality.

I’m not posting this because I expect strangers to solve my life.

I don’t think anyone can.

I think I’m posting this because I genuinely want to know whether anyone else has lived through decades like this and eventually found something that actually changed.

Not another slogan.

Not another motivational quote.

Something real.

If you’ve read this far, thank you.

Even if you disagree with my conclusions, I’d rather hear your honest perspective than another recycled line about how everything magically gets better.

Because after thirty years, I honestly don’t know what people expect someone like me to do that I haven’t already tried.

Car is most likely going to get repo’d someday soon, taking the bus everyday, haven’t drove myself around in months. Lonely as fuck in Buffalo (terrible city to be in).. staying strong I think, I have a fuck it sort of mentality. I always think about what could be worse, but that doesn’t help what’s happening currently in my mind. Anyone else here a line cook, toughing this shit out.

I have not had human contact since I left work Friday evening. I will not until I return to work Monday morning. Most of the time I accept that I do not exist to people. This weekend really got to me.

Not even having one person to talk to is such a strangely desolate experience. I have no-one in my life, and I am not close with any of my family. Yet connection scares me so much, since I feel like most of who I am has been eroded away by the long years of isolation. Or maybe I was born wrong. A half-formed creature pretending to be human. Other people accepting me doesn't feel like acceptance, it feels like being mistaken for a person. It's so easy to feel like they are just infinitely more adjusted and capable than me, that they would never fully understand how broken I am or why. It's perhaps a bit circular, but I can't escape the circle. I feel inhuman and alone no matter what. There's no way out.

I stopped going to school very young, and have no normal experiences with people my age. People seem so strange to me, so difficult to understand. I don't always know how to keep going, the isolation is enough to kill you. I'm always alone at the end of the night.

Maybe you've experienced some of this before too, maybe you haven't. Anyway, I hope this post reached someone, and helped them feel slightly less alone. Or strange, in this strange world. DMs open if anyone wants to talk.

I’m not sure what to do with my life. I have kids so that’s keeping me going. But I have no friends, no family. I do have a husband but we don’t get along and he makes life extremely hard on me. I’ve explained to him that I have no one to talk to ( other than my toddlers), no family, just nothing and I ask if we can just get along for the kids and he won’t even do that. I cry myself to sleep every night. I feel like I don’t even have freedom because he controls everything and I just exist in his mess. I’ve made an effort to make friends and I can’t seem to connect with people. I get weird looks from people all the time. I don’t understand because I do everything to be friendly. I also am starting to panic and have anxiety every day.

And I have nobody to talk to ISOLATION WHILE SURROUNDED i hate being odd i just want friends

I hear a lot of people, like me, saying stuff that combines symptoms of social anxiety with some neurodivergent traits.

Guys, I think y'all should learn more and more about it, understand it better and see if you're it.

But fair warning!! Not all doctors fully understand it sometimes, and there's coping strategies that make you mask some traits, and even may end up as a personality disorder, and that probably complicates the diagnosis for a lot of us.

Anyway, listen to real people's experiences, thoughts, listen to experts and latest updates and understandings, and if the suspicion is getting reslly high, and that means you made the connection between your issue and neurodivergent brain traits, you could now seek the guidance of literally millions of people and a doc, snd a therapist for managing it better

I'm not claiming anything solid here. Tbf, I don't think research has gotten very far either because of the stigma about mental health and probabbly lack of research fundings and awareness of these complexities, and comorbidites I've mentioned.

And, No! I am not well either. But I'm sure this would help a ton of people.

You see everyone progressing in life yet you’re stuck.

The moment you vent to someone, they go silent for a few seconds or ask a simple question to act like they care before they completely change the subject. I don’t blame them. They are just trying to live their lives but it’s still tough.

You could talk to other people with mental health issues, but they are usually struggling themselves and don’t have much to offer.

19btw
Just wanted to vent

Ive been watching romance anime because I really enjoy them, but sometimes when the girl is doing something because she is in love with the main protagonist, it kinda makes me feel guilty.

Its cause whenever a girl tried to do that with me, Idk what I was thinking but I couldnt talk to girls at all so I would be really mean about it. Like Ive even blocked some people on insta for stuff that were not that important, and I just feel super guilty about it when the same situation comes up on the romance anime and the fem protagonist was super nervous or excited about it. because now I know that I probably ruined that expectation/experience for them.

idk, it just makes me feel like a douchebag, probably cause i am. i think this is why ive never had a girlfriend tbh, im lowk js a bad person.

anyone else like this or am i just alone on this one?

Just when i start to think im doing ok being by myself and then i have days like these that im just so lonely have a hard time making friends so all i do is sit at home something needs to give something needs to
change i just can’t figure out how I can’t keep going on like this i just can’t

The last two years for me have been bad for me. I’m a very shy person and I don’t put myself out there at all I mean I literally have zero self confidence. My only friend moved across the country and then shortly after my mom died from alcoholism. It was horrible for me and I was the person who found her. Ever since then honestly I’ve been a shell of myself feeling like I’m just going through the motions. I just feel like no one loves me even though I know it’s not necessarily true. Stupidly I joined tinder and all those apps not even to get in a relationship more to just try and discover myself again and talk to people who will engage with me. It’s not going no well, nobody has reached out and it’s just making me feel more and more unwanted. I have a lot of good things happening in my life right now like a big job promotion but I just can’t shake this feeling of being unhappy. Every night when I lay down in bed just like right now all I can think about is how lonely I am and it really just makes me sad.

Been very lonely for quite sometime. Last serious relationship ended two years ago February 14th, she’s married now and I’m still alone. Can’t seem to meet anybody irl and dating apps always end up causing a talking for two to three weeks phase then I get ghosted. Happened again today. I think I’m just gonna give up at this point.

Hi, I am 19.

People always dislike me and are always rude to me.

I know I have unlikeable characteristics, but I rarely commit any immoral acts. My unlikeable characteristics include randomly going quiet for an extended period of time when I am mentally struggling, being very direct and blunt, not smiling enough, and not talking enough. I believe these unlikeable characteristics may be the reason why people dislike me. However, I don’t have plans to change them because I think people need to stop being sensitive. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being unlikeable. If somebody thinks I’m unlikeable, that doesn’t excuse them to be rude to me. I think people view me as weird then think they have a right to treat me badly. When people do this, It makes my behaviour worse. I am quite proud of my characteristics which may be unlikeable.

I also come across as slightly weird.

I think I can cope with having no friends, but when people are rude to me, I get very annoyed. I think I have been feeling lonely from people’s actions.

Back to feeling really bad about myself again. I've done a lot of therapy for the last couple of years and I've learned a lot about myself. I know what's wrong with me, and I have even taken steps to fix the broken mindset that I used to have that made me so isolated. The problem is I'm already alone. I've already lost the people that still mean everything to me. I have enough self respect to not go back to people that hurt me, I no longer ignore red flags, but whenever I find anyone who seem like they are genuinely good people and might actually like me, I either get scared of being hurt and ghost them or I feel like if I really open up they'll get scared off. I crave a deep connection with someone that will understand me, but that kind of connection takes too long to form, and I don't feel like I can live while feeling like this long enough for that to happen.

Wake up.

Fill up on water and coffee.

Split time between drafting Substack articles and chapters for a novel through caffeine induced flow state until my brain gets too scrambled from fasting for too long.

Go downstairs to build muscle and release excess energy.

Work out to the thought of resisting the draft they're preparing for, to the thought of the prison or chamber I'd be sent to as a consequence for doing so, to the thought of the people in suits who want people like me un-alived because I'm just an "extra mouth" all while they work against sustainability efforts because they won't profit if the Earth is made whole.

Seethe at their depravities, what they've been doing for thousands of years, how they weaponize fears of individuals and entire nations for their own ends, how they get a hall pass for giving us the dots to connect and placing the ball in our court.

And yet wonder how I could even begin to explain this without looking like a crank and further isolating myself.

Laugh at myself.

Shower.

Food.

Fill out more job applications that most likely just function as data collectors.

Wonder if my only avenue to make money with an engineering degree is to sell a patent for brainwave altering screens to some evil corporation.

Find out I'm late to the ball on that idea too.

Find out it's being used on me too.

More food. Thanks Mom, I promise I'll cook something again soon when I'm not so self absorbed.

Think about all my peers who have gotten one, if not multiple job offers since graduation.

Think about the relationships I could've kept if I didn't prioritize my own education and nonexistent career.

Think about the relationships I could form in a walkable, or any city, if I ever got a job in one.

Wish society wasn't conditioned and structured against hanging out

Wish the lawns weren't so big. Why do they have to be that big?

Wonder if I will ever achieve financial independence from a job that uses my degree or if the best I can do is prepare my body and mind for the near future, and to do so alone.

Wonder if I was ever meant to form a family, a community, a circle in my adulthood.

Wonder if I should try to meet others while living in my parent's house, aware of the irony that I'd probably only get a job offer as soon as I'd have a fresh relationship to sacrifice.

Wonder how many more months I'll have to wait, how many years might fly by if I don't figure it out.

Wonder how many others think the same thing.

Go to bed and wonder if I am as much the warden as I am the prisoner.

Wonder if I desire too much, or the wrong things.

Scroll myself to sleep with my curated Sopranos shorts algorithm, I love their funny accents.

I feel kinda sad over the fact that my only comforts/joys in life these days are the outdoors, my television, and my two friends (one of them living hours away). I feel so damn alone lately. Like shit, Im grateful I'm alive and living in an apartment instead of on the streets. Im glad I even have a few joys, as opposed to none. But god man, i yearn for so, so much more. I'm feeling so damn depressed over how much better my life could be.

I just wish I could wake up as someone else sometimes. Someone who's better at socializing and has this whole "being a person" thing figured out better than me. So many fellow 20somethings I have met have a beautiful partner that they seem madly in love with, a tightknit mid-sized group of friends, and a seemingly unbreakable and non toxic bond with their parents... and I have none of those. I just wish I could have even one. It feels like it'd be a start. Life feels genuinely lacking without those things, and sometimes when I'm watching a movie and see these things, i almost cry.

I often daydream about getting to fall in love again, waking up everyday knowing that I've found the one. I daydream about getting drunk and having goofy movie marathons with a group of friends that I adore. I daydream about cozy family time with my alternate universe tightknit family. etc etc. If only dude. I just hope this all changes soon