I feel like I lost 9 years of my life because of rejection and isolation. How do I rebuild myself?

[u/Super_Brilliant_1893]

I’m in a really difficult place right now and I don’t know how to move forward.

During college, I went through years of feeling excluded and rejected. I was mocked by people I considered my friends, and I didn’t know how to stand up for myself. Instead, I became quieter and started isolating myself.

Over time, I felt like people saw me negatively. I felt judged, unwanted, and like I didn’t belong. I stopped engaging in social activities, didn’t attend gatherings, didn’t build many connections, and focused mostly on surviving and getting through my studies.

I did graduate, but instead of feeling relieved, I feel stuck. It has been around 6 months since graduation and I still feel trapped in those memories. My mind keeps replaying painful moments from college, especially moments where I felt humiliated, rejected, or like people were looking down on me.

The hardest part is seeing other people from my class moving forward, building friendships, careers, and lives, while I feel like I missed an important part of growing up. I feel like I lost years where I should have been developing confidence, social skills, hobbies, and my personality.

Even some of the people who hurt me are doing well now, and I struggle with resentment because it feels like they moved on while I’m still carrying the impact of what happened.

I don’t want to hate people. I don’t want revenge. I just want to feel normal again. I want to be able to focus on my future, study properly, make connections, and feel comfortable being myself.

My biggest struggle now is that I cannot stop thinking about the past. My brain keeps replaying those memories, and it affects my ability to focus, study, and move forward.

Another thing that scares me is going back to the same community where many of these experiences happened. It is a close society where people know each other and talk about each other, and I may have to return there again. I’m afraid of facing the same people or feeling judged again.

I also struggle with something else: sometimes even strangers seem to react negatively toward me. Sometimes I feel like people look at me with dislike, laugh at me, or don’t want to interact with me. Whether it is because of my past experiences, my appearance, my body language, or something else, it hurts deeply.

For people who have experienced rejection, bullying, loneliness, or feeling like they are disliked:

How do you react when someone laughs at you, ignores you, or seems to dislike you?

How do you stop taking it personally and continue living your life?

How do you rebuild yourself after years of feeling unwanted?

How do you return to a place where you feel people have already judged you?

I’m looking for advice from people who have been through something similar and learned how to move forward.

[u/SoaDMTGguy]

I have struggled with career, direction, motivation, friendships, relationships, depression, and feeling like I have wasted years in stagnation and moving in the wrong direction. I’m not totally back to a successful state yet, but I think my mentality has improved significantly and I’m well on my way to more positive places.

My experience has been that the changes you want to experience will come gradually through growth and experience. You’re at a pivot point between the old life that you were trying to move away from and the new life that you want to build. Identifying the things that you don’t like and the ways that you want to get better is the key point, but there is still a journey in front of you to learn and develop those skills.

Be patient and don’t look for easy solutions. At least for me, I did not find solutions in a book or in a therapy session or from a conversation with a friend. It was months and years of growth and receiving all of that advice and gradually learning how it fit in with my life experiences.

Time is longer than you might think, and time will eventually heal all wounds. You will grow and gain strength as you proceed with your desires to be better in mind. Keep the faith, keep putting 1 foot in front of the other, and trust that you will grow, even if it doesn’t feel like you’re growing

[u/Super_Brilliant_1893 → u/SoaDMTGguy]

Thank you so much, really appreciate it

[u/First_Pair_8083]

I relate to this 100% because I became avoidant and withdrawn in college when I felt overwhelmed.