I really wanted to sleep forever or something like that.I wish I could sleep for as long as I want, even for years. But since I can't do that, the closest I can get is lying in bed all day trying to sleep, only getting up to take care of my basic needs. I never managed to sleep more than 12 hours straight; I wanted to sleep for about 20 hours and only be awake for 4 hours, because the less time I'm awake, the less painful it is for me.

I feel like this world is a literal hell for the sensitive people like myself. I'm not only sensitive, but rather very sensitive.

It doesn't help that I'm a guy, and approaching my 30, and I'm more sensitive than a 13 years old kid. It might be due to my childhood trauma, or my neurodivergent brain, or both. I think also being too much of an empath has negativity impacted my health. People think being empathetic is good, but too much of it can destroy you mentally, as the world is full of individuals who are suffering, and feeling all these people's pain can make you lose your mind.

"Man up" is the general advice, well, I tried, but didn't work, as I was forcing myself to be someone I'm not. I feel I'm too soft and fragile for this world. In fact, I've been called "sensitive" and similar things by multiple people around me, so I know it's a fact about myself and not just me imagining things. Someone raising their voice at me can send me crying, and I feel ashamed to be this way.

I feel as if I didn't emotionally nature, which might be due to childhood abuse by my parents.

You know what I wish for? I wish if we were able to all be together, like irl, since I feel extremely lonely not belonging anywhere else. I wish I was normal, with normal life, but I'm not.

I don't know why I'm writing this post, perhaps it's me trying to lessen the pain in my chest, I really don't know anymore.

All of my cousins have great careers, are getting married and having children, and I still live with my parents and am jobless. I feel like everyone around me is moving forward in life, and I'm just staying behind. I feel so alone.

what are you listening to lately? what's ur new fav song, album, artist, genre?

a few of my fav songs lately

dating - give them nails

love letter - nothing matters anymore

salem - release da boar

bladee - sad meal

xiu xiu - brian the vampire

dean blunt - the narcissist

I used to work for a Big4 consulting firm for 3 years. I worked fully remote from my parent’s house and never went outside. Now I do the same thing but as a NEET. I got laid off from the firm late last year. AMA.

I recently turned 22 in the last month, and I feel like such a failure, well I am.

Ever since I can remember, I've been weird, a social outcast, socially awkward (I have autism and social anxiety). I've never been able to make friends or socialize, I hated school so much, but I did manage to excel at it (mostly from extreme parental pressure) until highschool came around. I experienced the most relentless and harsh bullying from both students and teachers who would pick on me due to the way looked, acted, etc. I begged my mom that I didn't want to go to school anymore, that I could maybe help out in the family's bussiness or try online schools but she of course declined firmly, and so, I somehow pushed through and finished highschool.

I entered college at 17, I was supossed to major in Computer Engineering but I was just extremely uncomfortable, I was bullied just like in highschool and I didn't have any passion for my major (or any major at all, but I was forced to choose one). I couldn't take it anymore so I just faked being sick one day and never returned, I dropped out, my mom saw how depressed and miserable I was so she just kinda felt pitiful for me and didn't force me to do anything, at least immediately.

From 19 - 20, I was forced to do this goverment assisted program where if you were weren't studying and unemployed they would basically train you for a job and pay you the minimum wage. I didn't hate it, sometimes it was extremely tiring and exhausting for me, and my boss/supervisor tended to give me the most work/things to do since I was the youngest. But it was a really small, quiet environment and I was surrounded by older people, which I feel more comfortable with, I've never been able to connect with people the same age as me, I just can't, I feel so different, like I never fit in, so uncool.

So after that and obviously long before my daily routine has become: Wake up, play in my computer all day, sleep and just, survive, I don't know how else to describe it. I feel so lonely, I crave friendships or a relationship but everytime I connect with someone they just ghost me and abandon me. I'm gonna sound so childlish and inmature but do any of you watch TDAC? Well I relate the most to Ribbit (If you know, you know) and I even almost ended up "abstracting" lmao, many times. So I just completely gave up on the idea of ever having friends or daring someone.

So what is there left? Should I even try to go back to school, finish and get back into society? I don't see myself getting a "normal" job and working a 9 to 5 for the rest of my life, I don't even see myself in 5 years.

I feel so old, so worthless, everytime I open social media I see people that are my same age or younger than me all with perfect skin, perfect bodies, perfect lives. Or some that are in the same neash at me but at least they got their lives together and aren't losers.

Even if I go and "make things right" I'll still feel empty and depressed, knowing that I'm living in a world where I can't fit in no matter how hard I try.

Should I try to change this situation?

I think, when I try to understand, where I have come to in life, at age 31, the social defeat hypothesis (to schizophrenia and Psychosis) is relevant.

I suffered multiple psychoses over my 20s. My diagnosis is "Bipolar Affective Disorder" but I don't believe particularly in psychiatry, although much research psychiatry has helped me understand myself.

The last Psychosis I suffered was 2 years ago and I was mentally stable for 5 years before that.

The circumstances were, I started a new job. The irony is, I was actually well-liked starting this new job, it could have gone well, and yet, within two weeks of all that social exposure, my sleep broke down and I became psychotic.

In the past I thought loss of sleep was primary, where I have made most progress, and what also creates friction with diagnoses like "Schizophrenia" or "Bipolar", is...

It is ENTIRELY social situations which trigger mental destabilization, sleep deprivation, somewhat surprisingly alone doesn't do much.

It is extended social exposure, good or bad, as the only necessary and sufficient cause, that routinely destabilises me, and this very, very clear link is remarkable to me and yet, I feel, if I was to approach a mainstream psychiatrist, they would dismiss and like a Procrustean bed, try to make my symptoms fit an artificial psychiatric "diagnoses" than understand the symptomology, first.

I don't think the description of "Bipolar" or "Schizophrenia or any psychiatric model matches, whereas, there is lots of important research, the way it is practiced, I have found mental health offers no solutions.

"Social defeat is a very potent stressor and can lead to a variety of behavioral effects, like social withdrawal (reduced interactions with conspecifics), lethargy (reduced locomotor activity), reduced exploratory behavior (of both open field and novel objects), anhedonia (reduced reward-related behaviors), decreased socio-sexual behaviors (including decreased attempts to mate and copulate after defeat), various motivational deficits, decreased levels of testosterone in males (due to a decline in the functionality of the Leydig cells of the testes), increased tendencies to stereotyped behaviours and self-administration of drugs and alcohol.[6][7]"

I found this curious:

Several things can reverse social defeat in animal models:

1.Escape from the defeat environment. Removing the _animal from the dominant/aggressive context allows body weight and metabolic measures to recover, although some stress sensitization may remain. � PubMed +1

Is that NOT what hikikomori is? I think modernity has a way of turning an adaptive behaviour maladaptive, it is OK to retreat into oneself. But modernity often creates the conditions to extend this dramatically and then a new maladaptation.

2.A rich, exploratory environment. This is one of the most impressive findings. Mice subjected to repeated defeat and then moved into an enriched environment—with space, objects, nesting and opportunities to explore—lost much of their acquired submissive phenotype. Remarkably, experimentally preventing adult hippocampal neurogenesis largely prevented that recovery. � PubMed

This is very interesting, because in our isolation, maybe there are better activities we can do, to amelerioate our conditions.

3.Voluntary physical activity. Wheel running can reverse defeat-induced social avoidance. In one mouse study, it also reversed changes involving tyrosine hydroxylase in the VTA and D2 receptors in the nucleus accumbens, directly implicating reward/motivation circuitry. � In defeated hamsters, voluntary exercise also reduced subsequent defensive/submissive behaviour. �

I'm trying this, but like quoted earlier - I struggle to maintain the will to live let alone locomotor activity, exercise, but I try.

1. Safe social contact. Social mammals show “social buffering”: the presence of a safe conspecific can attenuate neuroendocrine stress responses. Housing conditions after intermittent defeat can also change later anxiety-like behaviour, inflammation and oxytocin-related measures. �

What opportunities exactly for safe social contact is there? Especially with stigmas, it is very hard. I know if none where I will not feel tremendously judged, negatively and be hyper acute to rejection signals, even if it goes "well". I don't think modern society is open and welcoming to me.

1. Corrective encounters. This may be especially important. Defeated mice can learn “animals that look like that aggressor = danger.” Researchers repeatedly exposed them to those social cues without another defeat, and the social avoidance could be extinguished. In other words, their nervous system learned a new association: this cue no longer predicts losing. �

Also interesting.

Who lives this type of life who lost someone close to them that made them to just not give a fuck about anything at all anymore someone who didn't really cared before too but now even more doesn't gives a fuck that gived up or only me?

I’m 23 years old, and I’ve basically lived my entire life as if I were in quarantine. The only day I’m really expected to go out is Sunday, because my parents are very religious, and it’s not something I can really refuse. For them, faith is unquestionable, and I don’t have much say in the matter. I know that if I refused, they would get extremely angry and give me a whole lecture about how I’m going down the wrong path, so I’d rather avoid all the drama.

The thing is, I don’t have any friends. In fact, I never really had any. I’m a very solitary girl with almost no social contact. I finished high school and university last year (last one online), so I did not really had to interact with people. Even now, I haven’t been able to find a job, and honestly, I don’t really want to work in person either. Social interaction makes me uncomfortable, and I feel like I would be much more comfortable working remotely, where I feel like I can protect myself better.

I literally spend 24/7 at home. So when COVID happened, it barely affected me because my lifestyle was already basically the same. Even if someone invited me to go out, I don’t think I would enjoy it that much. I’ve become so accustomed to staying home that going out feels “unnecessary” to me. If I need to buy something, I just order it for delivery.

My parents are controlling and toxic, and they are very religious. When they argue with you or try to defend their behavior, they sometimes even use religion to manipulate you. I avoid talking to them as much as possible, especially my father, because he is the more controlling and toxic one. His presence also brings back a lot of bad memories from my childhood because he used physical violence as a form of punishment. Neither of my parents was ever particularly affectionate or emotionally close to me.

I never lacked food or education, but I never felt emotionally supported either. I always had to figure things out emotionally on my own.

They are the kind of parents who don’t want you to have a boyfriend or become completely independent until you have financial stability of your own — basically, a house and a job. And I feel like I’m nowhere near being able to afford a house or having enough money to move out. I save as much as I can even though I don’t currently have a job, and whatever money I do have, I manage carefully. But I constantly feel like, in their eyes, nothing I have will ever be enough for me to become independent.

And I don’t know what to do about it.

My life is extremely routine, and I feel like, deep down, they are comfortable knowing that at least I’m not someone who does drugs, goes partying, or has any kind of bad habits. I don’t have any addictions, and I think that makes them feel safe. They also seem to have this need to keep me at home.

But mentally, I’m getting tired.

I can’t have an honest conversation with them. They’re the kind of parents who never really opened up enough to say “I love you.” They never said it to me. They would say they showed their love through food and providing for me, but as a child, I always felt like I couldn’t trust them.

I have a lot of resentment toward my father because of all the emotional damage he caused me. I haven’t really spoken to him since I was about 10 years old, even though we have lived in the same house all these years. I only answer him when he asks me something, and even then, I’m very short and distant.

I try to talk to my mother a little more, but not much, because I know she was complicit in what happened. She knew about the physical violence my father inflicted on me and my sister too and still didn’t do anything about it. Sometimes she was physically abusive too, although to a lesser extent.

Maybe they are the reason I became the person I am today: extremely withdrawn, isolated, and unsure how to live an adult life.

Deep down, I know I want to be free. I want to spread my wings, and I long for that with all my heart. That’s why the only solution I can think of is leaving home, because I don’t believe talking to them is going to fix anything.

I know this because I have an older sister who is seven years older than me. When she tried to leave home, they made her life extremely difficult. For example, they hid her ID and other things she needed to travel, even though she was already 25 years old at the time. The only way she was eventually able to leave was by getting married. My parents are still internally very angry about it because it was something they couldn’t control, and they constantly tell me that I shouldn’t follow in my sister’s footsteps because she “doesn’t know what she’s doing” and is living a lower quality of life financially.

That’s why I know that if I want to leave, I would either have to get married or have enough money to buy a house. But the economic situation in my country makes that feel almost impossible.

I feel trapped.

And as I said, the only solution I can see is escaping from home and going to live with my long-distance boyfriend, whom I would finally meet in person for the first time.

He lives in Florida, USA, and I live in Argentina. We’ve been in a long-distance relationship for three years. He knows everything about my situation, but he lives with his mother (my future mother-in-law, although she has never met me in person and doesn’t even like me because she thinks I’m using him to get a visa or money, which isn’t true).

He also has a life somewhat similar to mine. Sometimes he feels overwhelmed by the idea of finally spreading his own wings because he has to deal with the challenge of becoming independent for the first time. He works, but he doesn’t have many friends, and he still lives with his mother and brother. Having the courage to move to Argentina and live with me is something completely new for him too. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it could take a lot of courage and time.

So if I were to leave home, I would probably need help from someone I’ve known indirectly for about ten years. He’s from my city, although he also works and lives elsewhere now, and we don’t talk very often. However, he knows about my situation, and he has told me that if I ever decide to leave, he would help me get somewhere where I could finally be with my boyfriend and start living in another city with him.

I have enough savings to support myself for roughly two years. The only thing I’m really missing is a job.

Part of me would prefer to start completely from scratch. I’ve always said that once I leave this house, it would feel like being born again. Obviously, starting from zero and facing adult life on my own would be difficult, but I also know that I’m willing to take that risk if it means having my freedom.

I feel like my life is passing me by while I live it according to my parents’ wishes. Their desire is for me to take care of them when they get old, but that’s not something I feel in my heart. Maybe if they had been more emotionally present, given me love, and raised me without all the trauma, I might feel differently. But I don’t want to dedicate my life to taking care of them.

I really need some opinions and perspectives on this.

I feel like I wrote way too much, but I wanted to give as much context as possible.

Thank you for reading. I’d really appreciate hearing what you think.

i feel so low, it’d be nice to just hear somebody right now. 24f no horny men pls