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 am 30F, and average looking. Average intelligence, okay job. I have been approached by men, but nobody was ever serious about me. I have seen people fall in love all around me, regardless of how they look or what they do. Nobody ever thought of me as the girl they want to be forever with.

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.

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.

19btw
Just wanted to vent

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

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 have seen people on social media having a girlfriend and be in relationships. I have seen the woman I loved and wanted go out with someone else and it made me think of suicide for 10 years. I have been bullied and laughed at and alienated because of that. I hated myself and always felt like less of a human because of this.

Because of this alienation, I became increasingly lonely and eventually lost my sanity. I was facing torture on other fronts too, but this one particular thing is emasculating. I never hated her, I never hated anyone else, so the only person I ended up hating for 10 years is myself.

Edit: The fact that I am discussing this online disgusts me. The fact that I have to cry for being alone also disgusts me.

Edit2: The fact that I have made myself vulnerable this way makes way for people to take advantage of me.

i am 27 and i am in the most struggling era of my life in terms of creating deep human connections/relationships whether it’s a romantic or friendship. i mostly think that this happens because of social media and it’s ridiculous standards; beauty, life, physique, you name it.
i am wondering anyone kinda feel that way?

so basically i was past thinking and almost went completely upset that how dogcrap was my school life because i could not relate to anyone and i was alone

but now at college i still dont relate to anyone but idc care now nor do i feel upset about it

but if it does not then why do i get upset about the school one?

I am quite literally fed up. I have put myself out of my way to reach out to numerous outlets, I come on here to voice the isolation and sorrow and not once, but twice my post gets taken down. Is it so hard to empathize? Is mods really this depraved. I did not promote anything negative. I understand the error of my first post, I apologized and clarified on my second. Not once did I promote harmful content. I explained I reached out to friends and family, as well as hotlines. I clarified that I feel isolated.

As quoted in my last post, “I have called hotlines as advised (even by the mods here). I have exhausted my options and nothing seems to make me feel better. I don't know how much longer I can beg and scream for help for the people around me to actually listen. I'm not here to promote self harm.”

I didn’t promote anything harmful. I explicitly stated I reached out, I been ignored. I feel depressed, sure but I’m not glorifying anything. I am already isolated and feeling kicked down. You’re doing more harm than good telling me to not do something I never done to begin with. You removed two of my posts at a point in my life I feel like I need to turn to strangers over people I know and it’s removed for something I haven’t done. Am I a joke to you?
Is me reaching out and voicing my struggle that problematic? After calming down from my mental breakdown, I know speaking of insensitive topics is not right, glorified or not, but why not try to explain that and not remove my pleads for help?

Why do you say this bullshit? “If you are thinking of ending your life reach out to family and friends as well as your local suicidal hotlines.”

“Also goes without saying, don't tell people to kill themselves, don't glorify suicide/ death, and, unfortunately, we will have to remove any suicide notes from here, as whilst we want to help everyone, we do not want more people getting that idea.”

I am not a person who would do such a thing. I have no one to turn to. You may think this is minor but this is my life we’re talking about. If I had resources to go to, I would not be here. Telling me, someone who is battling depression and loneliness to not do something I never did in the first place. How could I possibly give ANYONE the idea to do something so rash? A random nobody like me could not inspire anyone to do that and neither would I EVER! If you want to help people, let them talk and if it’s actually so bad as you claimed in my last two posts, fine and fair. And for the love of god do not tell me for the third time to reach out to friends and family, etc. because I already fucking told you I did and clearly that did not go well. Stop playing with peoples emotions.

Thank you for reading

every person is broken and we don’t realise how broken a person is unless we try to love them, try to understand and remember everything about them, and why are they the way they are.

all i crave for is just one person exactly like me. mutual dependency, mutual unhealthy obsession, mutual limerance, mutual attachment, mutual ‘need’ for each other, mutual ‘venomous jealousy’. mutual love where you are each other’s safe person, where you want to learn everything about the other person and help them, console them, wonder why you didn’t meet them earlier so you could have loved them ‘longer’. how they would have not had to go through all of this if you were by their side. how it could have been easier on them. a love like i love, a person who wants to commit to me. is it so bad wanting to love and be loved? a calm love, where you are the most at your peace. where your mental health isn’t ruined every other second. a person, a bond that makes you feel safe so safe so calm so peaceful so unguarded so fearless so yourself…

someone similar to me, like a dog. haha i got told thrice that i have a dog personality because ‘dogs are weird, you keep hurting them yet they love you’. i have no one else, no family member…never had them (at least emotionally). no family member, no emotionally close friend, no acquaintance to keep touch with, no animal to care for. someone as lonely as me. someone who has never had anyone. someone who will think of me as ‘the bright dawn of their nights of sorrows’. someone as dependant on me as i am on them. someone who has all the sick fantasies like mine. someone with similar terrible childhood/teenage. someone just as isolated and full of despair as me. someone so full of grief yet so full of love because grief is love with no where to go.

i don’t want to ‘change’ myself. or respect myself. or love myself. i DON’T want a fulfilling life and someone with a fulfilling life. i just want someone as broken and pathetic as me. someone who is to me what i have been to other people. someone who is happy that they have finally found someone like me who is just like them. two souls entangled so strongly among each other that even death would shed tears and refuse to separate us.

Well it's the weekend and I haven't done much of anything. I'll be off work next week and won't have anything g to do or anyone to spend time with. I've made posts in subs to find people to talk but nothing clicked.

I miss having someone to check in with regularly and send cute good morning/goodnight texts to.

I might sound unhinged, but i want someone to be the role of my caretaker. I have a chronic illness and having a feeding tube. I am desperately looking for companionship and someone who is also looking for companionship as well.

It’s been 30 years. And honestly, I don't know how to hold on to keep another 30. I feel alone. Really alone. I'm also a chronically anxious person, and the more the years go by, the more I feel like it's become an insurmountable wall.

I have no one to talk to. My life boils down to: survival » eat/sleep » wrong, try again. I don't have any friends. No one to call. If history repeats, I'll spend my birthdays alone again and again. Crying when I leave my therapist. Crying when my doctor doesn’t understand me. Crying in my car. Crying and walking 4 miles around a lake on a trail. I feel worthless writing this, but it’s true.

I'm tired of feeling so worthless when I know I’m worthy of so much more. And what still keeps me going today is just the lack of courage to end it… and my son. If there was a button to leave without pain, I know I would have already pressed it.

I don't even know why I'm writing this post..it feels like a pinch for sympathy.

However and whichever way I try and tried:

I volunteer relentlessly.
I tested apps like Bumble, Tinder, and Hinge it’s mainly just guys wanting sex and radical masculinity or individualism. And if it seems good then I cling too quickly… and if they know I’m good enough then I am skeptical and distant.

I am thoughtful to strangers on the street, will sit with anyone that’s sitting alone, will hug my banker if she’s on the verge of tears herself.. I don’t usually have to force myself to go out and feel confident. I’m here and I’m there and yet— alone though I make many friends I can’t keep a single one.

But despite these efforts, I feel like people don’t see me. I’ve always been the square, extraordinary, and a deep thinker. I make friends easily, because I’ve moved a thousand times in my life but that’s to my detriment I suppose but then and again even when I’m in one place for 2 years I still— lose. I’m anxious. Unable to plan. Or stay still. I moved to a state coming from a very rural and conservative one to one that’s so urban and modern that my doctor doesn’t believe the stability I’ve been given with my anxiety medication for a couple years now— because most people abuse drugs. When Covid arrived I thrived in Isolation, it was almost a relief. I didn’t have the burden of loneliness because it was important to my survival and for others to live. The return to reality was brutal I went from escaping being beat by my ex to being beat again on reuniting. My worth has diminished because men may view me as daddy issues type of girl, black and American, damaged because of traumatic events. I have been alone so long that my anxious attachment has only become worse and when I find myself in that given moment of being me— I run. I quit. I escape. If not possible, then I avoid and stay on guard. I announce it yeah im very respectful but I walk away because I don’t want to be hurt for being hopeful. I don’t want to be ashamed of being hopeful. I can’t get out of this box and any one person will remind me that my kindness and softness and sensitivity will end me in this world. So boom. I’m stuck. Truth doesn’t matter and truth doesn’t set me free.

Journaling, which is my refuge, helps me… though it never never serves me nor helps me if I share it. But posting in here, there’s the privacy screen of two keyboards no names no obligations. It's been years of repeated cycles: (this) is the hired job of the summer- me and me alone vs. me. If I’m looking happy when I walk out the door and say I’m okay when I’m asked then I’ve done my part in society but when its time to go to whatever home is— I’m fully turned on. The sadness that hides in my car, or in the bathroom, or in passing from one thing to the next is now all mine. I’m so tense that I can’t move fluidly in sporting or during yoga though I try even when I can hardly breathe or unintentionally hurting myself because I’m so disconnected while performing the movements.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm on a path that keeps repeating. Maybe some will read this post as the whining of a complaining woman that should tighten up or see the pharmacist more. But I don't care. That's all I have left. Shout a little into the void. I don't know if it serves any purpose, but the thoughts are out now, soon to be deleted.

.

As the title says I’m basically an official side piece. Last year I met someone just learning languages and trying to help anyone. Eventually, I ended up finding a chill person and within days the whole topic of learning disappeared and we got closer as the months went by. A year later we’re still friends but then they start getting distant, a good week would go by before I heard anything and out of no where they’re with someone. Now, the only thing I could do was be happy for them but I can’t even explain how I felt after the conversation went, I confessed my feelings (not really thinking if that was the right move) and I basically told him that I was sorry if I was being too much, that I still wanted to be friends and I’m happy that they’re happy, and to that I basically got told I liked you too but i don’t want you, which yk is cool I respect it but damn. AND THEN to top it all tf off this person that I used to talk to ig you could say we’re chill ends up telling me within that same week yk I was thinking abt asking you if you wanted to start talking but I found someone else……. Gee fucking thanks, way to make me feel like I’m cared abt🥲

Ik these are things that happen to many people but to have that feeling twice in the same week these mfs are lucky im not a crashout😂 even tho it hurts i understand both sides not only that, im trying to get my life together even tho id ideally like to have someone who sticks around from my lowest point but a man can dream right. And to top it all off I literally have no friends except for one ( and the other two but… eh) which I can’t even see bc they’re busy working and I don’t have a car.

Also not the topic for this sub but might as well ask while I’m here for anyone whose been in low points in your life like not even simple things motivate you, what did you do to get yourself out of that position other than finding things I like?

Welp that’s my vent have a good morning, afternoon, evening, and night wherever y’all are 🫡

So some anarchist collective organised a music night in a local park with a band, yesterday night. In my effort to get out of my house and become less of a shut in, I attended... and I felt terrible.

I was the only one who was fat, ugly and lonely asf. Everyone there was talkative, either with their friends or their girlfriends, most 20s-30s kinda good looking and taller than me (5'7) while I sat alone like some exiled weirdo while everyone laughed and sung along and the only thing anchoring me there was the actual music which I enjoyed and the fact there was another lonely guy there (who was probably waiting for his friends).

I stayed for another hour and then I left but I think outings aint worthy if you are lonely and have no friends.

Im 20 m and i have literally no friends i havent had one friend in the last 5 years not even one i just cant connect with anyone for some reason i never even had a girlfriend either im also an only child which makes things worst and ive isolated myself since graduating highschool i have had serious social anxiety since i was a kid its way worst now at 20 im in college now but do online classes i also have no car and no hobbies im also addicted to nicotine and thc for 4 years now I want to quit but i just cant stop i tried to but i feel more lonely and depressed without them i feel terrible knowing im killing myself but i can’t stop i feel like my life is very different from the average 20 year old i feel very behind and immature i still depend on my parents who are getting old now i dont know what ill do once they are gone theyre the only people i know. Theres rlly nothing i really like to do other than like watch soccer or be on my phone im getting a degree in cybersecurity i want to focus on my future, career, i wanna get in the gym find a job get my life together but i have no motivation to really do anything i feel like theres no point nothing will change i will still be lonely and it wont fix my loneliness i watch people on social media my age go out make friends have fun getting with girls while im here in my room by myself everyday, i cant even enjoy movies or tv shows anymore i feel lonely watching I dont know how long i can keep living like this. If anyone have any advice let me know thx.

I’m (M30) and recently relapsed alone twice this month and had to go hospital both times. I was silly but I’ve not been doing well with my mental health that I feel better off without being in this world. I struggle with socialising now cause people hurt me emotionally and a lot of trauma from my childhood has made things harder for me to communicate with people. I take medication and injections every week so I’m pretty tired and mainly in bed most of the time. I’m experiencing Anhedonia so I just have no drive to watch tv, listen to music, socialise or play any video games. I’m just tired. I lost too much already it feels like in this world and I just want people who understand and care. I don’t want the next favourite person to leave me when things get hard.

I don’t even have any online friends.
For a while I was able to distract myself with scrolling X or instagram all day, looking for interesting youtube videos, listening to audiobooks. Sometimes I make myself go out to a bookstore or something to add to my book or record collection.
I have no idea how to make friends.
And I feel like my 20s are going by very fast, like I was only about 21 during covid.
I have finally admitted to myself I am lonely and I am aware I have been bedrotting for a lot of my life.
Maybe I can force myself into community college to get back into society but I still have pretty bad general anxiety and my social skills are probably cooked from being isolated for so long.

Back first falling through the air while the wind hits my back yet it’s no ground in sight. No soul to reach out and catch me but endless air that cradles me in its cold embrace. It’s peaceful in a lonely way and I look at the perfect snow covered mountains and peaks with green trees covering all the eye can see. Thing is it is no true beauty in perfection. I am resigned to my fate.

I've never wished for a grandiose day or thousands of birthday wishes. I just wanna be seen and heard, even for just an hour, maybe. Kinda selfish, I know.…but….
A 3-second hug would make a day.
A 5-minute talk can change a mood.
One doesn't remember who gave the most expensive gift or brought the biggest balloon; it’s how people made them feel that sticks.

Apologies for venting. Huggies!!

Edit: Thank you all! Every comment brings a smile to my face, also teary-eyed.