Depression and anxiety for years, and struggle to trust most people since 2021.

[Lonely_Ship]

As title says I've struggled with depression and anxiety for over a decade. I'm a 28 year old male so I've probably already lost most sympathy there. Everything seems so hard and exhausting and I keep trying to make positive steps in life, particularly trying to be social and physically active but I struggle so hard to trust anyone beyond my immediate circle, even people I used to be very close but haven't seen in ages I feel closed off and apart from. Like shit said likely off-handedly or on social media will stick with me for months and cause tears. I see so much stuff that make me think large parts of society would hate me and struggle to cope with it.

I feel like I cannot stop thinking about these things despite how much I want to be just relaxed and immersed in something else. Speaking of things to be immersed in, I find hobbies, games, and media to be immersed so difficult to find that I have not already played or watched. Everything seemed to have something which is a modern day reference or thing which brings me back to hat I'm trying to escape.

I just don't know what to do anymore, I feel useless and used up of my energy and productivity.

[therising]

Hi Lonely_Ship

While highly sensitive people (HSPs) have some mind blowing abilities, being this way can definitely feel like a curse at times, especially when no one else around you appears to be like this. It can feel incredibly lonely and can often lead to the question 'What's wrong with me?'.

As a mum to a 21yo gal and 18yo guy, all 3 of us are rather sensitive. When I say 'sensitive', what I mean is we can sense quite easily. When you can sense/feel degradation, for example, definitely poses challenges (mental health ones included). When you can sense/feel the broken aspects of certain social systems or a room full of unwelcoming people or yourself being put to the test in some way such things can also be challenging. When you can feel what it's like to have no sense of direction while feeling completely and utterly lost in life, that one can feel like a high level challenge (not a fan). When it comes to all that can be sensed or felt in life I won't go on because we'd be here all day. From my own experience, the problem is not with being able to sense (being sensitive), it's more so with not knowing how to fine tune, master and use the ability constructively. There are a massive amount of skills to gain when it comes to doing it well.

I truly feel for guys, partly based on conditioning starting at a young age. Boys can be taught (in one way or another) 'If you're less sensitive that means you're tough and that's something to be proud of' or 'If you don't cry, that makes you better than other guys' etc etc. Young guys are taught 'It feels good to be the best and not weak like the others'. A destructive level of emotional detachment offers a sense of satisfaction/reward. It's seriously messed up stuff. Much prefer a sensitive guy over an insensitive one. They can be so much easier to get along with and nowhere near as triggering.

The 'Find the tribe you vibe with' thing works well for sensitives and there's a good reason for it. You can all sense the same stuff. For example, if you're alone with a degrading depressing person and you say to that person 'You can't say that. Do you know how depressing it is?', the response may be 'You're too sensitive, you need to toughen up'. That comment triggers me something shocking 😠. You can start to doubt yourself or question how 'weak' you maybe are. On the other hand, when you're with other feelers and someone makes a depressing degrading comment, you all feel it and look at each other to check whether you all felt it. It can be quite amusing, sharing that knowing look. None of you have to say a thing, you simply know what you sensed was accurate. The response to the comment about 'toughening up' can become 'Hell yeah, I'm sensitive. How else do you think I can sense what you just said to me?!'. Another benefit to being a part of a sensitive tribe involves you all feeling what you shouldn't say. Highly sensitive people typically have a pretty good filter. Insensitive people, not so much😊.

Can be so tough when there are so many triggering people, factors and challenges in this world and you can feel just about all of them. I imagine you've barely begun to scratch the surface when it comes to your ability to sense/feel. For example, I imagine you may be pretty good at reading a room. Can you feel the easygoing people who put you at ease, the super judgemental people who you can feel judging you, which ones are the competing alphas or perhaps you can feel the people who have a bit of social anxiety (those who you sense as being a little uncomfortable or nervous)?

[Lonely_Ship]

Honestly I've very little issue with the crowd you are describing, my issues tend to come from the "men are evil" crowd which tends to tie into alot of "progressive" types which seems to be a large portion of my generation so I have great difficulty finding my tribe, let alone having energy after seeing how much of the afore mentioned attitude is prevalent in our media and entertainment, the places I'm trying to escape from it.

I really worry when it comes to matters of energy and general trust toward society as I feel at a loss for how I can fit into it enough to be able to support myself let alone any others.

[therising]

Hi Lonely_Ship

I think these days things have gone to the extreme when it comes to gaining a sense of wholeness as a community and this is something some men especially cop. I could think of plenty of examples where men have been disrespected when it comes to their right for recognition, justice, inclusiveness and general appreciation. Many men can be instantly categorised as 'the enemy' and while some men should be answerable for their attitudes, actions and behaviours, so too should some women. I'm a woman who has great respect for good men, including fine young men such as my son. It's a tough time in history for good men to being living in because of extremist attitudes towards all males. The amount of damage some women do and the amount of hatred they spread can be both vile and highly questionable.

Btw, I smile when I think of a YouTube video I saw a few years ago. With it being an obvious act, acted out for the sake of recording, the satisfaction it gave me left me with a smile. While it shows a man opening a supermarket door for a woman, out of consideration, the woman abuses the man for 'taking away her power' to open the door herself. As she's about to walk through the doorway, he gently guides her back inside and shuts the door in her face and walks away quite pleased with himself. While I'm a woman who's led both my kids (son and daughter) to kindly hold a door open for someone of any age, race or gender I have also taught them to not tolerate such rudeness from insensitive and self righteous people.

When it comes to equality, the world still has so far to go. With a lack of fair child custody rights for good men being so heartbreaking, with a pathetic, shameful and serious lack of support for good men who face soul destroying domestic abuse (so they can stay in the house with their abuser so she won't get primary custody of the kids who she'll abuse without his protection), with voices of reason and good intention shot down based on gender alone, these are only a few of the things that can make life so hard for truly good men.

For good men facing such inequality, sexism and lack of consideration and the respect they deserve, the world can be an exhausting and challenging place to live in. If the world became about good people being given consideration, care and privilage, I believe the soul destroying extremists would have no place in such a world. There would suddenly be a sense of ease, long overdue.

[Lonely_Ship]

Thank you therising, to be very honest I had very low expectations when I further clarified my experiences. I really appreciate the understanding and not being dismissed when I talk of those experiences which is honestly my expectation nowadays.

I feel with a lot of these negatives getting pushed in media, be it tv news, or entertainment like films or video games I've lost one of my most natural coping mechanisms / releases for me and I think I'm struggling to find it again or a sustainable substitute. So when I do encounter these kind of things which upset and start the process of rapid what if catastrophic thinking and feelings associated with it I struggle to find something which can occupy my mind in a positive way giving me break from stuff like that.

I also feel like often such things are presented to me really affect my ability to trust in general so I can't really go out into the world to be social and dispel assumptions and notions without major effort on my point which will leave me exhausted for a day or two and I really don't want that to be my norm.

[therising]

Hi Lonely_Ship

Life can definitely feel challenging at times when we're trying to find our norm, a healthy one that best suits us. When I was much younger, I didn't realise how much work it was going to take to find it (a healthy norm), how much consciousness it was going to take to meet with it. I've come to realise as I've gotten older that a healthy norm changes under different circumstances. So, at times it's like having to navigate uncharted territory where the way to go just isn't obvious. I think it's not until we look back that we can see how far we've actually come and how much we've managed in order to get to where we are.

The media, grrr. When my normal was to always watch the news, COVID put an end to that. I never fully realised how depressing, enraging and stressful the media was (in general) until COVID began back in 2020. I can remember thinking 'This is pure insanity, I can't watch/listen to this anymore'. With constant updates regarding death tolls, hospitalisations and other upsetting stories, I'd had enough. These days my new norm is to get the news second hand from others who know what I can and can't tolerate hearing. I've found it's the new norm for others too.

I've found it's so important to identify what is not a healthy normal or what is far from a healthy normal for each person. I think, if we're sensitive enough, we can feel even the slightest things that are far from healthy. To adopt and unhealthy normal to try and work with does things to you and not good things. I've found no matter how much society tries to convince me that certain unhealthy ideas, beliefs, behaviours etc are normal, I simply refuse to adhere to a norm that feels soul destroying in certain ways. 'Soul destroying' should be labelled as being far from normal in my opinion and should never be an accepted standard for anyone. We gotta raise people out of that kind of thing, not leave them in it while expecting them to cope with what society simply deems as 'normal' and 'perfectly acceptable'. And to touch on the previous topic, at what stage did it become normal and perfectly acceptable to slam good men? Something went seriously wrong there.