Feeling distant and need to let this out.

[BrownieTheOne]

So I suppose some backstory is needed for this. 

I'm a male in Uni currently, with a family who I am very close to, and was bullied all through both Primary and High school. The way I ended up dealing with it was self deprecation using the idea that if I got to myself first, the bullies wouldn't enjoy it enough to continue, and it worked for a time. They stopped calling me names, throwing insults my way but it became more physical bullying over the years. Not violence, but things like petty theft of my belongings.It all started to subside around Year 9, and I thought I was getting control over myself.

Begin Year 11. I'd been having migraines for a month that were only diagnosed as headaches until I was brought into the ER by my parents for uncontrollable vomiting and possible hallucinations and the nurses and doctors couldn't wake me up the next day. The actual problem was abscesses and they had to be operated on immediately. It was a potentially life-threatening illness that could have left me with serious brain damage even if I survived, and yet I appear to have pulled through with no long term side-effects. It's left me with a bit more perspective on how fragile life is. 

Fast forward about 2 more years and I'm dead-set that I'm not going to get into a relationship until I finish my formal education (Year 12/Uni). Like a lot of stories, this one of course contains a girl. Come Year 12, my High School did a "retreat" type activity for students where the year level broke off into groups and then into smaller groups and spent a week at a holiday destination bonding together. This girl and I had been becoming fast friends over the 4 or so months prior to this and we were paired together in both groups. Despite what I was certain of, she just seemed too perfect a woman and so we went out for a time.

A year later, a series of events destroys my emotional health and dredges up all the self deprecation I took part in in my youth that ruined my self esteem. What had happened was this;

Around December my father was thought to have stomach cancer, and in January he was officially diagnosed as having it at stage 4 (At that point all they try to do is take the pain away until you die), then in February, my (now) ex-girlfriend of 11 months breaks up with me on Valentine's Day because I had been saying things I didn't mean about her family (Though  it did sound like I meant them to everyone else at the time) and then not a week later a person who I considered a friend told me that he had invited me to his 18th only because he felt he had to and that he didn't actually want me to come and that nobody liked being around me.

After speaking a little with a few people, the conclusion is that I have been a very annoying person to be around. I have a tendency to speak truths that others would rather keep hidden or ignored, and my sarcastic and joking manner of speaking certainly doesn't help. Part of that problem is that that's all I've known. My entire family speaks like that, from my parents to my grandparents to my aunts and uncles. It's just the way my family talks.

Over the last 6 Months I've been seeing a Psychologist, as I became suicidal. And while things are beginning to look up (I've begun re-establishing contact with a few people I knew from Year 12, I've been adjusting the way I talk and begun thinking through what I'm about to say before I say it, my father is in remission for his cancer, I've patched up the group of people who I considered friends, though it appears the one who told me no-one likes me is the real problem, and my suicidal impulses have been coming much less frequently and someone who I've only spoken to a couple of times on a closed forum and never actually met bought me a wristband for one of our shared favourite bands that he gave me at a meetup) some recent events have left me feeling lost and with the need to vent somewhere where I might get some feedback.

The recent events are such;

I began feeling distant one night. Not so much emotionally distant or just distant from people, I began feeling distant from reality as though I'm not all there. It felt like I was watching life through a lens that wasn't my own. In those moments I stopped feeling anything, no sadness, no longing, no despair, no happiness, nothing. And life seemed to be a fragile and ultimately worthless thing. My thoughts were along the lines of "Yes, it's amazing life exists at all, but it serves no purpose. We exist for the sake of existing. And life is a line of sadness punctuated by the occasional happy moment which makes the sadness that much worse."

The night after that happened as well, I went to a friend's 19th party. I was aware that my Ex would be there, and she was aware I was invited too. I thought I had worked through my feelings for her enough that I could spend the night enjoying myself and not chase after her. And I was only somewhat right. I was able to keep a hold of myself long enough to spend about 2 hours at the party, didn't seek her out at all, but just said a friendly "Hi" in the same way I said it to everyone else at the party. But I had to cut it short, because I feel like I don't have any closure on what happened and would still like to be able to talk it out with her. But I'm torn as I'm also acutely aware that that's quite unlikely to happen. So with the distant feelings starting to come on, coupled with seeing my Ex again when I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was I'm feeling lost again.

Thanks for taking the time to read this if you have. I know I have no way of knowing if you did, but it means a lot to me.

[The_Real_David_Charles]

Dear Browinie The One,   (? The One with Brownies - please post some more !)

Maybe the serious response should be:

"With distance comes perspective"

Gotta ask:  where do these boundaries come from ?   Not going out till a certain age ?  A "too perfect woman" ?   That I am annoying ?   That speaking the truth is a bad thing ?  Saying things I didn't mean ?  These are all coping mechanisms but are they really helping you ?  Even if you are slightly damaged or going through a rough time don't you think a girlfriend/partner would understand and be happy to spend time with YOU ?   No boundaries.

It's so refreshing to hear someone say what is honestly on their mind.  Grab the old DVD "When Harry met Sally" with Billy Crystal.  There's a fantastic scene where his friend thinks it's great to have a coffee table that's basically a sheet of round glass over a wagon wheel.   This goes on for a while and then people start badgering him about it.  The next scene is him wheeling it out of his apartment and dumping it in the street.   But he loved that coffee table!  Someone got to him and made him believe it wasn't a good thing anymore - which is the kind of thing you say when putting it out that "she was too perfect for me".

You can easily hop into the role where you live these kind of expectations but they're not yours.    I know we have political correctness in a lot of things but I reckon you sound like a guy that can be himself without corrections.  Being lost in a relationship is probably the ultimate vulnerability.  All those questions about hooking up - Where did you two meet ?  (Or even where did you three meet ?).  Where did you find him/her ?

If you get anxious and feel you have to control a conversation just shut up !   Spend a minute or two just listening.   When you want to add something still keep shut up !   And so on.  Eventually you'll make a break through and discover that being talked at is a bit discomforting but if you like the person enough you give them equal floor time.  Often it's not the content that people are communicating, it's the tone.  LIke you said, you can turn down your tone if need be.  That's life.

Adios, David.

PS  I am married over 20 years and apparantly there is such a thing as a perfect woman !

[BrownieTheOne]

Thanks for your response.

The "Too Perfect Woman" was she seemed to be to me. She was always there to listen to everyone, she had a tendency to brighten a room up for everyone in it by just being there, modest, and cared for everyone.

The "Not Going Out" boundary was something I had set myself. There wasn't any pressure to do it from family and friends, and my peers certainly made an atmosphere of the opposite. I just felt that I wanted it to be something I did with someone I really wanted to do it with. I didn't want to go out with someone for the sake of appearing cool or for the sake of going out.

The whole "Speaking the truth" thing I agree with, I still endeavour to speak the truth when I see it since political correctness doesn't bother me. The problem I've been having is I had been saying things without filters, and was saying things I truly didn't mean. I was making excuses for things and saying them without considering how it made the other person feel, and what ended up happening was I came off as a real jerk. If I didn't feel like spending time with a few people on a particular weekend, I almost always ended up in some elaborate and offensive excuse why I couldn't and it almost always came off as I was blaming them.

The most prominent example of this for me is my Ex's brother. I avoided being around him. I didn't hate him (Though it's what I ended up coming off as), I just wanted to avoid the conflict I had inadvertently created the first time he and I met. It had caused some real distress to my at the time girlfriend to see us fighting and I wanted to be friends with him but was afraid to give it a go in case the same thing happened again. What I always accidentally said was something along the lines of "With your brother's anger issues, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to come over." when what I meant was "I don't want to cause conflict like I did when we (He and I) first met." The former didn't go down well with anyone.

Listening was also something I didn't do much. And when I did I didn't really listen. I've started learning and seeking out resources on how to change that and how to filter my thoughts at least a little before they reach my mouth.

Where we first met was a party for a mutual friend. If I remember correctly she had just come out of a relationship. We ended up chatting as it was a typical party for that age: Music, dancing that sort of thing. Neither of us took part in it, as neither of us really enjoyed doing that. And we talked, and after hearing her say she enjoyed D&D, I invited her to the school's Sci-Fi/Fantasy club where we played it each week. Over time (About 4 months), we became closer. We had free periods on Fridays just after lunch which meant we were free to leave the school for the day, however the D&D Club was on after school. We ended up meeting every Friday afternoon at lunch, walking up to a Fish and Chip shop that was only a few minutes away and we would sit and eat lunch together. After a few months, it was at a stage where I either had to let her down or ask her out, as she was getting pressure from her friends to ask me out. It was pretty clear to everyone that she liked me at the time, and what she had said to me was that she saw a me that no-one else seemed to see. Eventually she only saw the me everyone else saw, but I feel like that's not the me I want to be. I feel like I was able to be myself around her, but still had trouble doing that around everyone else. As for why that is, I find people unpredictable and I don't like that, and it's bred mistrust in me towards everyone I'm not extremely close to.