Hello. I'm not sure where to begin, since my life is a bit of a mess. I've recently been going through a crisis. I suppose I've been hiding from life for quite a while, at least since university. I never had any friends who were very understanding. Last year I had to move to a more rural area in order to help care for an elderly relative with dementia, which was isolating even without this virus shutdown. Now the only people I have regular contact with are all over sixty. They're very nice, but I feel like an old man before my time. They're acquaintances to whom you can chat, not friends who can look out for each other. I had problems when I was a teenager (no surprise!) so don't feel I was ever young either. Now that I live in a place where so many people are active – outdoor types, regularly passing my window – I can't hide away and cover up how lonely I actually feel. For the last week or so it's been an almost physical pain. I get increasingly angry with myself. There are people around; but even in normal times, it would be very difficult to meet them. A lot of people my own age seem happy and settled; they seem to have finished building their social lives. The friends I had in the past were in some ways quite immature and treated being gay as something to laugh at or mock: that kind of discrimination that isn't discrimination because they're only joking. You're ground down slowly. I didn't understand how it was having an effect on me. It certainly singles you out as The Other in the group, and I could never escape from that. Sorry this has been too long and wordy. I know there are people here with bigger problems. I'm just hoping to talk to people who know where I'm coming from. It's exhausting having to explain yourself from scratch to people who have no insight, or to always exclude a part of yourself from conversations. Hopefully, with some help, I can get something positive from all this and be there for others, too. It's nice to be useful.
Hello @Meleager, Good to meet you! I get where you’re coming from. It’s difficult to form lasting strong friendships when said friends treat a big part of who you are like it’s a joke or something weird. Feeling like you don’t belong has always been a big struggle for me and Bc of that feeling I am really uncomfortable a lot of the time just being myself. I’m very good at pretending to be who ppl expect me to be, but when it comes to being myself and being happy, I’m woefully inexperienced. I just want to say that who you are is awesome. And it’s not your fault that ppl don’t get that. I know it sounds a bit cliche, but for me at least, hearing genuine validation always makes me feel better and stronger.
Hi Mindalena, It's good to meet you, too! Thanks for your message. I needed it after the day I've had: one of those when nothing actually goes wrong and there's nothing to complain about yet somehow nothing can make you smile, until... I get where you're coming from. I've started to realise recently that I'm better at acting than I thought; and when it's become second nature, you forget how much of a burden it is. Especially when people are surprised you can't keep it up. Another part of it is caring far too much about other people's judgements. Like you said, meeting their expectations. Perhaps we're too good at understanding other people! Thanks again for your cliche. Feel free to supply as many of them as you want! If I can ask, you said not belonging has always been a struggle for you. Do you think that's some part of your character, and/or have there been experiences that made you question yourself too much?
First of all, yes, we are way too good at understanding ppl, but I don’t think that’s a good thing- what do you think? Second of all, yes, I’m way too concerned with what others think- well not so much anymore! Oh tough introspective questions!! I was thinking about what you said and I’m realizing that it’s difficult for me to figure out when I first started feeling on the outside, but I do know for sure that it’s shaped my personality and my behavior so I suppose it really is a part of my character now. I’ve had some unpleasant childhood/young adult experiences and my first instinct is that bad things happen Bc of me/who I am (I am working on this- now I try to be kinder to myself). I have lots of happy childhood memories with my parents and siblings, but it is difficult to remember a time when I didn’t have a cloud hanging over me- I’ve felt (and still struggle w/ this too) that if I didn’t look or act like certain ppl wanted me to or if I wasn’t smart enough, then I would get singled out for ridicule or not be worthy of love and affection. My extended family has always treated me like I was different/didn’t belong. It’s little things that build up you know? My aunt didn’t like me Bc I liked to rough-house with her son (we were both quite young and couldn’t really hurt each other). There was a lot of competition with my 9 cousins to be cool and fit in, which I didn’t Bc I was a girl who liked to play ‘boys games’, had messy hair, I didn’t get popular culture references Bc I was homeschooled, I didn’t wear makeup, and most importantly Bc I didn’t like boys the way I was suppose to. I was never smart enough for my paternal grandfather (he was a physicist/engineer) and the other one (my maternal grandfather) was sort of an angry unpleasant man who was, in retrospect, abusive (I didn’t realize as a kid that he was being abusive, I knew I was scared out of my mind of him, but I thought that I’d done something wrong and deserved it). It’s weird Bc none of this should matter- in between unpleasant things from certain family members, I was loved and supported by two fantastic parents in a positive/encouraging environment at home. But even at home there were fairly benign things that always contributed to that cloud. I didn’t know what the words ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ meant until I was pretty old- my parents are straight and they just didn’t think it was appropriate to introduce us kids to information regarding lgbtq ppl. My mom wanted me to dress in a ‘girly’ way and I didn’t always want to- yes this was a big deal for me as stupid as it sounds. Most of all my lovely parents were very practical and unintentionally apathetic- they were busy trying to feed us kids and make sure we had done our homework so that we’d be able to go to college and get jobs. As a family, we didn’t talk about emotions, identity, and certainly not sexual orientation- there were more pressing things in life. Trying to figure yourself out w/ no resources or support for that journey (we didn’t even have internet or computers) of discovery is hard- I spent a lot of time being alone with thoughts I was too scared to share or didn’t want to burden anyone with. And here I am sharing them with you! You can definitely tell me if that was TMI lol. But what about you? Do you feel like you question yourself too much? What do you think about the feeling of not belonging and experiences that lead to this feeling? And finally, I hope you had a lovely day!
Hi, Meleager. Welcome! Yes, loneliness is something really bad for one's mental wellbeing. I hope this forum will help you feel better. That said, I want to encourage you to explore every single option you have of finding flesh-and-bone people of your age in your area. Are all those "outdoors types" all elderly people? I don't know whether you're already convinced that you're gay (and accepted it), or still have issues with that. But even if you "only" need to find people to talk to, you're at the right place.
