harasgenster
20-01-10, 23:55
Every now and then I get paranoid that everybody is just sick of me and wishes I'd go away. Sometimes this really is paranoia - when I believe it of my parents or brother, say - but I'm not sure it always is.
Since my late teens I've found it incredibly hard to make friends. I had a good period in my early teens when I had a tight-knit group of friends and I treasured this as I had not bonded with the other children in primary school and had only one real friend who unfortunately attended a different school. Despite this, my childish arrogance meant I entered secondary school an assertive and unself-conscious girl. I made friends with other people who had had a similar experience to me in primary school and for a few years I was very, very happy.
Then I became ill. When I was 13, my mental health (which had always been slightly dodgy, if I'm honest) really suffered. I became anorexic, then bulimic and was extremely anxious and depressed. Switched from one anti-depressant to another and worsening all the time, I really lost control. My behaviour became erratic and occasionally violent. I cut myself, trashed school rooms and ran away from home twice. By the time I was 16 I was a complete mess. I met a guy who was seven years my senior and started to go out with him. He was very controlling and often physically intimidating (though never actually physically abusive) and he slowly started to take apart my life. He'd turn up at my school at breaktimes, lunchtimes and free periods and simulate sex acts on me while my friends watched, embarrassed. I didn't have the guts to face up to him.
After some mutual flirtation between him and a friend of mine (which I dumped him for) he curb crawled me in his car until I gave up and got in. From then on, his controlling behaviour got worse. He was just there all the time, I couldn't be alone. My friends hated him and, because he was always around, they thought I preferred him to them. They stopped inviting me out with them or to parties and essentially outcasted me from the group. I didn't know what the reason for this was at the time and when I told my boyfriend he told me that it was because I was such a freak. I'd scared them away because I was so weird. I believed him and I stopped trying to talk to my friends. If they talked to me I assumed it was out of pity. If I was invited to anything at all with them, my boyfriend would make things difficult. If I managed to go anyway (and ask him to let me have just one night alone with my friends) he'd turn up later in the night and publically announce that I had asked him not to come because I was embarrassed about him. I turned from my assertive, cocky self to being painfully shy. I became completely social phobic and had to be dragged (literally screaming) to school by my mother in the morning. Eventually, my former friends (no longer the social outcasts we once were and now the popular group) organised the sixth form ball and seated me at the opposite end of the room from them, with two other students who also had no friends.
When I went to university I was determined to re-invent myself. I made a small group of friends and, although it took me nearly three years to become close to them, I started to feel better. I finally got away from my controlling boyfriend, met an amazing man and did well at university. I willed myself out of bulimia. But I was still ill. I worked myself too hard, burned myself out and ended up with agoraphobia. Still believing that the reason my life fell apart at school was because people hate the mentally ill, I tried to conceal it. An old friend of mine from secondary school, who had made up with me when we went to the same uni, was finally told what was wrong by my brother. She was angry at me because she thought it showed I didn't trust her. I thought at the time this was pretty hypocritical since she was the one that organised the sixth form ball and didn't feel up to telling her that it was because I was afraid I'd lose all my friends again. To say that would be to show I had a mental illness, after all. And I believed that would make her reject me.
After university I contracted glandular fever (though I didn't know that this was what was wrong at the time) and, thinking I had failed because I no longer had stamina, I quit my MA. I became depressed and anxious and difficult to cope with again. I stayed in bed all day, although I now know this was because I was physically ill. My boyfriend decided he wanted to go to Japan and I automatically assumed he was just trying to get away from me. I split up with him. We got back together but it was never the same and eventually he left me.
I had another breakdown. My friend from secondary school got angry at me because she felt I always offloaded on her and didn't spread around my neuroses with other friends. I still believed that everybody else would leave if I didn't pretend everything was ok when I was around them. But then it got too hard to pretend. I got such bad insomnia I wasn't sleeping three nights a week and I just lost my mind. I was always feeling ill, not with it, upset and anxious. My behaviour was nothing like what it was at secondary school but I guess I started acting a little strangely and I let my friends down sometimes when I forgot to attend something or was late, or slept through the day and missed it entirely. I always apologised as much as I could and I felt terrible. I was terrified they'd just cut me out of their lives. I was becoming increasingly negative and self-absorbed and more difficult to be around and I was aware of it but it just didn't seem to be in my control.
About six months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (but low on the spectrum) and put on mood stablisers. Since then I have been a lot better. But I feel I have lost friends. Apart from the one friend from secondary school, the others rarely contact me and some don't contact me at all. When I ask if we can have coffee, or invite them to a party, they don't reply. For the last two years my birthday has been horrible. I always feel I should invite people for a meal or something in case they feel I have deliberately not done so for some reason and get offended. But then only one or two people show up. Some of them don't even bother to RSVP. I have never, ever been intentionally unpleasant to any of them and if I had let anyone down I apologised immediately and tried to make up for it as best I could. I hate letting people down. The only reason I can think of why people wouldn't want to be around me is because I'm too weird. Just as my secondary school friends felt I was. I've been told that the whole ordeal of sixth form was just because they didn't like my boyfriend and thought I was happier with him. But I don't believe them. Back then, I stopped washing, I wore baggy men's clothes that I also slept in and I talked to no one. They couldn't have thought I was happy. They must have known there was something wrong.
There's no use trying to make new friends. I'm too shy. I don't find it as terrifying as I once did but I revert to "extremely polite" mode when I'm around people I don't know well and become devoid of personality. When I start to say something more interesting I lose confidence and either trail off mid-sentence or just say anything I can think of to end my speech as quickly as possible. So I often say stupid things. Needless to say, people quickly find someone else to talk to.
I don't know how I'll ever make friends or, if I do, how I'll ever keep them. I am completely unlikeable now. And I'm embarrassed to only have one real friend. Other people I class as friends are the ones I describe above that I don't really see anymore, no matter how much I try to. I often wish I didn't have any friends at all because I can't cope with the constant stress. I wish I was alone because then I wouldn't be so afraid of rejection. But, at the same time, I don't want to be alone because I can't hack the loneliness.
I just don't know what to do now. I give up. I can't cope with any of this anymore, there seems to be no way out. If I don't get better and stop being weird I will never have friends. But how do I get better when I'm so unhappy that everybody hates me?
Since my late teens I've found it incredibly hard to make friends. I had a good period in my early teens when I had a tight-knit group of friends and I treasured this as I had not bonded with the other children in primary school and had only one real friend who unfortunately attended a different school. Despite this, my childish arrogance meant I entered secondary school an assertive and unself-conscious girl. I made friends with other people who had had a similar experience to me in primary school and for a few years I was very, very happy.
Then I became ill. When I was 13, my mental health (which had always been slightly dodgy, if I'm honest) really suffered. I became anorexic, then bulimic and was extremely anxious and depressed. Switched from one anti-depressant to another and worsening all the time, I really lost control. My behaviour became erratic and occasionally violent. I cut myself, trashed school rooms and ran away from home twice. By the time I was 16 I was a complete mess. I met a guy who was seven years my senior and started to go out with him. He was very controlling and often physically intimidating (though never actually physically abusive) and he slowly started to take apart my life. He'd turn up at my school at breaktimes, lunchtimes and free periods and simulate sex acts on me while my friends watched, embarrassed. I didn't have the guts to face up to him.
After some mutual flirtation between him and a friend of mine (which I dumped him for) he curb crawled me in his car until I gave up and got in. From then on, his controlling behaviour got worse. He was just there all the time, I couldn't be alone. My friends hated him and, because he was always around, they thought I preferred him to them. They stopped inviting me out with them or to parties and essentially outcasted me from the group. I didn't know what the reason for this was at the time and when I told my boyfriend he told me that it was because I was such a freak. I'd scared them away because I was so weird. I believed him and I stopped trying to talk to my friends. If they talked to me I assumed it was out of pity. If I was invited to anything at all with them, my boyfriend would make things difficult. If I managed to go anyway (and ask him to let me have just one night alone with my friends) he'd turn up later in the night and publically announce that I had asked him not to come because I was embarrassed about him. I turned from my assertive, cocky self to being painfully shy. I became completely social phobic and had to be dragged (literally screaming) to school by my mother in the morning. Eventually, my former friends (no longer the social outcasts we once were and now the popular group) organised the sixth form ball and seated me at the opposite end of the room from them, with two other students who also had no friends.
When I went to university I was determined to re-invent myself. I made a small group of friends and, although it took me nearly three years to become close to them, I started to feel better. I finally got away from my controlling boyfriend, met an amazing man and did well at university. I willed myself out of bulimia. But I was still ill. I worked myself too hard, burned myself out and ended up with agoraphobia. Still believing that the reason my life fell apart at school was because people hate the mentally ill, I tried to conceal it. An old friend of mine from secondary school, who had made up with me when we went to the same uni, was finally told what was wrong by my brother. She was angry at me because she thought it showed I didn't trust her. I thought at the time this was pretty hypocritical since she was the one that organised the sixth form ball and didn't feel up to telling her that it was because I was afraid I'd lose all my friends again. To say that would be to show I had a mental illness, after all. And I believed that would make her reject me.
After university I contracted glandular fever (though I didn't know that this was what was wrong at the time) and, thinking I had failed because I no longer had stamina, I quit my MA. I became depressed and anxious and difficult to cope with again. I stayed in bed all day, although I now know this was because I was physically ill. My boyfriend decided he wanted to go to Japan and I automatically assumed he was just trying to get away from me. I split up with him. We got back together but it was never the same and eventually he left me.
I had another breakdown. My friend from secondary school got angry at me because she felt I always offloaded on her and didn't spread around my neuroses with other friends. I still believed that everybody else would leave if I didn't pretend everything was ok when I was around them. But then it got too hard to pretend. I got such bad insomnia I wasn't sleeping three nights a week and I just lost my mind. I was always feeling ill, not with it, upset and anxious. My behaviour was nothing like what it was at secondary school but I guess I started acting a little strangely and I let my friends down sometimes when I forgot to attend something or was late, or slept through the day and missed it entirely. I always apologised as much as I could and I felt terrible. I was terrified they'd just cut me out of their lives. I was becoming increasingly negative and self-absorbed and more difficult to be around and I was aware of it but it just didn't seem to be in my control.
About six months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (but low on the spectrum) and put on mood stablisers. Since then I have been a lot better. But I feel I have lost friends. Apart from the one friend from secondary school, the others rarely contact me and some don't contact me at all. When I ask if we can have coffee, or invite them to a party, they don't reply. For the last two years my birthday has been horrible. I always feel I should invite people for a meal or something in case they feel I have deliberately not done so for some reason and get offended. But then only one or two people show up. Some of them don't even bother to RSVP. I have never, ever been intentionally unpleasant to any of them and if I had let anyone down I apologised immediately and tried to make up for it as best I could. I hate letting people down. The only reason I can think of why people wouldn't want to be around me is because I'm too weird. Just as my secondary school friends felt I was. I've been told that the whole ordeal of sixth form was just because they didn't like my boyfriend and thought I was happier with him. But I don't believe them. Back then, I stopped washing, I wore baggy men's clothes that I also slept in and I talked to no one. They couldn't have thought I was happy. They must have known there was something wrong.
There's no use trying to make new friends. I'm too shy. I don't find it as terrifying as I once did but I revert to "extremely polite" mode when I'm around people I don't know well and become devoid of personality. When I start to say something more interesting I lose confidence and either trail off mid-sentence or just say anything I can think of to end my speech as quickly as possible. So I often say stupid things. Needless to say, people quickly find someone else to talk to.
I don't know how I'll ever make friends or, if I do, how I'll ever keep them. I am completely unlikeable now. And I'm embarrassed to only have one real friend. Other people I class as friends are the ones I describe above that I don't really see anymore, no matter how much I try to. I often wish I didn't have any friends at all because I can't cope with the constant stress. I wish I was alone because then I wouldn't be so afraid of rejection. But, at the same time, I don't want to be alone because I can't hack the loneliness.
I just don't know what to do now. I give up. I can't cope with any of this anymore, there seems to be no way out. If I don't get better and stop being weird I will never have friends. But how do I get better when I'm so unhappy that everybody hates me?