Nostalgia and Loneliness

    I try my hardest to see things from an optimistic light so often, but at times like right now, I can’t help but succumb to the suffocating feeling of hopelessness. I’ve talked about this numerous times in my previous posts, but something I’ve struggled a lot with growing up, especially recently, is the feeling of utter loneliness that comes with growing up. The only thing I find hard to accept about this feeling is that I don’t think I’m to a point in my life where I should have to feel that yet. I believe that coming to terms with the idea that this truly is only your life and the only person in it that genuinely matters is yourself is something that is meant to be entertained only as you are way later in life than I am. I don’t know exactly when that point in anyone’s life is, but I am positive that it isn’t in your early 20s. Just typing that out is enough to make me realize that I should not have to be fully accustomed to the feeling of absolute loneliness. Now should be the time that I am making memories with people and finding out who I am, and I should have been doing this for years, but instead, I have months’ worth is time wasted and the time I have spent doing meaningful things adds up to no more than two weeks. 

    There have been a few points in my life when I have gotten the taste of the reality that I want, but it’s never anything more than a passing phase. I used to go through groups of friends like it was a normal thing to switch out all my friends every year. I thought everyone did this because my previous friends would move on from me to other people, and I’d move on to others. I quickly realized though, that I was the only one bouncing around without anyone staying by my side throughout all of that. While my friends did move on to other friends, they had one or two people that were part of their life, regardless of what new people they brought in. I don’t understand why I could never be one of the people that others decided to keep around as they shuffled through their other friend groups. Seeing this happen around me from quite a young age has instilled such a strong feeling of jealousy that is very much alive even at the time of writing this. I don’t know what to do to overcome this feeling, probably therapy, but I can’t be bothered. It’s always so difficult for me to open up to therapists about how I feel about things like this anyways because I feel as if I’m being judged. I understand that it’s a therapist’s job to not necessarily judge you, but to look over you and your entire situation and help you find ways to cope. Though I don’t think until I’m able to openly express how I feel without thinking that I am seen as less than by those I open up to, that I should go to a therapist. In all honesty, if I go before I reach a point like that, I’m simply going to lie to whoever my therapist is and will just burn a hole in my pocket because of it.

    Anyways though, one of the points in my life that I hold very dear to me to this day is the summer of 2017. During that summer, I truly got a feeling for what I wanted my life to be like and what kind of people and relationships I wanted to surround myself with. Unfortunately, this feeling was washed away by the feeling of loneliness and jealousy as I was isolated from the friend group that I had grown so comfortable with due to a break-up. At the time, the girlfriend I had just broken up with decided that I would be better off mentally recovering from the break-up if we were no longer friends. At the time, I thought that this was such a stupid thing to suggest, but in the end, I do believe it helped me. I wish that I was able to reconnect with that friend group though afterward, that is my only regret from the entire situation. The happiness I felt throughout that summer was unlike anything I had ever previously experienced, and because of that, I’m not able to move on from it. I know that what I surrounded myself with over that summer, is the life that I want to someday grow to have. The feelings of jealousy crawl up my throat whenever I think about how that friend group went on to continue being close, while I’m just sitting on the sidelines though. Last year during Halloween I went to a party that my ex-girlfriend had hosted and when I was there I was met with that same familiar summer feeling. While I was there, people came up to me filled with excitement just at the fact that I was there because they hadn’t seen me in ages. Nothing came from that night though, except a strong feeling of disappointment and “I told you so” when none of the relationships I attempted to rekindle had made any progress. Eventually, all the relationships with my old friends, as everything else in my life seems to do, reached a standstill. 

    Recently, so much has happened that relates to all of this to break me down and no matter how much I try and stay positive, it’s becoming increasingly harder to find my footing. There are probably good things in my life that would be able to help me feel better about the reality of my current situation, but nothing can compare to the number of awful things that are beginning to pile up. I’ve come to find that the one person that will ever put any value into anything that I find important is only ever going to be me. While I’m aware of the fact that in the end, the only person that is there for me is myself, I can’t help but feel so utterly alone at that fact. I continuously reach out to those around me and am met with rejection each time without fail. I wish I could go to my friends and express this overwhelming suffocating feeling and have them tell me what’s wrong with me so I could just fix it. I don’t know exactly what is wrong with me, but I have a feeling I am just not a person worth anything in anyone else’s eyes.

    People don’t want to admit it, but when they meet other people they immediately categorize them in their heads. For each person, I imagine the way they categorize people is unique to themselves but you see this concept of putting people into boxes in everyone. I think it must be something subconsciously built into everyone’s brain that has it do this which makes it so interesting. If you were to talk about this concept with someone else, I’m sure they would talk about how judgmental this is and how they would never do that for various reasons. Perhaps they like to “keep an open mind” about people or they say that they never know how people are until they really get to know them, so trying to file them away as soon as you meet them will only hurt the relationship that may form between the two people. The people that believe those things probably do mean what they’re saying and have good intentions, but I don’t think this is something that they can help. I think becoming aware of our engrained judgmental thoughts might help us to eventually move on from them if that’s possible, but I don’t think anyone is to a point where they can do that yet. Even those people who have a heart of gold and seem like they would never think a bad thought about someone most definitely has a subconscious filing cabinet prepared for each person they bring into their lives. Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t grow to get to know someone else and have your perspective and thoughts on the change, but I do believe that something like that is quite difficult when the initial box they’re put in is somewhat negative. 

    I believe that when I meet people, for whatever reason, I am automatically put into one of the following categories: uninteresting, overbearing, annoying, or forgetful. My mental issues might be playing a part in how I think others perceive me, but I think with this concept there really isn’t another way for me to be organized in others’ brains when they meet me. Several people talk to me daily, but one of them will rarely ask anything about me. I’ve learned to know my place with my friends as “the wall they want to talk to”. This is depressing, but honestly, it seems like no matter what I do, I’m not able to change people’s perspectives of me when it comes to something like this. I’ve sat for hours, it’s probably added up to days at this point, and wondered what exactly is wrong with me that makes the other people in my life not want to hear anything unique come out of my mouth. The conversation ends as soon as I say something that isn’t easy for them to bounce their own thought off of and continue talking about themselves for however long as they please. I have changed the way I express emotions, but this had no impact on the way that people interacted with me. When I was younger I was very expressive and reactive to the world around me, but since then I have learned to dull my responses to better fit the person I believe that others want me to be. I still feel as though I am quite overbearing, which is why I listed it as one of the categories I believe myself to fall into, which is something I still need to work on. I have started to pay more attention to how I word my sentences and just generally carry myself in conversations, but there still seems to be nothing that has changed. 

    Just yesterday, a friend of mine came to me with an issue that she had with her personal relationships because she wanted my opinion on it. In the end, she didn’t want my opinion but instead wanted to talk through her problems while I sat there and listened and said things like a robot for her to continue talking about her issue until she came to a conclusion herself. I don’t necessarily mind this, because sometimes it is a bit difficult for me to give advice in situations that I don’t fully understand, but this was different from that. It might be because of recent things piling up but this situation differed me when I tried comparing it to other situations involving people coming to me for “advice”. I genuinely was not allowed to have any input in this conversation whatsoever. I was just there to sit and watch as she talked about what she wanted to talk about, essentially to herself. When I felt it was nearing the end of the conversation about whatever was bothering her, I still wanted to talk to her so I attempted to continue the conversation but it died out as quickly as I started to say things that weren’t on my robot’s script. All interest was lost and I couldn’t help but sit there in the realization that my words mean nothing to others. My voice is so incredibly small that, whether it’s intentional or not, people brush whatever comes out of my mouth to the side. I feel like the only person who puts any worth into my voice most of the time is my best friend. I’m lucky to have him, but sometimes even the fact that the only person who believes what I say to hold any meaning is the person I used to date hurts. I feel as though unless I have some use to those around me that my use is completely diminished. 

    Something that really makes me upset when I am overcome with the feelings of loneliness, is the fact that this is something that my mother that is around 50 years old struggles with. Her entire life she was not able to find friends or even lovers, that would put any worth into anything she said. While I will admit she is quite overbearing, probably due to the lack of medication that she refuses to look into taking, she is a wonderful person that has so much love to share with the world. We had a conversation about this recently, and hearing her own side of things made my heart ache. Part of the conversation that I would like to share went like this:

Me: its fine i think people like u and me just dont get to have friends like other people for whatever reason lololol

My Mom: That can’t be true.
My Mom: I don’t want that to be true.
My Mom:  We both have so much love to give people.

Me: yeah and we get none in return ever unless we force it out of them

My Mom: I still think it’s because I haven’t found my “people”.
My Mom: I really don’t even know what “my people” means…

    Things like this are just so heartbreaking to see coming from someone who I know has everyone’s best intentions at heart. It’s even more upsetting just to try and accept the fact that the path of loneliness that she has followed throughout her entire life is the same exact path that I am on. I don’t want to live another year feeling the way that I currently do, but I don’t see any escape.

    Earlier in this post, I talked about previous points in my life that I have held as a standard for the reality that I want, and I’d like to get into that a little bit more. I have a problem that I know countless other people struggle with as well, and that is the fact that everything in my life has to be compared to something else. It doesn’t matter what situation it is or who it involves, I am going to either compare it to a past situation that I’ve experienced or something else that someone else has experienced, whether I know for a fact that they have or I am just expecting its a universe experience with everyone except me. The life that I believe I should be living is very clear-cut in my head. If prompted, I could list out everything I think my life should be at what point, and because of this, I believe it has driven me into a state of despair at the fact that I have not reached out these personally set life goals. Using the word “personally” might not even be the right word to use, as some of the things that I believe I should have or reach are not even things that I put a lot of importance on, but rather I believe that I should because of others. At this exact point of this paragraph, I’m realizing that I am getting more and more off the original topic, but I’ll attempt to tie it all together into a little bow at the end. Continuing on, perhaps it is my very robotic way of getting through life that has me feeling unsatisfied. There are specific goals of mine that I can’t reach for very valid reasons, but to me, those reasons have no worth, and the only things that matter is the fact that I haven’t reached my goal, thus feeling like a failure. To anyone that isn’t me, I probably don’t seem like that at all but no matter how often I tell myself that, I’m not able to knock the feeling that I am the personification of “failure”. 

    I have given up on a lot of things in my life and also failed at probably a similar amount of things. To me, things that are considered regrets can be categorized as one of two things: voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary regrets are ones I’ve brought onto myself (Giving up the clarinet, not continuing art, and not studying on my own), whereas involuntary regrets occur due to outside circumstances (Failing a semester into college, financial issues due to being forced to move, and the natural growing apart from friends). While I do understand that involuntary regrets are out of my hands, I can’t help myself but feel just as badly as I do about the voluntary regrets about them. Unfortunately, the number of regrets of mine that are mostly voluntary heavily outweigh those that are out of my control. I tend to give up on a lot of things, whether it’s because I see no point in continuing or because I simply don’t think about the long-term impact something might have if I throw it away now. All of these things together though simply make the feeling of hopelessness that rests at the bottom of my stomach grow larger. While I can attempt to tell myself that I am at the point in my life that I’m at purely because of outside circumstances, I do have to take accountability. It’s an undebatable fact that a good amount of the things in my life that are disappointing to me are this way because of my own mistakes, which is what makes my list of voluntary regrets continuously grow. My overwhelming feeling of self-hatred definitely contributes to what things I don’t and do give up on. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m caught up in and unless I do something, nothing will be done and the cycle will continue to feed the pit at the bottom of my stomach. I do think that wallowing in the feeling of despair is not necessarily bad, but I do think that I have taken it a bit too far. The cycle goes like this: “I attempt something > I feel as though nothing I do is good enough > I give up > I feel as though I can’t do anything and am stuck in my life > repeat.” I do understand fully that the only person able to help me get out of this cycle is myself, but I just am very desperate for a helping hand at times like these. Going through life alone is inevitably what every single person on this planet will have to do, I just don’t want to yet. Like I said before, I think I am currently at a point in my life where I should be experiencing it with others, not yet coming to terms with the feeling of absolute loneliness.

     Getting too caught up with ideals that you have for your life is never a good thing, and when those ideals move out of the hypothetical realm and you begin to apply past memories to the present you will only manage to hurt yourself. This is something that, as I am somewhat unable to work past, am fully aware of being true. I am definitely someone who gets stuck in the past and is unable to move on because of that. I get stuck in a world where I am seventeen again, experiencing life as I believe that I should, and find that anything but that is a disappointment. In reality though, if I was living the life that I was living back then who knows if I would actually be happy with it now that I am at a completely different point in my life. Of course, there are aspects of what I hold dear that I believe could make my current situation better, but a majority of the things that happened during then would potentially manage to only hurt me now in life. We tend to look back on memories fondly, conveniently putting the disturbing and dark parts of the memory to the back of our head, so that we can either look back on the past with a smile or use the past to hurt ourselves more. I’m not sure how others view things related to this, but the feeling of sadness is one I am most comfortable with. It is easy to be sad and angry and feels as though you have been wronged or that you are at the end of your rope. Whereas, it’s difficult to feel happy constantly because the ideal concept of being in a state of endless happiness is just not realistic for anyone. I believe that people can reach a point in their lives where they feel content with most aspects, but most everyone will have something at the back of their mind that hurts or simply bothers them. I believe this has to do with the fact that being happy without a care is a terrifying and vulnerable thought to entertain, while always having a bit of sadness to fall back on is comforting. This gets a bit out of hand though when you begin to look at the past through rose-colored glasses and compare it to your current situation that you look at in such a negative light. This is something that I currently struggle with, and while I don’t think that all the things I talk about bothering me are just me over-exaggerating something, I do believe that I am missing the good parts of my life by doing so. I believe that I am also refusing to let myself have the things that could help me become happier in fear that it will all come crumbling down on me. I am someone that if that were to happen to me, I would take it as a sign that I should never try again and thus continues the cycle I previously mentioned. 

    There are a lot of things that I believe I have to work through in my life, and while I understand that the only person that will actually help me move from where I am to where I actually should be (not where I want to be), I am very desperate for the feeling of having others beside me through this journey. Life eventually is meant to be lived out alone, which may seem like a sad thought, but when I can reach a point in my life where I can come to terms with that concept, I don’t believe it will depress me. Life is meant to be lived out uniquely for every single person because not one person sees the world the same way as someone else. The reason I don’t think that coming to terms with the feeling of loneliness later in life will depress me is simply that I believe I will have reached a point where I find joy in all the ways that I experience my own life. Though I don’t believe I will reach that point for some time now, I still believe that eventually, this is how I will feel when I do reach it. Currently, the feeling of being alone is something that breaks my heart and makes me feel as if I am drowning because I so desperately want to experience the world with others. I’m not sure if it’s because I want to see the world through other people’s eyes or because I want to have my life cross over with someone else’s and, even if it’s just for a moment, have our lives be the way they are for each of us because we have touched one another. 

    I’m not really sure how I’m meant to finalize this post, since this has been probably my longest ramble yet. A lot of the feelings that are in my heart are now out in the open, and honestly, I started this post with a heart full of pain, and now, though I do still feel that never-ending feeling of dread that is constant inside of me, I feel somewhat relieved at the fact that I can release what I would instead have kept inside. I’m not sure when I will stop feeling the way that I do about relationships and other aspects of my life, but all I can do is hope that soon how I feel will change. I do think mental illness plays a big factor in the fact that I don’t know if my mindset will ever not be the way that it is, and because of that I have to put in more effort regardless of if it will actually impact anything in the end. Times like now though, I want to take just to wallow in this feeling until I can pick myself back up. Coming face to face with what you’re feeling is a much better way to deal with things, rather than compartmentalizing things to later blow over when it’s too much for you or anyone to handle. Well, I apologize for going off-topic multiple times throughout this, though I’m not sure there really was the main topic that I wanted to touch on other than my feeling of loneliness. One day I do believe that I will overcome this feeling and while I’m not sure how, just as I keep a bit of sadness in the back of my mind to fall back on, I will keep a bit of hope in my heart that I will reach a future that I daydream of.