Taking my life back? - extreme feeling of alienation

[Jeordie]

Taking my life back - that's what I really want. Ok, I've had a very bad breakdown in december (hard family situation with dad ill) and I certainly need more time to recover. Some days are ok, some like today, are filled with such a discomfort, insecurity, and anxiety that I just stare at that miserable condition dreaming a better life.

I've got the stuff to do. But insecurity holds me back from being productive. And as I said different times in this forum, I hate the place I live in. I try not to but some days I can't help it. My town is just a piece of shit with no culture and nothing of nothing worth of attention but stupid people who just don't make ANY sense. As simple as that. They know that, they know they're worthless, deep inside themselves, everybody knows that, but this hate is making me miserable and afraid of going mad!!!!

How can I love SHIT. Could somebody please explain. I'm trying to collect resources to leave, that's all I want to do: travelling and going away from this suffocating place. Meeting people and girls ELSEWHERE, with a different mentality, doesn't matter if it's not my mentality, at least it's not THIS ONE of this provincial town which is so predictable, so black and white. I don't fit in here, people don't consider me they way I KNOW I should be considered, the way normal people consider me. Girls look at me and like me and come talk to me when I travel in other places, here they don't even consider me, this is making me CRAZY, I don't know if I'm liked or not, it's such and extreme difference of feedback. Right now I'd like to have sex with a girl I like, and all I get are girls I don't like. I don't give a shit if they're stupid, fine. It's just sex. Sex and goodbye. But no. Not here. It doesn't happen, see, because I'm too DIFFERENT. So all I get are girls I don't really like, 'cause I feel too insecure too approach the others, which sometimes are dumber.

And then, as much as I try to be humble and not expect anything, I get arrogant. I say I'm different in BETTER, for f**** sake! They tell me all the time, but no, when I'm the one aware of that, to protect me from the wave of constant refusal I get in social occasions, I'm not anymore, I'm just a nerd - they'll never, never tell me what I really am, like they would be worse if they do, like they'd hurt themselves.

Maybe things are not quite this way and I'm exaggerating. But you're right if you think this is unbearable pain sometimes. Knowing I should be somewhere else, that my life can be good somewhere else, hoping not to get crazy before I leave, fearing of becoming crazy as people here are indeed, worthless, with no talent, with no possibility. I'm afraid of becoming like them, thinking like them - that's what's happening! I look at myself the way they do and I see a moron, because in this mentality, cool equals moron, handsome equals gay, this kind of stuff - shall I say underappreciated? Deep inside themselves, most ignorant people in this town, men and women, are just envious of what I, a NORMAL INDIVIDUAL of the contemporary western society, has got: normal appearance, normal talent, normal way of thinking, normal behaviour, normal common sense - which they haven't got because of what they are. Am I so afraid of becoming like them, they scare the hell out of me everytime I see them in the streets. They are the losers, and they hate me because I'm not such a loser. And I try, I try not to think about them, but they're all over tha place.

Could somebody please help me here, with some word of comfort. Fortunately I know english unlike the people of this fuckin' town.
I'm doing all I can to leave, but shit I've got no money and freelancing here, is so damn hard. Still, with some perseverance, I think I can do it. Painfully hard, nonetheless.

[joey9]

Hi Jeordie,

First of all I think that you should try to consider the possibility that your anxiety is amplifying your feelings about your situation at least by several thousand. We all know here how dark and scarey the mind gets when in the full throws of an anxiety episode, and whilst your feelings are BASED on your real observations your mind is not allowing you to step back from your situation and and make it FEEL any less dire. As real as your situation is, you have got to try to think differently about your ability to exert control over that situation. You need to try to clear your mind of the emotional fog that has swamped your thought processes and made you feel helpless. Sometimes life can be shit. But you need to find the resilience to brave it out whilst your plans for change come to fruition. Your observations on life in your town should serve to make you a stronger person in the long run. You know that you don't want to become like those you see around you, but don't let this make you feel angry and helpless. You hate where you are at right now and want to make a change, and you have made plans for that change. Do all you can to focus objectively on achieving your goals. Visualise where you want to be in the future and trust that you have the confidence and the ability to follow it through. In the meantime try to seek out the positive in your current situation. Try not to consider yourself superior to those who are happy with the existence you want to escape, as this is not healthy and can mask issues concerning your own self-esteem. Find people and activities that make you feel good about yourself and work on your confidence and self-esteem in order that you can become more comfortable interacting with people that you may never think or be like, as this is an important life skill in itself. Wherever you live you will come across these people and it will only harm your sense of well-being if you let them make you so angry. Try to focus on your goals rather than on how terrible everyone is. Whilst many of them may be terrible, it will only make you feel worse and worse to dwell on this. Spend this time as 'preparation time' for your move. Whilst you wait for the financial side of things to come together, become comfortable with yourself, and get to know yourself and love yourself in a way that needs no shouting about. The happiest and nicest people I have ever met are those who are totally comfortable with themselves - they do not see their shortcomings/differences as faults and feel no need therefore to put anyone else down in order to make themselves feel better.

I don't know if this is any help at all but I have recently swallowed several self-help books and a positive thinking hypnosis CD and suddenly feel enlightened...

[Jeordie]

Joey,

thanks for your reply, which I've found unexpedectly inspiring.

As said, it's all about up and downs. Being focused on my objective, visualizing it and getting closer to it everyday, is really the medicine for the situation I'm in. The situation in itself isn't that bad, as I coped with it fine for several years (I grew up here). I have chosen to make it a little harder out of rebellion to the "rules" that make this place a suffocating one to creative individuals. I wanted to make people see how a talented peson can suffer because of the very things they think and "believe" in, but I have soon realized how useless this is. They just don't get it. They don't want to, they don't care, they don't have my same sense of good or not good.

So in the end, it's all wasted time and all I want is to live my life. Today I'm trying to focus on my goals and get to work serene, without looking at people in the streets - but you know what, as soon as I get out from the internet cafe' I'm in, I won't care if I notice or get noticed, if I like them or not. I'll just see what happens, and I'll probably have some fear, and I'll let it be, let it fade by itself.

Done that several times and suceeded, but as said, up and downs - sometimes I get attached by a single insignificant event and make it huge, therefore I fall in the old pit. I'm kinda tired of that but let it be if it makes me stronger.

I feel so much in my formative years, waiting for a big prize to come. A good life somewhere, with good chosen friends - and this all might come sooner than expected. In facts, it's really about deciding that's the way it should be. Sometimes it's that simple - let out the accumulated fear of years, which scares you when really there isn't a reason.

But really it's the way it should be. I'll quit obstructing its way.

I feel slightly too excited right now. I get one or two coffees a day, and they make me feel good and serene for about 30 minutes. Then I get too high, thoughts running. If these thoughts are anxious, I have fear of losing control, have an anger outburst, and the such. How should I deal with that? I obviously don't want to hurt anyone, but I still have so much accumulated anger.