SpooferJahk: This is not so much a bitching post because everything is going good for me to some extent, but more or less me voicing concern about my life right now...
I just graduated from my local community college with an associates in arts and science degree as a start for something bigger. I plan on going to a bigger and better school in the future though that won't happen until I can fork over the money for it and decide on what I want to do. Currently, I plan on working for quite some time to build up enough currency so I can move on and to kind of start my life since it was so hollow before and after college. This is where my concerns come in, I didn't work at all during my time in college because I used this time to fight some nasty demons that were disturbing me since my days in high school. At the end of high school, I was a very angry, bitter, socially awkward person who honestly didn't give a crap about anything. The angry, bitter, and not caring part is gone but I am still very socially awkward thanks to many different factors.
What is bothering me is that, will I be able to make friends and have a relationship in the future and near future? I mean, people honestly scare the living daylights out of me because I am afraid that any action I do will set off some sort of alarm that will make them just blast me to oblivion. It's almost like my mind is set to a 1984 mode where I am afraid that if I do something wrong, I will get canned because I didn't follow a proper procedure. This whole mindset is because of a couple of things, throughout my schooling before college I was bullied frequently and I was never able to get help from anyone. All I was told was to ignore it, despite it being both physical and mental abuse. I was frequently labeled as a fag and got bitch slapped, shoved into stuff, kicked in the shins, and my property destroyed. The other factor was that I was friends with a guy that I used to consider my best friend, but the thing is though is that he hated it when I was being myself the whole time I was friends with him.
This guy HATED it when I would bring up what if scenarios, talk about things he is not familiar with, laugh at stuff that is stupid (I couldn't admit to liking Family Guy or American Dad in front of him without him snapping at me for liking idiotic crap), and getting him to try new things. It also didn't help that he was a general asshole to me by implying that anything I did was wrong and would avoid talking to me because he was annoyed of the stuff I did, despite it not being anything bad. This has got me into this position where I am afraid to even be myself in front of anyone even if they don't care what I am doing. When someone walks into the room where I am doing something, I stop being afraid that I will be yelled and raged at for doing something. A good example is when I am listening to music, I must shut it off if someone comes near the room I am playing it in because I am afraid of them lashing out at me for listening to something that they do not approve of. This affected me because this was all done by someone that I thought at the time cared about me and generally enjoyed my presence, and to find out that all I did was just a nuisance to him just affected myself psychologically being permanently afraid of being myself in front of anyone, even if they truly cared about me.
As a result of this, I have not made any new friends outside of two that I was friends with before but wasn't really being a good friend to because of that guy I mentioned earlier. I have yet to have a girlfriend because I honestly don't know where to start and I am afraid that showing who I am will just make every female scoff and beat me for trying to even be friendly to them. I also get that same feeling when I talk to males as well, feeling like if I were to try and be friends with them it will all end in disaster since I don't know how to initiate a conversation without it ending in awkwardness. I have been getting slightly better at overcoming this problem thanks to breaking off ties with that friend I mentioned earlier, but I still have that problem and I can't say I know how to properly fix it. I would seek counseling but after a disaster with a counselor in high school trying to get me into Child Protective Services because of a meltdown from stress, I can't trust any form of psychological help at all and have yet to be convinced that going to seek it will result in everything getting better.
Ok this post did involve me getting a bit bitchy and emo. Sorry for the long post but I just had to spill this out somewhere and I feel that the GOG community will probably respond to it better than anyone else, I hope.
You came to the right place. Sorry to hear you were bullied when younger and nobody came to the rescue. And fuck what other people think...you need to build up your self esteem...you need to start loving yourself or you will forever be everyone's bitch in a way. Once you build up your self esteem, you will start thinking, other people need to be afraid of not being likable in your eyes and you will be fearless because you know you kick ass on so many levels. How to build up your self esteem? That is the hard part.