I don’t even know why I’m writing this

[Perk21]

I don’t even know why I am writing this now. I guess it’s more to just get it off my mind or to just say something. People will say “you have a good life, a good childhood, loving parents, graduated college, etc.” To them and my family they don’t see the real side of it all. Was this stuff good for me sure, but that doesn’t invalidate everything else I went through.

Adopted as a child which if anyone knows leads to a pretty screwed up life no matter what you do. Sure I went to a good family and I’m told be grateful, yet they don’t know the trauma it brings. Never feeling good enough, being a “yes man” to everything, fear of rejection, wanting to actually be loved but looking in the wrong places or messing things up so badly it ends.

Throughout middle school, high school, and college I’ve always been angry, severely depressed, and suicidal. Always comparing myself to others or to a siblings accomplishments. Always feeling different because I was. Add in an abusive event, two terrifying medical incidents, multiple deaths, religious manipulation, and being a post graduate failure it’s a recipe for disaster.

I think I wasn’t really bothered by these issues growing up, but now as an adult reality has set in. Is it all founded on real truths, probably not, but at this point any truth someone tells me I pay no mind. This year alone I quit two jobs after less than a week because of my anxiety and fear of failure. Currently jobless because I can’t work as I’ll just end up with an anxiety attack and quit. I’ve got no clue who I am or where I’m going except an early grave. Not saying I’m suicidal now, but I know it’ll happen one day. It’ll take one horrible incident that makes me snap and then it’s over. I’ve always thought I won’t live long and probably won’t see 30. How I’ve made it this far with previous attempts, drinking to cope and forget, tobacco to calm the nerves, doesn’t make sense to me.

I guess I’m just numb to this reality. I take meds, go to therapy, have family support, yet it’s not enough. It won’t stop the inevitable. Maybe that’s why I don’t care anymore. Why work a decent job when I’ll fail, why try to date again when I’m a damn depressing pessimistic guy, why try to do anything anymore.

Sure I’ve got dreams things I wan to do, but I’ll never get them. One: money is an issues and since I can’t hold a job it’ll continue to be one. Two: I’m different than my family in terms of wants and desire. They say successful career I say live life. All family/relatives nice houses, cars, families, kids, even the damn dog. Yet I’m not the same, and I wouldn’t get there anyway.

As I write this I don’t even know what I’m here for, there is no point for me. I’ll end up at some dead end job, drinking myself to sleep every night, making bad relationship decisions, and probably find some way to be disowned from the family. I just don’t even know anymore. I’m just waiting for the day it all ends, and I know it’ll come just a matter of when I can’t take it anymore.

Forgive my depressing, and sadistic post or really any of my other posts. They’re all just a means to an end I guess or someway to get it out.

[tarainutah]

I don’t think I have the right words or advice, but what I can say, is that in any form, it’s good to get things out. I’ll say this, too. Having all “the right stuff” in life, doesn’t invalidate what you feel. Sometimes good things just don’t always fix everything.

I hope that you can find some hope in your life and realize that you do have a point to being here.

[NateTriesAgain]

Yeah, Perk, I think this story is honestly super relatable. Feeling like “everything should be good” is the worst fucking thing. Because it blankets over your pain this lie that – yeah, guy, you’re just being a bitch. Everything’s fine, you don’t even have anything to complain about, etc. etc. I’m glad you know that’s bullshit. And just wanted to affirm…yeah, that’s bullshit.

What you’re going through makes total sense. You grew up believing – I do not belong here. I am adopted. I am different. I may be “around the family”, but I’m not actually “in the family”. As such, I am second class. Anything I do will eventually be overshadowed by others. Any love I receive really is tempered with pity and doesn’t reflect what they actually feel or think about me. I’m just waiting for the day I fuck up enough to surface the truth…that they didn’t want me, just like my real parents, and that no one ever will.

Gosh, dude, just as I write that out, I feel the heaviness, the pain, the sorrow, the depression, the catastrophic toll that must take on your soul…to live every moment of every day of your entire life under the weight of that identity. Fucking brutal.

Here’s a principle that’s important to name: 1) you’re not crazy. You’re living life exactly as well as anyone would in your shoes. You do the best you can with what you have at every point. You’re not even behind. Your life makes a lot of sense, dude. 2) You can never live beyond your identity. WHO you believe yourself to be will always determine WHAT you do with your life and HOW you choose to live it out. Actions follow beliefs 100% of the time.

If you believe you are just waiting for the day when the world exposes you as unwanted, the brutal thing is that anxiety just builds over time. Yesterday’s anxiety compounds today’s anxiety. Because yesterday’s failure is evidence of the increasing likelihood of your exposure. EVERY DAY of your life gets worse. Because even when you nail something, it’s less than someone else, and therefore subject to criticism and comparison and ultimately exposure. Your life is just one massive fucking disappointment waiting to be displayed for the world to see.

But you see – that is all rooted in the IDENTITY of “unwanted”.

For instance, let’s have a thought experiment – you don’t actually have to believe this about yourself, so don’t discredit the experiment because you believe it’s untrue…but just “consider”, or “take on” the perspective or idea that your identity is “beloved”. That you are chosen and loved exactly as you are, that you are the apple of your parents’ eyes.

What do they see in you? They chose you. You are chosen. Did you do anything to deserve that? No. If the love was originated in something that is unfounded on your performance, let’s assume, for this identity’s sake, that you believe it will continue to be unfounded on your performance. In that sense, their love is sourced in something else. It is sourced in a genuine goodwill and desire to care for you. So when you fail, life is not going to come down on you but up and around you. You stop being suspect or suspicious that they are just pitying you, that they are just trying to get you back up because they’re embarrassed of you or disappointed in you. When you don’t compare to your siblings, when their accomplishments overshadow you, it is never held against you, it is good for them, and doesn’t discredit what you’ve done, because you are the beloved – your parents are proud of you for what you do even when it doesn’t look like someone else, because they have individual, unique, genuine goodwill for YOU. They celebrate what you accomplish and have good intentions for supporting you to do YOUR best, not defined by what others are doing in their lives.

We could continue to compare point and counterpoint between one perspective and the other. The point is that you experience the same life, but you internalize the meaning through the filter of who you believe yourself to be.

You BELIEVE you are unwanted. Therefore, you SEE yourself as unwanted. Everything reaffirms that point.

If you were to BELIEVE you are wanted, loved, cherished, adored, then you would SEE things differently.

The fact is that your experience of your life is completely subject to your identity and your core beliefs. You are not ACTUALLY disappointing everyone in your life. You FEEL you are disappointing them because you BELIEVE you are a disappointment.

All of this is really important for you to know because “coping better” or “trying harder” or “accomplishing more” or “being independent” or whatever else you could be spending yourself trying to have or earn or whatever…it’ll never change this compounding anxiety you have in your life until you begin to change the way you view yourself.

You’re actually a super competent dude. You are capable. You are smart. You are unique and worthy of good things in your life. It’s not a YOU issue, it’s a VIEW issue. It’s the way you’re viewing yourself.

Which – let me be quick to state – is not actually your fault either. You began to develop a view of yourself before you ever had the ability to mold it by your conscious thought. Your WOUND is not actually a reflection on your capability or your worthiness. It is just a part of your story, you didn’t get to choose it. So it’s not your fault.

AND…you have the opportunity now to stop hacking at the leaves and start striking at the root. You CAN practice believing a new truth. You can go on a quest to excavate those roots and fucking hack that bullshit lie out of your life and re-plant new truths about who you are and what you’re worth.

The truth is that you ARE loved, you ARE chosen, you ARE wanted. I believe that about you, and I’m not blowing smoke up your fucking skirt. You matter. I know because that is the way I feel about you and I barely know you. How much more the people who found you and chose you and spent their lives loving and nurturing you? You are worthy. So, so, so worthy. Fight to change your view, brother. Fight to see the truth. You deserve it.

-Nate
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