First, let me get this out of the way. Sorry if this sounds like I’m shitting over everyone else’s struggle and progress, but I really wish what I have is depression. I don’t mean I want depression, what I mean is I wish it is something the has a name and a tangible way of tackling it. And to some people this might sound like I am romanticizing mental illness, but I hope you can understand where I’m coming from.
I like to describe myself as a hikikomori, NEET, leech…I’ve been stuck at home long before the pandemic. At the beginning of these 4 or 5 yrs, it was just a temporary rest so that I can return back to Uni in the next semester. I took a break because I was half a zombie by the end of 5yrs studying in Japan. So I was attending therapy, I was working in some lesser job, but I was doing things to try to get back on track. But it didn’t went according to plan. Therapist didn’t help much, she just wanted me to keep attending each session for the fees. Work wasn’t great either, I told them i need to stop working by a certain date to prepare to go back to Uni, they try to delay me one month after another. And then it’s too late. Finally, I just walked out, but I was already feeling too helpless to actually do anything useful. that was 4 yrs ago. Since then I’m stuck here in my room. I am envious of people who knows what their desires and passion are. I am too afraid of even thinking about that. Even though rationaly I know I’m allow to have wants, but felt I don’t deserve it. My parents would “try to help” me by asking me :“So what do you want to do?” but I would get so “triggered”, I would be so defensive of my fragile ego. I did not want to think about that because that would make me think about all the failures and mistakes that I’ve done and how I lost my education and the future that I thought I was going to have. So I would hide in a perfectly happy bubble, hibernating, is the word I like to use to describe it. And it’s been 4 years since. I am very out of practice with socialising with people. At first I was censoring myself on FB by making all my posts “only me”, and then people forgot of my existence. Nobody even asked. I felt that I was carrying a lot of dark toxic ooze within me, and I don’t want to be “that attention seeker” I didn’t want to contaminate other people’s happy lifes with my unpleasantness that I feel would overflow if I am a little bit careless during my interaction with them. So I just put myself in hibernation mode. I sit at home, don’t talk to people, don’t do anything. And this is not the same as depression. I’m not too sad to get out of bed, what I am is intentionally using the strategy of staying alone to prevent damage (to me and to other people), and it is different. And every once in a while maybe for 2 months, I will try to be active, at a minimal level, for example lurking in some streamer’s chat, absorbing the lovely wholesome interactions between the streamer and their chat. And then I would get envious, get greedy, and I would want something that’s not mine. I would want to be a part of them but there’s no way I can be with all the dark ooze in me, and then I leave. Back to hbernation for 4 months.and the cycle repeats. They don’t even know I was there. But I’ve already stalked the chat so much I know everyone’s story but I can’t just come out of the shadow and say I know you but you don’t know me. I’ll sound like a creep. I don’t want to repeat the same cycle again and again. But everytime I get a little bit hopeful, or inspired, or happy, or whatever positive emotions, or someone telling me they want to help me, I would panic and run, back to hibernation. Help? please? I think I am just too intense for regular people, so i can understand if people don’t want to deal with me.