Removed from only friend group and now alone and terrified 24/7

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Hey guys it’s my first time on here so please forgive me if I am doing something incorrectly. I also suspect that my views and ideas do not align with most people on here, so if nobody thinks I’m worthy of getting a response, I understand.

I had a small friend group based around playing D&D, we started before high school got out and continued through the summer. During this time, there was one person from the group I talked to every day in DMs outside from the group.
I know the following will make me seem like an awful person and I agree. This person was depressed and mildly suicidal. I was actively persuading them to end their own life because they desired it so much.
One night, 4 days before I started college, we had a discussion about transgender people and it quickly spiraled out of control on my end, where I was trying to defend my thoughts on why transgender people are bad (to be perfectly clear I don’t hate trans people, I was just defending that side of the argument). The next day, a Friday, I got a message from someone else in the group asking me what I had been messaging the other person. I tried to explain that I constantly struggle with being unable to choose a side on any argument but was shot down. They also brought up how I had been actively telling the one I DM to take their own life, and a few more messages later I had been unfriended and blocked by everyone in that group.
Immediately I had problems that I had never experienced before, panic attacks? anxiety? I have never had these things happen to me in my life, ever. My heart is pounding even as I’m sitting down and typing this even though I’m completely calm.
It got even worse a few days later when I started college, the stress of studying and meeting expectations, etc. I kept thinking about the transgender issue, turning it over and over in my head. I’ve been struggling with it and my own identity in a sense for a while and that conversation and subsequent cutoff has magnified the issue by orders of magnitude.
Now any time anything about gender is mentioned it triggers(?) my anxiety(?)? If this keeps up the way it is, I’m going to fail this semester because this plagues my mind and I can’t think about anything else.

Again, I know what I said above is quite controversial, but essential to explaining my story truthfully. I fully expect nobody to respond or even to be banned from this platform because of what I did, but I thought I might give it a shot because I have no idea where else to go. I’ve got nobody to talk to and am lonely beyond belief.

Thanks to Kitboga and his discord community for talking about heartsupport, which led me to finding this website.

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Hey, welcome Beholder. I do see some of what you’ve said as quite controversial, and I think many people here will as well. But I’m glad you found the courage to reach out and share your shame. From reading your post it looks like you weren’t intending to hurt people. I know what it’s like to make mistakes, you can be forgiven.

I was sharing this on another thread here recently: I like to think of people like rivers. We’re all connected and feed into each other. We’re social creatures that need each other, and I think your recent spike in anxiety is telling you that. You needed them, you hurt them, and they left you. If you’re feeding poison into others, they’re gonna get hurt. People, including you, generally don’t like suffering, and so I think its reasonable that they stop letting you feed into them. Lots of the people on this forum have been hurt from people saying hurtful things. I’m sure you have as well.

I don’t think you’re a bad person. The way you spoke makes me think you were confused and blind to how your words would affect others. I think it’s imperative that you start taking responsibility for your words and actions and how they affect others. The shame is going to hurt a lot. I imagine a lot of your anxiety is due to it. But you’re okay. You’ve just made mistakes, you can grow from this and forgive yourself.

I just want to say I can relate though too. I’ve accidentally hurt multiple people because I was so focused on saying what was true to me and not considering the impact of what I was doing. I was so desperate to express myself or what I thought was true.

I’ve learned a lot, but I’m hoping you can resonate and learn from these two:

First people need love and truth. We can’t survive on truth alone. Even if what you believe is true, which I’ll expand on in the second point, you gotta be really sensitive with timing, delivery, phrasing, etc to ensure you have a loving impact. Due to my past, I find myself focused primarily on truth and very little on love. Many have the opposite allocation of focus. But I believe that to be a fully flourishing human, I need to balance truth and love, to seek to expert them both simultaneously.

Second, skepticism. I’ve been wrong soooooo many times. The smartest people in the world disagree on fundamental claims. People way smarter than you or I or any of your friends. How can you and I possibly think were right? We can argue with each other, but to think we’ve arrived at “the truth”, it’s preposterous, to me. Skepticism is an amazing tool, and when I employ it, I usually have a much better time.

I could go on and on, it sounds like you may be struggling with some things I also struggle with. But these two I think will get you a long way.

Thank you for sharing and welcome. You are in a very tough spot. But I empathise and I want you to know you have my support.

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hi friend,
I just want you to know that we love you. we hear you and we’re glad you opened up with us. that is a very brave thing to do and you are so strong

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I reread through your post and my comment, and I think I need to take heed of my own words. I think a lot of what I shared was okay, but a lot was less sensitive than you deserve. I can see that you’re very hurt right now, and I was not as sensitive and skeptical as I wish I was. I’m sorry. I really don’t have the knowledge of your situation enough to be saying “you” so much and what you feel and why they blocked you and what you need to do. I feel embarrassed, foolish. I do see that you’re very hurt and I feel for you. I really deeply resonate with what I think you’re going through. I’m not sure it exactly aligns, but I’ve had so much guilt over some things I’ve said and done which I thought were fine in the moment, even good, but I didn’t realize how hurtful they’d be. I speak before I think, and since I’m more focused on saying what’s on my mind and not what’s loving, I too have found myself in similar situations. Even now, I feel very badly for not being more cautious and sensitive in my earlier response. I was so ready to respond from my experience that I neglected to see that my goal here is to authentically support you, not to spout off every idea that comes to mind.

You’ll find a lot of loving support here. Your anxiety sounds incredibly intense. Please stick and find some more compassion and help for your situation :hugs:

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I’m already beyond grateful that you even considered replying after reading my post, and I wanted to thank you for that.
Your part about love and truth is totally correct, but I had always thought about it more as emotion and logic. I have a problem(?) where I think that emotion is just the worst thing and people should only act on logic and reason, and I let that show in my words too often. This leads to an endless self-fulfilling cycle where my words invoke others’ emotions, which reinforces my hatred of emotion (ironic, right?). My thoughts on their death was/is that if it’s what they truly desire, then they should work on achieving their goals. Emotion had no say on what I was telling them, it was all just if-then statements a computer are to process. This claim of “love and truth” is completely true and is founded.
However, my words were not mistakes, it’s genuinely what I did/do believe to be true. The only mistake I made was not appealing to their emotion and softening my words in time before I was cut off. It’s not what’s causing my anxiety as far as I’m concerned, I realize my point of view and theirs and see that the group’s choice was totally correct.
What I think is bothering me is the other concern I had described. It was my fault that I hadn’t even attempted to show the good part of what I thought about it, and it was my fault that I hadn’t considered that they wouldn’t have asked.
Not only that, but the actual content of the disagreement is what I think is hitting the hardest. Having dealt with/dealing with (now more than ever) thoughts on gender and my own gender and them not realizing what I have/am going through is the strongest nail in the coffin.
Whenever I think about the group and what they all see me as, I think that they all think that I’m some big mean bigot who exists solely to spread negativity. They all don’t know what I’ve been through in the past, and if they knew, they’d probably understand more, but I always keep everything to myself etc etc.
All of these things just destroy my motivation to even move a muscle when it comes down to it. It’s so strange having so much emotion flood through me after years of trying to not have any at all.

Sorry if my posts are long and vent-y; it’s impossible for me to get an idea out without explaining a lot of prior information.
Again, thank you for commenting, I really appreciate your honesty and the follow up message for clarification.

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I’m generally awful at taking compliments but considering my circumstance:
Thank you, seriously.
I went into this thinking I didn’t deserve any compassion for what I did, and I still don’t.
Thank you for the kind words.

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Hey friend- I’m also new here and found my way from Kit’s stream. :heart:

I understand and find myself in a similar mindset where I can discuss / debate something from a purely logical position and can come across as insensitive to others’ feelings.

Your friend who is suicidal - here is why it is illogical to say if they want to end their life they should - because if they are having brain health issues, they are truly not in a position to make that kind of decision. The pain they are feeling clouds their decisions.

The logical thing to tell them would be that their suicidal impulses are being dictated by their unhealthy mental state and that they should not make any major decisions other than addressing their brain health problems. It is illogical for the unhealthy part of your self to also be making the decisions for the rest of you.

Also - it sounds like your thinking on gender issues is evolving. An ally is someone who continues to educate themselves and be open to doing so. And it sounds like you may be questioning your own sexuality / gender and so of course you are working through heavy thoughts on all of this.

Have you considered contacting your friend group and saying: look, please don’t demonize me. Please let’s talk about all this so it can be made right.

Peace friend - every day is a new day - keep growing, give yourself some slack, and make amends where you can.

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Aww, I’m happy to be here for you. I’m glad you are opening up and discussing this as it’s a lot to hold in to yourself. Lets keep talking :slight_smile:

I’m very glad you resonate with the “love and truth” idea (or emotion and logic, they’re similar). I can relate to attempting to use logic alone. In fact I opened my first topic on this forum explaining that I have a very difficult time feeling. I think similar to you, I used to think it was a virtue to downplay emotions and use “reason alone”. But, in my experience, attempting to live like Spock had a lot of issues. I was apathetic about life, I accidentally hurt people, I struggled to find direction in life again and again…I’d be happy to discuss this more with you. It’s actually very recent that I’ve been healing through my emotional detachment. I’m still quite detached, but I’ve been going to therapy for about 8 months now, and I’ve been learning to feel again and learning what issues caused my detachment. Even though I thought I was being smart by ignoring my “irrational fears”, when I started digging very deep with my therapist, I realized that my emotions had a lot of wisdom in them, I just needed to learn how to incorporate them effectively. I learned that my desire to be rational at the exclusion of my emotions was incredibly misguided…that my emotions could actually be very powerful tools, and meaningful, especially when used in conjunction with my mind (and not one to the exclusion of the other).

“my words were not mistakes, it’s genuinely what I did/do believe to be true” As my perspective keeps expanding about specific topics, and epistemology in general, I keep discovering how likely it is I’m wrong, even when I passionately believe something. Recently I expressed something to a friend that I really felt and believed was true. It was clear in my head, but it was very hurtful to him, it was jaw-dropping and made him cry right there on the spot. It put a rift in our relationship that we’re still working through…it’s been months. I thought it was important to be authentic, to express what I thought was true even if it hurt him or me. One of the key things I learned from this, because he was kind enough to stick around and help me learn from my mistakes, is that people need each other to see themselves. Intimacy ~= into-me-I-see. The combination of knowing that (a) I am extremely fallible and (b) what I say can have dramatic effects on other people’s feelings and self-image…because we need each other to validate and see ourselves…makes me want to think very carefully before I authentically spout off what I believe. I can really hurt someone by expressing my beliefs, and I want to take extra precaution before doing so. I may be very wrong, even when I passionately believe I’m right, and the person may get hurt for no good reason other than I felt the need to express propositions that seemed true to me from my very limited, incomplete perspective. I struggle with this a lot. One of the things I’m learning to do is catch myself thinking and correct my thoughts. “She’s so rude” -> “I became angry when she did that…why?..it’s likely many others wouldn’t have been angry at this very same occurrence…”

I agree with @nameredacted about the suicide portion of this topic. I don’t think that if you want X then the most loving thing I can do is help you get it. Sometimes children want to run out in the street, but due to our love form them and our awareness of their limited understanding, we inhibit their desire which may seem mean to the kid, but it’s actually quite loving. Likewise, I think self-harm and self-destruction can be short-sighted. We can be stuck in the black hole of despair, and we may see that life is hopeless when in actuality there can be a lot of hope and meaning, one may just need the broader perspective of a loved one to find it (just like the parent to the child). I know you may feel like you have rational reasons, but lets not discuss that here. I’ve been down that road for the last decade, and this isn’t the right place for it. If you really want to you can DM me about your reasons, but I encourage you to think about why (why=love… love + truth, not just truth).

Thank you for clarifying on what your anxiety is about. Just to echo it back to make sure I understand correctly: you were having a debate with your friends and argued a controversial position, which may in fact be quite degrading to yourself, and were cut off before you could explain it was just for sake of argument? I.e. you were trying to be a good arguer, like an attorney, looking for any convincing argument you could make, without regard for its consequences? Reminds me of the love + truth topic, and thinking about why we do what we do. Do you think you hurt them by arguing this position? Do you think you were too negative/bigoted for them, but didn’t actually personally hurt/offend any of them? Sounds like you hurt yourself quite a bit :slightly_frowning_face: Is it being misunderstood, ostracized, seen as a negative person, not being able to argue effectively, offending your own self-image… what hurts most about what happened? I’d guess you have some troubling and unresolved experiences in your past that are triggering this intense of a reaction in the present :frowning_face: Does it help at all if you think you can join another D&D group? I wish you the best in exploring your thoughts on gender! I recently started exploring a similar area too.

No problem about the message length. As you can see, I can write a lot too :laughing: though this took a long time so I’ll probably be much more brief next time. I’m glad to talk with you!

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Thanks for the reply again, I really do appreciate it and would love to keep talking.

when I started digging very deep […] exclusion of the other).

Things like this pain me to hear. I’ve conditioned myself in a sense to disregard and despise emotion and only focus on what’s actually getting done in the real world instead of in side the mind. I know most people will disagree on my position and I guess that’s part of the reason I’m here? The person I was DMing was the only person I ever talked about it to, and they (unsurprisingly) said that I needed help or w/e.

About authenticity:
I struggle with not being confident at all in my words; if I express or think something that I believe to be true, and if someone else expresses something that contradicts me, I immediately start reconsidering what I believe to be true within that topic. Every time I let the other party win the argument not only because I believe that my opinion is worth less then theirs (I always think I’m less qualified), but to also avoid conflict and argument. There’s a whole reason behind this but I won’t bore you with it if you don’t care.

Sometimes children want to […] actually quite loving.

This analogy is a very good way to put it and I agree (See above lol). I Still doesn’t feel wrong but I know it’s wrong now.

If you really want to you can DM me about your reasons, […]

My entire reasoning is if you want something, get it. That’s all. Again, I know it’s wrong given that analogy.

About Anxiety:
I was having the discussion/argument with a single person (using “they/them” for their increased anonymity).

you were having a debate … sake of argument? […]

The whole thing came up when something sparked intrusive thoughts and I said that “hating trans people” was one I get very often. I was taking the obviously controversial side and defending it because I believed/do believe those things to be true. I was saying these things which were obviously hurting them, and then they eventually told others in the group, which led to everyone cutting me off. I had so many opportunities to say that I wasn’t single-minded about the subject and I certainly didn’t tell them about my relation to it. I felt that I had a reputation to hold as who I am and never wanted to be vulnerable or embarrassed about what I thought etc.
I had so many opportunities to explain the other side of the argument, but I never did. I assumed that my clear statement at the beginning of our conversation where I explicitly said that “I was conflicted about everything and that I was arguing one side only” would be enough to allow them to realize that what I was saying wasn’t the whole picture.
I forgot that nobody thinks exactly like me, being very close to completely logical and without emotion. I think that if they did, we probably could have sorted it out very quickly and without harm to either of us.
I was already beating myself up about everything gender related before our decisive conversation, how I fit in to it, etc. but it wasn’t at the point it at is now. After we split this is the only thing I can think about; I’m warring over myself about my own opinions and what/who I am as a person and what other people are and what other people think and it’s all too much. (For the longest time I’ve been in conflict over my opinions but now it’s orders of magnitude worse.)

Sounds like you hurt yourself quite a bit […]

Did I hurt myself? Not really, I’ve always hated myself and generally that’s where my motivation comes from (been told that that’s unhealthy). But I did hurt my incredibly secret thoughts that I’ve never been able to get out and talk about. So in a way, yes, I did hurt myself.

Is it being misunderstood, ostracized, seen as a negative person, not being able to argue effectively, […]

Yes, all of the above. Especially the last one. Like I mentioned earlier, I really hate conflict and will nearly always let the other party win the argument. From experience, I’m almost never able to communicate my ideas properly and that’s partially why I don’t like arguing.

offending your own self-image… […]

Absolutely. Well, only half. Again, I have been and am constantly in conflict over my beliefs and having that negative effect towards myself offset the balance and I guess it’s part of what made it worse.

I’d guess you have some troubling and unresolved experiences in your past that are triggering this intense of a reaction in the present […]

Absolutely. The entire thing on gender and past experiences with friends.

Does it help at all if you think you can join another D&D group? […]

D&D itself was not the main problem; I’m already in another game which I enjoy far more than that one (we were barely even playing). It that they were the only people I ever talked to and they were the ones that I related to the most and could talk with the easiest.

Long message vent end.

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For sure dude, I’m glad you’re down to keep talking too! I want to reply but I’m gonna have to be a bit quicker today, I’ll try to keep this under an hour!

Regarding the top half, Does it pain you to read what I wrote about emotions because you disagree? I really wish there was a quick way to show you my perspective. I can say that I’ve been in the same boat of seeing that emotions are in the way and that reason/logic reins supreme.There’s a lot of good in using reason/logic. Using emotions alone can lead to short-sighted and unoptimal behavior (eg addictions, rash decisions, impulsivity…). But I believe using reason/logic alone suffers from equally terrible consequences. I mean it as I said it, equally terrible. You lose empathy, meaning, intimacy/friends/belonging, richness to life… I think there’s two primary things that helped me begin to put emotions (heart/love) and mind (reason/logic/conceptualizing/…) on more of an equal footing, to see I want to be a complete human being instead of half of one. First was realizing how important emotions are… (a) how colorless/dull/meaningless life is without them. Really this is one of the biggest issues. You’ve said you feel lonely and started having panic attacks. You can’t rid yourself of emotions, and they’ll just get worse if you try. They can be a beautiful thing, but they don’t work the same way as concepts, it’s a totally differnet ball game. THey’re symbolic, much like art/music. (b) how intuition is extremely powerful it’s the difference between captain kirk and spock. Thinking fast (emotive) & Thinking Slow (rational) is a book that explains both systems are really useful. There’s been many studies and books on how intuition plays a huge role in business. Second was realizing how limited rationality is. The “problem of infinite regress” is a problem in epistimology/philosophy which helps show the limits of rationality. Once I really understood this, I became a much deeper skeptic. AFAIK, most modern philosophers believe we can’t know anything to be true, and I agree with them. “Gödel’s incompleteness theorem” is another good resource if you’re very math heavy for showing the limits of any system. We could debate on and on, and this isn’t the right place for it. I actually don’t want to. The only reason I’m showing these to you is because it seems part of you is really struggling with accepting your emotions to be important, and I think these things (amongst many other personal experiences), really helped turn the tides for me. They may not have the same effect on you. :man_shrugging: I just want to share my experience because it seems like you’re struggling a lot in emotion-heavy areas. I’m really glad you’re willing to reconsider your position, you’re going to learn so much that way. But I totally relate with how painful that can be, how groundless and chaotic it can feel. For me it felt like I was always trying to figure it out and get to the truth so I could live. But I realized sooner or later that it’s not possible, at least from my perspective, it is to some. Ahh I really wish I could explain this better, I hope you can at least see a little credibility in what I’m seeing and check this stuff out for yourself. I don’t have enough time right now to organize my ideas and get this all down beautifully.

You say you’re very close to completely logical and without emotion. You seem like a very rational/logical person, but I’d encourage you to reconsider that idea of being without emotion. When I had that belief I believe it limited me soooo much. Emotions can be very, very helpful, and when you neglect and bury them, all kinds of weird stuff happens (like anxiety attacks). I believe our emotions are a real part of our brains that have been there for a loooong time, a lot longer than the rational part of our brains (genetically/evolutionarily, if you’re into that sort of thing). We can’t just rid ourselves of that part of our emotional brains. I’ve likened it to this: the emotions/heart are the compass and the mind is the map. Both are extremely important, and trying to live without either will be severely limiting. When you neglect your emotions for too long, they build up, build up, build up, and explode/release trying to get your executive/rational part of your brain to pay attention and do something, it’s like your emotions are screaming desperately because they’re being neglected. You’ve got this inner compass, your intuition/heart/emotions that are so important and meaningful but much of our society has degraded this part of our humanity. It’s an analogy, take it with a lot of grains of salt, but it holds a lot of truth for me.

The things you shared about intrusive thoughts and mixed feelings about your identity is super important, I’m so glad you shared that! I’m not sure if this is exactly what you’re going through but here’s a relevant article. You said above that you feel your opitions are worth less, you reconsider your perspective, it sounds like you’ve been influenced a lot by what other people believe. What I’ve been told that happens is that many people in the general population have so much dislike for certain groups because they don’t udnerstand them (eg LGBTQ). People struggling with their gender or orientation can internalize that hate from society, and then learn to hate themselves, and feel all this discomfort about who they are. But it’s the hate the person feels for their identity is a message they’ve internalized from society. It leads to a lot of depression, anxiety, suicide, etc. It’s really freaking sad, and if this is something you think you may be dealing with, I really hope you can read up a bit on it and find some more support. There are a lot of people who have gone through this and I think it would be so tough going through it alone :frowning: I really hope you can find some support for your self-conflict and find an answer you love, that is the real you, then find people who love you for the person you love and really are (there are plenty, people will!!)

I’m sorry I can’t be more organized today, I want to respond now and not take any longer. Lets definitely follow up on this self-hate and constant conflict you’ve felt! Whats that all been about? Does the stuff I shared with you about people internalizing hate from society and learning to hate themselves resonate at all for you? (eg kids saying really aweful things about people you identify with and you adopting their perspective towards the people they are biggoted against, and thus become biggoted against yourself?)

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Sorry for the incredibly delayed response. I get anxiety coming on here and am 100x more apathetic about everything now.

No. It pains be because I’ve conditioned myself to hate emotion. I hate any simple words that relate to simple emotion. Things like “feel” (in terms of emotion), “good”, and “bad”. They just remind me about how awful we are and how we are fundamentally slowed by emotion.

Would it matter if you never knew those things in the first place?
The person I was talking to actually brought a good point that went against my ideals though. Without emotion, humans wouldn’t have any desire to do anything. I’m used to computers and how they can be given instructions and do them endlessly. Not going to lie, being a computer is a fantasy of mine.

I don’t remember saying anything like that, but I’m too lazy to check. I would like to think that I’m very close even though I know it’s not true. I’m very good at removing emotion given I’m experiencing any though.

Not until now, which I guess proves your point regardless.
This is very ironic but in the D&D group, we had played a single game. We were in Barovia, a super spooky scary place, and I was playing someone who would have never experienced such a thing. Every time something bad happened, she would break down and start crying. After the game at some point I was talking to the person (lets call them “V” from now on so that I talk about them easier) and we were discussing how my character was crying all the time. V put it so perfectly into words saying “It was always a trickle so there’s nothing to stop a flood” or something similar, speaking of the scary stuff leading to the crying.
I can’t believe this isn’t a show or something where that was just foreshadowing the present. I’d always limited how much emotion I experience - the trickle - and when V left - the flood - came, there was nothing to stop it. Now I’m more emotional than I have been in a while; I cried the first time in probably around 10 years for something that wasn’t major physical pain.

It’s not; I literally haven’t told anyone about this yet. I use this alias and handle as a separate identity purely to discuss personal issues I’m having.
I’m not sure exactly what causes my anxiety but it certainly has to do with gender/transgender etc.
Few examples if you care:

  • I have someone on my Steam friends list who is trans and who I have literally never talked to but every time I see her profile picture
  • I was playing the original Titanfall with a group of people devoted to doing that, and I always have the female character model on. Every time I die and see my character model
  • Thinking about anything I had to do if I really were to switch

I’m not suicidal, I have so much potential in my field of expertise. This may be because I’m just narcissistic about my potential but I haven’t thought about it too much.

Very important. This is 99% of my struggle.
I’ve always been taught that I’m wrong. At home, parents were always right about everything. Everything I did was just wrong and they had to show me the right way on how to do something. At school we’re taught that there’s only one right way to do something. You have to do arithmetic like the teacher does. You’re punished for spelling that word incorrectly. You’re not allowed to do this or that. You’re wrong unless you do everything your told.
Now, this isn’t a thread about the school system, and I’m being a bit more harsh to it than is deserved, but I think it applies to my point.
However, the biggest premise (and the only one that really matters) is the one friend that I have. Let’s call him Aaron for simplicity. We have been friends for years now. We always played video games online together, every day. At some point though, he started to be really toxic towards me. Everything I did was wrong, every thing was blamed on me, I was his scapegoat. I was so worn out that I just stopped defending myself. He would never see my side of the situation, he was so taken over by rage and emotion all the time. Everything I did was wrong, and now I have the mindset that everything I do is wrong, that I’m worth less than 99% of people, that my opinions don’t matter because they will just get shot down, just like they did with Aaron. (Reason for being worthless)
So I learned from him. I learned that I disliked everything that he stood for. He had/has views on the world that conflict with mine. He does things that I don’t like. Again, at some point he was just a constant spike ball of emotion and rage, lashing out and just being toxic. So I learned. I learned to not have any emotion myself. After all, if he’s such and awful person because he is so dominated by emotion, then why not learn from him? Why not just remove all of my emotion so that I will never be like him? It was also quite a good method for deflecting his toxicity but that still just made me depressed (I wasn’t good at removing emotion yet). (Reason for being emotionless)

I guess Aaron’s the reason why I am the way I am now in terms of emotion and self-worth.

Exactly above

I can’t come to a conclusion about almost anything because I’m so adamant about seeing both sides of an argument and remaining neutral. Constant toil in my head about what’s right and what’s wrong.

I don’t hate myself because of my identity (yet). I hate myself for other reasons, namely being so lazy and not doing enough with all of the potential I think I have.

Thanks again for the reply, I still don’t feel deserving of anyone helping me in any capacity.

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No problem about the delay! And there’s no pressure to respond; if you want to talk about your struggles, I’m here.

Things like “feel” (in terms of emotion), “good”, and “bad”. They just remind me about how awful we are and how we are fundamentally slowed by emotion.
…
at some point [Aaron] was just a constant spike ball of emotion and rage, lashing out and just being toxic. So I learned. I learned to not have any emotion myself

Ahh this makes so much more sense now! Thank you so much for sharing. You and I have taken two different roads to get to emotionless, but we both got there nonetheless.

This is very ironic but in the D&D group…Now I’m more emotional than I have been in a while; I cried the first time in probably around 10 years for something that wasn’t major physical pain.

Thanks for sharing the story about the D&D game! I’ve never played it, but I want to. I just feel I’d be so bad at it :frowning_face: Wow the development of that story too; this sounds like such a meaningful, impactful experience.

I’m so glad you’ve let yourself feel! :smiley: I went up to Canada to do talk at an event. One of the things I explained in that talk was that I could easily count the number of times I shed a tear between the ages of 10 and 25 on one hand, and the number of times I got visibly angry on the other. I can definitely relate. However, I’m so much more passionate about life and feel so much more motivation and purpose in life now that I’ve decided my emotions are something I want in my life and not something I want to hide & suppress. I found a way to understand and express my feelings healthily, in tandem with my rationality, to not see them as contradictory, and I feel I’ve matured and become so much more alive now.

Everything I did was just wrong and they had to show me the right way…At school we’re taught that there’s only one right way…You’re wrong unless you do everything your told.

Makes it easier to control people and get them to contribute to our economy, doesn’t it? :angry: I’m sorry to keep saying I relate so much, but I really do. I have dreams very often about flying, and I’ve learned to interpret the flying person as my true self, my “id”, my emotional self. It’s me if I let myself be free and stop conforming and being so cautious about doing what’s right in other’s eyes. I’m flying more every day. It’s taken so much work, I’ve cried so much in the last year as I broke through block after block, but it’s definitely been worth it. I’m actually on a year long sabbatical right now from work because I looked ahead and saw I was headed down a path that everyone else seemed happy to go down, and I thought was not right for me. I didn’t care about becoming a senior engineer. I didn’t care about having a family and kids. It wasn’t the life I wanted, I wanted something different, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t that and I had to go “find myself” as cliche as that sounds. I also have become so keen on trying to do what’s “right”, perhaps for different reasons, but I became sick of it and I’m giving myself more and more permission to be who I want to be every day. One thing it takes is someone who believes in you, we really do need support and love, love frees us from anxiety. I am glad to try to help give you some of that much needed support! :smiley:

At some point though, he started to be really toxic towards me. Everything I did was wrong, every thing was blamed on me, I was his scapegoat.

Ughhh I’m so sorry to hear about this dude. Your one friend who you were so close to turns out to be so toxic for you. Have you worked through some of this pain and rejection? There’s a lot here that I think is likely to have emotionally wounded you. Just allowing yourself to cry through it can be so healing. Making sense of it, seeing how it wasn’t your fault and how he was probably going through some shitty stuff himself… Did you ever figure out what was going on with him to make him turn so hurtful all the sudden?

I’m going to say something that you may reject, but it’s just what I’ve found to be true from my little bubble of experience: the people who tend to be the least caring about “whose right and whose wrong”, the people who tend to accept you most for who you are, are the emotional/spiritual types. At least in my experience, they’re the ones who tend to be like, “do whatever floats your boat,” not “you gotta do x y and z cuz otherwise YOU’RE WRONG”. It’s the rational types that believe so much in right/wrong (almost all of my friends, we were all into philosophy and I’ve struggled to become more emotional, as I’ve shared). The one’s I’m talking about don’t give a hoot about right/wrong… they care about being true to yourself and loving others. Often they think “you have your truth and I have mine”, which is a little extreme for me, but it’s actually wise in a lot of ways (“6 blind men and the elephant”, for example). I know you’ve had one intensely different experience than what I’m saying, but this is just what I’ve seen from the people I’ve been meeting. Your environment has shoved so many beliefs onto you, what about this belief that you have to be right or else you’re wrong? That’s such a heavy one that seems to be weighing you down. There’s actually a lot of good, rational arguments to break yourself out of this way of living.

Regarding trans/gender: Ahh I’m sorry you didn’t get much out of that article, it was a long shot! Other than what others have told me, I really don’t know much about this and I wish I could be more helpful. You said you haven’t told anyone about your thoughts on this yet. When you say you haven’t told anyone, do you mean no one IRL? Or no one online either? Anyway, I’m so glad you’re discussing it here! Thank you for sharing more about what it is that makes you anxious. You probably know about this kinda stuff, but I found this forum online for trans people, and I thought it might be a really good way for you to anonymously explore some of your anxiety and questions around the area: Transpulse & TransGender Pulse Forums

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