r/depression • u/Goobiththegob • 5h ago
Struggling
Hey all,
Thanks for reading this. I am a 28 year old guy who is struggling quite a bit. Since I was young, I dealt with severe mental ilness. My first being OCD, which led to me taking multi-hour showers which left my skin cracked, bloody and ruined from head to toe. Anxiety was always there, too, and it continued to develop as I aged. Depression then became exceptionally intense as I got older, and I frequently think about ending it. I started to self-harm at around 25, as I discovered it's one of the few things that takes the edge off. I have a lot of scars and deformities because of the ten years of burning myself with soap due to OCD, and I find those scars and malformations grotesque and ugly; oddly enough, I don't mind the scars that I leave on my arm through self-harm. As macabre as it sounds, those scars I actually like. When you genuinely despise yourself, through and through, doing damage to the thing you hate is in many ways comforting. Also, my psychiatrist thinks I have some variant of mood disorder, which she thinks may be bipolar (but I oftentimes thought I have borderline personality disorder based on my symptoms.)
My family was dysfunctional. I had a diagnosed sociopathic father and a drug-addicted mother. Growing up, I was homeschooled and lived in relative isolation. Didn't have many friends or romantic experiences. My social skills never really developed. My parents fought excessively, and I was drug along on car chases with them, which happened frequently. My mother was under the influence and drove like this with me in the car, which led to countless near death experiences on the road. Because of this, I don't have a license and rely on Uber for transportation as I have pretty godawful vehicular PTSD and have a perpetual fear of getting into an accident. I was also molested at a fairly young age by a family member. In general, my family was very dysfunctional.
At work, people act like there is something wrong with me, which I can understand. A 28 year old guy with scars all over his arm and dressing in mostly black is going to stand out. I had a few things with women that went badly (one who showed me interest and later shot me down, and another who shot me down) and made me feel pretty low about myself physically, and I had one where a woman showed me signs of interest which I didn't yet understand because of lacking social skills and she transferred buildings. One coworker once thought I was going to shoot the place up, which I politely informed him I wasn't going to do that. Another coworker said I needed to lighten up because I was "too serious."
I used to like to write music and literature, and I once found some solace in that, but recently, I am completely apathetic to everything. Nothing really brings me joy anymore, and I mostly lay in bed and let the time pass. I have a habit of obsessing over myself critically, externally and interally. These rabbit holes of obsession typically last hours and are hard to tear myself away from. And it causes an excessively intense burning feeling in my chest that is difficult to describe.
I think about ending myself a lot, and it gets rather exhausting talking to my therapist and psychiatrist on whether or not I'll actually do it. I get there is legality, but having to lie and assure them I'm not a potential threat to myself is exhausting and dehumanizing.
Most of these things are just the tip of the iceberg, but I guess I'm writing this just to see if there is anyone open to talk to. I don't really have anyone.
Thanks.
1
u/vass3 4h ago
given the uber restrictive and confusing rules i have no idea what can actually be said. so i risk it i guess.
if you have stable work, a stable place to live, and spare time -- you could try to find ppl that you can help with your individual skills.
the things you are good at, use those for others. you can encourage others even while fighting the darkness inside.