cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25065914
I’ll never be more than a fetish to people
Mods, please lmk if this post is not appropriate for this community
My dream is to have someone—anyone—see me as more than just a friend. To have someone who wants me, in more than just a sexual way. That dream haunts me.
The only attention I receive is from Grindr. I see my worth as how much I can starve myself to stay thin. I figure at least if I’m petite, pervs online will want to use me as part of their fetish. I oblige them because they desire me in those fleeting moments. After they get what they want, they never contact me again. That is my value as a person.
I’m so insecure, so unconfident. I see people like my best friend, who can get any guy she wants without even trying, and I have only envy and resentment. What’s worse, I think I have feelings for her, unrequited love that will only serve to hurt more as she explores her new life as a single woman. I don’t think even she sees me as a woman, but as a feminine man who lies to himself in the mirror each day. A pretender.
I don’t even try anymore. What’s the fucking point?
Clearly I’m not in a good place mentally/emotionally. I’m tired of therapy; it has not helped me. I feel like a failure in almost all aspects of my life. I can’t even get high anymore, so now on particularly bad days I drink instead. Today I’m getting drunk. I don’t care to tell anyone IRL how I really feel these days. It’s just a waste of breath on my part, and a waste of time on their’s. No one I care about wants to hear about my problems, feelings and fears anymore. It’s best to accept this bitter reality—better to be the funny person than to share my internal struggles and profound sadness.
I’ve got my son, and he is going to venture out into the world on his own in a matter of a few years. Then I will truly feel alone. His love is what keeps me on this earth, nothing else.
I wish I had better advice for you than what I’ll put here. I have Bipolar 2 as well. The lows get so fucking low sometimes. My kids hold me here too some days.
I tried to get medicated as well, but after going through about 6 and feeling like a different person each month for each med, I was completely done. The last straw was having a full on panic attack while on the meds. I had to call my wife home from time with her friend to take over the kids because I couldn’t be around them. I am going to leave out the details, but it was scary.
Since then I’ve been raw dogging this mental illness into the dirt. It’s not easy but it’s better than the meds. Also therapy never did jack shit for me. I don’t have trauma and other shit to talk out. I just have fits of ‘big sad’. Can’t talk that shit out.
So my advice, and it’s going to suck to try, especially if you are introverted, find a community you can be involved in. Find a way to meet people not on dating apps that have the same interests as you. You want to find people that will love you for you, find a place to meet those that are already picking up what you’re putting down.
Second advice is find a way to be happy with no one. When you are happy, even with no one, others will see that and be drawn to it. You can more easily find someone interested in you, and therefore more willing to invest in you, if you can learn to accept yourself and enjoy yourself.
Third advice, do something to improve yourself. If it’s eating healthier so you aren’t a waif, try that. If it’s gym time, do that. If it’s reading more do that. Learn a skill, pick up a hobby, find ways to occupy the time you have with yourself.
Being idle makes my BP2 shift into overdrive. I have to find ways to fight it by engaging in my own life. Finding someone to love you won’t fix that. It won’t fix you. And it’s not fair to ask someone else to fix you. The best you can do is find someone you can be honest with, and that will respect that part of you and let you lean on them as you let them lean on you.
Hope this wasn’t preachy or finger wagging. I hate typing on my phone and this felt like writing war and peace, but I want you to know, you aren’t as alone as you tell yourself. You aren’t as hopeless or helpless as you tell yourself. You matter, you are enough, you have a difficult condition, and you have the strength to work with it, you just need to find the courage, and that comes from doing and trying when you don’t want to do or try. You won’t always succeed, accept that now, but be ready to give yourself another chance and try again.
I love you as a fellow denizen of this fucked up world, and as a person that shares the same struggles. We can do it. You can do it. I’m sorry it’s hard right now. The lows can be so terrible. But please stay with us.
Dealing with bipolar is exhausting, it’s constant meds, therapy but always the bipolar rears it’s head. It can feel relentless, overwhelming and leave us feeling hopeless. With the hopelessness comes all the bad thoughts about us, our life, the world and everything. It can really drag us down.
I’m sorry things are bad mate, I’m here with you.
Thank you for the clarity. No one understands the struggle…but you seem to. If I’m not careful, I will confess to my best friend. But looking at it logically, there is not a single timeline in which this doesn’t end with the end of our multi-year relationship. There are times in which I truly believe the world would be better without me. Maybe this is one of those times. I’m definitely legally drunk, and will sleep and have nightmares of what could be. I wish I could sleep and never wake up.
not that this means anything for your situation, but I also developed feelings for my best friend. There were many reasons I was absolutely certain she couldn’t have feelings for me. I didn’t want my friendship to end, but I felt unethical withholding that information from her, and it became painful … I struggled with what to do, but ultimately decided I had to come clean. I grieved the relationship for weeks and finally told her how I felt … now we’re married.
I never believed in myself, I never believed the relationship was possible (and to be fair, I think anyone would have agreed - it is a very unlikely story). It was pure chance, freak chance, scary chance. Over a decade later and it’s still not real to me, it’s like I slipped into a fantasy world.
Sometimes our perceptions of reality are wrong, our guesses about the probabilities are heuristic and tend to narrow the world, but the world is weird and wacky sometimes - extremely improbable events occur all the time.
I’m not advising you burn your best friendship on the unlikely chance she feels the same, I’m only saying you don’t know.
Maybe this only adds to your distress, I hope it doesn’t. I hope you take hope from it, that it opens your own perspective for what’s possible a little. I wish you well. ❤️
I wish she’d see me as more than a friend, but tonight I realized that that will never happen. We had a wonderful time together. We laughed and cried. She showed me the texts between her and this new guy she likes. I need to be happy for her, but who’s happy for me? Who’s there for me? I want so badly for it to be her, but it never will be. I will have to continue down this path alone. Things are better off without me.
All I can say is I often feel the same way, and I am often corrected by the people in my life when I say these things. Sometimes you’re just wrong, even when it feels so real and the feelings are so big.
I know you haven’t found therapy helpful (to be honest, I have had the same experience), but it seems like you might try to find a better therapist who can really help you. It helps too if you are picky, choose therapists with a PhD and who come recommended - hopefully they will be qualified to help.
It’s a tricky situation mate. Get some rest and we’ll be here when you wake up
It took a friend until his late 30s/early 40s? to find a medication that worked for that. It fucking sucked how much he struggled. Now, though, he’s much more stable, able to work again, going back to school, etc. I don’t have any advice, but I hope you find something that helps and hang on until you do.
i feel ya mate. fuck me I feel ya.
