Please excuse this post for being so long, I have a lot that I need to go over about myself. Consider this being me coming out of the closet about my anxiety and depression. :icon_redf Up to now, I haven't been completely honest about myself to most of the people here, though I have let it slip about my situation to some people, like Kaiser, KeithWulf and Thepandaboss. I try not to show it in my online life, at least here, but I'm really not as chipper and happy-go-lucky as I do my best to represent myself. If you were to know me IRL, you'd see someone completely different from the one named BrokenRecord. You'd find a boy who feels like he has to suffer through almost each an every day of his life from the heavy emotional burden of his past experiences constantly catching up to him and ruining his happiness one good memory at a time. I've been through so much in the past 17 and a half years that you'd start to wonder how this pathetic kid hasn't killed himself yet. Let me explain my whole situation: For starters, I'm autistic. Not the usual derpity-derp kind, but an autistic of the high-functioning variety. For as long as I can remember, I've been put down because people always compare me to the stereotypical mentally handicapped variety of autistics. I've also been an easy target in every situation for people to blame things on me to get me in trouble for what they did, or just beat the shit out of me. I've seen numerous friendships end sourly via betrayal on the friends' parts (I always try to stay as loyal a friend as I can be), and then those ex-friends would become conductors of a symphony of pummeling from people I hardly knew, because the ex-friends would give their friends my secrets and tell them to almost kill me over those things they leaked about me, if not upright making up lies about me to make them look like the victims and me the bully. To give examples of the things that they've done to me, I've been almost stabbed, pushed down stairs, knocked cold I don't know how many times it's been, and psychologically castrating me by telling me things like it's all my fault and I should get what's coming to me. At times, I wouldn't even be safe at home, due to me growing up with a sadistic older sister who loved every minute of my pain and agony. I felt like I was unsafe anywhere, and these experiences have left me scarred so much as to give me nightmares and PTSD so severe, my own brain feels like it's sick of me living. This was all before I reached the age of 14. For a long time, I've sought a safe way to vent this pain I've gone through, from seeking psychiatric assistance, to becoming an internet troll. I once stumbled upon a site called Encyclopedia Dramatica, and found it to be absolutely hilarious because of it's blunt force style of satire. After a few months of reading it, I found a change going through me, turning me into a cynical bastard that was against everything, from furries, to anime, to people in general. I decided to sign up to the site, as I was wanting to contribute to the site itself, and its forums, and at first, I was loving it, until I found out the hard way that nobody on ED was trustworthy, like the people here are. I became a laughing stock in the community because I tried to tell people bits about myself and try to have fun with others. The only one I could count on was this one woman on the forums who actually would listen to me and connect with me. It just turned out that she was most likely more autistic than I am, and started sharing everything I told her on public threads, making my situation much worse. It all culminated until I got sick of it all and abandoned the site forever. I still haven't been the same sense, due to the sheer amount of disturbing imagery littered around the site, as well as the torment I got from the other users for just existing, making it almost feel like an online version of middle school for me all over again. I've been a nervous wreck internally for so long until I found this site. It feels like this site is everything I had hoped for in previous sites I've signed up to: it has a pleasant atmosphere, the people actually listen to and care about what I have to say, and I'm even making good friends. It's just that sometime, when I listen to other's problems and try to help them through them, I have to dig up old wounds of my own to come up with a means of accurately solving others' problems, which brings back my depression from time to time. Again, I try to not show it very much here, as I was wanting to have a happy façade for the site and its people, and not give them the burden of my own troubles. But today, It feels like my depression is overflowing and I can't hold it back any longer. I'm not looking for advice, per se, by writing this, I'm just wanting to be completely honest about myself to the people whom I've made friends with here. To conclude, I'm not as completely happy with my life as I try to show you guys I am, in reality, I'm an anxious shell of a man who still questions why he doesn't just give up on a life that tends to be utter garbage more often than not. I thank you for reading this message, as I always appreciate people taking the time to read/listen what I have to write/say. I just wish there was some easy way to battle all this pent up emotion right now in a constructive manner, but alas, it seems even though I am so good at helping others find the solutions to their lives' problems, I'm completely and utterly unable to solve my own.
Oh my god, I feel like crying right now. I am so sorry you had to go through so much, because no one deserves that! I'm not sure anything I have to say will help you, because I've had a friend that was depressed as well. It was very hard to get him to feel okay with himself, and he tried his best to look happy around me. I know it's really hard right now, and all I ask of you is to at least hold on for a little more time. All those people that have harmed you should be ashamed of themselves. I know the feeling, I really really do. I used to have a lot of autistic friends, because I was in a group with them. I wasn't learning as well as I should have as a kid, and needed help with a small Special Ed group. I befriended almost everyone, and I saw how hurt they were. No one else sees their pain unless you look at them a second glance. I had this friend who really liked me, and we were best friends. She was a good hearted person, but there were people who brought her down. No one else saw that pain, because they didn't care to look at her truly. She hated that school, and everyone who bullied her. She tried standing up for herself, but she couldn't. I tried standing up for her most of the time, but the bullies kept at it. (I was bullied at this time too by the same person). People thought she was stupid, but she was smarter than everybody else there! Nobody saw her for who she was, and just wanted to put her down. She had feelings and I feel like I was the only one who understood that. It's not like she was totally brain damaged, she was smart in her own way. I stayed fiercely loyal to her even though she annoyed me sometimes. I liked how she easily trusted me, because it felt nice to have a friend like that. I understand, I do. When I saw the pain she was having and everyone else had in the small group, I felt it too. I felt their pain, and I vowed never to judge someone like that ever again. Here's one thing I can tell you though, people choose to stay depressed. They do, and I think you could agree with me. They choose to stay in the darkness and not see what's on the other side. From everything that has happened, I understand why you have stayed on the dark side for so long. I used to mask my pain too when I was 11-12. Do you know what I used to do? I would sit with my friends at lunch and see how happy they were, and put on a fake smile. Sometimes I couldn't even bare the pain anymore, and ran to the bathroom. People always asked me if I was tired, and I always answered with a yes. I wasn't tired, I was sad. I masked my pain and I cried in the bathrooms(This wasn't for my sexuality, it was for something else). I understand why you do this. You don't want people to worry about you, and you want to take care of the problem by yourself. I know the stubborn feeling way too much. You want to bottle up the emotions and forget about them. Well guess what? They're there and you'll eventually have to face them. I'm sorry if this text didn't help you at all, because I've seen this happen before. My best friend does the same thing, except he reflects it by harming himself. Please don't harm yourself in anyway, because I will not forgive you. There is no way I can forgive you after you have harmed yourself. Dying is a selfish thing, that's all I can say. I hope you don't hate me after this post, and I wish you so much happiness. People deserve happiness, especially you.
ScaryClosets Don't worry, I'm not the kind to harm myself, because I'm much stronger willed than that. I understand how you believe I am keeping myself in this darkness on my own, but on my end, it feels more like my obsessive-compulsive brain hates me and everyone around me and wants to remind me of that fact as much as it can, and at the worst of times. I know that bottling up these feelings and repressing them hasn't done me squat, as for years I had no one to talk to about it except psychologists, mainly because I was afraid that no one would take me seriously and think I was just trying to gain sympathy points. The pain has eaten away at me for all these years and I always want to tell others in my advice about if they don't come out about their issues, their anxiety will eat them alive and leave them a hollow shell, which is what has almost happened to me on numerous occasions throughout my life. It doesn't help with the fact that I always worry when the pattern of bullying will start again, like it always has wherever I've gone, staring with betrayal by a good friend and moving into physical assault. The way I've coped with this more recently is through my book writing which I like to tell people about here and IRL, where I have the characters of the book face the trauma that I've faced in the past head on, along with other acts of trauma that I think are at a similar level to my own, like the act of one of the characters getting raped and having to then deal with the social and emotional ramifications of the rape. So far, it's worked for me to write those characters being able to get through those tough times and come out better people, and it gives me a purpose to continue working on my books, as people OL and IRL really want to see me finish them. It is enough to keep me from killing myself, as I really want to finish the stories I have in my head as well, but it's just sometimes not enough to hold back the full force of these obsessive-compulsive thoughts and past anxieties that won't let me move on with my life, and bring it to a halt. Nothing has seemed to really work as an effective means to keep my depression under control for very long. No medicines, no activities, no psychiatric help, it only helps a little to have the reassurance of others and to be open about my past experiences, as it slows down the metaphorical cancer that is my anxiety and depression eating away at me and everything I once loved, but only for a small while. I thank you for being the first one to reply, as for a little while I was worried my message would go unread. I know that sounds ridiculous to think about, but it's just a taste of one of my hundreds of thousands of obsessive thoughts that swim through my head on a daily basis that undermine what little bit of happiness I can still hold on to.
Yeah, I get what you mean. Writing helps me a lot too, and I love it so much! That's one of the things that helps me with my anxiety, and the other would be music. Music helps so much you have no idea. Anxiety sucks man, and I live with it too. Though, I only got the anxiety part of my family. The other side of my family got the depression part. I'm always worrying and worrying that it gets bad sometimes. I have mini panic attacks, and I know how it feels. I felt like if I didn't reply, I would regret it later. I like helping people, because I'm much more wise than I seem. I have more years ahead of me, but I'm still more mature than other people my age. Anyway, I'm just glad you have writing to help you out. I do the same thing sometimes, but lately I haven't been writing as much. I'm just so glad we have a site like EC, because a lot of people are suffering. I'm glad that there are nice people on here that help each other out. So, you're actually lucky in a way. You have an amazing community to support you no matter what, and not a lot of people can say the same.
This is truly heartbreaking hearing everything you've been through. When i joined EC i was sure nobody would want to help a 13 year old but surely you were there helping me with all my problems. I don't have many experiences with bullying especially nothing to compare to you're "trauma and emotional damage" that I heard about in a reply to one of my posts but never asked why. Don't let anyone tell you you are less, instead learn from this and grow up to be whoever you want to be in you're case maybe a Author. Anyways you are to me truly the best person on EC replying to almost all my threads and now i'll always be here for you. I know i might be younger but i will try my very hardest to understand everything you say or might say in the future. I'm not going to tell you it gets better because you've already heard that but I want you to know you can make it better instead of looking back look forward look to all the opportunities you have. I know it might not help in the moment but spend some time on it, truly think what you want to do, be, or act like, and you will succeed i know it! (*hug*)(*hug*)
You have gone through so much, the fact that you're still here to give advice despite yourself needing help more is truly admirable. Rock On and don't let anybody treat you bad ever again.
