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Desperate to change myself

AstelContributor28 May 2025, 10:09 pm AEST

Desperate to change myself

All I want above anything else is to feel my emotions again and connect to people.

I have become severely withdrawn and disconnected.

So, so long of persevering in my own lonely world.

I am in a very dark place.

I am entrenched in shame from having a mental illness I will not acknowledge. I have been splitting myself in two. Showing a front to the world to get by when inside it's not just pain it feels like I'm dying.

I am too much of a coward to say what needs to be said.

It's very hard to hold on to hope right now.

It felt like this way I adopted of being, which was to ignore all my problems inside in hopes they would go away has just given me something I will never be able to fully heal now.

I have turned down opportunities to date people who could have been the love of my life and could have helped me out of the darkness. I allowed the fear to take hold and now I feel unlovable.

I just want to be loved.

I just want clarity.

I don't want to be scared anymore.

I need to get back in contact with people again. People from my past. I need to connect again. In order to regain a sense of who I am. I am not really connected to anyone.

It's not just my mind that is fragmented, it is truly my life.

When all this started, I had already changed 5 different schools and countless houses.

My parents actions broke me and made me lost inside. How do I even start to communicate this and get clarity?

I want to reach out to people I knew in school and I want them to respond kindly to me. But my mind is telling me I'm a freak who deserves to be outcasted. I am so mistrustful. Paranoid.

And the internet just exacerbated my alienation.

I know at core I am a good person worthy of love.

But right now I'm ill.

I don't want my words to just be empty. I want acknowledgement.

Where do I go for help?

I know there is still hope for me to find myself again. With the right support. I have to start with honesty.

This is the quote that matters to me most:

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

- Dostoyevsky

3 replies

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In response to: Desperate to change myself

Shaz51Senior Contributor29 May 2025, 10:48 am AEST

Re: Desperate to change myself

hello @Astel

sitting with you and letting you know that we are here for you 😍

In response to: Desperate to change myself

MJG017Senior Contributor29 May 2025, 6:12 pm AEST

Re: Desperate to change myself

Hi @Astel

I hear you. I spent so long in my own lonely world and putting on that front. That Dostoyevsky quote really does sum it up perfectly! You asked "Where do I go for help?" Here is a good start. It's how i started to ignore that inner voice always telling me to stay hidden. That voice constantly tells us we're not good enough or we're not worthy or all the other negative stuff. So we isolate and that voice is the only one we hear and it just becomes fact after long enough. That's why I found reaching out here a year ago so helpful. I started to hear more positive voices that made me (slowly) start to question that inner one's constant negative barrage. Over time, and with more positive support from people I started to be able to question it more and more and actually start to no do what that inner voice told me. It's still a struggle, some days more than others, and i'm not sure it will ever completely go away... but I can fight it now. Even just to start to question it was a massive first step for me.

And you're not a coward! That voice can be so damn hard to ignore. People just don't understand that it's an emotional reaction and so difficult to control even when that rational part of our brain knows it not true. And a lot of us have that voice. You're definitely not alone in that. You reached out and shared how you're feeling here with us. That is not a coward! It sounds like with a few things that you wrote that you are on the right track. Just keep sharing and connecting and getting some positive voices to listen to and it will become easier to ignore that inner one. It just takes time and support. I sincerely hope that you can start to find that. Like I said, here was a great start for me. Hopefully you find it equally helpful Astel.

In response to: Re: Desperate to change myself

SemlySenior Contributor30 May 2025, 9:44 pm AEST

Re: Desperate to change myself

Hi @Astel

thank you for being here. The way you tell your story - or this part of it - is amazing.

I love the Dostoevsky quote.

You’re on your way. It’s that Goethe quote:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now”

You’ve begun!

(please forgive me if I’m using a hokey interwebs quote when you’ve used a properly literary one!).

I love what @MJG017 has said about the relentless presence of that corrosive inner voice. Mine has been pretty loud (deafening) lately.

But here we all are, fighting back against the isolation and loneliness of hearing only that voice.

Also - I know you said you’re desperate to change yourself. But you sound pretty awesome already.

For some reason your post made

me think of Exactly How You Are - which is a song that sometimes warms my heart in the midst of the sharp darkness.

Tim Minchin did a lovely version that’s on YouTube.

I hope the day has been kind to you.

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