It has been probably the best 4 months of my life. That is how I'll preface this post. I'm probably going to get into a lot here but I really feel like talking to a bunch of internet strangers is going to help me.
I'm 20 years old and a college student in the United States. My senior year of high school and my freshman year of college I struggled with the most of my depression and anxiety. At the beginning of my senior year I was diagnosed with chronic prostatitis. This is an ailment usually reserved for middle aged men but lucky me at 19 I get to start having biological Erectile dysfunction, a swollen prostate, and difficult/painful urination. I had a sexual encounter with a girl who I had pretty much been fantasizing about since my sexual awakening. I almost didn't get it up, but somehow I did and we had sex. A few weeks later she hit me up again and this time there was no helping me, my dick stayed soft as a blanket. Obviously this happens to a lot of people, but I was still mortified. It didn't help that this incredibly manipulative girl decided to tell as many people as she could, and I became known as the limp dick guy for the rest of my senior year. This incident has completely stunted me with women.
I thought going to college would help this. A new start. I chose to go to school at a small liberal arts college and play Division 3 football. That ended up being a terrible decision. I've always struggled with confidence because of weight issues, but I played offensive line so I had to be a larger person. I was 6'2 275 pounds at this time. The guys that I met there I thought would be good friends at first, but as they started feeling more comfortable being themselves, I realized they were nothing different than bullies. Any attempt to show emotion would be hit with a raucous chorus of "Shut up faggot", "Wow you sound super soft right now", or "You're acting like a beta". There were no stones that wouldn't be thrown. You tell someone something in confidence and two days later it would get thrown in your face to get a laugh from the others. One day I was having a particularly tough time with my prostate and I opened up to someone who I thought would understand. The next day I show up to practice with fake AARP cards in my locker because only seniors have prostate problems. From then on I was called "Old man" or "grandpa", which aren't inherently bad names, but because I knew why they called me that and It was something I am super self conscious about, it broke me. If it weren't for my parents I would have killed myself that week.
I knew at this point I wanted to transfer, but I was terrified. What if it happened again? Would I ever be happy? Was I the problem? I felt hopeless. Luckily I am blessed to have a very wonderful father who helped me through this decision and ultimately decided to transfer to a University in my hometown where my dad had graduated from. That has been one of the two most important decisions I have ever made. The other decision was finally seeking out help again. This summer I began therapy for the 4th time in my life. I had never been successful with it in the past, and I honestly did not believe in it until my mother broke down in front of me and cried for hours because of how worried she was for me and how much she thought therapy could help me as it had helped her. I went and was prescribed anti depressants right away, and I honestly believe they have changed my life.
My first 2 and a half months at my new university have been the best of my life. I slowly started to realize that I am actually an interesting, smart, funny, and good person. I started to like the person I looked in the mirror at. My inner dialogue changed from a mean and desperate voice telling me I wasn't worth happiness, that now woman would ever want to love me, or that none of my friends ever cared about me. It started saying things like, you can do this, be yourself, you deserve to be happy. I received a bid from a top fraternity on campus, have been killing my schoolwork, met my new best friend, and have lost 40 pounds since march. I love myself now.
But the evil never really goes away. I haven't had a serious relationship since I was 17. I haven't had sex since October of last year, and before that I hadn't had sex since May. I am still seriously stunted with women. However, now I am a completely different more confident person. I met a girl at a party one night in September, we were both drunk, but we were really vibing and both had a really good time. Instantly I started thinking about dating this girl, cause I'm a total loser and I haven't received female attention in over a year. (Im not an ugly person, I think Im somewhat attractive, I just really struggle going up and talking to women). Anyways, we went on a few more dates and she is giving me all kinds of weird signals. At this point I'm significantly more invested than I should be. I'm thinking about this girl multiple times a day, letting how/if she talks to me completely alter my mood. My inner dialogue stops being nice and starts being cruel again. Eventually I confronted her and asked where I stood with her. Unfortunately I did this when we were both drunk. I don't really remember what was said but I just remember feeling super confident and that she said she'd contact me tomorrow and we'd hang out that night. Well tomorrow came and she never contacted me, I was super confused so I decided to ask her if she wanted to hang out, she responded fairly apprehensively, so I asked to talk sober the next day cause she was being super confusing because I thought we had a good conversation the night prior. We come to talk and I guess that night we had decided to take it slow, but my asking her to hang out the next day and asking to talk sober made her realize that what we were meant more to me than it did to her and we should probably try and be friends for awhile before we try anything romantic. Honestly this was a weight off my chest for that day. I didnt have to worry or wonder about how she thought of me as I frequently did during the day when we were talking. It wasn't until the next day that I realized how royally I had fucked up. If I had just not gotten so obsessed with this girl and been able to be a fucking normal chill guy, we would probably still be talking. I know you can't change how you feel, but it's really been fucking me up the last couple of days. I'm so fucking disappointed at myself for being such a loser because she was honestly super cool and we got along really well, I just pushed her too hard to be something she wasn't ready for, and that wasn't fair of me.
Even though I've been doing so well, this has sent me reeling. I've been doing nothing but going to class (in only physical presence) and laying on my couch or smoking weed and eating. I'm still good at acting that I'm fine, so I don't look like anything is really bothering me, but I can't get out of my own head. It's not heartbreak. I know what that feels like. I'm just self deprecating myself in my head over and over for being such loser and getting attached so quickly and fucking things up so royally. I honestly believe If I had just not contacted her at all on that day after we talked drunk, that we would still be talking right now. I just cant believe I fucked myself over so royally. This seemed like it was my shot. And I know thats why I fucked it up, because I convinced myself that this was my one and only shot with a woman and I had to nail it down as soon as possible. I'm terrified that I've completely fucked myself for future interactions with women now. Am I going to be known as the weird clingy guy now? I still don't really know how to talk to women, I kinda lucked into meeting the girl I was just talking to.
The point of this whole post was to mostly just to feel the therapy of writing it. But I'm honestly just stuck. I need to get out of this rut before my depression and anxiety own me again. My anxiety was the reason I got so hung up on this girl in the first place. Social interactions are where I deem a lot of my self worth from which coupled with my intense social anxiety cause me to be so depressed because I can't make those connections like I want to. I really only have that issue with women now as I've kinda broken through that barrier of anxiety when making friends. And while friends are incredibly important, I'm a complete romantic and I'm so tired of being lonely. I'm not a "niceguy" or an "incel", I don't blame women for why I struggle with them. I had one really bad experience and it has made me second guess every interaction I have ever made and ever will make with women. I just want to be out of my head and be confident with women, but I let my anxiety and depression take over and I fucked up the shot I had. Honestly just where do I go from now? I know I'm not as sympathetic as many of the people that struggle on this subreddit so I don't expect a lot of replies, but If anyone has struggled in a similar way I would really appreciate some advice.
Submitted October 30, 2018 at 02:03AM by pencils4africa https://ift.tt/2OZAo8M
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