I'm incredibly unhappy and have been all my life. I'm 26 and I've got no friends; never had a girlfriend. I don't have much of a life I can't get off my phone, no matter how hard I try. I've been alone all my life. I've got these awful fetishes that I just can't stand. You might say well don't fight it, embrace it, but it just doesn't give me satisfaction or relief. I feel like I have no control over myself.

I'm a negative person. See the worst in other people and myself. But then, you look at the state of the world from the planet burning, high level state and corporate corruption across the world, the constant anger dripping from people online and you wonder what is the normal response to the world? I don't know how anyone can accept the state of the world as it is? Live in the present moment? Disassociate from your thoughts? Those techniques at best provide short term relief but are otherwise useless.

Inside, I feel powerless to change my circumstances. I'm unhappy with my job, even though most people would give their right arm to a four day work week tech job at £30-£35K. It's not what I want to do with my life though, and while I don't mind the work itself, I do hate the workplace I'm in and that will never change. I live with my parents and when they mention how unhappy I am, they guilt trip me and say with all the work benefits I have, that I shouldn't complain. It makes me feel worse, not better, because I just believe something's wrong with me because I can't cope with even favourable circumstances.

I crave external validation. I see how tiresome that is for people. It's tiresome for me too, because I don't want it, but at the same time it's an automatic reaction to seek it out; another thing I can't control. At the same time, I'm human, alone and don't know what to do. 

If only I was able to communicate. My social skills are so poor, I can't hold a conversation unless it's about one of my niche interests. I'll be in social groups at work or with my family and I'm standing/sitting in silence with no clue what I'm about to say. I know I can socialise in the right circumstances, but nerves, anxiety and that flight or fight response never goes away.

I'm a grown man, but I feel like a child so often, helpless and unable to do anything to change. It's not for a lack of trying. I've tried to get out there, go to classes, try online dating, push myself out of my comfort zone. In other words, I do all the things everyone tells you to do to get out of depression, expand your consciousness and broaden your horizons. I can safely say that none of it had worked for me.

I've taken CBD oil (with THC) before for 6-8 months at the start of the pandemic, but I've not taken anti-depressants out of fear of being trapped in a cycle of constantly experimenting and trying out new medication. At best, it'll numb the pain of life, but it won't enable me to change. I'm don't want to be disrespectful to people who are on medication. I'm sure it's worked for many people but I'm weary of the side effects.

It's an inherent contradiction, I don't want to die, but I don't want to live. If I truly wanted to die, I'd be dead now and not posting this on Reddit. I'm trapped, disempowered, literally and figuratively impotent and sickened by myself and the world around me. I feel like a freak, an idiot that no one can love. 

I don't know what the point of this is. I just want to find people, call them friends, call it a support system, whichever term you'd like to use, but to find people who truly understand, that don't judge me or treat me like dogshit, that tell me not to get off on my sad story. I want to be free of my story, not relive it everyday of my life because that's the nightmare I'm trapped in. Not relive being bullied out of school, being taken out of high school and getting homeschooled for 2 years, of my failure at university -- questioning my intelligence every single day because of my 2:2. Being told by "friends", strangers, parents, teachers that I'm weird because I cried everyday. I have to be on my phone everyday so I don't have to relieve the pain of my life from the past, the present and future.

All of this just despair, anger, negativity builds up inside of me, I release it and starts to build up again. It hurts being alive, to wake up hating yourself and the life you've built out of compromise with no one to blame but yourself because you're unable to break free of the shackles of your life.