I Feel Alone...

What is wrong with me?

Sometimes I ask myself that. It is hard for me to make friends. Sometimes I feel disconnected with myself and from others. Before I get into it, I must warn you that I am just writing how I feel; I am not taking the time to edit and "tweak" my words to make them sound nice. I want to keep my words authentic.

It is hard for me to make friends. The last time that I have had a go-to friend was in the 6th grade, back when I was 11. I am 19 now, and I am basically a loner. Let me pause for a second and let you know what I mean by a go-to friend, or at least my definition of it.

A go-to friend is basically someone or some people that you can easily go to (pretty self-explanatory, right?) who you can talk about whatever is on your mind. You feel a strong connection with this person or people, and they are there to listen to you and make you feel good. They do a good job at making you feel like you matter and appreciate you. That is essentially what I mean by a go-to friend.

Don't get me wrong, I know quite a bit of people in my life, but let's not confuse acquaintances with friends. I know people, but I don't actually know them. In other words, I know of them, but I do not know them well enough, or we do not connect or relate with each other at that level where I can comfortably say what is on my mind and feel appreciated by this person. For the longest time, I have been looking for someone that makes me feel like I matter, like I am not a screw-up or a bad person. Normally, when I talk to others, I always feel like I am being annoying or that I am taking up too much space in their lives and that I should just go away. Let me tell you why I feel that way....

Growing up, I was usually ignored. Yeah, you know the whole sob-story of being the kid that got bullied and middle school and high school that no one paid attention to (don't worry I will save your time by not writing all that). However, I have realized that I have gotten so used to people just invalidating my feelings, laughing at my goals, making fun of me on me working hard to better myself, neglecting/forgetting about me, all that, and I have internalized it over the years. I gotten so used to people telling me "shut up" or "go away," that sometimes I get too scared on wanting to get to know others. When I do try to get to know others, it is like they barely have a conversation with me as if I am annoying them. I have gotten so used to being the one person who is in the friend group, but not actually part of the friend group, the person that is just there because they just tolerate me. It is like I am a background character, or like an extra in a movie, you know, when you just see those random people passing by in a movie? That is how I feel sometimes. I haven't yet found my people, and honestly, it keeps me up at night. I affects me more and more not really having a group of friends or even someone to go to, hence a go-to friend (see what I did there?), to the point where I do not feel motivated to do any work. Yeah I want to be productive and better myself, but not having anyone that I feel a bond with makes me feel like I don't deserve that. I don't know if I will ever have a group of people or someone that makes me feel good, someone that does not make me feel like a bother or a bad person, is that too much to ask?

This was my very first story and honestly, I am not taking the time to edit it that much since again I want to keep it authentic, where I am just letting out my raw thoughts and feelings onto paper. Hopefully over time I get better at conveying my feelings in the form of writing.