Venting Even with positive social bonds, I can't feel anything. Being alone becomes the only option left out of sheer futility.

[Imaginos]

Wherever you go, there you are. And whoever you meet, there you'll be. It wasn't until somewhat recently wherein I realized just how true the latter of those statements really is. For many years, I used to think that if I could somehow make a connection with another person on the same wavelength as myself, then everything would be alright. Or at the very least a little bit more alright than things had been before. My bouts of loneliness were once relentless and unforgiving, with the sensation making itself known in ways that were as frequent as they were obscure. However, now I've come to see that there's no value or solace to be found in forming connections with others, even if they're wonderfully kind and compassion people. I don't know if it's because I'm a fundamentally defective person, or if it's due to the fact that I've spent so many years isolated and cutoff from the rest of the world that I've permanently lost whatever capacity I may have once had to feel fulfillment/joy in the company of another person.

There was actually an experiment conducted on monkeys to study the effects of isolation/depression, wherein an infant monkey was placed within an isolated chamber of perpetual darkness dubbed "The Pit of Despair". Some monkeys were stuck in the pit for 30 days, some for a few months, and some for an entire year. Those trapped in this space for a whole year, once released, were found to be permanently mentally damaged/scarred and unable to engage socially with any other monkeys. Those that could were badly bullied and ostracized from the group. You can read more about it on Wikipedia, but for me I can't help, but see some similarities between the ordeal suffered by those monkeys and the one that I myself have experienced. Of course, as opposed to those poor monkeys, no one's actually locked me away in a confined space against my will, but even so, the toll taken on my psyche of 15 years being spent more or less isolated 24/7 has left me in a pretty similar predicament, outcome wise. Although these issues I have with social integration stretch back to early childhood, long before I began to significantly isolate myself, the isolation has compounded the problem a thousand fold.

At this stage, I don't really know what to think anymore. Loneliness has taken on a whole new definition for me. It's not just separation from other people, but a separation from those aspects of one's humanity that bestows fulfillment/joy in the company of others who genuinely like you and want to be friendly with you. It bears mentioning though that severe depression/isolation leaves nothing untouched, and perhaps this inability to feel anything from social bonds goes back to anhedonia, which itself drains the pleasure/goodness from everything there is. In either case, the bottom line here comes down to the fact that I'm just utterly, completely and totally too fucked up and dead inside to truly reciprocate a friendship, or a relationship. The damage is done and, while I very well may have been doomed from the very start, I'm certainly doomed now.

I'm still talking with this person I met a couple months back, and while they're an exceedingly wonderful person whom I share a very high resonance with, I have no idea how to convey to them the overwhelming emptiness I feel in our exchanges together. If I told them, they'd only think it was somehow their fault and feel bad, even though it has nothing to do with them whatsoever, and I'd feel the same emptiness no matter who it was I was talking to. I just don't see the point in continuing to communicate when I otherwise can't feel anything. A lot of people yearn for a connection like this, and not too long ago I myself deeply yearned for it, but now that I have it, it's like the final curtain has been pulled away revealing the same yawning abyss that's surrounded and consumed everything else. I just don't know where to go from here, other than to keep on going until it somehow makes sense, but I honestly don't know how much longer I can manage that. There was always this understanding inside of myself that I was never going to find any true solace in life. Meeting someone and making a connection like this was the last chance to see if anything could prove otherwise, but now that chance has been spent and the void has shown itself to be inescapable. My loneliness was borne from ignorance and wishful thinking, oblivious to the reality of how numbed and hollowed out my reaction to this kind of thing would be, once it finally came my way.

Some here have probably heard the phrase "forever alone" before, but it comes with the assumption/desire that if only someone stuck like this could meet another person, they'd no longer suffer from the predicament. For me, being forever alone is an insoluble dysfunction with my very heart itself. The kind that no one and nothing could ever help or solve. Only now do I fully realize the scope and bottomlessness of being alone, in the sense of being beyond the reach of anyone and everything, even if they're right next to you and have taken a genuine interest in you. Like a ghost, the ability to feel the sensations of life is no longer possible. Assuming, in my case, it ever really was.

Pit of Despair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair

 

[Luchs]

Wherever you go, there you are. And whoever you meet, there you'll be. It wasn't until somewhat recently wherein I realized just how true the latter of those statements really is. For many years, I used to think that if I could somehow make a connection with another person on the same wavelength as myself, then everything would be alright. Or at the very least a little bit more alright than things had been before. My bouts of loneliness were once relentless and unforgiving, with the sensation making itself known in ways that were as frequent as they were obscure. However, now I've come to see that there's no value or solace to be found in forming connections with others, even if they're wonderfully kind and compassion people. I don't know if it's because I'm a fundamentally defective person, or if it's due to the fact that I've spent so many years isolated and cutoff from the rest of the world that I've permanently lost whatever capacity I may have once had to feel fulfillment/joy in the company of another person.

There was actually an experiment conducted on monkeys to study the effects of isolation/depression, wherein an infant monkey was placed within an isolated chamber of perpetual darkness dubbed "The Pit of Despair". Some monkeys were stuck in the pit for 30 days, some for a few months, and some for an entire year. Those trapped in this space for a whole year, once released, were found to be permanently mentally damaged/scarred and unable to engage socially with any other monkeys. Those that could were badly bullied and ostracized from the group. You can read more about it on Wikipedia, but for me I can't help, but see some similarities between the ordeal suffered by those monkeys and the one that I myself have experienced. Of course, as opposed to those poor monkeys, no one's actually locked me away in a confined space against my will, but even so, the toll taken on my psyche of 15 years being spent more or less isolated 24/7 has left me in a pretty similar predicament, outcome wise. Although these issues I have with social integration stretch back to early childhood, long before I began to significantly isolate myself, the isolation has compounded the problem a thousand fold.

At this stage, I don't really know what to think anymore. Loneliness has taken on a whole new definition for me. It's not just separation from other people, but a separation from those aspects of one's humanity that bestows fulfillment/joy in the company of others who genuinely like you and want to be friendly with you. It bears mentioning though that severe depression/isolation leaves nothing untouched, and perhaps this inability to feel anything from social bonds goes back to anhedonia, which itself drains the pleasure/goodness from everything there is. In either case, the bottom line here comes down to the fact that I'm just utterly, completely and totally too fucked up and dead inside to truly reciprocate a friendship, or a relationship. The damage is done and, while I very well may have been doomed from the very start, I'm certainly doomed now.

I'm still talking with this person I met a couple months back, and while they're an exceedingly wonderful person whom I share a very high resonance with, I have no idea how to convey to them the overwhelming emptiness I feel in our exchanges together. If I told them, they'd only think it was somehow their fault and feel bad, even though it has nothing to do with them whatsoever, and I'd feel the same emptiness no matter who it was I was talking to. I just don't see the point in continuing to communicate when I otherwise can't feel anything. A lot of people yearn for a connection like this, and not too long ago I myself deeply yearned for it, but now that I have it, it's like the final curtain has been pulled away revealing the same yawning abyss that's surrounded and consumed everything else. I just don't know where to go from here, other than to keep on going until it somehow makes sense, but I honestly don't know how much longer I can manage that. There was always this understanding inside of myself that I was never going to find any true solace in life. Meeting someone and making a connection like this was the last chance to see if anything could prove otherwise, but now that chance has been spent and the void has shown itself to be inescapable. My loneliness was borne from ignorance and wishful thinking, oblivious to the reality of how numbed and hollowed out my reaction to this kind of thing would be, once it finally came my way.

Some here have probably heard the phrase "forever alone" before, but it comes with the assumption/desire that if only someone stuck like this could meet another person, they'd no longer suffer from the predicament. For me, being forever alone is an insoluble dysfunction with my very heart itself. The kind that no one and nothing could ever help or solve. Only now do I fully realize the scope and bottomlessness of being alone, in the sense of being beyond the reach of anyone and everything, even if they're right next to you and have taken a genuine interest in you. Like a ghost, the ability to feel the sensations of life is no longer possible. Assuming, in my case, it ever really was.

Pit of Despair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair

I don' t want to say that I know what you are going through, but I can empathize. I'm just a few steps away from completely socially isolating myself. I hate myself so much that I assume no one could like me, so everyone trying to be friendly with me comes off to me as a person either pittying me, or trying to somehow exploit me. My friendships provide me nothing but pain, because deep down I have the feeling that I know that everyone hates me. Keeping up friendships is so much work and just a chore, and all I get out of it is pain. I know that if I give up now and just let myself fall into isolation I'll completely fuck myself over irreperably, but I just can't anymore. The only reason I still keep a social circle around me is because I am afraid that I'll go full ob off the rocker, pants on head retarded batshit insane once I am all on my own.

 

[FuneralCry]

Living really can be painful. I think it is true that damage can be irreparable. We can never forget anything and experiences can stay with us and affect the way we feel. I am very socially isolated from others and I struggle to connect to others, it is just in my personality. I do know that loneliness can send us into despair.

 

[tardis]

Humans are highly social. It's unlikely you were born like this. It's true years of social isolation will screw you up irreparably. I'm sorry for your going through.

 

[BeansOfRequirement]

Bro the videocalls won't have the same impact as physical touching.

 

[Celerity]

When I was in the middle of my worst depressive episode, I was like this. I came out of it, but I did not experience such severe social isolation like you. I'm so sorry. Why are you alone all the time? Do you work? Do you have family?

 

[Makko]

You're not totally gone yet. You can apparently still bring yourself to be concerned about it