Venting My life

[Rabbit&Blackberry]

I'm 18, and I've been thinking a lot about how I grew up. I often feel like a hollow operating system.

Most of my childhood was spent indoors on YouTube or gaming. I didn't do sports, didn't go to clubs, didn't hang out with friends. I never learned how to socialise. My posture got messed up from always trying to make myself shrink out of sight. I didn't learn basic social stuff, how to talk to people, how to have fun. I was just alone.

This continued into my adolescence which was mostly taken up by gaming.

I think this lack of real experience has stunted my development. I am socially inept. I know people on the spectrum who are more social than me.

My parents had every opportunity to give me a better start. They had the time, the money, the education. One of them even has a psychology degree, so they knew about child development. But they just let it happen. They watched me get lonelier, weirder and sadder over years and years and they didn't step in.

i think it's child abuse. They deprived me of what all children need, community and physical activity. Its neglect.

I have nothing. No friends, no formative memories, no social skills. Nothing. This was all completely preventable if my parents had given a fuck.

When I compare myself to my cousins, it's so obvious. I'm not like them. They had experiences I didn't, and it shows. I was kept inside and left alone when we should've been out in the world, learning how to be people.

I think I'm going to kill myself to escape the effects of this deprivation. I can't stand not being a real person.

Sorry if there's any typos this is ai assisted and written late at night.

 

[Saponification]

Same here. I am so repellent socially I literally feel like I'm invisible to other people. I also don't have any memories of happy or remarkable moments in my life since I just spent all of it on videogames and social media, like you.
I wanna kill myself because I feel like a hollow piece of nothing, life is boring and there's nothing but emptiness on the horizon.

 

[cyanidefries]

Extremely relatable. My younger brother and I were "homeschooled," for me it was all of high-school, and him all of his life since 3rd grade. We weren't actually being sat down and schooled, just placed in front of screens, left to do whatever we wanted so long as we were out of sight and out of mind. Social isolation has devastated me, and I can only imagine how detrimental it has been to my brother. I already had no friends while I was in public school, I was too weird and uncool or something along those lines, so I can only imagine how downhill my social skills have gone since then. Sucks bad man.

 

[worthless123]

Same. I feel so bad for my younger self. That little 8 year old kid stuck in his room after school every day without any siblings, or friends or fun activities. Just watching youtube and playing roblox, totally unaware of how much worse things would get when he grew up. Unaware of how badly he was stunting his development. Unaware how much bullying he was going to endure when he got older. It's heartbreaking but there's truly no way forward for me except to ctb.

 

[Linda]

At 18 you are easily young enough to start doing the things you missed out and and, with a litle practice, doing them successfully. But it won't happen unless you make it happen.
You could start today.

 

[Rabbit&Blackberry]

At 18 you are easily young enough to start doing the things you missed out and and, with a litle practice, doing them successfully. But it won't happen unless you make it happen.
You could start today.

I've been trying, but my ineptitude really shows. People often think I'm autistic or mentally ill. I have bad anxiety and bad brain fog.

I am healthy, active, decent looking and try to put myself into social situations often. Nothing ever really comes of it. I don't know anyone's names of anyone at my college.

I'm open to change my mind, but I think CBT is the rational option for me.

Same. I feel so bad for my younger self. That little 8 year old kid stuck in his room after school every day without any siblings, or friends or fun activities. Just watching youtube and playing roblox, totally unaware of how much worse things would get when he grew up. Unaware of how badly he was stunting his development. Unaware how much bullying he was going to endure when he got older. It's heartbreaking but there's truly no way forward for me except to ctb.

Yep. Delt a shit hand. It fucking sucks.

It feels like the only 2 options are suicide or having kids and giving them a better life

 

[Apathy79]

You'll get better at it with time.

As a comparison you might like - I was a hermit for about a decade, with no human contact at all for almost the entirety of that period. Every couple of years I would see family for a few days and have to retrain myself how to talk. It didn't really work. It felt like a conversation even with one person moved so fast and I'd forgotten how to articulate sentences. With 3 or 4 people? Forget it. Later my hermitage burned down and I needed to live in a shelter with others for a while. And over time I gradually learned the skill. How to interact again.

It helped me to begin with honesty. That I don't know how to do this or am very bad at this. If the intent is right, some people will come through and help. One old lady even helped me approach strangers in the shelter just to talk, telling me what I was doing right and wrong. Over time you get better.

I was doing these things in my 40s too. It's going to be uncomfortable for a while but you've got time. Volunteering at an aged care place is probably the perfect way to start. They love the company and to be able to help. Good luck with it.

 

[Linda]

I've been trying, but my ineptitude really shows. People often think I'm autistic or mentally ill. I have bad anxiety and bad brain fog.

I am healthy, active, decent looking and try to put myself into social situations often. Nothing ever really comes of it. I don't know anyone's names of anyone at my college.

I'm open to change my mind, but I think CBT is the rational option for me.

A nephew of my husband was in a similar situation to you at around your age, and for several years after. Now, at age 38, he has a responsible job in the oil business, travels internationally for his company, and was recently promoted further.
His brother, incidentally, was always very sociable from a very young age. But he was lazy, never put in any effort, and now has a dead-end, menial job that is not well paid.
What you make of your own life will be very largely up to you.