Lonely and lost in life.

[Ploddingonby]

Hello 👋
I’m not sure what I hope for by creating this post but maybe just someone who understands.
I feel like the most lonely, most worthless, waste of space, uninteresting, unvaluable, weirdest, unwanted person in the world.
I try so hard to help others and to be a person that is the opposite of the things I feel but I just feel myself sinking into a deeper hole at times.
I’m here because I’m a mum. I truly believe that. Bringing up my children is the only thing that I feel I’ve done well in this world. Not perfectly (nobodies perfect hey!) but well. They’re great kids and I’m very lucky. But aside from that I feel like I’m a failure of a human and at times I’m even starting to question whether they’d actually be better off without me too.
I have no parents in my life, I never have done really. My mum has been absent most of my life and has severe learning disabilities so I understand, my dad was abusive and the only other older family members I ever had were my nana who was an alcoholic and my aunty who didn’t like me and made that very clear verbally and eventually physically.
I have a younger brother who I had live with me for years and has now gone on to live his life with his partner. Great job, allot of travelling ect. I am so happy for him and love him so very much but even to him I feel like me and my children are a burden.
I have a couple of friends but I feel like again we’re just a burden to them as I feel with most people around us.
I have a partner of a few years but we’ve been unstable in the most stable of ways if

Sorry it cut out!
.... if that makes sense. My partner also has a daughter who I love very much but there is such a clear divide with my partners daughter and my 2 children In my partners family which I get, we’re not biological but after 3 1/2 years it just makes me feel like we’re yet again just a burden.
My mental health is shocking. I suffer badly with anxiety and was diagnosed with GAD last year. I think I suffer with depression and anxiety more than I would have ever admitted in the past but I just can’t stop feeling this way.
How can I help myself?!
I did a long course of CBT last year and it has helped in ways but also I just feel even more crazy like I’ve opened a door now that I can’t close!
I just want real connections. Real friends. Feel love from people is real and genuine, everything just feels so.... fake. Like no one really cares or likes me or wants me in their lives so just puts up with me as I’m very helpful to have around.
Has anyone else ever been in a similar place and felt a similar way? And how did you/do you help yourself?
It’s almost like I can scream at myself to sort out this self pitying mindset and be determined to do it but then one tiny trigger and I’m back to square one.
Thank you to anyone who has read this dreary post all the way through!

Hullo OP

Not sure I have anything to say but I feel similarly lost and lonely. Didn't have loving or supportive parents, a brother who barely tolerates me and clearly dislikes me, a husband I hate. I have some loose friendships/ acquaintances but no-one who has been through similar trauma or who can understand what I have been through. I have some longer standing friends but they live in a different country now and are drifting away.

I have utterly failed at life. That is how I feel.

I feel really lonely - really utterly lonely and like I am spinning in space alone with nothing to hold onto. Useless, worthless. I genuinely wish I had never been born. I only keep going for my young children - it really is one day at a time to get through.

Nothing helpful there OP, but I feel the same.

So sorry you both feel like this. No advice but you are definitely bot worthless. You both recognise you had bad starts in life so now you are being much better parents to your children. You have a lot of love to give them and that's all they need to turn in into happy and confident adults. Your DP sounds like he is dragging you down and maybe you would feel less lonely without him? Sorry I don't have much to offer xx

*not even!! Sorry about typos

Hello notmeagainsurely!
Thank you for your reply but very sad to see you feel this way. I’m certain that you are worth so much more than you give yourself credit for.
It makes me sad to see you speak of yourself this way but I guess we’re in the same boat.
I also feel a failure. I am currently not working and just feel like I’m floating by in life with no purpose, completely uninteresting and unnecessary to anyone or anything other than my children.
They are great kids but I panic so much that other people view them as burdens too and that makes me so sad.
My eldest is now a teenager and my youngest (nearly 10) is diagnosed with ADHD, asd traits and sp issues. They are typical boys and can argue and fight but also are super sensitive, loving, interesting, beautiful hearted kids yet I feel all people choose to see in my youngest is.... naughty 😔 he’s come on SO SO very much as he’s gotten older but yet I feel like he’s never given a fair chance with people.
Sometimes I think I’m just being paranoid about it but I can’t shake the feeling that none of us are wanted by people.
Sometimes I get so sad and mad that I have to exist because realistically my children are my everything and I would never do anything to loose them or let them loose me but then I get mad that I have to stay here in this world and then feel so terribly guilty for feeling this way.
What have you done/do you do to help the way you feel?

Hello OP (and notmeagainsurely)!

I know what you’re feeling, honestly I do, it’s the worst feeling in the world feeling so horribly lonely! I don’t have any kids either so it’s just me bumbling along in my own little world!

Happy to chat about anything if you like

Oh the pain you're in comes straight off the page. You have not known love, you don't know that you are valuable and lovable for simply who you are. I can feel very much a failure as a human being - I am so lucky that I can afford a great counsellor and she has helped me enormously.

Try reading up - and then practicing - self compassion.

5 rhythms dancing, meditation, anything that is about you simply being you, helped me a lot.

Keep a dream diary. Hug yourself and praise yourself whenever you can. Kind of reparenting yourself - you sound like a great mum, so mother yourself. If you were your mum what would you say to you?

I'm so sorry you feel so bad. Remember the Samaritans are there always. I wish I could help you more, you deserve to love yourself.

Yes, I've felt like this.

The first thing that helped was antidepressants, lifting my mood made a huge difference to my thought patterns.

The second thing was person centred counselling, and a lot of it, to look at my present life, messages I had absorbed from the past and relationships.

I'm not 100% ok, but a lot better than I used to be.

Wigwam pumpernickel hi! 👋
You sound lovely just from your small reply 😊 I’m sorry you feel lonely, I’m here! and likewise I am here if you fancy a chat. I’m not all misery and sadness despite my original post. I can hold a fairly decent conversation online... It’s just when people actually spend real time with me I start to feel all these things. Or when people don’t spend any time I feel these things. More so in company though. It sucks but it never goes away.
I’m also happy to talk about anything though 😊

Buckingfrolics hello 👋
It is painful, so very painful. So painful I feel my heart squeezing and breaking sometimes, so painful I can’t catch my breath at times. So painful my head pounds and I just want to cry but I try, I try so hard every day to be stronger than that.
I hate that I sound so self pitying, I want to be strong and capable not lonely and worthless but I can’t help but feel this way and it’s so hard.
I don’t feel like there’s a single valuable or loveable thing about me. I feel like my entire body and my entire mind are just seen as disgusting and worthless and an absolute waste of space in this world.
I grew up being told these things and much more every single day of my childhood so in a way I can understand they might not be true as I know my dad was an abusive man but it hurts so much that even your own parents saw you that way as a child, how could anyone ever see you as anything else?
He hurt me more than he will ever know, physically and emotionally but the verbal abuse is what sticks.
I am so pleased you have a fabulous councillor, I can imagine how much help that must be. I was also lucky enough to have 22 sessions of CBT last year through the NHS but I don’t feel like I made the most of it, I found it so hard to open up and I feel that I wasted allot of the time. I also tried hard not to become too attached to my therapist as I worried she wouldn’t want to help me if I came off as needy.
Thank you for all of your great advice. I have tried allot of self care techniques but It always comes back, this feeling of being.... NOTHING.
I struggle with food and overeating/underrating hugely. I either eat to make myself feel better and end up feeling even more worthless or starve myself and use laxatives I think with a goal in my head of being as nothing as possible. It goes up and down but I saw a professional for that this year at a couple of lbs away from being underweight and feel like I am taking better control of this now.
Thank you, I feel like being a mum is the one thing I am needed for in life and am pretty good at. My children are my everything but I realise they’re growing up and I have to encourage their independence and encourage them to be the most amazing versions of themselves and I know the day will come sooner than it feels like it will when they will leave home and be who they are destined to be in the world and then what is my use?!
I’m just so tired. So so tired. Of being here, of being me.
I feel like I am here to take care of everyone around me. I am the strong one. I am here of course for my children. I am here for my partner and my partners daughter. I am here for the pets so my partner can work. I am here for other people’s pets when they want to go on holiday. I am here if people need help with things. I am here for my children’s friends and welcome them in. My children each have a friend who has a tough time at home and spends allot of time here which I love but what about me?
Where’s my parent? Where’s my adult to care of me? Where’s my person to give me a break? Where’s someone just to accept me without conditions? I feel like a child saying all that but it’s just so unfair.
I don’t want to actually be taken care of, I’m very capable on my own but I just want to feel loved and accepted.

No one in my whole life has ever just been there for me without conditions and loved the good and bad parts and it’s tough. It hurts that I’m not worth it and never have been to a single person outside of me and my children.
I feel like people only want to be in my life when it benefits them, when I go along with the plans that suit them and I’m not too difficult or struggling with my mental health.
I have called the Samaritans before, when I’ve been desperate to die and just begged and pleaded for it to happen but I’m not quite in that place right now.
I will always pull myself out of it too but it just hurts.

Gingerkittykat hello 👋
I’m so glad to hear that you are feeling better than you were 😊
I’m a bit anti medication, I’m not sure why but I’ve just been that way forever but maybe I need to look into the possibility.
What is person centred counselling? My CBT therapist said that counselling would be a good idea for me and I think I could get some nhs sessions but I also feel like I would be wasting their time and not wanted there as I have already taken up allot of time with CBT sessions.

Marlena1 hello!
Sorry I missed your reply.
Thank you for your response, I feel very grateful that I am a good parent to my children, I took lessons away from a bad situation on how never to be a parent so there is always a silver lining! I also feel grateful that I am able to understand my emotions and try to work on them it’s just hard feeling this way so often. I don’t think my partner brings me down, I panic sometimes that we’re not compatible and we have had some lows aswell as highs but I have mostly felt loved by her in the relationship (we are in a same sex relationship) and I love her very much also. I just don’t think I am very good at people being close to me although it’s something I want so very much. I struggle to work myself out at times!

Sorry the comment on the DP was for the other poster. It sounds like you are doing a great job of raising your boys. We all worry that other find our kids annoying as a lot of the time they are. It's no reflection on you it's just the way they are. Sounds like you are doing a great job. Don't panic about compatibility, just let it flow. If it works out that's great. She obviously is happy to do the same. If it doesn't work out you'll deal with that too.

I'd recommend you look at medication again. I take a low dose of ADs and it's been a life changer. It doesn't change "you" but lifts that black paint that covers everything and makes you feel so unloveable and unloved and empty. It kind of rebalances things.

You feel unloved and insufficient because your parents were insufficient and unloving. My guess would be that there is a long family history of inadequate parenting. You've done so well to break that pattern.

So think about going to your GP.

Hello OP. I can identify with some of your post. I also feel worthless, a failure, and totally inadequate. It seems everywhere I go, I’m faced with people I want to be. I want the family photos, I want the career, I want the caring partner, I want what I feel I can’t have because of my inadequacy. I feel hugely insignificant in life, feel like my children must be too because they are a product of me, they are adults now so I know this is untrue though.

I also feel used, and when people do things to me, ie not visit me, yet expect me to go there, it reinforces my lack of worth, I’m not even worth a visit.

I lost my mum, my sister and split with my partner last year, so all these huge losses in the space of 6 years. My deep connections have gone, and I am rattling around trying desperately to recreate some somewhere.

I feel utterly alone, and it’s the worse feeling.

I feel for us OP

Marlena1
Sorry! I thought you were talking about my situation 😳 notmeagainsurely what is it that makes you hate him? I think when we stay in unhappy situations it makes our own mental health worse. Sometimes even when things are hard and we will suffer temporarily the best thing to do is let go of things not meant for us. Marlena1 that’s my problem allot of the time, I’m a huge over thinker and over analyser and I realise it’s not positive and work so hard on trying to change it but a deep rooted feeling of being worthless at the core just fuels it.
It’s not even like it’s a feeling allot of the time it just feels like my truth. That I am in fact a waste of a human. That I was accidentally put into this world and now because I’m a fighter and chose to fight hard to be a good person and stopped myself getting sucked into the life I was getting into as a teenager and have amazing children that I’m an (averagely) good mum to, the world is stuck tolerating my existence.
Relationship wise it’s such a long story so I won’t go into it but to summarise she wanted everything ie moving in, marriage, no time apart ect very quickly and pushed for it at the beginning.
She moved into my home, we were engaged with a wedding arranged and deposit paid, she spent a long time not wanting any time apart and not understanding my need for time to myself and a steady slow pace for the kids sakes especially with my youngest having additional needs.
Basically things were too fast, she moved back out, we cancelled the wedding and I’ve almost finished paying her mum back the money.
I’m almost debt free now (which was initially something I felt we needed before moving in and she has a HUGE amount of debt also). We struggled together financially. She has a previous gambling addiction, I paid for the large majority of everything and fell further into debt as a result (although I choose to spend on the kids and take them out to nice places so I could have saved there I suppose).
She lost her home due to non payment of rent so it wasn’t that we’d arranged to move in together through happy circumstances.
Anyway too much information and now I’ve rambled lol.
She spent 8 months being distant with me and then eventually broke up with me 2 months ago. I get it. I ruined her life. I’m shit. She wanted us to live together and get married but I wasn’t ready until things were more stable. I suffer with my mental health and slipped into an eating disorder with all the guilt and was probably shit to be around.
But then when I said to her I needed to heal on my own and have no contact for a while she told me she missed me and loves me and doesn’t want to loose me.
I love her more than I thought I could love another human outside of my children so of course I didn’t want to let her go either.
But now I live in this constant feeling that she doesn’t really see a future, that I’m just useful and she will find someone else. That I’m not easy going and too serious. That I’m seen by her the same way I see myself.
This situation really doesn’t help with my own depression and anxiety and feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness but I love her so very much so what do you do?!
Buckingfrolics
Thank you for the advice, I think I will consider it more seriously. I’ve tried so hard with CBT, I would like to try some more and maybe some counselling but maybe it’s time to try medication too. If it helps it’s worth it! Yes they were insufficient and unloving and yes I expect there is a history but I just sometimes wish it had been different. I have amazing children who know they are loved. Who have beautiful hearts and put good into this world by just being a part of it. I have worked helping people with mental health for quite some time until I had to give up working with my brother moving away (childcare) and will go on to go to university and travel more in time but I just wish I didn’t carry this feeling of being nothing and being dirty and being so worthless and unimportant. Feeling like an annoyance and a burden just by being in the presence of others. I have broken a pattern yes, and thank you, it feels nice to hear that and I will continue to fight I just sometimes struggle with seeming so alive but feeling so dead, appearing to have it together but feeling crushed and just so small inside. I will talk to the gp, I just need to build up the courage, thank you buckingfrolics.
It’s all pointless
I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling these things, sending you a virtual hug and a promise that you’re not a failure, worthless or inadequate.
I understand so much, it’s a terrible feeling and so hard to live with.
Your children could never be those things because they have you and you love them! You are lucky as are they that you all have each other. My children are what keep me going. My love for them, their amazingness and inner beauty and the potential they have to be whatever they want to be in life!
You sound like you had such a very tough year and I’m so sorry for all of your losses, that must be very hard to deal with.
I think that’s all I want in life, just deep connections where I feel loved, accepted and wanted without conditions or expectations. I think it just goes back to wanting what I have never felt right from being a child.
It’s hard knowing what you feel and what you need but not knowing how to fix it.
I am here to talk if you would like deep conversation or even just light hearted.
I thrive on deep connections and need them in my life so much so even if it’s online and not in real life it’s better than none at all 😊

I’m a bit anti medication, I’m not sure why but I’ve just been that way forever but maybe I need to look into the possibility

I had a friend with an emotionally abusive mother. She had life long anxiety and depression. She was VERY anti-medication, despite her depression being so bad it was debilitating. When she was 40 she finally decided to try anti-depressants and she said they really helped with the depression. So you never know, it might help.

p.s. the more you write the more I think, yes! I feel like that too!

Notmeagainsurely 👋😊
I don’t really know what it is to be honest. I suppose I just feel that I should be able to be ok without it. But yes, maybe it’s the right route. Maybe they would help.
I’m glad they helped your friend! Ehat we’re her reasons for being anti medication do you know? No judgement just intrigued as I don’t really know my own reasoning if I’m being honest.
It’s nice to resonate but I’m sorry you resonate with feeling this way, I hope you manage to find a way to feel better about yourself.
I’m going to pop to an arty place this afternoon... I’ve heard they do great coffee and cake 😁 and it’s a mixture of a charity shop and an art and craft centre... heaven!
They also run allot of workshops and groups so will look into that to try and make some new friends or just have company and people to chat to to build up my sense of self worth whilst doing something I love just for me.
Positive steps! Just wish it wasn’t always up one and down two but we have to keep trying.

What were her reasons.... autocorrect! 😳

I'm not sure to be honest. She was VERY against it though. She had counselling and did mindfulness based stress relief and such like, but refused to even consider medication and became furious if anyone suggested it. So that's probably why we don't know - she wouldn't discuss it just became angry at the suggestion. It was anti-depressants that she said helped in the end though. She said they didn't help her anxiety but did her depression.

Very helpful to know. That even though she felt so against it they helped in the end.
I think mine may just be a little bee in my bonnet originally but then fuelled by the fact that I was advised my youngest start taking medication for his ADHD 2 1/2 years ago and being very against that.
He never did start medication but with allot of research, talks attended with mental health professionals in adhd and asd, great SENCO intervention and help from the school he is now at a point where he doesn’t struggle as much as he used to and I feel it would be almost hypocritical of me to then get myself some medication for my own mental health.
I don’t know it’s just my best guess as to why. Maybe I need to get over myself and my opinions on it a bit. I will definitely be looking into it.

This thread has inspired me to give the anti depressants another go so thank you

Wigwampumpernickle 🥳
I’m so pleased this post has inspired you to try again 😊
Hopefully you’ll be feeling happier about bumbling along soon!
You are valuable and interesting and have lifted my mood just by taking the time to read and reply on here as has everyone else that has taken the time 😊

I’ve booked an appointment with the gp to talk about the possibility of anti depressants. It’s on the 4th July. I wouldn’t have done it if not for this thread so thank you.

Well done.

How did it go?

Thank you 😊
My appointment at the gp isn’t until next week but I have that booked and have re-referred myself back for some talking therapy, maybe CBT maybe Counselling I’m not sure what it’ll be yet, I suppose whatever they feel would be the most appropriate.
I’m feeling better than I was last week but I have to make a very conscious effort to keep trying, I’m feeling proud of myself for that though 😊
How is everybody else feeling?