Time Machine

The media is completely twisted, self-serving, and evil. These days they thrive entirely on clickbait outrage and fearmongering. It doesn't matter if they're "left" or "right", they both do the same thing. They don't care at all about unbiased truth. It's really, really unhealthy for people with depression, anxiety, or PTSD to watch the news.

Hey guys, I hope you're all doing well in these trying times. I was thinking about you a lot. I'm doing OK, all things considering I guess. I suppose being a pessimist and expecting the worst out of life has kind of mentally prepared me for bad times in a way that regular, optimistic people couldn't understand. As an agoraphobic, I didn't leave my house much anyways, so I endured the stay at home order well. I do worry a lot about my aging parents' health and also my immune-suppressed brother. Take care, everybody.

I know, and I was the same way. But you just have to learn to change the way you present and carry yourself. Maybe the old fashioned solution is better-- you must have a friend that is popular and knows how to get girls, right? Ask him for advice on what to do. And then then you need to do what he suggests. One of the things he may tell you is to change your clothes and hair. This may feel "gross" and like it's "not you", but you must do it. Think of it as a uniform you wear, and you can dress more casually at home. As others have said, joining some sort of club is a good way to go. What are some of the things you are good at or enjoy? I want to warn you not to base all your happiness on girls though. They can make you feel good, but they are very fickle and will tear your guts out. You can't let yourself fall madly in love because if you do, your depression will get exponentially worse when you get dumped. You have to learn to just enjoy the moment and to let it go when it's over.

Hey dude, I can relate to you a lot. I never went to any of those formal dances in high school. I was too much of a coward to even ask a girl. Already, you are so much braver than I was at that age. I had a very determined nerdy friend that had to ask several dozen girls before he got a yes. Honestly, what I would do if I could go back in time? This is going to sound insane, but I would have gone to an escort service. Cut a deal with them that you're not looking for sex. Hire a pretty young gal to be your date, and make sure she is dressed properly for the event. Women want what they can't have. The only time girls ever showed any interest in me is when I was already in a relationship. If they see you with a pretty girl, it will blow their minds. The most important thing about being a male with depression is you must never show it. You must never whine or complain or be a downer. Women are repelled by negativity. But it's perfectly acceptable to relax and be yourself at home with your parents. I don't know your mom, but I think it would be in your best interest if you were honest with her. I know in my case, I hid the fact I was being bullied in school from my parents. So they thought I was skipping school because I was just a lazy slacker. You might want to look into some men's forums out there. And you might want to even check out some of the men's rights ones. I found some good advice that way that made me understand women a lot better, and also ways to feel better about yourself. But beware of any angry or super-negative guys you might meet there. Also beware of PUA con artists. EDIT: My childhood was during the cold war. We were constantly tormented by the media about the inevitable nuclear Armageddon. It never happened obviously. And it's not going to happen. Turn of the news because today's journalism is 90% bullshit clickbait and scare tactics.

Hey guys, I just wanted to give you a little update. I had an MRI and got the results. I don't really know what it all means. Most of it said normal, but then there was this part which sounded a little weird: Another state agency is going to try and help me find me a part-time job that I can do. But I'm not going to hold my breath. Since I'm effectively "retired" at 43, I decided to take some adult education courses at the local community center. I'm taking some art and foreign language classes. These are the kind of things I wanted desperately to study in college, but my parents and I believed wouldn't be viable job skills. I was extremely envious of my peers that were taking the art and performing arts classes back in college. What they were doing seemed like so much fun. As we know, there are no time machines to go back, but maybe I can still learn a little bit even at my age.

I know what this is like. I was always a funny-looking kid and puberty made me look even weirder. I also had a lot of health problems that contributed to this. And I just keep getting uglier every passing year. I'm going to tell you the honest truth that you already know well. In this world, looks and money (also power and fame) are all that matter to 99.9% of people. Nobody will hire me. And dating is impossible. It's all done on the internet now where people judge you solely on your photo. I would never even get cast for school plays and have had to fight like hell to achieve anything. I don't know what age you are... it sounds like you are young. If you're still living with your parents, tell them about your problem and that you want the necessary plastic surgeries and procedures. (I was too ashamed to do this when I was young, and I regret it.) If they say no, do whatever you can to persuade them. If you are an adult, do whatever you can to get the money to do it. Yes, even beg for the money on gofundme or another similar site. So many opportunities that I'll never have again slipped me by because of superficial reasons like physical appearance. It's horribly sad and unfair that it has to be this way, but you can't give up. You need to be the one to push back against the fate you were dealt.

First of all, let me say I'm very impressed by your integrity and character. In my experience, girlfriends were always fair-weather friends and would ditch me any time I hit a roadblock in life. It's cool to see you're not like this. It's very common for mental illness to suddenly develop in guys his age. They can be normal people and then suddenly change almost overnight. I had a high school friend like this. He went from a quirky nerdy guy to a raging lunatic during his first year in college. He went berserk several times and was arrested and sent to the nut house at least twice. He told me he was bipolar, but I'm pretty sure it's something much worse like schizophrenia. All my friends abandoned him and I tried to stay a loyal friend to him, but the unpredictable rages he would fly into became too much. I talked to my shrink about him and we decided that I should cut him out of my life. I blocked him on social media and haven't heard from him in years. I'm a lot happier now. You're not going to like what I have to say, but you cannot fix him. He has to want to fix himself. As you've said, he's not that same person you once loved anymore. You don't deserve to be treated like you're a nuisance to him. You need to realize that it's over and move on with your life. He is never going to get better, he will only get worse. Tell him that it's over. Then do everything you can to try and forget about this guy. You're still young and you can do so much better.

Hi everybody. I feel a lot less manic now. But consequently, I'm back to being apathetic and inactive again. It looks like I neglected to explain my current living situation. I lived with my parents until I was 30. My parents and I talked to a lawyer and I was declared disabled around this time. I began receiving welfare benefits at this time like SSI, SSDI, and EBT. I also got on Section 8 housing and was able to get an apartment within walking distance of my part-time job. For a time, this was good. The people at my job were very nice, and I got back into shape by walking to work every day. I was mentally in a much better place and I decided that I was going to go for this ESL teaching job in Japan before I turned 40. To apply for the job, I needed a whole bunch of documents like my birth certificate, diploma, etc. These were all still at my parents' house. When I told my parents I wanted to apply for that job, they flipped out. My dad told me that if I got that job, I would only fail, and in the process lose my section 8 housing and welfare benefits he'd fought so hard to get me. They refused to get the documents. Like I said, they are hoarders and it was impossible for me to find it on my own in all the mess. So I applied to the state and my college to give me new documents, diploma, transcripts, etc. But they didn't get to me in time and I'd missed the deadline. Soon after, my boss died and I lost my job. All of this broke me. Basically, I feel like a caged animal. I have food and shelter provided for me by the nanny state, and my family feels like that should be enough. But I wanted so much more out of life. But if I take any sort of risks for a better life, I would lose everything if I fail. The welfare rules state that I cannot save any money more than $2000 or I'm punished. And if I get a job and make too much money, I also get in trouble. The system is like a sand pit of poverty that I can't climb out of.

I have similar problems. There just aren't many jobs in my town that I can do. I fail every interview. The only jobs I've ever been able to get are through my employment agency. I've made things difficult for them because I refuse to do any jobs where I have to deal with the public like customer service or secretarial. I just can't deal with people well. I end up pissing people off without trying to. So as a consequence, I end up with dead-end jobs in store rooms or filing cabinets. I've been unemployed now for over a year and I'm not sure I'm any better off. Doing nothing is stressful somehow. Being isolated and speaking to no one for 6 days a week has given me weird problems with my speech and voice. I've been gaining weight like crazy. I know it's extremely difficult to find the motivation to do so, but maybe you should start applying for other jobs.

I can relate to this a lot. Physical illness and pain always makes my anxiety and depression much worse. I wish I understood the medical system in your country so I could be of more help. In the US, doctors are extremely reluctant to give pain meds to anyone except the very elderly. But they will give me muscle relaxers like Tizanidine. It works pretty well for me.

I used to love that show too. When I was in high school, adults would tell me, "These are the best years of your life!" I didn't want to believe them, but it turned out to be somewhat true. I dream about high school sometimes too and hanging out with all my friends, with a warm and secure feeling. Maybe, but she was the best girlfriend I ever had. The only other real relationship I had prior was with an insane, abusive (in every sense of the word) person just after high school. I am not a perfect person and I'm sure I'm hard to live with. I didn't have any friends in that Japanese university and tended to get much too clingy with her. She would just come to my dorm and make out, and when she was done she'd just leave. I worried that our relationship was too shallow. So toward the end I said we should go out and do stuff like I felt normal couples would do. But when we went out she hated how everyone would stare at us. I think that had an effect on her, plus the fact that her friends hated me. She later became an exchange student and came to live in my hometown for a year, but refused to see me. I don't know what I could have done to foster such enmity in a person. Japan was a hard place to live in, but at least I was unique there. In the USA I feel like an invisible nobody whose existence doesn't matter, or even worse a pariah.

Thanks guys for understanding. I've made a lot of mistakes in my day, but I seem to fixate on that foreign student year in my dreams. There were so many opportunities there that I blew. Had I known there was about to be a world-shattering event that would change my country into a depressing one I don't even recognize, I would have stayed over there. There was one other American guy that went over there with me. His language skills weren't as good as mine, but he had a very mellow attitude. He got along so much better over there than I did. He stayed over there and worked for a while. He met a girl and they got married, moved back to America and had a family. He's a good guy that sends me Christmas cards every year. But I can't help but feel sad and envious when I see pics of his happy family.

One day out of the blue I get a text message that it's over. I wanted to talk it out with her, but she refused. I was really shocked and numb to it at the beginning. I really tried my best to handle it in a mature way, like a man. I tried to act like it was no big deal, even though I was devastated. But when I ran into her and her sister on campus, they would act like they didn't even see me and ignore me. Soon, everyone she knew were doing this kind of shunning to me. I'd try to meet knew people, but the gossip reach to them and they'd then ignore me. I started to go absolutely mad. I just said, "F___ it" to myself and stopped attempting to fit in or be liked. I started telling people that annoyed me what I really thought of them in the most colorful Japanese I had learned. One time we were in the school bookstore and I ran into big sister, who ignored me. I played dumb and just said, "Reimi!! How are you? I haven't seen you in so long!!!" I put her in a position where she was forced to answer me. She said, "Oh..ha ha. My vision is so bad! Sorry I didn't see you!" and tried to act freindly, but her eyes were seething with hatred. I requested with my adviser to be sent home. I was told to just suck it up and deal with it like a man and was refused. So I fell into bad old habits and just stopped going to class altogether. Not once did any staff or student come to yell at me, which reinforced my feeling of being unwanted. The instant my one year was up, I just took off overnight without looking back. I didn't want a going away party where they fake like they're going to miss me. I was so disillusioned and didn't want anything to do with Japan anymore. I moved back in with my parents and regressed. Months after I got back to the US, 9/11 happened and I couldn't get hired anywhere. Since then, I've only been able to get entry-level dead-end jobs. My (American) college has recently made the national and international news for how crazy it is, and many people now view it as a laughingstock. The skills I'd learned weren't employable ones, at least not in my town. I can't really move to another state or country because of my anxiety and depression. I need my family to be in driving distance when I have those extreme spells. I picked this name because at night I often dream that I can go back in time and fix mistakes I had made in the past.

In high school, I had this great summer job where I basically just hung out with Japanese college girls from the Kansai region. They were such happy gals and fun to be with. So I thought I would make lots of friends there. I was wrong. I requested going to Kansai, I was sent to a totally different region in Kyushu. You could look at it as being similar to the Deep South in the USA. My new life was novel at first, but soon became monotonous. I only had friendships with other foreign students. I felt like I had failed because I was totally unable to integrate. I felt like everyone was staring at me and gossiping. Then things changed. I started dating this girl I'd met at a Christmas party. She came from a rather conservative family and wasn't allowed to date, even though she was 19. She'd never even kissed before. I also learned she was liked by everyone and was the smartest girl in her class. We were very happy in our secret relationship. My depression evaporated and I was able to concentrate in class again. I had a motivation to live again and my grades skyrocketed. I finally felt like a normal person; a fully functional adult. But although I was able to keep our relationship a secret, she started to tell others about it. First her older sister, then her closet friends, and then others. She shared way too much intimate information with people. And conversely, she'd tell me intimate details about her sister's sex life that I really didn't need to know. But through her, I met a lot of people and started making friends with her friends. And then I found out I wasn't paranoid and everyone really was gossiping about me. I rubbed people the wrong way I guess and suddenly my poor girlfriend became my complaint center. Every faux pas I had ever made during my stay was reported to her. And she'd sternly confront me about it. "Mitsuko said you are a bad person. Why would she say this? Explain!" And I didn't know what to say.

Hi. Thank you all for giving me your time. Sorry for the length of this. I have to get it off my chest. I hope it's entertaining at least. When I was a child, I was an outgoing, straight-A student. Always the top student in class. People had a lot of hopes and expectations for me. But when I hit puberty, I suddenly came down with severe depression and it was difficult for me to concentrate in school. These turned out to be life-long problems. In middle school and high school I could never fit in and got bullied mercilessly. I probably stayed home from school 50% of the time. Obviously, my grades were terrible and my parents were always angry with me. I begged for them to transfer me to another school and they refused. I eventually dropped out. I took the GED and passed it easily. But I didn't have a lot of options for college. There's a state college near me that was more flexible and would admit almost anyone, so I went there. It was one of those hippie schools with no required courses and no grades. I thought I was grown up and knew how the real world worked, and I picked classes that I both enjoyed and thought would be employable. So I took about a 50/50 course load of Japanese language/culture and media production. I met a lot of like-minded souls in the media production classes, but people in the Japanese classes tended to be elitist snobs and I didn't get along with them. I applied to be an exchange student in Japan, but was turned down because those teachers that didn't like me were the judges. In one of the few times in my life my parents went to bat for me, my dad threatened to sue the school and they begrudgingly selected me the following year.