Stuck in a rut

LegacyUser

Going unreg for this one...
i dont even know what im going to get out of this but i dont have anyone else i can talk to about any of this ....
i just feel so lonely.. i d love to be one of those people that has you know different groups of friends and goes out every weekends n always has tonnes of comments on their facebook page but for some reason im not..
i suffer with anxiety (not diagnosed) and it is hard for me to leave the house n if i am i usually get panicky if im out... i always feel like crying the whole time and have absolutely no self confidence and its startin the really get me down.. being the quiet girl gets you nowhere but i just cant do it... i ve tried counselling n im thinking about going back but again the fear and panic sets in over what if someone finds out im going / or they ll think im wasting their time... or will i really get anything out of it. ...
going to work,coming home and sitting in every weekend isnt a life for someone whose only in their 20s

AnnyHallsal

You shouldn't compare yourself to other people on facebook. It's a very shallow gauge of popularity and is ultimately meaningless. I think you're being too hard in yourself. Other people on boards have mentioned meetup.com as a great place for extending your circle. Maybe try that? Also, places like pof.com have people who are there just to meet new friends too. You might feel like there's a stigma around it, but it's a more common problem than you think.

krudler

To put the facebook thing into perspective, I was out with my gf and a few of her friends a while back and they werent having the best night, few tiffs with boyfriends etc etc but people kept posing for their facebook photos looking like they were having the best night out ever, it literally went from a bunch of sourfaced women to all glam and smily looking when a camera came out, and I was looking through the pics a few days later an it showed a completely different looking night to the one I was at. I have exactly 25 people as friends on facebook, I actually talk to about 6 of them, the rest were added for the sake of it, my gf has about 150 people, I'd say she actually chats with 10 of them on a regular basis. facebook friends mean nothing.

LegacyUser

Can I just put this in perspective here. I'm a 27 year old girl. With a facebook page. If you were to look at my page you'd think I was the most boring person in the world. I look at it about twice a week, I never update photos, I never play any of the games, I rarely comment on other people's pages. And the simple reason for this is that I don't have the time. I'm too busy doing the other stuff that makes up living life. Working, eating, lots of sleeping and spending weekends with my small but close group of friends.

Please understand that facebook is irrelevant. It's a curse of modern day society....we've never been more connected, yet more alone. You can have all the friends you like on Facebook, but at the end of the day, when you're commenting and looking at it, you're sitting on your own, in a room. Boring old fashioned face to face conversation will always make you feel better than any comments on an internet page. Please don't measure your life by the status of your facebook.

Saying that, maybe you should go back to your counsellor. Practice talking to people. i know it's a cliche, but you need to join some sort of sports club or social club. Please, please don't worry about facebook, it means nothing.

JonathanAnon

Firstly, I agree with the above about Facebook. One friend of mine has hundreds of "friends" on Facebook, a lot of county players and people of social significance. The guy is manic depressive (tried to kill himself a couple of years ago), owes close to 50k, and most of the people he has listed as friends dont really like him.

Facebook is used by some people (legitimately) to display photos/share message etc etc and by some (immature) people to show everybody else how "popular" they are ... So as was said above.. completely disgregard facebook.

Re: loneliness... do you have any friends in work, family relations etc that you could call round to, even just to kill an evening?

santana75

unregistered wrote: »

Going unreg for this one...
i dont even know what im going to get out of this but i dont have anyone else i can talk to about any of this ....
i just feel so lonely.. i d love to be one of those people that has you know different groups of friends and goes out every weekends n always has tonnes of comments on their facebook page but for some reason im not..
i suffer with anxiety (not diagnosed) and it is hard for me to leave the house n if i am i usually get panicky if im out... i always feel like crying the whole time and have absolutely no self confidence and its startin the really get me down.. being the quiet girl gets you nowhere but i just cant do it... i ve tried counselling n im thinking about going back but again the fear and panic sets in over what if someone finds out im going / or they ll think im wasting their time... or will i really get anything out of it. ...
going to work,coming home and sitting in every weekend isnt a life for someone whose only in their 20s

You got some good respones already in regards to the Facebook thing. It really is meaningless. Krudler hit the nail on the head with his story about the sourfaced girls turning on the fake charm for the camera. Thats it in a nutshell. You cannot under any circumstances compare your life to what you see on facebook, bebo, myspace or whatever. Youre not getting a complete picture of peoples lives through these mediums, you get snapshots where they strike their best pose and try convince the whole world that they are popular and well liked. The number one fear of all people is that of rejection. So in an attempt not to be rejected or judged unpopular people will desperately try to make out like they have these great lives. So please stay away from facebook and all that crap because its a facade and not real.
I know its an old chestnut but just be yourself. If youre a quiet girl then so be it. You dont have to be loud or extroverted or the life and soul of the party. I mean if you'd like a life where you have more friends then thats fine, but you gotta stop beating on yourself for not having the life you think other people have. Stop the comparisons because you dont know what youre really comparing yourself to.
Are you interested in anything? Even just one thing would be enough to get you going in meeting people and making new friends. For example I love sports, and in particular tri-athlons. And through this one thing I have met so many people and made some really good friends. Real friends at that, not the phony post a picture on facebook type of friends. I know it can be overwhelming trying to make new friends, its hard to know where to begin. So just pick one thing that you really like and focus on that, keep it simple. If you like music it could be a guitar group where you meet up and jam every week or if you like photography it could be a camera club.
Go back to counselling, just having somebody to talk to is enough. And who gives a s h i t if somebody finds out? Let them think what they want. If theyre dumb enough to think negatively of you because youre in counselling then that truly is their problem. You cant control what other people think of you, so stop worrying about something you have no control over. Do what you need to do to look after your own well being and dont concern yourself with what others might or might not be thinking.

AnnyHallsal

santana75 wrote: »

If youre a quiet girl then so be it. You dont have to be loud or extroverted or the life and soul of the party. I mean if you'd like a life where you have more friends then thats fine, but you gotta stop beating on yourself for not having the life you think other people have.

This is so true. And empty vessels and all that.. Some of the nicest people are the quietest.

*eadaoin

i suffered pretty badly with anxiety and depression in my early 20s too, it was quite difficult, so i know how feaful and sad you must feel.

the most important lesson i learned from that time is that no one can change your current situation except you. if you find yourself longing for a different kind of life and totally unhappy with how things are for you now then you need to get the ball rolling to get better and start living life the way you want to.

a counsellor said to me once "if you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always got" which took a little while to sink in but it makes total sense to me now! if you want your situation to change then you've got to do something about it.

i know this is a lot easier said than done, and anxiety can double any kind of normal fears we might have about stepping out and reaching for change, but believe me the hard work is worth it when you come out the other end and start really living.

it is nice to have lots of friends, but remember that more friends will not equal more happiness, you need to solve your problems first and learn to be happy with who you are rather than looking to other people to validate yourself.

i think you already know that you need to go see your doctor and talk to them about your anxiety. going back to counselling is a great start. i found neurolinguistic programming (NLP) really helpful for getting me motivate and moving again when i was trapped due to fear, you might to look into it. i have a lot of information on different methods that help with anxiety, if you would like i can give you a link to it, just say the word.

it's a difficult battle, but ultimately worth it if you can pull yourself out of the depths and back into life again, i hope you find that strength within yourself

jenny4385

thanks for all the replies. yea i know i mean i do it myself i stirke a pose on the camera to make myself look like im a happy person when i could be wanting to cry.... its so easy to fake what we re really feeling...
putting on a front to the outside world has gotten me nowhere and when i have told people and gone to get help and there wasnt a quick fix then that drove them away...
its not easy to go out when you worry about every single lil thing that could go wrong when your out no matter how hard you try... its always there...
i used to be not like this... i could go away and not even worry about anything that much...