A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I've just turned 29. I feel massively self conscious all the time. I feel and do stupid stuff like walking down the road, I dread when the lights turn red because people in cars are more likely to notice me. I lower my music in my car when I am stuck in traffic incase anyone can hear it. I hate standing in queues in a shop not because I hate queues but just because you have to stand there while people sort of look at you and shops are always so well lit. I guess when I am out in public I just sort of wish the ground would swallow me up most of the time. I know this is all terribly conceited like I'm the center of the world and I think everyone cares what I look like or how I am and I guess I know deep down they don’t care about me or how I look or how I am but I still feel like they’re all looking at me and they do care.I'm red haired, 6 foot 1. Masculine and heavily set although not fat till after about 23, wide shouldered by nature. My voice carries. I was always the kid who teachers knew the name of first at school. Loud and confrontational normally to hide my insecurities and paranoia which I know now to be cannabis/sexuality triggered from when I was a teenager.I was always on the outskirts of the "in" crowd. I was “one of the boys” as it were but not hugely popular outside or even inside of that group. We started smoking pot when we were about 13. I started dealing pot small time locally to make it free for my own habit at 14. We didn't smoke joints at all we smoked lots and lots of it through buckets, lungs, waterfalls (fountains) etc I’d pretty much wake up do a bucket within 5 minutes. Turns out at some point my friends kind of realized I was at least bisexual even though I was hiding it. Never admitted it to anyone and pretended I was ignorant to what they knew and acted like I hadn't realized they’d realized and tried to act as straight as I could. I am bisexual to this day and find both men and women attractive. I’ve never had a formal boyfriend but I’ve been with men off and on. My first ever sexual encounter was with a boy the same age as me at school at the age of 11. I had fleeting girlfriends in my teenage years, More FWB I guess you’d call them.I guess my decline from socializing started when I got expelled from main stream school at about 14 and a half. Not for one thing specifically just for basically being an idiot. I still hung out with the same people out of school but naturally I was less in their group because I no longer shared school experiences with them and was sort of playing catch up to remain friends. People of course still sought me out because they wanted to buy pot from me.At about 17-18 everything sort of changed. People were getting cars and secretly I knew I wouldn’t be specifically invited into one of the cars. I knew most people wouldn’t want to get into my car either should I get on the road and so I recoiled into my bedroom, still living with my parents and selling drugs for cash I shut people off dumped all my friends and basically sat on my computer at the dawn of the UK’s broadband internet age filling the real-life friend void with internet friends and video games instead. I maintain these pseudo friendships to this day. I’ve never met any of them IRL though.I stopped smoking pot in early 2001 and took to mild drinking to fill the gap. Then eating. I continued selling pot for money and remained in very fleeting contact with a few people who still bought from me. One such person was a girl I’d known for a very long time called Mel. I kind of fell for her a bit and things got messy. She liked cocaine so I started dealing it so I could get some for free to spend time with her. It didn’t go anywhere she basically used me for coke. I realized and sort of dumped her as a friend and went off the deep end drinking and I had started washing up the coke to make crack. I had a 6 month spate with crack cocaine and smoking heroin/drinking to come down during 2004. The crack made me hugely paranoid again.Late 2004 an acquaintance’s friends mother’s computer was broken and around this time I was trying to clean up and figured I could start a computer fixing business because I knew about computers so I agreed to go try and fix it. Her name was Elaine. Turns out she was playing away from home, having re-discovered her sexuality in her mid 30s and was cheating on her husband. Being horny me I made a pass and she sucked me off. I went back a few times and we hit it off. She stopped playing with anyone else but me. Over the following months and then years she drifted further and further away from her husband they became married in title and name alone sleeping in different beds although they still got on mostly and he believed I was her “gay best friend”. We spent 4-5 nights a week together at my flat and went on holidays which I paid for with my computer fixing business which I was working hard at and earning good money from. I had stopped selling pot and coke in 2005 when the 7/7 bombing in London made all the ports locked down and all the drugs dry up like never before. Elaine had helped me off crack, drink and helped me over Mel completely. We become very close. We barely if ever argued.She is 17 years my senior. Because she has 2 kids pretty much the same age as me she didn’t want anymore kids. We’d discussed it time and time again. 12 weeks ago my dad got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, It is very serious and we’re probably looking at months rather than years. He’s just turned 64. The cancer has made me take stock of my life. I left Elaine on Friday 8th of April. I looked her in the eye and told her I was leaving her - it was painful for us both. I hugged her and smelt her hair one last time and then walked away. I loved her no less than I had a year ago; in fact I probably loved her more. I just knew she didn’t want kids and I did and it was time to go. My world had been Elaine for 6+ years. The days she wasn’t with me she was off with her friends whilst I worked or played video games on my computer and talked to my internet friends like I had for so long. No real-life friends to speak of still. Being self employed and a one-man-band I had no work colleagues either.So here I am. Single. Sexually versatile. Fairly well off with a fairly good business. The world is my oyster. I feel sad but I also feel excited. I feel reborn in an odd sort of way. If I can leave Elaine I can do anything. But you see I can’t. Because the paranoia and self consciousness in public is still there the same as it has been for more than half my life now. I want to get healthy and go to the gym. I want to learn how to skateboard. I want to learn how to box so I can feel more self confident and be healthier. I am seriously considering learning how to skateboard at night when no one is around and I can feel free to be me. Find the most secluded place I can and feel free out of these 4 walls for once.My dad’s cancer has made me take stock of the life I am wasting and of the life I have wasted up to this point. I want to shed the inhibitions that stop me from doing what I want to do because of the paranoia I feel all the time. I know the things I want to do but don’t do I will regret as I get older. I have regrets because of this now. I want to be a better person and be less loud and confrontational because I’ll no longer need it as a defense mechanism. I want to date and possibly meet someone to have kids with. I want to meet people and have friends like everyone else does. I just want to be me without having to worry about it all the time. Maybe I’m a coward for being unable to face up to and overcome the feelings I’ve had for so long.
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reader, anonymous, writes (15 April 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI appreciate all the positive input from you guys. I've never really thought of what I was experiencing as anxiety before, it kind of makes sense.
Thought I should maybe give a little more detail.
Elaine cleaned me up some 6 years ago. I've been clean since then. I've relapsed maybe once or twice every two years when very very drunk - I'd curb crawl pick up a prostitute and ask her to get me some crack. I have gotten very fat with Elaine (she was a big girl when I met her) I am 18 stone now. I was closer to 12-13 when I met her, so I guess I replaced drugs with food in a sense.
When I left Elaine I promised her I'd stay clean. I've not had a line or a pipe or any alcohol. I know for an absolute fact if I got drunk right now I'd crumble and call her I just know I would.
I hooked up with an old friend about 6 months ago, we see each other once or twice a month. I called him 2 days ago and went round there he still sells coke I knew that already I thought he was pretty clean though. When I got there he was high as a kite and wanted to get drunk with me to come down. I told him no, walked his dogs around the block with him. Listened to him talk a bit and then left. He admitted he had a coke habit and needed to shift it. Ironically he's probably jealous of me. I don't even smoke cigarettes anymore I gave them up 10 weeks ago.
I felt sorry for him. I felt evolved and superior and guilty about feeling superior too, strange emotions. I’m a bad person.
With regards to my dad: I guess I feel guilty for being such a dick when I was young so I bend over backwards for him and my mum. I love them to utter bits and I respect the fact they’ve always been faithful to each other. They’ve always done their best at parenting rightly or wrongly. They’ve never drunk to excess or done drugs or gambled. They’d accept me if I told them I was bi I know they would I just don’t have the balls to tell them. They’ve never pushed much upon me ideology or religion wise. I feel like I owe them a hell of a lot. My dad and I were building a model railway in their garage up till about a year ago when I guess work got too busy or I got bored with it. Anyway I had taken the time to go round there at least twice a month. I run my own business I've turned my life around and he knows it. I'm self sufficient but still let them help as parents like to occasionally.
When my dad got diagnosed the NHS wrote him off as having an inoperable pancreatic carcinoma. They offered him chemo with little chance of being offered radio. Because of the type of cancer he had there was only a 40% chance of the chemicals getting to the tumor due to restricted blood flow. He got given a 60% likelihood of 12 living months. Wiki reckons median survival time to be 3-6 from point of diagnosis. 95% dead within 5 years. He was going down fast I'd been worried about him since before Christmas I thought he'd sort of stored up all his oldness for when he'd retired as other people had told me people do sometimes. They retire and then they age drastically.
So I google’d. Constantly. For Hours. I gave the man who had got up 5 days a week to go to work to feed and cloth me for 20 years and who had quite literally held me in his hand and wiped my ass when I shit myself and held my head up when I was too weak to do it myself some other options. Some of those options were snake oil type ones like CAAT (Controlled Amino Acid Therapy) some were trials like Nelfinavir or 32P Biosilicin or Telovac. Some were mental things like PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). I hooked him up with a customer of mine who had got himself out of a wheelchair following a crippling disease. I gave the poor bastard options when the NHS could not.
I found him one of the leading pancreatic cancer surgeons in Europe. Dr Buchler in Heidelberg in Germany. He's worked on famous people according to my mum one of his walls in his office was plastered with pictures of him with famous people. Mcmillan cancer forums and other sources confirmed his prowess in this field. I got copies of the CA19-9 blood test results for cancer markers. His Bone, blood and renal and CT results from the hospital. I typed them all out and I sent Buchler a pleading email.
2 days later I got a reply saying they should come to Germany ASAP for a consultation and to bring a bank letter confirming they had 40grand sterling in the bank (I had asked for prices). HSBC the worlds local *unts refused to give them a letter because they couldn't liquidize assets (like tesco shares) quick enough. They have a 200 grand house and a mortgage just paid off from HSBC. HSBC basically made my dad crumble with that news. My mum said she'd never seen him that angry although he never raised his voice to the HSBC person apparently. They called me and asked if I knew any accountants who could look at their assets and write a letter on their behalf. I knew someone I hooked them up in under an hour. The hospital confirmed this would be enough
A week later my dad flew to Heidelberg for a consultation with the doctor 3 days later I flew out there to be with my mum whilst my dad went under the knife. Almost a 9 hour operation. They removed his gall bladder his spleen, some of his large intestine, 80% of his pancreas (left as much as they could to help with enzyme production and insulin) and his appendix. The liver looked good there was no sign of metastasis. 3 weeks later I flew back out to help my mum get him home. He’s okay I guess. 2 days ago he even laughed. Tomorrow is his second dose of chemo to try and neutralize anything that might have spread or anything that might remain. He’s been giving a 30 chance of living longer than 5 years but I am not getting my hopes up yet.
So anyway both my mum and dad are proud of me I think. My dad has called me a hero on more than one occasional. I cannot articulate how much I love them and I think they know I’d quite literally move mountains for them if I could. I go round there every day for at least an hour and did do before I left Elaine. He doesn’t know I’ve left her but my mum does.
I saw a counselor on Monday I figured it was a wise choice since I had no one in my life I could tell the whole story to. I overloaded her and tried to tell her everything in an hour and got pissed off when she didn’t have answers for me. I’ve never been terribly patient.
I have another appointment next Monday too. I will try and get all of this out with her over the coming months. Cognitive Behavior Therapy sounds good. Medication does not for me I don’t think.
I bought a skateboard today and I spent a couple hours between 1 and 3 am on it and it was great and I love it. Fell off like 4 times and it hurt but I got back on the horse.
Thank you all for simply being there.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (14 April 2011): Hi im very sorry to hear about your dad. And sorry you ended up taking and dealing in drugs for so long. As a parent, i known the best thing you can do for your dad right now is to tell him you are turning your life around. We parents worry so much about our kids when things dont turn out ok for them. So telling him you intend to live a clean life from now on, will make him so much happier, despite his diagnosis. Make him some promises and stick to them.
The paranoia you experience is normal after so many years of drug use. My nephew got to the stage that he physically couldnt leave his room after years of drug abuse. His parents were driven to pack his bags and throw him out of their home because they couldnt cope with his phobia about germs, aggrophobia, paranoia ect. So he left london and came down to the coast and lived with all the family here. That was a few years ago and hes fine now. Very 'normal' and happy. You too can reclaim your life if you really want to. You sound as if you are very shy, anxious, with little confidence and an addictive personality. You could try researching counsellors in your area and find one that can address these issues and help you make sense of your life journey so far. There are many people who feel as you do, bless you. So dont punish yourself or feel less than eveyone else. Stay clean, get some real help and make your dad proud x
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reader, anonymous, writes (14 April 2011): OMG!! you are so self absorbed it is untrue!! You need to go out and do some voluntary work, read books, watch the news.. get your head out of your a**. There's a whole world out there which does not revolve around you. ... my god...read your question back as if it is not you.. what kind of person do you see there? not attractive is it..
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reader, anonymous, writes (14 April 2011): I think you should probably consider getting regular counseling sessions... at least 3 months. I was an overachiever in high school, but never really felt I had close friends because I was constantly trying to hide my dysfunctional home life. I always felt like I was on the outside because no one really knew all the issues in my home life. Sometimes I even find my behavior socially awkward.Over the past 10 years I went to counseling here and there and then found one great counselor who really helped me identify some of my issues (social anxiety, mild depression). It's always difficult to ask for help... sometimes even more difficult to find good help, but it is definitely worth the effort. I am continuing to see a counselor just to help me deal with unresolved issues. Best of luck!
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