Hello everyone, I've decided to write a bit about some problems I've been having for a little while as a means to express myself. I believe that if I put my feelings in writing here, then maybe I can begin to express myself better to people in reality. So I'm a uni student, just started 2nd year, and over the past year since starting uni things have taken a bit of a low turn in my head. I've always been a fairly guarded person, but never unsociable, or never questioned my feelings or sense of identity. Before uni I knew who I was and was quite happy with it. My initial months at uni were excellent. I enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing a more independent lifestyle, but after those initial months I started to think very negatively about myself, how people perceive me, and my place in other people's lives. I'm not really sure what exactly triggered this, but perhaps the change in setting has something to do with it. In terms of my relationships with others, I'm constantly second guessing myself and their opinion of me. This is leading me to close myself off from my friends. Also, it is preventing me from being emotionally available to them. In the past my sense of empathy has allowed me to connect with the people I'm close to quite well. I was perceptive of how they may be feeling, and willing to be there for them. However, as of late I'm too trapped within my own negative feelings to be there for other's. I'm sensing myself becoming apathetic towards other peoples' struggles, and that's not the kind of person I want to be. At the same time, I'm second guessing my relationship with friends, thinking that maybe they don't like me, or that I annoy them. Initially I thought these feelings were exclusively toward my uni friends, and not my old high school friends. However, these negative feelings have seeped their way into that aspect of my life as well. A good case study of these feelings happened very recently, I've been invited to a halloween party by someone I share a class with. Initially I was pleased, I wasn't expecting it, but soon after the absurd idea that somehow she had mistakenly invited me drilled its way into my thoughts and brought me down. I'm aware that this is a silly thing to think, and that in turn makes me question myself even more. Why am I thinking in this way?
I believe also that part of my diminished sense of identity, ability to express myself is to do with feeling that I don't have many 'close' relationships anymore. A great anxiety of mine at the moment is the lack of a relationship, a girlfriend. I've never been in a relationship before, and because of this I'm questioning whether I could possibly be interesting to anyone at all. When I develop feelings for people, a 'crush', I don't know how to process it, or act on it. There's simply a limit on my confidence in this aspect. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and don't like what I see, that i'm too fat. But over the last few years I've lost a lot of weight, and sometimes I'm pretty pleased with my reflection. It's very inconsistent.
There's probably a lot more I could say and have missed out, but if you've read this far down, thank you. I'm starting to identify that not everything is okay with my thought process at the moment, and that maybe I need a little guidance. Any comments or thoughts would be much appreciated