I have a really hard time meeting people. My best friends are my rats. Lately I've been thinking it's not everyone else, it's me. There's definitely something horrible wrong with me. I will identify that someone thinks I'm clever or some other endearing trait, but when I try to reach out, everyone falls away from me. I get angry at them. "Screw you for not being here for me, I'm never going to talk to you again." I push people away when they aren't as concerned with me as I am with them. Every time I try to go outside now, I feel this crushing weight of all this pressure and all these thoughts telling me I'm just going to get rejected over and over, that any human contact I have will end horribly and I will have even more suicidal idealization than I am now, that I will have a panic attack and need to go to the ER, etc, etc, etc.
I used to have some semblance of self esteem. I recognize that I can be considered pretty if I wear lipstick and eyeliner and smile but it feels like some kind of stupid disguise that people will see through as soon as they talk to me and hear how broken and jaded I am. I don't feel like I can go up to anyone and talk to them anymore. I'm not sure how to meet people and make them like me. Every time I go outside it feels like everyone is just staring at me and thinking bad things about me and I know I shouldn't care, I'm just so LONELY. I can't take it anymore. I try to reach out to people I already have met but they don't have the dedication to invest in me. I can't blame them, I don't think taking care of some depressed person would be very fun.
I used to be a cook. I loved my job. But nobody there noticed me, nobody thought I was important, and when I asked my boss after 6 months for the pay raise he had promised when he had initially hired me. He scoffed at me. "You don't deserve that much. I can't pay you more than $15." I said, yeah, I can make that much at Dick's. He stormed off. The following day, he came in and ASKED ME for my resignation so he didn't have to go through the HR hoops. More proof that nobody believes I am worth anything, time or money, not even when it was promised to me. I took medical leave after my psychiatrist admitted me to the psychiatric ward for the second time this year. Work was the main source of my anxiety, he said. Now I am completely uninspired to find another cooking job, totally unmotivated to do anything but stay at home and watch netflix and draw and eat things occasionally. The only thing that makes me happy anymore is animals. If there were no humans I would honestly have such an easier time in this world.
I need to meet someone who will put up with me. I really don't feel like I am worth anything. I am convinced that nobody wants to talk to me, that nobody cares what I am going through. It doesn't seem like anybody even knows what I'm dealing with. They keep acting like there is some kind of fix, like if I could just do one thing I'd stop being depressed tomorrow. I just want someone to hold me and tell me everything is okay and protect me from everyone else hurting me and to protect ME from hurting me, somebody who won't mind that I'm not a whole person and that maybe they could find me charming in some weird quirky way that would make me feel okay about myself. I just know I can't meet them without going outside, but... I'm so scared.
How do I get up the nerve to walk outside my apartment without feeling like I'm going to be attacked by a black wave?
Will I ever stop feeling like this?