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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faerl'Elghinn" data-source="post: 1751600" data-attributes="member: 17810">Hey, man- I've felt like that before.  I'm on an SSRI, but I still have recursions of those feelings sometimes.  Let me clue you in on a little secret: even people who have had success with the opposite sex look at other guys and say, "Oh, woe is me- I'm not as attractive and interesting as that other guy.  Why do I always get the short end of the stick?"  As a child, I was somewhat of a prodigy.  I learned to read fluently at the age of three, by which time I spoke in clear, concise English, and had a complete understanding of many advanced concepts.  At four, I was chosen from among several candidates to attend a special education preschool as a teacher's aid, to help tutor mentally handicapped children.  When it was time for me to go to school, many of the top local private schools were vying for my attendance.  By the end of Kindergarten, I had finished my fourth grade Phonics book, and was several years ahead of all of the other children in all areas.Amidst all this glory, I discovered the seedy underbelly of reality.  Although I was a friendly, attractive, intelligent child, some of the other children went to great lengths to humiliate me at every opportunity.  I was suffering constant abuse and ridicule which often met the approval of my teachers.  What was worse, I began to exhibit signs of dyslexia and ADD, but because I was able to compensate for them through sheer intellect, these problems went entirely overlooked, and I was often held to a higher standard than the other children, one up to which I could not always live due to my developing disorders.By the fourth grade, I was at a loss.  I couldn't focus long enough to perform many of my assignments, and my grades began to decline.  By the sixth grade, I was failing classes, smoking cigarettes, and using drugs and alcohol to try and alleviate some of the adversity from my classmates.  I began using terms such as "ain't", as well as a nearly constant stream of expletives to mask the fact that I was different.  Through all this, I occasionally showed a glimmer of my former brilliance through outstanding and virtually unmatched academic performance.  When I went to take the entrance exams for the local private high schools, I scored high enough to merit an academic scholarship, despite the fact that I had never learned much of the material presented.  As a freshman, I rarely completed a homework assignment, as my OCD (a new development) and ADD prevented me from maintaining focus when left to my own devices.  The assignments I did complete, however, were often scored higher than anyone else's.  My test scores were virtually always at the top of the curve, allowing me to maintain passing grades in most of my classes, despite the fact that I rarely completed my homework or even bothered to learn much of the material.I had once had a dream that I was a shining star, but one day I woke up and realized that I had become a clinging piece of poop in the butt hair of the world.  By the age of sixteen, I was a virtual dropout, attending home school somewhat halfheartedly, maintaining a full-time job in a restaurant, and drinking until I vomited on a daily basis.  I used any drug I could find, including but not limited to crack, paint, and LSD.  I rarely ate, often failed to report home, and was involved in several violent confrontations with my father, twice resulting in his hospitalization and once resulting in my indictment.  Yes, I had a few very attractive girlfriends.  I had long hair, was fairly handsome although very thin, played guitar, wrote poetry, and had a beautiful singing voice (reminiscent of Daniel Johns of Silverchair, although I could emulate various others almost perfectly, such as Chris Cornell, Maynard James Keenan, and James Taylor.  Yeah, I'm that good).  The trouble was, I wasn't socially assertive enough to pursue my musical interests with any great success.  Whenever I underwent a breakup (which was inevitable in those days, due to my complete lack of self esteem), I withdrew from society for months at a time, writing endless streams of dismal poetry and contemplating suicide.Anyway, to make a long story short, I nearly partied myself to death, but chanced upon a wonderful woman who has now borne me three children (son Sebastian Alexander Spitzig born 8/20/04!!) and been my wife for the last six years.  She has helped me through many of my issues (including but not limited to manic depression [borderline schizophrenia], agoraphobia, and xenophobia), and I am now well on my way to recovery, although I still need to take the plunge into psychiatric care.  I work in a factory under a man who can barely spell his own name, much less understand many of the complexities of lithograph printing, which is what I do.  Oh, yeah, and I've been a hardcore D&Der for the last 13 years. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> My advice to you is this: Look down at your feet.  Now reach down and grab your proverbial bootstraps, and yank as hard as you can.  If you need a friend, drop me a line.  If you have one, talk to him and tell him that you need some support to get your life in order.  Maybe there's even a woman out there for you, but she sure as hell isn't interested in a guy who doesn't seem to care about himself at all.  If not, well- women aren't always all they're cracked up to be...  Get up right now, and go and take a look in the mirror.  Smile, even if it makes you want to cry (that's what it used to do to me).  Think to yourself "That's what I'd look like if I were happy.  I want to look like that."  Above all, remember that somebody does care about what happens to you.  It's me.Edit: corrected spelling of "remeniscent" to "reminiscent".</blockquote>

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