Improving self-esteem and self-confidence in the face of insults and beration

That's all classic Aspie right there. Some people on the spectrum benefit from social coaching or drama classes. Others find places where it isn't a concern if they're socially awkward. That won't be likely to happen on San Francisco, but you said you have had better acceptance in Europe.
And MrsA is correct in saying that you write beautifully. I also find writing to be a much easier form of communicating that speaking.

Hey, cool! My family had a rotary phone while I was growing up. I thought it was the coolest thing ever when we got our first cordless after it finally died, one of the old brick types. I didn't know how to send an email until I got to my single year of full-time college. My middle school had us using Apple IIs. A few years ago I saw one behind the glass at the Smithsonian (way to make me feel old, DC). I also had a record player. My area growing up was mostly working class and poor so it wasn't too unusual. Growing up in the IT capital must have made that a much tougher experience on you.

Narcissists will wax about their external achievements because it's all they have; inside is just a chasm. I've had SO many bad experiences with them. Translation is a vital task, and skill with so many languages will serve you very well in the medical field. That one guy sounds like he might be a trans-humanist, the modern-day equivalent of a eugenicist. Social Darwinism taken to its most extreme but inevitable conclusion, and combining it with modern and future technology. It sickens me.

It's pretty normal for males on the spectrum to blend in less well with an NT world. Boys get much less social guidance than girls, because social skills are considered so much more important for females than males in our culture. Your specific one obviously demands it of men too. HENTs can't seem to bear it if someone doesn't have a super-expressive face or gestures. They're only satisfied if somebody flails their arms around like a windmill when they speak, and their facial muscles do gymnastics.

I'm very sorry your insurance doesn't cover any metal health at all. I don't see how that can be legal. If my chosen candidate gets into office, that will change. Your anxiety is horribly severe if you got hypertension at only 26. Mental and physical health are not the separate things people think they are. Both interact in highly complex ways. A primary can prescribe meds, but only a CBT counselor can guide you through changes to thought patterns and the rest. Europe really seems like the place for you. Your anxiety probably won't be as bad over there when you're in a better environment.

Your intelligence is salient in your writings, Lundi. High prestige does not translate to high intellect. It means they're more privileged, not more worthy, regardless of how they view themselves. STIs are not a battle scar, they're just infections. They shouldn't be stigmatized either though, as they have been for such a long time.

And you are a sweetheart who will be a great lover when you get your chance! Just make sure she really cares about you. You deserve love. And you deserve to get satisfaction from the experience too. Pleasure is always better when it's shared.

It is a unusual because culturally in terms of growing up, I have much more in common with baby boomers and people from Generation X than I have with millenials. Upon hearing that I grew up on record players and a rotary dial, people think that I am just straight up weird, or think that I am in my mid 40s or even 50s. I do have an older physical look that I can easily pass for 40s despite just having turned 30. But I often cannot relate to people who have used Internet since the early 1990s, use social media every hour, etc. I use a Polaroid for taking photographs instead of my camera phone, plus use an analogue watch instead of seeing the digital time on my phone. It is a weird generational thing where I grew up like someone born in the 1930s or 1940s than someone born in 1989. The first TV programme that I watched was probably M.A.S.H. or Gilligan's Island, and the first songs that I remember hearing were from the 1960s band Peter and Gordon, because my parents used to put cassettes into our car's cassette player. I have not met even one person born in my generation who had these experiences.

I can sense the superficial nature of people who ask about what university I had attended. On some occasions, you meet people who ask which university you attended within the first ten seconds of meeting you. Obviously it is a ploy so that they can judge people immediately and make people social outcasts.

Then of course you have the Social Darwinists, who to me seem very much tied to the philosophy of anarcho-capitalism, i.e. that only the rich deserve anything and the poor deserve no help in society. That rocket scientist was an example of an anarcho-capitalist, also known as a libertarian capitalist. He thinks that he is so good that everyone else is scum unless they are rich and/or have high degrees and professions like he does. I wanted to use the old rocket science saying about how "That is not rocket science" when people say that it is not hard, and tell him, "You are a prick. Did you never learn how to be nice and have manners? It is not rocket science after all" but there was no point arguing with such a person so I just left and went to talk to someone else.

I have had both men and women tell me things like, "If it were legal, I would put my earnings in an offshore tax haven" or "I wish that it were legal so that I could dodge taxes by putting money in the Cayman Islands", "Poor people do not deserve hard-working, smart people's money, like my own" and other rubbish.

I think that my mother was told to act "normal" a lot and had to learn it as she grew up. I was told to be normal and how to act, but I never got it right and up to now it is still a problem for me. The one thing that stands out a lot is that my mother is extremely brutally honest. For example, if someone insults her, she will tell them something like, "You f*cking idiot, you have zero manners, did your parents never teach you how to act, you blasted rude imbecile!". She often is very straightforward and to the point with no tact when defending herself verbally. Otherwise, most people do not suspect her really of having ASD. Whilst I do not flail my arms, people can sense that I have social problems. Just two days after my birthday, I went to a Halloween meetup. A DJ entered and the dance floor opened up. A woman whom I had met kept looking at me and told me to just relax and dance. I told her that it is hard, I could not do it. She told me multiple times to just relax, but she saw how I was just standing there like a rock. So I had to leave. When women see this here, they often think that I have problems socialising. But as you say, since they really do not understand ASD at all, they end up not understanding me or why I react that way.

When I was in the UK, even as a foreign student, I was given the right of free healthcare. Each time I went to the doctor or hospital, I just walked straight out like everyone else, since there are zero payments. It was fantastic, although being ill obviously is the downside. I believe that the UK's mental health service is similar to the physical health service in that it is completely free. That would help to talk to a therapist under their tax-based free at the point of delivery healthcare system. Here, obviously it is not. I remember looking for OCD therapists to talk to. One had a price at $140 per session if insurance did not cover it. That was a few years ago, and obviously I did not take that option. I imagine that Italy and other European countries have it similar to the UK where talking to a therapist is completely free at the point of service.

Thanks for the kind words. Well true, say that I did somehow get accepted into Stanford, UC Berkeley or UCSF. First of all, I would have nowhere near the funds to even complete one year there, much less the entire degree. And second, it does not make them superior. To me someone who went to Stanford for a community college is the same to me. It should not mean that one is better or worse than the other just because of where they graduated.

I think that on these forums I find that people do not berate me like in person. The fora probably helped a lot in regaining my self-esteem. I actually joined this forum right after failing with my last date in August 2019. I noticed that I was just failing in anything romantic, so I had to find out if I really was just so weird and unattractive, or that I was in an unfavourable environment.

Replying to both in the same posting here. But it depends where you are if certain things like that are unusable. Where I grew up, most people were working class or poor, so having old stuff and delayed exposure to technology were not uncommon. It also wasn't uncommon for people to listen to both old and new music. I was a band geek, so we enjoyed some very old music.

Please remember who those judgements are coming from. External achievement is all they have, so they think that's all anybody else should be measured by.

The UK's health system is probably one of the best in the world from what I understand. I've heard other stories similar to yours. One guy on NPR told of having a heart attack while he was there, and had to pay only a very small fee as a foreigner. Had he been a citizen, or on a student visa as you apparently were, his bill would have been 0. It would have bankrupted him had it happened in the US. I'm not sure about other European nations, but someone on here said the mental healthcare system in I think it was Sweden wasn't great, though the physical was good.


Int he UK, medical personnel are government employees. They have no financial incentive to prescribe unnecessary meds, or send people for unnecessary testing, surgery, or physical therapy. In most countries, it's illegal for medical staff to get the kinds of bonuses or other perks they can get here for writing X number of scripts or sell X number of devices. I find it very hard to trust doctors after some terrible personal experiences in recent times, that put me into debt twice.

I'm very glad this forum has bolstered your self-esteem. We're all here because of pain and we all want to life each other up. You didn't fail and you are not defective. You've just been enduring a toxic environment that doesn't appreciate your differences. You can't expect someone with discalculia to become a mathematician, and you can't expect an Aspie to have a healthy relationship with a malignant narcissist. Or anybody else or that matter.

Haha. Maybe it's because I'm also a grammar nerd, but your writing make me think you are above average attractive.

The things you describe about your manners would not put off people aren't stuck up. I was known to be eccentric at school but since I was willing to help people with homework and tutoring, classmates tended to be nice to me most of the time and that affected my perception of my status socially after school.

Not noticing sarcasm or jokes is not usally a big deal so long as you don't react in a way that offends people like correcting them unnecessarily because you mistook a figurative statement for a literal one. Another issue I noticed is that self-deprecating statements should not be taken literally. Once I said I'm not a great cook because it wasn't a priority in my life, and someone who heard that treated me as if I was imcompetent and I ended up shutting him out.

I think your awareness of your behaviors is a good sign. I am also socially awkward, but it got easier in my 30s because I became more comfortable with who I am and my priorities changed. I think it should get better for you. Even better if you find others similar in intellect or interests to hang out with.

One thing you might watch out for as a clever, well-read person is to not have a habit of giving advice regularly when people haven't asked for it. It's ok in forums, but in personal interaction it makes people think you think you are smarter than them. I don't know if that is someting you do. I dealt with an unusually bad know-it-all a while back, and since then I consciously refrain from giving friends and acquaintances advice because I realize how off-putting it is. Just to let you know in case it is relevant to you.

I wish you lots of luck. Keep up the good writing!

That is definitely a factor. I think why it is so lost on people here is that most people are rich (talking comparatively, $200000 here is considered close to being impoverished, but is a lot in most other cities and countries). They are so disconnected from the working class that they would never understand why people have less technology in the home like in your area. Everyone here has the latest gadgets--latest phones, latest laptops, etc. In my own case, it is a mixture--lack of money to afford it, plus also my family is not really into the "new-fangled" gadget stuff. The inside of my house looked like a time machine from the 1950s. Even some of the wallpaper was last changed in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The furniture is from the 1960s. We just never thought of changing them. My grandparents never have used Internet in their lives. My mother did not use Internet until probably 2003. Due to the highly biased tech culture here, people do not even write. They use electronic tablets. I use pen/pencil and paper, like an older person. I need things written down. I cannot stand the screen glare either. I already wear glasses at almost all times, I do not want more screen glare in my eyes from a tablet.

I am realising about how people have judged me in the past. I think that in addition to doing my own to increase self-esteem, recognising that other people's BS about me was just rubbish the whole time helps a lot.

The UK's NHS is the best universal healthcare system on the planet, in my opinion. It is so comprehensive and is based on the principle of "Everyone has the right to healthcare regardless of ability to pay". This helps people like me a lot. I had to use the A&E a few times due to some accidents, like when I accidentally scraped my cornea with a fingernail. The nurse gave me antibiotic eyedrops that night, and everything was totally free. Only time I payed was going to the regular doctor, and getting a prescription from the nearby pharmacy. The government set the price at around 7 pounds back then. I think right now it is almost 9 pounds. But the concept is the same--all prescriptions from a non-emergency doctor are pegged at 9 pounds each. They cannot legally charge more.

I noticed the toxic environment when acquaintances were telling me that they would be moving to somewhere else permanently, due to being fed up with San Francisco. That was when I kind of thought that perhaps I am not the only one who feels like I am being treated badly. I think that over 20 acquaintances whom I have met from meetups have now moved away from San Francisco due to disappointment in the city and the people here. Honestly, I do not blame them.

I notice how the generalisation that the more one socialises, the better one gets in social action. Perhaps in some cases that is true, but here the more I socialise the more I argue with people. When I socialised in the UK, I never had to argue with people like here, nor receive insults on such a regular basis. It is not a diary per sé, but I have a little notebook that I had bought during my pre-birthday travels where I write my thoughts. I try to write what happened in the week or the month and how I have qualities that are good that people often do not get to see, or do not give me the chance to demonstrate.

Yes can really relate to being socially awkward with awkward mannerisms and abnormal voice modulation compounded by the fact that I’m socially anxious.

Not every place is so awash in gadgets. Is that area considered part of Silicon Valley? Research is lagging behind in the effects of so much screen time, but what research has been done does not suggest that it's good for us. Some people where you live seem on the path to becoming Borgs. Not quite the nest scene for dating and friends.

I'm so glad to see that you're becoming able to separate their insults and judgement from reality. They were just live versions of internet trolls. You just live your truth, Lundi, because you're awesome.

Healthcare certainly should be a universal human right, just like healthy food and clean safe drinking water and a safe place to live. What's the A&E? The UK's health system sounds amazing, and the polar opposite of what we endure in the US.

The only healthy thing to do in a toxic environment that is not open to change is to leave it. The environment in which you socialize, especially if it's something you struggle with, is essential. You need people who are compassionate and understanding if your skills are to improve. Socializing with toxic people will only further traumatize you. Congrats on that journal, that's an excellent and healthy way to boost your self-esteem and sense of worth. It will help to keep you grounded in the face of other people's storms. Keep that close to you!

If you want to know the extent to which this gadget obsession is now, I can give an example: if you come here, you will see on the news and the newspapers sometimes telling people to not look down whilst crossing the street. You may think, why would you need to tell people this. This is because in San Francisco, due to the heavy IT sector here, people are seriously attached to their mobile phones and tablets. A lot of people cross the street, whether they be with stop signs or red lights, with their face down looking at their gadgets. Cars do not expect this, and the pedestrians who refuse to look up get run over by accident. Clearly this is extremely stupid and reckless, but that is how people are. They need to see their social media at every minute, and that is not an exaggeration. Some people even jaywalk with their face down looking at their mobile phone or tablet. This is San Francisco's tech reality.

No, Silicon Valley officially are at the southern end of the Bay Area. It is close to a rural area, farmland and semi-desert. Around 60 miles from San Francisco, where I live. However, in the past years, Silicon Valley have extended their influence northwards, and now San Francisco are essentially an urban extension of Silicon Valley. A lot of tech workers who live in San Francisco actually work in Silicon Valley but have special busses, e.g. Google and Facebook busses, to take them to Silicon Valley and back. So San Francisco are basically unofficially Silicon Valley's "tech city". For this reason, San Francisco are now considered the tech centre of the entire world. From experience, this brings lack of empathy, huge wealth disparity, the disappearance of the middle class, soaring crime levels, etc.

If I go Downtown, I always look behind me every so often to make sure that no criminals are following to rob me. If strangers on the street or even in buildings are close to me, I just look at their actions to make sure that they are not going to rob me in a hold-up. I always walk fast through some areas, because they are essentially third-world slums. The crime is horrendous in many areas, especially near Downtown, due to poor people being kicked out of their homes due to being unable to afford the rent. It is a seriously sad example of rich people having no empathy and treating people like numbers, or in this case, more like dirt. It is sickening.

I do believe from the bottom of my heart that healthcare is a human right, end of story. Unfortunately most people here in San Francisco whom I meet do not believe this. They believe that healthcare is for people who can afford it. Those who cannot--well, too bad. Again, no wonder I cannot get along with so many people here.

The A&E (Accidents & Emergencies) is what they call the ER. I went to A&E due to some accidents and stuff. Again, all completely free.

That is true, leaving the environment is the best solution. In fact, that is why I barely have any friends and acquaintances in this city. So many have left permanently. A lot of them left after having moved here and lived for just a few months or a year. They got so sick of it, it seems.

What you describe here is not at all unique to your area. I work at a university and the kids there do that too. A lot cross the street with their faces glued to their phones and laugh when they almost get hit by a car. They walk down the steps like that. They ride bicycles or skateboards like that. And these are middle-class kids, not the rich ones in your area. Lots of social media addicts there too.

So you're in the sprawl area of Silicon Valley, that sure explains a lot. Almost all IT people, even the low-level ones who fix computers in schools and universities, have a real nastiness about them, along with a Social Darwinist outlook. My sister is one, and a cold-blooded narcissist to boot.

I don't think that there is a such a thing as a safe city, but that cultural climate breeds the very worst in humanity from the haves and have-nots alike. The haves might have material abundance, but their behavior clearly shows that they're every bit as emotionally and spiritually impoverished as the people living on the streets. People who are forced to live in such appalling conditions like those slums absorb the messages that they belong there, no one welcomes them, what they have inside is reflected by what's outside, and so on. I've lived in some crappy and dangerous areas and it had a huge impact on my self-esteem, and that was in an apartment, not on the street. I know what it is to live without hope, and to think with a survival brain. The problem is that very few of our leaders have any clue, and worse, don't care to know. That's a major reason I support the candidate I do: his own husband has had rough times in his life, survived repeated abuse, and spent time homeless.

Modern paths to success demand pretty extreme levels of narcissism to get anywhere. I've noticed that a lack of narcissism is so often misinterpreted as a lack of confidence or even a lack of worthiness, while leaders are chosen based on their own overinflated view of themselves and their competence. And we wonder who we got to where we are now? Without a major seismic shift to our culture, the same problems will keep on happening over and over again, and get worse each time.

Thanks for the info about the UK system, it's a valuable model worthy of emulation.

That is disturbing. I cannot fathom how university students could find it funny to have barely survived crossing the street due to their faces being stuck to their phone screens. If that ever happened to me, I would not be laughing, I would most likely have a panic attack, as well as promise myself to never do something like that ever again. I guess that this type of prophylaxis is due to my anxiety that I always had. A lot of those outgoing types seem to not have anxiety, but rather are the opposite--more reckless than anything. On my last date in August 2019, she asked if I could take photos of her food and portraits of her at the dinner table. I thought that that was kind of odd, but then I realised that she never asked to take a picture with her and me together, just her alone. Maybe that was something that I had missed. When I thought about it recently, maybe it was a sign that she was more interested in her Instagram and her food than in me. But yes, social media is big here, really big. My meetups are actually just a few blocks away from the headquarters of Twitter, Facebook, Google, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox and other multinational tech companies. You see people just decked out in tech--Google glasses, not one, but two mobile phones, a tablet, an Amazon wristwatch, a Facebook T-shirt, etc. It really is excessive.

Essentially, yes San Francisco are in the sprawl of Silicon Valley. This city has more tech than probably all of Europe combined. It is supersaturated with tech to the point that every single block of Downtown is basically something with tech. Startup here, startup there, IT centre there, data research there, data analysis centre here, you have it all. True, the Social Darwinism is very, very popular here. It is the libertarian capitalist idealism. I have heard people subscribe to the idea of buying their own island, with the utopia of paying 0% in taxes and hiring people whom they can pay basically nothing due to their obsession with having a lack of a minimum wage, whilst they live in their grand mansions with butlers and servants, outfitted with helipads and private jets. Then they say how they deserve that lifestyle because they are basically of a higher species--they "evolved" more than simple humans like me. I think that your sister might be similar to this description.

Yes, self-esteem can be tied with one's living quarters. I am not sure if you had seen my other thread about my OCD about HIV/AIDS. But here there are regular warnings about watching out where one walks. Not only is there rubbish and human faeces (!) on the streets, but there are numerous used syringes lying all over San Francisco. A lot of them are by AIDS-infected drug users. Some people have caught HIV from stepping on these syringes by mistake, the needle puncturing their shoes or sandals and then pricking their feet. Of course, this increases my OCD to the maximum, since it is not really OCD now as there really are increasing numbers of people who catch HIV by stepping on syringes in the city. So when I walk around, I often have my eyes on the pavement, watching out for both faeces and syringes. I always wear shoes with thick soles. As if San Francisco did not already suffer enough from being the AIDS capital of the entire Western World in the 1980s. Living in filth and tepid squalor like this must be hell on earth for the poor and homeless who have to deal with it. I can imagine how low their self-esteem must be. They think, well they got evicted, not only now are they homeless, they are living in third-world slum conditions where street crime, drug use and all sorts of vice afflict the area on a daily basis. Sorry that you had to live in such areas. I cannot imagine how the day-to-day dealing with that must have been.

I do realise that nowadays to succeed, narcissism is close to a prerequisite. One has to not care about others to get ahead in life. Of course, this is usually what happens in this country, and sometimes in some other third-world countries. This does not usually happen in very egalitarian societies--Scandinavian countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden come to mind--due to the very low gap between rich and poor. I do hope for this country to be like Finland, or Norway, or Iceland or any one of those. That would be a very big shift, but one that would only be beneficial, especially in a very divided city like this one.

One thing that I miss about the UK is the NHS. It is Britain's national treasure. Regular prescriptions made by a doctor outside of hospital are around £9 each. Prescriptions within any hospital setting are totally free. This included simple bottles of pills, but also extensive medication such as chemotherapy, dialysis, blood tests, everything. Not to mention that surgery as well is completely free. It was created in 1948, right when the UK were close to bankrupt plus in rubble due to having survived the Second World War and bombardments by Nazi Germany. Even in such a state, they passed the national healthcare act, since more than half the country were in dire situations due to being unable to afford healthcare. Not to mention those that not only could not afford healthcare, a lot had their houses destroyed by Luftwaffe aerial bombers from Hitler's Germany.

The university kids laughing from nearly getting hit by cars is nothing compared to how they drink themselves to the point of vomiting every single weekend. Recklessness and inattentiveness to surroundings often seems to accompany extroversion. I would tremble and cry if it happened to me, then likely berate myself for my foolishness. I'm still working on the negative spirals following errors. That really was an odd date. It's really disturbing that someone lives that much for a social media platform. And that so many people in your area seem already halfway Borgified. The attitude of such people is hardly uncommon but most aren't so open and proud about it. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the concept of trans-humanism, but my guess is that there are a lot of adherents out there.


My sister isn't along those lines, at least as far as I know because we haven't spoken in years. She's more of a child-minded narcissist, like a spoiled seven-year old who pouts if she doesn't get her way. She gives introverted tantrums of the silent treatment or social withdrawal rather than the yelling and screaming types of extroverted narcissists. But she does have a rigidly hierarchical view of people, and holds herself to be an exceptional human being. Textbook NPD. I've come to pity rather than resent such people, because surface-deep is all they can ever comprehend or feel. I can't imagine life without depth. I can't imagine spending time in nature and seeing objects rather than a complex web of interconnected and interdependent life, to which we're connected both physically and spiritually. I certainly don't want to make anyone uncomfortable with these views, but this spiritual connection has both saved and enriched my life.

I haven't seen your other threads but I'll check it out. Those conditions are abhorrent and should never exist anywhere, and most certainly not in one of the wealthiest regions of one of the wealthiest of the world's nations. No one of moral character can think it's okay or deserved that people should have to live that way. No one has chosen it. People fall when they feel that no one cares about them, that they have no place to belong no matter what they do, that nothing inside them is worth fighting for.

Policy changes can only take firm hold when we finally have a major cultural shift. The "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality, the lie of meritocracy, and so much else related to those things poisons our culture and ensures greater and greater divisions. People are more isolated than ever before, and the feeling of hopelessness regarding personal and collective future well-being is playing out worldwide in so many ways: violence, intoxication, extremism in all forms, and many more. Nations with the highest inequality are experiencing the worst results. Ideology, not evidence, stands in the way of moves towards greater egalitarianism. Those who oppose a more equal society really need to think about why they think such privilege/lack of privilege should exist.

Those prescription prices are staggering! Brits would certainly say the same of ours, though in a negative way. Especially the free surgery and intensive treatments. Other nations have been able to come together to make these essential moves but America faces so much internal opposition to the most basic steps, and only harms itself. I really don't get it no matter how hard I try to understand. The UK could make those changes after a near-apocalypse, yet our federal government has been shut down repeatedly over attempts to repeal a moderate healthcare act.

What I do not understand is that yes, university students seem to binge-drink into oblivion here, but I meet regularly people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who do this. Not just the woman with whom I went on my last date, but just middle-aged people who are acting like teenagers. I say this as someone who drinks quite regularly, i.e. at least every couple of days, but I never binge-drink. One meetup there was one of my acquaintances who is now 31 ordered so many shots of whiskey that his total bar bill came up to almost $150. And yes, he is extroverted. So these types of bizarre behaviours are somehow tied in with extroversion.

That date was odd. And just another one that was very unpleasant. Of course this was the same date whose Instagram also later had pictures about nightclubs and posts about vomiting from binge-drinking. I have basically subconsciously tied in the entire concept of dating with feeling unpleasant and depressed. I have never went on a date where I felt comfortable or enjoyed it. I know that it is a necessary step, but I often feel hopeless. Like I am just against a brick wall no matter what I try.

People are semi-machinic here, and not in the autistic way. Rather, in the deliberate, tech way. They want to be like the computers and software that they code. I have not heard of transhumanism, so I would have to look it up.

Anything where someone feels superior to all the rest sounds like at least some degree of narcissism. I seem to have the opposite, that everyone else is superior to me. But still, I seem to meet people who sound like they have NPD.

Where I live, that bootstraps rubbish saying is basically what people say to each other. "I have mine, so ***** everyone else" is the mindset. I think that this is why I am having such a ridiculously hard time not only dating, but just making friends in general. I live in a city that has as big an income disparity as third world cities like São Paulo, Brazil and Bombay, India.

I have been obsessed with STIs since I was basically 10. I remember seeing news footage and PSAs from the 1980s about AIDS. It scared me so much that even throughout my entire life no matter that I felt bad about being a virgin, I was also petrified of if I had the opportunity to have sex that I would mess up, or that a woman would lie to me, and that I would end up with AIDS. I still have this fear to this day. I still have not kissed a woman yet. As a teenager I was convinced that AIDS was spread via kissing, and now I no longer believe that. But still, I feel that my fears inhibit having a proper love life.

When I lived in England, actually that was not the best case for the entire UK. Scotland offer prescriptions for totally free, regardless of age. The Scottish actually make fun of the English for having that small prescription fee. I can only imagine what they would say about this country.

My self-confidence has taken a serious beating in the past week. I felt like I was steadily getting better, then collapsed (figuratively) since Christmas. I feel alone, unloved and unwanted. It would take someone with seriously thick skin to have self-confidence in this situation.

To make an analogy, it is like an arm-wrestling match between my self-perception and self-esteem on one side, and the criticism, isolation and unhappiness on the other side.

Since I am often wanton to quantify things concretely with numbers, if I had to estimate my self-esteem and self-confidence as it was increasing pre-Christmas, it would probably be around 65/100. Right now it is probably around 25/100.

Okay, so that super-bizarre date was with the vomit queen, that makes more sense. You won't have pleasant dates with people who have so little respect for anything, including themselves, as those you are describing. Please don't let those experiences crush your hope. Not all people are like that.

Be prepared when you start researching transhumanism, it's disgusting. It's basically a modern and high-tech version of eugenics.

Most of us here on PC have struggles with low self-esteem and feeling below everyone around us. It's a big part of our depression and anxiety.

Concerns over STIs are well-founded, especially where you live. But if it has grown to fear of such a degree that you have a panic attack over the thought of even a kiss, that's something that needs to be addressed with a professional. If that's inaccessible here, maybe you can take care of that when you study abroad. American universities offer free counseling services to their students, I'm not sure about those in Europe.

Yet another reason Scotland is awesome!

I'm so very sorry that your self-confidence has taken such a hit. Please don't hesitate to reach out to this supportive community on PC. You are a compassionate, intelligent, likeable, and conscientious person who will be a great doctor. I certainly don't want to intrude, but was it bashing from family members that took you down so far? I totally get that analogy and have been there many times too. A lot of people have trouble over the holiday season; you are most certainly not alone in that.

Do you find meaningful connections at campaign events for your chosen candidate? Working together for a common goal, even if no personal friendships form, helps ease the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. I've found this in events for my candidate. Primary elections start very soon, so things will pick up and most candidates will need all hands on deck. Even aside from that, you are a valued member of PC.

Somehow that date with the vomiting habit was one of the least worst. I would not say better, because none were good. But I have had much worse than that.

I think that I was born with some self-esteem problem. Since I could remember, i.e. since before I knew how to speak, I felt some sort of low self-esteem. The very few times that I had self-esteem were when I accomplished something at least slightly noteworthy. Otherwise, it often is chronically low.

This city was the world epicentre of the AIDS epidemic since the early 1980s, so I am a bit more cautious than people from elsewhere. At meetups I have heard people who state that they had just recovered from gonorrhoea or chlamydia and stuff. I am not sure why people are proud of this, but I think that VD is endemic here. My fears have eased a bit about the kissing stuff. Of course, mononucleosis as well as rhinovarii like colds and flu are possible, but these are not VD.

I think that it was a combination of things that messed me up. I am kind of now used to not celebrating neither Christmas nor New Year's, and spending them alone. But it seems like everyone else has a group of friends plus someone special to spend these times with. But that is just a small part. I feel like in addition to extended family usually asking about my life and why I lack this or that that people half my age have accomplished, making me feel like something is wrong with me, but I feel like I am not progressing. Since my 20s, in many ways I have remained stagnant. Each year since I was around 12 or 13 I thought to myself, "Maybe next year I will not remain single" and related. Each year ends up being the exact same thing like the last. I feel like anything romantic or social is so ridiculously hard that even a 13 year old has better social skills and acts more normal than I do. I feel like often I have nothing to look forward to, and I see my peers with spouses and families and large amounts of friends. A lot of others seem to have a great time, and in contrast each day just seems like a drag, a pain to endure until night when I go to bed and then struggle to sleep. I am often disgusted with myself in many ways.

Most of us on here have struggled with self-esteem, and I'm still struggling with it too. I need to get back to the self-compassion exercises; I was away from it over the holidays and have been catching up on so many other things this week. They were working well for me and putting a wrench into the cycle of self-attack I was so accustomed to that it felt automatic.

Openly boating about STIs is bizarre, and not something that happens where I live. That might be unique to your area. But if it's the world capital of S&D porn, then there you have it.

Were you able to spend the holidays with your mom at least? Mine are always low-key, just with my parents and their cats and spending the whole day in pajamas.

Negative comparisons certainly will trash your self-esteem. Your extended family is feeding this toxicity. Loneliness is probably one of the most painful things a person can experience. Those on the spectrum have added challenges most NTs can never truly understand. We live in a culture of exclusion and rigid social hierarchy. Your area is probably the worst of it. The people there refuse to allow you a place to belong and find acceptance. But also keep some things in mind. Just because they put on a show of having lots of friends, and having fun with them, it's unlikely that they have any deep and meaningful connections. Sometimes the biggest party animals feel just as lonely and isolated as a recluse. Pain can feel isolating if you think that everyone else is happy and you alone are suffering. But suffering is universal. Some people hide it better than others, and extroverts will never admit to feeling lonely, but they do too. Our private pain when added to the global crises can make us feel so powerless. I'm fighting this too. But no one is completely without power. You're taking great steps in reaching out to the people on PC. Please don't be disgusted by yourself, and please don't feel there is no hope for the future. The world is a much better place with you in it.

My self-esteem is definitely at its lowest since I was 26. It is possible that it lowers to reach the level that it was when I was 26.

From what I understand, many people here consider having VD to be “battle scars”, similar to how someone who had been sent to war comes back with scars or amputated limbs or whatever. It like some testament to their toughness. I really fail to understand this analogy though. Having gonorrhoea or chlamydia or syphilis, or even worse, AIDS cannot possibly be something good. But yes, BDSM is big here, and I have been shamed for not going to BDSM workshops in that porn studio. One time an acquaintance showed me which websites that studio runs. Apparently, it is quite important in the porn industry. It would be similar to a mini-Hollywood in the movie business.

On both Christmas and New Year’s Day I went into the city during the day and came back in the evening. I was around with my mother in the evening, like any other day. This single issue hurts though no matter who is around.

That is true, and I feel like I will have to sever ties with not only my father’s family, but also my mother’s family. My extended family essentially use me as a subject of ridicule. During a big family gathering on my mother’s side when I was 24, various relatives kept coming up to me and asking where was my girlfriend/wife. One even came up to me with a smirk on his face, started to giggle then said, “You know, we been talking about you…a lot. Where is your girlfriend, your wife?”. Apparently gossip about me being asexual, gay, mentally ill, retarded, and whatever they think is going around constantly because of my inability to attract women.

I am quite down right now, and really question my entire existence and life. Every single day seems to be gloom and unhappiness. I feel like I have tried so many things, but they have all failed. I no longer have my grandmother to talk to, but sometimes I talk with my mother. I never talk to my father about this. He is basically an alpha male type, slightly like the types of guys who make fun of other guys for being single. Over the years since I was a teenager, I have received comments like how no girl would ever want me, “Look in the mirror, do you think any woman would like what she sees?”, as well as being asked if I even like women in the first place. Plus comments like how this guy or that guy is half my age and has a girlfriend, I am a loser compared to these guys. This obviously never helped my self-esteem, so now I basically do not talk to him at all. Perhaps it sounds sexist—against my own gender—to say this, but the males in my family have not been helpful or sympathetic to my situation.

I often do think that people are enjoying themselves and that I am not. Perhaps people are putting on an act, a façade, something that would not surprise me especially here. But I just feel terrible. I feel like a leper, an outcast from society. Unloved at age 30. I am a laughing stock on both sides of my family, and only my mother can understand my situation since my father thinks that I am just a weird loser who is retarded and thus cannot attract women. Zero friends.

I am getting that indigestion feeling again and feel like if I really dwell on my failure as a 30 year old single male, I get afraid that my mouth will open and that I will start to retch or vomit. This is very reminiscent of the depressive hole in which I found myself when I was 26. I can barely concentrate anymore, and cannot even read a few pages of my language textbooks.

I'm sorry that you're struggling with such low self-esteem right now. You're doing the right thing in reaching out here.

In my view, STIs are not battle scars to be worn with pride. They're more like scars on a wildlife rehabber or animal control officer, marks of inexpertise and clumsiness. But with such a culture of sexual aggression, their perspectives would certainly be different from mine.

That relentless barrage of insults has certainly trained you to view being single as a personal failing, even though it isn't. What you've experienced from the men in your family is not at all uncommon. thanks to the brave and selfless work of generations of feminists, it's now more acceptable for women to behave in ways that are not traditional, though of course we still have a VERY long way to go. But the campaign to challenge toxic masculinity is still in its infancy, and men who behave in ways not traditionally masculine face very real consequences in every sphere of their lives. Toxic masculinity is as damaging to men as it is to women, and certainly to the gender nonbinary.

Depression is like a black hole and once you slip past the event horizon it feels so hard to get out again. I've been there before so many times, and was hospitalized 3 times. So many people here know exactly how you feel because we've felt the same. It changes the way you think as well as the way you feel, and it can seem that nothing will change. But the only constant in the universe is change.

Narcissist are natural-born actors, wearing masks and changing them as needed, because once the mask is removed, there just isn't much there. It hurts to have no friends and no partner (I'm in that situation too) but please don't focus on it. I know how hard that is, because part of what pain does is ensure that you'll have a hard time focusing on anything else. Please keep in mind that your difficulties are not a reflection of your worth as a human being. Hearing toxic messages from others, especially when they align with the negative voices in our own heads, can drag us over the edge of that event horizon. I urge you to find a way to shield yourself until you can leave for your studies.

You aren't a failure because you're single. And you can't expect yourself to concentrate when you're so depressed, anxious, and stressed. Those things eat up mental resources like a 50-year-old refrigerator sucking up electricity.

One of the self-compassion exercises, and Guy Winch in the TED talk, state that how we talk to ourselves can be nothing short of abusive. A lot of us have been trained to think that way. Breaking that pattern takes practice but it can be done. Most of us would never talk to someone else the way we talk to ourselves. That exercise teaches us to talk to ourselves the way we'd talk to a friend who is struggling. It makes a big difference, trust me.