It sounds to me like you're frustrated and you're being way too hard on yourself. Trust me, I understand the ache of loneliness. I'm an INFP and I've struggled with social anxiety for decades. Throughout my teen years and early twenties, I had no friends. High school was excruciating! I felt like I was always on the outside looking in though an impenetrable glass wall. I wanted so badly to join in and make friends but I just didn't know how to connect. Add to that the misery of crushing anxiety. I'd shake, sweat and even become ill when I was forced to participate in class or do a presentation. My God, it was awful. It wasn't until I went to college for Biology that my life began to turn around. I grew up in a family that saw the use of antidepressants as a sign of weakness. I was ashamed of myself and I hid the worst of my symptoms from my family. However, studying Biology taught me that anxiety is a chemical imbalance in the brain, not a character flaw. I worked up the courage to get treatment from my doctor and my life completely changed. I began speaking up in class and asking questions. I joined study groups and miraculously even made a few friends! Now I'm 35 years old. I'm married with a wonderful family of my own. I don't have a ton of friends but I have a few very close friends who really value me, akwardness and all. I can't say that I never feel anxious but the anxiety doesn't rule my life anymore.
For me, overcoming social anxiety was the first step toward a more fufilling life. The second step, overcoming low self- esteem, came when I discovered the Myers Briggs personality survey. All my life, I've been a bit scatterbrained, disorganized and messy. I'm late for EVERYTHING. I'm constantly day dreaming and starting huge projects that I'm wholly passionate about until I'm distracted by a new exciting hobby in which case I completey lose intrest in the first one and never finish it. It drives my husband (ENTJ) crazy because our house is full of half finished projects. Basically, I'm the complete opposite of everything society says a good wife and mother should be: sociable, neat, organized, promt, focused... you get the picture. I really hated myself. I constantly compared myself to the other moms who seemed to be so put together. I just couldn't stack up to them no matter how hard I tried and I berated myself for it. Learning about my personality type allowed me to learn to forgive myself. I'm not like everyone else because I just don't function like many others. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't strive to be more organized or promt, rather that there are going to be times (many, many times) that I mess up and it's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm a failure or lazy or useless. It's just means that there are probably certain things I'll never master but it's all just part of my journey. For every fault of our personality type there is a strength as well. I'd never been particularly accomplished at anything in my life. I'd always been embarrassed by the fact that I didn't have any real talents to speak of. Learning my MBTI type helped me to realize that there are some things that I naturally do really well. I'll never be a Mozart or Michelangelo but I do have something special and unique to offer the world (just as we all do). This realization has bolstered my confidence tremendously. I've begun to be more open around others and take a chance by saying hello to someone I've never met. I'm an introvert with anxiety. Let's face it, I'm the definition of akward. In the past I let the fear of seeming strange to others or, even worse, feeling rejected by strangers keep me from speaking up or joining in. Now I make an effort to put myself out there more often and surprisingly it seems to be working! When a casual acquaintance invites me to do something, instead of making an excuse to get out of it, I force myself to say yes. As a gross analogy, it's kind of like lobbing spitballs. Most of them miss but occasionally one will stick and I gain a new friend or at the very least have a nice conversation with a stranger. I certainly don't click with everyone I meet which is good becsuse I could never maintain that much social interaction and responsibility! I'm akward, I speak too quietly to be heard easily, sometimes I get excited and I have so many ideas rolling around in my head that my words come out jumbled. Sometimes my brain makes some obscure connection and I say something that I don't realize is wierd until after I've said it. My point is, people are forgiving. And why worry if someone you barely know thinks you're kinda strange? I'm discovering that the people who get me, those who make the best kind of friends for me, enjoy my company because of my quirks not in spite of them. I've also had to make a concentrated effort to eliminate my negative self-talk and thought patterns. When I catch myself doing a mental face palm because of something akward I said to the elementary school secretary three weeks ago, I try to stop that line of thought and instead congratulate myself on trying to be more sociable.
I didn't mean to turn this into a novel and I'm not trying to make your suffering about me. It's just important to me that you understand that you aren't alone. We're all struggling all the time. Don't beat yourself up! Life is hard enough already. If you like to write, write. Who cares if it's any good? It's not for anyone but yourself. The only person you're competing against is the person you were yesterday. Remember that you are not alone. Your situation is not hopeless. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Treat yourself with respect. All the other stuff will hopefully fall into place.
For me, overcoming social anxiety was the first step toward a more fufilling life. The second step, overcoming low self- esteem, came when I discovered the Myers Briggs personality survey. All my life, I've been a bit scatterbrained, disorganized and messy. I'm late for EVERYTHING. I'm constantly day dreaming and starting huge projects that I'm wholly passionate about until I'm distracted by a new exciting hobby in which case I completey lose intrest in the first one and never finish it. It drives my husband (ENTJ) crazy because our house is full of half finished projects. Basically, I'm the complete opposite of everything society says a good wife and mother should be: sociable, neat, organized, promt, focused... you get the picture. I really hated myself. I constantly compared myself to the other moms who seemed to be so put together. I just couldn't stack up to them no matter how hard I tried and I berated myself for it. Learning about my personality type allowed me to learn to forgive myself. I'm not like everyone else because I just don't function like many others. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't strive to be more organized or promt, rather that there are going to be times (many, many times) that I mess up and it's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm a failure or lazy or useless. It's just means that there are probably certain things I'll never master but it's all just part of my journey. For every fault of our personality type there is a strength as well. I'd never been particularly accomplished at anything in my life. I'd always been embarrassed by the fact that I didn't have any real talents to speak of. Learning my MBTI type helped me to realize that there are some things that I naturally do really well. I'll never be a Mozart or Michelangelo but I do have something special and unique to offer the world (just as we all do). This realization has bolstered my confidence tremendously. I've begun to be more open around others and take a chance by saying hello to someone I've never met. I'm an introvert with anxiety. Let's face it, I'm the definition of akward. In the past I let the fear of seeming strange to others or, even worse, feeling rejected by strangers keep me from speaking up or joining in. Now I make an effort to put myself out there more often and surprisingly it seems to be working! When a casual acquaintance invites me to do something, instead of making an excuse to get out of it, I force myself to say yes. As a gross analogy, it's kind of like lobbing spitballs. Most of them miss but occasionally one will stick and I gain a new friend or at the very least have a nice conversation with a stranger. I certainly don't click with everyone I meet which is good becsuse I could never maintain that much social interaction and responsibility! I'm akward, I speak too quietly to be heard easily, sometimes I get excited and I have so many ideas rolling around in my head that my words come out jumbled. Sometimes my brain makes some obscure connection and I say something that I don't realize is wierd until after I've said it. My point is, people are forgiving. And why worry if someone you barely know thinks you're kinda strange? I'm discovering that the people who get me, those who make the best kind of friends for me, enjoy my company because of my quirks not in spite of them. I've also had to make a concentrated effort to eliminate my negative self-talk and thought patterns. When I catch myself doing a mental face palm because of something akward I said to the elementary school secretary three weeks ago, I try to stop that line of thought and instead congratulate myself on trying to be more sociable.
I didn't mean to turn this into a novel and I'm not trying to make your suffering about me. It's just important to me that you understand that you aren't alone. We're all struggling all the time. Don't beat yourself up! Life is hard enough already. If you like to write, write. Who cares if it's any good? It's not for anyone but yourself. The only person you're competing against is the person you were yesterday. Remember that you are not alone. Your situation is not hopeless. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Treat yourself with respect. All the other stuff will hopefully fall into place.
