I just joined here, so I’m not really sure how to begin. But I figured I’d at least ask if anyone else has been through the same issues as of late.

I’m a junior in college, majoring in a dying field. I don’t even like it here. The whole atmosphere just feels like high school but bigger, and I always hoped that college would be an escape from the high school experience… but three years in and it just feels like more of the same.

I made the worst mistake of my life by choosing to share an on-campus apartment with my three closest friends this year. And I know it’s a mistake because three months in and I’m pretty sure they all hate me now. Apparently I don’t know how to clean properly, because I try and try and try to clean up after myself and do as I’ve been asked and told and I agonize over it, but then it turns out that my best just isn’t good enough. I spent ten minutes washing out a pan that i used the other day with soap and a sponge and I rinsed it out to make sure all the soap got out and i looked it over multiple times to make sure it was clean… and then the three of them ambush me to tell me that I didn’t clean the pan properly. They swear that it was filthy when they checked. I have to be delusional, right? I have to be some kind of idiot. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with me to make me so inept. It sounds so stupid and I get embarrassed when I try to write it out but…. do you know what it’s like to be told that no matter how hard you try, you still can’t do anything right?

Any time i try to talk back they call me “defensive”. So now I don’t even feel like I could ever try to explain, or even have feelings of my own. Apparently they had a meeting to discuss me without telling me, and when they were finished they cornered me and unloaded everything at once without listening to me when I tried to answer. They just expected me to sit there and take it. They think I’m lazy. They think I’m a waste. They literally sat up on a table, all next to each other, across from me, so they could talk down at me as a group. I’ve never felt more alone before. I’ve had thought of SH since I was 9. All I’ve ever done is bottle everything up because I was afraid that people would talk about me behind my back if I showed even so much as a hint of vulnerability. Now I just realized I was right all along.

Basically, I’m just realizing that I should never ever live with other people when I have the chance to live alone. I’m just meant to be alone. When you’re alone you can’t disappoint anyone. I am going to spend my entire life alone out of necessity.

I feel like I’m not human. I’m either a zombie or an alien or some kind of mold that just rots everything it touches. I probably deserved to get told off for everything they said. I don’t doubt that. What’s killing me is that I feel like this stupid body I’m controlling is defective and even when I’m trying it just doesn’t work. I cannot do anything right. Ever. I feel disgusting. I feel rotten and decayed. I feel like a shambling husk of a person.

I took medical leave for a semester last year because I felt my body giving out on me and I couldn’t get any work done to save my life. I feel like an idiot. I can’t keep up with the classes. I can BS the assignments just fine but I can never get rid of the deep-seating feeling I get when I’m reading some academic article, not comprehending what it’s trying to say, reading and rereading over and over to understand but just not getting it. I used to be the “smart” kid. I was valedictorian. What the hell happened to me?

I want to drop out and never speak to any of these people ever again, but I can’t because it would disappoint my mom. My mom swears I could never disappoint her until I try to tell her what’s wrong in my life, and then i inevitably have to watch the light leave her eyes as she realizes it’s gotten bad again and she starts to wonder why I can’t just be a normal functional person. Last time I told her I was having thoughts, she told me to drive myself to the hospital because she’s tired of dealing with me. My “friends” were all so ready to support me last year but now that they actually have to watch me fail, they realize that they can’t deal with me.

I have a million different thoughts going on simultaneously at any given moment. Right now I guess I’d just appreciate any kind of acknowledgement…. just so I don’t feel like I’m screaming into the void. If anyone else here is around college age, I’d love to talk. I’ll listen to your thoughts about whatever’s going on in your life.

-M