I want to talk more about the point I made yesterday, regarding my troubles interacting with people.

Obviously, I have a social disorder. Obviously. The people who have been closest to me have frequently and independently compared me with Sheldon Cooper, and there is some truth to that. There are, of course, some dissimilarities too. But it is true that, like that character, I have always had great difficulty navigating the world of social interaction. In fact, it's the hardest thing in the world for me. Certain aspects of everyday life which other people take for granted, I struggle with. A lot. But also, like him, I don't mean to be hurtful, at those times when I am. I just struggle, and stumble, and trip up, and frequently say the wrong thing, often the thing I didn't mean to say, or what I meant not to say...it just comes out wrong. I don't know why I was born like this, I just was. We all have our deficiencies. Mine are my weight, and this.

But the fact that I have issues, which I fully recognize and admit, does not mean that the things I've experienced are not real. I really have been treated in the ways I've said. I have been shunned, and ostracized, and rejected, and excluded. I have been called weirdo, and strange, and freak, and creepy, and loser, and probably every other hurtful thing in that category which you can think of. I really have begun, over and over, to form friendships and attachments, only to find before too long that I'm being looked at with strange looks of suspicion, judgment, otherness, and even fear. Because, unlike Sheldon who, though irritating and annoying, is seen as basically harmless, my size and other things about me make people treat me not only as strange, weird, and different, but as dangerous and scary.

As a result of this very real history, I have become over-sensitive to and extremely wary of anything resembling it. And that only adds to my problems. I recognize this.

I've long realized, of course, that the issues are there. And I've worked on them. I really, really have. But it doesn't seem to have made a difference, or at least not enough of one. I had hoped that the fact that underneath my sometimes difficult personality there is a genuinely good, warm, loving, giving, generous, even noble heart, might make up for my deficiencies and allow me to find a place to belong, and some people to love, and to love me. But apparently not.

There are certain aspects of it which I have tried to change. Certain aspects of me. And I do believe that I've genuinely gotten much better at many of those things. But there are certain things that I won't change also. Because it's not all due to my personality deficits. A lot of what I've experienced is also because of my convictions and deeply-held beliefs, and on that I will not compromise, no matter what the cost. Even if you got rid of all the other stuff, I wouldn't fit into this modern society with all its -isms, its intolerant tolerance-mongering, and its ideological fascism, and wouldn't want to. But still, there are enough like-minded people with me out there to call it a sub-culture. But even with them, I can't seem to find a place to rest.

I'm going over this because I realized last night, in the middle of the night, that this is the root cause of my lifelong depression. I crave human connection and community, but have always been denied it. If I was in therapy, we'd call this a breakthrough.

The question, then, is what to do about it? I honestly have no idea.