Dear Chey,

I very much understand what you are going through. I am 58 years old and have felt and experienced many of the thoughts you are struggling with. When I was younger, I went to counseling for some time, not at all helpful and left me feeling even more frustrated. I know that others do not see me the way that I believe I am behaving/interacting. Recently, I have had to take a hard look at how I am contributing to the problems I am having. You already know that trying to “act” differently to elicit a different response will not help, that is a good start. I do not have any solutions for you unfortunately but I am posting here because therapists, people who I have spoke to about this don’t help when they can’t even acknowledge that the problem is real and frustrating. I have always felt “different” from other people, not necessarily in a good way but it doesn’t matter because I believe that it comes off as seeming that I believe I am better than others. It seems that in feeling different, it is truly impossible to connect to other people in a real way because I am “separate”. I do not believe that you can think  or “act” your way into better interactions or relationships. I have begun to meditate recently as well as monitor my self-talk. If there is an answer/solution to your/my dilemma, I know that it lies within us. I don’t think that labeling yourself “broken” will help you to feel better about yourself, in fact it will likely make everything worse. In the past, I have generally focused on healing the past. I now think that going over everything just keeps you stuck there. It happened, it was sad, nobody’s fault, just circumstances but it is not going to change anything, or the result of it all. I am accepting everything and moving on, for my benefit. Allow yourself to be released from your past and give your thoughts and energy to the future. I do not think that you, or anyone is “unloveable” and God knows we all have our faults and flaws but if you let them “define” you, you, and you alone, can make it so. I have taken a couple of meditation courses recently, the internet is flooded with them, if you are interested in the ones that I have found I will provide a link but maybe looking around the internet, you may find something that “speaks to you”, if you decide you want to give it a try. When you do not know who you are, it is very easy and tempting to see yourself through the eyes of others but our thoughts  (as well as the thoughts of others) are not necessarily reality. I hope that this helps you.