Dear Gaia:

It makes sense that problems in teen years exacerbated problems from before. To make sense of your suffering (the title of your thread is “my suffering doesn’t make sense”), that is, to understand your suffering so to feel better in life and to live a better life, one that feels better and one in which you make effective, authentic choices, better understand your suffering.

Without understanding, and then learning what to do, day after day, how to manage your emotions and sensibly control and choose your behaviors, life will continue to not make sense.

You wrote that you tried to help yourself and let yourself down. You need help from the outside, such as psychotherapy, so to understand and learn. At least, start you in that process.

You also wrote that you are a joke, that your life is a joke. I am sure that you are not a joke and that your life is not a joke. Misunderstood, or not understood yet, yes, but not a j0ke. Your suffering is real and not at all funny or entertaining, not to me, not in any way, shape or form.

anita