All my life I have been alone and I don't know how to deal with this situation anymore. I am chronically shy, very anxious and still in the closet despite my 32 years of age.
I'm good at pretending to be straight. The last time I tried to be open with someone during college, I was rejected by the man I loved (I still do) and others blackmailed me for my sexual orientation, because they discovered my interest in him.
Due to the lack of a credible prospect of love and happiness, I have pondered finishing it all, but images of my family's suffering have deterred me from doing so for the past decade. I live in a limbo and empty, without motivations
Before I get into anything: talk to someone. Like, today. Here are a couple of suicide helplines for the islands:
Barbados helpline
Trinidad & Tobago helpline
Jamaica
Here is a highly rated Caribbean-centric
blog, with
podcasts focusing on mental health discussions. In particular, these might interest you:
Pain so real you want to die
Be easy with yourself
I am not going to pretend to know what it is like growing up on an isolated island with a community that does not support me. However, I do have experience growing up in small towns in a time when it wasn't popular or accepted to be gay, and with a father whose job it was to sniff out homosexuals in the military.
So, I do understand being lonely, and without support, and being taken into dark places.
I also loved someone who didn't return that love back to me. Head over heels. I carried that for
years.
Like you, I was very shy as well. And anxious. I still have anxiety issues to this day, but my shyness has diminished. For me, getting out there in a career where I had to work with people, and communicate, forced me outside of my shyness box. But, being an introvert, that only worked so far. I had to understand my limits of that, and accept them.
When I was able, I moved away from my community of friends and family and found people that not only accepted me, but helped me to
thrive. I found that family doesn't have to be blood-related, and those people that didn't support me, who only liked me if I pretended to be what they wanted..they weren't my friends either. Honestly, there wasn't much to leave, but there was a gold mine of discovery and happiness when I finally did.
I'm not here to tell you what to do. What I did worked for me, but your life and circumstances are your own. I will say that if you are still reading this, it means that you are still looking for help, and that is a great thing. As a survivor of suicide, I know that when you get to a space where you are searching, and listening, you are not in those deep woods anymore. At least, not today. So be kind to yourself for being here today.
Please talk to someone. You don't have to go into everything. Just make a call and say Hi. They know.
