I had a nasty phase of acne in high school and tried to divert attention from my face by getting into clothes and streetwear, buying old basketball shoes three sizes too small, mismatched clothes, drawing on my shoes, etc. I became addicted to buying clothes and started stealing money from piles of bags left around for lunchbreaks. I did that for a year and thought I would get away with it. Of course I got busted and almost got expelled right before my finals, some parents reported me to the police too, and the school tried to pin other thefts I had no part in on me (I later found out they had busted like a dozen people at the same time, me included). Because I was in Singapore with my family at the time this police case was really, really bad news, I could go to jail. It was the worst period of my life, the whole school knew about my thefts, I completely lost my parent’s trust and the bottom just fell out. Eventually my parents got the school to let me pass my finals, walking back in with all those stares was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, then we left Singapore and I never heard from the police investigation again. The embassy told us I would never be able to come back because they never drop cases over there, so not only did I lose my parent’s trust and respect, I also banned myself from a country with important ties to the studies I’m in currently.
Looking back three years later, I realise that I had completely lost touch with reality and justified my stealing by thinking this was a school for rich kids and that a few 10$ bills wasn’t much of a loss (which is true in a way, most kids there, myself included, had parents who were CEO, important lawyers, industry leaders and the likes). I was so disconnected that I thought stealing peoples money to buy shitty clothes was justified, and I was still unhappy because it’s not like my acne was going away, hormones don’t just vanish when you purchase a t-shirt. My parents still don’t trust me to this day, our relationship is burned to the ground, my dad totally lost respect for me (can’t blame him) I’ve become depressed and have developed a plethora of mental health problems because of this on top of ADHD. I’m a functional suicidal wreck now and not one day goes by where I don’t have massive pangs of shame and regret over what I did. 20 years old and I already feel like I irremediably fucked something up. If it wasn’t for skating I would’ve roped myself honestly. I actually looked up how to provoke an amnesia via brain damage to forget all this shit because it hurts so bad.
On top of that, there was this girl that I somehow had managed to woo even though my face looked like a shitty makeup attempt at Freddy Krueger, she was stunning and when I left that relationship fell appart over distance and she dropped me, the memories of that year plus that heartbreak is fucking awful and I’ve become numb, the only emotions I remotely feel are extreme and even then I don’t care. Tried to find refuge in video games and that didn’t work and I got so addicted I failed my first year of college, my parents completely lost faith in me at that point. They still agreed to allow me to try again but they’re convinced I’m going to fail and my dad told me several times I’d fail, all this shit is a feedback loop and I think I’ve started to believe them because my self esteem is dead, my ego is shattered. I’m so incapable of expressing myself and my emotions that I’m reduced to typing this shit out here, I’ve never said any of this stuff to anyone yet here I am, laying all this trauma bare on a public forum instead of talking to my parents and family. The worst part is that my life isn’t even that bad. My parents have money, I live in a large appartement with them, have my own big room, have a good pc and cool clothes and eat plenty of healthy food, but my mental landscape is a war zone, and I’m dead inside (or close to it). I keep a cool facade but I’m so scared shitless of getting too close to anyone because anytime I did I got dropped and scarred. Last year I got numbers from girls from my school and never did anything because of this, I don’t even know how I made any friends ever since I came back, feels like I have like 5 different people in my head that I swap out for different situations. I also hate that I can’t fix the underlying issue that my brain is damaged and that severe ADHD can’t be fixed. Well here’s my confession, felt good typing this out, probably a bunch of whining compared to other stories ITT tbh, and I’d like to thank slap for making me laugh over the years lurking and watching you guys shit talk one another or make photoshop threads, that was quite funny.