another new kid on the block!

hi all
my name's andy and i just wanted to say hi - i'm 42 and i've spent far too long driving myself nuts feeling scared of the world and struggling to cope with all that life throws at me, so i've decided to do something about it , but i have no clue what 'it' is! so i thought i'd start by talking to people like you who understand how i feel and who hopefully can reasure me that i'm not mad!
anyway, enough for now, hope to talk more soon
i need a holiday too - any suggestions for cool places to get some mood-enhancing sunshine most welcome!
andy

Andy, talk some more - You sound so lost. What have you been scared about? What was growing up as a teenager like for you? The more you talk, the more people here will understand you my friend.

TAke care,
Kevin

hey Andy,
welcome to our forum,you'll find alot of good people to talk to, and they CARE ABOUT YOU.
how are you doing these days? Me, well I tried to have a long lost relationship w/my sister. But she got in one of her angry moods over a conversation she had with my dad, and yelled at me on the phone and apologized so coldly to me and then hung up on me. I'm sad and angry,hurt. So I've decided to just let her be.....

hey guys, thanks for responding to my first post - i've got so much i want to share, i don't know where to start ( i've been dealing with this crap for decades!) - i could start with my emotionally absent father and control-freak catholic mother, followed by too many years in an all boys school - i think these things probably set me off on the road to anxiety and social hell quite nicely! i've spent 20 years trying to understand myself better so i can escape from the nightmare that is everyday life, but i'm not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot
anyway, enough for now, this stuff's gonna take some time to come out
talk soon

I went through the vast majority of my school days in all-boys schools too, but I don't view that as too much of a problem now. Actually - and bizarrely - you're emotionally absent father and control-feak mother sounds remarkably like my situation here! It seems like opposites attract for them two (your parents) but - again - don't view it as purely negative. try to xtract the positives from everything that has happened in your life, and then focus just on these.

Kevin

That's good advice, but sometimes for me it don't work. Maybe because of a 15 yr marriage that totally bad. A divorce which was a true blessing in disguise. But still a negative one in my life. Having no friends around,because of being tired of being hurt,fooled and used.

thanks guys, i appreciate your input
i think for me the boys school was great for study and all that, but it didn't really help prepare me for life afterwards, as i never really learnt to relate to girls and get their perspective on the world until i left school - maybe that's why i still don't really understand them (is that just me or is that a common problem with men - any women out there feel free to respond!!)
as for my parents, i try not to be too hard on them, they've got their own issues - i guess they tried to do their best, they just weren't very good at it - much as it pains me to say it, i reckon i'm just like my father in many ways - no surprise i guess, he was my male role model - it was only much later in life i realised he was a crap example for me to follow! i don't know if it's possible to unpick the bad stuff that you take in when you're a kid or whether it's hard-wired in and you just have to live with it - i guess i have to believe you can change it or i wouldn't be in this forum
time will tell...