May i ask for your help/opinion ?

Hello everyone.

I don't know where to start, i'm a young 21 years old, french speaking guy living in an island with 300k people. My childhood is far from perfect but not traumatic or anything. I've smoked marijuana for 4 years, starting from 15 to 19. Right now, i feel like i can't control my life anymore and these things that i have are making me really unhappy and depressed. Here we go.

I am fake, i mean i look at my peers and i don't get how to truly love and trust myself, i can't help but create an "image" of me that i show to other. Then they notice it and leave me. It hurts, because it's not under my power, it's like my brain think i'm not cool enough or amazing enough to make people want to be my friend or love me for who I am.

I am also very impulsive, i'm not relaxed enough and i stress a lot, i start panicking when i am in a conversation with someone i want to get close to and i talk without thinking much. There's always gonna be a point when i'm gonna start to say lies to make me look cool and avoid the judgment on the "real me". It's so obvious when i start panicking, i baffle sometimes and i'm pretty sure my body language screams insecurity. This mechanic way of thinking makes me think really quickly on important decisions and i get in trouble and regret stuff later. I never think of it twice on the spot, i just do it when i feel it automatically.

My 3d problem is linked to the other one, i lie a lot. I lie to friends, to girls, to school, to my parents and it's not always for getting out of trouble. It's to make me look cool and interesting, and then some people find out, which makes me look pathetic, which fuel the hatred i feel for myself and my lack of self-esteem, which leads to more faking and lying.

Please help me get a clue on how to do it. I'd be happy to invest mentally and financially to get rid of these problems. I just lost a girl i really like, i lost too much friends, and I lost the real me.
I want everything to stop, i want to become real and be happy again.

Thanks for reading me, I really appreciate it.

I think you should be yourself when socializing. Try to make friends, help other people be more open. And you will notice hoe life changes its color.

Hi There Iwanttochange,

It's been awhile since you posted so I don't know if you'll circle back and see this, but I wanted to let you know that I can relate – and that it can and will get better.

I'm 31 and remember what it was like to be in my early 20s and feel very similar to how you feel. In private I was OK and even sometimes proud of myself, but when I interacted with other people my mind would race, my heart would pulse too quickly, my palms would sweat and I would blabber nonsense – especially in front of attractive girls.

Later when I got home I would think about all the smooth and charming things I should have said, and then kick myself for not saying them. Like you, I felt like the real me was stifled somewhere deep within, and my body/brain was preventing him from getting out and connecting with people.

The good news is I did get over this, and you can too. The bad news is it doesn't happen quickly, but it will happen if you're willing to work at it.

A few of the things that helped me most include:

- exercising and eating healthy, which improved both my health and physical appearance, and in turn improved the way I felt about myself
- learning how to dress well in order to further highlight my body and make me feel more confident about the way people perceived me
- reading a ton of self-help and psychology books, which taught me about the human mind and made me realize that I was actually very normal, and experiencing things that many, many people go through
- and finally, reading self-help books specifically geared toward socializing and people skills, which made conversing with other people much more comfortable and natural; check out How to Win Friends and Influence People, Quiet by Susan Cain and The Charisma Myth as three good places to start

It sounds like you're a pretty normal, if introverted guy. Hopefully some of the things that helped me will help you too.