I Feel Lost

From India: I feel lost, unmotivated,living for the day. My dreams are dying. I don’t have a perfect friend. I don’t feel myself. I have a few hobbies. I am learning to play keyboard. I do pencil sketches. But I have lost passion.
I am a short guy with spectacles,but above average looking. I used to be a nerd. I have turned into an atheist. It has really helped me in my depression. I like science but it doesn’t like me back.
I had nice curly hair, like jon snow of you will. But recently I am suffering from heavy hair fall.
I come from the village. My father was a control freak,drunkard, & little abusive. He’s lost all his money,self respect & health. Whatever he’s done in life has been counter productive to our life. By our means me, my twin brother & my mother.

One of the biggest psychological problems i have been facing all my life is I can not talk with girls & women, especially if they are cute & attractive. It has instilled in me some sort of diffidence. It puts a lot of social,psychological,sexual pressure on me.

Because of this disability, I have done things like trying to fullfil the lack of woman in my life by going to massage centres & feeling their touch. I am afraid of myself that i might go further of i don’t succeed in having a proper relationship with girls. Needless to say. I never had a girlfriend, nor do i have. My situation is so pathetic that i don’t even have a single female friend, despite me being a gentleman.

I don’t know what to do with my life currently. My attempts at exams have failed. I was above average till my engineering was completed. I got placed in the best company that came to our college for placements. I used to be a nerd, my friends called me scientist. But after that, since last two years, i have degraded, mentally, physically, in technical knowledge, family & social life.

I need to find myself again. I don’t want to be afraid of anything. I want a healthy relationship with girls, women & everyone.
There’s much much more, i can talk a lot about it, probably not here
Yours faithfully,

A: Thank you for writing. I can’t respond to everything in your email but let me offer a few thoughts:

First, regarding your difficulties with women: Please don’t be so hard on yourself. Your problem with interacting with women is not unusual, even if you think so. You didn’t have a positive role model of manhood from your father, so you didn’t learn how to relate to women in a respectful and loving way from him.

Social skills are learned. They are not in-born. You need a safe place to learn them and to get some practice. I have a number of suggestions:

First, get involved in some kind of activity that includes single women your age. When people focus on an activity (a charity, a sport, a building project), they get to know each other gradually over time. It takes the anxiety level down since the focus is on the activity, not on each other.

Watch chick flicks. Yes, watch movies and study them as carefully as you studied for exams. Although the romances are idealized, they will give you some idea of how to relate. It’s like learning a new language. Memorizing those dialogues our teachers made us learn provided a template for interaction.

Individual therapy with a female counselor may also help. Like the group. it provides a safe place to ask your questions and to get feedback.

Finally, consider joining an online forum here at PsychCentral. You can get good advice and support from the members.

Do not get involved with prostitutes as a sad substitution. Such encounters are not a model for normal relationships with women. They may give you an outlet for sexual frustration but they will damage your ability to relate to the women you want to be with.

Regarding your work issues: A couple of times you said you “used to be a nerd” as if being a nerd is a bad thing. It’s not if it is defined as being intensely interested in mechanics or sciences. If you were seeing me for therapy, I would want to explore with you why you gave that up since you did well in your exams and in obtaining your first job. I really think it would be useful for you to talk to a therapist about what happened that made you become so discouraged.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

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