Hi everyone. First post.
Maybe this place will help me, I dunno. What follows is stuff I've never said to anyone - for different reasons, its just not been advisable or helpful for me to say it. Trust, intimacy, all that kinda stuff.....never had anyone fully, totally on my side.

I'm 44. I've never had a job, beyond a little part time stuff for a few months here and there, that never worked out. I've only had two relationships of any duration - for two years, 16-18 and for 18 months, many years ago.

I have no friends, I've almost spoken to no one for the last 5 years, apart from shops, telephone, with strangers etc. and it horrifies me to think all that time has just gone. Gone. My life has disappeared down a black hole. And that was how my entire adolescence and young adulthood went also - totally isolated, lost out big-time on the fun most people get at university, because I barely coped with it.

What gives? It traces back to three factors. I was bullied at school, physically and emotionally, and my parents rejected me. I didn't have a chance! I'm not a resilient kind of guy. I'm a very soft person - easily hurt, easily damaged. And that's basically it - I'm very damaged. I'm highly intelligent, 2 degrees, studying for a 3rd, good at philosophy, writing, I'm a qualified teacher, but none of that stuff has helped very much. I'm 44, in dire straits financially - OK so long as my savings last (which they will for years - its an inheritance), but when they are gone I'm at the mercy of the UK benefits system again, because I can't cope with normal getting a job, finding a life kind of stuff.

I 'know' all about psychology and therapy: read the books, done the workshops, had the counselling, tried the alternative stuff, the herbs, homeopathy, all the rest of it. None of it helped the core of me - none of it. I'm still damaged, still can't function in a normal way and have a normal, happy, working life.

I have 2 interviews coming up: one's for a PhD, which I might possibly get into. The other's for - get this - an Editorial role at a national magazine. What gives, you think? - they've seen my web site, seen my qualifications, and they're impressed. They probably won't be when we meet - I've barely spoken to anyone for 5 years, I'm despairing about my life, and they will sense my internal pain: they will see my depression on my face, see I'm not very comfortable with people, and that's that - a great opportunity lost. Not fot the first time.

I think really though, it's not *just* about the interview - although that shows my problem, not finding a life. Its more about this: I am, I really am, a very soft kinda guy, easily damaged, and I have been permanently damaged. Thirty years later, emotionally, I'm much the same - bruised, vulnerable, can't find friendship or love. I kinda wince when I say it, because I know lots of people say it - "I'm too sensitive for the world, it doesn't understand me!" - when actually (I have seen this), there can be and are other reasons underlying a person's life when they say stuff like that. It gives you a kind of glamour, saying "I'm a sensitive soul kinda guy" - but its not glamour in my case. Its crap. Theres nothing good aboout being a delicate flower trying to survive a tough environment. You have to toughen up, grow some bark like a tree - but I never have, and still can't - and I'm 44.

Anyone there? Its a very sad place to be in; I can sense that if I really go into it, it would overwhelm me - most of my life has disappeared down a black hole. Gone. And I'm still not equipped to change that.