TW: mentions of suicidal ideation, bullying, emotional abuse

For as long as I can remember, I've never felt comfortable being my true age. I remember being a kid who never fit in because I felt more intellectually mature, so I just wanted to grow up, thinking things would be easier when I was surrounded by peers who could understand me better. I remember getting to adulthood and realizing how much I hated and couldn't handle the mental and physical strain of being an adult. I eventually had to quit every job I ever had because they all drove me to the point of suicidal ideation from the stress and responsibility. I'm turning 29 later this year, and I'm only now beginning to understand certain things about myself.

I've been seeing doctors and therapists for over two decades, and am on medications which have changed multiple times over the years. I've been diagnosed with MDD, GAD, and PTSD, and am severely disabled by them. I have seen progress in myself over time, but it feels as though any progress I do make is eventually overtaken by my chronic mental illness and I revert back to being completely helpless and overwhelmed by everything.

Looking back now, I can see how I lost not only most of my childhood, but pretty much the entirety of my teenage years. I was relentlessly bullied for the duration of my education. I was a small and extremely sensitive kid. Very easy to pick on. When I started showing romantic interest in girls my age, I was repeatedly and consistently rejected and humiliated. Every. Single. Time. At home wasn't much better, even though I thought it was at the time.

My relationship with my dad was somehow always at the very center of my life. He'd often reinforce the importance of depending on family over anyone else. The majority of the activities he'd encourage me to do were solitary and kept me isolated and unrelatable. He always gave me constant praise for my intelligence and talents to the point where I started believing that any mistakes I made or failures I experienced meant that I could never accomplish success in that area of my life. I ended up quitting a lot of things over the years due to this. He was somehow controlling and overbearing while also being absent due to work most of the time. He'd make promises he'd never keep. He'd reinforce the idea that I was exactly like him, so when I looked up to him as much as I did and couldn't compare, I'd feel terrible about myself. He'd tease me about things he thought were "cute" out in public, even going so far as to childishly mock my actions or words, leaving me feeling self-conscious and humiliated. Over time, his own mental instability started taking a more direct toll on me as he'd come into my room late at night after he got home from work, sit on my bed and sob beside me as I laid there, terrified and unable to sleep.

I could go on and on, but the sum of that is that I and the rest of my family have a 'tenuous' relationship with my dad at best. Not only that, but my current living situation has me feeling trapped with him. I'm forced to live with him by myself in an apartment because I have no other options due to my financial situation and inability to work. Ironic how the constant feeling of being unable to do anything when I was young has led me to being actually unable to do anything.

Anyway, this post is getting long without me getting to what I was setting out to touch upon, so let's refocus. I am seriously anti-social, and have only begun seriously dating in the past couple years (if you can call it that). After having two partners (long-distance) that were very encouraging about me being able to freely express myself. I find it incredibly difficult to feel like I'm being my true self in front of people because I'm so conditioned to hide things that might cause me to be ridiculed.

I think because I had been connecting that feeling of being safe and comfortable with my romantic partners, I had assumed I was just an ageplayer or something like that. My last partner was very much closer to a Caregiver than I had ever experienced before, and I'd begun to regress more with her. After we broke up a few weeks ago, I started realizing how much more deeply this went as I experienced involuntary regression for the first time. I had experienced dissociation before, but this was the first time I had felt a very specific dissociative direction.

It was not a comfortable experience, nor has it been every time it's happened since. I find myself crying more easily at getting frustrated or overwhelmed. I've only been able to calm myself down with things like building LEGO, coloring, or watching things that remind me of the nice parts of my childhood (namely anything Star Wars). I've become even more uncomfortable being around people, including my closest friends, because I'm worried of being exposed or feeling humiliated.

Most of the time, I've been able to talk a good game and seem like I know what I'm talking about or that I'm a normal, functional human being. However, now I feel like the cracks in my façade are showing and I'm not even totally sure of what's behind it. I feel so lost without some kind of guidance. I'm scared and I feel so alone. Every time I talk to someone I know, it feels like they're offering advice to the person they think I am and not the one I really am. I don't feel like anybody understands me because even I don't understand me.

I need help, but I'm finding my usual sources for that are completely useless. I've started to touch on it with my therapist, but only after finding this sub today has it started to click that this is so much more pervasive than I thought. I've felt body dysmorphia many times before, but looking back I can see how much of it was also age dysphoria. When I hit puberty (very late, btw), I gained a lot of weight and grew a lot of body hair. I have never been comfortable with either of those, and I can see now just how tied to my age those parts of me are.

I don't know what to do at this point. I feel trapped and insecure now that don't have a partner/CG anymore. I had felt like I'd had some security in knowing there was a specific direction for my future, but now that's gone. I exhausted from everything, and talking to people has become so difficult but necessary and I don't know where to start. I don't know how I can meet people who'd understand. I don't know who I can trust and I don't know where to start in building that with someone.

Is there anybody else who's anti-social that knows where to begin? I don't know where else to go and anything irl is pretty much off the table.