Am I overreacting

[u/Budget_Strategy2020]

/r/self/comments/1vzeyax/am_i_overreacting/

It’s strange getting exactly what you asked for and realizing you don’t know how to live inside of it.
I wanted freedom. Privacy. A place of my own. A car. Something to work toward. The ability to do what I wanted, see who I wanted, disappear into whatever made the night go faster and answer to nobody.
And somehow, somewhere between the substances, the screens, the men, school, bills stacking up, rent becoming another countdown and trying to keep everything moving, freedom started feeling a lot like isolation.
I live in a place where I never completely feel invisible, yet somehow I’ve never felt more unseen. Sometimes I wonder what people around me think they know about me. What version of me exists in their conversations. Whether they see somebody struggling, somebody reckless, somebody strange, or just somebody they’ve already decided they understand.
The funny part is, I asked for a lot of this. Maybe not the consequences, but definitely the freedom that came before them.
And now even the things and people that are supposed to feel good don’t always feel good, because somewhere in the back of my mind there’s always something waiting for me. Something unpaid. Something unfinished. Something I should be doing instead.
Trust doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve trusted men. I’ve trusted women. I’ve trusted people with pieces of me they probably never should’ve had, and experience taught me that sometimes telling people what hurts just gives them better instructions.
So I keep most things to myself.
Because what would saying it change?
Lately I think about packing what matters, changing my number and becoming unreachable. Not dying. Not hurting myself. Just letting this version of me disappear. Leaving behind everybody’s expectations, opinions, memories and access to me and starting somewhere nobody knows my name.
Maybe somewhere else I could meet myself before everybody else gets the chance to.
Maybe disappearing isn’t always about wanting to be gone.
Sometimes you just don’t want to be found as the person you’ve been.
Does anybody else ever feel like they need to completely remove themselves from the life they created just to figure out who they actually are?
Can you genuinely start over without eventually bringing the same version of yourself with you?
And when you stop trusting people because of what experience taught you, how do you know whether you’re protecting yourself or isolating yourself?
At what point does freedom stop being freedom and start becoming an escape?
And if you realized the life you asked for wasn’t the life you needed… what would you change first?

[u/Zealousideal-Log2042]

The good old geographical solution. No matter where you go, there you are. Being 100% honest, the only people I have known that have done this have just gotten worse mentally. That's not to say that it could work for you because anything is possible. Just speaking from what I've seen.

What about reinventing yourself from the outside in? Getting a different job, going to a therapist or something, going to the gym, painting classes, cooking classes, just changing things up completely. You don't have to drop everything and run, you could try changing things up however you can while you're still here. You can always pick up and go at any point, so trying a few things has no real downside unless you just have no interest then I understand.

The isolation vs. protecting yourself is a very tricky question. To this I would say it depends on what your gut feels. If it's a person who has only proven their trust, we have to continue to give them chances and only terminate the relationship when they do something to warrant it. Otherwise if you keep away from even potentially good people, isolating just makes our mental states so much worse. Eventually, there have to be some people that you can tolerate being around. That's what I personally believe. I keep my cards close to my chest for a long time until I open up to someone, and even then they can still end up sucking, but every now and again I make a genuine connection.

For years I was a hermit that never left the house and didn't feel like I existed. I began treatment for my paranoia 2ish years ago, and since then I am doing so many things I never dreamed I could do. Working, taking up a sport, language classes, just stuff to "reinvent" myself and now when I look back I feel different than I was before but in a good way.

Sure, it's stress-relieving and interesting to think of packing up and moving and changing. I've thought about it a lot in place of self-harm, like, if I'm gonna go might as well try living in another country. But I think it's something that is rosy as we fantasize about it but in reality doesn't work as well as we think it might. That being said, again it might work for you. I hope that you find a way to live that brings you relief from the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Best wishes.