Ever since I [M24] was discharged from the psychiatric hospital, everyone has been treating me differently. Nobody will talk to me or each-other (when around me) anymore.

About a year ago I had a psychotic break and checked myself into the Psychiatric wing at Northwestern for two consecutive two week stays (immediately relapsed upon the first discharge). I had been smoking way too much weed and had gone too far in merging fact and fiction for my film school thesis project. I was massively delusional and picked a fight with the entire film department and eventually the entire school over an incident that had become an issue of gender ethics.

Mind you I was not delusional about the incident in question, I was simply experiencing delusions of grandeur thinking that everything was much bigger than it was. Doctors still haven't been able to figure me out, I've gotten multiple diagnoses in this past year and have not been able to find a medication that works for me.

After I was discharged I found myself out of a job, out of the student loan money that was paying my rent, and so shattered and lost that I had no plan to get me past the next few days. I had to move back home with my parents.

I spend almost all of my time with friends and family now in silence. We only talk very briefly about what's immediately in front of us and when people are discontent about something they don't bring it up and instead wait for it to boil over into an argument. I'm a punching bag and people take out their own issues on me because it's easy. I feel like I'm drifting further and further from reality as I sit in these quiet rooms with people glued to their screens and not connecting. It feels like I'm living in dystopic science fiction movie.

If I'm the one taking issue with this is it my fault? Are there just people in this world who talk a lot and those who hardly do? All I want out of life is to get into it with people, discuss things that matter, not just the weather or how I feel today. I don't know if this is something I'm just noticing or if things changed after I was hospitalized. Is this lack of IRL connection just a product of our modern times and I'm just now becoming discontent with it? It seems as if we have separate parts of ourselves that we save for the internet/texting vs IRL. People assume all human connection is just a given instead of finding ways to show it through words and actions. Is this just my life? I see people in public who seem to be connecting IRL just fine and their relationships seem meaningful and caring.

How come I truly believe that I am doing all the right things and being compassionate, loving, positive, and working toward helathy relationships, but everyone is literally telling me to my face every day that I am not and that I'm fucking up everything that I try to accomplish.

I'm losing friends left and right these days. When I try to be open it alienates people. When I try to have some fun with my friends or family they think I'm just going through a manic phase and write me off. I just had someone who I considered a best friend bail on me for a very important birthday road trip three days before we were supposed to leave. On my birthday I had another friend lose it on me because I didn't want to sleep with another friend who's feelings he felt protective of.

Is this because so many of my friends smoke weed? I've decided to no longer be a smoker and am now realizing just how delusional some of these people are. Am I experiencing this frustration simply because I'm now realizing how messed up that part of my life has been?

Am I doing something wrong or am I befriending the wrong people? I try to take initiative but whenever I am anything but depressed I'm written off as manic.

But it's not just the smokers, it's my family too. I had to move back home temporarily and the way they treat me is almost more sheltering and careful than when I was 12. Nobody in my house talks to one another. My mother spends hours a day on her laptop browsing Amazon or whatever else, my dad works and when he comes home the furthest I've ever gotten in conversation with him was about as deep as you would get with a waiter. My sister hides in her room all day and before my brother went back to college he would do the same, never letting out more than a word or two unless he was angered enough to lash out (it's no secret our family has anger problems).

I've had more intimate conversations with cab drivers than I have ever had with a member of my family.

I don't even know how to wrap this up. I'm in therapy and seeing a psychiatrist. My mother was refusing to do family therapy until faced with an ultimatum and even so she still refuses to do it with the entire family, just me, her, and dad. I just recently lost my job due to my mental illness. I have no way of moving out anytime soon and even when I can I have no way of affording an apartment in any of the cities I could live in on my own and I have nobody to live with.

I know my way out is to write and then shoot and edit my first feature film so that I can get my career going, but there's too much trauma associated with that part of me. I can't write because I'm scared after having seen the damage my writing can do (many of my films have been highly personal and effected my life directly).

I just need help. I'm putting my problems here as scattered as they may be in hopes that someone out there can help me understand this mess of a life i am dealing with. How can I make and keep real friendships, how can I connect with my family, how can I get past my diagnosis and live as a normal person again?

TL;DR I need help. I feel alone in all my personal connections, nobody will talk to me because they're afraid to damage me, thinking I'm ultra-fragile ever since I was hospitalized. I can't connect with my family, I keep losing friends and alienating acquaintances, and I'm too damaged and numbed by the medication to get back to doing what I love.

Reddit, please help.

Edit: I have a job lined up and paid for the trip with money I had leftover from my previous job. I'm not sitting here wallowing at home, I am in fact actively trying to fix things.

Submitted November 03, 2018 at 12:25PM by jacknikolaidis https://ift.tt/2D0jfo9