Caz, the "bad patch" can last your entire lifetime. I'll explain...
I am profoundly deaf, and have been all my life. I think that unlike most of you, I did not receive intervention appropriately (at a very young age) until I was already through a few months in a school for kids with developmental disabilities. I went through kindergarten, 7 or 8 weeks in the first grade, and the rest of the school year in that last school without knowing what was going on. I lived in a silent world for seven and a half years. I didn't learn to talk properly until I was well past seven and a half years old. At that time was I finally able to start learning to read and write, and to speak.
My internal development as a person is unlike anyone else on Earth, unless you want to compare me with similar people in third-world countries or feral children. I did not have the three lenses of civilization put upon me (or attempted, anyway) until then. It was very difficult getting through school. My social skills were not that great, having for a best friend who was homophobic, judgmental about people, and who ended up becoming a necromancer and broke off his friendship with me upon learning I am M2F trans 16 years ago. When I learned about religion around eight and a half, it was too late. I already had a worldview that had set already. I spent my whole life trying to find the path that reflected my own. It turns out that I am Sanātani, a Hindu.
You need to look at yourself and find out just how different you are from other people in your upbringing, because if your circumstances are like mine, you will never find anyone who can cross that mental gulf, chasm and come to love you. I had one person whom I was friends with for 7 years. She was recently divorced at the time. We got together for our first weekend (and our only weekend). She was killed by a drunk driver when she was going to work one early morning. She was the ONLY person who EVER got who I was. My thinking is that once she realized who I was as a person and wanted to share her love with me, her life was completed, her job was finished, it was time for her to "go home." She no longer needed to remain on this earth. It takes a God or Goddess and no less to love a person like me. This is not to say that I'm better than anyone else or that there's not very many people good enough for me, but quite the contrary; as a person of marriageable or relationship quality, I'm very poor or of abysmal quality. When I see a couple at the dinner table or walking together as best friends, I feel like a child of 11 years old watching and wondering what that’s like, and I still feel like that.
One thing I hated about my life was being controlled by my body, my hormones. It wanted me to have sex every day. I hated it because no one I desired wanted to have it with me. It made me frustrated, angry, cry a lot, beat up brick walls with my bare hands. I almost succeeded in leaving this world behind twice. It distracted me from being the person I could have become, the life I could have led. If this describes you, you NEED HELP NOW. GET THEE TO A COUNSELING CENTER NOW. NOT AT NOON, NOT AN HOUR FROM NOW. NOW. You’re only going to be miserable for the rest of your life. It is a nightmare, horrid.
I gave up ten years ago and never even bothered to ask any lady for a date since then. Since I realized just recently that I had started laying the foundation for being Hindu over 20 years ago in a health education course, it became clear to me what was going on. I had diverged from American, white, Christian society. In essence, the only person who would have been comfortable with me was one who was either a Natural Hygienist (health conscious from an ayurvedic/natural health perspective) or a Hindu, and even then, if such a person saw what I was like inside, they didn't like what they saw, a raw, feeling, feral person. 10 years ago, while doing underground financial research, I learned about India's way of looking at gold/silver with religious, financial, and historical purposes, and I realized that I had a similar connection. That was the first time I began to realize the connection with Hinduism. Two years ago, I started to read more into it to see what there was for me, because I was finding too many parallels with my "Ancient" beliefs and Hinduism. I finally admitted to myself in March while working south of Dallas, that I was straight-up Hindu. It was evident to me, plainly by then. Now, because of my hermit/retired status after having learned some about Advaita Vedānta or the idea of the Self as being really separate from the world, from the body, even from the mind which contains the Intellect, Memories, Knowledge, and Views upon the world, I realized the other day that I saw some nice-looking women pass by me in the grocery store, and my eyes didn't track them anymore. They tracked no one. I think it’s been happening for about a month now. I think what's happened is that I'm approaching the time of renunciation from the world, the fourth and final stage in a Hindu’s life. This is not my world, this is not my life to Be. I think it is my last life on this Earth.
All this indicates to me that no matter what I did, it was not to be. Now, I have approached my Temple for assistance with this matter in my life, to help me get back on my feet job-wise, to get out as much of the negative things in my mindset, and start over. I’m a civilizational mess, a disaster. My foray into the Renaissance Faire world was a disaster, my last job having been a dishwasher in a meat-cooking kitchen (and I’m vegan!). I know I’ve hit rock-bottom in this western civilization. The thing that keeps me from hitting drugs and drink is my Hindu perspective on my body as a Temple that I live in, and the thing that keeps me from taking my life is the cycle of birth and death, saṃsāra; that if I take my life, then I might live the next life of poorer quality instead of a better quality because of the intent of suicide. I don’t want to come back here, but if I do this, then I have to come back. I know it’s partly me that I have to work on, but I also know that it’s western society’s perspective of me as a capable person that blocks me also. These are two areas I have to work on. Life from here on out is only going to get more expensive, medically-speaking, and be in decline as opportunities move out of my grasp.
Don’t be like me. GET HELP NOW.
