Thanks guys. I think I just have to accept there are some things I can't change. IE: I must be autistic. This isn't the first time that I've misread social cues.

I'm torturing myself trying to work so hard at recovery that I now wonder if any of it is worth it. My dad was developmentally retarded. And I've got a LOT of his characteristics.

My goal since I was 11 has always been to learn how to have relationships with people. 30 years later, I'm no closer. This has been one long torturous journey. It's been a long and windy path, and apparently, looking back at the path, I'm still standing in the same place I was when I was 11. Friendless and clueless.

I can't get 'there' if I can't trust my own senses. My senses have let me down 100% of the time. I've NEVER gotten anything right when it comes to matters of intimacy and closeness to others. **NEVER**

I hate myself, I hate my retarded pathetic stupid little life, and I hate what a sick cruel joke this planet is.

And yet, we still love you like a brother.

I'm deeply sorry for your acute pain right now. I, too, cannot maintain a relationship and subvert my own good opportunities with my defense mechanisms that drive away the people that I want to be with.

Dealing with my ruined relationships in the past has been the most painful things that I've endured... and yet, we muddle through.

(((((Magellan)))))

Consider your namesake: Ferdinand Magellan was the first explorer to circumnavigate the globe when many still considered Earth to be flat. Don't hate yourself for surviving; look at what you've endured so far.

Life, even when it is cruel and filled with bullshit, is what we make of it. Right?

i am new to this forum and I can already see the power healing power of connecting to people that been where I have; other people dont seem to understand that when a boy loses his virtue to a pedofile you almost say good bye to a normal life

*