My current situation and my lack of ability to rectify it

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All right, so I suppose I should start with a bit of history.

I never got along well with people, from as young as 4 or 5 i had issues, mostly with behavior control and agression. I was bounced between half a dozen diagnosese ranging from ADD to Schizophrenia. I got into fights a lot in school from when I was six to about my freshman year in high school. During all that time I had to focus so much energy on not getting into fights and what not that the social aspects of my life suffered even more.

I made the first friend I could talk with just about anything with in high school, she's a cute, great girl whom I had a crush on and got utterly shot dfown. Despite this, we remained friends and talk to this day, 4 years later. I made more social progress in the last two years of high school than most of the rest of my life. I had some friends, not good friends, but at the very least people I could hang out with once in a while, though I rarely left the house to see anyone, it was more we had the same classes and were a part of the same after school activities. I even had a date for my senior prom, even if she only asked me out of pity and I ended up having a horrible time.

After that was when i met my first girlfriend. We started dating literally two days after prom, and for almost two years things were good. I loved her, she loved me all that good stuff. Unfortunately, ebcause I was so occupied with this, my social progress in other areas severely slowed down. And when we broke up, I really realized how much farther behind I was. I got another girlfriend, someone i had been talking to online for a good two years as well, sadly that only lasted a few months, ending rather roughly this past thanksgiving.

That put it into even sharper focus how different I am. After another month of wallowing in lonelieness, I got back in touch with my first ex, because I thought at the very least we could try to be friends and talk on friendly terms, since it's always good to have someone who really knows you to talk to, and the reason we broke up was rather stupid. That worked, and we talked for a whikle and she's helped a little. niow, however, she has started going out with my roommate, who I think is a total choad. This is extremely awkward and uncomfortable, even as I write this they are sharing the bed int he room across the hall in the apartment.

Then there's the general things that bug me. I can't stand seeing other couples put on public displays of affection, simply because I know how good it feels to have someone like that, and because I don't it angers me. I can't even work up the nerve to say hi or compliment a random cute girl I see while getting food, because I'm too shy and lack the self-confidence to think I can do it. I have almost no self-esteeem, I feel like I'm only good at a few, select, and mostly useless things. I think I'm average looking at best despite what people seem to say to my face about it, which is suprisingly enough, better than what i think.

I've been known to stay up all night because I can't stop agonizing over one thing or another, whether it's my lack of social skills, my inability to get a job, my lack of confidence in being able to keep that job, or just plain being lonely. I play video games at every free momeent, simply because they allow me to stop thinking about everything that's wrong and zone out for a while.


Now, all that being said I've finally made a couple of steps to try and get myself going. I'm seeing a counselor on a regular basis, and next week I'll be starting a sort of group workshop on developing social skills. (Only half a surprise that we have one, this is a college full of technical people not known for their socialization outside a chat room). However, i would like more advice, and defintiely support.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read all that and offer what they have. It's been a long time since I've been able to write anything in a flow like that, and the sound it makes as I type on my keyboard is really neat, making it hard to stop.

Well, first things first, you're suffering from something that happens to a lot of people, I'm alone now now too, my girlfriend of 2 years cheated on me with a guy and is now going out with him, which is nice.
So yeah, because all that has happened it's always going to be hard seeing people being affectionate, the only real way around this is to give it time and perhaps you won't associate it with what you lack.
You've already done the hard part of pointing out what you need to improve on, you need to get some self-respect and confidence.
What I do, and this is just me, it might not work for you at all, but I throw caution to the wind, and convince myself that I don't care if things go wrong or not, and just get on with it, and maybe I'll score lucky then and actually get talking to someone, if not, big deal.
It's not the greatest idea to put up emotional barriers to prevent you feeling hurt from rejection like that, but it worked for me. It'd probably be better to learn not to be so sensitive to peoples reactions to your approaches and to learn from the experiences and figure out what works and what doesn't when communicating with someone new.
If you can manage to pull that off and get on well with someone new, that'll do your confidence wonders.
Take a look at yourself some time, and pick out one good thing about you, I remember doing it years ago when I hated myself utterly, I looked at my eyes and said 'I hate the rest of me, but dammit I have GOOD eyes!'.
It's nothing to do with how you actually look, perception of what looks good and what doesn't is subjective, you just need to convince yourself that what you've got there isn't as bad as you think it is.
Anyways, that's enough of my rambling, take what you will of that, I haven't slept for some time so I'm not sure how much will make sense.

No advice, Hunter. I'm just glad you were able to put your thoughts and feelings into words.

BeeBee