Switched on this year and it has been tough.

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Hi everyone. I feel like this was the year that I got "switched on" like John Elder Robison writes about in his book of the same title. It's been really stressful. Not just on me but on my family, who I love very much.

It's nice to feel functional again, but I came to realize that some of the people that I considered friends weren't really friends at all. It seems like they were pity friends at best or maybe just enjoyed having me around as a fool. This really hurt and freaked me out for a while.

My family is very kind and encouraging for me to go out and get a job, try to date, and live a little bit I'm terrified of being taken advantage of again as I now realize how many times "friends" have stolen from me, teased me right in front of my face without me even knowing it, bullied me and so on.

So that puts me in a tough spot. I want to make my family happy and at this point my confidence is so shattered that I'm not sure making myself happy is on my priorities list.

Can anyone relate to this? Has anyone gone through this whole "waking up" after many years of being unaware or feeling almost brain-dead or on auto-pilot? How did you start to rebuild self esteem and how did you learn to trust people again or is that even possible?

I'm going through something similar right now, so I hope others respond and give some words of wisdom.

"Waking up" is so stressful! I think change is difficult for most of us. When we have to change a lot of things, it can be very overwhelming!

You need to focus on making yourself happy. I'm always trying to please everyone else, but you can't make everybody happy... You really need to focus on you. It's your life. You should live it in a way that brings you joy.

Finding some good friends will help you with this process. You need people that will support you and build you up - not bring you down.

I believe the way to build one's self-esteem is for individual people to build on their strengths, and attempt to mitigate their weaknesses.

I don't believe denial of weaknesses is good, by the way. I do believe one has to work on them, though, and believe that one could transcend them--or at least reduce them.

There are times, by the way, when "weaknesses" can be transformed into "strengths."

A prime example is an interest in esoteric subjects. Frequently, amongst the "mainstream," interest in esoteric subjects is frowned upon, and seen as being a social "weakness." However, I am of the opinion that study and research, in and of itself, EVEN IF IT REDUCES YOUR TIMES SOCIALIZING, can create strength in a person, through even the process of study and research itself (though immediate results are not realized).