Chronic depression and other garbage

I could say things here.

 

I’m really sorry men exist.

 

America had a good run. It had a few centuries. It tried. It failed. It’s time to burn it to the ground.

 

Apparently I can’t actually say things here.

 

Question. Why do people (a friend specifically) think I should “be myself” as opposed to modeling my behavior after someone else?

 

Usually it's a bad idea because "faking" a different personality indefinitely whenever you are in public is not sustainable. It can cause paranoia that everyone else is doing the exact same thing, and subsequently resentment of everyone around you for not realizing that you are 'acting', in worst case scenarios resulting in alienation from your peers, and social isolation. Also it takes ridiculous amounts of mental energy that could be better spent on other things. Acting is a very involved, intense process that exhausts emotionally to a ridiculous degree.

To a certain degree there is also your friend's perspective to be considered. They are friends with you for a reason. If they didn't like you they wouldn't be friends with you, and chances are they would not be friends with the person you are trying to emulate. They like you, not a goal you are chasing.

There's also a difference between striving to become like someone you admire through working on your problems (< sustainable and achievable) and trying to just be a different person entirely by trying to act like a carbon copy of how you perceive your idol without actually addressing underlying problems you might have (< what i talked about up in the first paragraph)

Fundamentally... only you can decide who you want to be. And at the end of the day, you are the one person you will always be stuck with. So... it would probably be best if you don't become a stranger you yourself can't understand.

 

... why would "faking" a different personality cause paranoia and resentment? I don't understand that it would cause any problems like that.

I want you, all of you, to listen to me. I hate myself. I hate my life. My life revolves around my family. I have no control over this.

And I'm a bad person. I'm abusive and defined-male and mentally ill and have jealousy issues and think the world would be better off if all humans were dead.

I don't want to "improve myself" and keep living like this. I want to be someone else.

 

isn't wanting to be someone else just.. wanting to improve yourself at that point tho. like. fundamentally??
you're not happy and wanna change, i get that. but like putting on someone else's coat doesn't make you that person, it make you Yourself Wearing That Person's Coat.
the paranoia comes from the feeling that eventually sets in of knowing you're being a fraud because you're wearing a coat instead of instilling any deep inner changes in yourself or putting that kind of work in and then you freak out because you're living a lie and you wonder if all the people you care or or are envious of are doing the same thing and then nothing feels real anymore. it's just not sustainable in the long run at all.
you're the only you there is. you can work on you, change you for the better so you're happy and not hurting yourself or others, but you are still you. and that's a good thing in the end.
i get the desire to be 12 personalities in a trench coat but it really doesn't work that way in practice. you can shape and mold yourself after people, after things, but it's still YOU that you are modeling and changing in the end, not magically becoming a completely separate person. there's deep issues there dude, but you just gotta poke and prod and pull and work at them till you can find which string to follow. And i wish I could say it was easy. But it's not. It's very very hard. But I think you can do it.

i'm not sure what you want anyone to say here. :c

 

I don't know. I guess part of me was hoping someone would say "no, you can just act like someone else/steal someone's life and it'll be fine."

I don't want to be myself. I don't know if I care enough about myself to get better. But I don't really have much of a choice.

 

Spoiler

Part of it isn't even about me or my personality. It's about the state of my life. I live with family even though i'm 25. I've only ever cosplayed 4 characters, and only one of them is any good (my Vriska was a one-off, my Pearl is too fat and bulky, my Alphys is a slut wearing a labcoat and glasses). I can count the number of friends I have on one hand.

Meanwhile, This Bitch is 23-ish, has already cosplayed six different characters and four of them look pretty great, has an apartment, and personally knows Andrew Hussie and made a cosplay outfit for Shelby Cragg.

I want her life. Not mine. Mine sucks.

 

So... Make plans? Find the ways in which you think yourself lacking and make a plan for addressing them, step by step.
There's no easy way to get out of the situation you are in, since it's a pretty difficult situation to be in. That's not a personal failing. You're just 25. It's perfectly okay to still live at home at 25, plenty of people do. It's just a bit unfortunate that your family tends to suck from what I've seen you mention of them. There's a whole bunch of life still ahead of you dude, no need to rush for perfection before you hit 30, or do you want to spend the 50-80 years after that being bored out of your mind? :P
You can pick up a sport to work on your body type if you're dissatisfied with it. I personally recommend dancing, like, literally any dancing at all, it's very balanced and addresses all muscle groups while also improving posture, presence, flexibility and so on. If you like Pearl, and want to cosplay her again, wouldn't it be super cool to learn ballet so you can do the really cool poses? And Ballet is a super solid foundation for a lot of other things. Like ice skating which is cool as fuck, or pretty much any other dance when it comes to the show level.
If you think you are falling behind when it comes to the quality and quantity of your cosplay, well there's nothing for it but to practice and to try and work on more characters. But Quality is a lot more important than quantity, so just focusing on one or two characters for now and perfecting them is perfectly okay and probably even a smarter approach.
And... I don't have super many friends either, my dude. But I'm also an introvert with aspergers, so I'm pretty content with just a few people I like a lot and can count on rather than socially exhausting myself. But if you want more friends, there are ways to achieve that? Idk if you're good at baking or something, but I've good experiences with befriending people at my job or at classes by just kind of being the one bringing cake or cookies in occassionally! People love baked goods, it's a great conversation starter too, to talk about how you made the cookies or cake or whatever. Being open and friendly, offering to help people, putting yourself forward, all of that are great and pretty easy ways to befriend people? Is there some kind of community center near you that offers clubs or courses that interest you and that you could take part in to befriend people?
I know it sometimes feels like it, but socializing and being "popular" (aka being someone people trust not to be a total dickhead) are actually pretty easy? You just need to find common ground to meet people on! Clubs for hobbies are a great way to do it.

 

Things I don’t like about me


White (can’t change that)

AMAB (years of time and thousands of dollars, possibly surgery)

Long-term depression (years of time, unknown amount of dollars, new or stronger antidepressants)

Jealousy issues (years of time)

Fat (years of time and hours of exercise)

Hairy (regular shaving)

Lives with parents (thousands of dollars, unknown amount of time)

Hates people (years of time)

Ugly (can’t change that)

Not creative (can’t change that)

Lives far from friends (unknown amounts of time and dollars)

Average height (can’t change that)

Not good at cosplay (years of time, hundreds of dollars)

Not well educated (years of time, thousands of dollars)

Should probably stop overthinking this list

 

I hate my life I hate my family I hate my life I hate my family

 

I think a good starting point might be to find some of the things that you like about yourself. If your constant refrain is that there's nothing good about you, then yeah, what's the point? But you can change that refrain because you absolutely have good traits too. You're not just a bundle of terrible things. A slightly different mindset can help you have the motivation to work on the things you don't like.

 

There’s not much to like about me. I regret my own bad behavior (which is expected). I’m able bodied (which is ableist). I am very punctual. I care about my family and friends (which is expected). I have a job (which is expected in capitalist society).

I graduated college early? (But don’t have a job in my field so that’s pointless)

 

It's... not ableist to be in good health and prefer being in good health.
What.
Trust me, as someone who is chronically ill and in pain a lot and currently applying for formal recognization of my disability status, I'd much prefer if my joints didn't fuck me over too. As long as you recognize that disabled people are, well, people, and that if you were to be disabled this wouldn't end your entire life, or destroy your personhood, you're fine. No one's gonna argue with the statement "I generally prefer my body working reasonably well", unless they have some problems that really need addressing.

 

Well. Okay, I’ll trust you on that. Thanks.

But still, I don’t have anything good about me aside from “I function as a human in civil society is supposed to function.”

 

i'm pretty sure that's the depression talking too, pal.
do you have a game you like that you're passably good at? you can also like small things about yourself that no one else notices. For example I like the tiny, super pale freckles I get high on my cheekbones in the summer that are almost always covered by makeup. I like the shape of my collarbones a lot. I like about myself that sometimes I get so into a song I'm listening to that I will start dancing in the street as I walk home in the middle of the night.
You can like yourself for cooking one dish exactly like you like it, or for being good at smelling something. You can like being good at telling apart colors, you can even like yourself for being terrible at telling apart colors, because, hey, if you can't tell apart a bucket full of dark blue socks, then all of them match eachother!
You can like yourself for wearing colorful nerdy socks, or for having a dorky laugh.
And sometimes you can even just like yourself because if everyone in the world deserves being loved, then you do too.

 

I can understand that from a logical/philosophical perspective I should love myself because everyone deserves to be loved because we’re all human beings, but I don’t really feel like it applies to me.

I don’t have any little things about myself that I like the way you do.