The first time I was suicidal I was 14, this was in response to how inconsistently draconian my parents were raising me, the biggest thing I learned from them is how to properly fear authority figures and how to stay out of their line of fire.
The second time I was suicidal I was 23, I had just made a big decision for myself, something that should have made me feel like I have more control over my life, but instead it felt like I ruined my life and truly believed the world would be a better place without me in it.
Now I'm 35 and have came to the debilitating realization that the all relationships I've created and maintained to replace my immediate family were born of trauma.
Simply put, no one understands me, even worse it doesn't feel like there is a desire to. They all fell in love with someone without an opinion who was always willing and ready to support them and would never ask for anything in return.
Now all I asked is to be witnessed, remembered, and understood. But I can only express the acceptable parts of my self, not my entire being. The acceptable parts I do express are often met with either patronizing platitudes or a contrarian cordoning telling me to "behave" as if whatever I was expressing went slightly out-of-bounds.
The most frustrating thing is how I've tried in very specific ways to create new relationships to no avail.
I often worry that since I don't scroll for my feel-good hormones, I'm apathetic about pop culture, and that I have a critical perspective on everything, it is highly unlikely I'll ever find my people, my tribe, my family. Part of me also feels like the average modern American is looking for their social connections to be entertaining, egotistically validating, or economically beneficial (a.k.a. networking) rather than meaningful.
And to address the advice some readers may be motivated to give. I'm okay with small talk, I feel like I've gotten really good at it actually. I don't practice pedantry and try to use my critical mind for keeping conversational momentum going or during emotional support, this does limit the scope of my personal expression though as I often bite my tongue. I've made groups of people laugh with my humor, extended (arguably too far at times) out of my social comfort zone, even taken some risks with my self expression. In short, I've been doing things "by the book", and yet I have nothing to show for.
I just feel so lost, alone, chronically misunderstood, and disappointed by everything.
Admittedly, I do have an avoidant attachment style that hinders my socializing, but that is only fed by the countless moments where me just being me results in people pushing me away. This creates an infernal ouroboros of insecurity within my soul, the more I face social rejection the more I feel insecure and feel the need to find someone who gets me, the more I attempt to find someone who gets me I face social rejection.
I'm an eccentric weirdo, who just wants to be weird with other eccentrics, but I'm too busy drowning in the enormity of conformity.
All of this has me at the start of a very familiar path that remembers the footsteps of my 14 and 23 year old minds disappearing into the fog of hopelessness.
So I'm writing all of this to help myself vent and avoid going down this same path, because as they say, the third time's the charm.
Hey, I'm 40 and have been suicidal for most of my life. Also shitty parents. I could have written most of your post. I will save you the usual "find a therapist", " call any of the 100 helplines out there" and "call an ambulance if you feel like committing suicide", I'll suppose you've heard it all. (If you haven't, please seek help :) )
I'm currently at an inpatient facility for depression. When I described similar feelings of not belonging, never finding my people, standing outside of society, being too weird for everyone, the therapist smiled and said that I could ask any other patient and they will all say the same, because these thoughts are a symptom of depression. Feeling like you don't belong to the world, feeling like you can't connect to other humans are all symptoms of depression. And she said " You have depression, but you aren't depression. Your brain is sick so it won't give you correct information about reality and you shouldn't trust it."
Basically don't trust anything your serotonin-lacking brain tells you, it's ill and lying.
I appreciate you skipping over the obvious. The thing that really breaks my brain is on one hand I do have a history of depression and that can't be ruled out, and I know we aren't as unique as we think we are (hence my multiple attempts at getting out there), but like I just finished watching a show for a friend, I brought it up hoping we'd each talk about or favorite moments, how the show made us feel, you know bonding? Instead she just says "Oh that's nice I knew you'd like it" (maybe I could have asked her what she liked about the show). I asked another friend to set aside some time to talk about some pretty serious topics in my life and he totally flaked.
Like these examples, and many more, can't just be me being depressed right? Like two of my favorite movies are KPOP Demon Hunters and Midsommar, and both of these interests have gotten me quite some odd looks, and hey I get it, I know its weird to love a kids movie and a (beautifully) disturbing horror movie, but the lack of social validation I get for being genuine hurts.
Excuse me to put it a bit bluntly, but I detect a lot of depression thinking in your post. Again, coming from someone with the same problem. Recognition where your thought patterns are tainted by the chemical imbalance in your brain is an important first step.
So, which patterns do I mean? You watched a show after your friend asked you to. She said "I'm glad you liked it.", with no follow-up. So your immediate reaction is "She rejected me and probably also doesn't like me as well as I thought because she didn't go into a deeper discussion." You have jumped to conclusions and you have catastrophised. This is a very common depression symptom. "She didn't offer a deeper conversation." -> "She doesn't WANT a deeper conversation about the show." -> "She doesn't want a deeper conversation with you specifically." -> "She doesn't want a deeper conversation with you specifically, because there's something wrong with you."
The only statement that is objectively, true is the first one. For all others there are alternative explanations. A) Maybe she's not that interested in the show. She liked it well enough, but isn't interested in deeper conversations about it. B) She might have misinterpreted your tone of voice. Maybe you said "I watched the show." in a way that made her think you didn't want to talk about it further. Being depressed, we can often come across as uninterested. Other people can misinterpret our depressed mood as "I don't care for this topic of conversation."
Maybe you could try sending her something about the show, a meme or an article or a video, and start a conversation. See how she reacts. If she reacts negatively, you can ask. "I thought you liked the show, did that change?" Don't assume you're the reason.