I apologize in advance for the long post. I went bit in detail to give some insight in my mental state at the time and now. The proces of change is ugly sometimes, at least its been in my case. In a way its good to get this off my chest.

I feel a strange sense of irritation, disgust and deep sense sympathy for my younger self(and to a certain level for a lot of my friends who are still in the same mental state I was in). At the same time I want to slap him, I want to hug him and be there as a big brother to help him find better ways to pick himself up before its too late and his mind gets all twisted up.

And while im sure the angry entitled out of shape incel with no self awareness stereotype exists, I think those are just the ones that end up on the news or internet for doing something stupid. It didn't define most of the ones I have known, at least they didn't show that side. Not from the US so maybe its different here. The "incels" I have known, including myself i've noticed had a few things in common. We were all victims essentially(mentally) Introverted, socially awkward(possibly in the spectrum), deeply insecure of our shortcomings, super agreeable approval seekers with no sense of self respect. Usually bad or absent father figure.

Ironically, I think the only reason I managed to pull myself out is because the deep down I always had at least some self of righteous anger and entitlement, even as a child. I knew deep down i'd rather end myself than accept my place. I remember everything crashing down on me at the same one day, it was after some people at school decided to pull a prank on me when all I've done was stay out of peoples way and be a people pleaser. After a lifetime of being overly nice to people and being targeted and exploited for appearing weak, it finally hit a breaking point. And while I couldn't see it before everything hit me at that moment. Just as people didn't respect me they didn't respect my parents either or anyone like me for that matter

At that moment I think I tried to abandon everything I was and try to create a different persona of me physically and mentally. I became a fighter and bulked up so nobody fucked with me on the physical side. On the mental side I tried to convince myself I no longer cared what was right anymore as long as I got what I want. I noticed the people that got ahead in life despite being a shitty person and mimicked some of their traits. It felt wrong, but in time I got the results I wanted. But deep down I hated that this worked. I fell in a vicious cycle, the more people I fucked over the more it proved to me(at the time) that everything I learned growing up and the world in general was a farse, the more I wanted to fuck people over. Eventually the contradicting beliefs in my head started eating up at me. While people now generally saw me as confident, attractive, happy, charismatic. It was getting mentally taxing to keep the facade while holding on to so much pain and resentment. In hindsight acting like a borderline sociopath wasn't necessary, just the confidence, lack of care of others opinion and genuinely loving and putting myself first. But I guess really the whole experiment was just a big fuck you to my former self.

At the present moment, I've taken a break from everything. I want to find another source of meaning other than pain in my life. I'm slowly trying to find the balance between who I was and who I pretended to be. Not even sure what my real personality is anymore or what I want out of life. But I look forward to figuring things out the right way this time.

To the old me: I couldn't be there for you but I'm going to be there for the other lost kids out there.