TL;DR: Thank you ssm

I have literally never talked to anyone about this but your story resonated so strongly with me I feel absolutely compelled to tell you about how similar my experience is. I know it sounds selfish and it probably is but I hope at least it'll make you feel as relieved as reading your comment made me. I'm shaking a lot right now but I want you to know I cannot thank you enough for this. English is not my first language and even in my first language i have trouble expressing my feelings, but i feel it is absolutely necessary that I at least try. You obviously don't have to read it because it's freaking long.

I've felt I'm not and never will be good enough for the greater half of my very short life, and after reading your story I now feel like it has a lot to do with my mom. Not that I blame her for anything, she's probably the person I love and admire the most in the whole world, maybe except for my sister. Like your parents, my mom didn't have the chance to do a lot of things she would've liked to do while she was growing up so she made an effort to give me and my sister the best opportunities possible. While most of her childhood was spent helping grandma with house chores and cleaning up after her older brothers (she's from a small town in southern Colombia), she eventually went to school, made huge efforts to pay for college and managed to get her masters and 2 PhDs abroad on scholarships, all while raising me and my sister, and now my little brother, as a single mom. She's now a widely known and respected professor and researcher in her field and she loves what she does and does it really really well. All this happened only about 7y ago so in my childhood we were usually very short on money, but even so we were always enrolled in the best schools and had the best tutors, foreign language, art, whatever-you-can-think-of courses available to us. I was a great student until about 6th grade when I started to hang out with other 'questionable' kids and my grades fell down to the point where I was failing half my classes. My sister graduated that year with a full ride to a good uni down here, with really good grades and great social/work prospects. So naturally my mom was really disappointed in me, and with good reason. I have never seen her so unhappy about anything, except maybe when her second husband left her a couple years later. So I made a point of improving and proving to my mom I could be as good as she wanted me to be.

After my sister went away to college, and my mom finished her first PhD we moved towns; and down there, being the new kid in town, I was bullied for a while, got in fights with the other kids, yada yada. It sucked. I also lost my best friend, the only person I have ever felt like I could truly confide in, as he stayed in the other town. The first couple years were really fucking lonely for me except for this two girls whom I made friends with and made my life bearable. But most of the people at this school thought I was dumb, weird, and gay for only hanging out with girls. Well, I mean, they weren't wrong. Anyway, so I ended up spending a lot of time alone those first two years, and took solace in schoolwork and studied every single day, in a self-absorbed and bitter effort to prove that I was worth it, that I was better than the people who called me names and kicked my chair at school. Eventually things got sorta better and as me and my classmates matured by 11th grade I had new and decent friends, and I had also made it to the top of my class, school and district. I even came to terms with my sexuality, told my close ones about it and opened myself to fall in love with another guy for the first time; however, after having my self-esteem destroyed by bullying and name-calling I still to this day have this feeling no one would ever want to love me back. I never felt as happy as I was at my other school, not have I ever felt that way any day since then. I remember having this constant feeling down my chest since the first day at the new school: a feeling no one would ever like me, a feeling that even if X number said I was a good student deep down I know it's all bullshit, a feeling I will never be academically/socially good enough, not as good as my mom, or as my mom wanted me to be, and not as good as my sister.

By the time I had almost finished high school I was depressed. I took solace on the idea of moving away from home to go to college, but I wouldn't be able to do so if I didn't get a scholarship. Here in Colombia these are based on the score on the standardised college admission test, the ICFES, which is probably the thing I have ever felt the most anxious about. The day before presenting the test, I thought about killing myself while walking down a forest near my school, fearing that if I didn't do good enough in the test, my life wouldn't be worth it from there on. Everyone expected me to do great, and this put so much additional pressure over that which I had already imposed on myself that I stopped socialising completely: for two months or so I became a complete outcast and got the few friends I had managed to make, worried about me. One of them even found me in said forest, crying myself numb some days before the exam, and calmed me down even though I hadn't talked to him in a month. So I did the exam and managed to achieve everyone's expectations of me getting the best score in the country. I was incredibly relieved since this meant I could do whatever I want, pick whatever college I wanted and have it paid by the government. I went back to being social, albeit I still feel like they would/will never forget I didn't interact with them for two months. However, it didn't make me happy. I was just relieved I didn't have to go to the trouble of killing myself, or worse: have people think I'm not as smart, or not as talented. Realising that has been one of the hardest things I've ever done and was probably the catalyst for coming to terms with my anxiety. I also feel like this event has ruined me for ever as far as relationships with other people go (not just romantic, like in general). I am now anxious in social settings, constantly dwell on every little detail about every little social interaction and feel like an outsider that can't connect with people.

It's been better, though. A couple years later, I'm majoring in the subject I love the most, in the best uni in the country, living with my sister in an awesome apartment in a big city down here. I have good grades, but they're not nearly as high as they should/could be. Although I no longer think about killing myself and live a better and generally fulfilling and successful academic life, I still have issues socialising. I feel like this constant pain/mindset of never being social/smart/successful/handsome/anything enough will never go away and will slowly crawl back its way to make me depressed. I've had huge trouble meeting new people, making friends and dating over here because of my anxiety. I feel like the words "my anxiety" aren't the most positive/helpful way to put it, but that's what it is. I also feel like I'm simply not worth being loved back by anyone. Whom I would call my current best friend, a girl from high school who also studies here, constantly tells me she would like to spend more time with me but I just can't bring myself most of the time to spend time with her, or anyone. I know she thinks I may be lonely so she tries to help me and make me feel loved, but I know she just kinda likes me and is nice to me. I do like her a lot and when I do spend time with her I have a good time. However, I'm constantly worried about not being a good enough friend for her, which I'm not, so I try to keep my distance because worrying so much is exhausting. When it comes to meeting new people I do my best to not make it weird/awkward for them but I end up replaying every single interaction in my head and realising I make a terrible friend/acquaintance for anyone. Like how I always forget their names or stumble on simple sentences when I try to make a good impression.

With dating, it's even worse. I recently got Tinder on my phone and while it was cool at first seeing people actually liked me back, when it came to meeting a guy from the app for the first time I broke down and had to cancel minutes before the date because I knew he wouldn't like me when he actually met me, or wouldn't like my face, or my body or anything about me at all; nor would anyone else. I try to avoid talking or interacting with guys I find somewhat attractive because I break down and start sweating, trembling and my voice cracks and breaks and I'm just awful. I can't even make coherent sentences. These are things I keep reenacting in my head endlessly everyday, and I just wish I could find a way to stop it. My sister is like a local art personality and has tons of friends she introduces me to all the time, and while I love spending time with her and with them, it pains me to know I would never be able to be as social or make other people as happy as she does. Her friends really do love her quite a lot. Lately my mom has asked plenty about my social circle and how things are going with making friends/dates/guys as I've always been very open to her about that stuff but have lately stopped talking about it. The thing I fear the most is have her be disappointed in me, and while I do realise most of what I'm saying here sounds stupid, illogical or just plain crazy, it's something I think about every day, every waking hour and admitting it to myself is probably the first step towards living a better, less worrisome life. I'm getting there, I hope. The next step would probably be to seek help, and today I even booked an appointment with a school counsellor after trying unsuccessfully for weeks. I just hope I have the guts to go and actually talk about my feelings, since the last time I tried it, it didn't go so well.

So yeah. That.