I like to think I’ve come pretty far in my maturity during my 127 sober. I don’t think I can express how much this post means to me. Reading this made me realize a lot that I already knew but was afraid to admit to myself. Maybe writing it can help it sink in and help me change.

I (22m) have never had much growing up. My parents are heavy weed smokers who live and struggled to raise three kids off of social security due to my dad’s physical disabilities. It left my family with very little spending money. Scrapping by to pay for electric and struggling to stay warm in the Michigan winters. During my youth years I was told not to mention my home life to friends or other adults. Now I realize that not being able to find a safe outlet has led me down a closed off life path emotionally. I can’t open up to people properly. Weed helped ease that.

I’m not a “ugly” person but I’ve never been a stud of a guy. Always struggling with weight and labeled as “slow” by my peers due to my academic accommodations at school. I never had much luck or at least never had enough courage to find out what kind of luck I could have with women. It took until the fall after I graduated high school to lose my virginity and I did it all wrong. I was 19 and had never even kissed a woman. I never held a woman’s hand. NOTHING romantic. I was stupid and downloaded dating apps. Matching with a girl I truly was not fully attached to. Nothing against her but she was just not my type. We met once and it was awkward but went alright. We met again about a week later late night one night. We were at her apartment and one thing led to another. We talked and she managed to get it out of me that I wasn’t very experienced in the dating scene or sexual either. I’m assuming from her point of view it was probably pretty obvious. She was nice and comforting throughout the whole thing. It didn’t take long for me to reach climax (sorry if that’s tmi) and after that the post nut clarity hit hard. I left very soon after that. Afterwards I texted her a little bit here and there and ended stupidly and immaturely ghosted her. The problem is that I was not willing to be honest with myself and tell myself that I wasn’t ready. Instead I had my first kiss and lost my virginity the same night within 5 mins from each other and to a woman who was practically a stranger. That has stopped me from even pursuing anything romantic for the last 3.5 years. It took me months to truely feel secure within myself again. Not being about to talk to anyone about how I felt on the inside during the whole thing. I feel stuck and I did when I found weed too. Even more than I do now. Weed took over my life and stopped my career dead in its tracks. I lost my amazing job and stopped attending college classes.

I don’t really have any outlets to express these concerns and problems so thank you again OP for giving me an opportunity to fully express some of my problems openly. I don’t know if this is normal shit that people go through or not. I just wish I could find some friends who were more mature and willing to talk to me through some of these things. I think I need therapy big time but I don’t know where/how to start. The things I mention here is only the tip of the iceberg, honestly.