He was 27, and he always struck me as normal looking - skinny, average height - quietly capable if timid. He had some creative interests during high school and college, but those kind of collapsed post-COVID from the looks of it. He had gone to therapy a handful of times, but he was never diagnosed with any sort of mental illness, and for almost all of his life up until 2 years ago he seemed fairly sharp and adaptable. Definitely normal. But he literally never socialized, even in childhood, and was more prone to hanging out with girls when he had to. I think men always intimidated him. He always seemed to count himself out, take things extremely hard. Towards the end of his life, he was pretty much mute in public and wouldn’t really speak unless spoken to, and when he did, in a very nervous, minimal way. His every word began to take on a kind of vaguely sad and wistful tone, he just would never have lighthearted conversation with anyone. He grew up not having the best relationship with my dad, and when our mom passed in 2016 I think he took it particularly hard. That also put real financial constraints on our family and by extension him. He was under pressure to get two jobs and one of those started to overwhelm him with dread every day and he would increasingly text me about how he doesn’t think he’s capable of anything. He passed away last month and left a note about how miserable life was for him and how he felt intensely alienated from people for much of his life - as long as he could remember. He wrote about how he “doesn’t see what others get out of it”. He wrote about this feeling of inhabiting a personality or being that he hates and often feels disgusted by. I feel slightly guilty because I really do feel that people seemed to put less effort and interest into him than I occasionally observed him putting into others, at least earlier in his life. I suppose his feelings of good will for others ran dry a while ago and he just felt maybe he didn’t have people in his life that he cared about, or who cared about him - nobody to live for. I hope not. I hope he didn’t feel rejected. My question is; how do you go about memorializing someone who left literally no evidence of enjoyment? We don’t have much in the way of photos, friends to talk to, significant others because he had none, of achievements/milestones to celebrate… submitted by /u/Last-Brain-3297
Originally posted by u/Last-Brain-3297 on r/AskMen