safety razors and traditional shaving gear are heavily marketed with that old-school barbershop aesthetic

LOOL no wonder I've never paid attention to it, I'm practically alergic to that stuff. I used to use something more manageable, but I realised it was on the BDS list, so now I'm just buying something really cheap and probably not good, which definitely doesn't help.

Thanks for the encouragement, maybe I'll look into it more at some point (⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡

Yeah I can't shave so often because of my sensitive skin and it gets to a point where I can just feel it just being there, and locking my face in an itchy cage. But it's actually coming OUT of me!!?! ༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽ Why am I cursed to experience this body horror shit on the daily (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

I woke up this morning feeling so trapped in my body. It didn't get better at all until I shaved, but even then I already felt so done with the day ಥ⁠╭⁠╮⁠ಥ Maybe I need to start shaving in the evenings, so when I wake up it doesn't feel so jarring? Or I just need to fucking get it lazered already... I've been delaying it for so long, it's like I have some sort of vandetta against myslef.

It feels like everyone else on this site has friends already

Do you mean like friends with each other on the site, or that everyone has some kind friends or support network irl?

If you're talking about the site, then tbh I think lots of times people just upbear and move on thinking that they're supporting you that way. I completely get that sometimes the silence can be really deafening, especially if you're going through something really intense and post as a cry for help. In my personal opinion, I'd see the upbears gone. I think people would be much more inclined to respond instead of scrolling past and doing nothing if they didn't have a low effort middle option.

My whole concept of friendship was based around being a depressed guy.

As someone who's been very very depressed (and worse) for around 15 years now, I've noticed that people generally avoid depressed people and ignore what they have to say. I've had someone tell me before that they're afraid that if they spend more time with me, I'll give them depression. I think a lot of it comes down to the stigma around mental health - once you're mentally unwell you're seen as sick, irrational, mad even. Often when I would pour out my heart to someone they would play it off by saying something like "oh you're just depressed, it's not really like that". And it can even come from people who are supposedly for talking about mental health more openly, but usually have some kind of corporate-HR-training version of mental health in mind and don't know what to do when they have to deal with an actual person who's going through some shit. It's really tough and I still don't know fully how to handle it or deal with it. Sometimes I just wanna scream in someone's face about how much of a dehumanising prick they're being, and I have done that, but that's usually when people bail and I'm left feeling hysterical.

But as a general tip, I think it's best to move away from "depressed" being your defining trait. I promise you that you are so much more than that, even if it's hard to see it that way. I've notoced people tend to gravitate towards people who already love themselves and think they're cool. It's kinda wild, but if you genuinely think you're cool, people will see that in you and see it too. As someone with really intense social anxiety I find that quite insufferable, because I cannot possibly come off that way in a social setting...

It's frustrating to think that I deserve to stay that way

I feel this way so much, a lot of the time without even realising at all, but it affects the way I treat myself and approach life in general. Just recently I'm trying really hard to be kinder to myself, because it really seems like there is no outside help, at least not the way our society is structured right now. Someone suggested that whenever I think something horrible about myself, I should imagine saying it to my child self. It's not something I'm used to quite yet, but there have been a few times where doing that pulled me out of a really hateful thought spiral, so I thought I'd suggest it.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how I can embody optimism and positivity and I find it's a helpful frame to think about this stuff through. Because if I'm not embodying optimism, then I'm embodying defeat and at that point it already feels like I'm dead (in a spiritual sense) or that I might as well be dead. It helps somewhat to think that all the brutal and horrific policies that we see passed, and all the fearmongering about trans people we see in the culture is meant to make you feel exactly like that - if you've given up on yourself then they've already acheived their goal, because you've been neutralised and won't resist. So then what does it look like to embody optimism? Start with the assumption that you're worth fighting for and loving and go from there - maybe it means you do something for yourself that you enjoy, or even get angry at someone for not seeing you the way you see yourself. It's obviously much easier said than done, and it doesn't really make things easier in the short term, but embodying hope will eventually push you into spaces and people who see you for who you are and support you.

It's still unbelievably hard though... I find that I still have to often convince the people closest to me that I'm worth caring about, which feels so dehumanising and sometimes can send me down a whole depression spiral in and of itself...

I find it really hard to separate this next thought from the really toxic capitalist culture of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", but at the end of the day, you're always going to be the most responsible for advocating for your needs because you know them best. And if you won't do it, then how can anyone else know what you need? Don't give up on yourself, I promise you're worth it.

I don't know to proceed in order to build social bonds.

I hope I'm not overstepping, but I get a sense that you might be autistic, have you ever looked into it before? I'm not just getting that from that one sentence, but the way I've seen you express yourself in a few different comments makes my spidey auti senses tingle a little. If so, it could be quite a helpful lens to understand what's going on inside you. I certainly found it helpful once I started unpacking it and the couple of people I'm close to nowadays are neurodiverse in similar ways to me.

Idk this is a big rambly post, but if even a couple sentences from it are helpful then I'll consider it a job well done. Hang in there bud

that last part is aimed directly at myself tbh (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)