Kingdom of Knuffel

I like to vent online to people that I don't know in person. My family is small and never really talks about feelings, so I feel weird talking about a lot of stuff in person.

I don't like talking to people when I'm upset, it makes me feel bad and like you said, it makes me feel like I'm bringing their mood down. I'll sit and listen to people and give them advice, or just listen to them if they need to vent to someone. I hate it when I'm depressed and people say "You should feel gratefeul, people have it worse than you." That makes me feel like what I am feeling is invalid and how dare I feel this way when others have it worse. That's the thing though, everyone has their own battle and it isn't a competition as to who has it worse. It may be bad for you, and yes others might have it worse but everyone is battling their own war. Everyone's bad feeling matters, even if it is over something small. That's just how I feel.

I completely agree. I had an ex that would yell and throw things every time I was depressed or I cried. He would yell and say things like "How can you be depressed? You have a roof over your head, you have our kids, you have food. What do you have to be depressed about?" It would always make me feel so much worse. The man I have now understands and when I'm depressed he talks with me, and reassures me that it's only temporary and he doesn't complain when I spend the day in bed because I don't even want to do anything.

I used to favor venting anonymously more, but sometimes my personal situation is pretty complicated and messed up, so it gets really tiring to feel like I should keep rehashing all the context behind my current mood or how I feel about my triggers running deep. So now i appreciate having close friends and a few acquaintances I can trust to vent at when I need to. It still doesn't take away any of the internalized ideas that i'm making everyone I talk to feel bad or burdening them or making them think badly of me. It ends up making me relapse into self isolating because I don't really have anyone safe to talk to offline, and my friends all have their own lives and mental illnesses and whatnot to worry about. They reassure me when they can, that they will tell me if it gets too much, and I'm glad that most of them seem to have healthy boundaries, but i still worry from past experiences and my own low self worth that says I'm not important or present enough to talk about being sad.

I feel like it would be nice to talk to people when I'm upset...
but I never feel like I can? like, I've had friends that have said "if you need someone to talk to, we're here" but some of them, when stuff actually got bad just vanished on me... and other's don't respond if I really need to talk... so I just bottle...

i tend to stick to myself because I get emotionally exhausted from people

I do the vast majority of my socialization online, for a couple reasons. One: I live far from my friends. Two: I can process written word better than spoken. Three: it's easier to find people who share interests with me.