wow.. this is going to be weird... mainly because I am not an open person.. but a friend of mines told me that I should try this site out... Let me start of with what happened yesterday..

yesterday, I met up with a nice girl, for the first time, at a cafe yesterday... we met at an online site and after many "flowing" notes, we decided that it was time to meet. So we meet up at the Cafe and while ordering tea, I started sweating "uncontrollably" and my face was starting to look like I just finished a game of basketball.. then after going to the bathroom, and rinsing my face with cold water, instead of my enjoying my date, it seemed like the whole time, I was just trying to stop sweating.. which left me to being EXTREMELY embarrassed... and at the end of the night, kicking myself in the ass, because I felt that I blew the date with someone I really wanted to know. The problem?! As of lately, over the last two years, this sweating has been happening ALOT in social circles, or whenever I meet with a female I have some sort of interest in.(Last week, I met up with a female from online, EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED!) And it's driving me crazy and it's slowly making me alienate myself from people.

A little about myself: I was the middle child of a single foreign mother who worked three jobs(the black sheep of the family) Growing up, I always felt that I was smart or capable of great things, but was never "patted on the back" or encouraged, some would say. I never really blamed my mother for this, I guess because, I used to tell myself that she was to busy working to do so.. In my past, I have excelled in many things (piano, basketball, drawing, screenwriting, music, etc), but never continued because I felt I had no audience... (it's funny because now that I'm taking up guitar and would like to really move forward with it, but i can't really focus on practicing, because i feel like "everyone's watching"). when I look back at my life, my mother was really damaging to my self esteem growing up. not intentionally though but because of stress and other factors. Its hard to say but My Mother was very abusive. Once in second grade, we received our first quarter report cards. I was living in the district at the time and one of the grades I remember was "U" for unsatisfactory.. i think I got it in behavior or something.. i was never a dumb kid, but there's a high chance that I had ADHD and was never diagnosed.. safe to say a lot of "unnecessary disciplines" as a child. but back to the story, so as a child, after seeing these "bad grades", I came up with the quick idea to put A's and B's in any empty box i see in the report card. keep in mind, it's only first quarter..hahaha. so I end up taking it home to my mother. Not fooled, my mother plays along. Safe to say, that was one of the most haunting nights of my life. after receiving a beating, my mother held me on the floor and cut my back open with a razor blade and filled the wound with grounded red pepper. I was 6 years old at the time... I remember crying myself to sleep in that same spot that night.... Over the years, my mother got a little creative with red pepper, I remember whenever me or my siblings would get into trouble, she would mix pepper and water, throw the water in our face, then beat us as we scrambled around blind. growing up, my home was one place I loathed... I knew that if i was to go to school the next day and showed the cut or the hand so swollen that I couldn't see my knuckles, that services would most likely place me in a home where, I would at least feel more safe as a child. but the thought of us probably never seeing her again, or them taking us from her absolutely horrified this child. and it really felt like a huge decision for child at that age. as a child, i really didn't want much, I wanted to feel special occasionally, have a birthday party every now and then, have someone step up for me when i'm unable to, etc. but being deprived of such really left me in a state presently where I feel those things are what I desperately search for in a woman. but when i receive such, i don't know how to act upon it because I was derived of it when I was a child. As I gotten older, my mother periodically, has expressed how sorry she was for her actions when we were younger. but once again, i was smart lad, I knew everything she was taking out on my siblings and I was because of stress and her inability to handle it. she was an immigrant from africa, working 2-3 jobs at a time, handling kids on her own with no help from the father.. So i pretty much forgave her a long time ago.. and possibly suppressed it.. but in october of last year, my brother passed away. which was truly a tough time for the family. more so, for my mother, who lost a child. Me, being a man now, provided support but after thanksgiving I disappeared from my mom and sis, who lives together. why? because all of these memories that I supressed bombarded me.. and thoughts of her abusing my brother and I really occupies my mind alot. It really take a lot of spiritual strength for me to pick up the phone and call her. though i love her dearly, forgive her, and enjoy our time on the phone... but inside i am hurting.... how can I bring up what I feeling to a woman, who is shattered from losing a son not even a year ago?? Why do I feel like "I'm never good enough" or that I must stay on the "good side" of the authoritative figure yet I resent authority? "Why do I feel like the need to belong, yet I strongly advise "being yourself?" How can I stop this excessive sweating whenever I meet someone? Is this sweating because of a need to feel accepted in someway or because I'm trying too hard to make a connection w/ someone? How can I perform something I love without the feeling that I'm doing it for an audience?? these are the questions that plague me...