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I've always been an extremely clingy person and I'm not sure why. I kind of feel like it's a part of who I am that I can't really change.
I get super attached to people who I think are smarter than me or are good at something that I suck at. My happiness depends entirely on their approval. When they're nice to me, I get crazily happy. When they ignore me I literally get suicidal thoughts. My emotions are just so extreme around certain people. It can be a man or woman. It can be a classmate, colleague or even someone who I just talked to online.
Recently, I've kind of started lamenting all the time I wasted in my life by being attached to these people who never reciprocated. With most of them, I spent months or years getting to know them and trying to be around them as much as possible. I asked them stuff about their life and basically learned everything about them even though they never asked me about myself and knew very little about me because they weren't interested in me. With time, I only grew more attached to them while their lack of interest in me didn't change. None of these were even romantic relationships, just friendships that were mostly one-sided. I'm 22 now and I feel like I missed out on so much in my childhood and teen years because I literally wasted it all being obsessed with people, sometimes people who were way older than me. I could have read more books, travelled with my family, learned languages or something or worked more on my art and writing. I've always been a good student but imagine how much better I could've been if I was mentally healthier.
Like I mentioned, I have no idea why I'm clingy. It literally feels like an unchangeable part of my personality. Maybe God made me clingy because he thought I would be too powerful if I wasn't lmao. But anyway, I have been trying to be less clingy by cutting people off now if they don't reciprocate interest in me. The problem is this leads to me cutting off everyone I know. When I feel like I've met someone amazing who I can't live without, I block them to prove to myself that I can in fact live without them. And yes I still continue breathing without them, but I also miss them and regret my decision constantly. It happened recently with this girl I blocked. I regret it so much because she was so smart and cool, but she took 2 weeks to reply to my texts which made me miserable. But now I am miserable because I miss her. But if I went back to her I would still be sad because it's not like she's going to change her behaviour to make me feel better.
Sometimes clingy people are given the advice that instead of trying to be less clingy, they should try to be around people who won't mind the clinginess as much. But that's not an option for me because everyone thinks I'm fucking weird and creepy. I have to constantly remind myself not to pedestalize people, not to ask too many questions about their life, not to show too much interest, not to remember things like "mint chocolate is their favourite icecream flavour," not to text them "I had so much fun today! Thanks for making the time to see me" after we hang out. All the things that in my mind seem caring are just interpreted as clingy by other people or even creepy.
So now I am just super resentful and bitter towards humanity. I feel like I used to see the good in people and now I just see everyone as selfish and think everyone is going to hurt or disappoint or betray me. I think that no one is worthy of love or even talking to. I've now gotten to the point where I avoid social interaction, and I act cold and distant instead of clingy. But somehow I am even more miserable now than I was when I was clingy and unhinged. The new mindset I have is even unhealthier than the clingy attitude and i literally don't know what to do any more.
FDS talks about decentering men. I need to somehow decentre everyone. men, women, friends, etc. I even have levels of clinginess towards my parents and other relatives that are much higher than the average person. I hate being like this.
I think getting to the roots of why you attach to people so strongly is called for. I wonder if you believe they are better than you? I should think it might be worth focusing on centering youself rather than avoiding clingingness. It's a behaviour you have learned for some reason; it gives you something. If you take the clinginess away you'll be lacking whatever it does give you.
This is something it would be worth going to see a therapist for.
I recommend Pia Mellody’s work on codependency. Facing Codependence is a good one and has an accompanying workbook. See what resonates. She has another called Facing Love Addiction, that is a subset of codependency and aimed at romantic relationships but I do think it can shed some light on your thinking patterns.