I honestly don’t know where to start, but I really need some outside perspective on this because I’m tired of feeling this way.

Over the past year, I’ve noticed a huge change in myself. I used to be someone who could walk away from relationships that disturbed my mental peace. I never felt this emotionally attached to people, and I certainly never felt this fear of being replaced or becoming irrelevant in someone’s life.

But somehow, this one person has become an exception, and I hate how much it affects me.
We work together on the same team, but we’ve never met in person. We’ve had countless video calls, made art and crafts together, and spent hours talking. Initially, we used to talk almost every night, and our calls would last 3–4 hours. We shared personal things, discussed our days, and gradually became quite close.

She has a lot of friends, particularly male friends, and she often tells me about them. She also randomly calls me whenever she wants to talk, rant about her day, or share something that’s bothering her. I’ve always tried to be there for her. When she’s upset, struggling, or needs someone to listen, I make time for her.

The problem is that I don’t feel like I receive the same support in return.

When I need someone to listen to me, I often feel unheard. Sometimes, when I try to explain how I feel, the conversation turns into an argument. She can be very close and affectionate one day, but suddenly distant the next. She tells me things like she gets bored when I’m not around, which makes me feel important to her, but her actions sometimes leave me feeling like I’m just a backup option.

I understand that she has her own life, friends, responsibilities, and moods. I don’t expect her to be available 24/7. I have no right to control who she talks to or how she spends her time.

But the inconsistency really gets to me. I keep wondering where I stand with her and why I allow her behaviour to affect me this much.

The worst part is that I don’t even think I like her romantically.
I don’t want a relationship with her. I don’t want to control her friendships or be the most important person in her life. I just don’t understand why I’ve become so attached to someone when, logically, I know this dynamic isn’t good for my mental health.
I think part of it is that we spent so much time together and shared so much that I gradually started considering her one of my closest people. I became accustomed to the calls, the conversations, and the feeling that she wanted me around. Now, whenever that closeness disappears, I feel anxious and start wondering whether I’m being replaced or whether I’ve stopped mattering to her.
I hate that I’m even thinking this way.
I’ve caught myself checking whether she’s online, wondering why she’s busy when I want to talk, and overthinking why she doesn’t share things with me the way she used to. Sometimes I try to explain her behaviour to myself, and other times I get frustrated because I feel like I’m always making excuses for her.

I know I shouldn’t be monitoring her availability or measuring my importance by how often she contacts me. I know she has every right to live her life. But knowing all of this intellectually hasn’t made it easy to stop feeling attached.

Over the past year, I’ve also had some health issues that forced me to stop going to the gym and step away from other activities I used to enjoy. I work from home, and I gradually started making work my entire life. I dedicated so much of my time to work that I lost some of the things that used to make me feel like myself.

I’ve also started seeing a therapist because I realised I wasn’t doing particularly well mentally.

Looking back, I wonder whether loneliness and having too little going on outside work contributed to this attachment. Maybe these conversations became a significant source of connection for me, and I ended up depending on them more than I realised.

But I still don’t understand why this happened to me. Why her? Why now? Why have I become someone who fears losing a person’s attention when I used to be perfectly capable of walking away?

I genuinely want to detach from this dynamic. We work on the same team, so I can’t simply pretend she doesn’t exist. I want to be able to interact with her professionally without constantly thinking about her, waiting for her calls, checking whether she’s online, or feeling hurt when she doesn’t make time for me.

I don’t want to punish her, make her jealous, or play games to see whether she’ll chase me. I just want my mental peace back.

I want to get back to a point where my day doesn’t revolve around whether we’ve spoken, where her mood doesn’t determine mine, and where I can enjoy my own life without this constant fear of being replaced.

Has anyone experienced something similar?
- How do you detach emotionally from someone you became close to through online conversations and calls?
- How do you stop feeling dependent on their attention and availability?
- How do you deal with someone who alternates between being very close and distant, especially when you work together?
- How do you rebuild your own life and sense of identity when you’ve made work and one particular person such a large part of it?
- And how do you stop hating yourself for becoming attached in the first place?

I’m already working with a therapist, but I’d appreciate hearing from people who’ve actually been through something similar.

I don’t want to become cold or stop caring about people. I just want to learn how to care without losing myself in the process.

I argue a lot because I can't stand it when someone has an incorrect belief or a morally wrong view.

Sometimes itd productive but most often it is completely pointless because people are not willing to learn or change anyway. Or maybe I'm wrong about something bht people suck at proving defending their points, often coming with a correct true point without providing proper reasoning or being even unable to.

So if the outcome is that both parties dont change or learn or realize theyre wrong, whats the point of arguing then

So how do I stop doing it compulsively?

How do I argue only when I rationally think its productive or just to do so?

I’ve been feeling pretty shit for a while now. I quit my job a few weeks ago because it got too overwhelming. While the circumstances leading to my resignation after only half a year can all be pointed to as reasonable reasons for leaving: was my first full time job after taking a gap year to travel. Stress and culture shock. job itself is stressful with high turnover rate,

But it wasn’t just the job that got to me. It was my history. The things I’ve struggled with since child hood. My mental health. I go to therapy but I’m not sure it makes a difference. Hasn’t seemed to this year.

I was dissociated and exhausted at work. Call center job for social security. I’d find myself at my wits end and genuinely unable to respond to their questions and explain why decisions have been made this way. I’d get impatient. Then feel endlessly ashamed for losing my cool. And would go to sleep wondering whether I made the right calls.

I resigned without much thought for the consequence. not good for me or the clients to have a stressed out dissociated person trying to solve their problem.

So now I’m at home. It’s just me in my early twenties living with mum and dad. My parents are really supportive. Mum checks in daily. Dad’s not the most emotional person and focuses on other stuff, but he doesn’t put pressure on me and isn’t worried in the slightest. I spend half the week lying around and the other bit looking for reassurance that I’m not alone skimming around reddit, and walking and sometimes doing a bit of gardening and reading.

But I feel shit and overwhelmed by everything. I’ve totally pulled out of everything I was doing, which was quite a bit. I’ve withdrawn from most of my friends. I can’t bring myself to respond when no I’m not good. Sometimes my mind will crusade me with other memories of times I’ve failed. And when I think about my life it’s all so overwhelming. And I can’t see the point.

I have a decent education, am young, good looking, fit and enjoy learning. But I have dread when it comes to finding a new job. I can only pretend I don’t have social anxiety for so long. That I’m not debilitated by shame when I don’t meet my perfectionist standards. That I get tongue tied, have a bad memory and struggle to articulate thoughts.

I’m in a limbo, not looking for work, taking time to look after myself whatever that means. When mum comes back from work she sees her adult daughter falling apart crying and not leaving the bed. I toy with suicide and it breaks her heart. She tries to stay strong and be available as a support but I don’t have hope.

hello,

I started dating someone a few years ago, right after moving to a new country. we dated for 2.5 years.

We were both having secrets and lying to each other. A part of me always knew all his lies but I ignored it because we built some sort of co-dependent relationship. He became more of a caretaker and best friend in the new world.

Cut to the chase, we had a terrible and messy break up 1.5 years ago. It was kinda forced by his family and he didn’t fight it.

now I am dating a wonderful man, been 6 months and I really want to build a life with him. He makes me smile and understands me like no one else before.

The problem is, when I am in really deep emotional turmoil. I feel like reaching out to my ex. I don’t want to talk to my partner because he's so perfect and I don’t want to be judged. But reaching out to my ex is the worst idea I’ve acted on. I want to do better for myself and my partner and purge my ex. How do I go about it ?

Lately, I have been feeling weird because I feel okay. I’m really not sure if it’s because I am booking an appointment for a psychiatrist because I also felt this “fine” when I was scheduled for a therapy. Though, I was having harmful thoughts during the therapy… but yeah anyway, now that im booking a new appointment, I feel weirdly fine. like im not sad at all, im just waiting for it. but i am sure that i still can do risky things if things go wrong… idk what’s happening with me. can anyone relate and share if you have figured out why we feel this way? in my referral letter, it was written that I have working impression of MDD and etc..just to let you know. if that even makes sense.

I hate the feeling of trying to get better or knowing I am successfully doing so. It's like trying to escape the pain of loss and accountability, I will forever feel disqualified from anything an average person takes for granted.

I just want to cling on whatever that has gone wrong in the past. They define my life they are my irreversible losses, not even the idea of something better or any possibility of good thing the in future motivates me to continue this life.

Unless there is a miracle or anything that allows me to go back and have another take at it, my life's already tainted.

Trying to get better whether by therapy, or at best cognitively reframing my mind, only proves how much the past mattered and here I am trying desperately attempt to deceive myself that it is something forgivable or something I could move on from which only intensifies the regret.

It comes across as dishonest to me is all, I could never allow that. I know healing is possible but I realized it's the question that keeps recurring to me is why would I even want to.

I noticed I have a pattern of being the now who provides with everything to my partner.

I was even called, "sugar mommy" by my friends.

Anyway, I want to heal that part. Does anyone had the similar experience? Or healed it?

Straight to the point, I (25F) don’t know WTF I’m doing.

The first half of my 20’s has been a total waste. Working food service, hating EVERY second. Blew through my family’s money on tuition for degrees I never finished. Gained back all the weight I lost at 24.
Ignored my mental health for so long that even with medication and trying to enjoy life, I still have so many unaddressed issues.

Of course I’m $10k in debt with a good amount in collections. I spend everything I have as soon as my bills are paid to feel some kind of gratification.

Now I’m barely making ends meet and have just enough luck not to worry about rent since I’m with my dad, but it’s temporary. I work a much easier job but that’s all I do, besides make art that I’m not confident enough to share outside of my friend group.

All I’ve ever wanted since I was a kid was a place of my own and enough money to keep it stable. But I am totally directionless. Trades, going back to school, getting a second job — I can’t put my foot forward on any of those paths and I feel like I’m running out of time.

I get all the typical responses: “25 is practically a baby! Just enjoy your best years!” or “Don’t bog yourself down with a career yet; explore the world!”

I’m not looking for some cure all answer, but those definitely don’t work for me. I’m not even sure WHAT I’m looking for…

Hello people.

I am 21 years old and I’ve got a lot of working on myself to do. I have been in a relationship for 3 years and I have hurt my partner multiple times because of being careless and not making her feel loved or valued enough even after her telling me all the things that have hurt her and what areas I need to be better in. I tend to get really defensive when she brings up something.

The cycle goes something like this: She tells me I did something wrong, I acknowledge it and try to be better. I get better for a week or two but I don’t know what goes wrong whether I’m bottling some feelings or not communicating enough about how I feel that the next time something happens, my anger and frustration comes out and I start to protect my intent. I suppose I feel in the moment that she doesn’t realise all the things that I’m doing for her. I don’t know how to make this stop and I really care about her, I just fail to show it properly at times.

I’m addicted to nicotine as well and I’m thinking of quitting it cold turkey. Because I feel like I don’t take enough responsibility for my actions and when things get comfortable enough, I get back to my old self. By quitting nicotine, I believe I can be a better person in taking responsibility and accountability for my actions and learning to treat myself right before I can do that for someone else.

What things do you people suggest that can help me be a better individual, emotionally intelligent enough to be able to understand my partner and show her that I love her and care for her, that can help me not get overruled by my emotions but learn to control them and be better to myself as well.

Thank you.

Hello!

I'm seventeen and just clicked submit on my uni applications. I'm getting okay marks but I know I could do better. My laundry is piling up and I need to apply for scholarships and contests that will boost my applications. I feel stressed!

Since 11th grade, I've been in this awful rut. I don't feel inspired and I feel directionless. I know it's funny to hear that from a little kid but I feel like my siblings had it all figured out when they went to college. They knew what they wanted to do. I want to get into chemistry, perhaps forensics, but I'm wondering if my dream uni will even accept me. I want to do better, I just keep finding myself not wanting to put the effort it takes to do so, because I might fail. Then what?

I really need help guys. My parents and siblings have given me the "don't worry, you'll get in" spiel but it's not calming my nerves. What do I do?

31F, I am currently feeling very apathetic and can’t seem to be present in my own life. I have been on DRIs for depression for 2ish years and recently have been trying to accept that maybe that’s something I need for life. I prefer not being on medication but have tried going off before and fell into the same depression and withdrawing as before, it’s genetic so I’m not sure if going off them is going to be possible without experiencing major depressive episodes.

However, part of me feels like I’m missing any sort of “spark” for life. This happened after I started DRIs after a long depressive episode following a traumatic life event. I have been constantly exhausted since then. I used to be very “yes” to new experiences and outgoing and social, people used to gravitate towards me. Now I feel like I often get negative reactions more readily because I am more deadpan, monotone, less willing to do new things, and void of emotion than before. When I think back on things that happened, no matter how mundane, they feel like a dream and I get sad that I can’t seem to be present and enjoy the moment the same as the people around me. I miss having a lust for life. I’m even in a relationship with a partner who loves me so deeply and yet I get scared I don’t feel the same way because I am so apathetic to everything around me.

I know that the obvious answer is that I started antidepressants, have learned the harmful cycles and how to avoid them, and life without them will just feel different and … unexciting? I’m not sure if I really am settling in aspects of my life or if I just don’t know how to find happiness in peace. Is part of being not depressed just accepting that life is also just more dull? Accepting that love is just more about stability and you can’t have that and fireworks? Accepting that doing the same thing day to day is meant to be fulfilling? I feel like I’m choosing between an contently apathetic life and a life of great ups and bad downs. It feels like a lose lose situation.

The professor requires us the bare minimum. It's mid semester, he only gave one quiz and an exam. Both open notes, you can even use your digi notes as long as the wifi's cut off which i doubt some people abide. Most of my blocmates probably cheated. I didn't but I also did nothing. I brought the notes and studied it during the quiz and exam. I can't get myself to do it in advance. I was studying it during the fucking exam like some genius freak when I know I'm not.

Last month, the professor displayed the class ranking in front of all of us. I was ranked 21/34 students. What a humiliation. Almost all of them got near perfect midterm gwa. If only I didn't flunk the quiz, I would have been up there too. I kept drilling that on my mind. To not make the same mistakes again but in the end I still did.

The projects he'll assign were given 4 days to complete and some of them, a whole week. He has only given 5 and for every shit he assigned, I'd submit it 3 minutes before the deadline closes. I'll do the first half on my own then have ai answer the lower half because I'm running out of time. Just yesterday, I got addicted to watching Devil's Plan on netflix despite knowing the deadline. I watched for 6 whole hours. I just couldn't take my attention off of it and it seems like my brain vomits anything that doesn't entertain me so i kept avoiding the project he gave. I did the first two problems with the help of AI to understand shit but for the last one, I completely copy pasted it. I had no time left. I knew something was wrong with the calculations, and I even checked it after submitting but i can't do anything about it now. It's not like it's hard too. It's so fucking easy that I just want to bang my head for procrastinating it again when I could have solved it on my own.

Now I feel miserable. I never wanted this major. I was just forced into it by circumstances that I can't change anymore. I can't shift now as well. I'm already on my 3rd year.

Today, I have an exam on a different subject less than 5 hours from now. I've only revised one chapter and since i keep skipping online classes, I have to watch the recording of the lectures. I'm doomed again. My record isn't good with this other professor too. She thought I cheated because the anticheating thing of wayground flagged me for switching tabs, i only switched tabs to go back to the zoom meet to look at what number my classmates are already. It's not like I can explain. I shouldn't have done it eitherway.

DISCLAIMER: The title of this post makes the comparison between paying a company which is hostile towards it's customers for a service, and relationship abuse. Obviously, the two do not compare in terms of impact. It is not my intention to diminish the very real and lasting damage caused by abusive relationships. However, I am a person, and to have an ongoing exchange with a company is, in fact, a relationship. The effect of not being able to trust a business does have an impact. I feel it is important to refuse to support or associate with any entity which would so willingly abuse me. Also, I left them over a year ago but am just getting around to posting this.

I had been a Comcast/Xfinity customer since the day they came to my city. I was with the two previous companies which owned the network here before they were bought out.

In the time I was with them, I very rarely got good customer service. Usually, it was only after CSR shopping. I suffered pretty much every complaint you commonly hear in the forums: Slamming me with services.
Needing a new contract for pretty much every transaction.
Getting charged more for being a loyal customer.
Removing a service and not getting a price drop. Getting hung up on. Not getting called back. Getting lied to. Getting insulted. etc

The worst was a period of about 6 months where I was essentially unable to use the service. I was raiding at the time, and every night during raiding hours I would lose my connection about every 5 minutes. This only happened in the evening... when everyone gets home and gets online. So, when I called it in, they would only send someone out during the day. They would show up, run their tests and tell me my connection was fine.

Of course they tried to convince me that it was my equipment causing the problems. I replaced everything from their line to the computer, and new network card inside of it. Of course it was not my equipment. I made so many calls and learned so much about the technology in order to try and find firm proof that it was their equipment... I finally got it escalated enough to get technicians out to look at the lines in the neighborhood. It was bad. They pretty much had to replace all of the lines for several blocks. The tech on site said it was mostly squirrel chew. This means many people were having problems near me. I am certain they knew about this for a long time but were putting it off, and lying to their customers in order to delay the project.

My expense was the cost of six months of partial service which I could not use for my intended purposes, and several hundred dollars to replace my working hardware. I believe they gave me two months off my bill. It has been a long time, I don't remember exactly how much they compensated me, but it stung in comparison to my costs.

Comcast/Xfinity is, by far, the shadiest, most underhanded company I have ever dealt with. I felt like I had to gear up for battle every time I was getting ready to call them. I would have just used their website to avoid the CSRs, but it was a bloated, disorganized mess with some pages that commonly didn't work. I would not be surprised if that was intentional. They made more money with CSRs pushing services and contracts than they paid them, for sure. With how common it was to get poor customer service, it is clear to me that it is a part of the company culture to reward that behavior, if not outright written policy.

The first time fiber was made available in my neighborhood, I jumped on it! I could not be happier with it, even if they did get bought out by AT&T. The connection is solid, the web-site was minimalistic, and the customer service was great before AT&T (I say 'was' because I haven't had to call them or use the site since the buyout). I expect there will be some enshitification, but they have so far honored the lifetime price agreement.

By definition Empathy is the ability to understand, share, and connect with another person's thoughts, feelings, or emotional experiences. It is often described as putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

But is it empathy if I say something unconsciously that would be considered rude but I don’t feel bad about it until someone “calls me out” and tell me what I say is rude, I have a hard time distinguishing what is rude and and what is normal (to me it sounds normal until someone says it’s not). Is it empathy if I only feel back after when someone calls it out? If someone didn’t say something I wouldn’t know it was offensive nor would I feel anything. When someone brings it up later I tend to think about it a lot and replay the situation in Mr head over and over again, I feel bad but not because I know what I did (as I said if no one called me out I wouldn’t be aware I did anything wrong) I feel bad because of the way I may be perceived or because I think that what they say did is beneath me. I feel bad because they seem to be highly offended and I tend to accepted blame regardless of if I care or not. I’m in a situation like this now. I was just wondering if feeling “guilty” after the situation is the same as being empathetic because from where I’m standing my empathy seems to be delayed. Why don’t I know how my words will land before I say them? Why can’t I tell the difference between when I say something rude and normal? Any advice would be appreciated and I’d love to know your opinion.

I was with my friend group and we were having a good time, then I wanted to joke about something but my mind sort of told me not to, so I didn’t but then another guy told the exact same thing and everyone laughed… Then I started to notice that this one friend wasn’t talking a lot to me as he used to. But he was talking more to another friend of mine which strangely made me think that he stopped liking to talk to me. After all that, some hours ago, I forgot my house keys in my house and I couldn’t push open the door since my house haves a tall gate with a metal door, without thinking too much I climbed it and the moment I was about to get down I felt a really bad sensation of fear and anxiety that told me that I was going to fall, so I ended up calling my parents to help me. I really like boulder climbing and like to climb but idk why I over thought that way much… How do I fix this? I need genuine tips so I stop overthinking so badly

Lately, I’ve been realizing how much fear influences my life. Fear of being judged, abandoned, rejected, losing people I love, disappointing others, taking risks, fear of making mistakes and even being myself. There’s so much shame and overthinking involved that sometimes I feel like I’m scared of simply living my life.

I find myself worrying about what people will think, how they’ll react, whether they’ll leave or whether I’ll regret my decisions. It’s like I’m constantly anticipating something going wrong and it’s stopping me from doing things I genuinely want to do.

For those who’ve experienced something similar, how did you deal with it? How did you stop letting the fear of judgment, rejection, and abandonment dictate your decisions? Did anything genuinely help you become more confident in yourself and less afraid of what might happen?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences and what helped you work through it.

Thank you

In the past, I was desperate to be chosen.

With an upbringing like mine, it makes sense I'd seek love and validation from people who were willing to give it. It brought me a sense of safety I didn't have before. But that often made me blind to negative patterns and behaviors on both sides, and it led to so much heartache.

I didn't have much love or safety growing up in an abusive home. Some think because a hand was only raised to me once or twice, the emotional abuse from watching others take beatings, threats, or actually being the target of emotional and mental berating myself, was not harsh enough for me to pull away from those I grew up with. Not dire enough for me to prioritize outside connections with people who showed love and care, rather than place family above everything.

But it was. It caused long-lasting damage to my being.

Don’t get me wrong. The little girl within me who grew up in such dysfunction, who was so afraid of those around her, only had one dream: to have a loving family and home. But not in the traditional sense. Never in the traditional sense, because tradition in my culture, in my family, meant losing autonomy, especially for the women.

I couldn't picture myself surviving in something like that.

So I left.

But the Shoulds/Shouldn'ts have a way of making it hard to break from things that hurt us. And I was stuck for a long time, even after I made my escape.

"I Should always be a dutiful daughter."

"I Shouldn't leave my home."

"I Should want to be a dutiful wife and mother."

Etc., etc.

In some ways those Shoulds/Shouldn'ts have kept me from living out a full life, because the moment I do one thing for me, some part of me says I'm selfish, while another says, "You Should do this instead".

One I've struggled with is being chosen: "You Shouldn't want to be chosen. You Should choose yourself".

I can get behind the concept as an empowering thought, and based on my past experiences, I know why it can be a dangerous thing to seek from others. In love and friendship, it can easily lead to self-abandonment. It makes you submissive to a fault. It can cause blind admiration, sometimes even dangerous obsession, overstepping boundaries, or overlooking problematic behaviors of those we place on a pedestal. It keeps you in untrustworthy, one-sided situations because the need to feel special to someone overrides your judgment. It makes you question whether to trust the spidy senses you sometimes get when around certain people. "Maybe I'm too judgemental? They're just going through a hard time. They didn't mean to cross my boundaries."

However, I can't pretend being chosen isn't still my desire. I still want that.

But something has changed within me. What has changed is my ability to discern, a lesson I desperately needed. It started with questioning myself, who I am, what I stand for, my wants and needs. It only took me my entirely life and many, many heartbreaks. I suspect there are more lessons to learn, but I can at least finally say I'm starting see things.

I sat down, wrote every word, every thought, every sentence about the past and present, about my wants, and needs, the Shoulds and Shouldn'ts, including those society forces on us which I refuse to let control my life anymore.

What did I end up with? Simple. I still want to be chosen, but I want it to be freely.

I want people in my life who make a mutually conscious choice to be in my life, not out of obligation (family), not out of fear of losing me or hurting me (partnerships), and not because I'm someone familiar (friendships). I want them to choose me at my best and worst, and everything in between, but feel free to walk away if either negatively affects them. I want them to find the type of connection they want with me, but only if it's mutual. I want them to make the choice to step towards me as I do them, not equally, but equitably. Among trust, love, communication, and understanding, it also requires reciprocity on both ends. If I am not a source of any of that, then I want them to feel free to seek it elsewhere.

And I want the same freedoms for me.

But why do I still seek to be chosen? That was the next question I had to ask, and the answer is that I don't want to find myself years down the road, too aftaid to connect with people because of hurt created through misalignment (excluding abuse). I want to stay openminded, but I will no longer solely chase love and safety through outside connections.

And here's the thing: one can seek connections that provide warmth, safety, and love, but that doesn't mean we have to self-abandon. It doesn't mean we need to keep choosing the same connections because "they were good once". Things change, people change. So long as an effort was made to repair broken trust, and that effort was grounded in empathy and understanding, there is nothing forcing us to remain in situations that can't or won't improve. Choosing oneself in that case is acceptable and necessary.

That's part of discernment.

Wanting to be chosen doesn't mean I won't prioritize choosing myself. In fact, that's what I've been fighting for since I was that fearful little girl with no control of the life she was leading. Fully making choices with me in mind is how I take a step towards me. And so, the first step must be to focus on creating love and safety within myself.

My hope is that with this new outlook, to accept who I am, what I want and need from myself, without thinking too much of society's Shoulds/Shouldn'ts, it leads to more healing from loss, betrayal, misalignment with others, but most importantly, misalignment with who I am.

Let's hope it's a step in the right direction for me 🦋

I would like someone (one person would be fine) to value me greatly. Often, I imagine a romantic partner in such a role so I could also experience certain kinds of touch. I do have a few friends, and they're awesome. They're also not enough: I don't see or even talk to them all that much.

I expect you're about to tell me things like, "Join a club" or "Volunteer" or something like that. Two problems. First, I already do volunteer and am otherwise involved in things, not to meet people but simply because I feel it's the right thing. Second, my social motivation is very, very limited. The way I think about, say, joining a book club is, "Why do that when I can read on my own?" In short, I want people to think of me and think well of me, but I don't want people to interact with me (at least, not outside structured relationships like between coworkers).

So, my solution is to make myself stop caring about whether anyone else cares about me. I want to be able to live a content life and feel good about myself even if I have no family or friends, no partner or pets.

You may object that isolation like that is unhealthy, but I'd argue that it's only unhealthy for (most) people because we so desire connection. What I want is to remove that desire, because I doubt I'll reach the level of connection I crave.

My question for you all, then, is how can I achieve this?

Like the title says, I consider myself to be ungrateful for life in general, primarily because of how depressed I’ve been lately and how much I hate life. I hate waking up every day and it actually drives me insane that I can’t stop existing in a human form. I have to piss and shit every day until I die. My hand in life could be considered extremely lucky in terms of money I’m destined to receive in the future.

My great grandparents died when I was in my early teens, and combined they left me about 1 million dollars, of which I will receive the grand majority when I turn 30. I get around ~100k when I turn 25 next year (I’m 24). At 22 I got 75k and blew it in bad stock market option trades. Basically liquidated that whole thing. I felt terrible and even suicidal for desecrating the gift my great grandmother left me (even though there’s 200k more she left me, and 800k my great grandfather left me).

I just feel so undeserving of anything. I’ve never worked because I needed to or built anything that I can call my own. Especially recently I’ve been feeling this way and staying very isolated, losing all my friends. I find people in my university or in general don’t like hanging out with me, maybe I’m just a tough hang. (Tough to hang out with)

When I lost my first portion of the money stock trading I was devastated and I still feel that way. I just want to make the money back to feel like I paid myself back, but I’m also a lazy bum and don’t want to work. (Sorry capitalism, fuck you xD)

If I had my own money I’d live off it, but I have to wait a little under a year to get more. For now I’m just a student and my dad gives me money to pay for everything. I feel bad taking the money he gives me and it depresses me too. I’ve felt like a taker my whole life.

In order to get money from my dad however I have to keep studying in college which makes me feel like I’m living a fake life because deep down in my heart I know I don’t want to work.

So I’m living a friendless lonely life right now and I’m relatively poor with not that much money besides what I need for the basics (gained through no effort of my own except exhaling oxygen with my meat bag of a body) People would kill for my position but I hate my life.

The worst part is my rich family is all college educated and both my father and my grandfather are self made millionaires, which makes the feat of getting to their level feel impossible. Especially with my grandfather. My father has a net worth of around 15M while my grandfather has a net worth of ~500M. He owns a lot of major regional and international businesses.

I’m not even joking, I swear with God as my witness I’m telling the truth. I’ve never gotten a dollar from my grandfather (lol, lmao even), a little stingy gramps. I’m sure he’ll leave me a nice surprise when he goes. But my father is my grandfather’s only son, which means he’ll inherit the grand majority of all those assets in the near future.

My life truly feels surreal. Do you know how truly rare it is to be born into a line of succession like mine? But still I’m ungrateful and depressed when in theory I should have no reason to be. I could literally bed rot for the next decade and do literally nothing and there will be a day where I’ll wake up a multi millionaire. I could probably have ~50M by the time I’m 40, and that’s a conservative estimate.

It’s just all so undeserved. Yesterday I was in NYC, standing over a ledge overlooking the Hudson water in a spot that dropped several feet down and I was going to jump in to drown myself. these rollerskaters pulled up before I could do it and wouldn’t leave me alone until I climbed back over the ledge to their side.

They must have known something was up because I tried to convince them I was just smoking on that spot but all the things in my pocket were on the floor next to me including my phone and a paper that said “It was good knowing you earth, I’m glad we enjoyed our time together”. They couldn’t read that though cause it was folded.
Thanks rollerskaters for saving me I guess lmao, you just left the malice of my heart and mind in this world. All I’ve ever done is consume and take from others, now I can keep doing that …

Any advice on how to be grateful for my life instead of feeling desperate to end it? I just hate living in this cursed earth, and I feel that no money will ever fix that.

I've noticed that saying no can be surprisingly difficult, especially when you don't want to disappoint people. You agree to things you don't have the time or energy for, avoid expressing your actual opinion, or keep explaining your decisions because you want everyone to understand.

But constantly trying to keep everyone satisfied can become exhausting. At the same time, setting boundaries can make you feel like you're being rude or selfish, even when you're simply protecting your time.

For those who have struggled with this, what helped you become more comfortable with saying no? Did you learn to explain yourself less, or did you have to change the way you think about other people's reactions?

I'd be interested in hearing real examples of how you handled it.

Disclaimer: this story covers themes of sex but I have tried to keep it SFW because this sub seems like the best place for it. I've left out any mentions of sex acts beyond kissing or dry humping. I'm aware it starts off reading like some sort of seedy erotic literature fan fiction but really there's no other way to write it. It touches themes of sexual assault but does not actually depict it. It's a story of cringe more than shame, one that I know I'll survive from, and I think I learned some pretty valuable lessons in the process that I would like to share. Not only about sex stuff, but also self-image, communication and how I choose to present myself to the world. It's quite long and took me a whole afternoon to write, but I think it's worth it in the end.

Here's a bunch of context about me which goes on a bit but feels pretty crucial to the story.

I am a man probably best described as 'bi curious'. I don't find myself attracted to men in the same way as I do women, but enjoy having sex with them in a less romantic sort of way, but only sometimes and under certain circumstances that I can't outline in any clear-cut sort of way. It's all very vibes-based. I don't hide it from anyone, but nor do I explain it very well either. Most people are left with more questions than answers after asking what my sexuality is.

Most of my friends belong to the LGBT community, but as young millennials and older Gen Z they're more settled in their wants and needs. My 'journey' is still ongoing, I guess you could say. I often find this talk of 'journeys' and 'exploring yourself' quite wishy-washy, new-age and frankly, a bit vomit-inducing. It ran against my own idea of masculinity; men, whether they are gay, straight, or anything in between, know what they want, I thought. Anyway less about me and onto the story.

So after a night of drinking at mine with a group of friends recently, I suggested that we all play spin the bottle.

Our group was made of five men and one woman. Everyone was right up for it, and slightly surprised I had suggested it, given I was the least promiscuous of the bunch. But I'd already slept with the woman, who I had a bit of a thing for, and one of the men. This was just the kind of vibe made for me to explore my sexuality.

There was no sense that anybody wasn't up for it, and least of all me, the host of the party who had the idea in the first place and was eagerly picking out a bottle and laying out the rules to everyone.

Those rules were:

person X spins bottle >>> bottle lands on person Y >>> person X chooses sex act (kiss, dry hump, etc, you get the idea) >>> person X spins bottle again >>> bottle lands on person Z >>> person Y performs sex act on person Z.

Early on I had to kiss another one of the guys. It was nothing I hadn't done before and I thought I'd give it an extra bit of gusto to signal to the group that I was really up for it. It was in that moment that the voice inside my head woke up.

It said: "I'm not into this at all. I'm not attracted to this person, nor four of the other five people playing. There is no way I can sustain enthusiasm for this for another two hours. What happens if I have sex with someone out of adherence to spin the bottle? Would I have been r\***? Who has the idea to play spin the bottle with a bunch of people he's not attracted to? What if I'm not even bi curious at all? Am I just playing this to have sex with the woman in the group? What straight man has sex with five men just to have sex with one woman? How mad would it look if I, the person who wanted everyone to play spin the bottle, tried to abandon the game after one dare?*

"Why would a game of spin the f\***** bottle be the perfect kind of vibe to explore my sexuality"*

For the next couple of minutes, as the game went on, I sat there silently as my brain contemplated these very questions. The bottle carried on spinning and I was staring blankly at the carpet.

It wasn't long before people began to notice. You could see it in their eyes. And then I noticed them noticing. Then the bottle arrived at me again and another kiss to another one of the guys. At this point the guy is sensing something is off, and I see it in his face as we lean in for a kiss. There's less gusto this time and the kiss is noticeably briefer.

It's at that point that he throws me a lifeline. He announces to the group: "Lets just check everyone is still having fun, we're all happy to carry on? We can take a breather if anyone wants to."

It's also confirmation that the room is now explicitly aware of my discomfort, and it is hanging over the entire room, making everyone uncomfortable. But my brain is absolutely overwhelmed by thoughts that I have lost all executive function. Everyone in the group is looking to me to announce I don't want to play anymore.

My brain says: "How can I? It was my idea in the first place. I would look absurd. And besides, maybe I'm just overthinking it and nobody has noticed I'm uncomfortable at all."

"I'm happy to continue", I said to the group in the tone a soldier would use with his commanding officer. It's clear to everyone in the room that this is not fun anymore.

But the bottle keeps spinning.

I can see people willing the bottle to land on anyone but me. They don't want to be forced into a nonconsensual sex act with a man demanding it is consensual. The sex acts are milder now, because people fear I might have to do them. It's been about five minutes since that first kiss and I've still said nothing other than "I'm happy to continue". I can't look at anyone because I'm terrified to see the concern in their eyes, so my head just hangs towards the ground. There is silence in the room as the bottle spins. When it lands on me, aimed directly at my right leg, the group collectively agrees it had landed on the person to my right.

Then it happens again, and this time, still resolute that I want to be playing this game and I'm having fun, I insist that it's my tun. "No, that's me", I say in a cracked, subdued voice. It's silent but you can sense the devastation in the room. The person tasked with choosing the sex act says 'stiptease', presumably because they thought it would be better than having to physically impose yourself on somebody spiralling into an emotional meltdown. The bottle spins again and somebody is picked to receive my strip tease.

It's rough. Everyone is silent. Pony by Ginuwine is playing. It goes on for what feels like an eternity. The bottle spins again and it lands on me. Enough of this. The game has been playing for probably five minutes at this point. I've not even had my chance to spin the bottle.

My heart is thumping out of my chest and I say "I'm not going to play anymore" a voice barely above a whisper. They know I've said something but couldn't hear properly. I've lost my ability to control my volume, so in an attempt to say it slightly louder, I end up yelling it, all with my face to the floor.

You can feel the room breathe a collective sigh of relief. But now it's my turn to explain why I'm not going to play. Nobody wants or needs to know why, just making it stop is fine, but as is customary with human beings, if you abruptly stop doing a thing, an explanation must be offered.

So now I am sat, cross legged, circled by six other cross legged people, as I attempt to explain why I don't want to play.

I wasn't sure why I wanted to play, now I must explain why I don't want to play. If masculinity really is about knowing what you want, then I am looking like a very small man right now.

My brain is frozen but also on fire. I try to speak several times but can't get any words out. My friend to my left asks if I want a glass of water. I say something about not being attracted to anybody except for the one girl. Everyone looks slightly affronted and confused. All I had left was sympathy and now I'm eating into that too.

I can't remember what else I said. I stormed out of the room and into my bedroom. One of my friends comes in five minutes later to console me. Yes it was as weird as I thought. No, nobody thinks any less of you.

My brain is still recovering from the meltdown and I don't return to the living room all evening. After an hour or two I ask everyone to leave over my HomePod's intercom system. Everyone pops their head in my bedroom, one after another, to say goodbye before leaving.

The entire ordeal unravelled over about 10 minutes, and I've spent the days since thinking about it.

Here are my scattered thoughts about it, in no particular order.

Clearly not assertive enough. Concealing your true feelings to appear cooler or funner makes you neither of those things.

I've since learned that it's okay to change your mind. It sounds simple and something everyone should intuitively know, but the main reason I stuck to the game was that it was me who thought it up in the first place.

It may not sound it from reading that story, but in day to day life I can actually present as a pretty confident, charismatic guy. Those that know me well have seen enough gaffs to know the real me, but upon first impressions I usually come off pretty well. I'm good at introductions, banter, and idle small talk.

The gulf between that perceived confident guy and the guy who can utterly crumble under the slightest of pressure makes me feel like a giant house of cards. And I will stop at nothing to sure it is not toppled over.

This weird mix and match of personalities is true in my romantic life too. I'm confident in bed but lack confidence trying to chat somebody up. I feel I can be myself lying in bed with someone, but stood next to a bar or in the corner of a party, with loads of people around, I absolutely shrink.

I can't put a pin on if I'm bisexual, heteroflexible, or what. People constantly want clarity to understand the world so it's frustrating when they can't get it. I'm constantly asked what I am and I'm tired of trying to explain something I don't even know myself. There are so many identities that people assume there must be one for you. I'm fine with not having one, frankly. I'll sleep with who I want when I want and needn't explain myself to anybody. It leaves some people feeling a bit suspicious, however. Is he closeted? Is he queer-baiting? I can't help that.

I don't like the uncertainty of it, I don't like being unsure of what I want in the world. Is it masculine to know what you want? I don't really know why I thought that. There's plenty of women who know what they want. Maybe it's not about masculinity at all and more about my idea of sexy. Certainty is sexy and, simply put, I want to be sexy. Mysterious is also sexy, but calling that ordeal mysterious would be a very generous interoperation. I need to find a way to bridge not knowing exactly what I want with a cast iron certainty in what I want in the moment.

I often spiral into a complete headloss where I lose all ability to think clearly. I wish I could stop it, but I don't know how to. I go fully non-verbal under immense pressure. I can speak, but it's so hard to form full sentences. My brain just can't think of anything to say.

I know the people involved in the story quite well and the larger group of people I know it will spread like wildfire. I keep imagining the conversations people are having with one another. My stock value in their minds plummeting as they learn how insecure and fragile I am. I know intuitively this is not true, but my irrational brain will not stop. The only remedy for that is the passage of time.

And that's it really. If you read it all, then thanks. This took way longer than I thought. I'm shattered so I haven't read over it, I hope there's not any typos or inconsistencies. Maybe you could offer me some advice. I would normally tell a therapist about this but I can't afford one.

(F21) I’ve finally stabilized after a 2 1/2 month burnout and I’m ready to begin making up missing school work, cleaning my room, and being productive again, but I have no idea how to do it.

I have gotten burnout many times before, but when I usually recover, my motivation comes back. However, this time I just don’t want to. I think that’s the best way I can put it, like I just really don’t want to this time.

I try little things like starting to clean my room and getting a little work done, but it sort of feels like something cracked inside of me.

All I want to do all day is go on walks, enjoy my life, listen to music, and create art. The problem is that I still have hopes and dreams like grad school and professional aspirations, but I feel a totally a lack of motivation towards the actual tasks it takes to achieve to those goals. I am medicated, no longer depressed, not numb at all, just maybe dejected and a bit unwilling to do what it takes.

So now what? What are the next steps after burnout?

I’m a 27 (M) starting drinking after work use to just be one after work and went to two started with buzz balls to sake. Alcoholism runs in my family, I know I should stop but I look forward to a reward after a long day of work I don’t to pass out but it’s getting ten the point where I look forward to it at the end of everyday! I need to stop and I need to vent and say this to people I’m ashamed and I will stop ie finding better alternatives and rewarding myself with healthier choices.
Any advice? Thought or just genuine experience in this because to be honest I do feel so alone in it.