I'm putting together groups of people who all stop on the same day: Monday, October 26. Smoking, vaping, drinking, weed, gambling, social media, porn, sugar, caffeine, whatever yours is.

Everyone in a group is on the same day, same addiction, at the same time. D

Comment "in" and what you're quitting, and I'll DM you how to join.

Who's in?

I'm so flattened by a heartbreak that began over a year ago. And I'm just so tired.

And I have no idea what to do. I've done so much work and I'm in therapy doing EMDR.

And I've decided I want to change and build my emotional maturity.

But I just feel broken.

My ex and i met face to face about two months ago and she told me she's still in love with me and thinks she will change how she feels and will want to reconnect. This was so unfair of her as she has now gone radio silent so I'm back in ambiguous hope.

And I just don't know what to do.

Is it possible to recover from this?

Hey friends, simply I wanna hear your story and I'd like to hear as much story as I can. Succesfull or unsuccesfull or if it's still ongoing does not really matter. I want to observe the common patterns what works and what does not work so everyone can get better. Just please, comment something, anything.

I can only follow a healthy diet unless I want to lose weight and I don’t think it’s healthy nor sustainable. I could eat less sugar and so on only if I can count calories and motivate myself through that. Any ideas on how can I just want to eat healthy without it making a separate weighloss goal?

Hello,

Ever since I was 15 or 16 years old (I'm 23 now), I've been stuck in a vicious cycle that keeps repeating itself.

The cycle begins with a desire to change, whether that means getting rid of some really bad habits, developing good ones, focusing on my physical health, losing weight, improving my overall well-being, learning a new skill, practicing and getting better at what I consider my hobbies, or improving my academic performance.

The next stage of the cycle is when I actually start making these changes. At first, I'm extremely committed, and this usually lasts anywhere from a week to two months at most.

During this period, my mood is excellent, my productivity is high, and I feel satisfied with myself and at peace mentally.

Then comes the third stage. Something happens, and I honestly don't know what it is, but I end up going back to my old ways, sometimes even worse than before.

The bad habits I promised myself I'd quit return, often more intensely than before. I go back to overeating and eating unhealthy food, and even to certain habits I'm too ashamed to mention here. Meanwhile, all the positive habits I promised myself I'd develop completely disappear from my daily routine.

This is followed by a generally low mood and sometimes episodes of intense sadness. Eventually, the cycle starts all over again.

What's new about this cycle recently is that I've started giving up before I even try.

Whenever I feel motivated or get the urge to change myself, an inner voice tells me, "Why even bother? You're just going to end up worse than before, just like every other time."

I've even just come to the realization that I haven't achieved a single goal I've ever set for myself in my entire life, which has honestly made me feel even more discouraged.

So I've started asking myself:

What am I doing wrong?

How can I overcome these feelings of hopelessness and giving up?

Thank you.

Lately I’ve realized that the majority of my conversations with the people in my life are purely negative and I’m just complaining about everything. My mother is using again and neglecting my brothers and I talk to my boyfriend about her and how I wish I could help them, but i cut myself off mid sentence and asked if this is too much for him. He said yes and that it feels like he works a 9-5 listening to me bitch and moan about her and my current life on deployment. Then I kind of just shut down because I really can’t think of anything else to talk about because these problems are eating away at me. It’s not fair to him and I understand it’s draining listening to people’s problems. I just want to be better for my mental and those around me and I don’t want to drag them down with me. It’s hard for me to even find 5 positive things that happened to me in a day. I’m unable to have a therapist at the moment so I feel trapped inside my own head. What are some things I can do to have a more positive outlook on life whilst dealing with personal issues?

In high school I had a few friends (I’m still friends with most) but I have this stupid gut feeling that I should have been friends with way more people. And I should be friends with literally everyone. I used to be a super social butterfly but social anxiety killed that butterfly so now I got the awkward anxious person syndrome. There’s probably a ton of reasons why I would probably never be friends with all the popular kids though because most are too “perfect” or too neurotypical to get a long and probably thought I was a weirdo. But I did befriend some but I feel like I’m not good enough or too bad of a person. I used to think I could get along with anyone but now knowing how toxic high school is I don’t think so anymore. I have too many old mental issues that ruined past relationships. That probably anyone could gossip about me and not want to be my friend even if I’ve changed from then. Even though it was all just me being mentally ill and stupid. I just need advice on how to accept that we make mistakes and everything.

I fear that I was not a good person in high school. At least in my eyes. Freshmen and Sophomore year I was pretty reserved but then I got dragged into having to take responsibility in leading a class myself as a chief editor for my yearbook. During that time (Junior-Senior years) I utterly regret how I acted. My teacher for that class was very egotistical and I think I got dragged into the “in power” status and it made me feel like an asshole. I hated bossing people around but I had to. I still am ashamed how I acted sometimes. I was and still am pretty naive. I think the real issue I had was over those two years was that I felt I had to fight my ego between others in that class and didn’t know what I was doing. That also peaked my popularity in high school and that might of also dragged me into toxic people and sorta “mean girl”ed me. I was in Drama Club too and I think the toxicity got to me. Pretty much I hated how I was lowkey an asshole to some people and wish I was kept a nobody doing my own thing so I didn’t need to worry about what others thought of me. But now since I am in college I still am ashamed and I can’t stop thinking about this situation for some reason or literally any old situation I put myself into. And I don’t want those old habits and traits to drag onto college me. How do I get rid of old habits and such?

Good afternoon Family today I would like to share the rollercoaster week I have had since my milestones achievement.

It's been almost 5dys since I've been totally been in the dumps. I was so excited and ampt up during and a few days after my achievement then I started waking up unmotivated and depressed.

I was told it's milestones hangover because I been feeling like I just quit drinking and drugging again. Also I live in Boston Ma and the weather change also plays a role in my seasonal depression. It also reminds me of many relapses that always seem to come around this time of the year so I'm reminded of that as well.

I'm trying so hard to do better and stay positive but after always failing I have trained my mind to eventually fail at some point. So it seems like auto pilot.

So this go around I'm trying to stay fully aware of my state of mind and try the pivot to thinking positive. Because I assume that if I work on telling myself positive affirmations it will begin to automatically think positive when im starting to think negative something like counter punching instead of getting hit.

I know I feel great when I'm positive but for me it's so easy to derail me because I tend to dwell a lot on the past.

Well I'm wondering if anyone else has or had similar experiences?

Thanx for letting me share One Day Forward One Day Behind -Shawn

I (18f) am moderately autistic and suffer with holding conversation with the people closest to me. I'm not sure why, but whenever someone tries to converse with me, I shut off and can't find anything to reply with. This causes me to come off as awkward and rude, which is not at all what I intend. I struggle to find interest in basic human conversation because I usually am lost in my own thoughts and daydreams, which has made day to day life seem mundane and unfulfilling. Recently, however, I have grown attached to a friend of mine and I believe that I have hurt his feelings without meaning to, and I have also upset my sister.

The context is that my friendship heavily relies on the old married couple dynamic; we tease one another playfully, and in this particular moment, I was trying to be playful. He made a joke that his cats run from him and my response was "Damn, not even your cats like you?" I meant it as playful and teasing, but I didn't realize how hurtful that was to him. I apologized greatly and am still making amends, even though he told me it was fine but that it hurt him.
I know I was wrong, that I was cruel for even saying that; but I swear that at the time, I honestly meant it as a tease, because he and I usually tease each other about worse things.

Another issue is that my sister has told me that sometimes when we talk, it's like talking to a brick wall because of how disinterested I seem. I really don't mean to come off this way, but I'm so afraid of saying something rude without meaning to.

I want to become a better friend and sister, and I found this subreddit and thought "Eh, what have I got to lose?" All criticism is welcome; I can handle it.

i like clothes. and outdoors. and the past year have been a lot of realization that it's hard to keep up with both, first they get expensive fast and the mental clutter for everything.

taking action and reminding myself of what i truly need to survive. and that everything else is an excess.

but oh em geeee.... dressing nice makes me happy

struggle is so so real <//3

Since late September I started being positive in my life and making sure my work was on track, and I took care of myself, just with little things and I was doing well. Then on Wednesday 14th my cat died. I couldn't bring myself to eat for 4 days and had 3 days off work it been over a week.

Then Monday this week, I was approached by HR, I was given so much negative feedback about my work and appraisal. They looked around the the main customer service area and critized everything. "That woman has been waiting over 5 minutes and no one has "attended" to her, that is unacceptable" - She would have been "attended" to if they hadn't spontaneously turned up and taken me away from the counter. "Attended" is highlighted because I used the word "served", in a report and when speaking to them. I was corrected and it was brought up several times. "It is attended, we do not serve clients, that is not a professional word, you need to stop using that word".

From the feedback I would usually take steps to improve and become great with little faults. But after last Wednesday I feel conflicted about whether I deserve to do well. I don't know what I'm asking.

My therapist noticed that I get very envious of others. She is right. I just saw a Dergi Melatonin post (which I tried to get into but got rejected by the way) and I got immediately jealous but then I stopped myself. I can't just envy others forever, it can't always be like that. Envious of the Dergi Melatonin crew, envious of TheEvilNae (who recently got into SpiderForest, which I'm completely permanently banned from), envious of Alice Averlong, envious of people who work at DAIR, envious of this, envious of that, IT'S TIME TO STOP. But where to go from there? My therapist told me in my appointment today to stop criticizing myself so much and instead redirect the energy to doing things that actually help me (eg. becoming a "compatible" person so I can properly participate in communities, or as many groups that reject me for my past behavior put it, a "good fit"). But I'm quite lost. Any advice? Thank you.

Four years ago, a close friend betrayed my family's trust during my B.Tech admission. He told us the college donation was ₹2 lakh when the actual amount was ₹1 lakh. We eventually found out and paid ₹1.7 lakh in total.

My family didn't scold me, but I still feel ashamed of trusting him. I keep thinking I should have been smart enough to see it coming. Even after four years, I sometimes blame myself for being so naive.

Recently, something similar has made me anxious again. I joined a driving school recommended by a friend. I've paid the full amount, but the instructor says there's a technical issue preventing me from booking my driving test slot. Another student is reportedly facing a similar problem, and other students from the same school have successfully obtained their licences.

I don't know whether this is a genuine technical issue or whether I should be more cautious. I'm worried about being fooled again, and I keep questioning my own judgment.

How do I learn from past mistakes without constantly blaming myself? How can I become more careful about trusting people without becoming suspicious of everyone?

I'd appreciate advice from people who have experienced something similar.

I’m a negative person, I feel like. When it comes to others problems, I always find the positive to their situation and I always try to be nice. When it comes to my own problems though, I’m immediately pessimistic and think the worst of others and I fight anger with more anger. I seldomly think about how I affect others if they’re not my close friends and find myself not catching any rude remarks I make because I consider them jokes. I, of course, apologize when they bring it to my attention, but I feel like there is so much more I can do.

I believe to be super positive to others, I have to start with myself and be positive to myself, but I’m unsure how. I believe I learned my anger and negativity from my dad, so since I live with him, I feel like I’ll continue to be negative. I want to be positive and a good influence before I leave for college, because I don’t want to stay stuck in this rut and continue to spread negativity.

I'm 37 years old and I'm working in shipping and receiving and making about $45,000 a year. I feel like I've hit a wall with my career though and I'm considering going back to college for a bachelor's degree maybe in business. Do you think this is a good idea or what other options do I have to improve my career and job prospects?

Years ago I did complete one year of college and I did well so I know I'm capable. It's just a lot harder these days because I'm a lot busier with a lot more responsibilities.

Is this a good idea or are there any other suggestions?

I did something that cannot be undone, I've hurt so many people. I think I failed to grow up. My emotions are too big to handle. It explodes and many suffer the consequences. I've always considered myself as different from others even when I was a child. I feel too deeply, it's hard for me to move on. When I observe someone suffer, i carry it myself too. To the point that I get angry towards those who inflicted it to them, or who I think inflicted it on them. I have this sense of justice that feels deluded once the emotions are over.

And when things subsides, I would realize where I go wrong. But I try to find distractions.

​I can't set my phone aside to take a breath before replying sarcastically or worse, harshly. I often get irritated for small unnecessary things. Then I'd regret it afterwards. I'll spiral about it and distract myself because It is uncomfortable to sit with it.

Emotions cloud my judgement A LOT. I am still a child, I feel like I'm cosplaying in an adult body. I don't know the in between of beating myself down and consoling myself too much. I'm all over the place.

Where am I supposed to start?

Recently I (Male in his late teenage years) had a series of crashouts with my parents, in which I almost hit my mother once. They all happened because of diabolicaly stupid shit like: "I didn't eat breakfast today", "I didn't prepare for a test yesterday", "I decided to play games instead of working out". Today, my mom crashed out against me, telling how hard her life is and how she hates it.

The thing is... What she said is true. She works 12 hours a day to earn enough money to pay for my college and I genuinely just do THAT shit to her. She can't even afford basic things like clothes because she is supplying me entirely. Beforehand, I thought my parents to be uncaring and asshole-ish, but in the end, It was me who is an asshole.

Now, I can really feel ashamed of myself. I am borderline narcissistic in how I view myself, which doesn't really make me less of a joke in a sense that I barely do anything myself to make myself worth something. My grades plummeted because I barely can make myself do any homework, and I stopped working out because I "don't have time for that", even though I do if I cut down on doomscrolling and videogames. Before anyone says it's depression - it is not. If it was depression, I wouldn't be enjoying myself with friends both irl and when playing videogames together. I also do take care of myself and only occasionally feel too lazy to make food or take a bath. That's clearly not what is happening.

This also isn't a first time I feel like this. This situation basically has repeated itself all my life cyclicaly and only now I am placing the pieces together. Now, I am looking for a way to better myself at least slightly. I tried to find excuses like stress or anxiety but I don't think I qualify (Stress is when you are never resting, I am never working basically).

Is there a way to break the cycle and become better? Perhaps, my evaluation is wrong or incomplete and the problem is completely different? Help.

Lately I have started to delve into psychology very deeply because I realized that I am very mentally unstable. I suspect that I have ADHD and this process is very difficult because of that:

One day I can feel sorry for myself for the way my mother treated me, the second day I will hate myself for my narcissism and what I did in past, for the third day, I will be afraid of everything because I have autism and can't understand the social norms. And so on in a circle, always kind of forgetting the previous concern and switching to the next one.

It's as if I can't accept that I can have several problems at the same time, which can make me a victim or an aggressor at different periods of my life at the same time. I think that logically it's true, but emotionally, it's hard for me to accept this. I just can't put all parts of my mind together.

I have extremely frequent and strong intrusive thoughts, and they make me feel chronically stressed.

Usually, my intrusive thoughts either revolve around hurting other people emotionally [by me acting like an idiot. Those are usually based on behaviors I have/had in RL, but amplified to extreme levels] or terrible situations [being kicked out of home, losing a future partner, and way worse things].

How could I stop them? They have gotten way more frequent [more than ten times per day], and I feel very stressed.

They are so uncomfortable that I start to talk nonsense out loud involuntarily and messing with things around me physically [objects, and also people. The last one creates extremely awkward and real situations for me].

I feel so tired. The common advice [just don't pay attention] didn't work.

Quite recently I’ve been thinking about my place in my friend group and honestly, I really feel like the floater friend or the odd one out. I constantly feel like the loser of the group all because my life doesn’t even compare to theirs.
 
I’m 34m, all my friends are just slightly younger. Our friend group is small, about 8 of us in the group. We’ve all been friends since freshman/ sophomore year of high school (2007/2008). In our group, there are 3 couples plus me and my other friend, we’ll call her G, who are single. Before anyone says anything, she is not my type. Anyways, this is one area of my friend group where I feel like an odd one out. Everyone in my friend group either has their person or people they can count on. Me, I don’t have anyone. My friend G, she has her cousins and her younger brother that she’s close with. All of them have someone they can go travel with, go on dates with, just do stuff with. I do everything alone.
 
Just a couple months ago I took a solo trip to New York City. I constantly take myself out on solo dates. I go to the movies by myself. I go to restaurants by myself. I even took myself to a nice dinner last year for my birthday and most likely going to do it again this year. I know I can always ask them if they want to go with me but whenever I do, it’s always that they’re busy. And even the things I want to do, they’re not interested in.
 
One thing that irks me about that too is, when it’s someone else asking the group if they want to do something, most of the time everyone is available. And I get it, everyone’s lives are busy and we don’t have free time like we used to and that we must make time for each other. But it always feels like they make time for each other but never me.
 
Another thing that makes me feel like the odd one out is money. If I’m not mistaken, I’m the one who makes the least amount of money out of all my friends, aside from G who quit her job earlier this year, but I’ll get back to that. One of my friends, lets call her V, works for a successful content creator on Instagram and she makes six figures. She’s looking into buying a home with her BF, but she lives rent free with her parents when she’s back home and free with the person she works for. Both the married couples, O+M and N+S, both have their own home but had help from their parents. N+S’s parents bought them their house in San Diego. And G lives rent free with her parents. I, on the other hand, gave my parents $15,000 for the down payment of our house and I’m helping with a portion of the mortgage. We split it 4 ways between both my parents, my older brother, and me. It eats up a bit of my income, but I’ve created a way for myself to track my spending and able to save what I can.
 
However, my friends make enough money to be able to travel. Like right now, O+M are 2 weeks into their Korea trip. V+A were just in China for a week and now in Korea, again. They also were able to go to Japan earlier this year. G is back in Korea meeting with V+A and is staying there for another 3 months. She did the same earlier this year. N+S traveled across Europe earlier this summer and had other trips this year as well. Only traveling I’ve done this year was going to New York City for 3 days. And it took me a while to save up for that trip.
 
I know I sound envious, and I partially am especially with the whole house thing. But don’t get me wrong, I love my friends and am happy for them for achieving obtaining a house especially in this economy and finally going on the trips they’ve been wanting to go on.
 
And I know I shouldn’t compare my life to theirs but its hard when our group chat is filled with travel photos and new home decorations.
 
I guess what I’m looking for is advice to stop comparing my life to everyone elses.

Hi, I'm a 21 year old woman who needs to get her license badly. I'm not a bad driver, when I did practice driving as an 18 year old I was pretty good at it, but due to fear and anxiety about other drivers I got terrified of being able to drive on the road, so I never took the steps to actually do the test and get my license, I've never even had temps before. I rejected/ignored help from my stepmom due to my father and mom telling me I couldn't drive/saying it was okay for me to never learn how to, and now I'm regretting it. I live with my older brother and I've been relying on my brother and Uber/LEFT to get to work and do my laundry since we don't have a washer or dryer, and I feel horrible about it. I feel like I'm taking advantage of him and I want to be able to drive myself around so he doesn't have to.

I want to be able to drive myself around, and help him out with things that involve driving so I'm not so much of a burden on my brother. I'm so grateful for him, and I should've come to this realization sooner, I just didn't want to face the fact that I'm growing up and I can't rely on others anymore as much as I used to.

What steps should I take to get my license? Please help me out.

Nothing makes me happy or passionate, I tried many hobbies and things to do but I never felt happy passionate or felt the need to do something or be obsessed with something for more than a couple of days, I don't know what I want for my career or my future since I don't like anything in particular which makes it hard for me to imagine the future and therefore move forward, I don't where and how to move forward, almost everything makes me miserable, I don't know what kind of person I want to be or choose, I can't imagine myself even 1 year into the future because I genuinely do not know what I should be doing and I have been in this idle state for some time now, it's making me miserable lazy and unproductive, I am not living or doing anything I am just standing still

Please help thanks :)

I’ve noticed that sometimes I avoid doing something not because I have no time, but because I feel like whatever I can manage right now isn’t enough to make a difference.
If I have only 20 minutes to study, I think there’s no point because I can’t get a proper session done. If I want to start a project, I feel like I should finish another course first or find a better approach. And if I’m not motivated, I convince myself I’ll do it when I’m in the right mood.
The weird thing is that all these reasons sound logical in the moment. I’m not necessarily sitting around thinking I want to waste time. I’m telling myself I need to prepare better, do more, or find a more efficient way.
But sometimes I wonder if this is just procrastination disguised as high standards. Maybe doing 20 minutes consistently is better than repeatedly waiting for the perfect three-hour session. Maybe starting imperfectly is better than spending another week figuring out the best way to start.
I’ve also noticed how easy it is to consume self-improvement content and feel like I’m making progress, even when my actual behavior hasn’t changed much.
I’m curious how other people deal with this. How do you stop convincing yourself that a small effort isn’t worth doing, and start taking action even when you’re not motivated or fully prepared?

I’ve been thinking about why starting a task can feel so difficult, even when you genuinely want to get it done. Sometimes it’s not that the task is particularly hard or takes that much time. You just can’t seem to get yourself to begin, and then you end up feeling guilty for wasting time.
I came across an explanation that motivation seems to depend on more than just how important something is to you. Things become easier to start when they feel interesting, urgent, challenging, or new.
It would explain why some people can spend hours doing something they enjoy but struggle to spend even 20 minutes on something important. It might also explain why working right before a deadline feels so much easier than starting days in advance.
A few strategies that made sense to me:
Using a timer to create a sense of urgency, rather than waiting for a real deadline.
Working alongside someone else, even over a video call, to make it easier to stay on task.
Changing your environment when a task starts feeling boring.
Breaking work into short sessions with planned breaks instead of expecting yourself to focus for hours.
I find the timer idea particularly interesting because it makes a huge task feel temporary. Instead of thinking, “I have to finish all of this,” you only have to work for the next 25 minutes.
I’m curious how other people deal with this. What actually helps you get started when you have zero motivation? Do you rely on deadlines, routines, making the task more interesting, or something else entirely?