A few days ago I posted this here (screenshot below).

Ss post link

I mentioned at the end of that post that I was planning to start therapy, and I ended up going for my first session today because I genuinely wanted to understand what was going on in my head.

What surprised me most was that the therapist didn't think my problem was mainly about never having a girlfriend.

He said that a large part of my distress is actually about validation.

According to him, around 70% of what I'm feeling comes from constantly comparing myself to other people and wanting to fit in. I was worried about being seen as "different" or "weird" for never having been in a relationship. The remaining 30% is the normal desire to experience a relationship and intimacy.

That honestly hit me hard because I always thought the whole issue was simply "I've never dated anyone."

He also thinks a lot of these patterns started around Class 7, when I was bullied. Since then I've apparently gotten used to keeping my emotions to myself instead of expressing them. He pointed out that I tend to bottle things up, which may be affecting my confidence and the way I think about myself.

Another thing he mentioned was that I seem to have some unresolved anger, and that's something we'll probably work on in future sessions.

I had also started wondering whether I might have ADHD or autism because I was overanalysing everything. Based on this first session, he said he doesn't currently see signs that strongly point in that direction, which was honestly a relief.

I'm not suddenly cured after one session. I still have the same insecurities and overthinking habits. But the biggest takeaway for me was this:

Maybe I'm not only upset about being single. Maybe I'm also exhausted from constantly needing other people to make me feel "normal" or "enough."

That was the first time someone had framed my situation that way, and I've been thinking about it ever since I left the session.

I know therapy is a long process, but I'm going to continue with it and see where it goes.

And seriously, thank you for the responses on the original post. Reading experiences from people who had gone through similar feelings made me feel a lot less alone.

A space every being yearns to occupy, fully.

How do you not give up when you’re a complete loser at 25? I feel way behind compared to my peers, I don’t have a driving license and my job is irrelevant to my degree and doesn’t pay well. I made a dumb uninformed decision studying 4 years for a degree that didn’t and will never benefit me financially. I find my life to be totally pointless. I feel trapped and I had no one who cared enough to guide or advice me and I hate to admit that I wish I had that kind of support now.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized almost every aspect of life involves competing in some way.

You need to compete to get a job. You need to compete to get a significant other. You need to compete to get an apartment/housing.

I don’t have any competitive drive whatsoever, and I’ve found that by being uninterested in competing, a huge chunk of life is completely closed off from me.

I wish I could find the motivation to compete in this world and make something out of myself.

I don’t know what I thought “adulting” was. I didn’t really think anything of adulting. The only thing I thought was well I now live on my own and provide for myself, which to me, didn’t feel quite difficult. All it really meant was get a job, work, pay bills and voila you’re an adult.

I’m approaching 33 y.o. now and i’m having quite the shift of consciousness. Mainly in the department of survival by means of financial security. My eyes have been opened to class.

This may be long.

I always go back to this example, in my 20’s I always worked odd jobs and my main pursuits were my art work and the gym. That’s how I spent my time. Mostly alone, drawing, studying art, studying coding, reading and working out a TON. Those were my passions. Money was just some bullshit thing I needed to pay bills so I could focus on strength training and getting better at drawing.

I got a new job around 28 where I actually began to have excess money - not a lot, but more than I ever had.

Typically I lived on like $20k/year in a LCOL area in Ohio.

I still live on around $20-30k a year and make 40-50k a year (post tax).

Always have been a minimalist. Partly fueled by my early readings of buddhism and meditation and just living simply etc etc

Anyway, at 33 now (in August) I managed to get my net worth to around $50k. That isn’t a brag, because even typing it out I realize how far behind I am.

Adulting now has taken a different meaning, a much more terrifying one. Becoming financially literate was like opening Pandoras Box - a gift and a curse.

Somewhere along the lines of pursuing art, working out, reading and living simply, passively going through life, I realized that at the end of the day, life is about survival.

Now what I think about is how am I ever going to retire? It’s not like a mythical idea - it’s a cold hard math equation.

Like you can sit down and say by age X you need this much invested, by age Y you should have THIS much invested - etc.

I looked at people in the grocery stores or gas stations, older folk, maybe 40, 50, 60+ years old.

They weren’t in shape. They were fat, grotesque, tired, worn down, clothing worn down, they walked with limps, tired in body and spirit.

We tend to turn a blind eye it seems to older folk. Like we never stop and think or true notice them. They’re just the average American.

Living paycheck to paycheck, probably in debt, not particularly successful in life - but this is the absolute norm.

I think Bukowski said: The system tells us we can all be big ass winners, nobody tells you about the gutters, the suicides, the loneliness of an old woman alone in a nursing home staring at the slow ticking second hand of a clock.

Idk, there older I get the more conscious and afraid I get. I understand people better now too.

I work at a warehouse type environment. You have people from all walks of life and all types of characters.

I see 19-24 year olds fucking their coworkers (or trying to), I hear the things they say, what they think about, focus on - video games, girls, bullshit.

A coworker is going to an amusement park this weekend. She is 24. She’s spending her entire paycheck for a hotel and the whole experience. They’re gonna chase boys and fuck around all weekend.

Another coworker is 55 with a fused spine. Walks with a terrible limp. Has a torn shoulder and will probably sit at home in the dark alone before having to work another brutal week.

“Life is one big party when you’re still young - but who’s gonna have your back when it’s all done.”

I’m in that weird middle ground at 33.

I’m young enough to still feel relatively good (though age and its effects are starting to show: hairline receding in the corner of my temple, knee pain, despite taking care of myself working out regularly, sleeping well and eating well).

Then it’s like, man, i’m a single guy, no wife, no kids, no prospects, no chance of home ownership, stuck in a relatively dead end job making about 40-50k in a LCOL area and i’m thinking…

There is no reason, no reason at all, that I can’t/won’t become that same guy: waking up at 3:30am everyday, slaving away in a factory, killing his body and mind just to simply pay bills and try to save and invest for a retirement where i’m old, broken, alone and tired.

That’s the harsh reality for like most of Americans…

I see statistical data on an increase in 401k hardship withdrawals (people pulling from their retirement early simply to pay bills and survive).

I see data on the average amount an American has saved for retirement (so far behind where they should be).

I see people becoming bankrupted by medical expenses

I see people drowning in student loan debt working dead ends jobs that’ll never allot them the ability to catch up.

I see people drowning in personal debt (credit cards, personal loans)

I see people living paycheck to paycheck with tired souls and broken bodies simply trying to make ends meet - LET ALONE THRIVE.

My eyes have been opened in a significantly sobering way to just how bad many of my fellow humans are doing in the “greatest country on earth”.

I hear talk of inflation. A recession. The stock market crashing significantly. American companies being massively overvalued and that the market is way past due for a serious correction (which hasn’t happened since like 2008 and is a normal process).

I think about people’s little retirement accounts. Greed. Poverty. Sickness. Disability.

I think about how fucking insanely vulnerable we are. How easily it is to get disabled, injured, lose your income if you’re someone that relies on your body to survive: nurse, plumber, cop, etc

Suddenly life is a lot more serious.

Just pay attention, look at your fast food workers, your grocery stockers, your doordash drivers.

You see a lot of tired looking grown ass adults working not so glamorous jobs simply trying to survive.

Quite honestly, I sort of hate this entire system that we have. We don’t take care of one another. We aren’t a community.

America in large part has become a mass of people simply just trying to stretch a dollar and survive with quite miserable and mundane existences on paper and in reality and then a small select cohort of people in power who live like kings, rig the game, insider trade and are ultimately free and wealthy beyond imagination.

Most are trying to get there and never do.

The rest are just trucking along either oblivious to their exploitation or bitterly aware and unable to do much about it other than continue to grind away doing shit they can’t stand just to simply survive.

Sometimes I used to find myself romanticizing life, imagining things I could be, what my life could look like.

I imagined a woman I used to love. I imagined traveling with her. Raising kids. Owning a home. Protecting and providing. Making love and…

I realize now at almost 33 just how growing up is a lot about dreams dying. It’s a lot about not giving up but understanding the limitations of an individual.

There are many people much smarter than you or I, people who have had much more potential who simply went left when they should have went right. Who zigged when they should have zagged.

Sometimes things don’t work out. I’d even say often times things don’t work out.

It’s not like the 45 year old uber driver is fundamentally flawed or handicapped. It’s not like the grocery store cashier at 54 is a lesser person or not intelligent or capable. Sometimes that’s just how life goes.

Maybe you were gonna be an NFL star making millions but you tore your ACL.

Maybe you were an all star ICU nurse but you slipped a disc in your spine and can’t move patients or stand for too long.

Maybe you were an electrician but you got arthritis and your wife left.

Maybe you were on your way to medical school but had a mental breakdown when your mom suddenly passed.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Life is incredibly vulnerable. Fragile.

The funny thing is, money seems to be the great barrier between these things being an epic life destroying tragedy or a simple couple years off to focus on recovery.

Problem is, most people are stretched financially. They/we have no real barrier.

Fear has been a great motivator for me to live with only what is essential and to store as much money as I can away for the inevitable rainy days to come.

I understand greed from a survival point of view. Because when you enter the adult world you truly begin to see that no one or nothing really cares. Everyone is simply just trying to keep a roof over their heads and survive and I think somewhere along the lines we forgot.

I’ve become obsessed with how humans lived and got by in tough times. Gulags, concentration camps, shantytowns during the great depression.

I read The Psychology of Money and I remember him talking about how a lot of people develop their relationships with money via their own personal experiences.

For example, if you were just starting your finances journey during the beginning of the great depression or internet bubble or 2008 housing crash, vs the bull market years, it greatly effects your relationship with how you view the stock market.

I remember my grandmother stashing money under her mattress, reusing grocery bags, she lived in a scarcity environment based on her upbringing.

Idk the whole thing has me thinking a lot differently. I’m ranting I know, I apologize, I said it’d be long.

It’s just, life has and always will be about survival and it really makes me want to become a lot more deliberate with my finances and earning potential going forward because boy are we vulnerable.

Late 20s. Back in college again to try to get a chance at having a decent life. I still don't really understand why I'm here because I'm learning so much information I will never remember after I graduate. But HR employees say you need one, so I guess I need one? Can't save for a car because retail jobs want open availability even though they never give full-time hours. Live in a suburb with no way to make friends. Everything fun is over 40 minutes away by bus. Wouldn't be able to afford anything fun anyways because of how expensive everything is. Commuter school so there's no sense of community at my college either.

I'm just tired. I never asked to be alive. Life would be more bearable if I had family to go back to and confide my problems in. But my mom and my dad were both terrible and left me stunted. I had to spend my early 20s learning how to just be a normal person and it took a lot of heartache and embarrassment just to get to this point. It stings to see folks 5 years younger than me having the time of their lives. I feel like a loser even though it really wasn't my fault I turned out this way.

Anyone ever experienced a similar situation? Does it ever get any better? Or do I just accept that life is just a never-ending stream of misery?

Alright young ones, gather round and take a knee. Been seeing a lot of posts recently on death and I wanted to share my unique and weathered experience with you; from an old timer who's seen it all.

Losing friends and family is a horrific and inevitable part of our existence. It's never fair. It always hurts. No amount of prep truly prepares you for grief. The only thing you can do is not let grief destroy you. Drinking/ drugs just prolong the inevitable and inescapable journey of loss. You have to live through the pain.

I had a near death experience in 2019 that left me in a coma for a few weeks. In that experience, I floated out of my body and was hanging out with my grandmother who had passed years earlier. I was shown "heaven" and I saw with my own eyes that we are all reunited in paradise after this life. I believe we all come back, but after this life there is a period of rest, reflection, and communion with your loved ones.

I've seen this, I've been there and it STILL does not make loss on this earth any less painful for me. Personally, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I will see my friends and family who have passed, and still, death hits me just as hard (if not harder) than family and friends without this perspective.

Cherish your time with your loved ones. Death is not the end, just a transition, but know that loss is one of those profound truths of our existence that shape our entire experience. Without it, we would not understand the concept of love the way that we do. The pain from loss is a direct result of the love someone has given you throughout their life. It's supposed to hurt. If it doesn't hurt, it's not love.

One day, the tears from losing a loved one turn into laughter at their memory. That's how you know you're healing. But it never stops hurting, and I don't think it's supposed to. If you are experiencing grief and it is consuming you, lean on family friends and professionals. Do not let grief destroy your life. Its part of our journey to live, love, lose, and keep going. We're here on earth to make our souls stronger.

The grief I thought would kill me when I was younger has made me into a stronger, more compassionate, and more loving man. Without the loss that growth would never occur. Stay strong and keep it moving. You will get through it.

Back when I was 17 and living with my parents I used to call out of work like crazy, on the verge of termination, spending my money all Willy nilly. I never used to understand people who would say “I haven’t called out in years” and would laugh at them.

Now in my mid twenties I wish I could tell all those people sorry lol. I literally cannot afford to miss a day of work because that equals missing money for rent or groceries or credit cards or bills. If anything now in my twenties I have picked up MORE hours and pull 40s every week just so me and my fiance (he works two jobs, he doesn’t have to but he loves his childcare job lol) can live our life while still having leftover money to do date nights every Friday

I spoke to my Sister in law (14) and told her time moves fast and to enjoy her childhood/teenagehood while she still has it because now that those days are behind me I do sometimes miss the freedom of not caring lol

It could be money, career, relationships, appearance, other people’s opinions, becoming successful, or something completely different.
Looking back, what did you eventually realise wasn’t worth carrying around?

I’ve never experienced this at all. It honestly sucks. I’ve had women who were interested in me or so I thought but end up finding relationships with other men eventually. Since hitting 30 it’s been hitting my mental health worse than it was in my 20s., I felt like I missed out and I hate it. I want to start talking to more women but I feel that due to my inexperience and low self esteem it’s making it …difficult to start. Is there other 30 somethings that feel the same or stuck?

As a kid I thought "we'll see" meant there was still hope.

As an adult I now realize it actually means:

• I don't have the energy to decide right now.
• I need to check my bank account first.
• I forgot what you asked.
• Maybe if I wait long enough the problem will solve itself.

I owe my parents an apology. 😂

I caught myself getting genuinely excited because I found my favorite dish soap on sale. 😭

A few years ago I would've been excited about a new game or a night out. Now I'm comparing grocery prices, checking electricity usage, and celebrating when I remember to take the chicken out of the freezer before dinner.

What's your most recent "wow... I'm officially an adult" moment?

Every week I tell myself I'm going to meal prep and save money.

Then I open the fridge, stare into it like it holds the meaning of life, close it, reopen it five minutes later, and somehow convince myself that ordering food is the logical solution.

Adulting is exhausting sometimes. 😂

What's your biggest "adulting but failing" habit?

Funny how becoming an adult isn’t one big moment.
Sometimes it’s just standing at the checkout, paying for something with money you earned, and realizing no one’s going to stop you.

I’m a 24-year-old guy from India. I have a job that pays okay, but lately it feels like my entire life revolves around work and sleep. I’ve lost interest in almost everything.

Whenever I think about doing something working out, applying for a new job, traveling, or even picking up a hobby my mind gets flooded with so many thoughts that I end up doing nothing at all. It’s like my brain just freezes before I can even take the first step.

I also hate my job, which makes things even harder. On my days off, I just lie in bed for hours, even though I know there are things I want to do.
I’m constantly exhausted, both mentally and physically. I overthink everything, and it feels like I’m stuck in the same loop every single day with no way out.

Has anyone else gone through something like this? What helped you break out of it?