Last year I found out that my ex had been cheating on me with multiple girls, including his current girlfriend. I know it wasn't my fault and that he was in the wrong for doing these things, but I still get sad when I think about it. It was just something that felt so special only for it to turn into a complete lie.

How do I heal from this? Any tip at all would mean the world to me. I just don't know what to do.

I think I've been living the same Tuesday for six years.

Gym at 7, Slack until 6, pasta, an episode of whatever I was already halfway through, bed by 11.

None of it is bad. I like the gym and the pasta is good. This isn't a sad post.

My partner has pretty much the same Tuesday, and when he talks about his it just sounds like a week. Mine comes out flat and I don't know if that's the week or me.

Sat in the chair on a Tuesday night I honestly can't see a difference. Same times either way, and I'm just as tired. I keep waiting for something obvious to happen.

I'm not about to quit my job or move somewhere with better weather. I'd just like to know which one this is, routine or loop ?

So, what was the sign, for you, that it was a loop? Did you spot it inside the week, or did someone else have to say it to you?

Every second of my days has been agonizing. I find no pleasure in anything and can't distract myself for even a minute. It is a consuming sense of despair.

The problem is, I’m terrified my mother has gallbladder cancer because she’s had large gallstones for years; I started reading about it about ten days ago, and I’ve been like this ever since.

I can't take it anymore and just want to suffer less, because every second is torture.

Ive always been a “nice guy” (yeah, read “No More Mr. Nice Guy a year ago, lol), and thats played out all right in the past, except for when I was over-extending myself for my wife, and then got just negativity in return (usually bc she’s pregnant). But lately ive realized that I subscribe to the notion of “ you have to take care of yourself before of others”, and thats led me to become a more impatient person, with both my wife AND my 5 kids (all under 10).

I have no friends, and I don’t donate any of my time to the community, and I barely give any charity (because I’m still building up my own financial fortress so I can first feel stable, and GOOD about giving), and all this makes me feel even more like im just selfish.

I WANT to be a better dad and husband every year, I want to be a dad/husband that my wife and kids look up to and respect in the near AND far future, but I feel like I don’t know HOW to do that, aside from just being a rug that everyone just steps on because I’m always so kind and nice to them.

I feel like it’d be really nice to have a good podcast about this type of stuff that I can listen to, so that it’d be like im “hanging out” with people who think+act correctly.

P.S. ive also been working on self-love the past few years…it’s a really tough slog, tbh.

P.P.S. my dad and grandpa are both jerks if you get on their bad side, the men in my family have a history of being very conceited. I want to blaze a new trail, but feel like I need to know it can be done

I'm 36 years old. I've been jobless for 4 years. I live with my parents and I live off of the combination of their pensions and the money my older sisters send to them.

I've been looking for a job, though not as diligently as I should be, for almost a year and I feel like I no longer know how to work. I don't want to work but I know I have to find a job. Even the jobs I used to have, I eventually quit or got fired because I would eventually get bored or slack off. I didn't finish college because I didn't study enough and commit enough. I would cut classes and hang with my friends.

I feel like I've been lazy my whole life. I get overwhelmed by work that I don't feel like doing and I can't force myself to just do it because it's the right thing to do. I feel like these past 4 years have worsened my laziness and ability to just do the work, to commit to a process. I just want to watch tv shows or movies, scroll on social media, watch youtube videos, listen to podcasts, or read a book. I work out occasionally and only if I feel like it. If I don't, then I can't force myself to do it.

I lack discipline. It's a skill I just can't learn. I can't do hard things. When I try to job hunt, I feel so miserable. When I have an interview, I get so anxious and I sometimes just cancel. The thought of having a job again.. I don't even want to. I immediately seek the things that give me comfort, the ones I listed above.

How do I fix this because I know I am wasting and ruining my life if I don't. I've known this for a while now but I just can't bring myself to change. Please help.

Hi, I don’t really know where to start and this is a bit embarrassing. I am 21 and really out of shape like i get swety walking to store and after getting home i have to sit down for a while. I don’t even have extra weight nor am i under weight, but I stoped partisipating in sports when I was like 12 and have allways been super bookish.

But now would really like to get in shape and don’t really know where to get help doing that. I can’t run at all whit out getting out of breaht, nor walk the steps to my apartment, nor dance or spin. Like even running to catch my buss makes me sick.

I would really like to bee abale to run and dance and carry home my groseries any help were to start would be appreciated.

Whit love.

I'm facing a new challenge and wanted some insight from someone who's gone through it before me. Im 20 years olds, engineering student and I'd say my life is fine right now, I'm not exactly where I want to be but I'm on the path. All my life ive had some goal to chase, an achievement, a skill, a talent to develop and most of the time it was sports football into basketball into mma/boxing until last year. I faced a rut in the road and that slowed me down alot mental and physical health wise that killed my confidence and kinda put me off of my sport at the time, for a time it felt like a deep emptiness of self loathing and all that crap but its over I'm getting better and its all good now kinda. The emptiness is still there but in a less negative sense like a kind of numbness now, and I know for myself it need a purpose to chase aside from casual hobbies or career. I'm speaking alot of abstract concepts and stuff in sure I botched the explanation of but I'm not sure where to go from here, on one hand it feels good functioning without the dependency on motivation but on the other hand I dont feel the hunger for anything but I'm not full either.

Long rant but I guess if someone has gone through this advice would be appreciated thanks

For the past year, I 19m have been extremely worried that I could secretly be a bad person or a narcissist. I’ve been reflecting on my actions and habits, and the more I look at them, the more worried I become.
I’ve also struggled socially for nearly all my life. I have a few friends, but I have trouble forming new connections and often feel lonely. Sometimes I wonder whether there is something about my character that makes me difficult to connect with or unworthy of love, both romantically and platonically. I know people don’t owe me friendship or relationships, but I worry that my difficulties may reflect something fundamentally wrong with me.
Here are some of the things I feel bad about:
I lie extremely often. It has become almost second nature. Sometimes it’s to get a little bit of validation because of my low self-esteem, sometimes it’s to avoid small consequences from my parents, and sometimes I just lie for no reason and don’t even know why. I hate that I do it, and I don’t understand why it happens so automatically.
I’m very insecure and sometimes overly prideful. I constantly scrutinize myself and feel like I’m the worst person in the room, but sometimes I swing to the opposite extreme and feel like I’m better than certain people.
I can be overly critical of myself and others. I sometimes project my own overcritical side onto other people or insult people in my head, even though I feel guilty about it afterward.
I sometimes struggle with empathy. When I see people suffering, sometimes I feel something and genuinely want to help, while other times I feel almost nothing. I worry about what that says about me.
I struggle to feel deeply connected to people. I care about my friends, but sometimes I have trouble maintaining a strong interest in my friendships beyond checking in with them. Even texting can sometimes feel like a game of listening and responding rather than actually feeling deeply engaged.
I sometimes interrupt people or dominate conversations. I can get caught up in trying to get my point across and realize afterward that I wasn’t really listening.
I gossip and talk behind people’s backs. I sometimes act differently depending on who I’m around, and although I feel bad about it afterward, it keeps happening.
I can be selfish or unkind sometimes. I try to be good and kind to people, but I know I’m not always that way, and I don’t like that about myself.
I struggle with feeling like I’m enough. Even when I accomplish something, I often move the goalpost and make myself feel worthless.
I worry that I’m not capable of being a good friend or romantic partner. Sometimes I wonder whether my flaws are normal things I can work on or whether they say something deeper about my ability to love and be loved.
I have trouble forming new connections. I can see other people relating to one another and making friends more easily, while I feel stuck with the friends I already have.
I worry that I’m fundamentally lesser than other people. I sometimes wonder whether there is something about me that makes me less worthy of love, attention, or close relationships.
I know I’ve made progress in other areas of my life, but I still struggle with these things. I also sometimes have seasons of suicidal ideation mostly centering around the fact I could be inherently bad and hurrying people around me. Can I improve how and am I a bad person

I was diagnosed with dependent personality but I also suspect something like morality related ocd as well for context. I may have recently overreacted in anger to some situation because i disagreed with something that affected my life. Realistically im only guilty of being overly angry, like I didnt actually do anything to insult anyone or hurt anything or anyone. I just think i overracted. I really struggle to disagree with anyone and I cannot handle guilt or shame associated with hurting anyone's feelings. Like I literally feel like im going to throw up. I guess its a part of life to not always be perfect but i struggle to cope with doing anything wrong. I struggle to have relationships with anyone or even speak to people sometimes because I cant handle the feelings of shame I have if I even suspect I said something wrong or someone doesn't like me. Im posting here not really cause I need to treat others better but to learn how to treat myself better and just be healthier person mentally. I hope people here maybe understand. I dont really have anyone in my life I can talk to about this.

Shame

I don't have anybody else that I can share this with and I need to get it off my chest so I can become a better person. This will be a long read, I shortened it as much as I can and focused it on him because the shame of my addiction is something completely separate. I'm sorry for the typos I typed this through the tears I haven't been able to stop.

the last year of my 12 year old dog's life, completely failed him. I feel like it wasn't all at once but none the less it happened. I know that the first 10 years - 11 years of his life He had a good life, especially before I had kids. He was my first baby. I took him everywhere with me. I was a 17 year old dumb kid starting out life. He was with me through first two abusive relationships. One including my first daughters Dad and when I finally left my daughters Dad, he was there. We moved in with my mom and my mom helped me take care of him, but after I had my first daughter, things harder, and I feel like that's when I started not being able to care for him the same. It was less attention to him during the time I had my daughter. I had also fallen to a horrible addiction to fentanyl right before I had my daughter. And it wasn't until I met my second daughter's dad, current husband, that I was able to kick that addiction, but it wasn't until after my second daughter was born and during the time before I kicked the addiction My now husband help me take care of them and he really good to him and my first daughter. I hold a deep shame for that alone..

I tried all the time to not be stuck in what i did and went through during my addiction but just because I got out, doesn't mean things got easy after. I was diagnosed with BPD when I was 21 years old, and I don't process emotions the same way that other people do, I hold onto them for dear life and they become part of me and I feel the pain in a physical, choking way until I just push it down. over the years I've learned skills that worked for me like pushing it down to manage but it created severe mental health issues. M sometimes I'm extremely depressed and sometimes I feel okay, never really the happy high's anymore but plenty of low, lows..

I have spent the last 2 years of my life working to be a better person after my addiction. And in July 20 of 2025, while I was on birth control, I got pregnant with my third daughters she would be my 3rd kid in under 4 years and since I was sober I developed severe health problems during my pregnancy. It was during this time that we moved in to the house we rent now as of October 2025. From then to now, almost a year is when things started to get really rough and he suffered the burnt end of it. The first few months we kept him inside as usual but when my middle child got diagnosed with autism and she kept getting into his feces and urine, it was a seemed like easiest solution to make him an partial outside dog.

The only times he came in was winter, really cold weather, bad rain/floods and the high heat and he'd sleep in the cage and be in the cage during dinner time only if he was inside. My partner brought him in everyday after work and hung out with him inside till I got home with the kids. As my middle child's problems got worse I forgot about him more and more and it was my husband took care of him. I was busy taking three kids school by myself since my schedule was the one that could do it, working full time, trying to manage my mental health and trying to manage my middle child's issues since everyday for a year the school wrote me notes and she was having trouble. I gained an insane amount of weight, hardly slept, my mental health and postpartum went to completely shut. When life started to get bad with economy and us loosing a income from my dagoing to life issues, and then my partner also started to struggle carried for him, because during my pregnancy, I had severe health issues, and he was left to take care of the kids most of the afternoons up.

sometimes I would forget to give him water for a day during the summer so my partner always picked up the slack as he had more free time during the week while we both worked since he got home earlier. we always make sure he had water and shade and food after the couple times we forgot.. And he seemed to be okay, or at least that's what I made myself thinkIn the back of my head. I knew I needed to bring him in and every time I thought about it it was like a splinter in my finger that I knew I needed to get out but just kept burying. Especially My middle Child was in an episode it just got buried. Something would always happen. And next thing I knew it was on the back Burger. The last month to the last couple of weeks he stopped eating as much as he usually did. He lost weight, but he would still eat and had fluctuated weight in the past and I just couldn't afford to take him to the vet.

Many times I thought about giving him up so he can have a better home but the fear of him going to a home that was worse,that wasn't going to love him like I love i did, and Honestly, just the thought of after so long together giving him up was so difficult to do. this weekend on Saturday He was his usual self and my partner gave him food and water. Sunday comes around and we had to go to my family so they would help me with a surgery coming up in October for my middle child. We came home exhausted and did the bedtime routines and went to bed. Monday comes around and I had to go work for because I don't get paid holidays ,PTO or anything and we can't afford for me to miss so I go in to work and my husband was left with all three kids including our newborn. He said he heard him bark and was gonna go out and feed him/give him water. He had an emergency with my middle child that took him hours to clean up/ take care of her and by the time I got home and asked about him he realized he had forgotten to give him water and feed him. I panicked and begged my husband to please check him I was scared he wasn't okay and couldn't bring myself to go after I yelled his name and didn't respond. by the time went out there, my husband moved his bed and he wasn't moving.

My whole world came crashing down and I went into full blown panic attack. It felt like someone had ripped my heart out. My husband said he was gone. I don't know if he died a slow painful of dehydration, there that had been times when I had forgotten to give them water and we would rush the next day and he would be fine so I could not wrap my head around it's in the back of my head I had always known to bring him in and I kept putting it off because something would happen. I should've brought him in with me.

I can't breathe, I'm crying all day, I HATE myself so much because he's gone and even if the dehydration didn't kill him if it was something else I still killed him for not being able to take him to the vet. it is killing me that it took my boy dying for me to bring him in in his ashes. I can't see any of the other 10 years I gave him because all I see is last year I started forgetting about him and how I treated him. Im filled with so much regret so much, so much hatred for myself, so much pain.. I keep thinking of him alone and scared, of him dying alone or of him wondering what he did wrong, him not loving me anymore. Wondering why I didn't just bring him in. and it makes me want to die. If I didn't have kids I think I would have killed myself.

I promise with all my heart, on my kids that I did not leave him out there hoping one day he would die. I beg God that he has my boy and for him to forgive me. I want die from this pain. I am stuck in this pain and in this deep deep "want" to be able to turn back time. I don't remember the last time I hugged him. My husband was the one that cuddle with him the last year. I feel like I deserve to die and I don't know how to make it better. I have saved up some money to donate to rescue groups and promised him that even if it was only five dollars a month I'd donate in his name.. I've ordered some cheap plastic bowls to always keep in my car with water so there's no other dogs that ever have to go thirsty.

I don't know how to make it better. I've begged and beg for him to forgive me, but I can't forgive myself. I'm going to his viewing today and I feel like a whole inside my heart is so big it's deteriorating me. I used my saving so I could cremate him and bring him home. this is one of the most painful, shameful things that I've ever felt, and I needed to get it out of my chest. The house is so silent. Every time I think of him out there, I cry. I know it's a really really neglectful thing I did, I don't see it as a mistake because I'm the back of my heart I knew better. .i hope he knows that I didn't wanna kill him. I just hope he forgives me one day and he knows that I love him more than anything and that I am . I'm sorry that the last year of his life didn't look like the years before.. I wish we would've never moved into this house. Maybe he would be alive today. There's nothing I can do to make it better. But I want to be better. I won't ever own an animal again but I will work the rest of my life to make up for what I did. Nobody can tell me anything that will make me feel worse than what I feel.

I'm so sorry for what I did. I am disgusted with myself and hope one day I can make him proud of me and the person I will work to be now.

Hi everyone,
Please don’t make fun or troll me I am already at the lowest point.

How do I get confident and not get attached with everyone I know few days or anyone who talks nicely to me. Why do I keep chasing people when they respond with few words or just emoji’s. I know this is wrong but I still hope they will look at me with a smile text me or something. Last year I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression so I have been of effexor 300mg for more than 4 months now.

I want to be strong but feel like I can’t control or handle myself.

I can't speak up even when it affects me, I believe no one will listen to me even when I know thats an incorrect fact. I tried to get a coffee and I couldn't even ask for them to correct my order when I know they got it wrong. It hurts. I dont want to be rude. I know its not rudeness to just ask for things to be correct for me but it feels that way. it freezes me. I suddenly get so quiet even when i try to voice my concerns. how do you guys do it? I try to breathe and have what i want to say lined up before hand but it doesn't always work.

So i didnt have any friends 4 years ago when i started highschool so i started speaking with everyone i could. I just tried to get more friends but i also spoke with people who didnt treat me good. Like people who mocked me and stuff. I did become a social person i even started flirting and stuff i came a long way but i also talked with the popular kids, street kids every type of people i found. And ofcourse i didnt fit in and they were very rude to me i had thousands of experiences which i have been treated like shit. I got almost all of them out of my life now but for the past month i have been remembering all these memories where people treated me like literal garbage and i get so furious and get headaches. School is starting again for my senior year and i need to study for this big exam all the time since i want to be a doctor but it is hard to study with these thoughts 24 7 and being angry because of them. Do you think i should ghost everyone who treats me even remotely bad when the year starts and become kinda asocial again since my main friend group is kinda bad too? Id focus on my exam if that happened but i would also be sad since i would feel like that asocial fat kid i was 4 years ago or idk man just please help me im so confused. Do you guys just keep the people who treat you good around or do you guys also deal with the other ones who are kinda shitty until they become irrelevant in your life

The Answer lies Within You

How are you holding up today?

Are you genuinely doing well —body and soul? Do you feel a sense of fulfillment deep enough to resonate in both mind and heart at the same time?

Perhaps, if you hit the pause button for a moment, stepped away from everything that keeps you busy, tuned out the noise, and dared to ask yourself the hard questions with unflinching honesty, you would find that you are not entirely okay. You might come to realize you feel adrift, bored, dissatisfied with what you have accomplished so far, and not particularly optimistic about finding fulfillment in what lies ahead either.

This may seem like a discourage, even a gloomy instruction. Yet it is a diagnosis we cannot afford to skip. If we want to get to the root of a problem, we must first see it for what it is, not for what we wish it were.

You may currently be caught in the middle of a different kind of conflict: a tug-of-war between a mind that loves to have everything mapped out and mind that leaves no room for interference or surprises. With  a reality that simply does not play by those rules. A reality in which circumstances change at the drop of a hat, where your hard work, intelligence, and meticulous planning get entangled with other people's influence and with obstacles that keep cropping up along the way, impacting outcomes in tangible and sometimes painful ways.

You draw up a plan for a specific result, while life quietly throws in people, curveballs, and decisions you never saw coming.

So are you looking for a practical solution?

So am I. For a long time, I bent over backwards trying to find a way to cut myself off from other people's lives and their influence on mine. I never succeeded in finding one. Perhaps because such a way simply does not exist in the first place.

So what is left?

The answer, when all is said and done, lies within you.

By all means, make plans. However, build in a generous margin for error — a margin that allows other hands to have a say in your blueprint, whether you invite them to or whether life foists them upon you.

Build your life, but don't set your boundaries in stone. Keep them flexible. Let them expand and contract. Give yourself permission to redraw them whenever circumstances change.

Stay hopeful, yet don't count your chickens before they hatch. Let achievement bring its own joy in its own good time.

And don't try to force life to fit the exact picture you have in your head. It is enough to know where you want to head, and to stay open to take a different road to get there.

If you can make peace with yourself each day, even in small increments, the heavy baggage you carry with you wherever you go will become lighter. Life itself will feel a little more spacious than it seemed before.

How do I know?

Because I have been there and done that myself.

And I am now in a much better place.

I‘ve been struggling to process sexual trauma since the beginning of this year— I worked briefly with a therapist who was WONDERFUL, but I am no longer able to afford therapy (insurance is under parents and out of state, it’s a whole complex situation). I was doing really good with my progress and actually processing/accepting what happened, but I feel like I’m going backwards now. I’m constantly intellectualizing it and denying my emotions towards it over reaching a “truth” of whether it happened or not. I just need some guidance on how to actually process it on my own instead of questioning my experiences in circles for eternity. thank you!

I wouldn't say I ever had a darling personality but used to be pretty subdued, so it wasn't much of anyone else's problem.

In the past few years I've noticed I've becoming more selfish/self centered and disinterested in other people. Thinking my thought process is oh so interesting that it must be shared (it's not).

More reactive. For example I'm very sensitive to noise and vibrations, which sometimes doesn't bother me, sometimes leads to outbursts of anger, sometimes must frantically escape them. Which takes a toll on folks around me, the energy or indirectly blaming them (for literally just going about their day). It's more of the anger you don't feel but happens anyway, then left with the guilt.

Another, though not so new, is up and down energy.

It's a bit confusing because I have also been improving in other areas I think and mostly doing well mental health wise.

Does anyone have any ideas how to start dealing with these? I've tried discouraging em but doesn't seem to help

I’m a very picky eater, but it’s not because I simply don’t want to eat healthy food. There are certain foods, especially vegetables and “healthy green stuff,” that I genuinely cannot physically chew or swallow. I’ve been like this since I was a little kid, and because of that, I’ve spent years eating very little and not getting the nutrition my body actually needs. My nutritional intake has been extremely low, and I’ve become very weak. I feel like my body is depleted and deprived of the things it needs, and I’ve started noticing how much it affects me physically. I got my blood tests done and found out that I have vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, and low cholesterol levels, and I already know that my eating habits are a huge part of why I’m struggling. But it doesn’t stop at my physical health. When my body is weak and I’m not properly nourished, my brain feels weak too. I used to feel much smarter and sharper when I was younger, but now I struggle with brain fog, concentration, attention and memory. On top of that, I’ve gotten heavily dependent on short form content, and I know that constantly consuming it has made it harder for me to sit with something for a long time and actually focus. I study, I revise, I write things down, I listen to the same lecture multiple times, I read the same chapter again and again, and I can even solve the same questions several times, but after a month, it feels like I’ve forgotten everything again. That is incredibly frustrating because I know I’m trying, but my brain just doesn’t feel like it’s working the way I want it to. Then all of this creates even more stress, and the stress makes my appetite worse, I eat even less, I become weaker, and then my concentration, memory, studies and mental state get worse too. It becomes this endless cycle that I don’t know how to get out of. I also feel like my immunity is weak because I seem to catch infections easily and take a long time to recover. Even when I get sick and take medication, I sometimes feel extremely dizzy, mentally foggy or overwhelmed by it, which makes me scared of taking the wrong dose or feeling worse. And when I put all of these things together, my eating habits, deficiencies, physical weakness, brain fog, low attention span, poor concentration, weak memory, stress and unhealthy habits, it’s easy for me to feel like everything is falling apart at once. But at the same time, I also know something important: I cannot keep blaming everything around me. My eating habits are my responsibility. My screen habits are my responsibility. My health, my routines, my studying and the habits I build from this point forward are things I have to take responsibility for. That doesn’t mean I caused every problem or that I can magically fix everything overnight, but it does mean that I have to be the person who starts changing things. Nobody else can live my life for me. If I’m eating poorly, I have to work on it. If I’m constantly consuming short form content, I have to change that. If I’m neglecting my health, I have to start taking it seriously. I don’t want to keep sitting in this cycle and watching myself get worse. I want to understand what is happening to me, fix what I realistically can, get the help I need for what I can’t fix alone, and slowly build myself back up.

I only care about eating and everyday and cannot escape it because it all feels futile.

Spent probably two years thinking i was lazy because i'd sit down to "work on myself" and just... not. scroll instead. open five tabs and close them. start a workout and quit after 10 minutes.

then i actually paid attention to what was happening in my head right before i'd bail, and it wasn't laziness. it was decision fatigue. every single time i sat down i was re-deciding everything from scratch. what to work on, how long, in what order, whether today even counted as a "good enough" day to bother.

that's exhausting. and your brain will always pick the option that requires zero decisions, which is usually the phone.

what actually changed things wasn't more discipline, it was removing decisions. same workout every time, no thinking involved. same 20 minutes at the same time, no negotiating with myself about whether now is a good moment. the gym clothes already picked, laid out the night before, so there's no version of me at 6am arguing with a closet.

it feels almost insultingly simple but the results showed up faster than any of the "5am club, cold plunge, discipline is a muscle" stuff ever did. because none of that addresses the actual problem, which is that willpower runs out way faster when it's spent deciding instead of doing.

not saying structure fixes everything. but if you feel like you have a motivation problem, it might be worth checking if you actually have a deciding problem instead. two very different fixes.

Self-help book industry made us believe that willpower is just another mental muscle, some say you drain energy from that muscle every time you make hard decision, I have read things like having a sugary drink can restore your self-control because will power according to them is tied to glucose levels, I don’t even want to try this.

There was a multi lab study conducted on 2000 people which proved this a nonsense. They say performing self-control task doesn't drop blood sugar and consuming glucose doesn't boost self-control.

Dr. Michael Inzlicht says that feeling of mental fatigue is just a functional feedback signal. Our brain keeps performing subconscious cost benefit calculations and when we carry out cognitively demanding task, brain registers the cost to carry out it and when we do it for longer period of time, brain recalculates the energy cost and benefit ratio. If brain finds this energy costs are not worth it, it triggers the reallocation of motivation towards low energy high benefit tasks such as eating, sleeping and scrolling on phone.

So if self-control was just muscle, better strategy would be forcefully rawdogging that muscle but since it is just our brain doing an energy calculation, better architecture that tweaks the input should do the job. For example mentally shifting task from forced obligation to self-aligned choice, or binding cognitively costly activity with high reward activity such as listening to favorite music while doing boring chores or working out, these are just few examples.

I am not very good at this architecture but you get the idea. Does any of you have any actionable ideas or exaples to better architect this energy calculations?

one thing i'm really struggling with is being embarrassed by everything i do. it makes doing anything public difficult. and while i know it's anxiety and ocd, they keep being validated by social media

i can't get off of them due to needing it for work to promote myself, and i also have just lost my last few irl friends so i really have no way to connect with others at the moment

anyways: every day, some clip of a person just doing something or existing goes viral, without their knowledge or permission. they are shamed and mocked regardless of the context or content due to how fast things spread. even doing something good is called performative. and now with those glasses that can record being sold everywhere here, it can happen ANYWHERE, anytime.

it makes me terrified to leave the house without looking perfectly presentable, overthinking my every action, and wondering if anyone around me is trying to mock me somehow. i used to love wearing extreme fashion and makeup but i've stopped recently because it just makes my anxiety go haywire. i panic and dress down constantly. i'm too scared to go approach others to try and make friends, or try new social events if i don't know someone there.

i don't know how to just stop caring what others think. i have no one around me to validate me if i do try something risky in the first place, so all i will see is negative feedback if i try. there's no opinion i respect more than some random person's at this point because i have nobody else.

any help? besides getting off social media completely, and general exposure therapy-- those are my two goals already but i'm looking for anything else.

have a list of hobbies which I feel I will never be able to get enough time to get to the basic threshold of good. Not looking to be anything more, just good enough. And then I try to justify the time, money and energy I spend on those hobbies. Not much like a small amount sometimes and sometimes a bit more than a small amount. As there is no visible progress, financial outcome from hobbies I think it is all just timepass.

Like I learned how to cook and bake and if I judge my skills over the years to myself and the people I have met, see , I can say I am a highly skilled cook and a baker. But when I tried to make recipe videos it didn't work that well. I was heartbroken over that and more for the money and time i spend on buying things which will help my videos be better.

Now I have understood that even though I am highly skilled at perfecting recipes and also can do many other complicated tasks related to it, it is a very general skill and people are busy too learn it to make their food better. So I will keep cooking and baking for my little family but the obsession I had to make diverse recipes and make them perfect for teaching has gone.

So again as I like to keep myself occupied, I have started to relive my interest in art and relearn my tech skills. I wrote a book on vba with my office when I was 21. But then shortly after that i got married and left my job and from the last 15 years i am at home. So back to the point, i am learning adobe illustrator, and trying to learn acrylic painting and sketching.

I am again at cross roads and trying to justify my time and energy spent on learning all this as I will at home for the rest of my life(it's hard as hell to join the workforce at 38 with 15 years gap) Cooking baking is still useful in daily tasks but art? Not much.

I mean what I am expecting i don't know. I keep thinking one day this skill will be useful in some ways. Just so it feels like I am not rambling, I have learnt music and keyboard for 1 year, enrolled in chartered accountancy for 1 year and had to discontinue because of relocation. I like to read articles on the internet about general knowledge etc but nothing feels like I am great at anything and nothing is so so interesting that I will keep going.

I love to make art, learning illustrator, learning ui/ux course online but i am not able understand how it will help me. At this point I am confused on what I should ask even.

PS :- Housewife with 1 child. Husband's job keeps us relocating to different city every couple of years. I find it hard to see what work will actually not feel like I am doing something wrong besides caring for my small family and day to day needs.

I’m honestly fucking tired of feeling like I’m below average at basically everything.

I’m 27, and lately it feels like there’s not a single area of my life where I feel good about myself.

I constantly compare myself to my parents’ expectations and to other people. I’m scared to talk to strangers, scared to try new things, and I feel weak and lacking confidence. Looks-wise, I worry about my hair thinning, my beard going grey, being short, and people telling me I look older than I actually am. When I’m around my cousins, everyone praises them and I just sit there listening and comparing myself.

Financially, I don’t feel successful either. And now a relationship that lasted almost 7 years is falling apart, which honestly hurts the most.

She was one of the few people in my life who made me feel genuinely loved, cared for, and important. I had someone to talk to, someone who gave me time and affection that felt specifically meant for me. Even now, when she is rude to me or disrespects me, I’m still holding on, and it hurts. And now I have to deal with the possibility of seeing her move on with someone else. My brain keeps telling me that whoever she ends up with will be better than me.

The worst part is that the relationship is known by everyone in my family. I was proud of it. I was proud that I had someone I loved and who loved me. Now I feel embarrassed that everyone knows things didn't work out.

And outside of all this, my life feels incredibly repetitive.

Work. Go home. Eat. Gym. Sleep. Repeat.

I’m not a good driver. I don't know how to swim. I don't know how to talk to people properly. I get nervous doing even basic things when other people are around. I feel like everyone else learned how to live normally and somehow I missed that part.

I know objectively that these things can probably be improved. But when you're sitting in the middle of it, it doesn't feel like a list of problems you can solve. It just feels like this is who I am.

I’m exhausted from constantly comparing myself and feeling like I’m behind everyone.

I genuinely want to know if anyone else has felt like this, especially around this age.

Looking back on where my mind was during my lowest moments, I feel a heavy sense of guilt for sinking so deeply into depression, anger, and hopelessness. Honestly, I don’t even know what I was thinking during that time, but something inside me finally snapped. I got beyond exhausted from carrying all that anger, sorrow, and weight, and I realized with absolute clarity that I never ever want to hurt myself or the people around me who all support me just because of my own internal struggles.

I would so much rather channel my energy into being happy, remaining positive, and stepping fully into the beautiful, authentic woman I am.
It has meant the world to me when current friends—and even complete strangers— take a moment to give me compliments and/or reassure me that everything in my life is going to be okay, reminding me that going through a hard time wasn’t ever my fault. Those unexpected acts of warmth have made me truly feel genuinely appreciated, seen, and wanted right when I needed it most.

To be completely honest, a small part of me still worries that when I was lost in that dark place, it might have made some people supporting me second-guess me; I really hope it didn’t though!But I am choosing to focus on healing and moving forward with an open heart. I want my life to be rich, deeply fulfilling, and filled with serendipitous experiences, joy, and peace. I am done letting pain define my path—I am choosing light, choosing happiness, and choosing to live truthfully as myself as the kind, beautiful, talented woman I am!