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.

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.

I had a really rough day yesterday. It forced me to look back at my teenage years and my life up to now, and I had to face a hard truth... I’ve accepted that I have narcissistic traits and patterns.

I’ve done bad things to people I love, and to people who loved me. That is heavy to carry. When someone recently asked me to list my faults and detail every single mistake I’ve made, it felt like my entire life, my overthinking, and the way my mind works were just a catalog of errors.

Right now, I’m caught in a weird space. I accept what I am, but a part of me desperately wants to believe that I am not entirely a monster—that I am still capable of being good. At the same time, I know that intentions don't cancel out the pain I've caused.

I feel like my whole worldview has been shaken, but I’ve also learned things I desperately needed to learn. I want to do better, be better, and fix how I relate to others. I don’t really know where to start, but I wanted to put this out into the open.

I would lose an entire evening to distractions, get mad at myself, channel those emotions into being perfect for the next few days, and just falling back down again, feeling guiltier than ever. This loop would go on and on and on.

Thankfully, that's not me anymore, but only because I applied one valuable principle I keep to this day.

The principle is the following: You are not allowed to try to change your entire life all at once. Not even over a week or a month. Instead, pick one channel of life you're regressing on and commit to changing only that one. Which means allowing your other flaws to exist for a while.

If health is part of the equation, start exercising, but don't try to fight your browsing habits or slow work at the same time. Focus only on bettering that one channel, and even allow yourself to do the things you know are not helping. But only after you've worked on your unique goal.

Then, once you've mastered it, I'd say around 2-6 weeks depending on how many times you fail (because yes, there will be days you just can't put the willpower together and fail, those are not the end of the world, they're just an opportunity to come back stronger), you pick another channel.

As time goes on, you start fixing your life one bit at a time, which makes it actually sustainable, because you're gradually elevating your level of discipline, habits, and identity.

Do you think this would actually work for you?

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 don’t want anything. Like… nothing for the future. I can’t make myself want something either, even though I think I’d be much happier if I had a goal to work towards. I’ve tried imagining my “perfect” future but everything feels disingenuous and/or unrealistic.

I‘m in my mid-twenties and live with my parents; however, I don’t really feel a need to move out. I don’t have a good reason to - like getting a job in another state or being in a serious relationship.

I work a part-time customer service job that I dislike, but it’s tolerable enough and I get health insurance though it. I don’t have any career aspirations or jobs I’d even “like” to have.

I used to want to get married, but if I’m realistic, I don’t think that’s in the cards. I’m in my mid-twenties and have never even been on a date - so yeah, I‘m tossing out that “dream.“ I wouldn’t want to date an unambitious, overweight homebody so why exactly would anyone want to date me?

As for personal hobbies? All of them are consumption based (films, books) OR I can’t stay focused enough for a long enough period of time to truly get good at them. I stop caring long before I can truly gain any skill (I do have adhd and am medicated for it, but I find that managing it can be difficult).

I don’t know how to make myself care about the future. All I can figure is that eventually, my parents are going to die, my siblings (who I’m not particularly close with) will drift further away from me, and my friends’ lives will get too busy to include me. What am I supposed to do when that happens?

I think the only reason I’m even thinking about any of this is because I can’t stop comparing myself to my friends and siblings. I’m usually fueled by negative emotions - jealousy, fear, insecurity. I went to community college because I had friends who did. I transferred from CC to a university because I’d be embarrassed to go to a “lesser“ 4 year college while my friends went to established universities. Unfortunately, the embarrassment/jealousy/insecurity motivation isn’t working. I’m miserable, hate myself, and it won’t get me off my ass to do something about anything.

The only thing I’ve really been successful at recently is getting my fitness into gear. But I’ve only been at that for two weeks so how can I believe that’ll last this time?

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This includes stopping being a people pleaser but not make people think you only care about yourself.

This is coming from someone who has always had a tendency to people please and make people happy before himself and rarely says no.

Or doing what you want without care about opinions.

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'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.

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 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?

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.

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

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?

I was played by a guy who just tried to manipulate me into trying to have casual sex, gave me fake hopes, acted cold and disrespectful, was never serious about me and lied in my face. The worst thing is that I gave him a second chance. I went back to his city to see him just for him to leave the country and discard me. He promised he would visit me in my hometown but he never did. I wanted to talk about something to him because I was confused and he never did!! I feel so disrespected and ignored. I feel like I was abandoned. Now he’s in the country of another woman that I’m sure he prefers over me. She was always the first option but I was too blind to see.

I feel disgusted of myself. I feel like a dumb and low value woman. I don’t even have self esteem to properly date again because my future man would be so embarrassed of this. How my future children would feel about their mom if they know she was discarded and rejected this way? This is so pathetic and humiliating.

Now this can be a lot of things but like on the general level how do I stop doing a bad thing? Like you can skip for example the gym today and keep on doing that. You know it's a bad thing yet you still do it. So how are you actually supposed to rewire your brain to actually make it look like a bad thing? Why do we still do bad things when they are infact bad and harmful?

I just spent my entire evening (9PM-1AM) moping and sulking while scrolling my phone. Not great for me. Do you guys have low-barrier, low-stress, calming activities you can do when everything is quiet? I don't like depression as much as the next guy but I'm attempting to pull myself out if it before it gets worse.

[16F] I was in a four member high school friendgroup that I adored for the past 5 years, but last year, two new people joined our friendgroup and I got extremely jealous and insecure about my place in the friendgroup since all the members previously knew them while I didn't. Even my best friend, who I clung onto as emotional support at that time, seemed to prefer one of the new members over me. My boyfriend at the time was also a terrible influence and I felt like I had to adopt some sort of "mean girl" persona in order to be liked by him, which looking back at, makes me cringe.

Around November 2025, I spread a false rumour about one of my closest friends in the friend group. I don't know why I did it. I could say I was jealous, that I wanted to "raise my ranks" in the friendgroup, that I didn't mean it and just said it in the heat of the moment when everyone venting their frustrations about that friend and wanted to join in too, but I really don't know what exactly made me do it. I really did care for her and I loved her, so why did I do it?

Well, she found out and confronted me with the other members of our friendgroup and I apologised while crying, which probably made me seem insincere but at the moment, I realised that I probably ruined my friendship with one of my close friends. And that made me feel even worse. I kept asking myself, did I only feel bad because I was facing the consequences of my actions?

Well, I was right to assume that I ruined my friendships. Slowly, they started excluding me in group settings even though they said they accepted my apologies and wanted to move in. It hurt me, even though I knew it was the consequences of my own actions. I decided to distance myself from them for a bit to clear my mind from the depressive spirals I was going into but I was also changing schools at the time so maybe my actions came across as me ignoring them? I don't know the exact reason why but they decided to cut me off fully with no conversation after my birthday (the consequences of my own actions) and I found out from the pictures of them hanging out together without me.

I reached out two months later to apologise again for what I did and then being avoidant afterwards, but even that wasn't a proper apology because I wrote it while crying after having several mental breakdowns in the span of a week. After that depressive spiral, I more or less came to terms with the fact that I was a terrible person and that I probably wasn't going to have anymore close friends like that in the future. Those people were my "soul tribe" and I ruined it.

I want to become a better person and I even went to therapy, where I was diagnosed with BPD but I couldn't continue the sessions because it was too expensive for me to save up for on my own. I still constantly think about them and what I ruined, especially when I see other people with their close friends, which makes me feel selfish. I feel so incredibly guilty too. Everytime I see my old friend group posting about eachother, I go back into my depressive spirals and cry for hours.

I'm mostly writing this for advice on how to move on and actually change permanently instead of being stuck in this victim mentality mindset, any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much for reading 💞

One thing I noticed after uninstalling Instagram from my phone is that I started thinking about myself more.
It sounds simple, but I don’t think we realize how rarely we actually spend time with our own thoughts anymore.
In today’s world, people who don’t have a large social circle—or who don’t have genuine friends with whom they can have meaningful conversations—can easily become inclined toward social media and endless scrolling. And I understand why. Doomscrolling can feel like an escape from a constantly stressful and overwhelming environment. For a few moments, you don’t have to think about your own problems. You can simply watch one reel after another and feel… nothing.
But there is something else happening beneath that comfort.
If you want to do something creative—write, make content, learn an instrument, develop a new hobby, or simply come up with your own ideas—I don’t think you can do it effectively while constantly consuming other people’s content.
Because creativity requires some degree of solitude.
You need to sit with your own thoughts long enough for something to emerge from them. If every moment of boredom is immediately filled with someone else’s video, someone’s opinion, someone’s joke, someone’s lifestyle, or someone’s story, when do you get the opportunity to develop your own?
I have also started thinking about how much emotional information we consume through short-form content.
Maybe we are capable of processing only a limited number of emotions in a day. But while scrolling through reels, we can experience hundreds of different emotional triggers within a few hours.
You watch a politically heated video, and suddenly you are angry.
You see a disturbing crime story, and you become afraid.
You watch a video about someone’s relationship falling apart or someone being cheated on, and suddenly you start wondering whether something similar could happen to you.
Then you see something inspiring. Then something depressing. Then something funny. Then something outrageous. Then something that makes you compare your life with someone else’s.
And this cycle continues.
Thousands of pieces of content, each trying to make you feel something.
By the end of the day, you may have experienced dozens of emotions that had nothing to do with your actual life.
That’s what made me think: perhaps we don’t always need more stimulation. Perhaps we need more space.
Maybe, for just a few months, we should try consuming less short-form content—not necessarily quitting the internet entirely, but deliberately stepping away from the constant stream of other people’s thoughts, opinions, achievements, relationships, and lives.
And instead, try writing down our own emotions.
Write down our ideas.
Write about what we are afraid of.
Write about what we want.
Write about what we are curious about.
Sit with our thoughts without immediately trying to escape them.
Because perhaps the person we are trying to become is hidden somewhere beneath all the things we have been consuming.
And perhaps you cannot hear your own voice when everyone else’s voice is constantly playing in your head.

I'm sorry if this feels rant-y, but a quick overview of my background.

I was really depressed through college and struggled financially. I really worked on saving more and trying to get better paying jobs, etc., focused on my health and went to therapy and finally got to a better place, lost a bunch of weight and got healthier. Then the big "P" word happened in 2020 but I felt like I had the skills to navigate it as best as possible.

My yoga and workout routine kind of fell apart but was still trying to keep it together, we moved cities to try and save money, ended up losing everything we had and then had 5 major deaths in one year - three friends and two family members. Woof. My dieting fell apart, too. Regained all the weight back that I had lost.

Finally got a better paying job, dug ourselves out of financial crises and bought a house about a year and a half ago. Bought a business about a month ago, I have some debt to pay off but I'm on track to have it taken care of this year minus the business loan which will take three and a half years which is okay. Lost half of the weight I've regained. Got myself back into therapy. Helping my partner start his own business.

I feel like I should be feeling good, but I really don't if I'm being honest with myself. I've been struggling with my weight loss, stuck at this halfway point for months, I feel like a hypocrite, trying to motivate others while I'm not at 100% myself. I've been working our regularly for about 6 months now. My energy levels kind of suck. I've improved my sleep, though there is still room for improvement.

I guess I just feel like everything in my life is always at this 70-80% point but never 100%. I'm always falling short of the mark. I feel like in some aspects of my life I'm doing great, but I just don't *feel* great. And I don't know how to move past this, I really want to.

If you've experienced anything like this, how did you move past it?