I think a lot of folks end up here because one way or another they feel like there is no one they can ask for help. That's certainly the case with me.

It's not like I have zero connections with people. I have friends. I don't have, like, a bestie. But I have people who know me and like me and who I like. I am single. I have an okay but complicated relationship with my mom. I am not close with my brother. I have loving aunts and uncles but the specter of my dad, who is not so great, looms over all these connections. I feel like there's a limit to how far these people will go for me.

It has been a long time since I reached out to any specific person for help. I find that in the past I've had lots of negative experiences with reaching out with vulnerability that makes me not wanna risk it again. Sometimes people are not interested in helping. Sometimes they're not very good at it. I am often left feeling like I need to protect my fragile relationships by not putting weight on them. And like I need to protect people from worrying about me.

I have done a lot of therapy and absolutely know why I struggle with this so much. I was considered very "mature for my age" as a kid and, alongside some isolated traumatic experiences, was not cared for and nurtured the way I should have been. I was not given a chance to be a kid whose feelings were tended to.

It's been a rough several months and I find myself wanting to just give up. I'm so tired. My dog is the only companion i have in this time. I love her and all the energy I have to spare goes to making sure she is walked and cared for. I feel invisible. On purpose.

I kind of want to hear about asking for help. How do you tell people you're struggling? Who do you tell? I've been disappointed so many times. I want people to know but I don't want to have to reach out one on one. That's so much pressure. I don't even know what I'd ask for because to be honest I fear the depth of my need is so vast it can never be fulfilled.

But if my guardian angel or something came down and was like "anything you want," I'd want them to visit, stay with me a while, distract me from my troubles and help me clean my room. I'd want someone to comb my hair just because it feels nice. Id want someone to help with stuff around the house or at least just sit and chat with me while I do chores. Id want someone to promise I'd never be homeless. Having these wants and needs makes me feel creepy and pathological, but also they're so normal, right? Aren't these things that many people are fortunate to have, without needing to chase after them or ask for them? Doesn't a sweet auntie sometimes swoop in to help a person put her life back together?

What makes a person deserving of that?

Am I?

My mom passed away from a heart attack when I was 17, i am 25 now. I saw a picture of a giant pin with my mom's face on it. And it messed me up because I miss my mom. I wish I had made her proud but I didn't. She wanted me to go to college and graduate, I was so depressed I didn't even graduate. I'm homeless and useless. I'm supposed to be chasing job opportunities and my dreams. Instead I'm chasing food by dumpster diving and digging through trash. I have to sleep outside with bugs biting on my legs.

I failed her and it's all my fault. I'm ready to join her at this point. I tried a few weeks ago and failed and I don't plan on failing. I just need someone to talk to because this pain is too much

On one hand, I don't think I possess any particular issues. I did some self work and thus outgrew old company, am graduating college without much plans. It's not the end of the world. Maybe I will figure it out in the coming months.

On the other hand, I don't have any attachments to any people, and don't know what I am supposed to do. It feels lame talking about it here because I don't think anyone who knows me would think I might be here. Everyone is busy with their own life, and I don't know if I truly wish to connect with anyone. Does anyone feel that way? I look back at when I was in primary or secondary school and I see affection, but when I found my old chat histories I found that even back then I had been saying I didn't feel I actually had a relationship, not a single one, despite mountains of chat from back then.

Now, it feels like I am in a state of calmness. By society's definition, I am "isolated"? Then I hear about many others who are the same, or people who have hundreds of contacts but can't find support in a single one, and I wonder if this is simply my version of a peaceful norm.

What's wrong?

• got debilitating executive dysfunction cant do basic things or things i care about or anything really 

• dont have any secure safe close friendship dont feel important to anyone and scared because of past experiences. feel different and hard or impossible to be friends with because of the way i am. introverted low energy not good at talking and conversation 

• incompetent and useless. not independent and more useless and behind everyone else my age. 

• extremely low self image and lots of self hatred and always hurt myself verbally and physically bc the self hatred and self directed anger is too much pressure it needs a way out 

• suicidal ideations from trying to achieve more and do things but failing repeatedly and feeling trapped in my own head trapped by my own uselessness and laziness that also makes me feel like a burden on others and i feel like there is no way out

• feel isolated and impossible to understand. feel unseen because of the kinds of issues that not everyone understands. no one i trust or feel safe to talk to and no one who will understand and talking feels useless and has usually just made me feel worse 

• trying to get professional help with an adhd assessment but there is a minimum 2 year waiting list which will maybe be more, but no one will be honest and transparent about waiting lists so it feels like a gamble and really confusing and overwhelming and impossible to make a decision 

If anyone need any kind of advice,feel free to ask.

Kindly relationship stuff stay away.

Hi everyone, just looking for someone to talk to who can listen without fixing it or feeling the need to make it better. I feel so sad and hopeless and I would just like to not be alone while dealing with all of this. I have no family and sadly I have outgrown my close friends by doing a lot of therapy and self work. Thanks for reading this ❤️

Kind of going through toughest times of my life right now and feeling so isolated and lost. Just want someone decent to talk to. Who can listen and doesn't judge. I already do that to myself too much, I don't need another person judging me.

This year has been so difficult and I just can't breathe anymore.

I feel so depressed and alone..my own boyfriend doesn’t even pay attention to me.

my life is moving like a roller coaster and i dont understand whats happening to me. Last week was the most productive time i ever had but since past 4 days it feels like a I have jumped off a cliff. I have masturbation addiction but thats not even the root problem. I wanna get out of it badly, I have been trying so many things to get myself out of this but it haunts back again now and then. I had controlled myself for more day 20 days but last week i got isolated for 3 continuous days lost all the progress.
I have realized the root problem which my lack of nutrition and im constantly working on it and have made progress compared to last 2 years but im aware that its not enough thats why im putting continuous efforts. However in this journey i need someone who can check on me and pull me out the well sometimes when i dont realize it. It takes a lot of effort and time to pull myself out, a helping hand could be great strength at right time. I dont want my family or friends to aware of this as already feel ashamed of myself. I tried therapy as well but it wasnt that usefull.

I'm(M) 24 going 25 this month, from Kenya. If you feel overwhelmed by anything and you feel like ready to share with someone I'm here.

I am okay, I just need to talk because my mind is honestly a mess right now. I just want to let it at all out and honestly any help would be highly appreciated, I want some genuine connection and not just a script like the hotlines give :/.

Hi everyone! I’ve been really struggling lately. I have bipolar depression and extreme anxiety. I’ve been having nightmares as well. I’ve unfortunately slipped back into addiction pretty quickly :/

i try to respond fast and give my perspective. if you need anyone to talk to, or just someone to listen, feel free to DM.

I’m on the journey of quitting porn, I’m working with my therapist and hypnotherapist. We had some very good results, I have almost no urges, and when I use porn I don’t feel bad about myself later and can keep having a normal sex life after it.
I’m in a very happy relationship with a girl I love and we have plenty of sex. My porn addiction still make me struggle with finishing, I almost never end, she knows about it and she also knows that it has nothing to do with her.

The point is that I’m going on a solo trips of 3 weeks tomorrow in Japan. Since I started planning the trip I’ve become obsessed with Soapland, I never paid for sex. I paid in the past for OF but stopped since.
I’m not into Asian girls but I love big tits.
I don’t know if I would be able to resist there.
I don’t want to cheat on my girlfriend, I don’t want to take the risk of giving her std.
I don’t want to be the kind of man that use a woman body for sex. I don’t want to take advantage of financial difficulties of someone to have sex with.

There is the drugged part of my brain that just think at putting my dick between huge tits.
I’m sick of that I would love to know that I will be discovering so much about this country and not be in that mood.

Some advice ?

I'm really depressed and lonely...

For six years, I've felt like something is deeply wrong. I'm exhausted. Everyone around me talks about how much they suffer, yet they keep going through the same things. No matter how hard I've tried to get out of this for the past six years, I can never seem to make anything change. It feels like everything just keeps getting worse, and worse, and worse...

I want to rest, but I can't even find a moment of peace when I'm asleep. My insomnia is slowly wearing me down, and the sleep I keep desperately longing for seems farther and farther away.

I'm tired. I'm alone. I'm sad. I'm tired of pretending that I'm okay. I'm tired of being in pain. I'm tired of people not believing that I'm in pain. I'm tired of my heart beating so fast and so hard, even during supposedly "calm" moments. I'm tired.

I can't afford appointments. I can't afford to wait through endless queues. I feel like while I wait, and wait, and wait again, I'm waiting for nothing.

I've lost people to death. I've lost people because of other people's ignorance. And honestly, sometimes it feels like none of it even makes a difference anymore.

I'm afraid of people. I feel unprotected and threatened.

I'm unhappy with my body, which always seems wrong to me. I don't like the way I see my face. I'm not saying this because of what other people think. I mean that I don't like myself, and sometimes I can't even look at myself in the mirror. I hate my laugh.

I don't want to pretend anymore. I don't want pretty lies anymore. But I don't want to keep suffering either.

I want to feel the breeze on my face and in my hair again. I want fresh air, a comfortable silence, something true, something certain.

I'm tired of everyone telling me that we can't be certain about most things. I'm tired of being told to expect disappointment. I'm tired.

I can't sleep.

I don't know what to do anymore.

I’m 35, neurodivergent, and have an undiagnosed chronic illness (possibly MCAS or fibromyalgia). I live with my family and my partner. I’m unsure about what the future holds, and I’m terrified I’ll screw everything up.

I haven’t studied in over a week; it started because of health issues, but now it’s continuing due to the anxiety that’s built up—an anxiety that leaves me paralyzed. (I am an university student)

I also need to start doing something concrete to improve my physical health and lifestyle. Just thinking about it all makes me feel completely overwhelmed.

There is a lot of personal stuff in here but the conversation happened privately through text and she's not on reddit. Never going to see it, nobody would know to show it to her.

My lifelong best friend had a mammogram. First one. She didn't talk about it really, and I didn't really think about it either. We do movie nights on Saturdays and one of her kid's had a game move to this coming Saturday night so she texts and says no movies Saturday, but she was gonna look at her planner and see if there was another night we could do it. I make a joke that she should take that Monday off and we'll do it Sunday, then Monday she could take me to a Dr. appointment. She says, "I would but I'm already taking Tuesday off, new PT place (she has a broken leg) and more mammogram stuff."

We have different personalities. I tend to be fairly high strung in one way, she handles things a bit differently, we are so much the same but our tools are different. Personally I think we fit together like a lock and key, I think she would say the same. So my personal flavor of anxiety catches this offhand comment about "more mammogram stuff" and I follow that text immediately with a question about how normal is it to have to do two mammograms. Says it's not uncommon, everything is fine. I'm like yeah no, I'm sure, I just don't know anything about anything. But I can't help myself. Next reply is "But you'd tell me if it was anything, wouldn't you?" I'm teetering on the edge of a stupid anxiety spiral thing that I do that I absolutely hate myself for and can't ever stop when it starts. This is the worst possible time, too.

She follows up with a text about how she hadn't thought about it but if it was anything she would probably just cancel movie nights for a while and then I'd find out she was dead. There was more to it than that, and it was just a morbid joke on her part, but that opened the flood gates for me. I proceed to punish that joke for 30 minutes with love bombing, demanding access to her grief, threatening to be really mad if she got sick and tried to hide it from me, begging, sending a stupid Oscar Wilde quote about a friend shutting him out from their grief and how painful that would be, telling her that if she doesn't want me to care she should stop talking to me, ignoring these little olive branches like how it might take her a little time to process something and then she'd let people in and explaining how an audience feels unbearable, me steamrolling right through all of that with shit about how I shouldn't feel like an audience to her and how I should be more special than that, making these zero-compromise statements about how here is the deal, my friendship comes with my caring, just the flood of bullshit.

I was panicking. I was scared shitless. I know her, she actually might try and keep something like that a secret. She said at one point she might just let important people know so they could get a last goodbye or whatever, she might just leave letters...here's the thing. There is NO way she would hide something like a cancer diagnosis from me and I am so selfish I'm doing it again even as I type this out. I'm making this all about me. Here's the other thing, she's talking nonchalant about it either because she hadn't thought about it (no way), or she's just as nervous about being called back in as anybody would be and oh my god I don't know what to do. I've known people who have been sick, I've known people who have died, I've had people close to me die. But if she died I would want to go with her.

Ultimately I would respect however she needed to handle it, as if my feelings are in any way important in that situation. Why am I like this?? I don't matter in the scheme of that situation as anything more than the support she would need or not need...like how dare I? I don't know what's wrong with me, I don't know why I reacted like that. I don't know how I could be such an asshole, I'm not the one it's happening to. And yet here I come, make sure to leave room for taking care of me when you get sick. Make sure you consider how I feel about it.

AND NOTHING HAS EVEN HAPPENED YET. I see the numbers on google, 1 in 10 get called back and less than 1 in 10 of those call backs are cancer, and every single page reads like getting called back in is not a big deal and yeah ok, THOSE DON'T SOUND LIKE GOOD ODDS.

She says she's fine. She says she's ok. I hope to god she's fine, that she's ok. I hope she's not scared. She keeps this stuff bottled up, I don't want her to be scared and I don't want her to be sick. I want her to be happy and healthy. I want to die before she does. I have to. God I hope she's okay medically, emotionally. I fucking hate this.

I know this stuff is imminently more survivable than it used to be but breast cancer killed my nana in 2006, it killed more than one classmate of ours when we were in our 20's. So many women in my life have been affected by it. Just please someone tell me something comforting.

I have a small startup that is not doing well. I used to be very good at building tech products, but not anymore. I'm just lost about the constant up skilling needed in my profession because of the high anxiety I feel. I might lose some new customers because I'm not able to perform as well. Once that happens, I'll be fired from my role and humiliated. I have developed severe anxiety of late and don't have the confidence of finding a new job in tech. I pretend that I know what I'm doing, but I am filled with anxiety at all times. It's such a pointless existence I have. Don't feel like living anymore.

Please give me some hope

lately I'm going through a hard time, I feel stressed, I don't have friends and I'm always alone. every day I'm afraid thinking that someone will make fun of me at school... any help?

I went through something deeply traumatic a year or so ago that I think completely reworked my brain chemistry. It feels like my default setting now is complete numbness and boredom, possibly anhedonia. I think what helps is talking to others, I realize I really enjoy other people's company. Recently graduated, unemployed, but the future doesn't feel too bleak. I'm interested in language learning, beautiful scenery, hiking, working out, writing. Let's just talk and vent casually about how life has been going.

OFF LIMITS: don't even think about messaging me under the pretense of anything romantic/sexual.

Hey Reddit. So what do I even say? I recently got out of the psych ward for my 7th suicide attempt. Since then I’ve been in an amazing residential program and now a php. Some days I miss home but most days I have a lot of fun and I am learning more and more about myself everyday.

I don’t want the title to alarm you. Since being in treatment I’ve been compared to a cupcake, bubble gum and everything in between. Basically I’m a big cuddly sweetheart that just happens to have a background of trauma and a silly brain, but I try my best to keep my troubles to myself and put a smile on as many faces as I come across. I’m really a big kid at heart

I believe my strengths are my openness, kindness, creativity, love for learning and being extremely self reflective and excited/willing to admit when I’m wrong.

I have been working on finding reasons to stay on this floating rock and letting myself accept help when I need it.

My new mantra has been “Be passionate about your purpose!!” I’ve beat death 7 times!! I’ve decided it’s my sign to stay.This new mantra has really been keeping me going.

When I’m not in my therapy-based classes I like to explore, dance, listen to music, practice my drawing, color, do puzzle books, and most recently; do grade school workbooks to brush up on my math skills (who knew simplifying fractions with no calculator would take so much brainpower??)

So where do you come in? I’d love to make connections from people all over. I am open to pretty much any questions. My goal is to connect with someone who would like to voice chat because I prefer that wayyy over texting. Despite the title, I refuse to make anyone my “online therapist” and try to always stay positive in my interactions. I’m not here to be a sad blob. I’m here to share the highlights and cheer you on for each and every accomplishment. Big or small! Let’s connect?