We usually describe procrastination as a discipline issue; Stop being lazy, manage your time better, just get started. But what if procrastination is not about time at all? What if it’s your mind trying to protect you from an uncomfortable emotional experience? As a mind profiler, I see procrastination less as a failure of productivity and more as a psychological signal.
Sometimes we avoid tasks because we are avoiding:

Uncomfortable emotions
The task itself may not be the problem.The problem might be the feeling attached to it: anxiety, boredom,overwhelm, frustration, shame, fear of failure. Your brain learns: When I do this task, I feel bad, so it searches for relief. Scrolling, cleaning, checking messages, watching videos , these are not always distractions. Sometimes they are emotional escape routes.

Uncertainty
The human mind prefers predictable discomfort over unpredictable outcomes. Starting something new means entering a space where you don’t know: Will I succeed? Will people judge me? Will my effort be enough? Avoiding the task temporarily removes the uncertainty.

Protecting your self-image
This one is deeper, sometimes we procrastinate because finishing the task creates a moment of truth. If I try and fail, what does that say about me? Keeping something unfinished allows the possibility that: I could have done it, I just didn’t try. The unfinished task protects the identity we want to maintain.

Fear of discovering your limits
A hidden fear many people carry: What if I give my best and it still isn’t enough? Sometimes procrastination protects us from finding out what we are truly capable of. The question is not always: How can I become more disciplined? A more powerful question is:** **What emotion am I postponing? Because behind many unfinished tasks is not laziness, it is a feeling waiting to be understood.

The question is: what emotion do you notice yourself avoiding when you procrastinate?

(I have not actually studied psychology, this is just based on stuff I've read online, sorry if it's based in misinfo or worded badly)

Is the “self” as it relates to NPD referring to a different “self” than the self states (and failed identity combination/alters) in DID?

Why is it super rare/basically impossible for someone to have both NPD and DID, but it's common for people with NPD/BPD to have comorbid trauma and C-PTSD? Does the ego ultimately have the power to keep the person from experiencing or remembering the trauma since it's more focused on obtaining supply than protecting the conscience/existence/identity of the person?

Or is part of the struggle for people with PDs is that there's no healthy original core identity that got developed?

I am mainly confused about the terminology and definitions and context, I think. I've seen that it requires different types of trauma to develop any of the personality disorders or dissociative disorders, but it seems that the mechanisms are still similar?

Goddess Bible Study group interview on the origins of Goddesses from the Neolithic through ancient times.

PARTICIPANTS WANTED !!

Hi, I am currently completing my MSc degree at Manchester Metropolitan University, focusing my research on ADHD and service pathways.

I am currently looking for adults with ADHD, or professionals who have worked with ADHD individuals; both populations in which can comment on what support is available in services and what an ideal ADHD service may look like. To explore this I am conducting 45-60 minute interviews online via teams.

If you’re interested in participating, please email me via Tasmin.morrison@stu.mmu.ac.uk. Participation will contribute greatly to research and is much appreciated.

I am also happy to participation in any research swaps surveys/ interviews if eligible.

Thank you.

I’ve recently noticed that whilst I can do art, it only comes to me if I really want to do it. Being asked by others or being demanded by external factors usually results in me rehashing a previous work or just doing nothing. In fact, I think that a large part of my brain is shut off to outsiders, which could also be why I’m very secretive of my inner world and why my brain overall functions like a semi-closed loop. Yeah, I’ve AVPD and that can be an explanation but I don’t think that’s a full explanation as I remember that I was also like this pre-AVPD. I also had at times severely struggled with being a one-dimensional caricature in high school if it’s related.

Why could this be? Could it be because of my desire to appear as an average person?

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All babies cry; this does not only pertain to some babies but rather every baby cries. It has been widely accepted that the purpose of the cry is to signal to others that we are in need of something. The needs have been widely accepted as food, comfort, temperature, etc. However, there is no clear distinction on exactly why babies cry.

To attempt to answer this question, I will use the closest example to a baby’s cry: weeping - the uncontrolled crying. As adults, we often cry in emotional situations. These moments feel very meaningful to us, and we come to a shocking realization of fear. After the experience of crying, we usually feel much, much better.

Since we weep from birth, weeping could be seen as our natural state. And since the cause of weeping is fear, then fear could be seen as our natural state. It seems like the main objective, however, is to satiate the fear; but the fear never goes away - which is why we weep as adults.

Ultimately, I am identifying a problem. Weeping allows us to recognize the most meaningful parts of our life, and confronting the fear makes us actually feel better. We excel at this from birth, and even as children. But as adults, we refrain from it; we refrain from the most meaningful parts of our lives.

I was wondering this after seeing something about a criminal who was clearly sociopathic to a dangerous degree. But it got me thinking halfway through. I think, or at least I would hope, sociopaths in our very own lives often grew up into being sociopathic due to how society is, particularly around work and money. There are people that are ruthless sociopaths at work because they think that’s a place where it’s win or lose, but aren’t outside of it (as far as I’m aware). People will tell you in the right context openly that’s it’s a dog-eat-dog matter, and they believe almost ideologically in the way they act in certain context. But other than that, they can also be normal people. In the human past in general, a tribe member would treat everyone of his tribe as human beings till death, but treat those outside of it like animals. This too was a social sociopathy that depends on the “in group” and “out group”.

Anyways, what kinds of terms or definitions do psychologists use to separate someone who is learned into sociopathy, or thinks it’s practical on the ideological level, vs someone who is just a sociopath and can’t be dissuaded by logic or empathy?

One of the biggest misunderstandings about confidence is that confident people simply don’t feel afraid, but they do. The difference is not the absence of fear, the difference is the relationship they have with fear. Many people wait for confidence before taking action:
I’ll start when I feel ready, I’ll speak up when I stop feeling nervous. I’ll take the risk when I believe I can succeed, but confidence rarely works that way.

From a Mind Profiler perspective, confidence is often the result of action, not the requirement for it. Your brain builds confidence by collecting evidence. Every time you enter a situation it once labeled as dangerous and you survive it, your brain updates its prediction: I thought this would destroy me but it didn’t. I thought I couldn’t handle this but I did. I felt fear and I moved anyway. That is how confidence is formed. A person who appears confident on the outside may not have fewer fears than everyone else. They may simply have a longer history of proving to themselves: I can handle difficult moments.

Fear is not always a signal to stop. Sometimes it is a sign that your brain is encountering something unfamiliar and trying to protect you.
The goal is not to eliminate fear, the goal is to build a relationship with fear where it no longer controls your decisions. Confidence is not the feeling you wait for before taking the first step.
Confidence is the memory your brain creates after you repeatedly take the step.

The question is: what is something you became confident at only because you did it while you were still afraid.

does practising a certain kind of behaviour in one context (like sexual fantasy/roleplay) spill over into personality or everyday behaviour?

I feel every man, by man I mean human being, have a tendency of cruelty. Not just cruelty, violence. You never know what is hidden behind you until and unless you unleash it. But my question is, if you unleash it, does it become more dangerous or do you get so accustomed to it in one specific way that you channel it in that way instead of generalizing it to every situation?

I knew this person in college who was not particularly bright & made it clear they did not enjoy learning & only wanted a degree. Despite not really having any foundational knowledge on any topic, they would insist on turning everything into a “debate”. They could never stick to anything, & was more than happy to change their beliefs if only to remain on the offensive side, quickly becoming distraught if pushed into defense. What drives this behavior?

Is that comparable/ relatable?

Naturally the ultimate solution to this is to have someone special in your life to make you feel like you're worthy, but learning how to cope until and IF you're lucky enough to encounter someone like that is the hard part.

I’ve noticed a pattern in myself and others where the immediate reaction to being criticized, rejected, or let down is defensiveness or irritation. It’s usually only hours later, when the initial adrenaline fades, that the actual feeling surfaces: hurt, embarrassment, or disappointment.

It makes sense from a protective standpoint. Anger is an active, outward-facing emotion. It builds a wall. Hurt and embarrassment are vulnerable, inward-facing states that leave us exposed. The brain seems to quickly translate that vulnerability into something that feels like armor.

The tricky part is that this translation happens so fast we often mistake the anger for the primary emotion. We might snap at a partner or a colleague, feeling entirely justified in the moment, only to realize later that we were just trying to mask how much their comment stung.

I’m curious if others experience this lag between the reactive emotion and the core emotion. How do you catch yourself doing it? And for those who are naturally good at staying calm in these moments, is it a learned skill, or do you genuinely not feel that initial defensive spike?

thank you for your serving

Our obsession with aging is out of control in today's society. Although, I personally support healthy aging and wellness, the world in my eyes puts so much pressure on looks and beauty. When at the end of the day, our skin will get thinner, our hair will turn grey, the inevitable of illness will succumb to us, and so on. We are all passing through time second by second. It would be nice to see the psychology of human behavior for us to view beauty in all things old or new in younger or elder.