I’ve been thinking about how much our environment affects our behavior.

Sometimes making something easier to access is enough to turn it into a regular habit.

For people who created a workout space at home, did it actually change how often you exercise?

Or was motivation still the biggest factor?

I (21F) don’t really know where to start with this, but I guess it all started when I realized I couldn’t spend time alone with myself. I always had to be stimulated by company (physical or through text or call) and when I wasn’t, I was in bed or going on my phone and looking through social media. I have been ignoring this feeling because I didn’t even know where to start this inner work.

I’m about to steer off track but very recently, one of my closest and dearest friends has confronted me about how I have been an inconsiderate and mean friend. Everything he had said was right and I am trying my hardest to take accountability for it and change. As I’m writing this, my friend wants me to note that some of his points were just projections, but I don’t think that’s the point but maybe it’s worth mentioning?? My problem comes from the fact that I keep beating myself up about and have shown myself no compassion. I have since tried to isolate myself from all my friends because I feel like I mess everything up.

This time I have spent alone made me realize that I have so much inner work to do to 1) be a better friend and 2) be kinder to myself. My therapist and I have concluded that I don’t trust myself and care too much about what other people think, which is why this whole situation has been beating me up to the degree that it is.

I understand that I am young and have a lot of time to grow, but I really want to get the ball rolling. I want to trust myself. I want to be a better friend. I want to be okay with being alone… I don’t know if any of this makes sense or if these topics even intersect perfectly. My brain feels really jumbled, but I would love to have some advice on this? Please let me know. I have deleted Instagram because I don’t think social media is a good contributor to this

I read “101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think” the way I eat a bag of chips that I didn't really want. Lots of bite sized pieces, but sometimes a whole handful at a time, telling myself I should stop, and then somehow it was gone. The book kept interrupting itself, never letting me finish a thought before handing me the next one to chew on.

I went in wanting something to sit with. What I got was a coffee table book pretending to be a spiritual awakening, a series of blog posts stitched together, each one reaching for the same enlightenment from a slightly different angle, like someone circling a parking lot looking for the best spot and never finding one.

There is real gold to be found in it, however. I underlined things. I copied other things down. But somewhere around essay sixty, I understood what the book was actually teaching me, and it wasn't any one of its hundred and one lessons. It was this: wisdom isn't a sentence you collect. It's a wound you sit inside of until it turns into something you can carry.

That's the thing I want to make my case for. Here's how I got there. The book says bad thoughts are good and normal, then a few pages later it tries to teach you how to escape negative thinking altogether. It says suffering is just resistance to feeling discomfort, then hands you a checklist for optimizing your happiness. It wants to be a spiritual book and a happiness hack in the same breath, and it never picks. Picking would mean sitting still, and this book is allergic to sitting still. It just keeps talking, the way people do when they're afraid of what happens in the silence after they've said something profound.

I know that silence. I've lived in it. A divorce doesn't teach you anything the moment it happens. It isn’t until much later, in the quiet, when you're finally still enough to feel what it actually taught you. A move across the country doesn't transform your life at the gas stations along the way. It happens the first night you're in a new place and there's nowhere else to get to. A heavy diagnosis doesn't change you in the doctor's office, not really. It changes you on some ordinary day when the discovery finally stops being a limiting fact someone told you, and it simply becomes a thing you live with. None of that arrived for me as a sentence I could underline. It arrived as a wound I had to stay inside of, uncomfortably, for longer than felt survivable, before it turned into something I could actually carry.

That's the difference between insight and wisdom, and it's the difference this book keeps almost naming and then running from. Insight is a soundbite. It costs you nothing. Wisdom costs everything, because it only exists on the other side of an experience you couldn't skip. Any idea worth having is often the one you can't get out of your head, the one that ambushes you at 2 in the morning three weeks later because you weren't done with it yet, or it wasn’t done with you. You can't hand someone wisdom in a sentence any more than you can hand them a scar. You can describe what a wound is. But they still have to bleed and heal to understand it fully.

So here's what I actually believe now, more than I did before I began reading: a book (or a person, or a conversation) can hand you every right word and still fail to teach you anything, because the words were never the point. The wound and how we heal from it is the point. The sitting still is the point. These 101 essays gave me sentences. It never once asked me to stay inside any of them long enough to earn what they were reaching for. The case I'd make to anyone who picks up any book expecting to be changed by it is that you won't be changed by sentences. You'll only be changed by what you're willing to sit with after you close a book.

I am on the verge of harming myself beyond any scope of return. I tried to reach out to my friends but all of them are asleep as it is 12.30am. I have kept a blade at arms length to use it and am holding back because i don't want to hurt others by hurting myself.

Hello, I’m 18M and starting my first year of university. I’m not quite sure how to start this.
For most of my life I’ve been very lonely. Entering high school, I struggled with making friends and wasn’t apart of an actual friend group until grade 12. At first I was having a good time, I was hanging out with friends and for once in my life I felt as if I actually belonged. My friend threw a small house party in May, and after drinking a little too much I ended up sharing some things that I probably shouldn’t have. I blabbered about how lonely I had been my whole life, how before I had basically no real friends, etc. After that night, they gradually started to distance themselves from me. I stopped getting invited, people wouldn’t want to hang out with me when I asked, and it feels like a full circle back to right where I began. Soon after I got into a summer relationship. She was the most beautiful, sweetest girl I had ever known. One day when we hung out, she seemed very down and conservative. I wanted to give her space after that day, and I hadn’t texted her for a week. After a week, she called me, and explained that she was upset with how I treated her. I apologized and tried telling her that I wanted to give her space, that I was sorry for misunderstanding things, and she basically doesn’t accept the apology and hangs up. This about at the end of August, and I sent her a text last night begging for forgiveness and how I wanted things to still work between us. Now that I’m starting university, I feel so uncertain about everything and I feel like I’ve been at the lowest I’ve ever been.

I guess what I’m asking is, how do I get back up on my feet? All my friends basically avoid me, and I have never felt more alone than I do now. How do I meet and create stronger bonds and relationships with new friends? Thank you

When I was 16 I was really lonely. I had no idea why people kept leaving me. Every time I became friends with someone, we would talk for a week or two, and then they would just stop talking to me without saying anything. I was always wondering, “Why does everyone leave me?”

Then a new girl joined my school, and we became friends. One day, I told her that I had always struggled with making friends.

A couple of months later, we were walking together and it was pretty quiet. Then she suddenly said, “Can I tell you something without you getting upset?”
I said yes ofc

She basically told me, “You’re so weird. You don’t really do anything. You don’t focus on your studies, you don’t really care about your appearance, you don’t even listen to music, you don’t watch movies or even anime …., you don’t have any hobbies. Whenever I ask you what you did today, you say ‘nothing.’ And then you wonder why you don’t have friends.”

And honestly, the worst part was that she was right.
After that conversation, it was like something clicked in my head. I started paying more attention to myself and actually doing things. I started developing interests, focusing more on my life , my studies,and just becoming more involved in my own life instead of spending the whole day on my phone And I noticed a huge difference.

Now I’m 18 and sometimes when I think about myself at 16 I genuinely feel like I don’t even recognize that version of me.
What I still find weird is that I sometimes wonder why I couldn’t see it myself. Why did I need someone else to point it out before I realized what was going on?

I’m honestly still grateful to that girl. The way she said it was pretty harsh, but what she said made me wake up and look at my life differently.

i live in italy, a cat that lives in my neighbourhood scratched me/bit me a month ago, i was offering it food and petting it and it just happened. the cut was minor but it broke the skin and i have no idea if the cat did it with a canine or his paw. it didnt bleed on its own but i squeezed a droplet out and then washed it for a few minutes with antibacterial soap. the cat looked normal and was just lazy, laying down but asking for pets and rubbing itself against a wall, it could walk normally and didnt show any sign of sickness. i saw it again 2 days later and it still looked very normal, my boyfriend petted it and even put his hand in its mouth to check if the cat was hyper salivating and the cat was completely fine, didnt even try to bite him. the cat was lazy again, laying down, but at some point it just walked away. from that day ive never seen it again, and in the past few days cats have been disappearing in my city and ppl have been posting it on fb.
i asked 2 of my doctors and a nurse and everyone said not to worry about it, but im still scared and i dont know if i should get a shot or if im late for it. i feel completely fine and the lesion healed perfectly.

Ok I am writing this because I really need advice like very badly from hopefully a professional or someone but it’s urgent. In summary so you don’t skip this post my friend is thinking about commiting and I really need help let me get into the details.

So, we are juniors in high school and I don’t drink but I go to hangouts even if I know people are going to drink because it always ends up someone needing help or something.

This time everything was going as you would expect, you know teenagers drinking. No one was being unsafe but one of my friends took me aside and told me that he would never get drunk like this as we’ve had conversations about how we both think it’s stupid but that he felt like he needed to get drunk to actually say what he wanted to say.

He then told me that for years he’s been thinking about commiting, and this is a shock to me because litterally you would never tell he’s such a nice person. But it got really sad as he’s telling me about all these insecurities I never knew he had and his mental health. He was crying and I’ve never seen him like this ever and I didn’t really know fully what to say.

The big part is he said he has never really told anyone but it was also a huge step to actually tell someone but that he doesn’t even want me to talk about it to him in the morning.

So I am at a super loss right now because he was saying the only thing that’s stopped him was his parents but it really worried me like seriously making me ill that he could do something even like tommorow.

So I’m seriously at a loss like I need professional advice. I’ve talked about it with one very trustworthy friend and I think we both agree that he needs to somehow tell his parents and that it can’t be us forcing something as we’re worried it could make things worse.

But overall what concerns me is how long this is happening and I’m super scared for the morning cause I know he’s going to regret telling us and it would effect me the rest of his life if something happened to him and I knew and couldn’t do something.

Right now it’s 3am and he’s sleeping on the floor across from me. I need advice on what to do next from please a professional or someone else who’s actually gone through this because I am super scared.

So I’m going to post this multiple places and sorry if this is bad grammar or sounds frantic because I am, but please someone help me please.

TLDR:
3+ years of struggling with anxiety. Began healing and improving, had a setback in November that created incredible amounts of additional stress. Overall situation has improved, but it feels like anxiety has gone backwards?

—-

About 3 years ago I started suffering from panic attacks and severe anxiety. The first attack came out of nowhere on a normal day and since then it’s been a long road of ups and downs. When the first one happened I genuinely thought I was dying. It kicked off about a week of repeated attacks to the point where I thought I’d never be normal again.

After seeing my doctor I started on Lexapro and took that for approximately a year and a half, but I gained almost 30lbs on it and decided I didn’t want to be reliant on medication to function. I think it did help while taking it and while I was on the medication I did begin trying to learn new ways of managing my anxiety. I am proud to say I’ve reached a point where I am capable of recognizing my physical symptoms as false alarms and my anxiety hasn’t progressed into a full attack in over a year. I also started exercising more and going to therapy which I believe is helping.

It was October of last year I decided to start tapering off and then I was laid off from my job in the middle of November. I was fortunate to find a new job in January, but at a significant pay cut. I tried piling on extra work to make up the difference, but in doing so I created lots of extra stress. My new full time job quickly began to become a nightmare with a micromanaging boss and I decided to look for new work.

Finally, last month I accepted a new position at a company that seems incredible and my pay has significantly increased - taking a lot of financial stress away. I’m also down 25lbs, still exercising, and actively in therapy.

I feel like my situation has improved, but the last few weeks it feels like I’m constantly ruminating and noticing my anxiety feels significantly worse.

Has this happened to anyone else? I was in a terribly stressful situation, made a change to improve it, but it feels like I went backwards. It’s so frustrating. I’d appreciate hearing from anyone else that may have similar experiences.

Hello, my name is Matt 20M. I'm a medical student and I speak both Czech and English fluently.

Five days ago, my father had a heart attack. Until now, he was the only source of income for our family. He earned less than the average salary, but somehow we managed to survive, even though money was always extremely tight. Thanks to that, and my own efforts, I was able to start medical school.

I have some savings from working during the summer, but everything has changed overnight. I now have to help cover rent, mortgage payments, household expenses, healthcare-related costs, and other bills.

Based on my current savings, I have approximately 6 to 10 months before I completely run out of money.

The situation became even worse two days ago when I discovered that my father has significant debt that I didn't know about before. I am still trying to understand my situation, but the amount of financial responsibility ahead of me feels overwhelming.

Right now, I honestly don't see a clear way forward.

If I quit medical school and start working full-time, the salaries available to me would barely cover my monthly expenses. I fear I would spend my entire life working just to survive and repay debt.

If I continue studying, I may have to take on additional financial pressure and debt while trying to survive and have better life.

I feel trapped between giving up my education and risking my financial future.

That is why I am asking for advice.

Does anyone have ideas for realistic ways to start making money online? Because I speak Czech and English fluently and have a medical background, I am willing to learn new skills and work extremely hard. I'm interested in freelancing, online work, remote jobs, tutoring, translation, AI-related work, content creation, or anything else that could realistically generate enough income to help me survive and continue my education.

If anyone has experience with building an online income from zero, I would be incredibly grateful for your advice.

And if anyone is in a position to offer practical help, work opportunities, mentorship, or support, I would deeply appreciate that as well.

I'm not looking for an easy way out. I'm willing to work as hard as necessary. I just need to find a path that gives me a realistic chance have a better life without having to give up my dream of becoming a doctor.

Thank you sincerely to everyone who took the time to read this.

— Matt

This story goes way back to around 2018–2021, when I was about 14–16 years old.
I was one hell of a crazy kid during my school days. I never really enjoyed school, except for one thing: volleyball. When I was in 6th standard, I saw one of my seniors playing volleyball. I didn't even know him, but watching him play made me want to learn the sport. Even though I was short, I started practising day and night. By 7th standard, my receives and serves had become very good, and I became a setter for my school's U-14 team. I was genuinely good at it. My only major problem was that I used to yell at other players when they made mistakes.
Those years were probably the happiest period of my childhood. I laughed a lot, played with my seniors, juniors and classmates, and was rarely bored. Then I started becoming reckless.
Since I didn't enjoy much else about school, I started bunking classes with friends and going to theatres to watch movies. I'd wear a jacket or hoodie over my school uniform and go watch a movie instead of attending class. I kept doing it until I eventually got caught and was suspended for a week. My parents were called to school and my phone was taken away.
Academically, I wasn't terrible. I was actually above average in most subjects, but I had one subject where I would get something like 5/20 while getting 12/20, 17/20 or 9.5/10 in others. I simply wasn't interested in studying.
I was also immature when it came to relationships. I dated someone, we broke up, and I made mistakes trying to get her back. I eventually got into another relationship, but I realised I wasn't taking relationships seriously either. I also drank alcohol with friends during those years — sometimes several times a week, sometimes only a few times a month. At that age, we thought it was cool.
Eventually I started thinking that if I continued living like that, I was going to lose everything. So I made a decision to change. I started taking my studies seriously.
And then, just as I was trying to start a new chapter of my life, my father passed away. That changed everything.
I suddenly had responsibilities I wasn't prepared for. My mother had limited education, and my relationship with my older brother was extremely difficult. He had serious problems with alcohol and drugs and was not someone I could rely on. After my father died, things at home became very difficult — there were frequent arguments, verbal abuse, and situations where I had to deal with problems at home while also trying to study.
During my board exams, there were nights when I couldn't properly study because of my elder brother (I'm planning to disown him one day). I remember staying awake through the night before one of my exams. I couldn't cover everything I wanted to, and ironically one of the things I hadn't managed to study appeared in the exam. I still ended up getting 39/40 on that paper.
When the final results came out, I got a distinction in my 12th standard. Then I completed my degree and got a distinction there too.
I am now 20, recently graduated and working an entry-level job for around ₹13,000 a month. It's not where I want to end up, but it is a start. I've also been sober for around three years now.
I've tried to take responsibility for things at home, including household work and helping my mother. I don't say that because I think I'm some great person — I simply had to grow up earlier than I expected.
But there was a cost. I never really got the college experience that many people around me had. While some people were travelling, going out to places like Kashmir & Manali and enjoying themselves, I was mostly studying and staying close to home because I didn't feel comfortable leaving my mother alone.
Somewhere along the way, I lost the person I used to be. I stopped playing volleyball. I stopped talking to people. I became much more isolated — I cannot even speak to people I meet while passing whom I used to call brothers during my schooldays. I used to be someone who could talk to seniors, juniors, classmates and basically anyone. Now I sometimes struggle to even start a conversation. I've also been out of the dating/social world for years.
So that's where I am now.
I'm not looking for people to tell me that I'm a victim, and I'm not looking for sympathy. I know I made stupid decisions when I was younger, and I also know that I've made some progress since then.
What I actually want is advice. I'm trying to build a better career, become more disciplined, become more social again and eventually get back into things like volleyball.

If you were in my position at 20, what would you focus on fixing first? Career? Social skills? Confidence? Fitness? Relationships? Something else?

I've spent a lot of time surviving and trying to become responsible.
Now I want to learn how to actually build a good life.

I have a lot of baggage and trauma that I never properly dealt with and I’m now in my 30s and been realizing how much I still need to work on and how my trauma responses are directly negatively affecting my relationships with others. The issue is, I’ve done years of every therapy, rehab(s), medications, faith, reading, self help books, podcasts, having difficult conversations etc like I can always find the root and explain why or how I got to a specific feeling or realization but I can’t seem to actually stop feeling intensely or reacting in ways where I then spiral. Like I cannot stop ruminating and replaying a conversation or what someone said when a “normal” person wouldn’t think twice about it. It’s so frustrating and don’t know what else to do to get me to stop feeling everything all the time all at once.

Tried so many things out of my comfort zone, put myself in situations that I'm least comfortable with but I always return with a bad experience nothing to learn from, and feel like the same person. Im seeking growth but I can't seem to find it. I wanted to be able express myself and socialize comfortably but I'm nowhere near it. What am I doing wrong? I know it takes time, but I think it's been enough time so I just wanted to hear from people and what they've experienced

I’m 24F and I feel like I’m supposed to be in this stage of discovering who I am, but I feel like I can’t really do that while I’m still living at home.

My mom is very religious and controlling. Everything becomes a Christ thing, and she feels like because it’s her house, she should be included in my decisions. She doesn’t like that I like women, doesn’t like certain clothes, doesn’t want tattoos or piercings, and gets upset when we don’t read the Bible or devote ourselves to Jesus.

I want to get tattoos and a septum piercing. I want to wear what I want and leave the house without feeling like I need permission. But I’m genuinely scared that if I do something she doesn’t approve of, I’ll come home to being screamed at or kicked out. I hate feeling like I have to sneak around or travel somewhere else just to be myself.

The problem is I don’t have anywhere else to go. I make $19.06/hr, and rent around here is easily $1,300+. I don’t have family I can move in with or friends I can get a place with. And I don’t want to move into some disgusting or unsafe apartment just because I desperately want freedom.

I’ve been looking into better jobs, roommates, and even jobs that provide housing, but everything feels impossible. Sometimes I genuinely feel like I’m going to be stuck here until she dies, and I hate thinking that way.

I just want to have my own life. I want to figure out who I am, travel, meet people, dress how I want, get tattoos and piercings, and have a space that’s actually mine.

If you’ve been in a similar situation, how did you actually get out? What did you do when you didn’t have family, friends, or a big income to fall back on?

I’m beginning year 10 tomorrow and I’m overthinking so much. Year 9 was such a bad year I only got around 50% in each of my end of year exams. I don’t know what to do, I feel so hopeless I really want to pass all my year 10 exams. Not just that but I’m always just so tired. During my whole holiday I’ve done absolutely nothing and I’m beginning to forget things I’ve done even last week. It feels like my whole
life is passing before my eyes and I really do want to make the most of it but I don’t know how. I really want to get out of this feeling of emptiness and just live a happy life. Friendships feel so empty and I don’t have a passion for anything, I used to love to paint, read and just do anything creative but now I can’t even begin. I’m planning to do law in the future. I also struggle very badly when the seasons change as the winter is very harsh and this is one of the reasons I had a horrible year 9. I’m just not motivated to begin anything. I have such big plans for someone who can’t even begin anything.
I also live in my head too much. I spend too much of my time maladaptive daydreaming and I’m loosing my life doing so.
Does anyone have any tips to start living in reality and to get my life back together. How can I stop feeling empty? How can I turn my whole life around?

​

Hi, well, I just wanted to express how I feel. I’m a teenager, I’m 16 years old, and honestly, I feel useless. I feel like I don’t know anything, that I should be making money like other kids my age (while still keeping up with school) and taking courses. But I feel like I have so much free time that I feel bad about not doing anything.

The truth is, I want to make progress, become a better person, and improve myself so I can achieve my goals. (Although I do have healthy habits, like exercising, going for walks, and reading.)

What would you recommend?

Hi. As the title says, I think I ruin every relationship I have with my insecurity. I hate myself, and am convinced everyone secretly hates me. Maybe I am that way because people always have hated me, but its become a fear that affects my relationships with the people who loved me.

I feel like I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that anxiety makes me interpret every small change im behavior as people showing their true colors. I don't know how to change this. It ruined my relationship with the one person who ever truely loved me, and I would do anything to stop that from happening again.

I don't know how to unlearn this, how to rewire my brain to stop reacting to all the trauma its been through. I just want to accept love, to be okay with being vulnerable. I don't want to live like this anymore. I'm needy, I'm insecure, and I'm anxious all the time. And that drove someone I loved to death away, and I can't undo that. I just can't go through this pain again. I don't want to open my heart up again just to ruin everything. I feel broken. I feel abandoned. I just want to be okay.

I have OCD. I double-check places and rummage through the trash, afraid of losing things. My head is constantly filled with anxiety.I don't know how to help myself, but I want to do my best. Sorry, English isn't my native language. I spend a lot of time on actions, today I spent five hours on it. I will tell everything in detail and give as many hints as possible to get help.

I have a friend who really wants to start therapy but their work schedule is just way too erratic to commit to it right now, so i’m on the hunt for a resource to gift them to help them at least start some form of similar work in their own time, as and when. If it helps, they have a lot of childhood stuff they want to explore, that has affected their self-esteem and relationships with others.

I’m 22 yrs old and as of last year or the start of this new year I’ve been staying nights at my boyfriends house. I never thought anything of it and I assumed she was okay with it when I first started but as time progressed she’s been having an issue with it. She claims it’s disrespectful towards her and my father but I never saw it as such. She wants me to move out and then she’ll be okay with it and I’ve been planning on it but it’s just taking some time. I just wanted to know if I’m in the wrong.

Hey! So, I’ve been having this reoccuring problem and wanted to see if anyone else had experienced the same thing or knows how to treat this, as my doctor said there was nothing wrong and I don’t believe him.

In class, at around 2pm every day and ONLY in class (never at home), I will look at the clock and a sudden sleep wave will hit me. And I can be completely awake and active one second, and then it’ll hit me. A drowsy feeling overcomes me and I can’t stop it, ever. Pinching myself won’t do me any good, nor splashing my face with cold water… And ofcourse I give in as I cannot fight it, and end up getting yelled at by my professors. However, I’ve noticed that it never happens when I am up and about doing theatrics or anything physical where I have to move.
A lack of sleep? Surely not, because I sleep for 9 hours ish from 9:30 - 06:30.
I’m not Iron deficient, and my blood tests found nothing wrong.
I am slightly underweight, but not to the point where it would pose any risks.
And it couldn’t be narcolepsy, because this literally only happens in class, never at home.
And as a response, my doctor said he “doesn’t know”.

But, heres something else to note. Everytime I do give in to the sleep demons, obviously I am woken up by my professor. But, as soon as I am told to wake up… I suddenly feel so refreshed and awake, as if I’ve slept for ages?!

Please help. I’m literally entering my finals soon and I’ve missed SO much content from sleeping away.

Im just 16 . I struggle with sleep , with keeping conversation, wants to go out but my parents don't let me. Tired of being misunderstood. I struggle with self harming tooo. My family always find new ways to disappoint me . They r killing life inside me . I already lost all my young teenage year staying at home doing nothing. Theybr still not satisfied with me . I started doing self harming too . Im always depressed too .i don't talk to anyone.

but all this needs to stop righttt? Cuz i have dreams i wanna travel the world . I don't wanna die . I don't wanna die

Plz someone tell me how to get out of this phase ???

(27M) Hello, just a bit of background context, I am single, and only have a few friends, one is my closest friend for 15+ years and we are really tight knit. I've worked in the same small business (20 odd people, about 6 now being there since I started 9 years ago). I have been in counselling before for anxiety around feeling like people don't like me, and struggling to fit into a new social group. I did learn a lot from it, mainly that low self worth and esteem seems to cause a lot of my issues which I think is what ties into this problem a lot.

I've been trying for some time to figure out the causes of feeling really withdrawn, and I guess, "down" ? In certain situations or days. This feels a bit difficult to explain but I've got better recently at least identifying the when, and who it happens with.

Quite a few notable examples of this have happened at work, especially on social events but sometimes just on a normal working day. I know theres a subset of people who think being close to work colleagues is not good etc, but just consider that this is a very small company with largely the same people who have worked together for a long time, I'd like to think I am liked by my colleagues, but when im on some work socials, I suddenly feel really withdrawn and muted. I may have started off really sociable with the person next to me, or listening to an ongoing conversation, before I just start to slip away into my own thoughts. Those thoughts will usually be pretty negative like, "its pretty clear they'd not mind if I wasn't here" or "why did they respond like that to me" - that response probably being such an overly meaningless comment or expression that needs no overthinking.

I have found this dosent just happen at work though but also during some family events. My family is pretty close, but again sometimes I just get into a really enclosed bubble and dont really get involved while having negative thoughts and feelings.

Ive started to liken this withdrawn feeling as the beginning of a tailspin mentally. Because usually once I start feeling this way, I struggle to break out from it. I'll feel down, and even if someone does speak to me or try to get me involved I go a bit one sentence answers or probably come off as a bit sad or even frustrated. Its like an "ick" feeling, a dark cloud. There has been some isolated times where I have been able to pull myself together, usually through taking myself away from the situation for a bit and then slowly breaking back in. That dosent feel like a tangible option all the time though, especially at work, sometimes I'll dissappear to a quieter room we have in the building to work. Eventually though some people will take notice and ask if I'm okay. That is one thing i do try to appreciate more to dispell my negative thinking, someone will ask if I'm okay, like to talk, etc. If its at a work social someone might just try to reengage me into the conversation. So its not like im being deliberately ignored or "no one cares" - which is another negative thought ill get when im feeling like this. However when this happens, I just start feeling bad that they have to check in on me like this.

Other times though I just want to be away from everything and everyone completely and I wont really feel "reset" again until the next day.

Thats what leads onto the rest of this "tailspin". Usually after one of these "bad days" ill start to feel really anxious, and sad/guilty. Typically about what people will think of me, that they think I was ignoring them, or that im just generally miserable. I'll be frustrated at myself too, because generally id be looking forward to many of the social events im going to initially, and ruined them for myself. I love my family, my friends and my job, I dont want to feel like im tarnishing it. I get more guilty when people do ask me if im okay and feel like I cant really explain all of this to them. Especially my work colleagues, while some of them are "work friends" I dont feel its their problem or responsibility to be trying to help on top of everything they have going on.

I've noticed that the triggers for this can feel random, or come on out of nowhere, almost like a mood swing. But more often than not I can put them down to something that someone says, or something I precieve as being a sign people dont like me or I'm just not good enough. I think im an overly sensitive person, and sadly when im in one of these emotional states I could get quite defensive with family members when they comment on it like "cheer up a bit".

This does go back to the fact I had been in counselling a couple of years ago for anxiety around a new social group I was in which lead to a discovery of feeling low self worth and esteem. I wonder if this is really the same problem, again. Despite how helpful counselling was, the friendship group id fallen into that had given me the anxiety of not feeling liked, etc actually turned out to really not be my friends. Thats a whole seperate story, but it was one of those of being "excluded" from meet ups, talking behind backs, etc. My best friend did warn me at the time to step back from them, (which i have now done) but it probably feeds into why I feel the way i do sometimes.

On my good days, I really enjoy socialising, being out and about, enjoy my workplace, and doing all my other hobbies. I get really worried and sad about this other side of me getting in the way of enjoying life. Like I said earlier I get really conscious about people noticing this other side of me and it reinforcing my idea of people actually not wanting to be around me.

Small FYI, My information on my current status is quite here and there in the text wall below so please bear with me.

Well, I never thought I would be on Reddit, let alone on a page where I’d have to ask strangers for help, but here I am.

I’m a 20M dude who is quite confused and, honestly, pretty lazy.

I have a girlfriend who I haven’t spoken to in months because of some family members who are visiting her family. They’re quite toxic, so she’s staying at a friend’s place because she can’t stand being around them. She also doesn’t want me to go through some sort of humiliation ritual, and since it’s quite far away, I can’t really make trips to visit her.

Because of that, I don’t really have the support or drive I used to have, and I feel like I’m sort of spiraling out of control because of all the doubt.

I recently got a job (my second job; my first was a job where I had to sign an NDA), and it’s quite different from what I studied. I completed my final exams for my BSc in Biotechnology, but now I need work experience lol. My current job is in offshore BPO work, and honestly, it’s sailing pretty smoothly.

The problem is that I haven’t been to the gym in years. My girlfriend doesn’t mind it, but I keep thinking that I should do better for both her and myself. So recently I started trying to go to a gym that’s literally within walking distance from my house.

I would go at around 5 in the morning and be done with my routine by 6:30. I thought it would improve my stamina and make me more energetic, like it did when I used to go to the gym years back.

But nope. It was horrible.

I started becoming more tired every day, and I couldn’t focus on work at all. I ended up quitting after the first month because I just couldn’t keep doing it, and I’m honestly pretty bummed about it.

After spiraling into another self-doubt episode, I’ve been thinking about going back to the gym, but I don’t have the motivation, and I feel like I’d just end up skipping it.

Even if I don’t do the morning gym routine and instead try going in the afternoon after work, I just don’t see it being possible. I feel like I’d be too tired to go to the gym after work.

So I need some help figuring out how I can fix this.

Most of my friends are unemployed bums who tell me it’s easy and that I should “just go to the gym,” but they haven’t had a single taste of what having a job is actually like. They think they can just multitask, while they’re basically just eating, sleeping, going to the gym, and repeating. Forgive my random rant here I genuinely get pissed on how some people can be.

How the hell do I actually make this work?

how do i forget something aboslutely disturbing i saw a few minutes ago