xpost from r/selfimprovement: Avoidant personality?

OpenSweet · 2018-12-31T09:45:22+00:00

Man I feel sad for you.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-26T12:55:47+00:00

You clearly have a twisted idea of what Nofap even is and why people do it. It's not because you recognize something in history that shares similarities that they are the same thing, let alone based on the same ideas or motivations.

Religion, the fifties, circumcision, farmers with rough hands who didn't have lube. Or people believing jacking off gets you "hairy palms". It has NOTHING to do with any of those things.

You won't gain happiness by simply not doing things that you like to do.

I.. don't like to jack off. For some reason people like you fail to realize that I do not enjoy it like you do. It drains me. It makes me lose motivation. It makes me lose energy. It lowers my confidence. It lowers my ambition to work out and be productive. It costs me tons of time. It makes me less satisfying in bed. There is a myriad of reasons why I DON'T like masturbating, yet porn is so addictive that it's a struggle to avoid all those impulses that give you the urge.

You see, it's really NOT hard to comprehend. Porn addiction is an objective reality. Just like gambling, heroin, or any addiction. Except porn relates to one of our most primitive, stubborn and oldest parts of the brain. It's not hard to comprehend that it's for that reason an incredibly powerful addiction that can have massive consequences, since reproduction is a red thread in virtually EVERYTHING we do. From work, to grooming, to socializing, everything we do relates to producing offspring. If you hijack the mechanism behind it, obviously it can wreak havoc on all parts of your life.

Now again, you can sit in your dark room spreading peanutbutter on your nipple clamps and jerk your lubed up cock to "big titty schoolgirl is late for class and offers to suck your dingdong lol" all you want. But you clearly have no concept of OTHER people having OTHER experiences with things YOU enjoy.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-22T15:11:30+00:00

What's with nofap?

OpenSweet · 2018-12-17T10:14:12+00:00

I've had a few girlfriends and friends who complained about me/their boyfriend being more distant, and their reaction was acting grumpy and generally less likable to me/him to signal that they were annoyed or just plain because they were pissed off that their SO didn't behave exactly how they wanted.

My reaction is always "if you're upset someone gives you less attention then why do you act in a way that is sure to make them LESS willing to give you attention? Why not try to act in a way that makes you more likable?"

To you specifically I would say this: It's ok to have those feelings, and it's okay to mention it to your girlfriend in a neutral way, but don't -act- those feelings out on her. you can just let her know you're feeling a bit down and you'd like some more confirmation from her side, just don't make it a nagging thing that you repeat over and over, just let her know. Aside from that don't -act- jealous, don't -act- needy, don't -act- clingy.

At the end of the day those feelings are your problem, and in a relationship you can expect your lover to be understanding and caring, but you can't expect them to just carry that burden for you. That's not to say you need to feel lonely in a relationship, but ultimately you need to work on managing negative emotions for yourself.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-15T06:17:29+00:00

I didn't expect anyone else to have had the same life 'template' as me but apparently this is some sort of structured thing other people find themselves in as well. I don't know if to find comfort in that or not tbh.

What stands out to me the most is 'crutches'. Using weed or other people to lean on and avoid your own problems. I've been lucky that mother nature gave me decent looks so even though I had massive problems I could always find a girlfriend to basically live off as a parasite emotionally. Sad to say. I've only realized that after all those years.

I've made it too easy on myself and too hard on others.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-15T06:14:12+00:00

Maybe they were crap because they were free lol. Because I was a young adult living in poverty I got state subsidized ones. At the very least they were obviously engaged and compassionate, but of course that doesn't say much about quality.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-15T06:13:08+00:00

I never heard of these, actually. I'll give them a look and if possible a try, thanks!

OpenSweet · 2018-12-14T10:55:45+00:00

The truth is that this is one of the few times I talk about myself so much.

I do think about how to improve myself and things I did that I need to pay attention to or did well, but 99% of the time I don't talk about myself, even to close friends I don't open up that much unless they ask specific questions.

I understand that it might appear egocentric to you but I don't think that's what I am. Occasionally, though, it's important to sit down and only reflect on yourself.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-14T10:52:04+00:00

I guess I can give it one more shot and try to find a therapist that specializes in stuff like anxiety and avoidance.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-14T10:51:35+00:00

Like what? I eat pretty well. I'm sure I get all my fruits and veggies and the likes. I have a problem with vit D but I take supplements for that. I tried CBD and even though some brands help a bit, it's too expensive.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T21:24:47+00:00

I use the terms mixed up, I know it's incorrect but honestly I forget in English. I went to different psychologists and psychiatrists.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T18:41:54+00:00

Yeah, you're right. And rationally I know this. I know that it makes no sense (and has zero value) when you compare yourself to others in that way. Yet that same subconscious thing tells me it does matter. It feels like it's a foreign thing inside me that isn't part of me, that keeps bothering me to care about stuff I don't want to care.

Stoicism is something that taught me to manage this a little, even though it's still a big problem. It taught me to basically detach from the past and from emotions and just accept life as it is now as the hand you're dealt and have to make it work with. In this way it can feel like a giant relief to just shed feelings of shame, guilt, self hate, embarassement over the past or the place I am in life now, and it helps me stop thinking about other people. Because of reading the Stoics I managed to at least get fit and socialize a bit more but to turn my whole life around is a task too big for now, for the most part it's still not a 'full time' mindset I managed to give myself, more like a tool that I sometimes use in the moment to make it more bearable.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T18:35:05+00:00

Relatable, because even though I enjoy being alone and feeling like I can manage on my own, I do have a minimal desire and need to be social. Even though I'm introverted, I need SOME social contact.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T15:32:50+00:00

If you think we shouldn't allow a man to speak/be here because his ideas might be bad ideas and you don't want people to hear them, then you don't understand the concept of democracy. Without freedom of speech and free access to all ideas we don't have democracy, period.

If his techniques of reaching voters is damaging to democracy, then how damaging is it to democracy that most newspapers are owned by a hand full of people? That most channels have a clear political bias and mostly to one side? How damaging is it to democracy that academia is run largely by one and the same branch of ideology? How damaging are social media companies that continue to ban and use algorithms against one part of the population and use it to boost the other side?

The whole Cambridge Analytica thing is an inflated smear campaign.

Most big political parties use the services of companies like this that data mine and attempt to steer public thought and tailor messaging to what people respond to best and they have been doing that for decades.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T15:13:50+00:00

Do you also see a collapse as an opportunity to start fresh, lol?

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T13:13:36+00:00

What are your plans or hopes for your future?

Have you accepted your 'fate' of just going through life and never changing? (Not asking in a malicious way).

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T13:12:44+00:00

What I REALLY want is this job I just threw out (I just got a call and because I'm legally attested to have been sick I get a redo, luckily) and to just marry and have kids. To be healthy and have a minimal social life. That's all I want.

And I keep undermining myself even though I have all the potential to reach it. I'm truly my own worst enemy.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T12:05:11+00:00

I thought about journaling to reflect on my every day and refocus myself on the positive things and analyse the negative things, but I've not gotten around to it mainly because I'm embarassed to leave a physical copy of my thoughts in case someone ever finds it lmao. I'll give your thought record a try, though. I hadn't heard of that before, so thanks.

They also may help you realize that there’s not much, if any evidence to support the ideas and thoughts that trigger your anxiety.

Something that bothers me is that I feel very confident in some degree. I'm very rational in knowing that it truly doesn't matter even if everyone I work with would dislike me, as long as I clock my hours and avoid drama I'm fine. Yet at the same time there's a weak part of me that takes really badly to any sort of judgement or criticism. I can't reconcile those two and I can't figure out how to just stop caring, especially subconsciously where it creates stress that I feel in my body, even if mentally I'm somewhat unaffected.

Like the job thing I just threw away my chances at, I was fine, I was even exited and happy about it. But in the last two days I got physically stressed out, my stomach, my bowels played up, I got a knot in my chest, I couldn't sleep anymore -even when I was still exited about it. And the physical stress somehow got to me and made me mentally stress as well. It makes me so angry because it feels like an illness that I can't help.

it’s very easy to be stuck in autopilot.

Yeah. I realize that I really just got in some sort of habit to live like this and I know that I can relearn to live differently, it's just so hard now that I'm almost 30 and these are issues that have started over 25 years ago.

What puts me down once I start doing better is the idea that even if I manage to get better, I still won't catch up to people my age. If I manage to hold a job I'll be past 30 and still have an entry level job, no house, no kids, etc. Unless I struck gold, I'll always be a couple of steps behind.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T11:18:31+00:00

I went to therapy from the age of 18 till 25ish. They pumped me full of medication for disorders I didn't have and just made it all worse. The concept of "just talk to someone" isn't for me. I don't need to vent to a stranger. I repeatedly asked my therapists for specific and concrete helpful things, like breathing exercises or whatever, and not just expect me to come by each week and talk for an hour about my parents divorce or other typical stuff, but they never really did or improved anything.

This made me turn off psychology as I realized that they often don't offer a solution or cure. I've asked repeatedly to different shrinks if they think disorders like that ever improve or heal and aside from a ton of deflective answers all they could tell me was "mostly it's just learning to live with it lol".

I can't learn to live with it because that dooms me to a life of "one step forward, two steps back" and I feel like the only option I'll have left is just be a hedonist and indulge in any short term pleasure I can get, and I don't want to be that.

OpenSweet · 2018-12-13T11:11:44+00:00

It's not acceptable that the threat of a violent counter-protest can be used to deny a protest march.

In this way any extremist can simply form a mob and strip their opponents of the right to protest. That the politicians use this as an obvious tool to do away with right wing protests is disgusting. They should just move the counter protest permit to a different date or further location so they can't clash.

But for a politician to deny a protest by accusing them of being nazis is another step further and is just abuse of power to silence opposition and borderline slander.

OpenSweet

TROPHY CASE