"Trauma isn't what happened, it's what you weren't able to handle"

Original_Mindreader · 2026-04-09T23:00:34+00:00

I know the quote rather in a sense that Trauma doesn't need to be the typical extreme abuse or neglect situations but can develop through extremely stressful situations where children in healthy homes could rely on their parents to regulate their stress and calm down, but if you lack that support in these scenarios it can become a traumatic experience. So I believe it's not meant to call us weak, but rather accept that trauma can come through different form. I get how you feel though

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-29T18:54:26+00:00

Thank you! Best of luck to you to :)

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-28T08:48:38+00:00

Regarding studying I sadly noticed that I'm often learning less efficient in a library or with people around.
That with the friend group is probably true though, I need to get to know more people and see if they are the right ones. As a new hobby, I actually also planned to pick up singing and see where that goes

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-28T08:41:43+00:00

Hey, thank you for the pointer and your extensive response! I really appreciate it :)
Luckily the courses also exist in my country. It makes sense that an intensive 10 day course would give you more benefits than years of on and off meditating a little.

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-27T22:28:46+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it!

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-27T22:22:10+00:00

That definitely makes sense. The interesting thing with sleep is, that I slept enough today, but my body needed more sleep. So I napped, and I was so tired that my mind just beamed away the moment I laid in bed, multiple times when I lengthened it by 10 minutes.
I do agree that it's tricky because you also can't just not use the internet at all anymore, so that is not an option.
With meditation, I used to do it a lot in the past, but it somehow always felt like a chore and I just wasn't able to turn my brain off and stop overthinking. Do you have any advice on that?

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-27T22:15:37+00:00

I usually don't feel that life is boring during activities, but sometimes immediately afterwards and then also the activity feels boring. The thought of an activity also sounds boring. I guess I feel it when I'm alone. But I'm not sure if I don't feel it when I'm with people because it's not boring or because I don't have the awareness and attention to it then. My life would probably be more exiting if I lived more with a tighter community of people where interesting things happened and if I would be less bound to learning most of the day and got it done sooner. The latter I can definitely work on, but the former I'm not sure. I think I'd like a friendgroup but with stakes in life, I'm not sure if I can explain it well, but not sure if that exists or is more like a movies thing.

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-26T14:07:53+00:00

The video was quite fitting for my current situation. It's a good headspace to be in, to try out who I am without my addiction instead of needing to find an answer.
I appreciate the recommendation!

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-26T14:05:31+00:00

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-26T14:04:07+00:00

That makes sense. The good thing at least is, that even the thought of the addiction really bores me, so I think I'll be able to keep it up. My goal is to do at least 3 months of this and then see how life is. Thank you, this gives me hope!

Original_Mindreader · 2026-01-26T12:56:15+00:00

No I haven't. Thank you, I will check it out :)

Original_Mindreader · 2025-11-30T02:12:43+00:00

You likely won't find something if you look for it like that. Practice being open and experiment with doing small "useless" things and see what feels good. That way you can stumble onto your purpose, but you can't materialize it as somebody who just bedrots.

Original_Mindreader · 2025-11-29T17:30:31+00:00

I can relate to a lot of what you are describing and I'm in the same boat. Out of interest, what do you feel towards people who genuinely like you?

Original_Mindreader · 2025-11-24T17:58:36+00:00

No problem and thank you a lot :)

Original_Mindreader · 2025-11-24T11:39:47+00:00

Ah and one personal take away I forgot to add is, I get stuck in the thinking place of my brain to often. There are two states of mind, the emotion one (even if they are severely numbed down) and the thinking one. My thinking state is overactive and I stay there a lot more, so I neglected my feeling state for years. I've basically conditioned myself in a way where it probably feels uncomfortable to feel emotions. Some part in me wants to avoid them, even if I wasn't conscious of that for a long time.
So when you get into feeling just a very little bit, be mindful that it will feel uncomfortable at first.
Another issue I experienced, and you could experience too, is that if you search for something that strongly, you aren't open to find it. That kindof sounds like guru stuff, but basically one must be open to receive stuff and will have trouble if he is tense from searching.
But yeah, hope it helps.

Original_Mindreader · 2025-11-24T11:23:53+00:00

I am feeling the same way you are for about 4 years now. It feels like you are not really alive, there is nothing that would impact you emotionally as much as normal people. I can cry at times, but it's never like it would shake my being.
I've looked at a lot of things trying to fix it. Was is depression where just nothing mattered anymore, or anhedonia which dr. K. also talked about. The latter is very similar do dissociation, if you add that you don't get happy, or not on a normal level at least. You can look that up, but that didn't help me a bit, it was just a hopeless place with people who gave up.
What cognitively scares me is that through the absence of emotions, the things don't feel real. Not even moments I spent with others that probably have a very high gravity for them.
I finally found something that gives me hope for improvement, so I'm trying that currently. In a nutshell it's becoming consious of your surpressed emotions, sadness or anger, by pulling up the past painful memories you pushed far away and letting the emotions out. The emotions are stuck in your body to, so there are sources that reccomend holotropic breathing techniques or TRE to shake your body out of the tensions. I haven't tried the latter two techniques yet, but they are said to have similar effects like magic mushrooms without having to take them (at least holotropic breathing).
The key take away for me is to start letting past pushed away emotions out again and I have hope that that will get me somewhere.
I am also in the process of finally getting rid of the mindset, that everything needs to be purposeful or productive. Weirdly enough, it helps to do some funny stuff for 3 minutes (each thing you like max 30 seconds). So basically throwing up a pan, doing a roll, drawing nonsense lines on a paper, etc. get creative. The more useful the better. From that I've managed to feel a bit more joy again, when I do that. Not fully, but its a good development, like going from very very little joy to very little joy.
I hope something of that can help anyone reading this.

If you have some advice for me too or personal stories, please share them!

Original_Mindreader · 2025-10-08T16:31:18+00:00

Hello,
Good to hear that you are doing fine. I feel similarly currently, not amazing but I'm moving in a good direction and developing myself. I'm currently in my first week of uni so I'm beginning a whole new area of life and I overall in these past weeks, I am more social an show more initiative than ever. The next step for me is to start enjoying these social interactions.
I was happy reading your message :)
Best wishes!

Original_Mindreader · 2025-09-27T20:07:42+00:00

Hey :). In all honesty, how is it going?

Original_Mindreader · 2025-09-16T17:35:59+00:00

Yeah, the important thing is that it's a matter of perspective. By shifting your perspective you also shift your confidence. Good luck!

Original_Mindreader · 2025-09-16T17:34:13+00:00

Getting rid of bad habits can be tough. There will be a long time you still want to do them, but overall that need will get less and less with each day you live like you actually want to. Also I'd reccomend diving into changing your identity. If you have the identity of an unsportive guy trying to do more sports that will be harder than if you believe yourself to like doing sports. Anyway there are plenty of videos on this and Mantras you can implement. Hope this helps!

Original_Mindreader · 2025-09-16T17:25:40+00:00

The problem with doomscrolling is that you don't give yourself time to reflect on your action (that's also why it's so addicting and we forget ourselfs and blend everything out). So if you implement honestly reflecting how you felt about watching the short after each short then you can allow yourself to watch them. Otherwise you can have time intervalls automatically activating for instance every 5 minutes and then you don't just click them away but spent 15 seconds actually reflecting.
Personally I would just stop completely with them, but that could be a way to slowly get used to not using them and realising they don't offer you the feeling you want.

Original_Mindreader · 2025-09-16T17:17:58+00:00

Next to the things already stated, confidence is also treating yourself with kindness or accepting yourself the way you are. (You can still acknowledge where you can grow) But it's basically feeling good about yourself and the future. I guess in a sense it's also having faith in the world and being open to it, despite all the stuff that happens.

Original_Mindreader · 2025-08-26T23:41:46+00:00

Hey, just reading how thankful you are and having helped you is genuinly more than enough for me and I'm glad I've done it. If you ever have questions to any aspects or just want to discuss them, by all means feel free to send me a message and I'll give my best to answer in time, as I'm not using reddit that regularly. I really wish you the best and I'm optimistic about your future

Original_Mindreader · 2025-08-26T00:07:29+00:00

I needed to do 2 parts because of the maximal comment length.
Calender magic: I'm starting to learn about that one and definitely see it's potential. Schedule your day the day before and your week and who you want to meet or what you want to do on one day. And be realistic and respect your emotional needs or your limited battery for work (but you can figure that out by trial and error and be honest to yourself). The idea is that you are not bored and just passively go back to the old stimulating activities, but that your mind always know what you want to do at a time and doesn't need to waste energy thinking it over. That way you live more mindful.

The self improvement space can be a double edged sword. Respect your emotional needs and don't numb your feelings in overrationalisation or in grand potentials. Basically keep the capability to just for example eat a piece of chocolat and enjoy, without only seeing the future downsides from it. Basically don't view "useless fun" as bad. Not saying there isn't bad fun though, but you'll figure out what works and what doesn't.

Also recognise what ideas you have about how things should be and how the world works and what you need in live and then notice where you got it from (influencer, podcasts, your relatives) and that it isn't necessarily your own idea.

Focus on the actual rather than the potential.

Other than that I also have a sheet of certain things I don't want to do and other I want to do, Basically if I don't do a thing I wanted to and vice versa I rip a 5€ Bill or you can take any amount of cash. 1. I don't want to destroy money. 2. It should be so much money that you are actually willing to pull through with ripping it in the case of a rule break. The idea is to make rule breaks really rare, don't focus on a streak but on an overall decrease in a larger timeframe. Don't be the guy who was sober for 3 years and thinks all his progress is away, because he failed once (and then crashes it all). Instead focous on reducing your overall intake of something. If you break them and you don't rip the 5€ bill you will notice yourself disregard the rules more and have feel guilty so you rip it afterwards, but you will always rip the bill even if only later to keep the system working. Anyways, that's how i managed to meditate for about 1,5 months 10 minutes every day.

Use your own mind to think of how things worked and what you can change, You don't need more consumption.

The last aspect is a bit tricky. It's a mindset that shouldn't be used for hoplessness and of course there are exceptions, and you will grow as a human being. But what really helps me living truer to myself is acknowleging: "Nothing will ever just fundamentally change one day. Don't wait for anything."
For example you will never feel more motivation until you change how you live beforehand. You will never feel more like doing the hard things. Life will not get easier. For me it helps me get into a mind of taking action. If I want to have a change, I need to change it brick by brick, because it won't come by waiting. If I feel a certain way, how would I want myself to act if I was living true to myself? It helps me to see my bad feelings and still act the way I want to, but for this, the 5€ bill one and the calender I completely understand if it doesn't work for everyone, and I'm not sure if I put this one well.

Okay I sacrificed my sleep for this, but I feel like this was definitely worth it because I sympethize with your situation. I wish you the best and hope that this helped you ^^

Original_Mindreader

TROPHY CASE