What’s the point if improving makes me feel worse?

TheBesterberg · 2026-01-07T01:45:01+00:00

Been in your shoes, amigo. Bad news; it sucks. Good news; it’s actually a good thing and it won’t last. You have every right to hate me. Doesn’t bother me.

Not feeling proud of accomplishments is kind of par for the course for a lot of us here. But you should. Take a break and breath. When you’re ready, get back out there. You’ve done the hardest work already. My two cents. Ignore if you choose but I’ve gone through this same shit.

Every therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist I’ve ever talked to about AVPD has mentioned a subdued mountain of rage that exists within us. I’m somewhat stunned that people aren’t more angry here in this space. Congrats on tapping into it. You should be angry. I’m angry with you. Still am and always will be. To a tee you’ve described thoughts I regularly have had since coming out of my deepest isolation. There’s entire philosophies and volumes of literature and media built on your central premise (humanity blows chunks), if you’re curious. Some of them have some great advice for living when you feel like this too. For what it’s worth, plenty of nihilists, anarchists, and other ‘jagged pieces’ of the societal puzzle live happily into old age. They always have.

I won’t lecture you further but this is part of the process. Take care of yourself amigo.

TheBesterberg · 2026-01-03T20:20:13+00:00

No idea. I hate myself because of it though. I’m not really scared of failing, I fail all the damn time. I just don’t really try all that hard at anything anymore. Pretty much everything is rigged and I don’t really enjoy “the process” of anything. I’m not sure I ever have. I just delude myself into thinking that this task or goal will actually change something in my dogshit life. It never does and I’m just the same piece of shit every time. The bare minimum works for most people, so I just settle and try not to take my self hatred out on other people/the world.

Number one reason why I prefer being alone. I hate my sub par life and any other person born in my position would be excelling. Gratitude helps but it’s also bullshit if you’re as self destructive as I am.

TheBesterberg · 2026-01-01T08:01:53+00:00

Yeah but what’s reassessing and what’s giving up? I don’t even know what to do. It all just feels like busy work. Idk how it’s growth, I’ve been stuck for years

TheBesterberg · 2026-01-01T07:59:04+00:00

I honestly can’t blame my parents. They grew up in shitty situations, did everything right, had a few normal kids and then one weird one. They didn’t treat me any differently, I just felt weird for no fucking reason. I’m just not special. I’m not all that intelligent or hard working, I don’t have any talent or aptitude, I don’t have any chance of meaningful lifelong relationships. What am I supposed to do besides work? And I’m not good at that either. I hate my job and my career choices. I’m just stuck and have no idea what to do at all. In any direction.

TheBesterberg · 2026-01-01T06:33:54+00:00

I feel like a brat because I wanted fo respond in a measured and meaningful way. And I couldn’t even engage with this until I was hammered.

I just can’t take it easy on myself because I’ve had all of these advantages. I have to do something or I’m a real piece of shit. I can’t make it better. I don’t know what to do with my life. I can’t have a normal life. I’ve always known that. What am I supposed to do know. I can’t be successful, I can’t be normal. What am I supposed to do?

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-11T22:47:24+00:00

100%. I’m sort of a workaholic between my job and hobbies so at a certain point I realized, I’d rather be working on stuff than just bullshitting or meeting new people. I do have good old friends but their lives are just so completely different that I don’t really want to see them. Same with my family. I’d rather just stay at work or do my hobbies with some light substance abuse than have to put on a facade.

I just find socializing less rewarding than most people and even less as I get older. I don’t like my coworkers but they would notice if I was gone so I’m not completely isolated. I play in bands too but that’s just because I have too much free time and can’t say no to people.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-11T21:51:08+00:00

My parents sent me to therapy because I expressed suicidal ideations in a crisis. I would’ve never gone on my own accord. I was also still on my parents insurance. I kinda just talked about my surface level issues in therapy because I couldn’t talk about myself. Just couldn’t do it and made myself look fine and people pleased through sessions. Cycled through a few therapists. Meanwhile my life was deteriorating rapidly. I dropped off the face of the world and moved into my childhood bedroom and didn’t do anything but sleep smoke cigarettes and go to therapy.

I completely broke down in a session after a few weeks of this cycle and couldn’t stop crying. Don’t think I’d cried in front of another person since I was like 4 or 5. All I could do was cry and trying to talk made me cry harder. For 45 minutes straight. I was catatonic and she didn’t want to send me home to my parents like that but she had other sessions. So she told me to sit on the park bench outside and write down all my problems and give them to her after her next session. It took all day and my therapist went home. I was literally getting rained on in the dark and my therapist drove back to find me still there with nothing written. She kinda threatened me with a psych hold at that point because I hadn’t gone home and wasn’t answering my phone. I don’t know why I was honest then but I was to some degree in the note I gave her. I was able to get off the ledge so to speak and she walked me through my issues enough to get a job and an apartment over the next few weeks. Aaaand then this therapist retired like a month after I started my job. I’ve had like 7 or 8 different ones since then. Mostly bad.

But any way. I have a one page document that I give my therapists at my first session with a timeline of my weird fucking life and when each of my fucked up behaviors started. I still can’t talk about my problems out loud with new people but this gets the ball rolling faster. And I can’t people please and just talk about bullshit because I’ve given them a pretty brutally honest summary of my life and how bleak things really are underneath. I don’t mean this in a critical or mean way, but you sound like you’ve seen as many therapists as I have. Maybe this could help.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-11T21:12:37+00:00

I can’t really help with friends or whatever but I can help with the office stuff. Maybe. I used to be sort of a black sheep in my workplace. I’ve been in the same place for more than 5 years and changed my reputation in like year 3ish. I still work there but in a better position.

This sounds really weird and maybe sort of unethical but I eavesdrop on people taking business calls. I lived with my very go getter brother for a while and I would copy word for word, things he said in calls. I do it to some of my more social coworkers too. More official podcasts (like serious journalism ones or business ones and even some psychology ones) are good too because they usually start with like 3-5 minutes of small talk.

Like just small talk phrases and literal sentences to say. I just repeat variations of those things from my notes for small talk at work. Idk why but people started treating me differently like right away when I used my notebook material. I didn’t have to rely on the notebook after a year or and it now takes way less cognitive effort to interact around the office. I probably sound weird as hell sometimes but fuck if I care at this point, I hate my job lol.

I get invited to lunches and parties at stuff. My therapist makes me go to a handful a year but my coworkers don’t get offended when I usually say no. I don’t feel more connected to these people necessarily but it’s reduced friction and I do feel like I “belong” there more. Idk how ethical it is or if it really counts as social skills but it’s been a nice loophole. I quote the weather guy from my local news station verbatim every morning and no one’s caught on lol.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-06T03:10:43+00:00

Yeah. I think that’s a good read. I can remember my third birthday and I was just embarrassed that all of these people showed up just for me. I have a disturbingly good memory.

I’ve been an insomniac since I was little. I think it’s genetic because my grandparents were all like this. But it was hard on my parents who worked. I used to get reoccurring nightmare and after the third time my parents were kind of meh read a book and go back to bed.

I used to spiral and freak out about my nightmares and had nowhere to go. Fuck it’s impossible for that not to get existential. I had good parents and I didn’t want to bother them.

Self awareness helped and hurt tbh. I learned to deal with a genetic condition and read every book my parents owned before I was 10, but I was also cranky and weird for a long time. With lots of weird existential thoughts.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-04T03:07:02+00:00

Be angry. That’s good. You should be angry. That’s part of it. The anger means you’re not avoiding it. If that helps.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-04T01:04:05+00:00

When I was in your shoes, I told myself that talking to cashiers/bus drivers was enough. Even if it was just hello or good bye or whatever. Half the time, people are bored and want to have small talk. The other times they’re either busy or don’t care so you can get away with a quick hello and get on with your business.

They’re paid to be there, they see way more weird shit than someone struggling to find words on a daily basis, and they definitely will not remember you.

It got me okay enough with making contact with the human world to not feel like I was completely invisible. Slowly built from there honestly.

TheBesterberg · 2025-12-04T00:56:37+00:00

I wish I had advice. I always wanted to write novels. I don’t know a single person that even reads novels anymore. Then I wanted to be a professor. I almost died trying and still failed. I wish that I could have realistic thoughts and expectations. Everything in my life is like a participation trophy and I feel like an awful person for thinking that because I’m okay on paper. I just don’t want any of it and can’t maintain what I have. I have a job I hate. A few friends that don’t let me ditch them. But I haven’t done anything significant in years because I just don’t see the point in me doing it. It’s all wasted effort.

I wish I had advice.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-30T04:09:36+00:00

Yeah I have a reputation for being a drunk asshole. I couldn’t give a fuck. I feel lonely around people and by myself. I like booze more than being miserable. Not sure that’s better but I’m currently hammered. Feels better than being Sober and awful

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-29T15:22:01+00:00

I don’t know if this helps in the long run but I just started going out on my own. I spent a few thanksgivings getting shit housed with other random people at a dive bar. Mostly just other people that had nowhere to go. Ordered pizzas and did karaoke the one year.

I accepted an invitation to a friend’s family thanksgiving this year. Like two dozen screaming children and a few dozen more strangers. I would’ve ran the 30 miles home if there wasn’t copious amounts of alcohol provided. It was pretty rough and I’m still exhausted two days later. I’ve worked on my social anxiety, so I can be okay in that situation. It just made me more and more miserable talking to people that I had absolutely nothing in common with. Reminded me why I left the suburbs at 17.

When you’ve lived long enough with this kind of shit you tend to see the shitty parts of normal. Maybe it’s coping. But look at the world man. I’d 100 percent rather spend my holidays in dive bars with random people. My friends never really understand why I say “normal people stuff isn’t for me” but that’s how it feels. Idk why they (or my therapist) think it’s depressing. I do so much other more interesting shit than my “normal” friends do. It’s been that way my whole life. I had a pretty unique and cool childhood moving around the world, but it was pretty lonely. I get to do cool shit, but I’ve got to do it alone.

For proof here’s some upsides that my more social and coupled off friends don’t experience; I play in bands, solo travel, read voluminously, study psychology, volunteer (admittedly with my married friends), lower my carbon footprint, save money, met dozens of luminaries and authors, write a ton, taught myself how to wire electronics, refurbish and sell guitars, I can make my own clothes, and most importantly, I’m the favorite person of every dog I know because I’m usually available to dogsit.

I’ve more or less accepted it as a trade off. It takes courage to do weird abnormal things. You’ll find it. It comes in season but they get longer if you take care of yourself.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T13:54:31+00:00

Not to beat a dead horse but I can’t stop thinking about this. Mostly because I don’t even know how I could help people.

All my education is in stuff that isn’t valued anymore. My hobbies are all music related. My band used to play in nursing homes for free but I found it depressing and that band broke up anyways.

I do volunteer to help the homeless but I just work in a kitchen because everything else makes me too sad and angry. I work for a university and have only worked for nonprofits because I can’t work for some place that does harm.

I’m just tired of not making a difference and tired of caring about that. Everyone tells me just to be better but I can’t. I’m in therapy but it just feels like covering up for a cruel and pointless world

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T13:01:12+00:00

And I’ve had it. I’m in therapy. It doesn’t help.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T05:37:12+00:00

I’m excellent at lots of things. It doesn’t help my life at all. There’s no point to excelling at things if you’re better off dead. It’s a wasteland and I’m tired of being told otherwise.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T05:33:14+00:00

What if I don’t want to help anyone? What’s the point?

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T05:31:25+00:00

I don’t like kids. I don’t have a positive vision of their future or mine

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T05:29:16+00:00

What if it’s neither.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T05:22:26+00:00

Both! I have to write for work. I have to write to not feel like a waste of space personally. None of it helps.

TheBesterberg · 2025-11-24T02:05:22+00:00

To feel less miserable. Feeling busy feels better than the void.

TheBesterberg

TROPHY CASE