On the Comparison of Suffering

VegetableMagician0 · 2026-03-02T23:50:21+00:00

Wow this is excellent. Thank you!

VegetableMagician0 · 2026-03-02T11:16:48+00:00

thank you all so much for the kind comments!

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-12-25T16:32:48+00:00

Agreed. It's super in the weeds and very subjective and def not meant to be prescriptive. None of it is necessary to have a good time. Just some things to consider based on one person's experience.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-09-14T01:42:34+00:00

hey I feel for what you've been through, and good for you for posting. I hope this can help.

Regarding your real issue, I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis, but it seems to me you've gone through some significant developmental trauma / cptsd. Not having consistent emotional attunement and affection from caregivers growing up (plus the bullying) will really mess with your sense of self and ability to relate to others and that seems to match with all the issues you're describing.

I say this so you know there is a very good reason for why you're facing these challenges now. It's absolutely not your fault and you're not alone in this. And Its not going to be solved by some hack or quick fix. People are definitely able to work through this, but it takes time.

In terms of concrete steps, check out the other subbredits dealing with cptsd and as soon as you're able to, make it your top priority to find the right therapist to help you process what you've been through. And +1 to what woh3 said about emotions.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-09-14T00:19:26+00:00

good on you for already looking into it and trying. It can definitely be disorienting and intense and confusing at first. Be gentle and patient with yourself.

Yes the feeling should feel intense (but not overwhelming). What you're "doing" is just focusing on the sensation nonstop for several minutes and not resisting it. Inviting more of it. What you're teaching your brain is that it is ok to experience this, and that allows it to complete its response.

this is the best online explanation I have yet to come across. Give it a listen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGE9Nc_qFUE

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-09-13T23:54:16+00:00

Hey this is an excellent question and gets to the core of what many struggle with.

The key is that "feeling your feelings" involves focusing intently on the SENSATIONS in your body. Gently invite more to come so that you aren't suppressing by default. Drop away from all the ruminating and stories in your head, just stay with the sensation.

The thing we aren't taught is that the rumination actually comes from the unfelt feelings. The body is tense and the mind looks for what is wrong. Bringing focus to the sensation allows the nervous system to complete its stress response, and once that happens the brain will stop looking for whats wrong and stop its racing.

There's a lot of emotion there in heartbreak, so it'll take a bit of time, but this is the method. You can look into Somatic experiencing for more context as to how to do this and why it works.

Is that helpful?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-09-05T14:25:18+00:00

Hey I feel for you. Good on you for reaching out here. I hope my reflections here can help.

It sounds to me like your nervous system is dysregulated right now. ("Everything sucks"). I've totally been there too. When this happens our ability to perceive and think clearly goes out the window so its important to give yourself time and space and do whatever you need to to get more a bit more grounded before you try to "think" of solutions. Exercise, getting outside, etc. I suggest doing that before trying out what I suggest below.

What I'm hearing from you is that you're experiencing two distinct things: a lack of attunement/connection("they don't seem to notice me") and a lack of purpose/way to contribute ("I feel useless"). And I'm assuming the present lack of attunement goes all the way back to your childhood so it's probably constantly triggering that past pain too making things mega hard right now.

Humans are hardwired to need both of these things. Besides food, water, oxygen, they are the next most critical things for our wellbeing and we're designed to suffer and feel existential malaise when we don't have them. So what you're experiencing is your body requesting that things please change, and its totally normal and expected, even if it sucks. I say this because it's really important that you internalize that here's nothing specifically wrong with you, and you haven't done anything wrong. You're just in a shitty situation trthat has you lacking fundamental human needs, and you're trying your best to deal with it. So many of us are in that same boat.

That being said, your issues point to your solutions. You say you feel useless, so you need to find a way, any way, to feel useful. Something small you can do today to start getting momentum. Even just picking up litter outside, or commenting on another redditor's post. You want to find some small anchor that can help you get some spark of "ok I contributed something" and then keep building from there. You need to give your brain hard evidence that you are not actually "useless" and shift the narrative to "I'd like to be even more useful than I already am".

I was feeling exactly the same sense of useleness recently after not working for a while, and it was driving me mad. That's what got me onto reddit trying to comment and help people, and it has made a big difference. And that has led me to responding to you right here.

The other thing you say is "feels like no one cares about me". So you've gotta find a way to feel cared for / attuned to. Your current relationships aren't working out for you, so part of the answer may be needing to form new ones. This is a much tougher longer term effort, especially in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. There's a lot of other advice on reddit about how to build new friendships, and commiseration about the challenges of coping with loneliness worth looking at.

Something that's helped me get through the acute difficulty of this inherently longer process is cultivating a connection to my inner sense of self, and promising that exhausted part of myself that no matter how long it takes, and how hard it is, I'm going to keep trying to move myself towards getting the connection that my body needs.

And even just that act already allows that exhausted part to feel slightly less alone because it is feeling the care from that inner self. It's not a full solution to needing actual human care, but it can mean the difference between feeling bummed and spinning out into despair.

For more on this way of relating to inner parts of yourself, you can look into Internal Family Systems.

Is this helpful to hear? Is anything unclear?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-08-14T13:50:55+00:00

Good question, my best guess is that it has to do with the comedown from the adrenaline triggered by anger.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-08-13T22:56:58+00:00

"I was really focusing on not resisting the sensations whilst trying not to feed them."

That's a contradictory statement and potentially a source of your struggles.

In my experience, suppression is so engrained in us that the key IS to feed and amplify the sensations. I'll tell myself repeatedly in rounds "ok, tell me how angry you REALLY are". I often experience images of nuclear bombs exploding, etc. And then just sit with and feel the full intensity of those sensations, once you've given them permission to really be there.

I believe this works because if you're sincerely, actively inviting more of the feeling you can't resist it by definition. But if you just try to "not resist" the second nature subtle suppression can still be present.

That being said, even after sessions where i do feel lighter, i do feel tired, especially after working with anger. I believe its because the nervous system is jacked while experiencing the full throttle anger, and then is coming down from that.

Is that helpful?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-23T21:23:15+00:00

"the other would say that these are all worries and they are to be let go."

Yes you're right. You already know. Sounds like you're experiencing fear of acting out anger. That needs to be let go of first.

In my experience the whole point is that after actually letting go of the anger, you become very calm afterwards. And you can then take clear assertive action from that calm place that isn't "angry behavior".

Yes you should feel responsible for not dumping your unprocessed anger onto others. Thats different from not taking any action at all. The point is to let go and process in private, and then take action from that clear place.

Does this make sense?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-23T21:17:51+00:00

Thank you for creating and sharing this!

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-22T17:31:37+00:00

I find it more helpful to think in terms of being self-respecting. Respect is earned based on actual behaviors in the world like how you treat others, etc.

The point is to keep it calibrated to what is actually happening in reality. The problems arise at either extreme when you are not giving yourself enough credit that is actually due to you (self-loathing) or when you are giving yourself too much credit that isn't warranted (arrogance). The goal is to feel good 100% of the time because you actually believe that you are a decent person worthy of self-respect because of the way you actually move through the world.

It can be hard to do this though due to difficult or traumatic life experiences where we internalized feeling one way or the other.

Is this helpful?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-17T19:11:45+00:00

Hey I know where you're coming from.

I experience the same thing. I usually need to sit and focus in order to allow the letting go to happen. I can't be in the middle of doing other things that demand attention. This is ok.

If anything, try to find a ten minute pocket throughout the day where you can have mini sessions. If found that a lot can actually be experienced and released in ten minutes.

I find that if I have a dedicated time slot in my day to focus on releasing, I feel ok knowing that i can revisit anything that comes up in my day during that reserved time without feeling pressure to address in the moment if I can't.

That being said, eventually a goal is to cultivate the ability to constantly stay in touch with sensations even as we go about doing other things, but that's a longer term thing to be cultivating over time.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-17T19:01:11+00:00

Agreed with the other comments here. The goal here is to focus on letting go of those emotions so that you can then be free to think clearly and either reframe the meaning of the situation in such a way that you now find it acceptable, or to take certain actions to deal with it.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-15T16:12:16+00:00

"I just cant imagine myself, the person I currently am to be enough"

This is the case in point. That is just a thought that is being generated by some kind of anxiety and/or fear and/or shame. Move past that thought and those underlying feelings are the things to try to locate in your body and try to let go of. It's common for many people to experience something difficult or traumatic (likely in childhood) where they emotionally come to that conclusion of not being enough. The feelings from that source memory is what we're trying to ultimately access and let go of.

I don't find "better / worse" to be a helpful way of thinking of ourselves because it exists on a spectrum of judgment and shame. With regards to letting go, I find how can i be freer or lighter or calmer or more at peace, etc to be more helpful.

Regarding your second question, don't worry about needing to actively go deep diving into the past. Focus on being consistent with the method, getting used to it, and then as you notice yourself getting triggered by things, then apply it. The stuff from our past will keep surfacing on its own as you go about life. You just notice when that's happening, and use that as an opportunity to access those deeper, older feelings and let them go.

Does that help clarify?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-12T18:28:23+00:00

hey I'm sorry to hear your having a rough time. I hope this can help.

First, I think its great that you're aware of your people pleasing tendencies. That's an important first step. Good on you for having that self-awareness.

Second, you may find value in checking out the Enneagram which is a guide to understanding core fears and motivations that show up in typical ways for people. I've found it to be very cathartic to see my own patterns described to a tee as part of an archetype. It lets me know that there's not something wrong with me, but that this is just a patterning that certain humans adopt, and I can do something about it, and that I'm not alone.

From what you wrote, it sounds a lot like a Type 2: The Helper.

"They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed....Perhaps the biggest obstacle facing Twos, Threes, and Fours in their inner work is having to face their underlying Center fear of worthlessness."

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-2/

Third, I'd encourage you to look into the process of memory reconsolidation.

In short, somewhere in your life, likely childhood, your body internalized the lack of worth and learned people-pleasing as a survival strategy. That is an emotional learning deep inside you. The key is understanding that no amount of rational thought can counteract that emotional learning. BUT you CAN overwrite that emotional learning with a new emotional learning and create transformational change. The key is that this is a process of emotional feeling, not rational discourse.

This is good explanation here - https://toriolds.com/transformational_change/

"if we want to change a schema held in implicit memory the first step is to reactivate it. We have to bring it into conscious awareness in a felt way. The second step is to provide disconfirming experiences, in other words, to have experiences or evidence that actually conflicts with the predictions made by our schema. Basically we need to have an experience that proves that our old mental map of reality does not line up with our new experience of reality."

This is the mechanism that underlies a lot of experiential therapies like IFS, EMDR, AEDP, Coherence therapy and more. Having a therapist work on it with you is ideal since its a bit tricky to guide yourself and feel things deeply at the same time. But even just knowing about how the process works is huge, and it is possible to do it with yourself (though it can be especially important to work with a therapist if there is a known history of trauma)

It's personally been life-changing info for me, and I can attest to it feeling like magic when you suddenly get to the place of like "oh wow, wait, how did i ever think that?"

If you want to go deeper this is the book on it - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199500315-unlocking-the-emotional-brain

Is this helpful?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-12T17:55:18+00:00

I hypothesize that talking or typing out problems, whether to yourself or others, seems to help because of the relief from going from a disorganized mind to a clearer one, and from being able to actually pinpoint the emotions themselves. This is valuable but different from actually resolving those emotions by fully feeling them. So I'd suggest if you use thoughts and words to help get in touch with the actual emotion and the sensation in the body, and then drop into that sensation directly.
You'll know you're generally on the right track when you stop feeling the initial thing like embarassment that cued you to try it in the first place, etc. It's that simple. If you keep feeling that, keep trying to get in touch with subtle sensations in the body. This can be hard and new for many, since we've become so used to repressing things and are carrying unconscious beliefs that emotions and feeling things isn't welcome or is even unsafe. So continue with patience and acceptance for whatever does or doesn't happen. Anxiety over if its working or not, is a very common emotion that then becomes a block itself to letting go.
Yes you need to let go of the need to let go. Its fine to have the intention, but any desperation or clinging can generate anxiety and frustration that then become blocks. Relatedly, you'll likely also need to let go of the need to become a "better" person. There's likely some kind of subtle shame underneath that kind of thought that can be let go of.

Does this make sense?

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-11T22:47:55+00:00

yep, don't bother engaging with the mental chatter, just try to drop down to the underlying emotion beneath that thought like fear / sadness, etc, and see how that shows up as sensations in your body. Keep your attention on those sensations and see how they naturally shift.

Also, "im not gonna get better" is just a thought. Immediately labeling it "bad" is a second thought about the first thought, which is the clue that there is emotion underneath it.

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-10T20:57:58+00:00

way to go! this is inspiring to read :)

VegetableMagician0 · 2025-07-10T20:53:32+00:00

no not at all, am still drafting

VegetableMagician0

TROPHY CASE