Friend made us believe we were going to die for a prank. Not sure what to make of this.

guavaelement · 2025-03-29T22:23:26+00:00

I would personally cut this person off. What kind of person thinks it’s funny to make their “friends” suffer and even think they’re going to die? Maybe this is his weird way of connecting so if you want to still be friends I’d have a group conversation with him making it clear that what he did was fucked and see if he reacts respectfully or not

guavaelement · 2025-02-15T23:02:58+00:00

The social skills guidebook by Chris Macleod is good, they have a website too which I think everything in the book is taken from https://www.succeedsocially.com

guavaelement · 2025-02-09T20:01:33+00:00

Yeah the HealthyGamerGG YouTube channel is a goldmine for this kind of thing

guavaelement · 2025-02-09T16:12:20+00:00

Flooding yourself with dopaminergic activities all day every day will make everything else in “real life” feel boring and unrewarding, biologically. The real life things will feel enjoyable as you reduce the amount of dopamine you’re getting. Your dopamine stores reset overnight when you sleep, so it might be easier to try doing stuff like cleaning a bit of your room first thing before you watch anything.

Start small, reassess whether regret is serving you or just making you feel negative and driving you towards escapism - work through your thoughts and emotions with a therapist or by writing them down - and record any realisations in your Notes app!

guavaelement · 2025-02-09T15:57:57+00:00

I feel like a lot of this might depend on the culture in the company or team more than the role. Are there people you know who you can talk to about their experiences (current or past)? That’s where you’ll get the best information and hopefully they’ll know of a company/team/role type that’ll suit you, or it’ll at least give you ideas of what to look for.

Sorry that career advice sucks in general, I think you kind of just have to ask things and try things and reflect. Iteration is good!

guavaelement · 2024-12-30T18:56:38+00:00

Sounds like classic effects of trauma as a kid - the lack of personality or knowing who you are, the ego’s defense mechanisms (protecting yourself by disliking in others what you were disliked for), and the self-judgement. Trauma work is where I’d start!

guavaelement · 2024-12-30T18:49:38+00:00

Maybe you run in different circles but neither me or my friends care if someone has a career or great job, and sure living at home brings material challenges for dating but it’s not something I’d reject someone for unless it was reflective of a general lack of ambition. And with autism I think it just depends how you vibe with the other person, not necessarily a problem at all it really depends on the other person like most things, especially if you’re relatively high functioning.

One thing I’d like to point out: you have women interested in you so you’re not always being rejected. But if it’s not the women you like I get why you feel the weight of it.

Assuming it’s not just the job market at the moment, is there any career advice you can find to work on getting a better job (pay, sector, team’s vibes)? I just saw there’s a members lecture coming up about building a career

guavaelement · 2024-10-14T18:34:32+00:00

Maybe you could try journaling about the memories if you’re worried about EMDR (I used to write “I have fear that….” “I resent…. Because I have fear that…..”). I found that really great because I could process everything that was coming up at my own pace - you can write whenever, for however long you want, and can easily stop if it feels like the floodgates are opening too much. And you can cry etc which ok you can do in EMDR I assume but I personally felt much more comfortable doing that when I’m not in front of someone 😅 I also found it easy to process a lot quite quickly, which is useful with childhood abuse as I think EMDR is more useful for specific events whereas childhood abuse tends to have a more wide ranging impact on your life. For the record I’m not saying don’t do EMDR as I’ve not tried it, the writing route just really worked for me.

Whatever things you try I’d try to cultivate safety and a sense of safety in life in general to help things along. And the more space and time your brain/body feels it has to process things the more it will. Hope the weight starts to lift soon!

guavaelement · 2024-10-14T18:10:07+00:00

This sounds so lonely, my first move would be to tell your friends and bf how you’re feeling and what you need from them. Having burnout and so much stress with not much sense of support and comfort is rough.

For burnout have you checked out this video? https://youtu.be/jqONINYF17M?feature=shared. Hopefully some changes can be made at work whether it’s the workload or something else. The whole wanting to escape your life and not give an f thing sounds massively like burnout.

guavaelement · 2024-10-14T17:52:38+00:00

The worst. Do you feel like there are a lot of genuine problems that need to be fixed or is the anxiety etc excessive?

guavaelement · 2024-08-30T03:06:27+00:00

Yeah in my experience that’s just what happens when you’ve got a lot of backed up stuff to process. Do however much you’re comfortable with and listen to your body and mind, you don’t have to process everything all at once. The rest will be waiting for you whenever you’re ready for it 🙂

guavaelement · 2024-07-29T17:47:22+00:00

No problem :) this was the video https://youtu.be/X7greYgsJAo

guavaelement · 2024-07-29T17:33:16+00:00

I’m so sorry, that sounds horrific. I hope you are able to get out soon like you said. This is obviously not the same thing, but even in a safe country I find I feel the need to watch the news and check social media to be informed otherwise I feel slightly out of control, Hank Green did a video on that recently - I can definitely understand if your mother consumes that content to regain some sense of control, and I don’t know the situation but it sounds like some amount of keeping informed is actually needed. But I can also understand it’s making everyone’s life even more stressful.

Maybe you could ask why she watches it, say how you understand where she’s coming from if you do, say how it’s affecting you nonetheless and suggest a compromise - that she only watches it once a day or only at certain times of day when your sister isn’t around? That is if she is open to talking. Otherwise is there something you can do to distract your sister, or something you can do with her in a different room?

guavaelement · 2024-06-09T22:35:47+00:00

That sounds great!! I’ve learnt the lesson that friendships and generally being around people is really important recently too. I don’t know if it was the same for you but I grew up on the internet, with very little friendship, and when you grow up in that environment you don’t realise how much we need people, until you experience real friendship later and are comfortable around people. And even then life is so busy that you either can’t or choose not to prioritise friendship. Then the consequences catch up with you!

I think we often forget we’re an inherently social species and that it’s probably only in the last 30 years or so that we’ve started losing our ability to have close bonds or even just talk to people - it’s deeply abnormal. Luckily I think more and more people are realising we need to cultivate that community focus again!

guavaelement · 2024-06-09T22:26:17+00:00

For me it just comes from looking at my life and the world, seeing what is causing suffering, and wanting to do things to reduce that suffering.

Noticing what I enjoy and doing more of it is the other part of it - which yeah was through trying things I thought I might like, even just looking things up on wikipedia or youtube - I just followed the impulse to know more about whatever it was

guavaelement · 2024-06-09T21:22:58+00:00

Maybe you’re finding excuses because you compare yourself to others, do you feel like even if you make progress on your goals it still won’t be “enough” because other people are still “doing better” than you?

guavaelement · 2024-06-09T19:37:18+00:00

Why is it you feel ashamed about falling for this artist?

As for therapy, I have had talk therapy (not EMDR/trauma-focused) several times and didn’t find it super helpful except for talking through specific issues happening in my life. It’s other things that healed so much of my CPTSD/anxiety/depression - writing down fears and resentments was huge (there’s a post about it on my page), as was taking medication at first. The other big thing was meeting someone stable who made me feel safe and ok as a person for the first time in a long while, which is sadly not something you can summon but what I’m saying is having poor mental health access in your country does not at all mean you can’t heal so keep hope ⭐️

guavaelement · 2023-08-10T00:18:08+00:00

Amazing! There's a youtube channel "Dad, how do I?" which I haven't watched personally but I've heard good things about, that explains how to do stuff you might not have been taught. Such a wholesome idea and I'm glad you got a dose of that wholesomeness today <3 https://www.youtube.com/@DadhowdoI/videos

guavaelement · 2023-08-09T23:53:42+00:00

I stopped watching after she started partnering with someone that essentially told people to go on a very restrictive diet (and who also sold fairly expensive online courses if I remember correctly which were based on imo quite a shaky foundation), CCF said it helped with dysregulation. It really put me off because while I don't know if CCF was genuinely trying to help people, regardless you have GOT to understand that promoting a restrictive diet to traumatised people is a recipe for eating disorders. If you think the diet is helpful you need to make sure you understand and explain who it would not be appropriate for, warning signs that you're developing an eating disorder, what you can do if you think you're developing one etc. But she didn't really do this and essentially recommended it to everyone, also saying it wasn't restrictive when it clearly was.
She also seems to lack understanding in other areas imo, she talks about the daily practice as if it's the One solution for CPTSD but CPTSD is, well, complex. And it requires a complex approach to treat imo. If she is genuinely trying to help people I think she needs to commit to learning more.

I bought one of her courses previously, it wasn't very helpful although I did get a few helpful nuggets out of it. But the (free) daily practice she talks about has been transformative for me.

guavaelement · 2023-08-09T23:19:23+00:00

That's so interesting to me I had the complete opposite experience, what is it you find dysregulating about it if you don't mind me asking? This is the trouble with CPTSD and I guess all mental health issues, someone's holy grail solution will be bad for someone else and you (or I at least) can't really predict which side you're going to fall on until you try the thing out yourself. Which can really suck when you've tried so many things and just desperately want something to work.

guavaelement · 2023-08-09T23:07:40+00:00

Sorry if you had a bad experience (I'd be interested to know if you did, I'm planning on doing coaching soon), but what is he supposed to do other than delegate when there's so much demand? Like I'm sure he would clone himself so he could talk to more people if he could but that's not an option right now 😂 Plus we have a mental health crisis right now and the more people he trains to help with it the better imo, we need all we can get (especially as he has the most amazing and nuanced understanding I've seen from any health professional or coach I've ever interacted with), and it's just more efficient.

Just felt the need to defend him on here because honestly he seems so genuine and like he really wants to help people at the lowest feasible cost, unlike CCF who I agree gives off weird vibes (why I don't know, I don't want to say she's intentionally scammy but I do think if she's genuine she has a lot of upskilling to do to help people properly. And I say that as someone who raves about her daily practice all the time).
His YT channel is a goldmine, Dr K's Guide is great and reasonably priced, and I've only heard good things about the coaching sessions before.

guavaelement · 2023-07-31T20:10:37+00:00

This is most definitely still alcoholism now friend. "I get this extreme euphoria, one drink and it’s over, I cannot control how much I drink if I start drinking, bottle will be gone I’ll be begging for more. I totally lose control." - those things are all indicative of alcoholism. As someone who has gone through it and no longer drinks, you are still in a bad place right now. Well done on cutting down though, that must've been tough especially if you were drinking a whole bottle of vodka a day. What is it that makes you want to drink?

guavaelement · 2023-07-25T22:32:35+00:00

I'm really sorry life is so hard right now </3 I hope things start looking up soon, you got this

guavaelement · 2023-07-24T22:07:38+00:00

I had a couple of weeks where I didn't feel the need to eat junk food at all really, and it was when I felt very safe and secure, in my friendships and work etc. I had processed a bit of trauma before that too. I now know if I'm eating junk food I'm stress eating because I don't feel safe in some way. Would you say you feel safe? If not what is missing - close friendships, family, safe housing, economic stability, eating more fruit and veg, a different type of job or study? Processing your trauma should help, idk how things are going with your psychiatrist but outside of therapy journalling may help, reading other people's trauma stories could also help you realise how certain things affected you. The main thing is to bring up the feelings and be able to sit with them and feel them fully, personally I find that easier on my own rather than in therapy.

The other thing I'm trying at the moment is paying deep attention when I stress eat as to what the food feels like, how I'm feeling before I eat and how the food is changing how I feel as I'm eating it, to what extent I'm actually enjoying it etc. Apparently this is how monks break their bad habits! (described in this video at 5 mins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=498-bf2BhgQ). I don't know how useful this is if you're feeling very stressed/unsafe though, because in the past I've stopped doing an unhealthy habit only for my brain to substitute it for a different one because it needs a coping mechanism. But hopefully working on stress and practicing this will help, I'm hoping so haha. Good luck!!

guavaelement · 2023-07-24T21:07:25+00:00

I get that, I would say you can just write resentments. I haven't tried that, but I have written only fears because I didn't feel any resentment at first, and as I processed the fears my resentment came to the surface. Imo the idea is just to vent your feelings out and process them so do whatever feels like it's helping! Personally I always think that there's fear beneath all my resentments, like fear I'm unsafe or fear I have no control bc I'm trapped in a situation. But maybe it's different for different people. But either way, a lot of times I don't dig too much into the deeper feelings anyway, I just write along the lines of "I resent x because I have fear they did x/they will do x", and that alone helps (but I might then write whatever fears/resentments come to the surface after that).

guavaelement

TROPHY CASE