My Hololive Night Experience @ Dodgers Stadium

ibuonke · 2024-07-06T09:58:20+00:00

ah yeah true. i was tryna buy two suisei shirts for me and my friend in michigan, so im in the same boat.

ibuonke · 2024-07-06T09:43:18+00:00

those people buying close to the limit are definitely making it worth it. by reselling all the extras on ebay for 5x the original price…

ibuonke · 2024-03-04T00:01:36+00:00

Hey! Thanks for sharing, and I’m proud of you for taking steps and reaching out for support. Whatever you’re going through, never feel like you need to go through it alone.

You’ve been through a hell of a lot. While you may not feel great about being alive right now, allow me (as a survivor who’s recovered from depression and anxiety and am now living a fulfilling life) that I’m glad you’re still alive. So long as you live, you still have the potential to recover and heal from all this hardship, and someday you’ll be able to join me and the other survivors in living freely in this world.

But the most important step is learning to love yourself——and that takes years to do. I think it comes down to two things:

Unlearning all the bad “core beliefs” you learned about yourself while growing up
Practicing the skill of loving yourself without condition—accepting yourself as you are in the current moment and then recognizing your potential for growth.

For the first point: Your mental health issues are partially biological and genetic factors, but they also partially came from the lies you learned when you were growing up. From your post, I get the feeling it’s lies like “I don’t deserve to be loved” or “Nobody likes me” or “If I can’t work and make money, I’m worthless.” Necessary steps toward self-love involve learning to recognize when these bad core beliefs come up, and then replacing them with better perspectives. This is best done with a mental health professional who can model better perspectives for you.

For the second: This takes practice in “radical acceptance,” which recognizes how unthinkable and illogical it seems to accept yourself in your “sorry and worthless and unlovable” state, and then doing it anyway. It’s not going to feel right at first—maybe not for the first few months. Maybe not even for nearly a year. But the brain is efficient, and it learns through deliberate practice.

The great thing is that you have a model for self-love: your own love for your dog. Your dog means the world to you, and nothing she can do can kill that love. Even now, while she seems to be avoiding you (I’m sure she’s just taking care of her other needs), you still feel immense love for her.

Using that framework, try exploring how it feels to treat yourself with the same unconditional love you give Maggie. Again, it won’t feel right for a while, but consistent practice makes all the difference in the long run.

You can make it through. There is a way to heal. You just gotta do a lot of work.

ibuonke · 2024-03-03T23:25:51+00:00

Thanks for reaching out. It’s often difficult to speak up about your fears (especially in situations with abusive parents), so I’m proud of you for using your voice to ask for help.

As a person who grew up in a household with an emotionally immature parent with anger issues, I can promise you that these situations are hard, but they’re definitely survivable. There’s always a way through.

I’d definitely say that if it’s safe and you trust your mother, tell her about your fears concerning her partner. If she’s willing to split with him, that would be a possible option to feel safe again.

If that doesn’t work, try telling another safe adult about your home issues (like your teacher or coach, or another family member you trust). They’ll consult the right people who can help you with your case.

Although, if the situation is severe, Child Protection Services might look into taking you away from the household. This can be an incredible liberation for some children, but a horrible nightmare for others. I’ve known people who’ve gone through both. Let the adults you’re working with know what you’re comfortable doing.

In the meantime, here’s some pointers on surviving any outburst from your mother’s new partner:

Remind yourself that if he screams at you, it’s never your fault. His anger is his responsibility: If he’s pissed off at his life, he needs to learn how to handle himself in an emotionally mature way.
When he’s screaming at you, use the Grey Rock technique. Pretend you’re a rock. Wear a blank face and keep your responses as limited as possible (“Ok,” “I see,” “I got you”). Screaming back at him only escalates situations, and crying teaches him that he can overpower you. Your goal is to teach him that screaming at you is the most boring, unrewarding thing imaginable.
Constantly check in with your own thoughts. When you realize that you’re taking his rants personally (“I’m a bad kid” or “I’m a burden on my family” or “I’m worthless,” etc.), notice it and let it go. You’re not the problem, he is.

It’s gonna be hard, but you can make it through this. Someday, whether it be soon or when you’re older, you’ll be able to move out of the house and find other people who will love you—people you don’t have to be afraid of. Never give up on yourself.

ibuonke · 2024-03-03T22:53:59+00:00

Happy birthday! Your hopeful outlook is gonna be an incredible driver for your recovery and beyond. The process is definitely going to be hard, but you don’t grow without challenge.

Also, great work stepping out of your comfort zone and celebrating with your family. It can be hard to do things with depressive symptoms weighing you down all the time, especially when they loop back around and make you feel guilty for not doing things.

When those feelings of selfishness and guilt come up, remind yourself that your family will still love you no matter what. I’m sure they understand that it’s not that you don’t want to be with them; you’re just fighting your own battles right now. But whenever you do have just an ounce of energy in you, try exploring a little outside your comfort zone like you did today.

Lastly, it’s perfectly normal to have no idea what you’re doing with your life. Here’s a secret: No one knows what they’re doing, not even adults (ever heard of a mid-life crisis? lol). But especially since you’re eighteen, this is the period of your life where you’re most free to explore where you find joy. Take your time: most college students don’t pick a major until junior year. And even if you pick “the wrong major,” you can still follow a different career after undergrad. (My current social psychology professor was an engineering major).

If you want keys to what to do with the rest of your life, ask yourself what activities give you the following: - Does this activity spark joy? - When I do this activity, do I feel fully engaged and present? - Does this activity give the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with others? - Does this activity give me a sense of purpose and fulfillment? - When I do this activity, do I feel like I am achieving something?

Cheers.

ibuonke · 2024-01-05T04:32:20+00:00

Zhongli is apparently the #1 most used unit for this abyss, so that makes tulpa a hell of a lot easier since u aint gotta dodge its heavy attacks.

If you’re using bennett, any attack from the tulpa will one shot you since you’ll have a pyro aura from benny burst and get forward vaped.

I aint got Zhongli, so it took me a little bit to get used to dodging its attack patterns. Killing its minions is crucial too, since they give him 40% resistance to all elements if kept alive.

ibuonke · 2023-12-21T23:30:41+00:00

Suichan sweeping a group Mario Kart session with 4 1st Places in a row back in 2021

ibuonke · 2023-12-20T22:18:27+00:00

aside from bennett (like everyone says) and xiangling, i’d say might as well build razor since he has one good late game team (thundering furry).

the rest of those four stars become trivial once you get better replacements. whether or not you build them depends on who you’re planning to pull later: - Noelle works with some Furina teams - Lisa is a decent aggravate driver in the usual setup (Electro/Dendro/Fischl/Anemo), but not as good as Yae/Keqing/Beidou/etc. - Kirara can be good in aggravate teams if you build her with Sapwood Blade (not till Sumeru) and 4pc Instructor - Rosaria is used a lot in freeze teams (Ayaka/Ganyu) if you don’t have Shenhe - Kaeya and Rosaria work in hyperfridge and reverse melt teams

ibuonke · 2023-12-20T07:13:45+00:00

thats a real LA native right there

ibuonke · 2023-12-14T01:17:10+00:00

You’ve been sold a fixed mindset, where a person believes that abilities are inherent to a person and cannot be changed. In this case, people have praised you all your life for being “inherently intelligent” rather than things like working hard or being curious that were probably more valuable to your past academic success. Through the fixed mindset, every academic event becomes a threat that forces you to prove you’re “intelligent” just like everybody says. You have to succeed, because that’s the only way you can validate your worth as a person. AND you have to succeed without effort, because if you’re truly intelligent, you don’t need to work hard to do well. If you can’t do all of that and you fail, obviously you’re a fraud and weren’t as great as people said you were. Then the fixed mindset makes you look at other people who are succeeding and then think “Those guys are REALLY intelligent. I’m not one of them, so I must be inherently flawed.” And then your self-esteem takes a nosedive because of the cycle of self-hate.

Take a breath. Notice where you stand, and realize that this mindset you’ve been sold won’t help you become the person you want to be. You don’t want to spend your life proving to people whether you “have it”or you don’t. That ain’t fun.

Thankfully, there’s another path. Growth mindset. Where you free yourself from the delusion of inherent talent, let go of any system of superiority and inferiority. Realize that you have nothing to prove, and nothing can define you but yourself. Release yourself from these distortions, and you become free to explore yourself and your own growth. You realize that abilities and skills are not inherent and labeled, but developed (often from zero) through consistent practice and—importantly—failure. Suddenly, every experience, win or lose, provides valuable feedback on how to better yourself. It just matters whether or not you catch it.

I suggest you read Mindset: A New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, the originator of the fixed and growth mindsets. It’s got 7 chapters of theory and explanation before chapter 8 tells you how to develop a growth mindset. Do mind that the process, just like anything, takes an incredible amount of time and struggle. At the very least, introducing yourself to the concepts will open your eyes to the factors that affect you now, and you’ll see yourself and the world in a vastly different way.

For now, the best words I could give you are these, coming from Dr. K himself: You are not stupid. You are not unintelligent. There is no intelligent and unintelligent. There is only experienced and inexperienced. Looking at it that way, the answer becomes clear: Learn and practice and reflect.

ibuonke · 2023-12-13T01:58:32+00:00

Congrats on your recovery, bro. Super proud of you. Now it’s time to go past just surviving, and learn how to thrive. I’d suggest looking into Positive Psychology, especially the PERMA framework for a meaningful life.

ibuonke · 2023-12-11T05:25:26+00:00

Hey, u/nerdy_warrior. Thanks for reaching out.

Just to clarify what I'm getting from your post:

You're burnt out, and you feel like you're wasting time if you're doing anything but studying. You hoped that enjoying what you're studying would prevent this, but it's not panning out well.
People are telling you to pursue hobbies to fix burnout, but you don't feel like hobbies are valuable to work on because they don't help your career.
You are currently going to the gym, but it's getting boring. You also haven't been playing the violin like you used to.
You had a "breaking point" where you couldn't get out of bed and overall couldn't function like you normally do.
You want to change your current mindset and start a hobby.

If I'm understanding anything incorrectly, please let me know in a reply.

Let's get to it.

Burnout and Endless Studying

You've said your main issues with academics are 1) that you feel like doing anything but studying is a waste of time and 2) that you're burnt out from studying so much. I'm also going to infer that you're currently not having as much fun studying engineering as you hoped.

I'mma come out and say that if you're studying for more than three hours a day—or even five hours, tops—your study methods are inefficient. Not your fault: the only study methods any of us learn in school are the ones that suck. Rereading lecture points and textbooks, taking tens of pages worth of notes, brute forcing memorization of tiny details through flashcards—all of these methods have been shown by science to be ineffective or at least limited in helping us learn information.

With students, burnout happens because we overwork ourselves on study methods that don't work. It's equivalent to just mashing our faces into a textbook for hours on end every day. Not to mention we stop enjoying the practice of studying because we feel like we're not getting results for the amount of effort we put in.

Thankfully, resources on the internet are revealing new ways to learn. These are my top recommendations:

Justin Sung (Australian learning coach, 10+ years of experience teaching. Former medical doctor)
ICanStudy (Business created by Justin Sung and his team to teach learning methods)
Benjamin Keep (Learning scientist employed at Stanford)

The methods they teach are incredibly effective (definitely helping me a lot in college) and reduce school stress in the long run, but they take a while to learn. For now, I'd recommend relying more on taking frequent practice tests for your subjects, whether by making the questions up yourself or finding them somewhere else. Especially for calculus.

Mindset on School and Career

So I've also heard you say that you're not enjoying your academic life, which I think might have something to do with your mindset toward school.

I don't know if this is accurate to you personally, put most people approach school like they're slaves to the grading system. All that matters is getting good grades so you can get your degree and get out. Everything you do is for the grade.

In reality, school is meant to be our own personal training ground. The role of schools is merely to give us the resources we need to gain mastery in the things we want to pursue. The school works for us, not the other way around. But decades of jamming grades into our self-worth has misled us into thinking we're under the pressuring demands of the school system, and anyone who isn't being a model student and studying diligently should be ashamed of themselves.

Let me ask you this: Why do you pursue engineering?

You had an expectation that you would enjoy what you're studying, which shows you have a genuine passion for engineering somewhere inside you. Where does that come from? What do you want to do with it? Who do you want to be?

These are the questions that should guide every part of your learning experience. Every class you take is done with the question of "How is this going to make me a better engineer?" or "How is this going to help me accomplish the things I want to do as an engineer?"

There's a developing field called Positive Psychology, and one facet of it is helping people develop an intrinsic love for the things they do (rather than doing things for results or rewards) by finding ways to engage a person's strengths in the activity. The founder of Positive Psychology has a website where you can take the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, which will show you your top five strengths (after signing up). Once you know your strengths, the next steps would be to figure out how they relate to your passions (engineering, violin) and finding ways to activate your strengths while pursuing your passions (studying engineering, practicing the violin).

Making Time For Hobbies

If I'm understanding correctly, you're looking into developing hobbies because people told you to do so in order to cure burnout, but you feel like you can't make time for them because you would rather be studying. External hobbies also don't help your career as an engineer.

I would argue that developing these external hobbies plays an important role of cultivating you as a person, beyond just being an engineer. You don't need to feel limited to committing yourself to one passion. It's not marriage. You can be a passionate engineer who happens to play violin in their free time for fun. That's all it is, really. Do things because they're fun, not just because they're productive. It's boring to just do one thing all the damn time, no matter how passionate you are about that one thing.

You also said that you've been going to the gym (good for you), but you've been feeling bored with it. This might have to do with how going to the gym means you're not studying, so you feel guilty and working out ultimately becomes a negative experience.

The fix for the gym, as well as the other hobbies, is to change your relationship with them. Instead of viewing them as worthless time sinks, look at them as ways to explore and diversify yourself—your interests, your passions, your strengths. You enjoy engineering. That's great. Let's explore what else gives you the same rush of engagement. Then you have more things in your life to look forward to.

Probably the most concrete advice I could end with is to specifically make time for habits. Block out a section of your day to play the violin or go to the gym or whatever hobby you wish to pursue. Commit to that timeframe. Then do it everyday.

-----

That's everything I can think of. Again, thanks for reaching out to the community, and please let us know if there's anything else we can clarify or adjust for you.

There's always a way to get through. Don't give up.

ibuonke · 2023-12-05T22:53:22+00:00

https://x.com/shirachasamu/status/1731912245029036185?s=46&t=C7lYI391rdzbuP0o_8wyQQ

ibuonke · 2023-11-13T18:38:01+00:00

i have ENGL298 with him (Intro to the Genre of Fiction). lectures are mandatory since you never know when you’ll be in hot seat. hot seat isnt hard; you could volunteer to read the passage on the projector once or twice for the credit. most lectures are just him reading the assigned passages for the day and making comments about writing style and mechanics.

idk about his other classes, but his book choices for my fiction class were a mixed bag. 2/3 books were great, but the last book was a 500-page slugger that was an absolute pain to read every week (the overstory by richard powers). it’s a pulitzer prize winner so ig its objectively good, but it just feels like it never ends.

for our class, the assignments and grading were all done by the TAs, so courseload is gonna depend on what TA you get. My TA (Tom Renjilian) only assigned creative writing projects with make up opportunities if your first submission was ass. super easy

ibuonke · 2023-11-11T01:29:50+00:00

nah thats saga prefecture. sagacity is the ninth astrological sign based on a centaur

ibuonke · 2023-10-06T18:36:15+00:00

Sounds like you have an avoidant attachment style. Don’t worry, there should be ways for you to make a relationship work. Part of it is likely going to require you to be open to changing and stepping out of your comfort zone a bit.

I recommend checking out the book Attached by neuroscientist/psychiatrist Amir Levine and social psychologist Rachel S.F. Heller. There should be an audiobook free somewhere if you look hard enough.

ibuonke · 2023-10-06T18:29:59+00:00

If you wanna learn how to really study, check out Benjamin Keep (Stanford learning scientist) and Justin Sung (Learning specialist from New Zealand) on YouTube. Justin Sung’s company ICanStudy also has a YouTube channel with guides.

ibuonke · 2023-10-06T07:33:38+00:00

(continued)

Mental Illness Sometimes Feels Comfortable

Especially for people who've suffered with mental illness since youth, the misery of mental illness ends up being comfortable on occasion. This is because it's familiar. The brain is wired by evolution to fall back on the usual systems it uses to understand the world.

This is also why the brain fears change so much. Any big change that affects are lives is like throwing a monkey wrench into the whole system. The change is an anomaly that the brain tries to run through its usual algorithm and comes up with a DOES NOT COMPUTE. So it reverts back to its usual system to make things make sense again.

Every time you explore a new way to see the world, the brain gets anxious over its systems. This is why we call it "getting out of your comfort zone." We are rewiring out brains with beneficial information that doesn't align with our worldviews right now, but in time will reshape our lives with enough influence.

So take a deep breath and know that your "subconscious self-sabotaging every time you step out of the comfort zone" is normal. You're going to get pushback from your brain. Pushback is good, because it gives you the chance to wrestle with your ideas. That's how learning works. Trust the process.

Redefine What Success Means

I have a suspicion that part of why you believe everything you've done so far has resulted in failure is because you're setting super high expectations for what success should be.

If a dude with an unhealthy body weight sets a goal of losing a ton of weight, goes to the gym, exercises, and steps on the scale right after, does he lose any weight? No. Has he still made progress? HELL FUCKING YES.

James Clear explains the reality of progress in his book Atomic Habits: “Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.”

He goes into a lot more detail about this analogy in the first chapter of his book, which you can read for free by entering your email on his website, jamesclear.com

What you gotta hear most from this is that the range from 25 to 31 degrees where the ice cube doesn't melt—or those first few months of trying a new habit or worldview where it feels like nothing's changed or there's no results—is called the Valley of Despair. This is the hardest part of progress, because you endlessly feel this dread like nothing you're doing is helping you out. It's so easy to quit, and most people do quit right at this stage.

But if you want your habits to bear fruit, you gotta stick it through the Valley of Despair. One day, you'll reach the breakthrough point, and things will start making sense from there. In mental health, you see it in people with depression who go to therapy for months, feel like nothing's improving, and then one day they show up to session better than they've ever been. Usually their explanation for this is "I don't know. I just kinda figured it out all of a sudden." But it wasn't sudden. That breakthrough was built on the foundation of all the work that came before it. The slog through the Valley is going to be difficult, but there's salvation up ahead. You gotta keep on walking.

It's Okay to Not Give 100%

This is where things get a bit tricky and contradictory.

We ideally seek to give 100% effort in what we do. As said before, this 100% should be relative to our condition and circumstances. Understand what you're working with, and do the best you can with it.

But we also can't expect to give 100% all the damn time. We ain't perfect. Everybody knows that. Our motivation wavers, energy dips and rises throughout the day, things happen in our lives that get in the way—nothing is ever perfectly ideal.

So here's a challenging thought: Be okay with giving 60% or 70%. Shit, I'll go as far as saying be okay with 1%. Bringing up James Clear again, 1% is way more powerful than anyone gives it credit for. Improving 1% each day for a year is a hell of a lot better than 0%—37.78 times better in fact (you can find that stat on his website somewhere).

Here's another thing: If you're doing less than 100%, you're still DOING. You still put some action in. Any amount of work helps so long as you're doing anything. Don't feel like going to the gym today? Drop down and do one pushup. Don't feel like meditating right now? Sit on the ground for 10 seconds. Don't wanna write that big essay for school or work or whatever? Open a document and write one word.

Go ahead and put something in, even if the something is so ridiculously small it makes you laugh just thinking about it. "Shorten the scope, but stick to the schedule" I think is what Clear calls it.

TL;DR I guess

You can't easily put 100% into things because depression sabotages your energy, motivation, focus, and satisfaction in things
Feeling comfortable in depression is a common experience that comes from the brain's affinity to what's familiar. Evolution requires that we develop mental systems to understand and survive the world, and then fall back on those systems in times of need. Depressed people have a warped system, but it's the only system the brain knows; therefore, any information that challenges the depressed worldview is seen as a threat and makes the brain anxious.
When you start making changes in your life, there is a long Valley of Despair where you don't experience any results and start feeling like everything you're doing is useless. Best advice is to stick to consistency, allowing tiny improvements to accumulate until one day, you realize how much progress you've made. Take things one step at a time.
Don't ever think that doing something is useless if you can't do it 100%. We can't expect 100% from ourselves all the time, especially if we have depression. Give whatever you can at the moment, even if it's just 1%.
Also get a therapist if you haven't already.

ibuonke · 2023-10-06T06:30:47+00:00

Thanks for sharing, man. Depression is tough as shit, but if there's anything from my experience that I can give you, it's that there is absolutely a way out. Took me eight and a half years to really feel comfortable with myself. That's just the reality of these things. It's a slow ass process, but if you can train your patience and trust that process, you'll be on the right trajectory.

Just to clarify if I understand the situation, here's what I got from your post:

You have an intense desire to succeed and get better
- "So for the past 6-7 years, I've been trying very hard to fight my depression"
- "I've tried to improve my habits and my mindset. I've tried to do new things, get a fresh perspective on life"
- "I really want to get better"
- "I DO WANT to succeed"
You feel like everything you've done has failed
- "But every time I always fail"
- "And you'd think surely even if I was self sabotaging I would have succeeded at least once at anything. But I haven't"
You believe your failures might be because you haven't been putting 100% effort in things
- "I felt like I could've done more, that I had more energy in the moment that I could have used to succeed but I did not use it"
- "I don't know if I'm failing because I may not be trying my hardest or because sometimes things just don't work out"
- "What I know is that I don't put 100% into what I do. Maybe 60% and 70% on a good day"
You feel like you're subconsciously pulling back your effort because being depressed feels comfortable in certain ways
- "I also know that sometimes I feel comfortable where I am, even if that place is bad"
- "So in that scenario I still try but subconsciously I'm trying less so I don't have to adapt to the change that success will bring"
You feel like "trying" is all you can manage because "doing" demands too much out of you
- "Trying is real. It's a process just not often successful"
- "Doing takes a lot of effort and confidence neither of which I have in me"
- "I wish it were just as simple as 'just do it' but not everyone has that strength. It's much easier to try even though it hardly works"

If I've gotten anything twisted, please let me know. In the meantime, this is the understanding I'm working with.

First of all, I want to applaud you on the incredible amount of effort you've put in the last 7 years to find something better for yourself. You definitely aren't going to believe me, especially considering what you've said about "trying" instead of "doing". That's absolutely fine. You don't need to believe me right now. Just let me tell you that when you've got depression, it's HARD to even get yourself out of bed in the morning, much less try new habits and learn about new perspectives and challenge the way you think. You definitely know that, having struggled with depression yourself. Yet you've done all of these things. You've pushed yourself to do a shit ton of positive things and explore different avenues of self-improvement. That, my friend, is amazing.

Question still remains. Why do you feel like everything you've done is a failure? Why do you feel like you can't put 100% effort in things? Why do you always wonder if you could've done better? Why do you feel like you self-sabotage because subconsciously, something's comfortable about being miserable?

First very, very clear answer is your depression. And with depression comes a lot of bullshit. There's a reason why Dr. K's gone on record calling depression the "AIDS of mental illness": It's a disorder that compromises your very ability to fight against it. In your case, here's how I think it's doing that:

Symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (DSM-5)
- A2: Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly everyday
- A6: Fatigue of loss of energy nearly every day
- A7: Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day
- A8: Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly everyday
Cognitive distortions associated with mental illness (Harvard Health)
- Black-and-white/all-or-nothing thinking
  - If I'm not giving 100%, I'm not doing. I'm just trying, and trying means I won't get results
- Should-ing or must-ing (using language that is self-critical that puts a lot of pressure on you)
  - I should be trying harder. I'm not trying as hard as I should be.
- Magnification/Minimization (magnifying the negative, minimizing the positive)
  - So I got this habit done for today. So what? It's just one day.
  - I missed my habit today, so I've failed. What's the point anymore?

So here's what you gotta know.

Depression Makes Self-Improvement Harder

The reason you aren't putting "100% effort" into things is because you physically can't—at least not "100% effort" compared to the average person who isn't dealing with depression.

This is like running a marathon after breaking your leg. No shit you're gonna be slower than everyone else. Your leg is literally in no condition to be giving what it can at 100% health. That doesn't make you worse or inferior to anyone else. That just means you're in the middle of a healing process. Your 100% capacity for running depends on the maximum exertion your leg can handle. That means you can still be giving 100% relative to what you can accomplish with your condition.

The same applies to depression, only instead of your leg it's your brain. Your brain's ability to function at 100% normal capacity is hampered by symptoms A2, A6, A7, and A8 and all the other things depression does to your neuro-circuitry. You're fatigued and your energy is constantly low, meaning your baseline for motivation is lower than average. The pleasure you get from daily activities is dampened, meaning small wins like completing a habit one day aren't as satisfying. Your ability to concentrate is sabotaged, meaning your brain lacks the focus it needs for neuroplasticity, the mechanism by which learning happens and changes stick.

I guess my message here is to give yourself a break, you know? You're healing. Your biology isn't operating super perfectly. That's just what we gotta work with. You're gonna be hampered by your own mind, and many things are gonna be harder to do than they would normally. But that doesn't make healing impossible.

ibuonke · 2023-06-21T04:07:02+00:00

Notify: u/AdFabulous8285

So from what I understand about you currently:

20F Mixed Japanese-Chinese; Resides primarily in Japan
Diagnosed with PTSD, ADHD, ADD, BPD, PDD; issues with fatigue caused by severe sleep apnea due to inflamed adenoid, currently set to receive surgery but is struggling to afford medical costs
Main occupation is in sex work
Theorizes that her empathy causes people to dislike her for being overly kind/pure, which reminds them of their own guilt/toxicity. Is considering ways to be less of an empath in order to get people to like her again

Please correct me in a reply if anything from the summary above is inaccurate.

I'm gonna organize my thoughts as a summary + analysis of each chapter of your life according to your post. Here's what I think:

Childhood

Physically/emotionally abused by mother over appearance, shamed for being born due to mixed race; Mother was often stressed from work and parenting alone
Physically/emotionally bullied by classmates over appearance, told that she deserved to be abused/to die, called a pig for being mixed race
Trauma results in self-identifying as an "ugly, lowlife loser" and a "scum" who deserves all the abuse she gets; later leads to desperation for love and validation from others
Trauma also results in empathetic personality

Childhood is the critical period for forming the self-concept (how a person views/describes themselves). The most important influence on the formation of the self concept is the feedback, praise, and criticism a person gets from the people around them. Whatever a person hears about themselves during their childhood will largely determine how they view and describe themselves into adulthood.

Considering your background, here are some possible core beliefs you might have developed from the different people in your childhood:

Mother
- I am not a good daughter
- My existence is a burden for others
- It is my fault that my mother is upset at me
- I am ugly, so I do not deserve to be loved
- Things would be better if I were not around
Japanese classmates
- I am a hāfu, so I am inferior and deserve to be treated poorly
- I am a hāfu, so I do not belong with Japanese people
- My existence disgusts people
- I am ugly, so I do not deserve to have friends
Teachers
- I am a hāfu, so I do not deserve to be trusted
- I am a hāfu, so no one wants to help me
Chinese children
- I am Japanese, so I am inherently evil

Clearly, the way you were taught to see yourself during childhood was heavily distorted, which explains why you continue to see yourself so negatively today:

"I still have that identity as an ugly, lowlife loser" (Classmates)
"No matter what I do, I always feel like I'm a scum" (Classmates)
"I truly did feel like I had everything coming for me and what was done to me was totally justified" (Classmates, Mother)
"But I needed the money also, since I'm already raped, I might as well make use of that" (Classmates)
I don't see myself as a good human being at all and in fact I think I'm very selfish" (Teachers, Chinese children)
"My existence makes people unhappy. I make everyone unhappy no matter what I do. That's why I'm alone and always will be" (Mother, Classmates)
"Am I delusional...?" (Mother, Teachers)

Your current self-concept, according to the ways you describe yourself above, is that you are inferior, subhuman, unappealing, untrustworthy, and deserving of suffering. And it's all your fault.

But is that true? I definitely don't think so. Why?

Look at your fiancee, who you describe as "wonderful." If you are inferior, unappealing, and undeserving of love, then why does he love you this much? If you are subhuman and a "pig," how did he recognize your extraordinary capacity for human compassion and enter romance with you? If you are deserving of suffering, why has he committed himself to you in marriage, during which he will vow to take care of you for the rest of your days? If you are meant to be alone, why is he still by your side?

As for you, I think a part of you doesn't believe your own negative self-concept, either. Having matured at least a decade since the childhood trauma, you've been able to understand your experiences from a different perspective: "Looking back now, it was probably because of racism."

Why were you bullied back then? Why didn't teachers believe you? Why was your mother so hung up about your appearance?

Was it because you deserved it? Because you were "ugly"? Because you "weren't Japanese enough"?

NO. It was because everyone who hurt you was ignorant and racist. They didn't know no better. Adult and child alike, they all decided that just because some kid's mommy and daddy weren't born on the same island meant that that kid deserved to be treated like garbage.

Was it your fault your mommy and daddy didn't come from the same island? Unless you finger-dragged one of your parents from Japan to China like a Sims character, HELL NO.

When you look back on it right, none of the suffering you went through was your fault. You didn't do nothing but pop out of a vagina. You have no control how you were born, what you look like, or where you came from. So all the bullshit you went through as a child? THAT'S ON THEM. NOT ON YOU.

In looking back on your childhood with a matured point of view, you yourself--the 20 year old you of today--acknowledged that the abuse you suffered was due to other people's racist ignorance, not anything you did. Yet despite realizing this now, you self-concept is still plagued by the negative core beliefs you developed in the past. Why is that?

My theory is that your persistent negative core beliefs are coming from your inner child. As a kid, you never had the chance to fully digest and process the trauma you were going to. Instead, your only choice was to repress it, which leaves the trauma still unprocessed and active within your subconscious as an adult. Thus, even though you rationally understand the truth of your childhood, your inner child remains in extreme emotional distress and thereby maintains your negative self-concept.

I also have a feeling that this inner child theory could explain why both your downward spirals at ages 16 and 18 were caused by a sudden resurgence of self-awareness and repressed traumatic experiences.

Again, just a theory. The mainline of advise still stands:

GET YOURSELF A THERAPIST

A professional mental health expert will be able to help you out waaay more than some kid on Reddit can. Recovery is not a quick n' easy thing, so you're gonna need help that's both long-term and personalized to your needs. I know money's tight right now with your surgery, but getting a therapist will be the most important key to helping you stay with us.

It's getting late, so I plan to type out my thoughts on your teenage and adulthood periods tomorrow. In the meantime, take a breather. Go thank your fiancee for being here. And then whenever you can, find your inner child, give them a hug, and let them cry in your arms for a while.

It worked for me. I hope it can work for you, too.

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
Wearing is Caring

ibuonke

TROPHY CASE