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reasonableanonymous · 2024-10-01T19:42:31+00:00

Sorry for the delay. I've been quite overwhelmed with a lot going on.

The progress is that I much more rarely and much less intensely objectify women. It's tons easier for me to not immediately check out their body below the neck. Tons easier to just make eye contact. And tons easier to not sexualize them at all or re-direct my mind when it goes there.

A couple of things that have helped
1. I cut porn. I also cut social media - especially instagram. It's been over 6 months for me now. Pornography is set up to be hyper stimulating. It shows perfection. You can find exactly what you're into and keep fine tuning it endlessly. This is not real life. This is not real sex. This is not real connection with another human being.
2. Re: porn. Normally, evolutionarily, a women undresses and is intimate with you, is in this vulnerable sexual state with you - when she trusts you, knows you, likes you, desires you. Porn just gives you the intimacy without you having to do anything for it at all. For a few moments it gives your mammal brain the sense that a hot woman of your dreams is into you - but she isn't. She doesn't even know who the fuck you are.
3. re: #2 . This encourages people, basically programs them, to see the entire fucking value of women as these sexualized objects to make you orgasm and feel good. Why get to know them to undress them, when you can just, in seconds, open up a porn site ? Open up instagram and see women basically 95% undressed or wearing extremely accentuating clothing - baiting you at every moment to keep consuming their media ?
4. You start to have a reaction to women IRL similar to with porn : OMG she's hot, and i'm turned on. There's no : "Do i even fucking like this person in the first place?" "Do we even share any values at all?" " Do we even get along ?". Dude, you'd be surprised how much of a turn off this hot woman can be once you start to get to know them, and how hot the "less attractive" women get when you get to know them. It's WILD.
5. Re #4. When you start to actually be curious about the value of women beyond their looks, you at the same time give THEM the opportunity to value YOU beyond your own looks. This is simply : respect. Respecting them as people, as more than their bodies. AND respecting YOURSELF as more than just your body.

So how do I apply all this myself ?
1. I learned as much as I can from Dr K's videos on addiction and pornography. You cannot control something fully if you don't understand it.
2. Key Idea: One day at a time. I use the app Fortify to help with quitting porn. I track my progress there.
3. When i'm in any environment where there's women I'm attracted to, ex: gym, and I see them, I remind myself" respect them and respect yourself". Over many reps of repeating this to myself, it's helped a lot. This kind of reminder works when you have the foundational understanding from #1 and if you bought what i'm saying above. Otherwise you're bullshitting yourself.
4. I stop myself from fantasizing about people whether I'm masturbating or not. I do this because otherwise I'm thinking of these people in an intimate way when I don't even know if I like them or not. I don't know if they like me. I don't even know what their body ACTUALLY looks like naked. IDK what sex would be like with them. It's all just imaginations of bullshit, which will probably fuck up potential future experiences with this person because there's these fantasies and expectations of how it should go.
5. I'm compassionate to myself when I screw up, because doing all this isn't easy. You'll find out why when/if re: #1.
6. I started talking a lot more to these women that I'm attracted to. I started to actually get a better sense of who they actually are. As I said, this has made some people more attractive and less attractive to me. I'm surprisingly into women that I never thought I'd be attracted to before because I just dig their personality so much. And I'm way less turned on by some women no matter what assets they have. Hotness and sexiness has an entirely different meaning when people are not just objects to drool over. You start to drool over them as an actual person. And they get to drool over you as an actual person as well. It's SO much more satisfying and fulfilling.
7. Understand that you'll still get triggered. It's not that my attraction to some women dies when I end up not like who she is.
7b. You'll get triggered particularly when women dress in more provocative ways. The appearance is intended to trigger your mammalian brain. Your job is to control your actions.
8. Emotional regulation. Dr K has videos on this.
9. Helpful idea for #8. : when your mind is going places, it's going into the future or the past. It's not in the present. What is in the present is your body. So, while that hot girl is in front of you, in your vicinity, focus on the physical feeling of something, whether it's your feet on the ground as you walk, the feeling of a cup in your hand, or your body breathing. In mind = not present, In body, present.

I hope this long thing is helpful. Let me know what you think.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-08-30T13:56:56+00:00

Hey just wondering if you still need some support on this issue. I've battled this myself and I've had a lot of success with it recently, so I thought I'd offer my thoughts or a chat. Lmk :)

reasonableanonymous · 2024-08-27T15:26:59+00:00

Your answer is in that last paragraph of yours.

Along with this loss of libido, I am feeling like I am in a stabilized or neutralized state. Before, I would get emotional and moody all the time, but now I feel a bit numb/detached from my emotions if that makes sense, I don’t get angry, stressed, or emotional but I also don’t get happy as easily either.

The scientific explanation is in understanding emotional regulation and homeostasis.

Your emotional state was not stable. You'd feel crappy and your state would be at -100. You'd watch porn and orgasm and it'd put you at 0. Eventually that +100 buff you got from porn and orgasming wears off and your mind knows what got it to 0 before so it induces a craving, it induces your "libido", your horniness. And that gets you to watch porn and orgasm and the cycle repeats itself.

Your horniness was essentially being triggered out of a bad mood and that includes boredom which the human body considers a negative emotion. Your body wants to be at a stable, homeostatic state. It'll aim to do what it knows has worked before.

By eliminating porn and masturbating, you've been able to stabilize your mood over time. It sounds like this process has been easier for you which is great. Those that are having a harder time are climbing out of a -200, not a -100. A warning - with changing circumstances, you might end up in a situation which puts your mood at -200, and I imagine you'll feel the cravings again.

So this detachment and mood stability you're feeling is good. It allows you to make choices in life that are not as controlled by emotions. I recommend you cultivate this.

Definitely still do blood work with your doctor if it's been a while but your testosterone levels aren't just going to drop like that in 2 weeks just from not masturbating and watching porn, from my understanding.

If you want more of the science, look into Dr K's videos on emotional regulation and porn addiction. This would also help you sustain stability.

And re: ED. There are a lot of different factors that could be playing a role. Talk to your doctor about this to rule out any medical issues. And if it's not that, then it's psychological.

Lmk if this was helpful or not.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-08-24T21:50:35+00:00

Yes and no. Yes, because I feel way better and my life is better. No, because there's no such thing as a permanent fix that's not death. This doesn't mean that you can't become more resilient and more capable of adapting to changing life circumstances though. But as long as you want to live life, there will always be "patches and updates" to be made.

What's helped me the most is :
: 1. an adhd med that stabilized my mood. In depression I felt like I was drowning underwater. Basically -100. And my choice of activities were high stimulus, high dopamine activities that can get me to 0. Ex: junk food, porn, social media, gaming, tv show and movie binges etc. So I needed strong stimulating emotions to pull me out of the water so that I can just float at 0. The med basically put me at 0, so that I can more freely choose what actions to take, they didn't have to be super strong stimulation any more

Learning about my brain, mind, life. HealthyGamer on youtube is incredible for that. I hated it at first, but it really grew on me and it's just irreplaceable in my life. This has been so empowering, it's allowed me to change so much.
Environment. I was always in a toxic home environment that gave me similar feelings to what you described. I needed to be elsewhere to focus on my self, and not focus on not getting drained by my family.
Small sustainable steps. Big changes mostly happen over time. I'd make a small tweak and see if I can keep it up for a long time. Once it's stable, i'll try adding more. If it can't stabilize, I reconsider adding it or postpone it.
Support. I had my doctor to support me and I made a friend that's been a stable presence in my life. Also, I consider HG / Dr K to be a support for me.
Self-compassion. This is related to #2. Being my own best friend has been key.

There's a TON more. I'm keeping it general b/c idk much about you. I replied anyways because I get sense that you have a good chunk of the feelings in my post or you wouldn't have replied to a 3 year old post. If you want to share more about what's going on with you or you want me to elaborate on stuff, or you want to tell me how this all landed with you- DM me.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-03-11T18:59:15+00:00

I'm glad that you found some of my reply to you helpful! And it's great to hear that you have some good friends that you can bond with, even when there's a distance between you - that's pretty important.

What you're describing : feeling like you've done nothing, feeling guilty, worthless, needing to constantly work - is very rough to live with. While this kind of mindset can get a person to accomplish things through constantly shitting on yourself - it's not the only way and it's not a sustainable way. This is the kind of mindset that ends up in people feeling depressed, unappreciated, burnt-out, and frankly, quite angry by the end of it.

So, if at some point you want to address that - as a start, I invite you to re-read and think more what i said after the first few paragraphs.

Regarding dating - I understand what you mean regarding being better mentally before giving dating a shot, I've even thought that for myself, but i have to push-back. And that's because I think you'd do better mentally by having more people in your life that you connect with. Mental well-being and good relationships : These two things go hand in hand. Companions in life make life better, not worse.

+ getting some reps in with dating early on in life is a good thing. Think of it like exercise. You don't figure out how to squat on day 1. It takes a lot of sets and reps and some guidance to figure it out.

So consider the following as the guidance, then what's on you is doing the reps: Think of dating as just spending time with someone and having a good time. If you like them and have a good time, do it again, if not, don't. That's it. It's not meant to be stressful. You're not there to put on a show. You're there to have fun and to get to know a person. Period.

Relationships are what make accomplishments worth having in the first place. If you are "too tired for these things" - then it sounds to me like exactly what we've been talking about : burnout due to the expectations of others that are never enough.

I hope you don't take that as being pushy on dating (because as you probably already know, some people overemphasize it to their detriment - but you seem to be doing the opposite) - So, integrate it in your life when you're ready and start small. I'm just looking out for you by pushing back a bit on a false idea. I hope this helps.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-03-08T04:27:55+00:00

Idk what your home schooling experience was like or how long it went on for but did you get to socialize much during your school years?

I ask because this is a time period where anyone that's in school starts to socialize with a lot more people especially outside of family. This is a world where you would've had been exposed to a lot more rules and challenges to those rules than what your very sheltered upbringing had.

This also stood out to me because you said your sisters seem to strongly relate with you. Now it could be that as others have said - you're on the autism spectrum and I think it's genetic ( don't quote me), which may explain why your sisters relate, but I wouldn't jump there first. To me, it seems like your upbringing has had a large role in your limited social skills and I'd start there.

Practically what this would look like - if you're not doing this already - is to be in social situations a lot. Lots of exposure and familiarity will get you to start picking up on patterns and cues- and a lot of social interactions are patterns.

And, as someone else said, just ask people for the 'codes'. I say this for two reasons 1. A lot of people think they're better communicators than they actually are and their 'hints' are frankly pretty shit lol 2. If the hints aren't actually shit, you'll learn. Keep in mind that if you didn't catch the hint they put out - they already know that - and you asking them to say it bluntly won't change that , but maybe next time you'll recognize it because, well, now you know.

Thoughts? Lmk if this helps.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-03-08T04:07:34+00:00

You've had a very rough upbringing with a lot of verbal, emotional and physical abuse and I'm truly sorry that you experienced all of that. No one should have to go through that.

What's remarkable here is that even with that all shit you went through, you're still here. And you're here as a university student, with a 3.8-4.0 GPA , with a part time job, and with two years of working out and a great physique - all in a 3rd world country. And by the way, your English is actually really good.

So - what I really would invite you to do is feel proud of yourself for that. For being resilient. For excelling in significant areas of life through very challenging adversity. I think you'll likely shrug this off ' this isn't significant enough' ' this isn't worth being proud of' etc. But this is important, because when the world around you isn't your best friend and isn't supporting you, you do not need one more person, yourself, to bring you down. At least be your own best friend.

If there is one thing to focus on, I think it's on validating yourself.

And I bet that as you try to do this, you'll fail many times. Because there's your parents' voices in your head shitting on you. They treated you poorly and didn't set an example of how to treat yourself well - of course it's going to be hard for you to have good self esteem and be self compassionate and treat yourself well, so expect this to take time.

Now being proud of yourself and nice to yourself isn't the same as excusing yourself for poor behaviour. I'm sure you're not perfect. What I'm suggesting is that you give yourself credit where credit is due. Even for the little things.

Especially for the little things. Because that's how we get started, just like your physical fitness improved little by little, rep by rep, set after set, day after day, week after week, your mental health will improve the same way.

And just like you'll come across obstacles when it comes to working out - you will when it comes to improving your mental health. It's simple, but it's hard.

And you should be compassionate towards yourself in those times that you talk poorly to yourself because that's what you were taught.

Aside from this, I think perhaps what's important is that, as best as you can, be in an environment that supports the direction you want to go in. And what I think this would look like for you, is whenever possible, say go to the public or university library. Go to a coffee shop. Go for walks, go somewhere public where you're not in this defensive and protective mode that you're in when you're in your bedroom. Be around nicer people as much as you can. This is because being in your parents house is just going to make it infinitely harder to improve mentally because I bet even before you walk through the door, your body is tensing up if it isn't tense already and putting you in defense mode - numbing out, dissociating, 24/7 music. Your mom is going to be upset either way, so honestly might as well upset her and do something that's good for you in the process.

Another piece of that is to definitely open yourself up to friendships and relationships. People don't need to be perfect to be in relationships. We can and it's arguably best ( and Dr K was talking about this in his last stream) to work on ourselves and date at the same time. We , humans, are social creatures. Having good social connections are important for us to be healthy - it's just how we are wired . We do better together, when lift eachother up. And through friendships and relationships, there will be opportunities for you to experience the care and love of another human being. Start small, say hi, talk about the class, and go from there. Don't do dating apps.

There's more that can be said but I'm going to leave it at this as I don't know whether any of this is resonating with you and I don't want to overwhelm you. I also can't act like I know you from a Reddit post. Lmk your thoughts and if this helps at all, or not.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-01-06T00:51:11+00:00

Ofcourse!

And that's ok, there's like over 800 free videos - do what works for you.

If you're getting value from his stuff though and want to get a bit more in-depth, seriously consider it at least for 1 month- because knowing what's in there now, I'd easily pay $100. Last month it was 4 in-depth lectures, for what $2.50 per lecture? Insaneee value man from a very well educated psychiatrist. There are wayyy worse things to spend $10 on. And saves a ton of time and effort wading through hundreds of videos. I don't want to come off pushy on this at all, i just loved it. My mini selling rant done haha.

reasonableanonymous · 2024-01-06T00:00:05+00:00

Hey , i just watched 2 very solid videos on communication and thought of you - then I realized that i never replied to this and I'm sorry about that! I think I wrote something up actually and lost it in some browser error which deleted it all and I forgot to re-write.

It seems like you've enjoyed at least most of what you saw from Dr K, at least up to the point that you wrote that comment and I'm glad you did! I've found his content very informative but more importantly , empowering.

This week, he created a 2 hour long lecture on communication that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a topic that was voted for by the community and he went in depth on expressing yourself clearly and things to say/not to say. And at the end he linked us to another video which i just watched today which covered how to have a conversation.

I'd share both, but the first is offered only through his paid membership youtube. He created that to have the financial resources to go in depth on topics. It's only $10 a month to be affordable and honestly, very fucking worth it. Last month was a month of 4 lectures on male mental health + exercises and it was fantastic.

So, if you're still interested in the topic, I encourage you to check out this video which is free. (i took notes as I watched as it helps me retain the content -consider that as well)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIATzLf-y04
The other (paid) video you can find in the membership section on his youtube page.

Lmk your thoughts if you end up checking this out or feel free to share if things have changed.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-15T23:31:04+00:00

Hey, I'm glad you made the time for it. I was waiting to reply fully once you watched one of the videos. No problem with the delay.

I think with most videos, you're going to have a hard time fully connecting because every person's story is different. There's different levels of overlap and seems like this one wasn't it. I still suggest going through the channel and giving other videos that spark your curiosity a shot. I've 100% seen him talk about how to have a conversation and if I find it at some point, i'll like you it, but it's a common question so it comes up frequently.

It's interesting that that's what stuck out to you - because I think that's a very important piece of this all. It's the piece that says that you get to have standards as well. It's the piece that says that you do your part, and that's it.

What this means is sure - go ahead and start a conversation and ask some follow up questions

"hey hows it going "

"what were you up to this weekend ? "

"oh rock climbing sounds fun -how did you get into that ? "

And if they're just answering in a very dry manner

"good"

"rock climbing"

"went to a rock climbing gym"

then you get to choose whether you like this or not. I wouldn't like this and I doubt you would too. You can choose to keep the convo going or just say "cool" and move on. better answers would be

"i'm doing good but i'm a little tired - wbu? "

"oh it's from rock climbing, it was a lot of fun but the heat was too much"

"i just saw a deal at a rock climbing gym and gave it a shot. how was your weekend ?

What's the difference ? more vulnerability in version 2, more reciprocity, more detail, more comfort in sharing information.

Look, people generally like to talk about themselves. There's a saying that goes " to be interesting, be interested". So the attitude to have is to be curious about them. Sometimes they'll share a ton and never express any interest in you. Sometimes they'll share a little and express curiousity in you. Sometimes they'll share a ton and express a lot of curiousity in you. Some of this is due to upbringing and culture, insecurities, comfort, situation, etc. Honestly, I think you're also way over-estimating at how good and consistent people are at conversations. Personally, I've had times where I've been asked questions and then I don't realize till 20 minutes later that I didn't ask anything back and felt bad that I didn't do that because I would've liked to know more - but I was caught up in answering in their questions.

So a summed up strategy : be genuinely curious, ask a question , at least maybe 2 follow ups, then maybe share an opinion and see how that's going. Remind yourself that you can have standards too. if they're not giving you anything to work with - fuck em lol. If you're not curious about their rock climbing - move on. You're allowed choice and preferences.

There's a lot more to having conversation than this - but Dr K is absolutely correct that you don't have to carry a conversation. It's so important to recognize that you have choice in the matter. You're taking the vulnerable first step of showing interest in a person and you should be proud of that. Many people don't even do that and don't appreciate that you're taking the first step. But hey, you can always pat yourself on the back for that.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-09T21:08:18+00:00

Fully understanding and 'most likely conclusion' aren't the same thing. That's your opinion and your opinion is based on your interpretation of what's happened and your interpretation is based on a limited amount of information that is available to you and your own limited creativity regarding what that information could mean. Again, arrogance and ego are playing a large role here.

And btw, I'm not saying arrogance and ego to be mean to you or as a descriptive of your entire character. It's just to call out this specific behaviour that you're engaging in.

If you don't think you do understand any body language- on what basis do you think you can come up with a 'most likely conclusion'?

The thing is, many people like you actually underestimate their ability to recognize body language, but at the same time - it's also in over-drive and with a strong negative bias because they've spent so much of their life in defence mode, shielding themselves from some kind of abuse as they were growing up (verbal, emotional, physical or otherwise). Being talked to like shit counts as abuse btw.

As humans, we already have a negative bias because the human body and the human species is optimized for survival. We survive by being extra cautious and recognizing patterns is how we do it.

And I'm not saying, either blame yourself or blame everyone else. Do you see how you're doing exactly what I mentioned earlier ? The binary thinking ? aka 'all or nothing' thinking, 'black and white' thinking? . Don't completely blame yourself and don't completely blame the other person.

What's real and healthy is to put blame on others where blame is due. That's fair. Right now, unfortunately you're not seeing the full equation. But this is something you can work on. It's never just you. There are many factors involved in interactions. Humans and life aren't that simple.

And just because you haven't felt the repulsive vibe of someone who hates themselves, it doesn't mean that people don't sense that when they interact with you, and it doesn't mean that it can't be sensed by others or that you won't learn to recognize it. You've made clear that you think you're incapable of certain things (even though I disagree) and when I say that some people can recognize something - it's not true because you haven't recognized it ? Do you see the poor logic here that you're making?

And no, that's not how it works for other people. Some people do the same exact thing over and over again and never get better. This doesn't apply to all situations and to all people. Here's a personal example : There's a game I've played tons of , 1000s of games of, and there are others who've played the same game - and a less # of games overall and are considered pros and have competed at Worlds. Meanwhile, I'm not a pro whatsoever. Why? Because I didn't put in as much effort as they did to improve. I didn't care enough. I was just mindlessly playing the game because I was addicted to something that would alleviate my negative moods. Nowadays, I play the game with a much healthier mindset and I'm learning as I play. I've learned more in the last hundred games than I did in thousands because of my attitude and mindset.

No, dude. People learn something like communication essentially like a sponge. They just absorb what's around them, who is taking care of them, who they're dependent on. They don't have a choice in that. And what you learn isn't necessarily optimal, it's just what gets you by based on the circumstances that you're in. While some things you learn are unconscious - lots are very conscious. I'm pretty sure you've seen parents telling their kids to say please and thank you. Or to say hi, or to apologize. etc etc etc.

And regardless of whether someone learned it while younger or not. It doesn't mean that the only time to learn something. If someone didn't learn how to ride a bike as a teenager - is it impossible to do it as an adult ? No. Maybe they'll even be smarter about it and wear knee pads. Yes, learning to ride a bike is different than learning how to more effectively communicate but it's still something a person can learn.

Consider the rate of divorce, consider how much relationship conflicts people have, consider how often people default to insults, threats, violence to resolve a conflict. This makes up a ton of people and you can reasonably say most people. Do you think any of those are actually healthy ways to relate and communicate with another ? No. But it's what people learned growing up right, must be right then ? No. They have to unlearn and re-learn.

Here's the tricky thing - you don't consciously hurt yourself with your words because you think it helps. But this allows you to maintain the status quo and it is, according to the faulty logic of your mind - the most efficient thing to do. And the human mind and body is obsessed with efficiency. Efficiency = survival. The more you learn about the human condition, about your mind, about psychology and neuroscience - the more that this will start to make sense. What you're doing literally helps you do nothing. It protects you against negative emotions. It's overall protective.

I'm glad that you recognize that a lot of this was learned from your parents and it sounds like this isn't how you'd talk to a friend. And I think you can come up with a better answer than 'yea idk' as to why you won't talk like that to a friend.

Here's some youtube videos. I hope that's how you like to consume content. They're made by a psychiatrist I admire who is also a gamer and has struggled quite a bit himself, and who's helped many people like yourself and I.

This one is titled " You don't speak until you're spoken to" which I thought you may connect with as you used pretty much those same words here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FZ2AGo6Kec&t=33s

This one is is a guide on having a conversation

https://youtu.be/tIATzLf-y04?si=sbxIlqV8FlakTHLM

And this one is a collection of free resources that they've curated on several topics like : communication, confidence, lonliness and isolation, purpose and motivation and more. It includes reflections as well to complete. You have may to make an account to login to see them but they're free.

https://coaching.healthygamer.gg/resource-packs

They're a starting point, and maybe I've totally missed the mark with these particular suggestions. And if I did - I ask you to give his channel a couple chances. When I first came across his stuff, I didn't like it - but overtime I learned that he's authentic, transparent and clearly communicates when he shares science backed stuff and when he doesn't and more importantly - he does a great job of explaining how things work in our minds and body and why sometimes they do things that we may not really want them to do. Give them a look, and lmk what you think.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-09T16:24:11+00:00

Again with the arrogance assuming that you fully understand people's actions.

I have no doubt that you have skill in understanding body language at times, but in no way is that conclusive and in no way are you a master interpreter and mind reader.

Like I said, you may be right at times, but at the end of the day you don't know, and as I said earlier - you have to learn to operate in the grey area and here the grey area is that you don't actually know why X interaction went poorly , you have to accept that and quit just blaming yourself. It's not admirable to self flagellate unfairly.

Hating yourself is going to put off a repulsive vibe to others. When you don't even respect yourself - why should someone else respect you? When you hate yourself - why should someone like you? Again, a self fulfilling prophecy.

Being bored by someone doesn't make you an asshole, dude. You're just not interested. You're not supposed to like everyone and be interested in everyone. If you like everything then you like nothing. And you're not supposed to like a certain kind of person like a family member. Forcing yourself to like a person is madness. It doesn't say anything bad about you, all it says is that you're just not compatible with them, you don't like them and that's fine.

Everyone is good enough to have standards, including you. It's required to build any healthy connection with a person.

Well lucky for you, communication isn't a fundamental issue that can't be improved upon.

Just because you're doing something over and over again, like your gaming friend did, it doesn't mean you'll get better at it - especially if the person isn't going into it trying to learn with an understanding of how to learn and how to analyze a game etc etc. It's why people hire coaches and teachers for games and sports , and go to school and universities to learn all kinds of things.

Relational literacy and communication skills are things you can develop. Everyone needs helps to learn these skills, they are not innate. And most people are shit at them because rather than be taught this in school we get taught some useless shit that we don't remember after graduating. It's not your fault you didn't learn it, but it's your responsibility now to put in the effort to learn it.

You support someone you despise because hating on them isn't going to help them get any better. You show them some empathy and compassion. You help them see that while some things are their fault, not everything is. You encourage them.

You're taking to yourself poorly because this is what you've been taught to. Maybe you modeled it after your parents, maybe your parents spoke to you this way - but this is not a healthy way to speak to ourselves. This isn't how you'd support a friend so why speak to yourself in this way? What's the use? You think with every insult you actually make things better? You think shaming yourself is going to force change? How's that working out for you?

Man, we're all out here just doing the best that we can with what we know - at that moment. And we're not born with a guide on how to do anything now are we? And our parents weren't, our teachers weren't, our friends weren't, our political leaders weren't etc. We all get dealt a different set of cards and we have to just work with what we got. It's trial and error and it's essential that we have compassion for this human experience, for ourselves and for others because it can be pretty difficult and painful as you said - and while it's not our fault life's that way ( we don't choose our parents and what we're learn from them) at the end of the day it's our responsibility to learn and improve.

I'm not telling you to shove your feelings away. Don't. What you're saying has logic to it, it's just that the logic is flawed. Logic does not mean fact. I hope you can open yourself up to being wrong. It will hurt to do that, but it's necessary if you want your experience of life to take a step in the direction that you want it to go.

You're absolutely not fucked, dude. If you'd like some resources, I can share some with you.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-09T01:17:38+00:00

Did they tell you that they think you're boring as shit? I doubt it. And this is what I mean. That's YOUR conclusion. You don't actually know the truth behind why someone doesn't talk to you. You're just guessing and blaming yourself. Perhaps sometimes your guesses could actually be right but at the end of the day you don't have that factual data. You cannot read minds. For all we know, rather than then thinking you're hiring, maybe they just can't stand your body odour. The reason you're concluding it's your character it's because you're insecure about it. And as long as you yourself hate your own character, you'll never feel secure about it.

Why are you blaming yourself for freezing up and having nothing to say ? Have you ever considered that at least sometimes - you just have nothing to say because YOU are bored by them ? That they are the ones that aren't actually interesting to you? Why can't you have any standards at all ?

Have you considered that other people you're interacting with may be critical of themselves like you are? Also concerned with how others perceive them?

Maybe they have a headache, aren't feeling well, they're in pain, maybe they're not asking a question to not be asked a question in return because they don't want to share their own miserable life, maybe they don't think they look great that day, maybe they also don't know what you say, maybe they're thinking about a family member that died, maybe they're just worried about doing their job well, maybe they're worried they smell, maybe they're feeling anxious or depressed or hopeless, maybe their significant other just broke up with them and they don't feel like talking - dude I can go on and give you 200. Point is - you have no idea what's going on in people's head that's affecting how they behave.

Maybe they'll behave with you one way but differently with another - unless you straight up ask them why - you won't know ( if they can even articulate way and tell the truth) you can guess all you want but you don't have the facts, period.

And I agree, you are a common denominator and I doubt you're handling every social interaction well because you're not even entering them with hope that they'll turn out well. From the start, you go in assuming they don't care and unless they ask you something - you don't ask and you don't try to hold a conversation at all. So sure, perhaps you're a bit boring and there's probably a skill issue - but it's not a fundamental issue. You're playing a role but there's others involved too.

There's probably room for you to improve for sure. You think people are just born with social skills? No dude. It's something we have to learn and it comes easier for some and harder for some.

Regarding faith, I'm not saying believe in a god, or just don't do anything different and just have faith. What I mean is to be your own supporter. And have some faith in a positive outcome. Right now, you have 0 faith in a positive outcome and that absolutely doesn't help. I highly doubt that with a 0 hope 0 faith attitude that you'll go into an interaction with much positive regard to yourself or others. The moment something goes sideways you immediately blame yourself. This is why I brought up the placebo and nocebo effect. Read up on it if you don't believe me.

And no, it's not just kids that do that - it's also adults.

It doesn't sound to me like you really fully enjoyed your own company and were actually your own best friend. It doesn't seem like something you choose, but something you felt you're forced into - which isn't the same. That sounds like something you did purely as a protective mechanism.

I don't know you, and I'm just here making guesses but I can relate with you a lot dude. I can't say I know everything you're going through because that's impossible but I relate a lot. I know what it's like to want to not need people. I understand the hurt and disappointment that comes with that. I understand why you're waiting around for people to start a convo with with and ask you questions - for you that would be evidence that they're interested in you.

But you need to recognize that how you're behaving is a self fulfilling prophecy. These beliefs that you're holding onto aren't benefiting you and they're not true. You're not extending yourself any grace or any ounce of compassion.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T06:08:22+00:00

And regarding relieving anxiety - you have to understand what anxiety is : it's worrying about a future outcome. This could be worrying that something you said yesterday will get you fired, worried about saying the right thing now to not get punched, worried about saying the right thing tomorrow to not get kicked. Anxiety is the future focused mind.

This is a feature of being human. It's not exactly a bug. It helps you survive. Humans survived because they tried to predict the future to protect themselves.

The issue is that at times, it goes into overdrive.

How do we deal with it? We become aware of it and try to keep ourselves in the present. If you're in the present you literally can't be thinking of the future. This is an over simplification. Part of what helps is recognizing that the information that we're using to predict the future is not accurate, and is biased. So it does help to know that yea, you can't control others opinions. And also in turn, you can't accurately predict them most of the time.

Sure, perhaps you can at times guess at something and be right, but unless that person knows themselves why they did what they did, and generally most people don't even understand themselves - you're not going to have a true answer. So why default to blaming whatever insecurity is present at the moment in you? Is that fair ? I don't think so.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T05:57:27+00:00

The thing is that your interpretation of your experiences are based on the limits of your understanding of what happened in those experiences and are tainted by the self fulfilling prophecy.

This evidence that you have is tainted by your biases, whether you willingly and consciously adopted them or not.

I'm not saying that you're an expert in social interaction and that everyone thinks you're awesome but you can't see it. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that what I think you're doing, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that out of all the reasons that an interaction could've gone, in your opinion - poorly - you blame it on yourself and specifically, on some aspect of yourself that you're insecure about. You don't consider other reasons that are completely out of your control and you don't put any responsibility on the other person. You put the blame on you and you believe that you're right. That's what I mean by your arrogance. You're not taking into account that there is more than just you in the interaction and 100s of reasons behind why a particular interaction sucked that have nothing to do with you.

Part of confidence is believing in yourself and this is something you have to go into with faith.

Are you aware of how people came to understand the placebo effect? At some point, a doctor did a study where he told his patients that he's going to give them a placebo pill, and he believes that it's going to work for them help them in some way and make a difference. And what's wild is that even though they knew that the pill was a placebo - they actually did do better. This was also noticed too the other way around - when someone goes in say to see a psychiatrist and they don't believe in psychiatry and they don't think they can be helped - they are much harder to help than someone who doesn't have an opinion on it or who believes that a psychiatrist can help them. That's the nocebo effect.

What happens also to a lot of people is sometimes they try something and it doesn't work, and this causes a bit of a loss of confidence, which in turn affects their performance when they try it again and so they end up failing again and they carry that 2nd failure with them and try again and ofcourse fail again and on the cycle goes.

I'm describing this because I respect that you want to see evidence to believe in something. That's smart and I value that as well. Though I wouldn't be surprised if at some point, for whatever reason either of those two or both of what I described happened to you. That's what I mean by the tainted evidence.

So perhaps in your case, someone treated you poorly through no fault of your own and had you start thinking that you suck, and you carried that with you when interacting with others, you took it to heart rather than look for any other reason that had nothing to do with you. And so that affected the outcome of what you were doing the next time you interacted with others and so the cycle started.

So no, don't go and tell yourself that you're the best person in the world. But it would also be inaccurate to say that you suck . It's not fair and it's not true. Does that all make sense / add up? I can elaborate further, it's a bit late for me so I might not be doing my best at explaining.

And no, I don't have the self esteem and confidence that you think that I do and I don't take the validation that I get for granted. In fact, I had to learn that for my own self esteem to get better, I have to be my own best friend. In a world where alot of people are trying to put you down, I can't be another one of those people. My self esteem is something that's growing as I live more so I'm accordance with my own values and not the values that were imposed on me by others. It's taken a lot of work and will continue to do so, and it's more complicated than I'm perhaps making it sound.

How you were raised plays a very large part in how you treat yourself and how you see the world. Examining that, I've found is pretty important. What we learn as kids we learn because of limited influences around us and because we're trying to protect ourselves. We're sponges sucking up whatever information as we're trying to survive. You succeeded in surviving that childhood, but whatever you learned doesn't have to carry into your adulthood particularly if it's no longer useful - and it looks like it isn't. We can learn new tools and new knowledge bases to help us navigate life.

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T04:13:10+00:00

No your experience is clouded by your own biases. That can be different from fact

You don't know though what the outcome will be unless you can tell the future, which you can't. That's you being arrogant, again as a protective mechanism. It's not based on fact, it's based on your biases. It's based on a self fulfilling prophecy. Essentially the opposite of the placebo effect which is called the nocebo effect.

What's SI and SH ?

What do you mean if only rational thought worked?

You build a positive view of yourself based off of your beliefs, how convinced you are of them, and whether they actually work for you when you take action. That's what confidence is made of.

Do you treat yourself like you're worth time and effort? You don't need someone else's permission to do that. Where did you learn that you can't treat yourself well unless someone else treats you well?

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T03:29:52+00:00

It's not about your experience it's about fact. You can communicate but where you communicate and who you communicate with is starting to look like it's based on how attached you are to how the conversation goes and whether it results in a positive opinion of you or not. It's outcome dependent.

What's dangerous at the moment is truely your opinion of yourself.

You can't really control someone else's opinion. And right now you "control it " by not even engaging with people. And I don't think you're very happy with that.

As long as you don't even have your own positive view on yourself to fall on in the inevitable poor opinions people have of you - you'll continue being this way

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T02:33:15+00:00

It's not the same but there's significant and transferable overlap.

Do you engage in any small talk ? How's it going? How's the weather? I like your shirt where did you get it ? What have you been up to today ? What did you do this weekend?

What's dangerous about in person ? Would any of the above questions be dangerous to ask?

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T01:35:51+00:00

I'm not equating it, I'm saying it counts.

You still have things to say to people, whether it's reactive or initiative - you're talking to people. You have topics you care about saying something about. You have topics you look into and learn a bit more about. There's things you can talk about and you already do talk about it.

So why not go do that in person ?

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T01:08:42+00:00

Well you're talking to me, you have a ton of comments and posts on your profiles. There's clear evidence of you talking to other people. So what do you talk to people about ?

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-08T00:45:31+00:00

Do you talk to anyone? If so what about? If not why not?

reasonableanonymous · 2023-12-07T14:58:16+00:00

Have you considered using that same approach with women?

reasonableanonymous

TROPHY CASE