16f pls be nice. There’s this feeling I have, not a feeling, but something that’s been happening I can only describe it as atrophy (not a real mental illness)
I’ve been ruining myself.
I used to love to draw. I can’t anymore. I lost the talent.
I used to love my hair. It’s falling out. Androgenic alopecia, PCOS perhaps, runs in the family.
I don’t know who even I’m writing this for. I’ve struggled with maladaptive daydreaming since I was 6 but it’s blurry. I act like I’m presenting for an audience sometimes, acting to be something.
I know my posts don’t get much upvotes and basically no comments, yet I’m writing these, imagining people digging these after my death (which I know won’t happen) and piece me out get answers for why I’m like this and feel less alone.

I feel like there’s a barrier between me and people, I don’t know how to describe the feeling. It’s like. I guess how people are usually a bit more honest and meaner when they’re woken up early and stil half asleep. When I hang out with people.. which is less and less, I feel like it’s some sort of distraction from what I really am a lonely miserable being.

My phone addiction ruined me. Completely. 5 hours 10 hours now 13-15. I can’t anymore.

In 2 weeks I have school. I have “friends” who I have ignored, a friend who just doesn’t have the same loyalty feelings as I do. I’m there in the corner of the p.e hall it’s terrible. Atleast last semester there was this girl next to me she didn’t like me she wanted to be with the popular girls but I guess she had been forcibly with me. Her mother literally convinced her to be friends with me.

I feel fucking terrible. It’s terrible. I am so goddamn lonely even when I’m with other people. And it’s gonna get bad when next semester starts it’s over for me I don’t have the energy anymore. I can barely wash myself.

I make these stupid posts again and again and I feel lonelier and lonelier because no one understands me more than I do and I don’t understand myself enough to begin with.

I just want someone to hug me and tell me that’s it’s gonna be alright, I just want to have friends and feel like I belong in a country I just want to feel like my hair is healthy I don’t want to see my scalp again I just want to have a boy who has a crush on me or something.

I’ve been with my bf for almost 6 years. We have our super good highs and VERY VERY bad lows (which is a whole different story) but we always seem to make up and love each other again. I know he’s my forever, and from what he tells me and expresses about us, he feels the same way.

My problem is our sex life. Every time we cuddle, kiss, hug, almost any type of physical touch, i instantly get turned on. I’d honestly be down to have sex once a day, maybe more honestly. We had a talk, maybe about a year ago, about this and he said he loves me so much he just can’t keep up with me like that. He says his tip is super sensitive and i know he’s telling the truth when he says that.

But when i get turned down, i feel so down about myself. I don’t take it out on him, i just start getting these ugly thoughts in my mind. Like what if i look bad to him, or smell bad, or what if he prefers to watch porn (which I’ve expressed i don’t want him doing and apparently he doesn’t, but who truly knows), just random stuff like that.

What also makes it confusing is how he talks to his friends. He says sexual stuff but never does that to me. I know it’s just boy talk but he never talks to me like that. And he’s never seem to be shy either, but maybe deep down he is?

It all just comes down to being super sexual i guess. I can’t get off to porn, I’m not interested in anyone else but him…. I just don’t know how to suppress it.

I guess this was more of a vent than anything, but i just needed to get it out to random people. I don’t want people we know personally to know this kind of stuff…. :c

Life has been throwing hands lately. I’ve been dealing with heartbreak, loneliness, grief, job stress, and trying to rebuild myself while pretending I’m totally fine.

Plot twist: I’m not totally fine.

Some days I’m strong and productive. Other days I’m just staring at the ceiling wondering when this character development is finally going to end.

I’m not looking for someone to fix me or give me a magic solution. I just need a little support, kindness, and someone to remind me that I’m not alone.

So if you’re also struggling, healing, or simply having one of those “what the hell am I doing with my life?” days…

Hi. Same.

Tell me something you’re currently trying to get through. Maybe we can support each other.

In case no one has told you this lately, I'm proud of you for making it this far.

I know some days must have been harder than others, and perhaps there were moments when simply getting through the day was all you could manage. But you're still here, and I hope you know how quietly beautiful that is.

You don't always have to be strong. It's okay to feel tired, to have difficult days, to fall apart a little, and to take your time putting yourself back together. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to simply exist.

I'm proud of every version of you, the happy one, the tired one, the healing one, and even the parts of you that you're still learning to love. Every version deserves gentleness.

I may not know you, and you may never know me, but I hope life becomes a little softer for you. I hope you find small reasons to smile, people who make you feel safe, and ordinary moments that remind you how lovely it is to be here.

Please don't let the world make you forget your own light. You are precious, even on the days you can't see it yourself. 🤍

I had a huge breakthrough in therapy yesterday and after my session was over my therapist asked if she could hug me. I accepted but I said that I wasn’t much of a hugger. This was the first time in decades that I hugged someone that didn’t feel like I was obligated to do so. In fact I genuinely don’t like people touching me unless I have known them for some time.

Scrolling on tik tok laughing at videos helps me sometimes. But recently I ran across the story of wang wang a dog and her puppies who were brutally tortured and murdered in China and filmed by evil adolescents. There were images from the video and of course descriptions of what happened and I read all about it out of morbid curiosity. And of course the tik tok algorithm would bring me back to it and I truly wish I never knew about this! I will spare you the details and I beg of you for your own mental well being to not look it up. The story has affected me deeply , I cant sleep, I cant get the images out of my mind, I dont even want to be a part of a world that this can happen in. I dont know what to do, never did I think a internet story would tear me down like this, but I am actually traumatized and dont know how to get over it. My mental health was already not great this has sent me in a downward spiral of not understanding humanity and the evil in this world. Anyone experience this and break themselves out of it?

It was my birthday yesterday so I took a leave just to keep myself locked up in my room. Today, I reported to work and my supervisor jokingly said I didn't bring any food for the celebration.

A quick background. I love to cook. People consider me a good cook. Though my work is far from cooking. I cook when it is someone else's farewell party, or to celebrate someone else's day. No charges. I just cook cause that's how I show my appreciation.

Today, I felt too much weight on what my supervisor said. Not in a bad way. But how much i appreciate myself. I thought maybe because I just don't see a reason to live my life for myself. It's always been for others. I sacrificed for others. I thrive for others.

I wish I could do better for myself. But I just can't find a reason to do so.

EDIT: I don't want to really delve into my feelings and tell it to people around me. That's why I chose reddit where I am totally anonymous. Your responses are very much appreciated. Thank you.

I am going to be a Senior in high school this year. I have to take two online classes because they are not available in my school since I am from a different city than where I go to. I am pressured from my grandpa who has dementia to start taking driving lessons right this instant every single time I see him...EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (which makes me not want to drive at all anymore) I want to find a job like all my peers and make some source of income. I am NOT looking forward to grad events because I have to confront traumatizing potential romance and activities I am not interested in yet unsure how to say no to without being hated. I am at risk for not graduating and at an even higher risk of not going to university right away. If I do not complete those online classes by May (I hate both subjects), then I will not graduate. None of my parents or friends know I am taking these courses online. I lied to my friends because I was ashamed of not being like them. I lied to my parents because I wanted to do online school at 13 which led to depression and struggles with anxiety in later years. My mom had an accident 2 years ago which led to her being disabled...ever since then, I have felt frozen and unknowingly forced myself to go to places with her...which led to isolating myself to my bedroom most of the time. I have nice friends, some since childhood, but we are not close at all. No one talks at lunch last year. Everyone goes on their phones or talks to the person next to them. My parents won't have any online courses, switches of schools, etc.

I feel stuck in time. It is now the last week before senior year. For the past 3 weeks, I have been tied to my bedroom..doing nothing but games to numb the overwhelming feeling. My heart aches. I do not want to be a burden. I have felt so guilty for being so emotional all my life. I have social anxiety, depression, strong anxiety, but recently, diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. However, my mom does not think I have it. She will not let me take any medication. She will not let me say I have it. She ignores it, acts like nothing happened. I do not even know where she put my diagnosis. She hid it somewhere she could not see it. I need help. I can't go to therapy because we can not afford it. Please help. I am my parents only hope (only child)

I’m soooo close to going back for school like soooo close and I stupidly asked my mom is she would help me but she just looked at me and rolled her eyes, idk why I try. I know I can’t depend on her but idk I was hopeful?

I want to start enjoying life again. I rarely watch any long form content, not because of my attention span, but bc I get bored. So all I do is scroll mindlessly.

I miss being religious and I feel like I’m being punished for straying away.

I used to go on walks and listen to music. I try to go to the gym with a friend but I cba to wake up early in the morning, and it’s so packed during the day that I get too scared.

I want to better myself and work on my mental health before I start uni but i don’t have any motivation. Why would anyone want to befriend me when I have no hobbies or passions.

Any tips on getting mental health support in the uk, I feel to embarrassed to call the gp and say I’m depressed

I’m starting medical school with many ppl who have high ambitions and here I am…

This might be a long one, but I'd appreciate if someone found the time out of their day to maybe read it. I don't know. I'm not sure what I'm even asking, but for some kind of support.

I don't feel like I can talk to anyone in my life about the full extent of my issues. I've suffered all my life, but not even my parents know the full extent this, though it's been like this for the better part of my life.

I've recently turned 20, and as long as I remember, I've suffered from anxiety, panic attacks and severe dissociation.

For the past 5-ish years, I've suffered from what I can best describe as anxiety "episodes". Every couple of months, I fall into deep anxiety for weeks on end. It's all-consuming, filling my mind any second I'm not acutely preoccupied with a task. I feel like a zombie. My mind feels foggy and I'm not all there. I can't form coherent thoughts, just find myself staring off into space in a vague state of alarm and anxiety. I suffer from severe dissociation during these episodes – I feel like I almost cannot see, because I find it difficult to remember what my eyes were focusing on or what happened half a second ago. I feel like an insane hazard driving, I almost feel drunk from how out of it I am.

The only moments of clarity are when I have anxiety attacks – I'm filled with such an unbearable sense of dread and fear that I feel very aware of myself, but not in a positive way.

Now, my biggest trigger for anxiety and panic attacks is death. I have severe thanatophobia, the extreme fear of death. I am not super afraid of suddenly dying, but rather the inevitability of it in the undefined future. The existential dread the thought that I, too, will some day cease to exist gives me is extreme and debilitating.

When I suffer from these anxiety episodes, my thoughts revolve around my inevitable end in an obsessive manner. It impacts my daily life incredibly, as it's not even a specific trigger I can try to avoid. It's in my head, and it will come. Lately I have found myself unable to consume anything relating to history from over a 100 years ago, as with even the most innocent topics I can only think about how all of those people are now dead. I find it hard to enjoy nature, as I can only think about the flowers dying, the fall leaves dying, the singing birds dying, and how everything wonderful I'm experiencing in the nature being as good as never having existed after I'm dead. What good is anything, if there will be a time I won't remember any of it.

I try to hang out with my friends, but I cannot enjoy it because I can only think about dying in some far future. It consumes my every waking moment, until after some weeks or months it hopefully won't – until it does again. Please don't try to help me rationalize death, I have tried and with an existential topic like this it just makes me ruminate on it even more and worsens it.

My fear of death coupled with my severe dissociation make for a strange combination. My feelings of detachment from reality and existential dread have caused me to wonder if I actually exist. I'm stating to feel like this cannot be how life is supposed to feel, but how can I know how others feel. I'm not sure if it's others that don't exist, or me. I think either I'm already dead, or life isn't real. It can't be like this, but I can't imagine what it's supposed to feel like either.

I don't really know how to write this, but I just need to get it out somewhere.

I worked so fucking hard for my 12th exams.

I genuinely gave it everything I had. I studied, revised, practiced, worried about my marks constantly, sacrificed things I wanted to do, and kept pushing myself because I really believed I could get 90+.

And I actually knew the syllabus.

The reason I got 88% wasn't because I didn't know the answers. I left around 20 marks worth of questions unattempted because I ran out of time.

And I know that's my mistake. I'm not trying to pretend it wasn't. I should have managed my time better.

But the thing that still hurts me is that I feel like everyone only saw the 88%.

They saw the 2% I was missing from 90.

They didn't see all the fucking work that went into getting that 88%.

I think what I wanted more than anything was just for someone in my family to look at me and say, "I know how hard you worked. I'm proud of you. You did enough."

Instead, I heard things that made it feel like 88% wasn't that much.

And maybe to some people 88% isn't extraordinary. Maybe some people would look at it and say, "You could have gotten 90." I know that.

But I know what it took for me to get that score.

I know how much I studied.

I know how badly I wanted it.

I know how devastated I was when I realized I had lost those marks because of time and not because I didn't know the material.

And I think I'm still grieving that.

Last night everyone was asleep. There were literally no lights on. I was sitting there crying in complete darkness and writing in my journal because I didn't know what else to do.

I wasn't writing for anyone to see it. I wasn't trying to be dramatic. I just needed somewhere to put everything I was feeling.

And I kept coming back to the same thought:

"I worked so hard. Why couldn't anyone just see that?"

I don't even think I need someone to tell me that I was perfect or that I didn't make mistakes. I know I made a mistake with time management.

I just wanted someone to acknowledge the effort.

I wanted to feel like my work mattered even though the final number wasn't what I wanted.

And honestly, I think that's why this still hurts me so much.

I wanted my family to be proud of me.

I wanted to hear "you did enough."

Instead, I felt like I was being measured against the 2% I didn't get.

I'm crying while writing this because I think I've been holding onto this for a long time.

I don't really know what I'm asking for by posting this. Maybe I just want someone to understand why 88% can hurt so much when you know how hard you worked for it.

I just wanted to be seen.

I feel like life is too much for me.

Idk how to put this really. I’ve always been a very passionate person about getting into med school and idk if it’s burnout or being at home that’s making me feel this way but I’m just frustrated and sad.
I haven’t stopped working on school since before 9th grade. I’m 21. I don’t feel responsibility to succeed all the time. I put that pressure on myself, nobody does it to me.

In elementary school I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and now I’m realizing I have ADHD so what a fun combo

Anyways.
I’m going into my 4th year of university (yay!) but I am so tired and I feel a bit hopeless. Canadian med schools are so competitive. I am not dedicated enough to get in so I have a backup plan of social work. I want to help people. I used to be so excited and passionate and now I just feel useless. Once a month maybe I’ll get that spark I had back and feel somewhat motivated but maybe a week or so after that- I just feel horrible again.

Idk if any of this is making sense I’m kinda just typing as I’m thinking. I shadowed some doctors recently. It was great. I loved it. I felt so much better about choosing medicine but now I’m just tired again. The shadowing was a month ago. I want to choose labour and delivery cuz it was really nice to be there. But I’m still scared I won’t get accepted anywhere. So my backup plan is social work cuz I like the idea of helping people who are struggling with addiction. I wouldn’t do mental health services cuz I struggle with my own stuff lol. I’m thinking now maybe a midwife. But I wanna be in hospitals or smthn. Idk.

I want to take a year off and just work and decide what to do with myself. Can’t yet. My mom will tell me not to. But I need one. I’m so tired. I wish I was more energetic and dedicated. I want to be. Medicine is smthn I’ve wanted since I was 10. I wanted nursing originally but my mom told me no so doctor it is. I like medicine so it wasn’t fully forced on me. But I don’t think I have an answer for “why do you want to do medicine” so I’m starting to rule it out.

I sound too generic.
“I want to help people. My brother is autistic and I want to advocate for people like him. I want to advocate for my fellow women, especially those of marginalized group because I am both white (family is Brazilian, I am pale as a ghost lol) and straight passing (bi and dating a man), my grandfather died from cancer and I want the chance to be there for people cuz I wasn’t able to be there for him (he died in Brazil. Never got to see him before he died), I want to help people struggling with drug use and change the narrative around the wording we use for people who use drugs (took a course on the history of drug use and the racist origins of a lot of the prohibitions against indigenous and black people, and if you look at the research(I AM NOT POSTING RESEARCH JUST MENTIONING SMTHN I LEARNED MODS PLS), the words describing black people using drugs are “criminal, addict, crack, violent” and for white people it’s “opioids, mental health”) and create a society where people shouldn’t be ashamed of asking for help and creating more services for those who need it (cuz god knows everything is being cut rn).

Idk. It all sounds generic to me and Idk it’s probably a self confidence issue but I want to know why I can go from so excited and ready to plan to “everything is pointless and I’ll never get in” within a week.

I’ve known of my anxiety disorder for 4 years now. However, only in recent years have I begun to realize that I have certain anxiety triggers that are very specific. One of them being women’s issues.

You’d think that I would stay away from discussion of women’s issues, and to an extent, I do. I even left r/twoxchromosomes because I was constantly triggered by some of the recurring topics being posted about there. However, I am still a feminist, so I try to support women when I can. This sometimes means talking about things I may not want to or watching or liking a social media post related to feminism that may trigger me. I do it even if it bothers me because I intend to put my morals before my own interests, and I feel guilty when I don’t.

Something I’ve noticed recently, though is that I sometimes trigger myself when I don’t need to. For example, if I see a post asking a biology question, I’ll check the comments when I know a comment may be about female anatomy, and I’ll even scroll down until I see one. I’ll purposely pick up books about women’s suffrage just because I’m curious, knowing how it’ll affect my mental state.

So do I like being triggered? Do I like the anxiety attacks I get when I feel triggered? Or am I just curious? Is this a form of self-harm? Please give guidance and advice.

What i do to get a boyfriend that really loves me ? Because im tired of feeling lonely and I want some love.

In 2018, I ended a 7 year relationship and I haven't been the same since. I cried for months on end, it got so bad that I had to quit my job and move back home.

Recently, I had a relationship end because of my depression. I'm taking Lamictal, Adderall (ADHD), Latuda, Buspirone, and Ambien. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type 1 earlier this year, so that makes sense. I'm just tired of feeling this way, has anyone ever successfully gotten themselves out of a rut? I'm really struggling here, afraid my issues won't ever be fixed.

I'm reaching out to see if there are any suggestions for hobbies, therapy, or treatments that I may not have thought of. I'm just trying to fix my life, and this depression crap isn't helping.

If you can think of anything, it would be appreciated!

Joe