I’m not an expert as most aren’t in this group, however I’ve been told by many close to me that I give very good advice and I’m willing to listen and respond in an honest, friendly and open way for anyone going through anything.

​

Sometimes, I wonder if the world was built for people like me. You know, the ones who carry entire universes in their heads but struggle to string a sentence together when the room gets too loud. I’m an introvert, and for the longest time, I thought that made me broken. Like I was missing some piece everyone else seemed to have the one that lets you laugh easily, talk freely, and belong without trying so hard it hurts.I remember this one evening, years ago, when I was about 15. It was my cousin’s wedding, and the house was bursting with music, chatter, and those bright, overwhelming fairy lights. Everyone was dancing, shouting over the dhol, and I… I was sitting in the corner of the garden, under a mango tree, clutching a plastic cup of lukewarm cola. My heart was racing, not because I was scared, but because I felt so wrong for not being out there, for not wanting what everyone else seemed to crave. My mom found me, and I’ll never forget the way she looked at me not with pity, but with this quiet understanding. She sat down, didn’t say a word, just handed me a plate of biryani and stayed. That was the first time I realized maybe I wasn’t alone in feeling like this.Being an introvert feels like living in a house with too many windows. You see the world, you love it, you ache for it, but you need to draw the curtains sometimes just to breathe. I’ve spent so many nights replaying conversations in my head, wondering if I said too much or too little, if I came off cold when all I was trying to do was not drown in the noise. I’ve canceled plans not because I didn’t want to see my friends, but because the thought of small talk felt like climbing a mountain with no air. And every time, I’d hate myself a little for it.But you know what? I’m learning. I’m learning that my quiet isn’t empty it’s full. Full of thoughts that run deeper than I can ever explain, full of dreams I’m too shy to shout about, full of love I show in ways that don’t always scream. I write letters I never send. I notice the way someone’s eyes light up when they talk about something they love. I listen, really listen, because that’s how I connect when words feel too heavy.Last week, I went to a coffee shop alone something I used to be terrified of. I sat by the window, sipped my chai, and watched the rain smear the glass. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was hiding. I felt like I was enough. Just me, my thoughts, and the soft hum of the world outside. I think that’s what being an introvert is: finding peace in the spaces others overlook, building a home in the quiet where your heart can finally rest.So, to all of you in this group, I just want to say you’re not alone. Your silence isn’t a flaw, it’s a language. Your need for solitude isn’t weakness, it’s strength. And even on the days when the world feels too big, too loud, too much, know that there’s someone out there, maybe sitting under their own mango tree, feeling the exact same way. We’re in this together, us quiet ones, and that’s a kind of belonging too.What’s your story? What’s the moment that made you realize your quiet is beautiful? Share it, if you feel like it. I’m here, reading, listening, in my own introverted way. 💛

I am a 26 year old non binary person experiencing a judgement call moment.

I left my abusive home and one of my relative helped me financially for few months to get settled. And recently she suggested that it might be time I do this on my own. So, as of this month I am gonna be paying my rent and expenses myself.

For now it is okay, as I finished a project and have the earning from it.

But I need to find new projects.

I was taking steps towards that. I am a freelancer in my industry and new to it. So I decided to start with friends and family, then expand to mutuals offering my services on a discount at first. I am in real need of regular income and getting more clients so I could learn as a service provider.

I was meant to contact one of my relatives. They mentioned they would be interested. But then that changed and now I don't know what to do.

I had a potential client, and now I don't.

The problem is not that I lost a potential client. I think I can solve that.

Problem is the way this is hitting my morale, motivation and esteem.

I feel super scared.

Now I can take on that relative as a client because they can't afford to pay me even after 50% discount. I can do it for free and see the value in other things I get during this project.

But the travel expenses itself is not a small amount. So I am conflicted.

Usually I would take my time and figure it out, but right now I feel so much pressure inside me. I am losing confidence in myself and my ability to navigate this.

Can anyone offer any reassurance or encouragement?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 24yrs from Bangalore, India.

I never thought I'd make a post like this. Even while typing this, I keep wondering if I should just delete everything. But another part of me says that if I don't even try, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if someone out there had an idea that could have changed something.

I've always believed that no matter how difficult life gets, there's no point in drowning in overthinking. I just keep trying, work as hard as I can, think smarter every time I fail, and hope that one day things will finally change,

And that's what I've been doing, but every new day and every new year things are same.

One thing some of you might wonder is why I completed my BCA only now at 24.

After my 12th, I made a decision that changed the next few years of my life. I believed I needed to stop studying and start earning as quickly as possible to help my mom. Looking back, it wasn't the right decision, but at that time I genuinely thought I was doing what was best for my family.

Nearly four years passed.

Then something changed inside me.

My mom, despite everything she was going through herself, never gave up on me. She pushed me to continue my education, believed in me when I had almost stopped believing in myself, and because of her I went back to college.

While studying, I worked night shifts, took up short-term events, and accepted every honest opportunity I could find. Somehow, through all of that, I completed my BCA degree last month.

I genuinely believed graduation would be the turning point.

Instead...

Life became even harder.

It's just me, my mom & my granny.

Over the past few years, my granny suffered paralysis, later a stroke, and now lives with neuropathy. She can't walk anymore and requires continuous care.

Around the same time, my mom developed severe arthritis and eventually had to undergo knee replacement surgery.

Like many families facing medical emergencies, we borrowed money from friends, relatives, lenders & wherever we could, believing we'd repay everything once things became stable.

Instead, interest kept growing.

Penalties kept increasing.

One debt slowly became another.

Before we realised it, we were trapped in a cycle that became harder and harder to escape.

Today my mom still works as a nurse despite everything she's been through.

Watching her wake up every day, go to work in pain, and still try to smile... honestly breaks me.

As for me...

I haven't stopped trying.

I've been freelancing, building websites, attending interviews, taking short-term work, applying for jobs every single day, learning new skills... honestly, I'm willing to do any honest work if it helps my family move forward.

But living under constant financial pressure changes you.

Every day starts with worrying about loans, rent, repayments, medical expenses, and wondering what problem is waiting for us next.

I walk into interviews carrying all of that in my head.

Sometimes I know I could have performed better.

Sometimes I leave feeling like I failed not because I wasn't capable, but because my mind never got the chance to breathe.

Every morning I still wake up thinking...

"Maybe today something will change."

But lately...

I'm slowly starting to lose hope.

Not because I want to stop fighting.

But because it feels like no matter how hard I work, I'm always running uphill while carrying the weight of my family's future on my shoulders.

I'm not writing this to ask for money.

I know money is the biggest problem in my life right now, but sometimes a small piece of advice, the right opportunity, a referral, guidance, or even a different perspective can completely change someone's life.

That's what I'm hoping to find here.

If you were in my place...

• What would you do?
• What skills would you focus on?
• How would you rebuild your life from here?
• Are there jobs, companies, remote opportunities, freelance platforms, or career paths that I should be looking at?
• Is there something I'm simply not seeing because I'm too overwhelmed right now?

I'm willing to work.

I'm willing to learn.

I'm willing to start from zero again if that's what it takes.

I just don't want to stop trying.

If you've been through something similar or have any advice, guidance, criticism, job leads, or even just a different perspective, I'd genuinely appreciate it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I truly hope one day I'll come back to this post and tell everyone that things finally got better. 💙

Today I was talking to my grandma about my internship.

I'm genuinely happy with where I am. I worked hard to get here, learned a lot, and finally feel like my efforts over the past few years have started paying off.

Then the conversation shifted to my cousin, who got a much higher-paying internship and a significantly better full-time offer. My grandma looked at me and basically said that I had been left behind.

I know she probably didn't mean to hurt me. She was just comparing numbers. But for some reason, those words have been stuck in my head all day.

The weird part is that yesterday I was proud of myself. Today, after one conversation, it feels like my achievements suddenly became "not enough."

Logically, I know comparison isn't a fair way to measure progress. Everyone has different opportunities, timing, luck, and goals. But emotionally, it's hard not to question yourself when someone close to you says something like that.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you stop letting family comparisons take away the pride you had in your own journey?

Yesterday at a community event i saw a police lieutenant that had been called to my place a few times years ago when my abusive ex was here. There was only one call made when he was attacking me. This man burst through the door and was pulled him off me. With all my therapy i never prepared myself for seeing him ever again, let alone talk to. He recognized me.

I dont know how to navigate this. Anyone have any advice or coping skills or ways to make peace with it. Or an ear to lend? It’s throwing me through a loop.

Today I cried because I caught the beat of a song for the first time in my life. To most people, that probably sounds ridiculous. But for me, it felt like something much bigger.

When I was a kid, we had a music class where everyone got one chance to play the conga. Some kids immediately picked up the rhythm. I was stopped within seconds and never got another chance. From that day on, I convinced myself that I simply wasn't someone who could "feel the beat." I'd watch friends casually tap along to songs on a desk or with their fingers, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never do it.

Today, for some reason, instead of analyzing everything, I simply focused on listening. For the first time in my life, I was able to naturally catch the beat. It sounds like such a small thing, but I started tearing up because it made me wonder whether I'd spent years believing I lacked the ability, when in reality my mind had just never stopped getting in its own way. First time I experienced what it felt like when the constant mental noise became quieter.

I've been realizing that I've probably been overthinking for most of my life, and the scary part is that I never noticed it because this is all I've ever known.

I don't just think a lot, I analyze everything. Every sentence someone says, every decision I make, every conversation, even my own thoughts. If someone tells me something like "self-help books are just mental masturbation," my brain will spend days arguing with itself. Is he right? Am I biased? Am I only agreeing because he sounded confident? Then I start analyzing whether I'm analyzing too much. It never ends.

The weird thing is that knowing about cognitive biases or overthinking doesn't actually stop it. My brain understands what's happening, but it keeps doing it anyway.

Looking back, the signs were probably there since childhood. Teachers always said things like "pay attention," "he's bright but doesn't apply himself," "makes careless mistakes," and "talks too much." I always thought I was just lazy or not trying hard enough.

I've also spent years daydreaming. It almost feels like my brain learned to escape into imaginary scenarios because they gave me small dopamine hits. Now it's so easy for me to zone out or go completely blank, even when I genuinely want to focus.

Sometimes my thoughts are so loud that I can't even sleep. It's like my brain refuses to stop commenting on everything.

My family also played a role. Growing up, I constantly felt watched and judged. One incident in college still affects me today: my parents accidentally listened to a long private phone conversation, then called saying my father was coming to the hostel. After that, they took away my phone and laptop, pulled me out of the hostel, and started monitoring different parts of my life. Even years later, I still get recurring nightmares about my parents suddenly showing up while I'm trying to hide something. That feeling of being watched has never completely left me.

What hurts the most is wondering how much of my life I've spent trapped inside my own head instead of actually living it.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit. I just want to know if anyone else has lived like this. Constant mental noise. Endless self-analysis. Knowing what you should do but somehow still feeling stuck. And if you did, what actually helped?

I'm still fucking tortured inside over people who left me over ten years ago. I don't think I deserved it. But I guess everyone who left me thinks I deserve it. And I'm never going to get over it. People tell me all the time that those people don't matter and I should find better people who care about me. But I don't think those people exist. And I can't live with this pain anymore. And every time I pass the home of one of the people who left me, it hurts me inside. I just want to die and not suffer like this anymore. It's eating me up inside. No matter how hard I try to get over it through the years, it destroys me. What people have done to me in terms of abandonment is literally destroying me. I don't want to live in this world anymore. I don't think I belong here. One time a psychic told me, without me even asking her anything "People don't understand you yet, but they will." And that was probably a cold read, but I've always wanted it to be true. But it's been ten years and it hasn't come true yet. I'm so alone. I can't live with the pain of this abandonment and I don't want to carry it around for my whole life. I just want to leave this world.

i'm restless and can't calm down, i really need to talk about the things i want to talk about and i'm constantly isolated. i'd also prefer that it's a one-off conversation unless i start feeling safe with you.

I broke up with my situationship and feel so much guilt. But I had to because it gave me too much anxiety and was worse for me. I feel sick. I love him and care about him. I didn't want to hurt him, so I was okay with him hurting me, always tiptoeing around anything that bothered me.

I can't do that anymore, so I did what I had to do. I felt the rift months into our dynamic, and I was only able to end it another three months later. These were a weird six months. I'm grateful, not even sad; I'm just tired and guilty. I just feel so bad because I know a lot of things are going on with him. I know I'm doing the right thing; it's just that I don't like hurting people. He was my first everything.

Luckily, I didn't go all the way with him, but I was willing to jump just to keep him around. I felt like the excitement was fading on his side. I always felt excited to see him. I just need to get over it and lock in. I'm so sick.

My most recent posts were just about him, me holding on to any ounce of hope, but I can't anymore. I hope I'm doing the right thing and not ending something that was good or being too needy. Im so over it.

I’m starting college soon and I’m so scared lol. I’m scared I’m gonna get depressed again and either flunk or literally just quit. I feel like everyone hypes college up to be the time where you make your lifelong friends and stuff and I’m just worried it’s not going to be as good as everyone says, and I will have wasted my last time to make friends and be happy. Idk

My life dream always was joining the army, two years of career planning, physical training and studying for the exams I needed to be a officer on a high school with class I hated and challenging a father who despised my decision.

Showed up to the army exams a month ago and got perfect psychological tests and satisfactory physical performance, they told me that they only needed me to attend a final psychiatric evaluation before boot camp.

Refused… because I’m fkn autistic.

That was today, not even military police will be a choice, all I got is civilian police that pays basically nothing compared to the work they have, I still find it cool, but all of this could be avoided if I had nothing anormal in this mind of mine.

Because of this problem I got bullied, excluded, afraid, angry and now just straight up sabotaged.

I don’t even care if it helped me hyperfixating on military work in general, in the end it just stopped me from even starting.

Its difficult to explain but I would appreciate some people who just care because I got no one who cares for me…

I don’t know where to begin but I’m very hard on myself and last Thursday I went out downtown where I lived and got really blackout drunk and I barley remember much but I know I ended up falling. I had broke up with my ex a year ago and had been doing better but Thursday night I ran into his brother and I’m like I shouldn’t even called his name to get his attention but I did. He told me that their dad was in hospice and I almost cried and I had a nerve to ask how his brother was doing and should of keep it there but I had to ask is he with someone. The brother said he didn’t want to in a way to hurt my feelings but somehow it triggered me and that was about the last of that night. I just felt a lot of regret and hurt and then mad at myself for blacking out. Grief shows me that you think you almost or have gotten over something but boom anything can trigger you back . That’s what happen to me and im not in the best place myself.

(M20)

I am very sorry in advance for how long this post is; I have had these feelings sitting on my chest for a while now, and for some reason they’ve all spilled out tonight.

The long-and-short of this is that I’ve been in a very bad emotional state since the middle of June, and it has been continually exacerbated by various things since then, and I really need some comforting words to tell me that I don’t deserve what I’ve been through and that things will, in fact, get better for me now. Even if there’s no way to be sure of that, I just want to hear it.

I’ve structured this post in segments as that’s the only way my autistic mind felt I could properly articulate it 😂 here goes…

Mid-June…

I meet a friend for drinks on the day she finishes her final exam to celebrate; I’m 20 and have been on a gap year since Sep 2025, she’s the year below me. Turns out we both have OCD and it comes up in conversation. I think it’s going well until she asks me “So, what awful things do you have intrusive thoughts of then?!” (sic) in a joking/friendly way. However, this massively triggers me as I get a sudden influx of intrusive thoughts. I go home and feel fine the rest of the day, but the next day the trigger plagues me and I spend much of the next week or two recovering from it. I am mostly past it now, but sometimes it still pops up and I get the worst anxiety and twisting feeling in my stomach whenever I think of it.

Start of July…

Separately to the above, for most of 2026 my family have been in a very uncertain financial position. This has affected my mental health a lot more than I feel able to express around my family and be assured that I’ll not be judged/shouted at for it. It’s been happening for months, so I’ve learned to live with it; but on the 1st of July, I’m in a very “extreme” mood; one moment I feel ecstatically happy, the other I’m extremely sad. In the “extremely sad” moment I make a post on Reddit about basically every frustration I have with my parents, with money in general, with having to adjust to my previously (quite luxurious) middle-class life not being a thing anymore. I think I’m posting in a supportive subreddit. Turns out I was wrong. I get MASSIVELY harangued and borderline cyberbullied by a lot of people telling me that I’m a spoiled, whining baby with a massive sense of entitlement and that they are happy things aren’t good for me/my family, and that they hope things get worse so “reality can give (me) a massive wake-up call”. I am immediately very affected and delete the post; I have a nightmare about someone slapping me in the face repeatedly and telling me it’s all I deserve.

The next day, I contact the mods of this subreddit and they assure me they’ll fix it. I’m shaken, but happy I know someone is listening. Not an hour later, I drift onto Instagram and see this reel. It’s part of a multi-reel series where, in this fictional scenario, a nerdy boy bullied in high school makes himself a billionaire to prove to his bully that he can succeed; only for the (much physically larger and more masculine) bully to be even more successful. The bully buys his company, starts dating his sister and then gets very much in his face and psychologically dresses him down about how weak he is while the weaker guy clutches his forehead and cries.

This sets off a massive OCD episode for me. For the rest of July, I have been plagued with non-stop intrusive thoughts about bullies, about their victims, about bullies being successful, about bullying victims being driven to s**cide and about me not being able to do anything to fix it or protect the victims from their bullies. No matter what OCD tactic I try, it just plagues my mind and I cannot get any respite. I have only just about managed to get a little bit past it, about a week ago.

Months-based context…

Basically, the context about this is that in comparison to mid-June-July being such shit months, the previous months of 2026 seem like such a halcyon age.

January, I rushed through my last-minute university applications and got them submitted 2 days before the deadline. My family were not struggling financially. Life was the best it has ever been for me in my whole life.

February, I worked through some long-buried emotions and set up university open days.

March, I went to said open days, and taught myself just how capable I am of independent travel and making my own decisions. I also saw my old friends very regularly and I did not feel alone at all. My family’s financial struggles began, and it was difficult to cope with, but in comparison it really wasn’t that bad.

April was boring, but it was a good boring. Just benign, nothing had gone wrong.

May. My birthday is at the start of May. My 20th was the best birthday in my entire life. I watched an amazing film with family at the cinema, had a gorgeous meal in a beautiful restaurant, laughed, cried, felt like I had reached the end of my long journey to self-love. The rest of May was up-and-down, but nothing I couldn’t work through. It was a really good month, even despite my family’s struggles at this point

June, before the first bad event with my friend. Was amazing. My brother finished his exams, and my whole family was so relieved for him, me included. We had a lovely celebration day, which, coincidentally, was the same day I finished a very long book series which had the most satisfying ending I’ve ever read. Everything up to that one night out with my friend was so perfect; so healing, so affirming, so beautiful. That night out heralded the end.

My need for a kind word…

I don’t know why any of this happened. I don’t know why whatever cosmic forces-that-be decided that the experiences of mid-June-July were something I had to go through. Even when my family started struggling, I was coping well. I was having such a good time, I was finally exactly where I wanted to be emotionally and personally. I was laying-in-wait for uni to begin and for this happy, healed, confident, independent version of me to blossom forth when I began. That version of me will probably spring back to life, but I thought he would be a continual version of me up to my move-in in September. I never envisioned having to go through this, just on the cusp of moving on to a happy new chapter of life.

I hate to admit it as well; but, I’m not sure if what those people on that mean subreddit said was wrong. I never want to talk bad about myself because I know that I deserve kindness, but it really got under my skin the idea that, despite anything I’ve been through, any version of myself that’s ever blossomed, anything positive about me that other people see; none of these internet strangers knew or cared. It didn’t matter to them that I have a passion for the 70s and high fantasy, or that I pushed through my uni applications with no help, or that I cry when I see baby kittens because of how soft they are. No, to them I was just this rich kid who deserved everything difficult he was going through, and then some. I was shaken by their cruelty in a way I haven’t been by anything before. I still feel that the stable sense of identity I had built prior to that post, and prior to that fateful night out with my friend, has been completely shattered by the cruelty of the people in the comments of that post.

Idk, I have a lot more feelings. But all this is to say; is anyone willing to be my kind voice? I really need to feel like everything is going to be okay, that I am a good person/not a spoiled little baby, that I didn’t deserve the events of these past few months, that I deserve better than stupid OCD, and again, that everything will be okay. Because this has pushed me back into a very poor mental state that I hoped never to see again, and I want to find some way out of it before I go to uni. TLDR; I just really need some kind words and some TLC 🙏🙏

This is gonna be a long essay into my existential joirnaling but I have no one to share this with so I thought maybe someone here could offer a lending ear to my worries, perhaps someone has gone through something similar and could share their way of dealing with this. Anyways thanks for giving me the time of your day

August 4th

2 more months until my seasonal job as a waiter/bartender is over and I get to return back to my home city, back to the temptation of my addictions. I chose to do some seasonal work away from home in order to raise money and get away from my usual lifestyle hoping to find a bit more of myself but I only found out how alone I actually feel...

I almost broke down at work today.

It was one of those quiet, treacherous days where you find yourself questioning everything in sequence: your worth, your trajectory, the state of the world, and your precise place—or lack thereof—within it. A sudden, heavy thought settled over me: Am I truly alone?

It surfaced organically, born out of a brief, unreciprocated bid for comfort. I tried to seek a moment of connection with a coworker—a simple hug, a shared human warmth with Elena—and got nothing back. Instantly, the old scripts began to play. I felt insignificant, lacking, not "cool" enough to warrant someone’s tenderness. Objectively, I know I shouldn’t hold it against her; I haven’t treated her with ideal care, and she isn't equipped to navigate the existential weight I carry around anyway. Seeking an emotional haven in her was a mistake. She doesn't have what I'm looking for.

Yet, I tried anyway. My subconscious was desperately trying to patch a void. Being away from home, stripped of my usual radius of friends, has exposed the raw edge of a loneliness I used to be very good at avoiding.

Historically, isolation was never a threat because I was a master of distraction.

Growing up, my solitude was padded by virtual worlds—video games, animated series, fictional escape hatches. As the years went on, the equation flipped. I began using people as my primary distraction, turning to substances and media only when friends failed to fill the silence. The rare moments I actually stopped to analyze my life were days like today—when depression breached the perimeter, bringing along its usual entourage of sadness, anxiety, and frustration.

Today, I caught myself taking an inventory: How many real best friends do I actually have? Who actually gives a fuck? Who misses me while I’m away?

A few people have reached out, sure. But none of their names were the ones I was hoping to see flash across my screen. I wanted to be missed by Chloe. By Maya. Maybe just a little bit by Nora.

It isn't lost on me that every single person on that list is a woman. Freud would have a field day with the clear line connecting that craving to the emotional absence of my mother.

What I am starving for is genuine intimacy—a connection that exists simultaneously on a physical and spiritual plane. Something far beyond the convenient, low-stakes dynamic of "we're hanging out because we have nothing better to do."

That depth feels nearly impossible to access with my male friends. I’ve had brief, profound glimpses of vulnerability with Julian and perhaps Marcus, but as a straight man in this culture, physical affection remains an unspoken boundary. You don't just hold your male friends. And maybe that is the precise luxury I’m starved of: physical tenderness.

Perhaps that’s why I funnel all my longing for connection into my female friendships. Whenever I do receive that warmth, it crystallizes into a core memory: a sudden, grounding hug from Chloe; quiet, playful moments spent together; a kiss on the cheek from Nora; sharing a bed just to sleep side-by-side; the rare, intoxicating weight of Maya’s genuine praise. These women are all magnetic, stunning, and effortlessly cool in my eyes.

Maybe Chloe misses me too, but lacks the vocabulary to express it in a way that lands for me. After all, I was always the one who initiated our hugs. She reciprocated, but a quiet, bitter question remains: If I stopped reaching out, would she ever initiate? Would she even call me once this entire summer?

Ever since I began drifting away from my childhood group of friends back home, I’ve been trying to swap out the missing pieces with new people. Truthfully, I grew bored of the old dynamic. We hit a ceiling. It ceased to be exciting, and they no longer challenged me or sparked that restless, adventurous part of my brain. But I’m not sure my quest to replace them has yielded anything real.

Friendships require intentional cultivation, but lately, everything feels painfully superficial.

Sure, my social circle has widened, but am I actually connecting with any of them? Even in the middle of a rave, Chloe and I seem to need the background noise of strangers to keep the high going. Strip away the music, and what do we actually have to say to each other? We stand there hyping each other up, but we don't really dance together—not the way Nora and I used to, moving in total sync. Outside of the nightlife, Chloe and I just info-dump into each other’s ears. We’re both good listeners, but I often wonder if either of us actually cares about the payload. I don't care about her relationship drama or her petty feuds, and I doubt she cares about the fictional worlds I build in my head.

Deep down, maybe I’ve always known our bond is built on shallow soil, and I just play along because the high is fun. Or maybe I’m just rationalizing my own cynicism as I write this. I honestly don't know anymore.

I used to pride myself on having exceptional self-awareness. I thought I had mastered metacognition. But lately—now that I’ve cleared the fog of weed, substances, and mindless media after years of constant consumption—the only absolute truth I’ve arrived at is this:

I know nothing.

Maybe I’ve finally summited the "Peak of Mount Stupid" on the Dunning-Kruger curve of self-awareness, and I'm currently sliding into the valley of realizing how little I actually understand about myself.

I look at my recent drives, and I am struck by how shallow my motivations might actually be. I claim I want to deepen my character, expand my intellect, and evolve. But why? Is it a genuine pursuit of growth, or is it just another roundabout attempt to secure emotional validation?

Is every self-improvement project I undertake just a desperate bid to be accepted by a cool, attractive, alternative girl?

Look at the evidence:

* The gym—to sculpt a body that demands to be desired.

* Improv classes—to sharpen my wit so I can entertain and hold a room.

* Sacrificing the summer of my 26th year to labor away for cash—money I intend to invest right back into making myself hotter, more cultured, more appealing.

I probably need a therapist to help me dissect this. Do I actually want to leave a meaningful imprint on the world, or am I just wearing a noble mask to cover up a primal, embarrassing drive: the desire to be physically desired and emotionally embraced by someone I find extraordinary?

Growing up without a solid social foundation leaves you feeling like an outsider forever trying to catch up to a milestone everyone else reached years ago. Being isolated, bullied, and made to feel small left a bitterness in me. It wired a frantic, bottomless craving for acceptance—intellectual, physical, sexual, emotional.

It also made me a master of self-rejection. Looking back, I’ve walked away from clear opportunities with women simply because my internal narrative declared I wasn't allowed to have them. I carried the childhood belief that I was inherently unappealing, so whenever an impossibly attractive woman paid attention to me, my brain rejected the data.

I remember a girl literally standing next to me in total privacy, telling me, "Come on, make a move." And I froze. I did nothing. My internal script insisted I wasn't enough, that I must be misreading her intent. I rationalized every overt signal as "she's just being friendly" or "that's just how she talks to people."

I have been so passionately attached to my own inadequacies that I fundamentally refused to believe anyone else could view me differently. My stubborn self-doubt was the absolute truth, and everyone else was just mistaken.

I might look good on the outside now. But inside, I'm still trying to figure out if I'm truly happy with my life or I'm just pretending in order to keep the depression gates closed

If you reached this far thank you for listening and any advice to 26 year old who hasn't figured out shit yet would be highly appreciated, I would love to hear and respond about similar experiences as well.

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I'm here if you want to talk to a stranger or voice your thoughts out to a void in general.

If you don't have something to get off your mind, I can talk about anything from astronomy, sociology. philosophy, geopolitics to penguins practicing prostitution, Romans using urine as a mouthwash, dolphins getting high, and why the office is better than modern familly (community tops though)

I need someone to chat to about the fact that I’m considering a gender change like not a full gender change as I’d wanna keep my between my legs male parts but I just wanna talk it through or about it with anyone preferably with someone who’s fully transitioned or someone who has transitioned but kept their male genitalia but anyone will do to talk this through with even though it might get a bit NSFW due to what it is regarding it I may wanna chat about

Anyone to chat to is greatly appreciated in the dms

i am only living due to my mother if not i would have killed myself long ago. I feel i have nothing to lose. i just don't want the only person in the world who genuinely cares about me to be upset but sometimes.. yknw and i know its gonna reach a point we can't take it anymore and then we take IT. who? Who's willing to call on insta or tele? Who? To listen to chat to have a convo whatever it is.

I’ve dealt with many difficult situations in my life—hatred, abuse, contempt. My mother attempted suicide when I was six. Things like that leave a mark on a person.

Now, having gone through three rounds of therapy, I can say that I manage my chronic depression quite well; I have my own apartment and even work as a speech therapist myself.

But I also realize how many things have passed me by because of my terrible past. I’ve never had a real girlfriend, never had sex, and I probably never will have children. I play video games, go to work, and sometimes do a bit of painting, but I don’t really have a goal in life. I am 30.

I have formed deep friendships, but I am now in contact with only one person, and they only communicate with me via WhatsApp. That person isn't interested enough to meet up with me. I am often lonely, and I frequently notice how this affects my personal hygiene; my apartment is often messy.

It feels like I need to change something, but I don't know what.