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I’m slowly coming to the realization that I can’t just sit down and have normal conversations with people. This… sucks. Even beyond my autism and my ADHD, I’ve always been a super philosophical, “I like to dive deep into things” kind of person. Believe it or not, some people don’t like every conversation turning into a feature length film. And that’s okay, I think. I just don’t really know how to have normal conversations with people.
Have you guys noticed how long my paragraphs are in my posts recently? That’s how I talk in real life. And you can be honest, that’s probably too much reading. I know we’re not supposed to hate ourselves or whatever, but I don’t recall anyone saying I can’t hate something about myself.
I’m slowly coming to the realization that I can’t just sit down and have normal conversations with people. This… sucks. Even beyond my autism and my ADHD, I’ve always been a super philosophical, “I like to dive deep into things” kind of person. Believe it or not, some people don’t like every conversation turning into a feature length film. And that’s okay, I think. I just don’t really know how to have normal conversations with people.
Have you guys noticed how long my paragraphs are in my posts recently? That’s how I talk in real life. And you can be honest, that’s probably too much reading. I know we’re not supposed to hate ourselves or whatever, but I don’t recall anyone saying I can’t hate something about myself.
I’ve also had this type of problem, and, like my view on overthinking, you should embrace it because it’s a good thing. What you need to do is balance it between normal thought (aka empty brain) and normal conversations. My advice on this specific thing is to have small talk. I know that sounds intimidating but just… go next to people… and ask how they’re doing. I know it might sound weird and awkward (it kind of is) but sooner or later, it won’t. I’m not saying forgo of your long talks but save them for people who you think really matter. Maybe you’ll find someone who really respects you, and thinks about you, and finds you just a tiny bit cute or attractive. Good luck out there man.
My health issues of the last year seem to be MS. The MRI shows lesions and all the doctors are very confident. I have an appointment soon to discuss further measures
It's not the worst thing to have, it's better than cancer or a heart condition, and to have it described means I can treat it. I am overall optimistic as the medication seems to be effective and doesn't have many side effects, and most people with MS live normal lifes
I hope I won't lose my eyesight and my ability to walk. I have phases where I am slow and can't remember things (the memories are all there, I just can't access them from time to time), I hope that also will better with treatment
I also need to get my weight back. I lost so much weight, all my muscle mass is gone, I can't run anymore because my leg muscles have degraded so much. But I now have less stress because I largely know what's wrong. I am cautiously optimistic that things will get better from here
Imma be honest this is the worst I’ve been in a hot minute. I got home on Sunday and my cat was laying in the corner clearly in a lot pain and then she passed about an hour later. I buried her Monday before school but since it’s been pretty much impossible for me to sleep in my room. My family has (or I guess had) 4 cats but snickers was really close to me more than the others because she’d sleep in my room every night and cuddle up with me while I did homework or watched YouTube. This is the first time I’ve cried in 3 years and it was pretty ugly but I think I’m holding up decently all things considered. For some reason I don’t feel the “normal” sad feeling when you lose someone but instead I just feel fear. I don’t get panic attacks but I’ve gotten something similar the last 2 nights. This is all just so out of nowhere, she was perfectly normal Sunday morning and I leave the house and come back and she’s blind and in pain. I rushed home because I got a call from my mom that one of our pets wasn’t doing well and I assumed it was chase (our older doggo) since he’s already had some health issues recently and I’ve already come to terms that he doesn’t have long left but snickers… She was normal that morning. I should be numb to this kind of thing by now but she’s just… I don’t know she was too good for this world I guess. I don’t remember a time where she wasn’t in my life. She was 14 and I’m 18 now snd I don’t want this to be the new normal. I just want to hold her again. Just one more time. Sleep well baby I know they’ve got some gourmet cat food up there for you
I forgot to reply at the time, but I did not lose my hand permanently (but I wish i did). I had to work on oil paintings at the time for a class, but I still managed to get my work done at the time despite my difficulties. I managed to finish all my class work after that for that semester and the one afterward, and then I could graduate from the 4-year subsequently. I ended up finding a job I liked a long while after that, but that is a different story for another day. It does not mean my parents refer to me correctly or respect me, but I'm tolerating them more.
I couldn't help it. I loved this series since I was young, and there's only so many times you can play through the games again before you want a real challenge. I started small with RBY, got to about the top 200s on ladder and feel pretty confident about tours in there. GSC is iffy, just because it's so hard to get good games, and DPP as much as I hate that format despite it being my favorite gen, I'm at the cusp of about top 500 in there, too, but have no interest in participating in tours there. I feel good. snap plus features
I made some RBY buds on discord I think. We talk. It's all cool.
I got back into ADV, and I don't know why, but even though that's the first of the OUs I start to have problems with, I have an urge to be dominant there. I want to succeed. I want to prove to myself I can do it, and prove all the people who used to pick on me wrong.
So, getting a tutor recently, I got back on the grind, and I started to play more, and eventually the time came where I was invited to a server to do some scouting for opponents on tours, and it really gave me anxiety going back in there; the people that don't like me are still there, still very active, and I just want to stay my distance. However, curiousity got the better of me, and I looked to see through the past messages on the server if I had been talked about.
And, unsuprisingly, people haven't forgotten about me. They still talk about me.
I'll be completely honest; I've done and said a lot of stupid shit in places like Mushi League or wherever I've been wherever I'm talked about. I've gotten a reputation for being a dumbass, and it's my fault. I don't think the other side is completely innocent either, in fact I feel people really fueled the fire over there.
Some of the stuff I don't even remember because I was too angry at the moment and might have blocked it out or pushed it all aside and bundled it together with all the other bad experiences I've had here, and never really reflected. I've done stuff like demand ELO from PS staff because my internet was shit one night and I lost too many games from disconnections, I've been hostile at people giving me advice, and probably other things I can't even remember. I'm no saint.
I wish I could reset. I don't know if it's even possible given how much I've tried to move past it, but it brings back bad memories and a lot of tears because I feel like a shitty person and maybe I don't deserve to be in this community still. I had a really, really rough last 4 months of 2024. Probably the worst of my life. Got fired from my job and my dog drowned in October, girlfriend cheated on me twice and my best friends backstabbed and blackmailed me in November, and I attempted suicide in December. I remember around that time I had been getting a lot of shit and spitting a lot of venom. It wasn't great.
No excuses for my behavior, but, I wish I could start over. I wish I could also find an ADV community, any other community besides the ones I have that I don't need to be afraid of, or feel any kind of anger towards people for what they had done to me before.
I'll be completely honest; I've done and said a lot of stupid shit in places like Mushi League or wherever I've been wherever I'm talked about. I've gotten a reputation for being a dumbass, and it's my fault. I don't think the other side is completely innocent either, in fact I feel people really fueled the fire over there.
Unfortunately I'm considering retiring from competitive mons very soon, because I'm investing way more of my mental health in this game than I should, to the point where it affects my health, and even my work ethic. I'm just doing this to hide my insecurities and failures in other aspects of life.
Basically, I know that I need to work on myself, but I just don't want to do it. The only reason would be "for my own good" and competitive mons are sort of an addiction for me. I have an extremely bad opinion on society and what people form, because I don't understand how we function, and I grew up surrounded by dickheads tbf.
I'm happy I've participated in four suspect tests this year and will still be trying to get reqs for the PU Frosmoth test, but after that I might be done with this game in general. I don't have much to offer to a potential girlfriend, maybe once i finish my German learning I'd be able to scoop up a home and a better job, but even so i really don't know. And the worst thing is that id rather stay like this over doing anything about it. It's dawned on me that I need to move on, and I've been in denial for so long. I've just been watching YouTubers like Aba and Preach and Sixteen Leo and reading books on philosophy, having now started Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and honestly no one beat this into my head, it's just the natural conclusion i got to.
And once my smogon adventure is over, I will be deleting all of my remaining presence on the internet, which is basically this site and discord at this point. Even so, my insecurities are very strong and sap at my mental health periodically, despite me no longer needing to take meds. I feel like I just needed a softer landing, but it's here.
I'll be completely honest; I've done and said a lot of stupid shit in places like Mushi League or wherever I've been wherever I'm talked about. I've gotten a reputation for being a dumbass, and it's my fault. I don't think the other side is completely innocent either, in fact I feel people really fueled the fire over there.
Figured I’d give an update because I’m doing a lot better than I was in October (thank god). I finally got a guitar and I kinda suck at it but that’s to be expected considering I’m like 2 and a half weeks in. I’ve managed to avoid getting into legal trouble like I tend to do when I’m at a low point so that’s also good. Things are starting to look up again
The implicit question of how to have good mental health while accepting reality for what it is is a good one, one I'm still fighting with. I'll post some of my developing answers. Maybe you'll find them useful, maybe you won't.
[...]
the relationship between "evil things happen" and "i feel bad" is not entirely obvious to me. i think at a basic level if i stub my toe i will feel bad; if i see someone else stub their toe i will feel bad for them; if i am aware that many people are currently stubbing their toes i will feel bad for them as well. there is some ambiguity i think in the (implicit) question - is it "how do i prevent myself from feeling bad knowing bad things are happening?" or "how can i justify not feeling bad if bad things are happening"?
in the former case the question's sorta just a psychology question, so i don't have much to say about it. a therapist could answer the question more effectively.
in the latter case i'm not sure about the motivation for the question - why would you want bad things happening to make you feel bad? if someone stubs their toe, it's important to help them up; i don't think it's important to feel bad for them. i don't think it's some sort of moral failure to not feel unhappy at bad things happening, it's just a failure to do or enable or allow bad things yourself. to my mind this isn't analogous to consignment to the torture matrix in order to prevent bad things from happening, it's analogous to consigning oneself to the torture matrix because other people are there as well and how can you be happy when they're so miserable? if you're doing your best to get them out, i don't think you need to harm yourself as a show of empathy.
(i'm a bit skeptical of the value of empathy in general actually but that is neither here nor there)
In an abstract sense I agree with you; what's important when bad things are happening is to do work in order to prevent the bad things from happening.
But as a practical matter, human emotions condition human behavior. When people are furious, they can be motivated to do very powerful things. When people are sad, that can sometimes happen too--although in other cases it can have a depressing effect where they fall into helpless despair. These negative emotions are very important.
If we try to treat emotions and behavior as two completely discrete things, it is easy to be confused. Imo we need to understand them as inseparable, and the more we understand this, the more we can use our understanding of our emotions to inform and improve how we act in the world.
I can say personally that negative emotions like anger have helped me, in many many ways, to work harder towards the kind of life that I want for myself and others. It has been a very good thing!
Hope everyone in this thread is doing okay!! Remember to ground yourself. If you see yourself spiraling or having a lot of anxiety or bad thoughts, remember to breath and focus on physical senses such as sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell!!
Refer to hotlines and local resources for help as well!!
this is a really sensitive topic for me that I haven’t felt super comfortable talking about but I seriously need to get this off my chest. A couple weeks ago, I lost my irl best friend to suicide. I still remember vividly, I was getting some work done and was told the bad news by his parents over the phone, and I cried probably for the next 2 days. That shit really hit me hard. He was doing fine, on the surface at least. He was always the charismatic one out of the two of us and even helped me get my gf of 2 years now because of his open demeanor and ability to crack you at of your shell. He never had any run ins with literally anything and was a genuinely amazing guy and I seriously have no clue why he took his own life.
I guess I feel… angry? Like he left me behind or something? He was my only friend pretty much since he was the connector — the one who brought everyone else together. After his passing, my grades started slipping, I quite sports all together (although to be fair had a nasty shoulder injury so I couldn’t do much anyways), and I just lock myself into my room and sleep or something. His death really took a toll on my mental health as well. I’m back in what I was in a couple of months ago. I’m not getting amazing sleep (again I never did anyways, I’ve always been an insomniac) and I’ve deeply considered taking my own life multiple times.
Aside from this, I tried talking to my parents but they weren’t much help + in my area it is pretty hard to schedule something with a therapist. On top of that, I kinda just feel scared to reach out. I know it sounds kinda stupid, but it really is something wrong. The only things keeping me alive are probably my dogs and this website + the friends I’ve made on here.
I won’t leak my friend’s name for privacy reasons but we all miss you man. Any advice to how I can get some help would be greatly appreciated, love yall
So, I need to ask a question. Am I the only one here that genuinely hates the holidays and the winter season and all that other stuff? I really did think this December was going to be one of the better ones in recent memory for me but the past two or three days everything’s just completely falling apart and I just wish it would all end. The holidays, I mean. I feel like I can blame a number of things. I was never the best about actually remembering to take my anxiety and depression medicine every day, but I also think my counseling, religion in general, an ongoing job search, and recurring family plans all play a factor as to why this is my least favorite time of the year by far. But yet, all I can do in good faith is blame myself for causing the majority of my own problems in some form. The past few years it’s been getting to the point where if I ever even consider having a family of my own, I’m starting to consider just never doing anything fun or “festive” (yeah, right) during December for at least the foreseeable future, and I’m getting especially close to abandoning religion and spirituality outright.
So, I need to ask a question. Am I the only one here that genuinely hates the holidays and the winter season and all that other stuff? I really did think this December was going to be one of the better ones in recent memory for me but the past two or three days everything’s just completely falling apart and I just wish it would all end. The holidays, I mean. I feel like I can blame a number of things. I was never the best about actually remembering to take my anxiety and depression medicine every day, but I also think my counseling, religion in general, an ongoing job search, and recurring family plans all play a factor as to why this is my least favorite time of the year by far. But yet, all I can do in good faith is blame myself for causing the majority of my own problems in some form. The past few years it’s been getting to the point where if I ever even consider having a family of my own, I’m starting to consider just never doing anything fun or “festive” (yeah, right) during December for at least the foreseeable future, and I’m getting especially close to abandoning religion and spirituality outright.
I don't think that I'm going through the same sorts of things that you are, but I'll second a general dislike for this time of year. For me, the holidays mean hectic plans during the time when I most want to relax, and I live in a place that gets battered by snow during the winter months, which inflames my anxiety about driving. I just tank it until January, when there are far fewer things going on and also the NFL playoffs.
I don't think that I'm going through the same sorts of things that you are, but I'll second a general dislike for this time of year. For me, the holidays mean hectic plans during the time when I most want to relax, and I live in a place that gets battered by snow during the winter months, which inflames my anxiety about driving. I just tank it until January, when there are far fewer things going on and also the NFL playoffs.
I won’t mention exactly where I’m from on the Internet, only that you’re likely not too, too far from me state-wise if you being a Detroit Lions fan is anything to go off of. For better or worse, apparently Christmas is supposed to be much warmer and wet… again… this year, and I think I can speak on both of our behalves when I say that we would much rather take things at our own pace.
By contrast to the winter, the summer months are usually the best time of the year for me and my mental wellness. I want to look into seeing if I might have some kind of seasonal depression, but regardless of if I ever got a diagnosis for something like that there’s still the religious/spiritual side of the holiday season that I go back and forth on constantly. Nonetheless, for the sake of this whole thread, really, I feel like we’re all in this together to a certain point. We all deal with our own inner demons, so to speak, but the best thing I can remind myself of is that we’re never truly alone.
this is a really sensitive topic for me that I haven’t felt super comfortable talking about but I seriously need to get this off my chest. A couple weeks ago, I lost my irl best friend to suicide. I still remember vividly, I was getting some work done and was told the bad news by his parents over the phone, and I cried probably for the next 2 days. That shit really hit me hard. He was doing fine, on the surface at least. He was always the charismatic one out of the two of us and even helped me get my gf of 2 years now because of his open demeanor and ability to crack you at of your shell. He never had any run ins with literally anything and was a genuinely amazing guy and I seriously have no clue why he took his own life.
I guess I feel… angry? Like he left me behind or something? He was my only friend pretty much since he was the connector — the one who brought everyone else together. After his passing, my grades started slipping, I quite sports all together (although to be fair had a nasty shoulder injury so I couldn’t do much anyways), and I just lock myself into my room and sleep or something. His death really took a toll on my mental health as well. I’m back in what I was in a couple of months ago. I’m not getting amazing sleep (again I never did anyways, I’ve always been an insomniac) and I’ve deeply considered taking my own life multiple times.
Aside from this, I tried talking to my parents but they weren’t much help + in my area it is pretty hard to schedule something with a therapist. On top of that, I kinda just feel scared to reach out. I know it sounds kinda stupid, but it really is something wrong. The only things keeping me alive are probably my dogs and this website + the friends I’ve made on here.
I won’t leak my friend’s name for privacy reasons but we all miss you man. Any advice to how I can get some help would be greatly appreciated, love yall
Hi Linux. We don't know each other but let me state the following: you have every right to feel equally angry and mournful toward your friend's loss. I sure would be angry and yet heartbroken too. You have my condolences.
Death is a complex thing, and the holidays are a very... amplifying factor. We tend to think of those we've lost, what we haven't done, for some people it brings out loneliness, etc. For when there are opportunities to bring joy, oftentimes sadness can rear its ugly head too. Your parents may not be very well-equipped to discuss this subject, either due to a lack of experience with it or due to it being uncomfortable for them, whatever have you. So while I'm just a random stranger on the internet, I'm going to give you a few minutes of my time to say something:
He would never want you to follow in his footsteps. I know that if you were truly friends then he would not want you to suffer. I'm sure he would be touched to know how much you care about him, and certainly, you should take your time to process what he means, meant, and will mean to you going forward. Because you WILL make it through this if you simply eliminate that as an option, and I certainly hope you do.
But because I deal in honesty, I have to clarify this right now: you will NEVER truly know what he was thinking. Ever. Nobody could tell that story but him, and unfortunately he chose not to tell it. Please know that whatever pain or anguish drove him to choose to leave this world is over now, BUT the cycle of pain must not continue with you or anyone he knew, even if everyone in his life is understandably going to be rocked by this tragic event. Maybe this sounds performative, but please forgive him, and yourself.
To end on a positive note, even in this tragedy, consider what a blessing it was for you to have had a friend that means so much to you that you could feel so strongly about his passing. Consider how he would feel knowing how much you cared for him. That is perhaps reason enough alone to keep on going.
And then live. Live because your friend would want you to experience whatever he felt he couldn't, but predominantly, live for you and the loved ones that still want and need you here. Live because there is an inevitable death for us all anyway, but when it comes for you because it's your time, have the courage to say that you lived a wonderful life and that you took the time to feel and experience all it had to offer you. You are not the first to feel this sort of pain, and I regret to say you won't be the last. But have the understanding that this is a part of the human experience, as absolutely soul-wrenching as it may be, and the grace to understand that it's a messy one.
I hope the mods will forgive me double posting as I feel that the message I wrote above deserves to be put separate from the one I'm about to write, just based off the tone of it all.
By contrast to the winter, the summer months are usually the best time of the year for me and my mental wellness. I want to look into seeing if I might have some kind of seasonal depression, but regardless of if I ever got a diagnosis for something like that there’s still the religious/spiritual side of the holiday season that I go back and forth on constantly. Nonetheless, for the sake of this whole thread, really, I feel like we’re all in this together to a certain point. We all deal with our own inner demons, so to speak, but the best thing I can remind myself of is that we’re never truly alone.
While seasonal depression is not uncommon, I've found that generally the summer gives you ample opportunity to take care of your physical and mental health(yes they are linked) with longer days, more sunlight, and generally more social activity. Winter can be cozy and all that like they advertise, but in comparison, the early pitch-black darkness, the cold(and occasionally snow/ice) limiting outdoor opportunities and such make it much easier to not only feel lazier, but also just less active overall.
I also think that there's an implicit "guilt" that comes with not feeling happy during times you "should." Some people deal with depression around their birthday and choose to keep it low-key or not even mention it. Others find the holidays hard for that same reason, whether they are deeply religious or not. I think it has to do with not meeting the expectations of others when it comes to big events, as if you have to "perform" to that standard even if you're not really feeling up to it.
If you feel that being tested for a diagnosis would help you, more power to you, but what I think is most important is to reverse engineer what helps you feel better about yourself during the summer and try to aggressively attack that in the wintertime. Do you feel lonelier during winter? Be more intentional about meeting up with other people, or try some new event out. Not physically active often? At least try to go outside, even for a walk. It may not be perfect, but even a small boost is better than nothing, right?
I got a lot more dependent on my parents as I got sick and get really bad panic attacks when I stay alone for extended periods of time. I needed to move back in to my parents in June after living by myself for around 2.5 years. It was alright for the first couple of months but my mother becomes increasingly aggressive and controlling as the days get shorter and she spends more time at home. She also gets much, much worse the older she gets. For context, she has MASSIVE issues with differentiating between herself and her children. She always takes our clothes without asking and when I moved out, I didn't have the opportunity to really live by myself. I gave her the keys to my apartment in case I ever lock myself out or something. But she took the keys to infiltrate my home and to "clean up", went through my stuff all the time and rearranged everything from time to time. She never understood how much it unnerved and angered me to come home to new furniture or for the place to look completely different than before, she always thought I was crazy for reacting this way. I also originally intended to cook and shop for myself, but she always brought food and shopping bags, despite me telling her over and over for the course of 2.5 years to not do. She always said I am not able to do that myself, despite the fact that I've been and only stopped because she always did that despite everything
She always had a lot of control on me through guilt and shame. Told me I was a worthless son because I never visited her (I visited her every other week, she wanted twice weekly), because I didn't go to every family trip with her, because I always followed my own head and always do things just to spite her. And she also ensured that I wouldn't take the keys from her by saying how only an asshole would do that
Ever since I came back, she would consistently read my documents, open my letters, ask me why I go to doctors so often despite being healthy (everyone recommended me to never tell my parents of my sickness, as they would only make things harder), asked me what I talk with my therapist and why I always talk shit about her during my therapy and why I go there when I only become more insane despite the therapy. I once came home and put my backpack by the entrance, she had a panic attack because she thought it meant something (I don't know what) and told me that she can't take my state anymore psychologically and that I need to tell her about everything in my life from now on. She did not let go of that for hours
She now really wants to go somewhere for New Year's Eve. I told her I don't want to go there on Monday. She had a panic attack, started crying, talked about every bad thing in her life, talked about how her life is a living hell, how she prays every night that she hopes she won't wake up, how she had to sacrifice everything for her children, how I need her because I can't stay alone and because of that she couldn't go anywhere all year and had to cancel several trips because of solely me (I did not know of any of this) and that she will either kill herself or kill me if I don't come with her. She also told my siblings that I promised that I'd come with them and they all took vacations. I spent the entire day today going through several panic attacks from my mother and though her constantly telling me how much of a worthless piece of shit, how much of a liar and a failure and a disappointment I am and how she regrets having ever set me into this world. That she hopes I would die soon so she can get some rest. This wasn't the first time she did this, she also did this when I was a small child. But she was never this aggressive and driven
I don't know anymore man. She always fed me and she supported me financially when I needed it, she took care of me when I was sick, she did a lot for me. But she's so instabile. I got her a psychiatrist appointment a few years ago when she threatened to kill me 4 years ago, she never went, she says she can't change and that we need to deal with her. She's also never, ever satisfied with me. She always complains and complains and complains no matter what I do, even when I do what she wants
I am so fucking tired. She knows how much of my life she ruined and she knows that I know and she's bitter about that. She says I always blame her and make her look like the worst in front of my therapist because she knows that this is just the truth. I have no idea how she will progress, shitty behavior just becomes worse with age on unreflected people from my experience. I need to get out of her home, panic attacks are genuinely preferable to this shit
About 6 years since I first posted in here. Those 6 years were a period of my life that I have been putting to rest, and I'm going to continue that wrapping up here. Honestly, writing this intro up, my first thought will be just, to try and summarize what happened. That will help my internal organization.
Trigger Warnings: Near-death experiences; brief mention of self-harm in an aside. There's one specific segment of body horror I hide in a nested spoiler.
I first came here to post about my depression. And I beat it. I still have depressive bouts, but these are ending skirmishes of a victorious strategy. That is something for celebration. But it has been a painful road. And also an unusual one.
A preface. An inextricable part of this road has been understanding myself, my priorities, and my world on my own terms. I struggled to find ways to describe these terms, so I created them. I call this description system, which is something like a conlang,
Ecalw. When this writing appears, now you know why it is there.
My depression came from me not finding sufficient meaning in my life, which itself came from me not understanding meaning; how to find it; how to create it. For this reason, this six-year period was
Layin Kayisteidaka, "The (Time) of Manipulating Meaning." The time where I learned how to do all that stuff, my way.
How did I do that? At the earliest stages, I knew certain things resonated with me, drawing out my care and preference. For example, certain ways of writing and vocalizing ideas, which you've seen already. Or certain pieces of media, like pieces of music. Or characters, which have long been key parts of my expression on this site. Or whatever. I knew 1) there was some kind of power in these connections, 2) that something inside my depressive self needed to change, and 3) that 1 and 2 probably related. There were things that affected me, and I needed to be affected, so it made sense.
I thought and I thought about what might explain and interrelate these powerful connections I had. I hunted and hunted for new material that might evidence new connections to me and to existing connections. In the peak of
keitoliya, "Capturing [Meaning]", I would find something I cared about it and just stare it at for a solid half-hour in pure meditation. There had to be some kind of pattern connecting and explaining these data points of connections.
I was right. I learned how to trace these invisible wires connecting these distinct nodes of resonation. In moving beyond specific nodes to connecting them together, in constructing the bigger period, I was able to increasingly abstract. Eventually, I traced them all to a single source: me. That may seem trivial, even tautological. Of course all the stuff I care about is united by being mine, and that my care comes from myself, and all that holds true for anyone.
But here is what changed. I realized that, by caring about things, I was expressing myself, expressing my will. I was generating meaning, what I was looking for. This process of generating meaning, once an unconscious background event, was now something I derived from first principles, something I was acutely aware of. A process pouring out my agency, and one subject to my agency.
I had solved a long problem for me: I needed change, but I did not want to be pushed by the world to change, an external force which struck me as tyrannical and destructive to myself. Now that I understood my force and control in generating meaning, I could construct new bottom-up relationships of meaning. These new relationships changed what was important to me, changed my priorities, and therefore changed myself. I could change myself:
Kaieia, "self-propelled transformation."
In taking control of my world of meaning, I took control of myself, and therefore took control of my life. Instead of floating around, I was directing. I graduated from a pre-adult to an adult. With my new understanding and my existing mental infrastructure, I developed more and more and never looked back, and that's where I am now.
This is cool, but my streamlining has omitted an important part of the story. Like for anyone, a strong incentive for me to care about things was avoiding pain and loss. In my numbed state, I needed accessible wells of caring. Pain and misery made accessible wells, especially after my learning improved and desired more material.
To continually experience meaning, to understand it, to be affected, I actively threw myself into personal misery after personal misery. I surgically sniped at and drilled into all my insecurities, weaknesses, and fears. Self-conducted mental surgery,
nalagastws silw, was in fact a frequent metaphor. To be clear, this was a strategic action to obtain benefits - it was not self-harm, despite being self-inflicted and in some ways harmful. Nevertheless, my active and eager pursuit of deep pain terrified me. Near the end of it all, I made a 1-5 "pain scale." 3 was the level of hearing myself screaming in pain inside my own head, and it was not uncommon. 4 felt like my bones were breaking. It was uncommon in a day-to-day sense but frequent enough to become relatively routine. Despite this pain, I was utterly undeterred, because I knew I was on the right track and I cared more about winning this goal over anything. This isn't bragging. That part of me was, while of immense long-term usefulness in that context, also a horrifying truth I learned about myself.
Beyond just the lows, it was just. So much work and time and effort. I was pursuing an intense professional path for much of these years, including the deepest parts of it, and juggling this process while also trying to excel there. It was like pursuing two intense professional paths at once. My determination gave me intense energy reserves, but I would also overwork myself from time to time.
This overwork reached one particular nadir. One day, my mental infrastructure just, shut off, instantly, at an arbitrary time, like the plane of myself had crashed and was burning. It felt like I was dying. All I could do was see in my head some austere representation of my essence, and an eerie purple pit in the earth, filled with some lurid pink and purple substance. I was sliding into the substance, and all I felt was, if I slid in, my essence would be obliterated forever. It took all my drained energy just to remain sufficiently, not fully, "above water." It was a demonic experience. Many times before I've processed pain through painful distortions of my cognitive self, a subset of me generally processing meaning through mental spacialized visualization, but this was utterly a new low that has not been equalled. Within the month, I had an "actual physical running for my life from a source of possible actual physical death," but that experience kinda bounced off me in part because I just went through that sort of conceptualized experience.
stabbed through the eye; my house burning down; being shot and killed; my metaphorical heart burning away;
Fiyan Albatateyllo "having my life energy stolen,"
Talhannaistakw "having been given to the adversary,"
Kankuwlemanteyw "going away with Lady Death," stabbed with needles; a baseball bat hitting my metaphorical heart and breaking it like glass; my spine replaced by a metal rod; blotted out by black flies;
Vessailentemw (i.e.) infested with worms;
Lepallantaitakamw (e.g.) fading into butterflies; burning in an electrical fire
Those six years were a time of immensely productive learning, but it was often sad and, though I didn't really process it that way at the time, lonely. I had a couple people I could trust and talk to, including an attempt at therapy, and I occasionally did, but it was really hard for me to solicit effective help. The big picture I present to you is something I have slowly cultivated and refined across 6 years, and not something I really understood for most of that time. I was trying to figure all this stuff out from the bottom - effectively understanding each individual link in the chain as it came was hard enough, let alone overcoming my fears about talking about it to someone else, let alone bringing it into a form they will understand, let alone connecting all that together to ask for whatever help I needed.
Some intertwining themes of my current phase, so far, are translating my knowledge to make my life happier, deepening my bonds and understanding of other people, and becoming more in tune with my emotional state and emotions - especially my happier ones. The current path remains hard, but more for professional reasons than intrinsic ones, and I'm happy for that, with a lot of hope for the future.
Hey guys and I hope you have a happy holidays / new year
January 2026 update here, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to use Discord or Reddit again. I like to think I removed both platforms from my life last year - Reddit in the spring and Discord around December. Now I'm happy I got to use the latter, but I still think it's a stop gap b/c I need better friends in real life.
Unfortunately I think that stuff like discussion on Smogon tiering actions, for example, lead a lot of people to believe that the metagame, competitive play, and the world in general revolves around them. I myself fall for this quite often, and it's not cool to win arguments on the internet if only to shift away attention from your real life issues.
I started reading In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust in November (about 30% completed) and Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan in December (completed book 0 The New Spring), I also want to read The Dark Tower once i finish / am tired of reading Proust. Despite using a rather difficult style of prose I still remember Swann's story about love and how "non-romantic" it was. Great read if you want to learn more about 19th century France.
2026 will be the most difficult year for me personally, but i'm looking to also make it offer a lot of great things to me. I'm gonna head back to the gym next Monday, and down the line join language exchange groups, host local events, and meet new people. I plan to continue playing mons in my leisure time and hopefully qualify for low tier suspect tests (zu venusaur pls)
This is an update from July. Unfortunately, things aren't really going well for me.
I'm still feeling a lot of incertainties. I can't say if it's my environment or just me, but despite everything I do, I feel like I'm not doing "good enough". I cannot find satisfaction in the games I play, in the activities I do, in all the different things I try. I can experience brief moments of joy, but they're crushed by a constant feeling of spite and regrets.
That is without speaking about a new recent issue I have, which I can only describe as a sort of eating disorder.
I've never hidden the fact that I'm a Type I Diabetic. Meaning, a genetic disease which forces me to get insulin shot at a very frequent rate. This disease also come with the fact of not feeling hunger like the rest of the world: if I don't get my insulin shot, my brain gets tricked and think I didn't eat enough, so it makes me even more hungry despite the fact that I could have eaten just yet. And here comes the issue. My diabetes is also my worst enemy, and despite everything I have tried, I cannot be reliable on doing my insulin shot in due time. It's simply not possible for me. But it's not the only thing. I don't want to spread more infos, but I'm also forced to take certain drugs that increase my appetite. All this results in me being constantly hungry and looking to eat. Not only that, but I also eat a damn lot.
And to top this off, a past sciatica resurfaced, which has even more affected my ability to go to the gym. This has resulted in me gaining a lot of weight, and I'm now borderline obese.
I'm truly lost right now. This whole situation is so difficult to carry. It just feels like faith is relentless with me.
January 2026 update here, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to use Discord or Reddit again. I like to think I removed both platforms from my life last year - Reddit in the spring and Discord around December. Now I'm happy I got to use the latter, but I still think it's a stop gap b/c I need better friends in real life.
I quit both in early 2020. Probably one of the best decisions in my life. Both of these websites are just social medias and it genuinely never harms to quit these
The problem with Discord for me that I run into is that basically all of my friends aside from, like, one or two use this platform for various things. I very frequently find myself in situations where my different friends and friend groups are online at the same time, and normally I don’t like to choose between them. I have “strategies”, for lack of a better word, in place to help me “deal with that”, but the fact is that I’m almost never the one who wants to be on the platform myself. Something about Discord even without all of the existing controversies, let alone with them, just gives me a bad vibe in general, like I’m not supposed to be there and that if I leave people are going to be upset with me.
It reminds me a lot of when my roommates in college would be hanging out with each other playing games together. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but eventually my social anxiety got to the point where I actively felt guilty that I wouldn’t hang out with them as often as I probably could have, especially when their girlfriends were around. (Seriously, what ever happened to a guys’ night out? Talk about clingy.) Both with Discord and in college, the strangest part is that I almost never had anything to actually feel guilty for doing. It’s like, I click on the Discord icon, or log into that website, and this curtain of sadness suddenly drapes over my back and shoulders. I genuinely do not get it. It’s like, the more friends I have, the worse I feel in an online setting or something.
