I need help figuring things out (and to vent)

[Dweller Dark]

I guess I'm not one to share strong, existential feelings about myself, but I think I'm at a point where I need to. I've been having a lot of conflicting feelings and opinions about myself and I sort-of feel comfortable and safe discussing them here. I know I might need professional help in the long run, but right now I just need to get how I feel out there and figure out what to do. I expect that I will probably have advice telling me to seek out professional help, but if you have similar feelings and/or personal issues and know how to deal with them, then that kind of advice would be very helpful too.

 

For one thing, I'm always uncertain if I'm welcome in social spaces, such as here or other communities. To an extent, I've largely withdrawn and become less social and open from them because I do end up feeling unwelcome even if it's just my brain telling me so and not an actuality. I'm not great at effectively communicating how I feel or what I need to properly understand things, and I think I communicate simple things in a way that's less understandable to anyone but me. I also tend to just do things and I often feel regret about some of them. (And I sometimes feel regret for bringing up something like this because I'll be feeling better the next day or the next hour.) I'm often ending up as an observer to a community rather than an active participant. Also, the feeling of being an annoyance comes into my head too.

 

Another thing that's been in my head a lot is whether or not I'm someone who feels strong emotions. There are a lot of things that I know I should care about, but I just don't feel strongly about them. I can feel happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, etc, but it doesn't feel as strong as I expect unless it's a really specific circumstance. There are times where I believe I should care and speak up about a thing because it's what others do or it's something that many others believe should be talked about (such as major world events), but I just don't do it. Even if I actually do care to some extent. 

 

And while I doubt this is the last of my personal issues, I often have difficulty concentrating on things and sticking to one thing. I think about one thing I want to do, like play something or listen to something, but I either don't do it at all or I do one for five minutes and the other for five minutes and get nothing done. Like I want to play the games I have installed, but I install other games frequently thinking I'll finally get into them, and then I don't. I buy music, but then I spend a lot of time watching Twitch or YouTube or fiddling about with a game that I want to play but know it'll take years to focus my attention and motivation on it. I do also have motivation problems, so I'm curious if it's all related somehow.

 

I will admit, I do feel kind of hesitant to even discuss these feelings and thoughts in a forum like this, but Doomworld has always been a relatively decent community even if I'm not sure where I fit into it (besides liking the Doom franchise).

[Baron T. Mueriach]

I have struggled with similar things, but not the social space one. I've always been very comfortable wherever I'm at, and as a result, I've always been pretty damn popular, so I can't help you with that.

 

For the emotions, I can help. Just embrace the fact that you can't feel strong emotions, it's really not a bad thing when you look at it. In fact, there are multiple upsides to that. I had the same thing for a long time and I always wondered why, so I took a few psychiatric tests, and it turns out, I'm a psychopath. Not saying that's you or anything but I was pretty surprised by it, so I just decided to embrace it.

 

For concentration, I'm pretty sure 99% of people struggle with that, it's not ADHD btw, that's become a buzzword but it's completely misused.

 

That's all for my jargon.

[Beginner]

2 hours ago, Dweller Dark said:

And while I doubt this is the last of my personal issues, I often have difficulty concentrating on things and sticking to one thing. I think about one thing I want to do, like play something or listen to something, but I either don't do it at all or I do one for five minutes and the other for five minutes and get nothing done. Like I want to play the games I have installed, but I install other games frequently thinking I'll finally get into them, and then I don't. I buy music, but then I spend a lot of time watching Twitch or YouTube or fiddling about with a game that I want to play but know it'll take years to focus my attention and motivation on it. I do also have motivation problems, so I'm curious if it's all related somehow.

If you're having problems committing to playing a game and are constantly distracting yourself, chances are you are just not interested in said game in the first place. However, the problem with ever growing backlog of games can only be tackled by playing the games. or nuking the backlog itself, but that's probably not the kind of advice/solution you're looking for.

[Dweller Dark]

8 hours ago, Beginner said:

If you're having problems committing to playing a game and are constantly distracting yourself, chances are you are just not interested in said game in the first place. However, the problem with ever growing backlog of games can only be tackled by playing the games. or nuking the backlog itself, but that's probably not the kind of advice/solution you're looking for.

 

That might be true, I feel. It could also be trepidation, lack of understanding, and/or the way some games can be overwhelming with choices or game mechanics, now that I've had time to think about it. In that kind of sense, maybe it's hard for me to feel interested enough in a game if I'm dealing with one of those things and so I end up getting nowhere. The latter two might be the worst to deal with, since I never get anywhere if I don't have a strong grasp on the game (immersive sims and isometric RPGs seem to be what I have the most difficulty with). I guess that's also my problem with reading books, too.

 

Music, on the other hand, is hard to just sit there and listen to completely. But it's the least difficult thing behind gaming and reading, activity-wise. 

[Rykzeon]

10 hours ago, Dweller Dark said:

And while I doubt this is the last of my personal issues, I often have difficulty concentrating on things and sticking to one thing. I think about one thing I want to do, like play something or listen to something, but I either don't do it at all or I do one for five minutes and the other for five minutes and get nothing done. Like I want to play the games I have installed, but I install other games frequently thinking I'll finally get into them, and then I don't. I buy music, but then I spend a lot of time watching Twitch or YouTube or fiddling about with a game that I want to play but know it'll take years to focus my attention and motivation on it. I do also have motivation problems, so I'm curious if it's all related somehow.

I have games that takes gigabytes of my disk space. Most of them aren't finished, but I don't have interest to play them again in near future so I just archive them with 7z and let them sit in my HDD, incase I ever wanted to play again so I don't need to re-download them. For games I finished, I usually throw them into cloud, unless it still has something to offered for me, like mods. I think the only problem I have is I usually do brainrot things more instead doing something more productive.

[LegendaryEevee]

@Dweller Dark As a person clinically diagnosed with GAD, OCPD and BPD whose spent most of his life in and out of therapy I can offer a few ideas of things that can help.

 

1. I will make no attempt to diagnose what I think it is as at the end of the day diagnoses are just that they all make us see and process things in different ways.

 

2. One thing I have always been taught is however you're feeling force yourself to act opposite it will feel alien at first however will become second nature the more you do it.  For example if you're feeling angry with someone force yourself to do something nice for them.  If you're feeling like hiding in the background do something public.  Feel like staying in, get out of the house just to say you did.  This prevents your emotions from having power over your actions.

 

3.  I will tell you I have felt that many people here have been rude in how short they've been with one another.  HOWEVER I have also met some good friends on here as well who rather than arguing and cutting each other down look to build one another up and grow together.  So just like in the real world in any city, in any country there will be nice and mean people EVERYWHERE.  So understand whatever you feel about doing publically do it with the asertion that you don't care how it's received because any decision you made is right because you made it.  When you second guess yourself you give way to fear and anxiety putting you back to point 2.

 

4.  With my life experiences I have come to this conclusion.  (I am Christian so it helps to focus on a higher power to help keep perspective)  Though I know not everyone is so in this case.  Stand tall and if you're emotions pull you in a direction you don't like, do the opposite to show you control them they don't control you.  Put yourself out there not caring what people think or say, those who are going to like you and be your friend will, and those who don't want to won't we can't make people like us nor accept us.  The more you put yourself out there the more natural you'll feel and the more you let things roll off your shoulders and accept those who wish to stick with you the happier and richer life experiences you can open up my friend.  I'm always here if you need to talk just message me anytime my friend \m/

[Dweller Dark]

33 minutes ago, LegendaryEevee said:

@Dweller Dark As a person clinically diagnosed with GAD, OCPD and BPD whose spent most of his life in and out of therapy I can offer a few ideas of things that can help.

 

1. I will make no attempt to diagnose what I think it is as at the end of the day diagnoses are just that they all make us see and process things in different ways.

 

2. One thing I have always been taught is however you're feeling force yourself to act opposite it will feel alien at first however will become second nature the more you do it.  For example if you're feeling angry with someone force yourself to do something nice for them.  If you're feeling like hiding in the background do something public.  Feel like staying in, get out of the house just to say you did.  This prevents your emotions from having power over your actions.

 

3.  I will tell you I have felt that many people here have been rude in how short they've been with one another.  HOWEVER I have also met some good friends on here as well who rather than arguing and cutting each other down look to build one another up and grow together.  So just like in the real world in any city, in any country there will be nice and mean people EVERYWHERE.  So understand whatever you feel about doing publically do it with the asertion that you don't care how it's received because any decision you made is right because you made it.  When you second guess yourself you give way to fear and anxiety putting you back to point 2.

 

4.  With my life experiences I have come to this conclusion.  (I am Christian so it helps to focus on a higher power to help keep perspective)  Though I know not everyone is so in this case.  Stand tall and if you're emotions pull you in a direction you don't like, do the opposite to show you control them they don't control you.  Put yourself out there not caring what people think or say, those who are going to like you and be your friend will, and those who don't want to won't we can't make people like us nor accept us.  The more you put yourself out there the more natural you'll feel and the more you let things roll off your shoulders and accept those who wish to stick with you the happier and richer life experiences you can open up my friend.  I'm always here if you need to talk just message me anytime my friend \m/

 

I don't express this often, but I appreciate that you said this. I'm aware it'll be difficult for me to follow your advice sometimes, but I can at least try to and I will take you up on your offer to talk if I'm struggling too much. 

 

And I was wondering, if you have/had concentration issues, how do you deal with them? Are there any methods that might work for me that you know of?

[LegendaryEevee]

@Dweller Dark Please see below this has been a life saver to me back when I was in college.  It's the same premise as ASMR or a White Noise machine.  But there is some science behind these.

 

1.  Just set this in the background while performing your needed task.

2.  Adjust the volume so you can JUST BARELY hear it.

3.  See if you can't concentrate a bit better this way.  It worked wonders for me all the way through Graduate School.

 

 

[Amiga Angel]

13 hours ago, Dweller Dark said:

I guess I'm not one to share strong, existential feelings about myself, but I think I'm at a point where I need to. I've been having a lot of conflicting feelings and opinions about myself and I sort-of feel comfortable and safe discussing them here. I know I might need professional help in the long run, but right now I just need to get how I feel out there and figure out what to do. I expect that I will probably have advice telling me to seek out professional help, but if you have similar feelings and/or personal issues and know how to deal with them, then that kind of advice would be very helpful too.

 

For one thing, I'm always uncertain if I'm welcome in social spaces, such as here or other communities. To an extent, I've largely withdrawn and become less social and open from them because I do end up feeling unwelcome even if it's just my brain telling me so and not an actuality. I'm not great at effectively communicating how I feel or what I need to properly understand things, and I think I communicate simple things in a way that's less understandable to anyone but me. I also tend to just do things and I often feel regret about some of them. (And I sometimes feel regret for bringing up something like this because I'll be feeling better the next day or the next hour.) I'm often ending up as an observer to a community rather than an active participant. Also, the feeling of being an annoyance comes into my head too.

 

Another thing that's been in my head a lot is whether or not I'm someone who feels strong emotions. There are a lot of things that I know I should care about, but I just don't feel strongly about them. I can feel happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, etc, but it doesn't feel as strong as I expect unless it's a really specific circumstance. There are times where I believe I should care and speak up about a thing because it's what others do or it's something that many others believe should be talked about (such as major world events), but I just don't do it. Even if I actually do care to some extent. 

 

And while I doubt this is the last of my personal issues, I often have difficulty concentrating on things and sticking to one thing. I think about one thing I want to do, like play something or listen to something, but I either don't do it at all or I do one for five minutes and the other for five minutes and get nothing done. Like I want to play the games I have installed, but I install other games frequently thinking I'll finally get into them, and then I don't. I buy music, but then I spend a lot of time watching Twitch or YouTube or fiddling about with a game that I want to play but know it'll take years to focus my attention and motivation on it. I do also have motivation problems, so I'm curious if it's all related somehow.

 

I will admit, I do feel kind of hesitant to even discuss these feelings and thoughts in a forum like this, but Doomworld has always been a relatively decent community even if I'm not sure where I fit into it (besides liking the Doom franchise).

I can recognize everything you are saying here

 

I don't have any advice regarding the social thing but when it comes to negative thoughts then it helps me to have a kind of mental toolbox that contains guides on what to do when specific negative thoughts enter my mind. It sounds really stupid but it really helps me keep the worst depression and anxiety at bay for the most part anyway

 

[LadyMistDragon]

My dude this is all so familiar....

 

Although I've always been pretty popular like Baron so it would be hard to speak on that aspect specifically.

 

But when it comes to strong emotions, I've always felt like kind of an outlier as someone with a rather purely logical approach to basically everything, except when it comes to just getting up and doing something. Although I've always felt comfortable with it since I became old enough to have self-awareness, I do find myself wondering if having more empathy would be an an advantage. At the same time, I think I understand people well enough that faking it isn't terribly difficult.

 

The one thing that seems to work is being positive and supportive to the people around me, but I have no idea if you'd get tired of that after a while. I can't say I mind it though.

[Dweller Dark]

4 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

But when it comes to strong emotions, I've always felt like kind of an outlier as someone with a rather purely logical approach to basically everything, except when it comes to just getting up and doing something.

 

That's pretty much how I feel, though I think my logic is a little bit screwed sometimes. But I know I'm capable of pulling something off if I think and try hard enough, even with indecision and frustration getting in my way. 

 

16 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The one thing that seems to work is being positive and supportive to the people around me, but I have no idea if you'd get tired of that after a while. I can't say I mind it though.

 

I am kind of capable of being positive and supportive to others around me, though I often run into things like not knowing what to say or how, and self-doubt in whether my responses are genuine feeling or just going through the motion for the sake of another person. To some degree, I've become less positive and supportive along with being way less social, making it more exhausting for me to express. Maybe I have imposter syndrome going on in my head or something. 

[CactusChowder]

The people who belong in communities aren't having an internal experience like they're correctly following every step on a checklist. The people who belong in communities are having an internal experience more like, they're coming up with things to do, ways to contribute, even ways to rock the boat and shake things up a little. If you're trying new things and having fun and being funny & mischievous and coming up with plans to follow & invite people to, and then multiple people in the community consistently act like you're ruining everything or even just totally ignore you, that's not just your brain running the 'what-if' hamster wheel, that's a sign something's off. Either you're inadvertently breaking social expectations & you should pay attention & keep trying, or the community is just not for you. You might have to go through several, even many communities until you find your people, and a sense of not belonging could be an important message to listen to; like, is what you have to offer even currency to these people? If you don't have a solid sense of what it looks like for you to 'put yourself out there' and have fun and engage with people, that's a great place to start, trying to figure that out and meet that version of you. Just being curious is helpful. If you're doing interesting things and having fun, other people will be drawn to that. If your mind is a train station, how much of it is an empty station that's prepared and waiting to accommodate someone else's train, and how much of it is an active and busy station that runs *your* trains? Ideally, you have a balance. It's really vulnerable and scary to leave yourself open to rejection, but it's part of the process. Don't feel like your approach or your whole self is bad or flawed if you tried really hard one time and got chased out or just crickets. Usually, a social faceplant has a lesson, even if that lesson is just 'wow, people suck sometimes, and I can be less surprised by this particular kind of bullshit next time.' Usually, it's more valuable to take risks and faceplant than it is to isolate yourself. I tell myself this from the sidewalk sometimes.

 

The emotional detachment thing could be related to the social thing. If you feel stuck like you're never correctly following an invisible checklist of how to be acceptable to other people so they don't get mad at you or reject you, that's just not a safe foundation for approaching emotionally charged issues. Like, let's say you want to be part of the Doom community, and you observe that 'everybody' seems to have a certain opinion (pistol start is how you're 'supposed' to play every level, something like that). It could feel inauthentic to pick that up and carry it around like a personal truth you care deeply about, purely to fit in. But it could also feel threatening to the group belonging you really want to question it too much or conclude that it's not a big deal. So what part of you are you supposed to sacrifice, the part that wants to be authentic or the part that wants belonging? Don't you need both? It's not purely a you-project (see: people suck sometimes), but the more you become your own foundation and your own sturdiness, it becomes safer to your sense of self to like what everybody likes, and safer to your sense of needing to belong to dislike what everybody likes or decide you don't care about it. And as it feels safer, it gets easier to figure out. Maybe your detachment is more complicated than this, but it could be a factor! I've definitely watched myself like, come up with super passionate reactions and opinions to low-stakes things like video games, but feel overloaded and uncertain when it comes to many real world things because it just seems like everybody's shouting and I really don't want to get shouted at or labeled a scum of the earth bad person. It's not a mystery to me why I can access passionate opinions more easily in the arena where it's less likely I'll get shouted at. In the end, though, there's only so many things that you as an individual can affect, and it's probably not realistic to have a strong and nuanced and perfectly educated opinion on every single issue. If you can identify one or two things you really care about and even put some effort into the cause, we'd have like peace on earth by yesterday if every single person did that.

 

Issues with motivation could be related to overwhelm or burnout. If there's a lot of stressful things going on (and everyone seems extra stressed these days tbh), maybe it's just not realistic to bounce right into creative hobbies with all of your energy and motivation every time you get the chance. I know I feel like I'm always running on leftover energy at the end all of the responsibilities I have to take care of, and it's a bummer that my free time and creative hobbies have to suffer like that. Your motivation struggle may not completely be burnout, but if you think it could be (even partially), I encourage you to try and get more rest and put less pressure on yourself. Whenever your body is trying to send you a message to stop and slow down because you're doing more than it can handle, that's not a mindset issue or a wellness deficit or whatever, that's like a check engine light on a car: valuable information you need to know about right away if you would like to keep driving the car in the long term.

 

I don't know how much of this is helpful or me going on about stuff, but I've struggled with belonging & motivation and just feeling weird and disconnected, and that's what I've got! I can recommend The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck and Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown for more direction on authenticity and belonging. Good luck with things!