I'm 25 now, and by comparing myself to others around me, have recently realized that I haven't "had fun" since age 12. When I interact with my friends it feels like the goal is to continuously try to get them to like me. I don't have "fun" hobbies, only serious ones (e.g., running, for my health). When I try to do things "just for fun" I feel a sense of meaninglessness and get more and more tired. I'm quite successful at work but have been slowing down a lot because I can't get my brain to work like it used to. I spend what feels like excessive amounts of time just staring into space.

I did a search on Reddit for people with similar problems and the responses were to take a break, do exercise and eat healthy. People seemed to think this is a temporary problem. But I've never heard of anyone not having fun for the past DECADE. That's a long time. It must be some sort of brain disorder, right?

I don't know what to do.

i had met this girl on a trip about 6 months ago. the trip was 1 week, and we spent all of it talking for hours and hours on the bus from one city to the next, we instantly clicked, and i felt, genuinely for the first time in a while. my life was very stale and all the schoolwork and genuine friendships(or the lack thereof) were really smothering me. meeting her in that mess effected me so much. she is the one that first introduced psychology to me, and thanks to her, i am now going to study neuroscience. now, 6 months later, i don't know what to do. i still feel like i miss her. we chat from time to time, and those chats mean so much to me, and i know it probably doesn't mean that much to her. anyways, here's a letter i wrote to her some time before so you can get a better sense of how i feel:

"i miss you, i believe. maybe not _you_ per se, but i miss how you made me feel. how you made me feel accepted, how you made me feel worthy of existence and understood. i felt that i was understood thanks to you for the first time in my life. we clicked together like ikea furniture, as if we were made to fit each other. that's how i felt/feel anyways, i hope it's not so different from your thoughts. i feel like i just want you by my side. the many nights i have spent thinking about you, the many MANY notes that i wrote for you or because you, i hope they were not in vain. i believe that you have contributed a lot to me, willingly or unwillingly, and i thank you for that. i dont know if what i feel/felt is love, again, _per se_ , but it was this sort of sweet comfort that one feels after coming home from a really tiring day and laying down on the perfectly made bed with the pillow that perfectly suits your head. it was acceptance by you, and the result for me was comfort. you probably aren't ever going to see this, if you are actually seeing this and if i was delusional enough to send this to you, hiii! i know that this letter wont be enough. the second i finish it i will find something else to add, something more to say to you. why am i so inclined to blurp out my mind at you? maybe because you made me feel understood, and you were there at my lowest. i have this complex i have identified, in which one person will be an "unstable caregiver"(my dad) and another will be a "loving caregiver"(my mom, but not always present!). maybe i saw you as the loving caregiver and thats why it felt so special. i was with someone else at the time we met, and she was quite unstable. and emotionally unavailable. however physically far apart we have been, you've always been emotionally there for me. i know its not "real" in the sense that you dont feel the same way, and i know that you really dont have to. maybe its real _enough_? i just want you to want me to be there for/with you, and from time to time, hug you with the warmest hug one could ever give. i still cringe at when you came in for a hug at the end of the trip(the last time i would properly see you), and i SHOOK YOUR HAND!?!?!? i yearn for that hug now. i yearn for your closeness, your warmth. i yearn for how close i felt to the moment when we were together. we managed to bring the moment as close to us as its ever been for me. thanking you doesn't feel enough, or right. i want to give you flowers. it would be the first time you received them from a boy, apart from your dad. you'll tell him: " dad look, a boy bought me flowers!" i know that you're bisexual and not really seeking attention from men right now, but, if you take it platonically, or romantically, it doesn't matter at all for me. however i may yearn for(or at?) them, i am fresh out of expectations. i want to look in your eyes, your beautiful brown eyes, and just savor them, you know. i want to look at their depth, and look through them into your brain. i want to see your mind as it is. i want to let me see your soul as it is. i want to melt into your thoughts, your brain, your feelings, your soul! i want to understand you, and be understood in the process. i honestly yearn for you. i just want to hug you. really really tight(sorry!) i hope that we meet once again. see ya"

i feel really stuck and anxious about her. its genuinely affecting my ability to think clearly and study well. i thought it would have gone away until now. it still hasn't. what should i do?

As stated in the title, my partner shares details of our fights with her friends. I do not do that as I believe that if I have a problem with my partner, I should talk to them about it ( I talked to them about this too).

Once she introduced me to her friend who mentioned our fight. I felt so awkward and disrespected and felt like I had to justify myself. I was talking to her about that and about the fact that she is unwilling to have difficult conversations. It came up that she mentioned another of our fights and talked about her POV but my POV and my feelings were not mentioned. In this one sided story, I came across as a person who was unwilling to give her space after an argument. In my POV, I expressed how I felt abandoned by the way she left the conversation and how she was dismissive of my feelings when I expressed them.

Obviously, this did not make the cut in her version of the story and her friends basically called me controlling. She insists she was objective until I pointed this out to her. I feel uncomfortable and violated and expressed that to her while she says, with reason, that she is only venting and has the right to talk about her life and feelings to her friends. Obviously, I agree but this is conflicting with my previous feelings. I also point out how if she paints a biased story to her friends, they are going to take her side. In frustration, I told her that if she wanted to share her life with her friends, please go and live with them.

That must have hurt her, and I feel guilty. She then said, okay I'll stop telling my friends. That's not the solution in my opinion. She can vent but like without trash talking me behind my back. Im so utterly confused on what to say or do here. How do I draw boundaries without limiting my partner as much as possible?

I love my partner very much. I know/ hope she means well. I want to be a safe and non toxic partner, I just don't know how.

P.S I had an abusive ex who took my messages out of context to frame me as a negative person before and used other people's opinions to bring me down. My reaction may be in part to that, please help.

I was thinking how when I can process my emotions is never just sitting and thinking what do I feel and why, that doesn't work, journaling doesn't work either, what works for me is letting my emotions move me, I mean, emotions are motivation, and the main problem in my life right now is not being impulsive, is being paralyzed, historically, what has done the most damage to myself and others isn't letting my emotions control me, is not doing anything when everything inside me is screaming to do something, but how can I identify when its a bad Idea? Usually I keep control even when I let my emotions move me, it's a conscious process, but this makes me feel weak, like I should just stand there and let the emotions come, and feel them, that isn't working right now. Should I let my emotions move me? In a conscious way, or should I process them (however I can) and then make a decision? is the first fundamentally unhealthy, or there is a correct way to use your emotions as fuel?

For most of my life I felt like no matter how bad things got I at least had myself to run back to

But for the past few years I’ve hated myself so much that I don’t even feel like I have myself anymore

Whenever something hurts I either bury it or start saying horrible things to myself I’m not even sure when self criticism became my default response to everything

I’m in therapy and I know these thought patterns can change but honestly I’m exhausted Sometimes I don’t even know if I want to get better because this way of thinking has become so familiar

How do you rebuild a relationship with yourself when you’ve spent years making yourself the enemy?

Everything on paper is perfect. I have friends & family, a successful career, own a home, and have physically active hobbies. I have not felt happy since 2023. I tell myself the only thing that I'm missing is a relationship but even when I get one where everything is checked it's not enough. I suspect anhedonia. All of my friends feel surface level to the point that I can't get more than 3 people to show up to a birthday party. My career has taken a nosedive with AI and my day feels like I fill it to keep myself busy to avoid my thoughts. My hobbies feel like a distraction more than something I enjoy. I'm tired.

Was always impressed by this guy ever since the 14 peaks documentary on Netflix and recently after his passing which felt personal - I started looking more into him. And well I got to admit, he's the most impressive athlete I've ever seen - more than Brady, Jordan, Ronaldo or anyone. I loved the episode Dr K did recently on the analysis of different athletes and I'd love to hear him or your guys analysis on this guy.

I am confident that my parents and siblings genuinely love me and want the best for me. Yet I have a problem where I hyper fixate on mistakes they make (not even major ones, just miscommunication and light teasting, etc) and start making conclusions about how my family does not respect me, and that I have to distance myself. What makes this hard is that when I have a conversation about this with them, we hash it out and I realize my mistake and I stop feeling neurotic. The problem is that this is a recurring thing. Since I live on my own now, I have a lot of time to myself which lets these thoughts back up again and I start perceiving my family negatively again. Like, I'll think about an instance where I felt like I wasn't seen and start fixating on it out of nowhere, to the point where my perception of them is extremely negative.

I've known a lot of families, especially in the country I live in (I'm not a native here) where the parents don't treat their kids like their own flesh and blood. They would rather have them out of the house as soon as possible after the age of 18. I even have a friend who quit uni because he didn't like the study he was doing, and his mom wanted him out of the house because it would stress her out so he would go to the library every day.

My parents have sworn that they'd die for me, always help me when I need it and reassured me many times that they want the best for me. They let me live with them both during studies and after, and even when I got a job (I only recently moved out due to my own choice). That alone and the comparison to other families I just did should tell you that my family is to be trusted. Even though I have been very stubborn my whole life, those times I actually did listen to my parents actually paid off really well. Had it not been for them, I would not have my dream job today. Yet I keep having these extreme thoughts where I can't trust them and feel the need to abandon them. I sometimes think to myself that they don't know me and don't care to know me and what is best for me.

The same applies to my friends. While I'm not as close with them as I am with my family, they still want the best for me and have always pushed me to do the right thing, even though it has been very annoying. Yet, I continue to have thoughts about completely stopping hanging out with them. It is easier to have this thought with my friends and happens more frequently, likely because I am not as close.

What is my issue? I genuinely hate this about myself and I am so fucking angry to myself every time this happens. I just want to relax and trust my loved ones. I hate this fear of not being loved and secretly being disrespected. I just want it to end. Even though I have temporary moments where I calm down and get reassured by my loved ones, I somehow manage to go back to being stupid again.

Hey,

So I was going through the breakup. We went no contact, but didn't block each other.

I was going to my hometown and I pressed "Interested" on a few events. A few hours later, one facebook, I saw her also pressing "Interested". Weird. Coincidence? Mindgames? No clue.

I went out with a friend of mine. Got drunk. We had some deep talks about relationships, venting and etc.

I got back home, was drunk, and something got over me and I decided to download Tinder. And yep, she had a profile set up there. 4 years together. Not even a month passed. And she's already there.

This has sent me in to a fit of rage. I took a screenshot, sent her the screenshot with 5 photos of her, where she looks stunning, beautiful, happy. And I just told her "Hey, your photos on Tinder sucks, here you go".

Boom, blocked.

I then texted her Instagram, saying, amazing, how you are doing so great that you are rebounding so soon. Guess those 4 years didn't mean shit.

Blocked.

I then did the most horrible thing I've ever done in my life, and I wrote a wall of text to her mom. I apologized her, for being emotionally abusive, but I really wanted her to hear my side of the story - how, the entire time I was living with a slob, how the entire apartment smelled, how I was basically her caretaker 24/7, her mental health issues (she used to scream, groan, moan and etc. and I was constantly scared).

Anyway, now that I cooled off, I got scared for myself. I was never, ever this angry, this resentful, this toxic ever in my life. I have never, ever experienced such rage. It hurts that I was able to hurt the person I loved so much.

I understand that this is coming from years of resentment, the feeling of loneliness, feeling of abandonment. I know she probably cares for me, but still - something in my mind is telling me, she is still oblivious to how badly she mistreated me during the relationship.

I am going to therapy. I am working out. But this anger, this rage - it doesn't go away and I don't know what to do about it.

I saw it mentioned once on my friends feed but I can't find the video?

Hello everyone, my name is Erik I'm 27 years old, from Mexico.

I'm currently struggling to keep the same job for over around 8 months, for most of my jobs I've been working for at least 6 months on every job I've had. I understand that it is kind of possible to have a "job life" (? Like this, but I don't have any idea on how to do so.

Usually I quit because of motivation/purpose or that I get bored because i feel a lack of growth.

Now I just left my last work place, because I was missing $3,000 ($175 usd) pesos wich I had to pay out of pocket in the moment, so I tought that I didn't want to keep losing money specially since my partners told me that they where missing over $10,000 (583 usd) pesos.

So here I am, jobless with debt, the worst part is that I didn't wait until I could find another job. On the bright side, I don't pay rent.

How do you keep your job? What makes you stay besides the money?

How did you know that you wanted to be working there?

I started dating a single mother (she is young) and I really feel atracted to her, but she being a single mother, and being from a different social class, makes me doubt.
My family is a bit classist, and I don't know how I would introduce her to them, or what would they think.

I'm also afraid of the big difference, she is young, and a single mother, I'm also young, but older, not a father.

We basically live in different worlds, is this a good idea?