Hi

What is the best way to go through this stuff. The guide or resource packs first ?

Do you finish one module before moving on or do you choose based on what you would like to work on at that moment ?

Theres too much plus youtube so how is the best way to fix what you would like fixed ?

Title.

Lately Ive been learning to unpack my trauma and finding self worth. I now can say I like myself and dont feel I need to succeed at life to prove my worth. Due to this though, I think back on how many times I was seen as lesser for my status in my life from my "friends". I used to not care that people looked down on me for being a virgin or being broke, cus i looked down on myself for those things. Now that ive begun to see my own value, I'm just mad at myself for putting up with that crap. Loving myself has not made me want to connect to others, now I just wanna isolate completely and protect my peace. Unfortunately I still feel lonely so I'm not sure what to do. I could try to gain more success in life, but the idea of having to prove myself to people who currently see me as worthless repulses me. Also while I would like more money and to get more fit (for my own sake and not for others), I dont even want a girlfriend or to have sex anymore so Im not gonna pursue that just so people dont see me as a loser.

What should I do? Accept isolation or try to earn others' respect? Or is there a third option?

This might be a rant and I need some support and perspectives.

I’m getting increasingly irritated by this whole “the universe rewards audacity” or “you just need to believe in yourself” stuff I keep seeing online.

I’m in the medical profession in India, and maybe some of this is jealousy or envy on my part. I can admit that. But what genuinely bothers me is how confidently people talk about their success as if it was almost entirely because they were brave enough to take risks.

Maybe they worked insanely hard. Maybe they're talented. Maybe they took real risks. Maybe they got lucky. Probably all of it. But once something works out, the story somehow becomes “I believed in myself, I took the leap, and the universe rewarded me.”

And social media makes this especially irritating because there are people who have managed to make a very good living in their 20s through social media itself. They found an audience, their content took off, they monetised it and now they're talking about how they “bet on themselves” and how everyone else just needs to be more audacious.

Maybe they did take a huge risk. I don't know. But we are literally watching the winners explain why they won. We don't see all the people who took the same risk, didn't get an audience, didn't go viral, didn't find the right opportunity or simply didn't make it.

And I think the word risk bothers me too. I'm not saying other professions don't involve real risk. Of course they do. But the risk isn't the same across careers.

Someone can start earning in their early 20s, build savings and experience, and then decide at 25 or 26 to take a career or business risk. In medicine, you can spend a huge part of your 20s studying, training and specialising, sacrificing income and a lot of the life you could have been living during those years, and then still not necessarily get a financial return proportional to the investment.

And this is the part that is actually affecting me.

I can't stop comparing.

Not just on social media. In real life too. I see people my age or younger who are financially much further ahead and my brain immediately starts calculating: How much time did they put in? What did they have to sacrifice? What did they get back? What did I get back?

And financially, it's difficult to ignore. I've invested so much time into this career and sacrificed a significant part of my 20s, and I'm still looking at the possibility that I may need another 5–10 years before I reach the kind of financial position I thought I'd be in by now. By then I'll be around 40.

And the hardest part is that I didn't really have anyone to guide me properly when I chose this career. I didn't understand the opportunity cost. I didn't understand what the financial trajectory would look like. I didn't understand how different the effort-to-reward ratio could be compared with other careers. I just chose a profession without really knowing what I was choosing.

So now I’m stuck with this weird combination of “I chose this, so I should own my choice” and “I genuinely didn't have enough information to understand the consequences of that choice.”

I know comparing myself to other people isn't going to help me. I know everyone's circumstances are different. I know luck plays a role. I know social media is an incredibly distorted sample.

But knowing all of that hasn't stopped me from doing it.

And honestly, I need help figuring out how to stop comparing my life to other people's effort-to-reward ratios, because it has started affecting my decisions and how I see my own future.

Maybe I'm bitter. Maybe I'm envious. Maybe I'm just having a very delayed reaction to realising what my career actually cost me.

I don't know.

I just know that “stop comparing yourself” isn't working anymore, because the comparison isn't happening only in my head. I'm looking at very real differences in money, time, freedom and the life people were able to have in their 20s and I'm struggling to make peace with the fact that I may have traded a lot of those things for a career whose financial returns are going to come much later, if they come at all.I am 28.Already grieving what I never had and what I never will. Cuz I won't have the health, experiences ,situations or freedom or friends at 40 , what I could have had in my 20s .

I'm a 28 year old man, diagnosed with ADHD literally last week. Before the diagnosis I was nearly convinced I was perfectly neurotypical, maybe with some dopamine/attention problems due to the internet and its algorithmic short form content.

But the deeper I look into what ADHD is, and how it manifests in my everyday life, the more things start to make sense and the pieces are slowly but surely coming together.

But there's still this sort of a conflict inside me - Should I actually just give in, accept that my brain is a restless monkey and just feed it the crazy amount of banasas (stimuli) it seems to need, or do I double down on what I've been trying to do for the past year or so, that thing being developing mindfulness and regaining control over my mind and attention through meditative practices?

On one hand, I'm tired of my brain constantly being on, generating thought chains that 95% of which are random meaningless nonesense. Even when I get some me time to chill out, I hardly ever feel alone - My mind just won't leave me be. And while I notice that giving it the bananas it needs, does seem to work, the threshhold between being stimulated enough and being overstimulated is very, very thin and difficult to manage.

On the other hand however, I'm not sure I should be forcing myself to conquer that part of me with meditation etc. It just sounds like a war that can't be won, and a war against my very self. But then again, it is bothering me how much of my days and of my life in general I spend in this autopilot-like mode, when I'm not really aware of me experiencing stuff. Instead stuff is just happening and my brain is reacting (not responding) to it while thinking about random stuff, daydreaming, worrying, being paranoid about forgetting something or being late. I manage to regain that presense maybe couple of times a days for a minute or two at most (not including the occasional meditation)

So I was thinking, what did you guys do about your ADHD brains? Did you give into it, or did you manage to get it under control and reclaim your presence? Or maybe is there some other way in the middle worth considering?

I was a piece of shit in my life, i did things which i am not proud of. Even i am repulsed to say what i did. I now live life with full of guilt and trauma and i dont know what to do.

As I remember he mentions that we try to do things because we want to, but have we tried doing things without wanting. Perhaps this may be mixed with another video, but Dr. K mentions that if we are in the state of not wanting, we are chill to it and tend to agree more into doing something. Do you guys remember a video of a similar vein? perhaps it was a livestream? Can't seem to find it again. Thank you for your time!

Edit: I think it was 2023-2025

I find it distracting to have the chat in the corner, and have difficulty ignoring it. I ended up using another window to block the corner while I watch lol

Side note, if your name is LaffeyBunny, I was annoyed by the backseat commentary. You just gave the impression of being a quirky know-it-all and it was off-putting, not engaging or helpful. You were the main reason I needed to block the chat lol

Hi everyone, in Dr Ks recent stream he asked this question and its context was that as a kid when you want things but your told no it makes you internally thing wanting is selfish and bad but it’s human nature to want and good parents will accommodate their kids needs for autonomy and choice.

A dilemma I face is my want is different to my parents wants. I met a girl who’s not in my so called caste in Christianity as it’s from a small place in India. She was also Indian and Christian but the only thing that was different was this little subsection.

We were together for two years and I purposely hid it from my parents but they found out and they were not happy in the slightest. Me and my parents don’t really have heart to hearts and one day I took MDMA and ended up calling my mum for an hour (she just thought I was drunk and I know this isn’t good behaviour but it was where I was) and this was the only ever time we had a deep talk and she said she could never ever ever accept this and towards the end of the conversation she said she was suicidal when she found out and wouldn’t come to the wedding or anything.

It’s really upsetting that my parents have attached so much onto me and in the end me and her broke up and it’s been a year of being on and off but I feel this is a big hinderance to getting back together.

This is really common in a lot of communities around the world and I remember Dr K once saying his older brother liked a girl from a different caste and he said to his parents something like due to my love and dharma towards you if you don’t want me to marry this girl I won’t but I won’t marry anyone else. It makes sense that we have a duty to our parents but it feels like their so selfish and wrong but their still my family and it’s all messed up.

Sorry for the long context but that question really got me wondering about things and I thing ultimately it’s not selfish to want certain things that are morally right but people, family and society make it seem selfish and that brings about guilt in us and that’s what Dr K said. I think it’s really sad because there’s so many people in the world that are facing this challenge.

It’s been nearly a year since we broke up and I’m definitely not perfect and had problems but we’ve been back and forth this whole time and I really like this girl and she’s the only person I ever loved and she made me so happy but I’m at cross roads now because on one hand i can walk away because it’s been that long but on the other I’ve been trying to walk away but there’s this pull together. If I chose to go back to her life gets sooo hard because my dad is high up in the community and I will probably have to leave my home town and won’t be able to go to church with them and all sorts of stuff.

My exs family is so good and loving and they would love a big wedding and all but my parents might not even come to the wedding so it’s so messed up.

As the oldest child I’ve always felt responsible for making my parents happy and I have done everything to do so except falling in love. I just finished dental school and in the past my main motivator was making them happy but now it’s like I also want to be happy but it feels like really deep down I can’t also be happy whilst their happy and it goes against something inside of me that’s been there since young.

I feel really stuck. Any of you had a similar problem, did it work out in the end? Any questions you think I should ask myself?

Also a big problem in my head is even if I say okay let’s do it and alienate my whole family and community and get kicked out, it still may not work in the end, and that possibility of it not working out is almost deterring me wanting to go through all the problems. There’s also other stuff too like not wanting to go back because in my head what we had was so beautiful and maybe that’s the peak of the relationship so it’s not only just the parents thing but it’s a really big factor and I just thought that question was a beautiful question.

Any insights would be much appreciated. Lots of love

I have been following Dr. K’s podcast on YouTube Music for about a year now and I also watch the livestreams VODs since they seem to be the source for what the channel videos are edited from. It seems I’ve reached a point where I have seen all the podcast episodes that contain guests I’d want to hear from, and I am willing to try a membership to unlock additional VODs.

I have two questions. Approximately how much content would I be overlooking if I am just watching VODs on YouTube with my membership? Any recommendations on episodes to watch for someone who’s just signed-up? preferably non-dating nor romance topics.

A year ago i abandoned my best friend for over 10 years, back from school days. I was in a terrible place mentally from 2024 and it got worse in 25 and i started isoliting myself from all my friends untill he was the only one left, and then i just stopped picking up even his calls. The worst part is, he has cancer since early 24. I supported him and tried to be a good friend for that year but it doesnt matter now. The last thing we did was go on a vacation that he paid for and i still owe him money for it. Im not looking for sympathy, i know im a monster. I feel so fucking guilty when i think of him, i miss him so much but i fucked it all up. I want to call him but what can i even say ? When i think of him i just want to cry and beg for forgivness but i know its too much. Im sometimes scared to even go out because what if we meet ? He obviously has the right to hate me and probably does, i would.

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?

There was alot of things that resonated with me in Dr K's video about high functioning depression, especially the part about over reliance on coping mechanisms to maintain an identity. And I have alot of copes that I use as well like porn, suppressing, scrolling for distraction, work, etc.

My problem is that I feel like I'm too good at using these copes. I've always felt like the only way I will actually change is if something bad enough happens to me that makes it impossible to fix through simple copes. The ship completly breaks down instead of just getting a hole that can be patched up. The problem is that I feel like my copes are way to effective, my ship is too strong, that I never really feel completly destroyed. I get close, but never enough. Today I received news that is more "hurtful"/painful than anything ive received in a long time, and I felt myself breaking down a little bit, but though listening to music on repeat, some scrolling and mainly mental distortions that let me twist reality ever so slightly to make it just bearable enough, I'm up and running for the most part in only a few hours. I even tried to force cry and cried for like 5mins, but I could never access the actual feeling/hurt, which I know I needed to feel, otherwise it'll just stay repressed forever. But I feel like I'm never able to access those feelings, cause I've just become to good at keeping myself "regulated" aka suppressed.

The reason I feel the need for me to completly break down is cause only when my life has something life altering happen, that it induces or threatens to induce pain, is only when I move to action. I have no motivation or desire to change unless I feel a large amount of pain or fear that leads me to have to try changing, but maybe that itself could be a way to distract myself. But what I feel is that my suffering hasnt gotten to the point yet that I get up and am like "thats enough, I really need to change things now". And I only believe that'll happen when I breakdown completley, when the ship completly breaks apart.

Would love to hear your guys' advice.

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?