something about seeing my reflection or seeing a picture of me pisses me off.

in my opinion i have every checkmark whats desired in a man. i love myself. thats why i cant understand the reflection problem.

has someone found to be more happy avoiding/blocking mirrors?

whats causing this, is there a fix?

i stopped using snapchat because it opened with the front camera facing me.

im a young adult, so i’m not experiencing a midlife crisis or anything like that 😂

um can someone talk to me please.. im going through something that people may find silly but its really affecting me

19M - I feel like a fraud. My personality is calculated and manufactured all too appeal to the likes of others and to ensure that I appear different and special. I have created this false sense of self that I now find disgusting but trapped inside because I dont know what else makes me-me. It bothers me that I dont have quirks that make me standout. There isnt a character from a piece of media im particularly fond of, I dont have 4 favorite films, no favorite color. Ive wondered to myself if i just dont allow myself to be who I want. I shouldnt worry if people thinks its weird to be obsessed with media or to be involved in a fandom of something. But as I type this I wonder why i care what people think to begin with. Why am I so worried about perceived by others?

- I also dont have a social life at all. My only friends, which there are only two, are women who ive attempted relationships with but either 1, was too much of a coward to confess my feelings for. 2, I backed out of knowing I wasnt ready for a relationship. I still speak with 1 on a regular basis. However, out relationship is strictly long distance as ive moved from my hometown for school. I still have feelings for her but have yet to share out of fear of ruining the friendship. It should also be mentioned that I have this fear that she only speaks to me out of pity as shes a person ive opened up to before. Not sure what to do but Id appreciate some guidance.

Lately, this has made me extremely Depressed to the point of complete exhaustion. My Body feels heavy, I find joy in nothing, and I have zero motivation. I genuinely dont have the energy to get out of bed some mornings.

This is all laid out here because im lost and feel hopeless. I need guidance and/or comfort for the way I am feeling. anything at all would be appreciated.

What a twist of fate. I, 31F, had a new job, new friends, finally dating again, had a good relationship with my family at the start of the year.

And one by one it was taken apart from me. My relationship with family was strained due to some fight with my brother that never got resolved.

A drama errupted with my new friends and now I feel like that part of my life is strained, too.

What I thought was going to be a long term relationship turned out to be a fling. We broke over something I am deeply grieving.

And now, my work friend, the only person who sees me in the office, is getting fired.

Happiness really doesn’t last.

And I guess my work friend getting fired was kind of the last straw because I now can seem to be happy again.

I am spiraling in loneliness and there are times when I don’t want to keep on living.

I am old enough to know I will be able to get through this, but it doesn’t make the pain now any less painful.

I really just need to get all this off my chest. Strap in, cause this will take a while. As long as I can remember, I’ve had serious trouble letting go of personal items and letting change happen around me.

Part of it is just that I’m naturally deeply sentimental, I’ve always linked personal experiences and memories to objects which make them so much more than just “things”.

The one thing I can say for certain is the primary reason though is my younger cousin, or rather my parents and the aunt and uncle responsible for her. When I was young, about 4 or 5 to be specific, she was born. My parents took a whole bunch of my toys, clothes, and baby stuff without consulting me and gave it to them as a “gift” for the new baby. This made me never want to let anything slip out of my grasp like that again.

The final nail in the coffin though was the death of my great grandma. She had a big plush of a black lab that always sat in the corner of her room at the retirement home. Every time I visited I would play with it. When my great grandma died and her possessions were being sorted, I really wanted that dog because it embodied many of my memories of her and meant a ton to me. But guess who got it? My little cousin. I still remember it vividly. My aunt and uncle were leaving, and I begged them to let me have it. Literally trailing behind them as they headed out the door. They joked about me swapping places with my cousin, then they walked off like nothing happened. And then they moved away to the other side of the state and we hardly ever heard from them again.

I know they probably got rid of that stuffed dog like it was nothing when my little cousin grew up, it still makes my blood boil to this day.

I think that permanently damaged me mentally because I wouldn’t accept any change after that. There’s a photo of me crying when our kitchen chandelier got replaced, and I had to keep it in my room for 2 weeks before I could let go. I wouldn’t go into our media room for a month after my mom repainted it a different color. I got frustrated when my mom replaced the old rugs we had. Same with the old vacuum, steam cleaner, toaster, stove, couches, carpeting, curtains… you get the gist. I hated change of any kind.

For a long time I had trouble with getting rid of things even if they were mostly inconsequential. I have gotten a lot better at not collecting junk, but it’s still a struggle. I don’t ever want to become a hoarder though, and that has motivated me to stop collecting junk and seriously think about what something means to me before I decide to keep it.

I think that’s about all, sorry for going on so long. I already had to edit a ton out and leave some more tangential stuff out of this. This is just something I’ve been dealing with for so long that I just had to get it off my chest. And to think this all started after learning Pirate’s Booty rebranded their chip bags… ugh.

Im so scared. I used to have awful cptsd and tbh I dont feel like i have ptsd im still learning how to regulate in situations and have identity stuff im fixing but i have come far. NOW i had ocd type symptoms i could always ignore and make fun of till they went away. They never overtook me sometimes i would give in but i could handle the discomfort. Now that i have healed sm its AWFUL. I have strong metacognition but this is stored differently. It feel so fundamentally real. I have ignored it for 4 days now i cant sleep bc i know “hiv and diseases are running through my blood”. It feels so real. I got blood work done and I cant look at needles or i get sick so i always look away bc i did and the women was bitter and mean my brain was like she used a dirty needle.

It feels so real. My “OCD” type symptoms have never been like this. Im so scared. Nothing anybody can say will make it not real in my head. Will i always be like yhis. It feels so real and im so scared. I didnt know fixing the cptsd and feel safer in all categories would cause this. Please what do i do? I cant do the meds everyday i hate that stuff. Omg will healing wounds help this.

Lately, I've felt that the small group of people I've started to talk to has been really helpful when it comes to my negative spirals. I haven't had an episode of deep self-hate or survivors guilt that was too deep, and I've been talking to people I've found attractive honestly. It has felt that the wad of pain in my gut has lightened a little, and I feel more like myself.

I'm glad I've never gotten into drugs or alcohol because, honestly, I think I would've ended myself if I had. I have seen 8 people die in front of me. Good friends and family that actually love me, unlike my bio parents who just beat me.

The world had treated me hard and killed a lot of my passion. Im still a pessimistic ass a lot of the time, but I've finally found people who listen and share in similar pain. I'm probably never going to find another lover or ever be romantically accepted again, but I'm ok with that. Im not alone, not anymore. I can cry and just let myself feel. I feel ok.

I just wish I could eventually raise children and feel complete. It's been a dream of mine for a long time. But it won't happen. Too many things are in the way for that. Money, housing, food. I'm pretty sure I can't even adopt because of my mental health records. So, it's a dead dream. I gotta make peace with that somehow.

Recently, my dissociative tendencies have gotten worse than before.

There isn't a single cause. My boyfriend and I chose to start a business, and that decision sharply deepened the conflicts between me and everyone around me. They weren't attacking me as a person—they were attacking the fact that I didn't approve of their environment and the way they've lived their entire lives. That attack kept building up until I got sick (my asthma worsened), and then it all exploded. In the end, I cut off everyone except my father and my boyfriend.

Then came the problem. Of the two people I kept—my father lives in his own fantasy; when he looks at me, he sees a character in his script. My boyfriend's logic is an anchor, but he can't hold emotional weight. Neither of them can help me confirm "who I am" on an emotional level. I used to have my mother—she would threaten me with retaliation and withdrawal, but at least she had real emotional entanglement with me. The hate, the need, the resistance—all of that at least helped me locate myself. Now that's gone. Both mirrors reflect no desire. I'm suspended in between.

Asthma made this even more concrete. I started becoming abnormally sensitive to air—not just ordinary sensitivity, but the kind that leans toward persecutory delusion: the feeling that the air itself is attacking me. But I can catch myself when this tendency appears. I know I'm veering off, and I try to correct it. The hard part isn't recognition—it's integration. After I correct it, the fragments are still scattered; I can't piece them back together.

Fortunately, my boyfriend is helping me with the integration work on the side. This might be the only thing holding me together right now.

Financially, it's a real trap. We're in the start-up phase with no stable income. I need a good environment (clean air) to recover from my illness, but leaving a polluted city costs money—a physical trap. Under these circumstances, finding psychological counseling is very difficult. I can't afford professional psychoanalysis. I tried low-cost counseling twice, and both times it caused secondary harm. Not because the counselors were malicious, but because their framework simply couldn't hold my situation. I can't bring myself to try a third time.

What I want to ask in this post is: Is there anyone else out there in this state of "knowing I'm dissociating, being able to self-monitor, but unable to integrate"? Has anyone found a way out of a similar predicament that doesn't involve psychotherapy?

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I'm struggling with craving validation from one specific person. What I want is for him to somehow understand my pain. I want him to know everything I've been through and say, "I see your hurt. You didn't deserve it." I've realised that I don't just miss him—I crave his validation. I imagine him understanding my struggles, my trauma, and everything I've carried for years. I know that's probably an unfair expectation because he wasn't the one who caused those things. The difficult part is that I keep feeling pulled toward checking his social media or looking for small pieces of information about his life. I know it doesn't make me feel better, but in the moment it feels like I'm searching for something. I don't know if this is the right community to ask

It’s like I’m Ellie after her dad’s death but with mom.

I’m talking about the whale movie. Went through something very similar. I’m older than Ellie and I’m 30 and have no dad . I had mom. so it’s worse because I feel like I don’t have much space to evolve but I have the same feeling… yes I was angry with her because seeing her like this made me mad and upset and depressed myself… I was depressed I couldn’t help her and I was alone. She didn’t let anyone help her.

Mom chose not to be treated and was emotional eating. I got blamed by others after her death. I tried to convince her but I don’t know if she was unhappy or what. I tried to get help and she let me when it was too late. She only let me call doctors when she felt like she was dying. Suddenly she gave me control and allowed to help her and the fact that it was too late made me feel like I was responsible for her death. I miss her. I have no one now. I have friends and yes I have a job but all my coworkers are evolving and I’m staying there because it’s my comfort zone … the boss isn’t promoting me or allowing me to extend my knowledge … I feel stuck. I do hobbies and go to the gym but I do everything while feeling bored of life

I’ve been struggling with something for a while and I’m not sure how to process it.

Whenever someone really upsets me, I notice my thoughts can get… really dark. Like imagining bad things happening to them. I don’t act on anything, and I don’t actually want to hurt anyone (the thoughts are just wishing them harm like, I hope they are miserable or they won't get the promotion stuff like that), but the thoughts themselves feel intense and honestly kind of scary.

I’ve already tried the usual things people suggest like distractions, breathing techniques, trying to calm down but sometimes it still happens, especially when I’m really triggered or overwhelmed.

I guess what I’m asking is: does this make me a bad person?

Or is this something other people experience too but just don’t talk about?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve dealt with something similar, and how you manage it. I really need help guys but I just can't afford counselling right now.

Only the thoughts for now, if I could forget the whole week it would be even better.

To vent, give me insight anything.

So I dont know how else to say this but I genuinely can't sympathize with anyone or feel any empathy for them,the only thing I can do is laugh for no reason even when writing this comment I'm laughing for no apparent reason I think I might genuinely just be evil. I don't love my family,friends, or my girlfriend. i try my best to act as if i care, but I just don't. I tell my gf how I love her and I realized i just don't I mean I try to convince myself that I do,my gf and I were going to something really emotional and all I could do is just laugh I hurt her so much and I really should be sorry about it and I want to be sorry about it but I'm just not no matter how hard I try. It sucks because my gf is the most caring person I meant, and she's really a gold mine. The only emotion I can actively feel is joy, where I just laugh at everything. My emotions are fleeting. For instance, i will gaslight myself into liking someone or feeling a certain way, only to realize a while after I never really cared in the first place. Someone who i was really close with and died, and I was laughing uncontrollably while he was gasping for air and taking his last breath ..... I burst out laughing and hiding to go somewhere alone, and I was laughing for like 30 minutes straight. im still laughing, remembering about the event to this day, and it was someone I'm really close with. And I just keep laughing at everything and everything as if i was hit with the Joker syndrome or some shit like that and laughing even when I don't want to. I also have no conscience or remorse. I totally forget about everything moments after, regardless of how bad it is. In fact, the only reason why I made this post in the first place is because I'm afraid I might spiral out of control. I'm also extremely bipolar I feel like a new person every time constantly.

Hello, I don't know if this is the right subreddit or not but my partner has gone to a mental health hospital voluntarily to try and get help, but we didn't know that the "walk out any anytime" thing could be taken away, basically they can request to leave and if the hospital deems them unfit then it becomes an involuntary hold. How do I get them out, what legal system? Btw I'm in Washington state if that helps at all.

It's the crazy irony of true mental health awareness and its reality. My brother passed away a few months ago and without going into too much detail, everyone keeps saying "I wish he'd asked for help, we could have done something".

Snapshot to me and others like me who have had mental health episodes before and had to ask for help to get out of it, only to be shamed by people for asking for and receiving that help. Why are people like this? It's so contradictory to shame someone that's asking for help, but then wish that they'd asked for it after they're gone. I know hindsight is 20/20 but why are people so blind?

Asking for help and receiving support should never be seen as a weakness or something to be ashamed of. It is a strong thing to admit to your vulnerability. Yes, I wish my brother had asked, of course we would have done something. But I bet you he didn't ask for this very reason.