The story of a man struggling with depression and anxiety

Dear NoFap members,

My entire life I have struggled with small bouts of depression and anxiety. However, until my early 20's it actually served a good purpose. It motivated me to do things and I was actually a really successful person. To give you a short idea: I was a confident dude, enjoyed socializing with girls (yes, went to bed with many girls) and just had a really good time in life while also accomplishing solid results in school and at my part-time job. Now this post is not about telling you my past, and quite frankly, neither is it intended to focus on my future. The big turning point in my life was when I turned 21 years old and started experiencing more serious moments of anxiety and depression. I started to cancel plans with friends and started to seriously withdraw myself into my room. Things were going really bad. With really bad I mean being in bad the entire day without wanting to talk or even eat a lot. About a year ago I finally decided to go see a therapist and actually come out openly about the fact that I was having a really bad time. I told my friends, spoke about it more openly with my family, and generally wanted to improve my life for the better. Now I have always been quite perfectionist, but what I am about to tell you is actually a really big lesson in my life. At some point in my depression I started really focusing on myself to get better from depression because I thought I was really doing things wrong. I started working out every day, taking care of myself, sleeping better, eating healthy, doing NoFap and many other things. I got my blood checked and everything you can possibly imagine was done right. Now comes to big turning point.

Even when everything that was supposed to make me feel really good didn't deliver the expected results, I started to talk about it with my parent. My dad came up with a question that he wanted me to think about for a while. His question was as follows: are you not focusing on yourself too much?

I was going absolutely hardcore with my life before this
-NoFap strictly
-Ice bath regularly
-HIIT workout like 5 times a week
- socializing more
- eating healthy
-sleeping patterns and structure in life
- intermittent fasting

After considering the question of my dad I came to the idea that: why am I actually doing this? Is this making me happy?

There are tons of people out there that eat averagely healthy meals, drink some alcohol, sometimes dont sleep 8 hours, dont workout everyday, dont do NoFap and still live an extremely happy life. I am just going crazy with myself, I am overobsessing with myself with all of these feel-better methods where in reality I just need to real to do whatever the f*** i want to do and feel however I want to feel. I just want to make a list now about things that make me happy in life and focus on these things. This is much better than focussing on the abovementioned points because all they do is make me feel that I am not good enough and need to do better.

I want to make a journal that includes some of the following aspects:
-what I am grateful for
-what I am excited about
-what are some good things I did today
-what are some good things I didn't do today (like over-stressing about eating healthy or something similar)

I still want to continue with my meditating and eating healthy. So essentially this whole post doesnt mean I will stop doing all of the feel good activities. It just means that I dont want to think that I have to do them because I need them. I just want to believe that I do them because I want to do them and they make me feel good/relaxed. The whole mindset behind everyday activities needs to change.

Today I am grateful for our family inviting us over to have a barbeque together and they organized things really well. They arranged everything perfectly and just generally made sure we were enjoying ourselves! Such a great gesture from them!

I am kind of excited about doing my thesis for a company because this monday I have my first meeting with them. This is going to be an orientation so I am really excited about what they are going to show me and so on!

Something good that I did today was write this post because I feel like it is a way to express my story and help me get out of my anxiety and depression. Another good thing was that I went to my family even though I had some anxiety to go there. in the end it turned out to be a lot of fun and I dont regret going there!

Some thing I am grateful that i didnt do: I quit my intermittend fasting in the afternoon. I didnt stress about eating healthy. I didnt workout because I am allowed to have some days of from working out.

I will continue writing posts and updates here to keep the spirit up!

Thanks for reading guys!

 

Guys this is actually just amazing. Today for the first time in a long time I woke up energetically again. Today I was very grateful for my sister because she is having really good days and gave me a lot of poaitive energy. I am also grateful for having been able to focus nicely on my project. I did some sports and I actually skipped the last round because I dont have to always finish my workout. Just like I ate some icecream and other unhealthy things today, just because I can and wanted to. The whole mindset is changing. I am noticing a really thoroughly ingrained thinking pattern that always looks for reasons why I
-am not good enough
-others are better
-generally negative thoughts
And I simply find the idea of not being busy with myself that much kinda great! Of course I do physical care of my body but not excessive thinking about myself.
You know that all the things I was doing, I did because I thought I needed them to be happy;
eat healthy other not happy
sleep good otherwise not happy
etc.etc.etc.
And now I have come to the mindset that: I am happy. It doesnt matter what happens, I can be happy. I dont need this or that, I can just be. Just be happy.
It will probably take time for me to rewire my brain into thinking positively, or should I say realistically, but its the first good step! The power of the mind.

 

Today, for the first time I decided to join my friends group again for some beers and fun. It was slightly anxious and nervous but my strong mentality that I could do it got me through. It is literally just the difference in mindset that did it for me. I have just set my mind to the things I can do instead of the things I can't do. For example, not I am too boring but I can be interesting if I want to. I can be fun if I want to. I can relax if I want to. I can not be nervous if I want to. I am glad that I went there even though it was slightly uncomfortable.

 

Havent checked on here for some days but in general ive been quite good. I did an introduction meeting with a company and i am satisfied with how it went. I am increasingly starting to believe that what I think will happen.

For example if I think I will be anxious, then I will be. If I think I can remain calm, I will remain calm. Now this sounds like i might get myself into ovethinking, but no. its just about changing thought patterns. I can do whatever I want. Thats just the way it works, if you put your mind to it, it will happen.

thankful for my friend who helped me find company job.
glad I didnt do sport today because I felt good and didnt need it.

 

Alright, it has been a few days since I checked here because I have been experimenting with my mindset in general.

In general, I have been very successful at recognizing inhibiting thoughts (essentially thoughts that lead to negative self-view and so on). I want to provide you guys with some examples of things that have been on my mind.
- If I don't continue being social with my friends on a daily basis, all my efforts will be in vain -> It is totally not true because if I want to be social I can be social. If I want to enjoy it I can even enjoy the social activities even though I might be a little nervous for it.
- If I don't exercise then I will feel really bad -> Now this might to some extent be correct, however; this is not true 100%. I can feel good even when I have gone a few days without doing intensive sports. The general idea is not to stress about this and to basically do whatever the **** I wanna do.
- I had some feelings that told me I really need to write here daily because I need it to feel better -> I don't need to because I can feel good even without posting here.
- I have been drinking too much coffee and that is why I am feeling kind of anxious -> This one is most likely partially true. However, I don't have to stress about this too much because I can function normally even when I had a few coffees. In any case, I want to stop drinking coffee for the next coming days just because I want to. Its not because I need to stop it to feel better, but just because I don't feel like drinking coffee the next days.

The goal is to do whatever makes me feel happy!
- Do things with friends
- Sports and cold showers I enjoy them haha
- Good music
- Work on my thesis

Stay tuned for the next posts

 

-what I am grateful for
Today I have been very grateful for the response of my mom when I told her honestly that something she did was really pissing me off. I honestly don't really like it when people touch me and I don't care if it is my friend, parent or whatever. It also depends a little on my mood but it doesnt matter because I can do whatever I want. But, I told this to my mom and she gave a very good response that she would look out for it and that it was good that I told her.

-what I am excited about
my thesis project will be great. This is an opportunity for me to graduate and learn many things while doing an interesting research project. I also look forward to the gyms re-opening in my country after corona lockdown

-what are some good things I did today
Spend some time with family that came over for a visit. I could have sat in my room and be on the PC but I decided to socialize with them

-what are some good things I didn't do today (like over-stressing about eating healthy or something similar)
Today I was feeling quite anxious but I didnt over stress it. I didnt rush into meditation or into whatever. I just did what I normally do and what I like to do and we will see what happens.

 

My goal for the next coming days is to do the things that make me happy.

This is not about doing things I think I need or focusing on myself excessively. Whatever it is that makes me feel happy.

Could be going for a walk
Could be listening some summer music
Could be anything really.

 

Few days ago I got my glasses. I feel like it greatly enhances my ability to concentrate and be relaxed while studying.

I have been moderately anxious the last few days. I do my best not to think too much about if I need to do things like for example write this journal, do sports or whatever.

I don't really feel like talking always or being the centre of attention when having dinner with family, the great thing is: I don't have to. It's like sometimes I feel anxious to speak up and I believe I can train this by attending social speaking classes which will probably re-open after summer (due to COVID19).

I have been taking cold showers for the last few weeks and I feel especially relaxed and energized after doing them for 3 minutes. This is by no means a way of saying that I want to force myself to three minutes of cold shower daily. It basically means that most of the times I like it and it makes me feel good so I will continue to take them.

I went for a few small walks and I really enjoy just going out of the house for a little and refreshing the mind and body, feels great!

Today I worked on my project for school and I made really good progress. It feels mostly hard to start, but when I get into it; it actually fills me with accomplishment and happiness. I will continue to work hard on it for the coming days and see how it goes.

I also like to do some extended meditation sessions to experience true inner calmness.

I just love the vibe man!

I'll keep you guys posted!

 

Since a few days I started meditating again. Honestly I had been meditating for a long time before I started it again (probably half a year or so) and can say the benefits I experienced are real. In the last meditation I focused mostly on my breath and making the inhale full and exhale as slow as possible. This seems to really make me feel relaxed and I love it.

At the moment I am feeling very good and relaxed. I must say that maybe I feel more like I don't really care about things I shouldn't care about.
For example my dad usually approaches me with a lot of excitement and energy, expecting me to return the energy and get excited. I feel like I have been responding always with that same level of energy but the last days it seems that I don't really care and stay in my own energy level, which he accepts and recognizes. It actually makes me feel relaxed because I feel like easily taking over that excitement is not my true nature. I prefer to stay in my own energy and be relaxed and let others in their zone too.

The cold showers feel really great as well to be honest! I sort of feel a boost in testosterone. It is hard to explain but I feel more sex-drive. I get like constant slime in my mouth (you that which you get when you look at tasty food for example). Dont know what it is but I feel it haha. I think I want to work my way up from 3 to maybe 10 minutes. I am now at 3 minutes of full cold shower. I guess the temperature is around 10 degrees celcius and it feels great.

I don't care about my videogames anymore. I literally used to experience a lot of stress during gaming but its now like I play just relax and thats it.
Instead of playing FPS first person shooters I experience that playing some games like relaxing games on the phone (like bejeweld or whatever) have a better effect on me. They are also satisfying but you really have to use ur brain to see which strategy you go for.

I have been consistently working on my school project again and concentration is good and motivation is good too.

-meditation -> slow breathing
-walking few times per day
-relaxing games instead of stressful games
-school project
-cold shower
-glasses reduce headache etc.

 

I haven't tried that no. Would you be so kind to provide a practical real life example of what you mean by setting action oriented goals? @Joe Makuza

looking forward to join message

 

In this post I will share that today has been a productive and good job.

I also want to be open and honest with you guys about something that I want to change about myself.

I am a part of a community and I have been rude to people. I have made jokes that went a little too far and people have called me out for it. I generally know I am quite a toxic person but have serious trouble to staying calm sometimes. What I do know is that during the time I started meditating I become very resilient and thus mostly calm and generally a much better person. I want to really become a friendly person that people like to hang out with.

-I accept that I was toxic and accept that I can change
-I realize that meditation is not the easy way to become a better person, I will have to conciously work toward becoming that person

I have been feeling very unwelcomed in the community because it seems people dont like me. However, this is really not the case. People do like me a lot but the only thing is I need to take a chill pill and not make harsh jokes. I will work on this because I can be that better person.

Cya

 

In that case I am perfectly executing all of the above. I am calling experts everyday and doing a lot of other field research. So in that case, yes I have tried it and am still doing it everyday

 

Today I have been having some negative thoughts. This is not bad but something that I would like to reflect on and improve.

Essentially, my mom seems to have similar panic attacks that I have. She just deals with then differently because she has been having them her entire life. She thinks they are normal. I want to be honest with you guys and I have never found strength in my mom even though she is overly friendly. She always wants to help and offer me things. She is a great mom, but she is living a very stressful live. I don't have any control over her levels of stress and thus its best to just accept and make the best of it.

The last days I have been feeling quite insecure in terms of socializing. I want to describe an interesting thing with you guys. I am part of an online community for gaming and there I usually feel very confident. I feel like I can be in command or stand above some people. Perhaps I feel like this because I am one of the best gamers in the clan.

When with my family, I think I might have lost my ego-status and thus my confidence. I was depressed and very anxious for a long time and thus didn't work much or went to University. I believe that these things are generally factors I take a lot of value in for when it comes to (social) confidence.

If I want to improve this again I could look for a job for a few days each week. I also work on a project but thats mostly research and individual so therefore I don't feel like it would give me that much confidence even though it motivates me and so on.

I mostly had trouble motivating myself the last days. With this in mind, I should always remember that of I finish this project I can finish University and get a job somewhere. A job after University is a great opportunity. I mean I don't know what I want yet because I feel like being in an office might give me that locked up feeling. However, I know that with the jobs and internships in offices that I have done so far, I didn't really get great responsibility. And the thing is that I mostly love responsibilities because they make me feel powerful. I loved it when I was leading school projects. I loved it when working closely in groups with international people.

I would also kindly like to remind myself just to keep breathing. I sometimes find myself anxiously holding my breath. Just breathe the stress away, thats all I gotta do!

I have also picked up meditation again. I did it a lot but then stopped for a while because I thought I was overobsessing with all my self improvement. I now try to believe that I meditate just for inner peace and calm, and not because I need it. I can also be happy without meditation.

I repeat the word calm in my meditation for 20 minutes.

 

Alright so I am going to be very direct here people. The last couple of days have been quite bad for me. I wouldn't say I feel totally depressed or very anxious, but it is just that my energy levels and motivation is zero.

For me it is a surprise that this suddenly comes because I have been having the same routines. I always ask myself the question, what is the reason for feeling so low, but perhaps I shouldn't. I also want to point out another thing that I am a little unsure about. So I know that I can get really obsessive with these self-improvement things, but on the other hand I shouldn't totally give up on them. It is a challenge for me to do them without thinking about that I am obliged to do them otherwise I wouldn't feel good.

An example of today. A friend asked me to go do sports together and I told him yeah sure we can do that. We were a group of like 8 people and I enjoyed it. However, in the end I felt totally tired and I really wanted to go home because I felt emotional or low or whatever. The other people said lets go for a drink and then my friend was like you can leave if you want to its up to you. I think I was generally afraid of that situation because I know they were going to drink beer. I can't really drink beer because I am using antidepressants and drinking beer would only make things worse for me.
What would they think of me when they all grab a beer and I take a non-alcoholic drink?
How would they behave next to me because I am very insecure and my body language is very weak.

These are the questions I generally tell myself. Now I know that it was generally a really great decision to go sporting together but then somehow I still leave with this negative mindset that I didn't continue with them because I was afraid.

Okay so now we come to the following. One could argue that it would be really good to overcome the fear by just doing it. However, please let me elaborate on something. I have had many times, a long time when my depression was starting, and now still while depression is getting a bit better: I try to overcome the fear but still somehow I feel not good about it or totally insecure.

Another thing is that I am part of like a really big group in WhatsApp and everyone of the friend group always sends messages there. I, however, rarely send anything. I am the very quiet guy that really never says anything. Mostly people joke about other people through messages. I believe that I don't send messages because I would be afraid of how they would look at me because I never really joke about people (I do in family or online gatherings), but not in person with friends. I would be afraid that they disapprove of me or kick me out of the group because they wont accept me anymore. However, this is likely never gonna happen.

In the end I really am aware that mindset has a MAJOR impact on all of this. The mind is a very powerful tool and I am trying to change my mindset.

-I know that I might be afraid but I will try to be more active in the whatsapp group and make maybe even some jokes
-I will go to the social gathering next time again if someone invites me (they know about my situation and people ask me how its going etc. but its still pretty difficult mostly)

Ooh and also I want to sleep early and rise early for the next month. I want to make this a habit because it is said to be very powerful.

 

Okay so I got a bit of good news here. My last post brought some bad news to the table, but this post is better. The last few days I have experienced an increase in motivation, energy and self-confidence. I think I have told you that I meditated over the last half year and it helped me cope with my anxiety and depression tremendously. However, at some point I stopped doing it because I felt like it wasn't helping me anymore. I probably become too focussed on it or had unrealistic expectations of what meditation should bring me. The last few days I picked meditation up again and I must say it has brought me incredible peace of mind in just a few sessions. I spend 3 times half an hour in one day with meditation. I used to do TM meditation but these times I did regular meditation. Focussing on awareness in general. I don't have to meditate still but I like how it makes me feel.

I also want to point out that I have never tried Hardcore meditation combined with NoFap. I did NoFap for 90days last year and my experience was not that great. I mean, it was good, but it felt like it wasn't really helping me. I want to try the 90 days again but then let go of the expectations. I don't aim to use NoFap to become this or that, I just want try it because I like the idea of it and then we shall see. This time, however, I will combine the 90days of NoFap with hardcore meditation. I have A LOT of free time these days and honestly, when you look at my shedule, there is plenty of time for 3 times half an hour meditation per day. I have a tendency to speculate about all the great things that might happen to me when doing this; but again, I want to completely let go of my expectations of this process.

-3x 30minutes meditation everyday (can be more or less, it doesnt have to be that exact)
-NoFap


I do also want to make some remarks on how I felt the last days. So it was good and quite calm to be honest. I do however recognize that my calm and relaxed energy levels can collide with family members that are either very stressed or overexcited. I also notice that whenever I get excited its more controlled like my emotions are more controlled. I believe that it is personality changing something like this. It needs time to get really into my personality. Also, people around me will need time to see me with such more control over emotions. I also notice that because I have felt very stressed, depressed and anxious, my parents give me a lot of attention even when (now that im feeling a bit better again), its not really neccesary. I guess that it will take time for them to get used to this. It is important than I just enjoy my meditation and go with the flow. No need to do it perfect or be totally without thoughts during meditation. Also important to realize that there are always days that are worse and days that are better. But consistency is key in this whole process.
The moments when I like to do the meditation is after my cold shower after I wake up in the morning, then somewhere in the afternoon it doesnt really matter at what time but preferably before dinner. And then the last time is somewhere in the evening, most of the times before I go to sleep.

One last thing I notice about the meditation is that I feel more in control and also more AWARE of what I am paying attention to. For example, when I wake up after a day of good meditation I can remember a lot of my dreams. Today I didnt know what I dreamed about when I woke up, but as I went about my day some of the dreams started getting to me and it was actually really interesting. It really gives you this sense of control or awareness that is generally good to have.

In the next post I will update you guys about how it is going, stay tuned !