Im feeling stuck in life

I can relate to a lot of what you have said here.

2 questions and I understand if you do not want to answer them:

- how did therapy go?
- what was your childhood like?

 

Well, for starters I think most of this guru guys are absolute jerks.

“Look for your passion”, “Do what you want”, those are words easy to say when you know what you want, nobody tells you how to find it, if it really exists… So my point of view is: happiness and passions are overrated, don’t do things because you like to, but do them because they’re good for you and they’ll make you virtuous, like eating healthy, working out, researching about art, the human body, etc.

So if you haven’t found your passion, here’s what you can do: be passionate about the things you do, even if they’re not your passion; maybe you’ll end up making that your passion or in the worst case, opening doors for the future, because people will remember your willing attitude. I spent the last two years in a misery well, but I finally found something I like, which paradoxically was the thing I wanted to do in the first place but I was misguided by my own prejudice.

Good luck.

 

Hey! I can relate to your story. Feeling frustrated, both sexually and in general, feeling like something is missing, not feeling excited about things and so on. This year I have been trying to focus on "finding joy". With this I mean, trying to focus on seeing joy in the things I do and actively working against things that take away my happiness. Each day I try to note down things that made me happy. Can be tiny things, such as having a productive day at work, or going for a nice run, or having a good conversation with someone, having a good meal etc. Then in the end of the week I sum up the things I wrote down each day to have some highlights of the week. And then for the end of the month I do the same and note down some of the things I enjoyed the most during the last weeks. This way it helps me remember the best highlights, but also to see progress on a larger scale. There might be many quite boring, or even miserable days, but overall I'm going in the right direction. It seems like you have very good habits already, and looking at it on a larger time scale might help you see progress.

I also noted down things that actively took away my joy during the day. I noticed that most things that made me feel sad, or drained of energy can be lumped into a few interconnected categories that I actually can try to adress, which I have done with varying success:

- Dwelling and lingering on things of the past which I can't change and can't do anything meaningful with. Going over past mistakes over and over or dwelling on things that happened many years ago where I felt like I was treated badly was a habit I had. Going over the same shit over and over in my head and languishing just causes me pain and sadness. I'm trying to let go of these things, not see myself as a victim but focus on what I can do today.
- Jealousy. I realised that I'm very jealous. It was not nice to realise this, it's easier to imagine that I'm unlucky or poorly treated, but what's causing sadness is my own jealousy. I compared myself to others, putting my progress and life in relation to that of others instead of trying to do the best I can with my own life. This made me feel like I sucked no matter what, because there is always someone better at me in everything in life. Seeing people my age get married, or getting proper jobs etc made me feel like I was failing. This is still difficult for me, but I try to notice quickly when I'm comparing myself to others. People are better than me in all fields of my life, but in the combination of all the things I'm doing, in my own life, I'm making progress compared to me in the past. Sometimes I find it helps to imagine things that I have accomplished that other people could get jealous over. We are all incomplete
- PMO. This is a specific thing that could ruin an entire day or couple of days that I'm trying to adress as well. For now I've managed to avoid porn for a while, but am more lenient with moderate masturbation. This has worked for me for a while now.
- Screen time, especially when I lose myself into the screen and spend much more time than I planned. Any type of mindless scrolling on social media, news, youtube where I "lose myself" can really make me feel like shit. I counterintuitive try to allow myself some more screen time, telling myself that I can spend an hour watching youtube and making active choices what I watch instead of getting stuck in a rabbit hole of mindless videos.
- Sleep. This is still a big problem for me. I go to bed too late more or less every night. I find it very difficult to both plan my day so I get to bed in time, and not get distracted in the evening.
- And maybe most importantly, being too hard on myself. Beating myself up too much if I make any of the mistakes above, feeling like I'm a failure if I don't manage to do all the things I wanted in a day, or week, or month.

This ended up being longer than I anticipated, but these are some thoughts I have had the over the last year. Feel free to write a private message if you want, I think we are in similar situations and could help each other out

 

And this video by CGP Grey about "How to maximise misery" has helped me. It's a funny way to think about finding happiness and there were some important lessons I could take from it.

 

Can I just say - despite not knowing you, it makes me sad to hear that you've had to endure so much at such a young age. But also, well done on being so self aware at such a young age. While I am nowhere near a therapist, I can relate to a lot of your symptoms. Also while I haven't fixed my own issues, I have recently been able to get some support and found that the methods taught to me are helping. I'm hoping by sharing some of the info here with you they might help.

Whether you believe it or not, most if not all of your symptoms very likely relate to emotional repression. For many years I have also suffered similar if not the same symptoms:

• Lack of excitement
• Never being able to finish anything (degree, courses, projects)
• Consistent back problems despite working out regularly
• Trouble sleeping (30mins-1hr)
• Very little memory of my childhood
• At 33 I still feel as though I am in my 20s
• I have random mood swings and get triggered easily

The first thing that people think and say when hearing this is, 'why would emotions be the cause of physical pain and illness?!'. In theory it is pretty simple. Lets say when growing up your parents might have been emotionally abusive. They are there (physically) but emotionally they are unavailable. When you cried they ignored you, they never took notice of your likes (and dislikes). In short they were unable to care for you and validate you and your feelings. As a result, you begin to repress the negative emotions from these experiences to avoid feeling any pain. As you grow up, these emotions remain repressed. A good example of this is where you said; 'I struggle to trust other humans'.

What we have to understand is that emotion is energy. In the same way that sexual desire when not expressed becomes sexual tension, repressed emotions that are not processed remain within the body. This is also known as neurosis. Repressed emotions not only affect us emotionally, but physically. This is what we have to get our head around. Repressed emotions manifest emotionally in the form of anxiety, addiction, anger/rage and other unconscious destructive patterns. Physically, they manifest in the form of illness and disease. Whether you believe it or not, the build-up of subconscious negative forces (from your childhood) can (and will) manifest in your body physically.

I, like you, have also adhered to NoFap religiously. For the past 29 months I have cut all porn/masturbation and kept all O to an absolute minimum. However in truth not much has really changed. I still rarely get morning wood, and if I do its barely there. I still feel emotionally numb, limited to a handful of negative emotions. I still have mood swings when I feel emotionally threatened. I have watched fellow fapstronauts start their streak after me and heal before me. The reality is that for us, we have more work to do. We have to dig deeper into our emotional past and come to terms with what has happened. Yes I know it sucks, but I will tell you what, a) you will feel 5000x better than you once was and b) it is certainly worth the effort .

To explain in the best way that I can; the reason you still feel 14-15 despite being 22. Or that you are cold to your mother and brother. Or that you don't have many positive memories. Or even why you can't give your all to difficult challenges, is because emotionally a part of you is missing. Sorry to use the guru phrasing, but simply put; when you suffer from emotional hardship at such a young age, a part of your psyche 'caves in on itself'. An example, my Dad was emotionally abusive to me at a young age. If I cried I would be abused even more. So I didn't cry and held all the emotion in until it was over. Jump forward 25 years to 2 months ago. My manager shouted at me for not completing a task correctly. My immediate reaction was to shout her down, exclaiming that she needed to watch how she spoke to me. To summarise, my reaction was no different than that of my 8 year old self. The abuse received from my younger years has stagnated my emotional growth. I am still carrying around the negative, unresolved emotions from my childhood. The anger is unresolved and affecting me not just emotionally but physically. To go even deeper, you may notice that these events continue to occur regularly. Almost as if they are following you. The negative emotions that lie repressed in your subconscious mind will attract these same situations to give you opportunities to allow your anger to play out - whether you believe it or not. Its another way of getting your attention to indicate that something is emotionally wrong.

@Hold the Line I hope some of this can point you in the right direction and isn't merely a long ramble. NoFap also has its place in this post, but maybe if there's enough of a need, ill put it into a separate post. If I can make some suggestions to really make some progress:

1. To begin to heal, you have to start processing some of these negative emotions. You have to learn to feel.
2. If you can, read: Healing Your Lost Inner Child by Robert Jackman. It explains in good detail and clarity why you are experiencing the symptoms that you are experiencing. It gives examples of others who have gone through the same experience as you, as well as how to fix the issues.
3. Emotional Clearing - John Ruskan explains how masturbation and porn etc. tie in with your emotions, and provides good clarity.
4. I know you struggled with therapy, but therapy will help. IF you have the correct therapist. I also started with a 'shoddy' therapist who just took my money to listen. Go for a therapist that is active, compassionate and pushes you to work on yourself and be better. I currently see a psychotherapist who is almost more excited than me to see me get my feelings back. Invest in being your better self.
5. Message me any day or time if you need support
6. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

Dont compare yourself to youtubers, half of their persona is fake and you have no idea if they actually have the routines they say they have. And even if they are doing good in life and are not lying about it, do not compare yourself to them.

You do not have an inner fire? Search for it. We all had to at one point, usually we feel lost even more than once. Life not having a meaning has a meaning. You will find yourself. As I remember, (I might be wrong about this) I recommended reading about philosophies or religions to you on a different post that you wrote about this same subject. They tend to answer to these questions about what life is about. You can pick the ones that excite and feel right to you.

 

Just sending a message of support here. I felt lack of excitement for anything, couldn't complete anything (basically failed professional registration exams, my uni etc), and had depression associated with my low moods and anger. I also had professional help, got on meds, and got very overweight.

I did 90+ day nofap in 2020, got physically fit, passed my postgrad, got a job, now making meaningful friendships and relationships. Your case is definitely complicated, and you may need more support, but from a pmo addiction perspective definitely work on that. It contributes to a lot of mental health and stagnation issues. Good luck man.