One goal I made was to try doing more creative projects occasionally—these range from serious things to just small silly TikToks. I got somewhat taken aback because one friend reacted very supportively, and another person kinda ignored it. With one friend I had mentioned twice now how I had an idea and was going to make a silly video and put multiple different lures pointing out that I had done it – all short of directly saying “Hey, could you look at this thing I made?”. I get while writing this now that it’s a somewhat childish game, but from my POV with this person, I already feel like things are on thin ice as I keep getting constant reinforcement that they don’t want to be close friends anymore. I can’t help but see the pattern in their behavior. Either that or they just don’t understand that they’ve been a pretty disheartening friend for a while, but also they have mentioned this and have acknowledged it without anything changing. I don’t really know which case this is but it ends up with the same behavior from me regardless.
With the other friend, when I briefly mentioned it, they enthusiastically supported me and asked to see it. They followed up and took the time to screenshot a comment and mention it. I realized how much I felt like this person cares about me, and has a genuine interest in my activities. I don’t really feel that with the other person. I feel like with the new friends I’ve been making and the old friends that have consistently been there for me, I find myself tired of having to put in extra effort or constantly make excuses for consistent behavior.
I have a mental ultimatum for something that if it happens I should hold myself accountable and stop interacting even more. If that thing happens, I can’t help but believe that they don’t care about how I’d feel, and their selfish motivations would trump my well-being. I guess might as well write it down here as an “I told you so” for future me:
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Honestly, there are a lot of things in my life that I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. There are a lot of immediate things and a lot of long-term things which I’m afraid for. I didn’t know whether to write afraid of or for – as a lot of these fears are things not working out. I feel like I’m permanently not doing enough for a lot of things, and that constant sense of anxiety really ruins my quality of life. I guess that’s probably because I have anxiety. I wonder how other people go through life, without that constant crushing feeling in their chest whenever something is wrong.
I decided to myself that I’m going to try to lifemaxx again, so I started setting out some criteria of things I want to do. I started using the app Habitica to hopefully keep track of these things a bit better, and also incentivize myself. I still need to fix my sleep schedule, but I have a couple of other things I’m hoping will improve my quality of life. I don’t really have a new-year’s resolution, as I feel like I don’t need some big event to decide to commit to something like that. But I guess this ends up lining up around that time anyway. I also decided I want to try taking my medication more frequently, as I heard some studies about it actually teaching your brain to properly regulate the chemicals better, so here’s to hoping that works.
I think I realized why I’m still feeling hurt is because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I tell myself that I don’t consider them a close friend anymore, but I think mentally I didn’t fully adapt that yet. They mentioned something that made me upset in a way that only would happen if I cared about them a lot, and that served as a mini wake-up call. I think I need to really embody what I say I think, but also it might not even be worth it at this point. I’m still in this weird little limbo I’ve been forced into, not something I would inherently do – but also I may just attach too much to people. I think this is an interesting experience regardless to better understand where I should lay on that spectrum of decisions.
Its 1 AM, and I bought a few friends Pico Park so we could all play it. It was a nightmare in the best way possible. I’ve been laughing so hard that no sound has been coming out, and my ab has fully cramped.
This ad is something I feel everyone's seen at some point in their life. It popped up again for me and I watched it, and God damn it hit again.
I always seem to lose sight of this, but I really do feel like radical love is one of the most fulfilling ways to live life. One goal I've had for a while now is to do something nice for no recognition every day, and it's devolved a lot since then. It defeats the purpose if I mention what I do, but I think I've lost sight of why I want to do that. It's been a while, I think I'm gonna try to log onto TFM and pay it forward again this year.
I am a firm believer that only love can overcome hate. I think stuff like right-wing vs left-wing is a great example of this. I don’t know how anyone expects the other group to communicate if they are both constantly villanizing each other. But I’m also saying this because I was in the wrong today. I realized I did something bad; the worst part was that I didn’t understand why it was bad mentally. Since I know myself relatively well, I feel confident saying that I don’t have any ill intentions – but rather the mistake I made was a shortcoming that I think a lot of men particularly fall victim to. Since I’m talking in vague terms I can’t exactly go more into depth on that part of it, but I ended up applying some REBT techniques and did some research to bridge the gap between my actions and intentions.
I think that most people won’t do stuff like this – and I realized that a lot of things seem obvious to people when it upsets them, but we always forget what it’s like to not know something. In an ideal world, everyone would learn healthy communication and comfortably help each other grow, but instead in practice, I think that there’s always the fear of someone judging you and ruining your perception.
In an extreme example – which is worse. Imagine if your friend was a straight-up neonazi. Or at least they made a joke or comment that aligns with that. Which would you think better of? The person who just immediately apologizes, or the person who apologizes and then asks several follow-up questions to understand why it’s bad. I think most people would prefer the former, as it gives the benefit of the doubt to a miscommunication. But in both situations, they’re the same person: just one person doesn’t end up changing their beliefs and rather just adapts their behavior in certain situations, namely interacting with you. I think it’s best for everyone if the second case happens, where you genuinely talk in a non-aggressive way about why certain things are problems. But at the same time, if people don’t see things the way I do, the hypothetical neonazi is incentivized to not change their behavior in order to not damage their relationship. Isn’t that a weird, counterintuitive result?
Or who knows, maybe I’m just rambling. God knows if what I type is even coherent, it’s 3 am in the morning and I’m covered in brain fog.
Ever since I was young, I would always have great moments overshadowed by immediate bad moments. Usually, they were consequences of reckless actions or just unfortunate luck. I later realized in therapy how this is a fallacy – good moments must be succeeded by bad moments, as things can never stay good forever they must eventually end and bad moments will happen. I then tried to convince myself to focus on the counterpoint: good things will follow bad moments. I’ve had some very very bad moments in my life that are followed by amazing moments – and so I call this the rainbow after the storm for me.
I felt happy for the first time in a while today, and yesterday night also. There are a lot of things that I’m stressed about and terrified about – but I can’t control them too much at this point. I had a good workout, and I danced in the car on the drive home to some high-BPM music. Music sounded good again, and I enjoyed it. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve enjoyed music like that. I hope I’m back for at least a while more.
I ended up spending around 10+ hours writing Tetris with a friend, as I’ve been finally learning react (web dev). I also applied to like 25 internships. Christmas also passed without me being depressed about that which was sick. I have my DBT book I’ve been putting off, along with other projects. I still want to rewrite this blog myself – but that’s for another day. No CBT tonight, its 4:20 am (heh) and I’m going to pass out. Goodnight!
I’m technically writing this on Christmas day, but it’s my entry for Christmas Eve so I’ll consider it so. I’ve been so stressed and overwhelmed with other problems where I didn’t even notice it’s Christmas, so that’s kinda nice I didn’t have to worry about feeling bad about that this year. I had a lot of things happen, but I don’t exactly want to think or talk about them if I’m being honest – at least not now. At least AoC is over – I don’t have to do something every day at 9 pm for 2 hours.
God, I just hope everything works out. Nothing to CBT today – I just don’t want to think.
I’ve kinda been shutdown for the last few days, any waking moment is crippling anxiety and stress to the point where I can barely move my body. I don’t feel like eating or anything like that. I just kinda wanna sit here and rot.
Situation: I am shutting down
Thoughts: This is it
Feelings: Im tired and giving up
Behavior: I give up
Thoughts: This will pass, and it will seem trivial in a bit.
Feelings: Scared, but a bit more hopeful
Behavior: Unironically I thug this shit out
Man, the problem with becoming nocturnal is I have no energy to do this, I feel like I’m disrespecting myself with this half-assed journaling. I hope I get out of here.