Wanting to stop viewing but can’t

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I keep crying today and I want to stop viewing this forum but I can’t stop. It’s become a routine for me to keep posting on and viewing this forum even though it fuels my bad feelings to the point I wish I could stop but I can’t. For years I invested in wanting to post about getting a girlfriend but that dream remains out of my reach and because I invested so much emotion into doing so, I can’t stop coming here even if it continues to damage me emotionally. The routines have also locked me from trying to do things like look into vocational rehab and disability services. How can I even look into those things when I have a job schedule chained to me, a mother who is intermeshed in my life, severe anxiety, upset bowels, nightmarish images playing in my mind all the time, and never feeling fully rested due to sleep apnea?

I don't mean to sound harsh, and please don't take this as a criticism. It's not. I just want to put things in perspective so you can remember to count your blessings. Some of us have terminal illness and are dying, or we are caregivers for others who are dying. Some of us are seriously ill with or without healthcare insurance, or families to put food on the table for us. In the past year some of us have lost loved ones and spouses, or lost marriages, relationships, children, jobs, homes, schools, cars, and pets ... not to mention our sanity. Some of us are homeless, have been homeless, or will soon be on the street. Some of us are starving, or can't afford to feed our children. We've faced physical and sexual abuse or been victims of crime I couldn't begin to describe. Most of us have clinical depression, panic disorders, anxiety, poor health, and difficult parents.

Please remember that this is your audience here. We're all hurting. Despite the pain, we all soldier on. We make phone calls, send emails, and pick ourselves up off the floor every day to try again.

I don't mean that to discredit your pain. Your pain is real and I'm sorry to read about it. I wish we could help, but I also hope that you're able to recognise the many ways you are fortunate in your life. You haven't lost your job, your home, or any family members and loved ones. You have a roof over your head, parents who provide for you, and people on many forums who care. I hope you understand I'm writing this with the best intentions and not to make you feel badly. I'm writing to support you and all the others who are experiencing tremendous pain right now. We all come to WP for friendship, and there's no reason for you to stop. It's a matter of juggling your time, setting priorities, and knowing what brings solace to your life, even briefly.

Hugs to Marknis, and everyone else who is suffering.

There are actually two things I have to point out to you. I’ve actually had some deaths in the family during the last decade and I’ve had some people here sever their friendships with me.

*hugs*

Wow, that was deeply powerful and moving. Even though it wasn't even intended for me, and even though ive been through my fair share of troubles, your gratitude in the face of hardships, positivity in the face of negative setbacks, and will to enjoy and live life to the fullest even when life beats you down and tries to keep you down, is so infectious it motivated me to feel a lot better even as I was screaming in severe pain for hours from the pounding migraine im in.

We need to hear this and no you aren't being too harsh. In 1 year ive lost all my money, failed college despite putting my life into college, had my dad diagnosed with cancer, lost my mom, suffered a debilitating near death head injury that robbed me of my ability to read and learn and causes me perpetual dizziness and pain, lost my job, suffered PTSD from my vacation in Minneapolis getting destroyed by the rioting in 2020, and suffered so many bad coincidences that I literally felt like I was cursed by God given the awful timing of all of these setbacks and coincidences, yet even then I know that there are many things to be grateful for, an infinite number actually, when one looks hard enough.

In the Quran there is a verse that says:

"And He has brought you of all you asked Him; and in case you number the favor (s) of Allah, you (cannot) enumerate them. Surely man is indeed constantly unjust, most disbelieving" Quran chapter 14, verse 34

I never understood what that meant for me as someone whose whole life was never ending suffering. Me, have uncountable blessings, really?!?! A Palestinian from a war zone whose lost family to the conflict in Palestinian, who suffers a bevy of mental disorders, who had everything in his life he worked his soul into crushed because of unfortunate terribly timed setbacks, how do I have blessings?? Thats when I took up God's challenge to try counting my blessings and you know what??

God was right.

I actually couldn't count them.

The amount of infinite number of coincidences that it takes for a functioning human eye to operate alone is grandstanding and amazing, then the complex machinery of the human body that allows one to simply operate greater than any machine or AI, then the fact that I dont spend my time worrying if Im going to be bombed or not like my brothers and sisters in Palestine and Syria, all of that and more made me realize that for all the bad luck life gave me there is an infinite number of ways I could have been unluckier, and im grateful that I was given the positives I have in my life

I would guess that you are drawn to post here because you are lonely and because we are among the very few people in your life whom you can relate to at all. Is that correct?

If you feel that this forum is damaging you emotionally, then maybe you should try taking a week or two off and THEN decide whether to come back?

Perhaps taking some time off will help you gain perspective, and then, if you do decide to come back, perhaps you might then participate with somewhat different aims?

I think it would help a lot if you could somehow become less focused on "wanting to post about getting a girlfriend" and more focused on asking for advice about specific things that will help you get a better type of job so you can move out of your parents' house and, if possible, move to Austin. (Doing those things would, in turn, make it a whole lot easier to find a girlfriend too.)

It’s decreasing now but I suppose that’s been a factor.

I’ve been wanting to take a break and to be honest, I am leaning towards not coming back, especially since someone just made a lot of harmful assumptions about me. He claimed I don’t see women as human, that I “pestered” the organizer of the speed dating event, and that they cancelled because I would’ve “caused a scene.” None of these things are true. I’ve never once stated or implied women are not human, I only occasionally emailed the organizer and I never told her my personal feelings, and I wouldn’t have made a scene because to act out in public is not in my character. I honestly would’ve just gone back home and lie on my bed or the couch.

There’s honestly some other things here that put a bad taste in my mouth here.

Definitely get away if you're wanting to (and you can manage it). Don't even worry about how long it's for, you can decide that later.


I've had that impression from a few guys in your situation but you don't come across as that type of person to me.

Since I rely on my iPhone for internet usage, it’s easy for me to feel compelled to come here. I’ll need to really fight against the urge to do so.



Besides one female member who apologized and retracted her assumption after talking to me more, it’s just been males who assume I am sexist and they are all knuckleheads for assuming that about me.

I believe what they meant is that you seem to fail to consider potential partners as complicated and somewhat unpredictable beings (like all other human beings), because your expectations presume a level of consistency and predictability that is simply incompatible with reality (which is something people will typically find offputting, especially any potential partners). You may not realize it, but a lot of what you say implies that real-life outcomes don't depend heavily on other people's own choices, which are largely not up to you. Basically, life isn't a matter of putting raw materials into one end of a machine and then getting the desired end product on the other end of it. I believe that is what they were trying to point out.

I don’t think life is like that at all. It does not enter my head at all that life is a simple process. I also don’t think I should be told I can’t have a relationship and I feel like I am getting told that. I’ve also had a relationship before and my ex-partner showed interest in me first so I don’t think I should be considered unworthy of having a relationship.

More on topic though, if you feel like you could benefit from taking a break, then it probably is a good idea to take that break, and preferably only return once your frame of mind has changed somewhat, or else you just end up reinforcing the same thought patterns that are causing you distress.

If you have trouble doing it (I do too -- forums can be pretty addictive sometimes), I think the most important thing is for you to have something else to occupy your mind with. Something that keeps you coming back to it (more or less like the forum would) and can potentially occupy all your free time, but is still self-limited to an extent (so you don't just end up with another sort of addiction). A Netflix marathon, for example.

If going cold-turkey doesn't work (chances are it won't), what I usually do when I want to take a break is check with myself if I'm using/checking the forum less (or less obsessively) than the day before. Another idea that may or may not work is going from posting threads to only posting responses, to only reading new responses without posting anything (hopefully because you're already occupied with something else at that point), to finally not using the site.

I think your problem with it is essentially that you're stuck in a tunneled loop where it's hard to see the causality of things (both when it comes to your problems and when it comes to possible solutions). In a situation like that, some change of perspective is essential, and all you can do is facilitate it to happen (by changing your circumstances / environment / habits in some way).

I am willing to change as long as others don’t imply I am “too messed up” to have a relationship or that I need to be cut off from society before even thinking about having one.

I believe some people aren't fit for (healthy) relationships. I'm one of them. I don't know if you are or not, I think that's something you need to find and judge for yourself.

One of the things that will help you with changing in the ways that threetoed snail describes is to train yourself to detach from hostile opinions.

We all have detractors and people who dislike us but letting them control our lives only hands them the ability to inflict harm. They don't deserve to have that level of influence over you.

Yep....Funeral doesn't like me

He thinks I'm a limousine liberal, and he believes I'm suggestible, and would listen to right-wing crap.....but I don't let it get to me

(only kidding, Funeral )