You start to live out of spite. If we don’t mean jack shit to the world and there is no grand plan or purpose for our existence, fuck it, find your own just to spite the nothingness.

In all honesty, I was there (sort of) a couple years ago, started reading philosophy and it kinda helped. Went from stoicism, to nihilism, and landed on absurdism.

But you could add some truck nuts behind every train car and some bull horns on the front.

Deserved. The game is fantastic, I have maybe two gripes w it. Performance isn’t good and I wish I could set my whole party on hide instead of one by one.

Fr. I paused to check if I was on fextralife or something.

Oof, relatable. Especially the sleeping thing, we experience basically the same thing. It was my understanding that my issues with sleep come from GAD, if I let my mind run wild I just won’t get a wink of sleep, no matter how long I stay in bed.

Have you tried a different therapist? I’ve had 4 different therapists so far and this last one really clicked and honestly gave me enough motivation to keep going to therapy. It takes a lot of work to get better, unfortunately, it can be a little disheartening to say the least.

Have you gotten a diagnosis for what you have? It might be worth doing tests, I had to get three done to get my diagnosis. Once I had those tests in hand my shrink could just issue meds (which still took a lot of work to find the right mix).

Ik that meds are a little icky. I wasn’t very comfortable at the beginning, but at least for my adhd, I don’t have a choice. It gives me a chance to catch up to everyone else. In regards to my GAD, maybe in a couple of years I can get off it, but it would take an incredible amount of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy, not cock and ball torture) to reprogram how I respond to stimuli, same as my SzPD. Nowadays, Ik that meds help me, and save for one, a benzodiasepine, I know I can take every day and be fine. Benzos are the nuclear option, so to speak.

Sorry if my response seems a little disjointed, I just woke up.

Not personal at all. Sorry for the wall of text, btw. I’ve suspected that I had depression since I was a teenager, at least. And it only worsened with time as I experienced life. I had been coping through the years with escapism and later, smoking (so, so much of it), until those didn’t work and developed GAD on top of my depression, szpd and adhd (possibly auadhd, want to get a second opinion). Around the time I developed GAD I stopped going regularly. Had enough last year and booked an appointment.

I won’t lie and say it’s all due to therapy, I’ve also been seeing a shrink and part of my daily dose of meds are antidepressants, which work well enough but are such a low dose they don’t do much by themselves. Still, going to therapy helped me realize what my defense mechanisms were. I had grown to value a stiff upper lip (like, unfeeling), and avoided anything that posed a challenge and could disappoint me in the future. Having lost all the work I put into the gym, I knew the work I would have to put in just to reach my PRs from years before when I was younger and didn’t smoke. So, fear of failure lead to not doing anything, leading to basically no positive reinforcement. Nothing gave me joy because I wasn’t stimulating myself with interesting shit. I was a husk going through the motions. Tried to buy a ticket on Charon’s boat but fucked it up and gave myself 7 years to get better, otherwise I’d try again.

So, 6 years later on the very first real session with my therapist she laid it out plain to me: if I really wanted to get better, I needed to get back into the gym. She recommended the shrink I’m seeing so she knew I would likely end up taking pills, for which I’m grateful, but she wasn’t lying about the gym. There’s a world of difference between the days in which I work out and the ones I don’t, even with meds. In the following sessions we discussed stuff I’ve experienced and hadn’t processed, because I didn’t value experiencing emotions. I’ve come out the other side much better, definitely more emotionally mature, and sure of myself. In terms of quantifiable progress, I now spend 0 days in bed all day, which is pretty damn good. Through my therapist I’ve learnt how to deal with panic attacks, which I didn’t know before. Two months ago I ran out of my anxiety pills and had the worst panic attack yet in the middle of the night. Managed it as the therapist taught me and was chill again in 30 minutes.

I’m now about a month away from the 7 years being up, and while I’m not 100% there, I’m still making good progress. Don’t think I’ll end up trying to cross the Styx just yet.

TL;DR: going to the therapist helped me realize I had been dragging a ton of baggage that wasn’t letting me improve myself. She taught me how to deal with that baggage in a healthy way, which included the gym. Now I’m much better.

Been years since I exercised regularly. Now that I’m older, I can’t get away with bad form without really feeling it later. Learnt mostly by myself and from youtube. A little while ago I was complimented on my form while squatting, and today I figured out what was wrong with my shoulder (nerve impingement from an unstable rotator cuff) and now I know what to do, day 1 and it already helped immensely.

Though I guess the real win here is that I’m going to the gym regularly. Tried many times before but I always ended up quitting. It was probably the depression doing me in. Guys, therapy works, no cap.

Or just at least mid coffee. I live in a coffee producing country, and I’ve tried everything from really expensive coffee to bottom of the barrel, both local and from abroad. The only cup of coffee I sipped and spat out was a Starbucks in Houston.

Or a weirwood grove in a horrible timeline where the North became suburbanized.

Because the same people profiting from this system bankroll the media and politicians. And when those kinds of things are discussed in media, it flies over people’s heads because media literacy isn’t really common.

That was my guess. Shame, really. Most people I met were lovely, and the cities themselves seemed nice enough to walk around (London less so, too big and spread apart for that). Hope amounts to nothing, but I goddamn hope y’all kick them tories out sooner rather than later. Recent headlines from the UK kinda worry me.

Oh, I know. Meant the London tube. It was definitely cleaner than New York and Washington, Paris too. But, idk, I guess I expected it to be cleaner.

National Rail was amazing, otoh. Loved the countryside. Seats were a bit cramped.

Are the tube trains always so dirty? I visited last year and that was my impression. Not the dirtiest I’ve seen but, yeah.

Not meaning to criticise or anything, where I’m from we barely have functional buses, nevermind having a metro.

Yup, 1/5th of fascists know they’re fascists.

Same. I’m usually not for cutesy stuff, quite the contrary, most of the media that I consume is violent (games like doom, music like hardcore punk) and absolutely dress like it, but I fucking loved She-Ra.

I’m just a bit worried my 2070 will choke a little in the more demanding areas. I’ve seen it can get quite chaotic and that’s when it gets worse.

Hunt Showdown with my mates, really loving this event. Had been burned out of the game for a long time but it feels sorta new now.

Crusader Kings 3, loving Tours and Tournaments. Hadn’t played much ck3 till now, I miss some features from CK2 but, I’m sure it’ll get there eventually. Not like CK2 was perfect out of the box.

Project Zomboid: doing a TLoU inspired run with a bunch of mods on apocalypse settings. It’s pretty hard, but very fun.

Rimworld: always there when I need it. Currently running a mafioso vampires run, pretty fun, but I think I’m ready to move on.

Yeah, I can only remember what I read about how the attitudes of the men on the frontlines of the first world war changed after the leaders obligated a dehumanized view of each other following the first christmas truce. This very well could have the opposite effect.

Yeah, I’m aware of the latter. Wish studios would stop using advancements in tech to cover up deficiencies in optimization.

Ah, shame. Think I’ll wait on performance patches. I got no problems running it but I’d rather not buy something not up to basic specs.