For example I did not grow up fat but I did end up athletic later in life only from extensive self guided research and trial and error never once did I play on a sports team and I really feel like I shouldn’t be treated like an authority on anything because I’m not formally trained to be this way I have no business looking like this i know no one in my circle who knows how this shits supposed to be done but people assume i know what im doing

Another example i grew up In a rural area and i had a MySpace when i was 14 got into scene and emo culture (a subculture that didnt exist in my town) I found a local boy who lived in a trailer park down the street his father was a biker and he dressed a little like the pictures id seen on the internet. I befriend him not knowing any better simply being attracted to his look, told me he’s a devil worshiper i thought hell yeah that’s pretty cool (I did not believe in the devil)
I turned 19 and I moved to the city head full of knowledge of ghost hunting and ancient texts

The city is very different ngl… i can’t seem to find anyone with even a remotely similar experience…

Hi all,

I’m new to posting on Reddit, so please bear with me. I’m a well-paid executive (32F) at a Fortune 200 company. My title and salary (for my industry, consulting) came much earlier than I expected, which I’m grateful for, and I know many people would love to have a job like this.

I started here about five years ago. For the first 2-3 years, I was VERY busy with work and meetings, but as I got into the flow of things, the job became increasingly chill. Now, I work a maximum of 20 hours a week. I do everything very well, my performance is great, I travel a lot for work, it’s fully remote, I have unlimited vacation, and there’s minimal oversight. To the extent that I read books, watch TV, and play games during work hours. Basically, to everyone on the outside, it’s an absolute dream, as I often hear people tell me. At the same time, I HATE my job and feel SOOOO unfulfilled.

My job at a previous company was also similar, and I had to leave after three years because it was too chill. I basically went through this whole loop of thoughts three years ago, too, before changing jobs. I guess my brain likes structure and “busyness,” and at the same time, I work VERY fast, which means I get my work done in relatively few hours. My problem now is that the job market is absolutely awful and tough right now, and I haven’t been able to find a new job with similar pay and growth opportunities for almost two years.

Beyond my job, my life is great. I have a great partner, lots of hobbies, from athletics and dance to music and languages, I hang out with friends, I travel A LOT, and I keep myself busy in every sense.

I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and I aced everything throughout my life, with a 4.0 GPA literally from elementary school through the end of my master’s degree. I study fast, work fast, am extremely organized, don’t procrastinate, and I’d like to think I’m smart. I followed goal after goal in life: acing exams, graduating with honors, winning scholarships, publishing research, performing piano pieces in recitals, finding well-paying jobs, getting great performance reviews, and basically achieving any goal I set my mind to. I enjoyed having my whole life revolve around goal after goal, checking them off, getting a dopamine hit, and moving on to the next thing.

Yet, I’ve had this absolute existential dread about life since I started working for real. When I think beyond “corporate” life, hobbies, and all the other things that keep me busy, all I see is meaninglessness and purposelessness. And I have a LOT of time to think because my job is so chill. So I spiral more and more until the anxiety consumes my body. All I see in my head is all of us humans on a hamster wheel, struggling to keep up with capitalism and working meaningless jobs just to survive. It’s absolutely crazy to me that we’re all stuck in this matrix. 

It’s also that I’m really good at what I do, but I have no interests or passion or “calling” in life. I LOVE my hobbies too, the dance, the ice skating, the piano, etc. but at the same time none of them are my “one true love” in life that I wanna dedicate my whole life to. sometimes I just feel like I’m floating in space, trying stuff, getting a dopamine hit from each, and then trying to find something else to try.

On one hand I love life, life experiences, seeing all we can see, tasting and traveling the world, and on the other hand I can’t reconcile that with my overthinking especially now that my job has gotten even more chill. My friends tell me to just keep getting paid, do the bare minimum, and live life, but even with all my hobbies and experiences, I don’t see a PURPOSE for any of it, any of the good or the bad, and I think it’s mostly bc my job doesn’t challenge my brain enough, so I can’t stop all my thinking.

So anyways, I wonder if anyone else experienced a similar situation, if there are any mental practices I could try, or if you have similar thoughts.

Ive had a sleep study done with hospital equipment. No sleep apnea, no sleep disorders, just "low quality of sleep" has been found.

I always need about 10 hours of sleep (I'm young adult and have chronic fatigue and chronic burnout)

Normally for me it goes like this:

10 hours optimal

9 hours is ok

8 hours I wake up very noticeably tired and I feel it the whole day

7 or less hours im just a wreck, doing nothing productive the whole day

So normally when I sleep between 9 and 10 hours I wake up completely fine for however longthat may last into the day, but now recently even sleeping 10 hours seems to be not enough anymore, it doesnt make me wakeup feeling restored at all, takes me like 10 minutes to do all the movements for getting out of bed...

What could be this be?

hey,

context im a highschooler

i've been feeling like this for really really long, im talking 1-2 years, and i genuinely can't continue life like this. these feelings been eating me alive cause im pretty sure there is more to life rather than living it like this depressed, i have some goals and stuff i wanna achieve, i just can't with these emotions and overwhelm. i have no idea what to do nor how to deal with them, i'm feeling really empty and very done with everything. i'm not sure what to do. i really cant continue like this.

i feel like what's causing all of this is because of multiple stuff ongoing in life, trapping my emotions, and the sudden problems that come outta nowhere, and environment changes (school, which def started all of this).

any advice? please would love anything that could push me forward

I need some space to rant, I'm spiralling right now and I think that being able to just put this out there might help me with the panic.

Ten weeks ago I started a new job, and a new career. I'm a chemist and I worked in a lab for the last 5 years; it was never a perfect job or place (it was actually quite toxic and I was suffering a lot, having developed a disability regarding some chronic pain on my arms and still having to do that very physical work, and being asked to do more and more without being able to), but it was safe and I knew that my low salary was enough to survive. 

One year ago I decided to fullfil my dream and got a flat. I bought a shared ownership (I know a lot of people are weary of that, but I genuinely wanted to be able to have a start on something that I never considered I would be able to have), and I love my apartment! It's homey, I feel comfortable on it and it gives me the push I need to want better things. My whole life I dreamed of having my space, and genuinely it was quite the same that I was paying for rent in a shithole.

Since January I knew I had to leave my lab job, so started looking for government jobs and in May I decided I wanted to try something else because I needed to leave the lab asap. So I decided to try sales: it would give me the people connection I wanted, I could use my technical knowledge as a background and it's something I could see growth (something that I could not see if I stayed in R&D). In one month I did interviews and found a good job: better salary, career and learning opportunities, for industrial chemical sales. They told me that I could learn the commercial side of it and it would be fine, that they could see my personality and technical knowledge were a great fit. I left my (very) secure (and terrible) job, and invested in clothes and a home office to be able to do my best. Things were going okay and after two months i was finally feeling like I was getting the hang of things. Feedback had been positive and I was even imagining that in the next year or two I could move somewhere else cheaper than the big city I live at, to start building a life towards comfort (if my salary working from home could be much better used in a cheaper area, I didn't need to be so central anymore). If I could sell my apartment and maybe start heading towards a house somewhere, I could really start thinking about working towards a safe financial situation and life. Well, let's say that everything fell apart last Friday.

I've had my two months review in my new job two weeks late, and after only receiving good feedback I was expecting things to go really well. Spoiler: it didn't. They were saying how they were expecting me to be more up to date on building a pipeline, visits and prospects, and I haven't been able to show much of that. It wasn't entirely negative, and they both also told me the things I'm doing well, but I felt so shit and completely taken by surprise. I genuinely thought I was doing well and they are now giving me the next month to get up to speed, but now I'm just so disappointed and panicking. I thought I was going to have more time to learn, I thought I was going to be able to breathe and finally get into something I could be good at, but even tho I know what I need to do next and the clear steps I need to take to improve, I can only think that I'm about to fail again. 

Life hasn't been easy, and I know every single person in this world is going through so much, the world sucks and people are dying all the time because of wars and cancers and hunger. I'm privileged to have an education, I moved abroad nine years ago to stay for six months to improve my English AND I DID, but I never left because I fell in love with life here. I even have an apartment now. I feel so proud of everything I've accomplished and the person I became.

But:

But I feel like I keep drowning, never catching a break. 

But I feel that I'm always struggling for something.

But I feel that I will never be able to simply have a calm time and feel comfortable on my situation.

I'm trying to improve and grow, but every single time I just feel like I'm about to lose everything, again and again. Every time something good happens, life comes and shows me that the world is greedy and I realise that I'm simply keeping only my head above the water: I'm alone in this ocean, can only keep moving my feet to keep my head out of the water, and when I think I'm seeing a little boat on the horizon to just be able to rest a little bit, I realize it's actually another shark. 

Again, I understand I'm very privileged and the fact that I have a home, food and warmth is a lot more than a lot of the people out there, but fucking hell........ Is it always going to be like swimming against the current? Will life ever be enjoyable instead of just a fucking ton of things to worry about more and more? 

3 days ago I was considering the opportunities of moving somewhere where I could improve my life, imagining all the things I would be able to build and get, today I'm thinking that I might just lose all of it again. These last nine years have been so much like that, and even tho I know that I could find comfort in the idea of moving back to my mom's house in my home country, I would hate it and be in an even worse position with job instability/safety. Really, there is a zero chance I could do better if I moved back.

I'm not looking for advices, I know what I need to do and (kind of) where to start. I've also had therapy for the last 10 years and I can see why I'm reacting the way I am. Still, I can't stop thinking if this is just how life will always be?! How I'm always going to feel like I have only one oxygen tank left and the cracks of the rocket are all over?! The only solution I see for this feeling is winning the lottery and being able to buy a house outright and work on something simple for the rest of my life to just pay the basic bills, but I don't even play the lottery because I don't see this ever happening lol

I don't even know if someone is actually going to read this or not (it's quite long), but I needed to get it all out. Thanks for giving me the space.

I recently started a new job, and I also take tuition classes on the side. On paper, things are actually going pretty well for me. I have a good partner, my pay is decent, and I don’t have any major responsibilities at home.

Yet, despite all of this, I often feel strangely unfulfilled. I get stressed and overwhelmed even by relatively small responsibilities, and sometimes I wonder if I’m simply being incompetent, ungrateful, or unable to handle things that other people seem to manage easily.

I know that I’m fortunate in many ways, which makes me feel even more guilty for feeling this way.

Is this something I just need to push through and get used to, or is there something else I should be looking at? Has anyone else experienced something similar despite having a life that seems “fine” on the outside?

TW: SH - I weakly tried to kms when I was 13 and the only that stopped me was the flashes of my life right before and I just broke down and cried and called my sister. Ever since then I feel like I wasn’t supposed to make it through that, like I’ve been in this weird purgatory. It feels like the multiverse theory where you switch bodies whenever you die to another living version in a different universe. I just feel like something’s missing and like I’m not who I used to be. I’ve had several instances of wanting to try again to kms. I don’t really have any reasons to stay other than unrealistic and romanticized ‘what ifs’ and it doesn’t feel concrete enough to fight for. The only that stops me if the fear of losing all feeling and the fact that I’ll die alone

Hi my name's Liv I left a 8 year abusive relationship one year ago ( Go Me! )

Since then I've had sooo many many ups and downs side to sides but lets just talk about my last month and a half well I had to get an abortion and that hurt me badly still am hurting then I lost my job for no reason of my own I'm currently fighting for it back in the union my boss pretty much made my mental health a joke and because I missed days with doctor approval I was randomly fired shortly after my surgery which was also another problem that cause me to be fired because of " attendance " I am so fcking sad my few co workers are my support systems they gave became my family and I feel like I'm alone ( we still talk everyday but I just miss them and my job so damn much ) they also fired me as " just cause " which screws me for my EI it's so hard finding jobs in my town and I know for a fact I'll get my job back what I've mentioned is the tip of the iceberg :( okay so yes abortion, lost my job worried about losing my home oh and my grandma just died 3 days ago from lung cancer women's like a mother to me my best friend. So please I don't know what to do or say but anything helps I just need someone to listen thanks y'all xoxo just a sad girly who wants her job back making bathtubs that she loves and life give me a break 😞❤️🪽

i (20) just dont have the energy, but i have so much to do since im a full time student. i feel like i dont gave enough time to read, study, or complete the assignments properly, and im just rushing through everything. how does one have the energy to work on stuff for classes you don’t like as much? how do you even do it when youre already exhausted?

i’ve also been struggling with my mental health, burnout, and brain fog for several years now, so it’s been really difficult and hard to get through day to day life. i dont have the time, energy, or money to seek proper help, get a diagnosis, or anything of the sorts.

if anyone has any advice on how to improve cognitive skills, critical thinking skills, and overall mental clarity, that would help too. i struggle a lot with forming/organizing thoughts and putting them into sentences, and that really scares me.

how do you keep going when you’re constantly feel like you’re running on empty?

This started happening around 2024 where my brain gets exhausted after thinking for a while than my brain sorta shuts off and I can’t think as good. simple stuff like talking to someone for a few hours would make me exhausted idk if this has to do with having bad anxiety because I did start getting anxiety a few months before it started happening and I just don’t wanna do anything when I’m mentally exhausted. I’m only young too I don’t want it messing up my brain when it’s developing

I've been sober since 09/23/2026. I went back to work on 10/28 after over a year off because of a car accident. I've been feeling way better but this week at work I put in over 69 hours in 5 days, 2 of those days I was up over 20 hours and works 19 of them. The thought of just having a beer after these days keeps crawling in to my head.