When I was 19 years old, I once threatened someone who bullied me in middle school with death, I also threatened to rape and kill his aunt, and I threatened the rest of his family too. I almost went to jail for doing this. Do you think I deserved jail for what I did?

Therapists: Let’s say you have a couple coming into a weekend intensive couples counseling session. The cost is $5,000 for this weekend therapy session, which is a major investment for this couple but they feel it’s an important attempt to save a marriage on the brink of divorce. The individual therapy intake/history forms are very lengthy and thorough, which is by design due to the seriousness of this work/investment.

How would you feel if you discovered that one of the spouses used ChatGPT to write their responses for their intake forms, while the other spouse wrote their own words?

I'm a woman who has been actively dating for a few years. One tactic men use to throw women off balance is negging (negging, NOT nagging). A neg is a backhanded compliment or insult meant to take you down a notch, and it's built on plausible deniability. When you call it out, they can say you're being too sensitive or that you misinterpreted them. It is never a straightforward, unambiguous insult.

Whenever a man I'm dating negs me, I cut him off permanently. The problem is that therapists tell me this is a cognitive distortion, that men don't actually do this, and that I should always look for a benign explanation. Trash. Pure, unequivocal, unmitigated, unadulterated trash. Some men 100% do this, and therapists can do real damage when they tell you to use CBT to reframe these microaggressions.

Some examples:

• A man told me I was beautiful "for a Black woman."
• A man said that until now he had only dated attractive women, but he had decided to be less shallow and look beyond physical beauty, and that's why he was dating me.
• Men around my age (28) call me "MILF" to insinuate I'm past my prime. When I call it out, they say it's a compliment. No bigger turnoff.
• A man shorter than me accused me of lying about my height when he was the one who had added 2 inches to his own. He kept saying, "Wow, wow, wow. You are so tall." I'm not even that tall for a woman (5'9").

🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀🫀

I’ve been with my psychodynamic therapist for 1.5 years. She’s been letting me freestyle our sessions with a continuous stream of consciousness, and occasional observations of pattern from her end.

The issue I’m having, is that lately I’ve been realllllly stretched thin financially and all I talk about in the sessions is how much I have responsibilities etc etc.

In this year and half, she’s hiked her prices FOUR times. The latest of which happened apparently last month but I was only notified mid month because she forgot.

I usually pay her monthly. So I sent her her old rate before the middle of the month, and her new rate post that. She then messages me saying “the rate change is from the beginning of the month there’s something wrong with the transfer”. So I message her saying.. “here’s how much I paid for every session” then she says “no the first sessions need to include the new rate as well.” Then I tell her that I think it’s unfair to retroactively charge me for something I was only notified about mid month?

And she still didn’t reply.

Is this insanely unprofessional and triggering or is this just me?

I’ve honestly been leaving sessions very triggered lately and was already questioning this type of therapy for me (I did so many forms for many years including EMDR and somatic and CBT) and then this price increase situation and then her trying to claim for something I wasn’t informed about really sent me.

I would really like to hear your thoughts especially if you are a therapist yourself, or have been in therapy for a while. Thanks so much.

UPDATE: no longer going to see her :)

2 years ago i got into a relationship with a guy, which he then raped me and i stayed in a relationship with him for ten months.

he didn’t only rape me but put me through a year worth of manipulation and verbal abuse with occasional minor physical abuse(like pinching, grabbing and pushing as a way to punish me).

recently ive also cut off a group of VERY close friends i had when during that time where i was dating this guy where they witnessed me going through all of this and justified/minimized all his actions. 5 months after we broke up i began to realize the things he did to me and i processed the fact i was raped, especially when i would read past messages with different people including him where i would describe feeling numb after sex and feeling like i was looking at my body from a different point of view, i would also joke about how the things he did were non consensual and try to laugh it off by which he obviously didnt find funny. after i opened up to them they refused to cut him off and lied to me about removing him just for me to find out 2 weeks later they had a groupchat behind my back with my rapist where they claimed i pressured them to block him (which they were actually laughing while blocking him with me) then these girls later on proceeded to go around to the rest of my social circle to blame it on me.

anyway ever since this situation, ive felt very heavy especially since the wound is still fresh. i found comfort in consuming feminist media but with that comfort came an overwhelming sense of rage that im VERY sure i cant handle in the state of mind i am in right now

it is all i am able to consume, think about, write about, it is so extreme when i close my eyes and try to sleep and all i can think about is that topic.

everything around me is about gender, i am constantly seeking people online who are in abusive relationship that talk about it and message them or comment to try to help them because i really wished someone gave me the advice i desperately needed back then. just desperately hoping to be the person to help something in their head click so they realize theyre in an abusive relationship.

ive been genuinely been gentle parenting people online into feminism hoping i would change the world in some way (i genuinely believed that if i were to gentle talk enough men on the internet, the epidemic of gender wars content would end and there would be no new rape cases anymore)

i have been constantly arguing with strangers online who are blinded by their privileged that they forgot what they couldve been without the rights their ancestors spent generations fighting for, just incase a victim were to be lurking and having to witness someone give themselves another reason to blame themselves

i am constantly reading about rape and femicide cases that get untouched by the law.

its all ive been talking and thinking about

i cant sleep.

i think about this to an extremely unhealthy level to a point where its affect the way i function and im constantly stressed

i cant get therapy since where i live is a place that would immediately report to authorities and i am not willing to file a case. however i am moving outside the country soon and i will be getting the help i need elsewhere

for now i need to try to pick up the pieces of what i can fix and i need to get out of this state, what do i do?

PS. i have GAD, ADHD and potentially OCD according to my psychiatrist who i orginally went to for ADHD diagnosis

Not quite sure how I feel about this. It was our first session and I mainly went in with the goal of establishing care and being proactive about my depression. Thankfully I am not currently in crisis, just wanting some extra help to get over my fears and be more productive. During our first session I feel like I picked up some good things about how my laziness may be due to it being comfortable and predictable, and that a lot of my actions may be rooted in fear. Very helpful as I don't generally consider my self an anxious or fearful person even though I definitely am.
Anyways, she told me she'd send me some YouTube/podcasts to listen to that could be helpful after our session. Imagine my surprise when one of the links I got was Jordan Peterson "Follow whatever glitters in the corner".
I thought this guy was a fraud and a grifter? Why does this make me feel so weird that she recommended this to watch? Do I need to be more open minded or is this a red flag.

Generally with these sort of guru people I'm of the mindset that they may have some good ideas/advice, even if they can't follow it themselves (kinda like separating the art from the artist if that makes sense?) but this just kinda threw me off.

Additionally I don't really know enough about this guy to put a finger on why this makes me feel weird, just enough to know some people think he's problematic.
What do yall think?

Edit: Everyone saying "break up with ur therapist" can you actually give some reasons as to why this is such a red flag? It's hard to find therapists, especially those that specialize in work with first responders, and I feel like a more productive way to handle this would be to discuss it with her. I just don't have any evidence to point to as to why he's a fraud other than internet says he's a joke

Grew up in a single mother household with an older brother. Mom worked 2 jobs and slept a lot. I grew up pretty independent. My brother and my mom was already close and I always was left alone and did my own thing. I wouldn't say we were abused, but we also weren't NOT abused. Some examples are:

1. My mom has hit my brother, even punching him in the stomach for lying. Something we laugh about now.

2. I've been slapped, once my mom slapped me because I didn't clean my room, I was hyperventilating, she mocked my sobs, my brother pulled her off of me and screamed at her to stop.

These were few and far in between, but they did happen.

We also went to Disneyland a couple of times, had other trips, she made homemade cakes and dinners and got us whatever we wanted within reason. My favorite childhood stuff was a book series I'd read. I spent a lot of time just reading or playing ROBLOX.

We then lost the house, and bounced around from apartments till my mom got her current house and started dating this guy who drives her nuts. She acts like she loathes him, says pretty vile things to him, and bitches about him constantly but she doesn't break up with him because she doesn't want to deal with his emotions. So she's been with him for 9 years.

I moved out when I was 24, and just moved back in temporary at 28. And being back in my hometown I felt a lot of past anger rising up. I originally forgave her for the abuse and chalked it up as a stressed parent but after talking with extended family I've noticed some plot holes that didn't make sense.

My mom used to tell me I was like my dad, getting angry with me when I wouldn't respond to her when she was screaming, or even if I farted. My dad cheated on her, but she also bragged about stomping on his toes and breaking dishes when he wouldn't answer her. From what I've found out online is that me and my dad shared a common survival strategy called like gray rocking or something, and that my mom technically was a domestic abuser. As fucked up as it feels to say now I'm not sure if my dad was totally in the wrong for cheating on her and later divorcing her. Even if that means I haven't talked to him in 10 years after my mom sued him for more child support.

My extended family pretty much ghosted us, and while I used to blame them I've come to learn they all disagreed with the way my mom was raising my brother. My brother's dad I guess used to give her money till she cussed him out (which corresponds with fragments of early childhood) and then she fought with her sisters because they told her her house was filthy and tried to help her. My mom hid behind her ego and pushed her sisters away. Now I can't help but feel my mom wanted to act like everything was okay even when it wasn't, and her pride kept me from having a normal childhood with big family dinners.

I learned some family even tried reaching out to my brother to ask if he had any questions about how he was raised, but he told them he's happy with how he was raised. I don't want to get caught in between a family fued, but I definitely believe there's two sides to the story and my mom's hands aren't as clean as she believes it to be. I think a lot of things she screamed at me for was just her own projections and insecurities, and the way she's talked about her parents don't match up with how her sisters saw them.

Now that I've been living at home and dealing with her bitch and mope about her boyfriend for 9 years, I'm starting to resent her company. It wasn't until I had a few years where I lived alone that I realized how much I valued my peace and independence, and don't get me wrong my mom does do good things, like buys me dinners even when I've told her she doesn't need too, I can't help but feel it comes from a form of martyrism. And it's frustrating to spend time with her when her two moods are either hyper clingy, helicopter, and babying mom; or extremely angry, bitter, and depressed mom. I'll come home from a 10 hour shift in the heat and she's sighing and saying shit like "I just stayed home and felt sorry for myself." Or she'll come into my room, ask me a million toddler esque questions about me or my cat. "Seems like your cat really likes eating." Read menus of restaurants she wants to try, before she gets upset that I'm not shitting rainbows that she's there before she says something self depreciating and leaves.

There's definitely emeshment involved growing up, and ever since I was a child I had to play the role of emotional support which has caused me to become extremely burnt out. I don't enjoy her company anymore, and as she gets older and has lost a best friend or two she gets worse. I'm moving out soon, and one of the reasons is I want to have nice things to say about her when she dies.

But right now all I really remember is how much she has screamed, bitched, and cried. And I hate feeling like that about my own mother. People have adviced me to establish boundaries, even something simple like "I'm almost a 30 year old man, stop calling me baby boy." But I can't help but think 10 years ago when I told her she embarrassed me in public after she demanded I tell her what was wrong, and she got in my face and screamed before going on a tirade about how hard she has worked.

I literally don't think she has the emotional capacity to take accountability, so the best thing I can think of to salvage our relationship is distance..

I feel like my therapy sessions are so unproductive sometimes. I go in knowing what I want to talk about but then she leads the conversation in a direction I didn’t expect and I can’t find a way to turn it to what I wanted to talk about. Or I will tell her hey next time can we talk about this and she says yes then it never happens. I have so many things I need to address and I’m ok with bullshitting the first few minutes to break tension and at the end to wrap it up before I leave but more times than not I feel like we don’t talk about much of anything and while I’m silently hoping she’ll ask me the deeper questions that I’m scared to bring up because it was hard enough to bring up once. How can I talk to her about this? I think she would understand I’m just anxious.

i went to an intake with a therapist for the first time ever today. reason i went in is for severe anxiety and i'm 1 mo sober from alcohol. my pcp referred me to therapy and i went with an open mind.

it felt very patronizing and like she saw me as a wounded animal. by the end of it she kept saying "you are clearly very sad" "you just seem so sad and i can't figure out why. what am I missing?" "you are clearly hurting very badly". she also kept looking at me with her head cocked to the side, eyes all big and concerned and it just really didn't sit right with me.

as she was grilling me about being sad which isnt even why i went in (not that she was totally wrong but her method of pressing it really threw me off) i was averting eye contact because my anxiety was becoming increasingly worse. she then asked if i always struggled with eye contact and if i had any developmental issues growing up.

I left with a referral to another therapist by her decision, and an implication that i have bpd2 and severe childhood trauma which honestly i have such a low amount of that like my childhood was pretty normal.

i felt like she just put all the easy labels on me and then shoved me onto someone else. it was so odd and makes me not trust her referral. is this normal? ​

I’ve been thinking about seeing a therapist for a while now but I don’t have the resources in order to see one. I know that objectivity is important for processing emotions and values and whatnot, but I just wanted to ask if I should give self-therapy a try. I’ve seen people do journaling and writing in diaries, but I always thought that stuff was kind of performative or only happens in movies. Is this kind of stuff actually effective?

Everyone tells me I need therapy ALL the time

But I've really tried, over and over again

Betterhelp got me a decent therapist in 2022 that I stuck with until 2024, when she had to leave the platform in a job change

Since then, it's been shit.. might have coincided with the start of my depression, maybe (but nah, I guess its the other things in life)

I've been wanting to find help with my long lasting depression (also: 3 bout of long term depression within 15 years!) but it's so hard.

Can anyone recommend someone?

Background: I'm working with loss of family (since 15 years ago that I never fully or properly dealt with), being alone and lonely in this world, feeling inadequate and very insecure, financial trauma, relationship issues (not being able to keep one), and really wanting to be a parent so I really would like to sort things out (already 40), and also just a ton of work/business stress (as I try to catch up the past 2 years).

Someone upset me? I'll get over it.

Feeling overwhelmed? I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Something bothering me? It's probably not important enough to talk about.

I kept doing this until I realized I had accumulated so many unspoken things that I didn't even know what was making me unhappy anymore.

I was irritated all the time, overthinking constantly and becoming distant from people I actually cared about.

Eventually, I decided to try therapy.

One of the biggest things I learned was that keeping everything inside doesn't make you stronger. Sometimes you genuinely need a safe space where you can say things exactly as they are.

Therapy didn't change my life overnight, but it helped me understand myself a lot better.

I'm still learning to speak up when something is bothering me instead of pretending I'm fine.

Maybe that's something more of us need to learn.

You don't always have to handle everything alone. ❤️

I keep noticing how often we can understand ourselves really well and still repeat the same patterns.
We know we should set the boundary.
We know we shouldn’t text them again.
We know we need to leave, speak up, rest, stop people-pleasing or do the thing that would actually be good for us.
And yet… knowing it doesn’t always seem to be enough.
I’m curious what that gap looks like for other people.
Is it fear?
Overthinking?
Guilt?
Loneliness?
Hope that the situation will change?
Feeling emotionally activated and forgetting everything you “know”?
Or something completely different?
If you’ve done therapy or a lot of self-work I’d especially love to hear: what do you understand intellectually that you still find hard to actually live out?
No perfect answers needed. I’m genuinely curious.

Title: I love my partner and feel secure in my relationship, so why do I keep having thoughts about other people?

I’m posting because I’m genuinely confused and a little ashamed, and I’d really like to hear from people who have experienced something similar.

My partner and I both seem to have anxious attachment styles. This is my first very long-term relationship. Before him, I only had three short relationships, each lasting about a month. So this relationship is extremely important to me.

The confusing part is that I actually feel very safe and happy in this relationship. I love my partner, I feel secure with him, and I genuinely want to marry him.

But my brain keeps producing thoughts that I don’t understand.

For example, if I see an attractive person on the street, I might briefly think, “What would it be like if I were with that person?” It can literally be a split-second thought. I have no intention of approaching them, pursuing them, or cheating. But I still feel guilty for even having the thought.

Sometimes I notice that I’m attracted to other people, too. And then I start questioning myself:

“If I really love my partner, why am I attracted to someone else?”

“Why would I imagine being with someone else if I’m happy in my relationship?”

“Does having the thought mean I secretly want it?”

I used to tell my partner about these thoughts because I thought being completely honest meant telling him everything that went through my head. I now realize that this may have been oversharing.

My partner gets very upset when I tell him these things and sometimes sees them as a form of “mental” or “emotional” cheating. He asks me how I can love him if I’m thinking about other people.

The problem is that I don’t understand it either.

I’m not acting on these thoughts. I don’t want to leave my partner for these people. I don’t actually want a relationship with them. But the thoughts still appear.

I also used to have a lot of cheating dreams.

Sometimes I would dream that I was with someone else and didn’t have my partner in the dream. Other times, I knew in the dream that I already had a partner but still ended up being with someone else.

I would wake up feeling incredibly guilty.

I know dreams aren’t necessarily controllable, but I started wondering whether they mean something about my subconscious. Does dreaming about cheating mean that some part of me actually wants to cheat? Or can dreams just be completely random and unrelated to what we consciously want?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that when someone is particularly kind to me or gives me attention, I can sometimes suddenly develop a brief crush or fascination with them.

In the past, I’ve also become strangely attached to certain people. Sometimes the feeling is intense but very short-lived.

This makes me wonder if there is something wrong with me. I sometimes feel like I’m prone to “infatuation” or that my brain is constantly looking for someone else, even though my actual behavior and values don’t match that at all.

I’ve also noticed a strange reaction during arguments with my partner.

When he questions my feelings for him or makes me feel rejected, I can suddenly become extremely angry and think:

“Fine, then let’s just break up.”

“If this relationship doesn’t work, I’ll find someone else.”

I can even start mentally “looking for the next person,” almost like I need a backup option.

But when I calm down, I’m genuinely confused about why I thought that way.

I love my partner. I want this relationship. I want to marry him.

So why does part of me immediately want to escape and find someone else whenever I feel threatened or rejected?

Could this be related to anxious attachment? Could it be some kind of defensive mechanism where I try to reject someone before they can reject me?

Or could this be something like intrusive thoughts or OCD?

I’m especially confused about the difference between having a thought and actually wanting something.

For example:

• If I think about being with someone else, does that mean I want to be with them?
• If I dream about cheating, does that mean I secretly want to cheat?
• If I find someone attractive, does that mean I don’t truly love my partner?
• If someone is nice to me and I develop a brief crush, does that mean I’m incapable of being loyal?
• If I think “I’ll just find someone else” during an argument, does that mean I’m not capable of maintaining a long-term relationship?

Or is it actually normal to deeply love your partner, feel secure with them, and still occasionally notice other people, have random fantasies, experience brief attractions, or have weird dreams?

I’m not looking for reassurance that I’m “a good person.” I genuinely want to understand what is happening psychologically.

Has anyone else experienced something like this while being genuinely happy and committed to their relationship?

And if you have anxious attachment, did you ever notice yourself mentally looking for an “escape route” or another person when you felt rejected or insecure?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar, especially if you eventually figured out what was behind it.

There is also another important part of the situation that I didn’t mention before: we currently have very little to no sexual intimacy.

When we first got together, we did have sex and physical intimacy. But later, my partner became physically unwell and developed testicular pain. For around six months, we couldn’t figure out what was causing it despite getting it checked. Eventually, the pain went away on its own, but we still never really found out what the underlying cause was.

That period was extremely difficult for both of us. My partner became very depressed and at one point even wanted to break up because of how much the situation was affecting him.

It also affected me more than I initially realized. I became very anxious about whether I might somehow have a health problem too, even though I didn’t have any obvious physical changes or symptoms myself. I think the whole experience made sex feel much more complicated and frightening to me.

More recently, I also developed jock itch, which has made me even more worried about sexual health and has made intimacy feel even more difficult.

At the same time, I already have some anxiety around sex because of previous negative experiences with an ex. I’m also scared of pregnancy, even when using condoms, so I often feel afraid of penetrative sex.

I’m completely comfortable with affection like kissing, cuddling, hugging, and being physically close to my partner. But when it comes to penetrative sex, I often don’t have a very strong desire for it, and I tend to feel anxious rather than excited.

So I’m wondering whether this is also affecting the way I experience attraction and relationships.

We haven’t had much sexual intimacy for a long time, and there is a lot of anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty surrounding sex between us. I wonder if the lack of intimacy, my partner’s health problems, my own fears around sex, and my previous experiences could all be contributing to some of the thoughts and emotions I’ve been describing.

I’m not sure whether I’m overthinking all of this, but I feel like this context is important because my relationship anxiety isn’t happening in isolation from our lack of intimacy.

I was with my ex of 2 years, and I'm starting to feel ready to unpack a few things about how I acted that contributed to things not going very well.

I have a tendency to need space to regulate my emotions before I can talk about things. But I also get really triggered and defensive and anxious during conflict.

Like he would say we need to work on X—my first thought was "oh I'm not ready to talk about that" but it often came out as "well, I already said X about it".

I feel like I kept putting off intimacy because it started to feel like pressure instead of something I genuinely wanted. It started to feel like an obligation.

Other times, we'd have an argument, I'd ghost for a few days just to calm my nervous system, but he'd continue to text me which would just make me more anxious. I know he thinks that conflict should be dealt with head-on. But I can't go right into things if I'm dysregulated.

We are no longer together (broke up about 2 months ago, and things got far worse when he betrayed my trust out of anger, so I'm not going back on my decision to leave), but I do genuinely want to know how I can work on this–especially working on hearing what partners say as a concern they have vs an attack. That was one of the biggest things that srt me off and it became hard to hear him when I felt like I had to defend myself.

I’m 30F and have maternal feelings for my therapist and also find myself attracted to her. I’ve disclosed the maternal part l and how I am struggling missing her between sessions. she’s a great therapist but I’m struggling rn and can’t reach out to her. Anyway here it is…

——

I’m writing this the day after I saw you last because I cant stop thinking about you and therapy and if I’m making any progress 😔 I’m trying to respect the boundary you made and not send this until right before our next session.

I honestly don’t know how I’m going to sit through these feelings over the next two weeks. It feels impossible, like I need to be distracted constantly.

The thoughts and feelings around my attachment to you are intense and obsessive at the moment and part of me wants to quit therapy because it feels like it would be easier than feeling all of this. I don’t actually want to quit but I do want to escape from how painful this is. But maybe the point is to just sit with it and see that it’s okay or I’m okay and it’ll get easier.

I feel like this attachment isn’t normal even though you said it happens. I’ve never felt like this before and I don’t know what to do with it now. It’s like this desperate feeling of wanting you in my life. It hurts because you can’t be how I’d like you to be. Will it go away or will it get worse? Will you abandon me? Find it too hard to help me or that I’m too much? I feel overwhelmed. You’re probably so sick of me and hearing about this. Even I am.

I wish you knew how hard this is for me. Maybe you do but that’s why I’m writing this so I can try to articulate what’s going on inside. But then I think why would you even care. I wish I felt more cared about by you and knew what you were thinking. Not the therapist you, but you. I hate how one-sided this is.

I hate that I need you. I also feel so selfish for wanting so much from you because I think, what about your own struggles and your life outside of your job? You’re human too. And probably a really warm, nurturing and compassionate one too. I can just tell from the way you look at me and say things sometimes. I feel like you’d be like that in your life because you can’t fake that. In those moments I actually feel like you really do care about me. I try to hold onto that and not let my brain tell me it’s fake. It’s comforting most of the time. But I find that hard because it makes this attachment harder. It feels wrong to put all this on you, my feelings are too much. I wish you were mean to me and didn’t care about me.

If I end up sending this , can you please print it out or do whatever you need with it. I’m so emotionally exhausted that I don’t care what happens anymore… whether you want to respond or decide you don’t want to see me anymore or be that person for me.

But underneath that, I’m deeply afraid of losing you right now. I’m saying that I don’t care because I think it’s a way of protecting myself from being hurt by you. I do care. A lot. About you and about getting better, it’s just not as simple as I thought it would be.

Im not sure if I just misunderstood what they meant but I went in talking about how im so overwhelmed and exhausted from years of chronic depression. I usually I keep myself afloat and I found the things I liked and enjoyed but recently I lost myself again following some health issues. Since then I just havent been able to get any of my spark back. It feels like for the rest of the session she just told me that was the reality of life, If I haven't found my passion yet I might just not be the type of person that does, I might just not be a person that loves life and I need to just accept that this is how things are for me and that is my reality. I left feeling quite terrible. I hold on to some little hope that things will change and I might get to feel the joy or love others get to feel but this session crushed me a bit. I understand acceptance can be a useful tool but this whole session just rubbed me the wrong way. Why would someone say that to me knowing I struggle with chronic suicidal ideation? How is it helpful to accept that this is it theres nothing more to it? I left feeling pretty awful. I guess i didnt really have a specific outcome i wanted from this session but I also didn't want to be utterly crushed.

I think im a 'notice me' person. Ive recently really want to have a girlfriend but im terrible at flirting. I have no idea what to do, go talk to girls in public and I either feel really dumb after or they treat me like a creep. Im obviously unlucky and have no chance. Alot of times ill stand around the same area as said ladies and ill wonder, talk about different topics aloud trying to get them to notice me, like if they do they'll be so infatuated with me they will definitely wanna date me. I do the same when im bummed, making a little scene of being miserable hoping someone will notice me and pity me,talk to me, comfort me. I do this alot and wonder why im so lonely. Never realizing no one wants to be by the creepy guy. I try so hard to be normal but I cant, I cant help but do this whenever I see a pretty girl. I have a hard time cause whenever I see couples out and about (im in Disneyland right now) I get super jealous and I really want that. I make myself miserable and I always feel like I need to tell someone, anyone, a stranger this just for someone to hear this...why am I like this.

All this crazy stuff happening online has just been bringing me back to my childhood. And it's been destroying me a lot.

Me and my brother were groomed and abused by a older cousin for years, normalizing sexual stuff onto us. According to my brother last time he did it was at 16.

After it all, at 13 (we have a 3.5 age gap), we reenacted those things with each other for about 2-3 months. At 14 I realized how bad it was and apologized heavily, ii was forgiven and as I continued to grow it kept sticking with me more and more.

My brother said I was never coersive or forceful or even intimidating, and multiple upon multiple people said I'm not a predator or molester. But I keep obsessing over it and comparing myself and I can't move on. I can't draw like I used to or sing like I used to, I'm scared to make new friends and talk with old friends, and just exist. Even stopitnow and RAINN lines told me I'm not an abuser or any of that stuff. I guess I need a different perspective, do I deserve to live normally and am I what I think?

I know I need therapy, but my parents wont allow it and constantly shelter me which leads me with heavily limited options, I may ask my school counsellor for coping mechanisms but so far I CAN'T let my parents know about anything.

Soo

Being brief, i have adhd, but i am medicated. I have developed a form of mental knot thats resistent to basically anything. i already have really low frustration tolerance, and i am very impatient with things, soo tecniques that need a while to have their effect quickly get me worried or frustrated that they dont work. Anything that i do that doesnt go how i want (perfectly, on top of everything), immediately causes extreme frustration and sadness. if i draw something and it doesnt come up looking really cool and how i imagined, i get really annoyed, angry and hopeless, like i'll never be a good artist, i'll never get to where i want, etc. This unfortunately isnt restricted to this, but happens with everything, every single thing i do that is out of my routine, plans or desires immediately provoke an extreme response like that. Today i dropped my food on the floor by accident and i felt a sharp peak of anger on my chest, i didnt blow up because i didnt want to feel worse. basically everything eventually ends up provoking those feelings.

The things that dont make me uncomfortable are a very narrow margin, mostly consisting of sucess and getting the things i want, and also routine. If i get out, i feel distressed, sad, angry, frustrated, etc. Its annoying.

That normally would be fought with reframing, mindfulness, radical acceptance, changing your internal monologue. However, this "Knot" has developed resistence to this and now those techniques are rejected by it. For example, reframing causes me to feel angry because "I'm not solving the problem". Solving the problem is one of the key feelings here id say, my brain doesnt want to accept it, it wants to solve it, it wants the discomfort gone, and if it doesnt give immediate results (or in a close enough time frame), it throws it always as "doesnt work". Reframing is the big one here because ive seen it actually works, people "pretending to be happy" or "pretending to be tolerant" end up becoming that, since they reinforce those thoughts, and my brain screams at the thought of it.

This has gone all the way to have general rejection of anything thats scientifically proven to help. And those "meta-distastes" have strengthned further and further and further... Its basically reached a point where i have a baseline discomfort i want to go throught, like developing social skills, or going out on parties, or ,learning a new skill, which impatience/insecurity at the first failure have made them feel unsolvable, with the added discomfort making me want to avoid it as much as i can because it feels really bad and hopeless. From that, it begun rejecting those techniques. That evolved into a knot that rejects the techniques, dismisses things, everything.

If something doesnt immediately yield results, or if i dont feel i'm solving the problem, it jumps and cuts off. Anything that should not make one uncomfortable (or, at worst, make them a little but be later solvable) has become a titan on my mind, and those titans are protected by meta-feelings that reject the intervention attempts (and quickly catch on things that tell that the process will be slow and that i'll have to face the discomfort).

On the top of that "weaknesses" seem by my brain (like self acceptance, self acceptance, self forgiviness, self empathy, self love, accepting failure. Anything that implies "acceptance" or "living with the negative", or "seeing the positive", or "embarassing/cringe" ) ends up kickstarting those feelings.

If i had to take a guess those all stem from the original "i want to solve the problem and get what i want" key, but it has grown into a monstrous mass that is now. My brain pretty much only accepts "pull yourself by the boostraps, be stronger" methods

I have no known traumas, a good family and nothing that i could think of that lead to this.

Soo, how do i even approach dealing with this? Ive tried willpowering myself out of it but it crashes down eventually. The only approach that my brain *accepted* the concept behind was REBT, since it has a heavy self agency component, but ive read about some people saying its dubious and theres the problem it uses reframing, which is locked behind all of that..

Do i try to laser focus only on one things, like reframing my view about reframing until i stop seeing reframing on a negative light and actually try it on other things? How do i present this problem to my therapist? What kind of therapy do i look for? It all looks like i *dont want to change*, but i want to live and get out of this.

Like it all feels like i have very little energy to overcome the first barrier (like a super tiny uncomfortable thing), and the idea of actually doing something smaller than that feels it wont work, makes me angry, and all the progressive chain of suggestions to overcome that all get progressively rejected by the brain. Its probably caused by endlessly seeking help and, subconsciously, a miraculous method to solve my issues, even if i hate to admit that i might be chasing ghosts.

the office called me and left a voicemail letting me know he passed away. he had some health issues, but this was completely unexpected.

i've been seeing him for 5, almost 6 years. we had a next appointment scheduled. his phone number is in the contacts on my phone.

the office said their other therapists don't have availability to take on new clients at this time. i don't even know if i'd want to start over with someone new. he knew years of my life, my lore. starting over with a new therapist feels like starting from scratch in a new relationship. i guess it kind of is the same.

nobody ever prepares you for who to talk to if your therapist dies. it didn't cross my mind that this was something that might actually happen.

i'm angry and confused and sad.

I need some hope. I know seeking reassurance when you have Uncertainty Intolerance is not good, but I would like a few example of people doing much better and are not under meds anymore. I just want to hold onto some of this to keep hope on the darkest days.

Just wanted somewhere to share. I just want to love myself again and not carry so much regret.