I’ve tried steps similar to that before and it never seems to stick. I’m too weak-willed to keep moving.

I’ve tried looking for a new job, and limiting myself to just one job application a day (and when that proved too much, one a week), but it fell apart because whenever I looked at a job I felt I couldn’t do it and didn’t bother. My friend convinced me to try a few minutes of meditation a day just to see if it would help, and I didn’t even last a week. The first few days were okay, but it just grew tiring.

Tried to publish a board game I made? Gave up because I didn’t even know where to start. Splitting it up into smaller tasks was impossible because I have no idea what those tasks would even be, nor how to find out. Family members told me long ago that I worry too much and overthink things and I don’t know how to stop. Someone said to do things without thinking about them and I wanted to scream because I don’t think I am physically capable of doing something without thinking about it.

I’m sorry. I ask for help, and people give it to me, but then I turn around a refuse to be helped. I’m really grateful that you’re trying and I can see you do a lot of work on this site, but … I don’t know. The only person that can really help me is me except I can’t even do that.

I … suppose it could be looked at like that. It’s feels awkward to say that though, like I’m pointing my finger at my parents and trying to blame the, for everything. But I suppose there may be some truth in there. I remember asking myself once, “what is the difference between doing something Properly and doing it Perfectly?” and being unable to find an answer (and feeling, of course, that if you’re something you care about you do it properly).

But I don’t know how that helps. I still feel like I’m fighting my subconscious and have no idea how to proceed. I still feel terrified of other people’s opinion of me while at the same time occasionally feel very lonely.

Thanks for taking time to respond Anita. 🙂

It’s difficult to point to any sort of starting point. If I had to pick a time I first noticed it would be around four years ago. There was a game that I was quite fond that I happened to also be very good at. However, as I got better, the expectations I put on myself got higher, until eventually the game became too stressful and I stopped playing altogether.

That’s not the start though, that’s just the first time I can remember thinking about as a distinct thing, and I’ve done a lot of work over the past couple years on understanding myself (some of that work was even successful). Going farther back I’d have to point at college, which I flunked out of. But thinking back to that time I’m not sure if my difficulties at the time were cause of my current issues or merely a symptom of something deeper that I was not emotionally aware enough to recognize at the time.

First of all, thank you all for taking the time to respond. 🙂

Sorry my first post was a little rambling. I just kind of burst and had to write Something. Things are not so bad. I have a lot of great friends that I see on a regular basis. In fact, just yesterday I had the pleasure of attending two of my friend’s wedding, which was a lot of fun. Just doing things with people I know is never a problem.

Anita, your quote about being stuck in a rut because change is difficult feels spot on. And what makes it so frustrating is that I know that just taking that first step will make things so much better, yet I still can’t seem to take that first step. When I’m in a position where I can’t do much of anything (such as at work) I spend time thinking about all the fun activities I could be doing, but when I get off work I just seem to … slide off of them, is the best I can put it. Rather than do anything interesting or exciting I just settle into comfortable and boring. In the past I would have said I was avoiding them due to the huge stress they cause, but these days I don’t even feel the stress as avoiding them has become practically automatic. AND I HATE IT.

I suppose the best way is to give a concrete example… I used to play this tabletop game called “Warmachine” (you don’t need to know any more than that, but you can look it up if you want). It was fun and interesting and challenging and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that I was very good at it. But somewhere in being really good and having fun I became scared to play because I might lose. So I sabotaged myself by playing in weird ways that were not as effective so as to be able to provide an excuse to myself if I lost. It didn’t work*. Over the past year or so I’ve felt more and more that this is the problem in microcosm. I get so stressed out over things not going well that I eventually just give up and do something else. Also I think this should have come before the previous paragraph. The urge to ramble is clearly too strong.

I found this site by googling various keywords to look for help and I will say that a lot of the articles here are really good. It’s just that nothing seems to really help. I might be able to trick myself into feeling better, but it never lasts for more than a couple days. All of the answers I see boil down to “just do it anyway and you’ll feel better”, which I know is true. But if I could “just do it” I wouldn’t be here asking for help. So, I don’t know.
Bleh.

*I won a bunch anyway and felt even more stressed out.