I don’t think I can do this anymore. I feel like I’m stuck here. Stuck in this life that I never even asked for. I don’t know how to get out. how to change the wheels that have been stuck since, I don’t know how long. I just don’t know anymore and the thoughts I’m getting are more and more going towards hurting myself and lately to maybe even ending it all because I can’t get out of here. I’m stuck here!
I’m sorry… I just have all these walls up and I can’t seem to be able to crush them down. I’m lonely… even in a room filled with people I don’t feel like I’m making a connection, even if they are convinced that I do… it doesn’t feel that way… to me.
I just don’t know how and where to start, nothing ever fits where it’s suppose to fit. I just don’t understand why it never fits… I don’t understand why I can feel so fucking disconnected from the world around me while everyone else is saying they are having the time of their lives… Why is my feeling so different? So much like an outsider? Why am I always, ALWAYS thinking… I’m so tired of everything, but mostly of me. Why can’t I just be normal? Why do I always have that voice in my head that tells me that I’m not good enough, that I’m not okay, that I’m lazy, that I should always punish myself?
I’m sorry
Hey there @JustAnotherPerson. Sending love 
You don’t have to be sorry! I really, sincerely mean that. 
I’m glad you came here and shared how you’re feeling. It’s not easy, but I think it’s a huge step. I hope this community will help you to feel less alone, and to work through what’s going on for you.
I don’t know what’s happened in your life to lead you to this place, but I think I know how you feel. I’m an over-thinker myself. I’m often locked in my head, especially around other people. Social anxiety is my big beast at the moment, and a lot of the time it feels like I’m more mask than authentic whenever I’m around anyone. But, most importantly, it’s gotten easier to manage the more I’ve worked at it. I say all this to express earnestly that you’re not alone in this, that I know how it feels to be stuck, and that things can and do get better. I promise. We’ve just got to work through this particularly hard part.
How you feel isn’t your fault and you have nothing to blame yourself for. If it were so simple and easy to fix it, I’m sure you already would have, because of course nobody asks to feel this way. In the same way that a broken bone can’t be coaxed into healing faster with sheer will, these things take time to process and improve.
There is nothing wrong with you. I mean this with all sincerity. What you’re feeling is valid, and if you’re like me, it might be an expression from some part of yourself that something isn’t sitting quite right with you. I think that warrants exploring, a genuine attempt to understand yourself, and as much compassion as you can manage.
You mentioned that you’re not sure how and where to start. What I do is this: I sit with what I’m feeling, specifically in sensations in my body, and I try to put the critical voice away whenever I notice it coming up. There’s nothing wrong with how you feel, after all. It’s not like you chose to feel this way. The more I listen to my feelings, the more I start to feel like they’re not too bad at all, and that they just ‘are’, if that makes sense.
The next thing I do is swallow a toad. Actually, I try to do this early in the morning on most days. That means anything at all which I don’t feel like doing, but I know will make things even a tiny bit better for me. This taught me that no matter how bad things get, there’s always something that we can do to improve them. That’s a special kind of control to have over our circumstances, which I find very freeing. Sometimes that looks like doing something to get out of my head like going on a walk, learning to play a song, making myself a satisfying meal, or writing; other times it’s clerical stuff which I know I have to get out of the way like cleaning, dishes, paperwork, making calls, etc. The trick is to put as much of your focus into what you’re doing that you can. I hope that helps. It’s also important not to push yourself too hard or beat yourself up if you don’t tick off every item on your list perfectly every day. These things happen! They’re not failures. Sometimes they’re lessons, and other times they just happen. You can always try again tomorrow.
One last thing which has been really helpful for me is speaking honestly about how I’m feeling to the people around me, whether I think they’ll like it or not. That doesn’t mean being rude or blasé, it just means being myself. Most of the time, I’ve found that people are pretty open to it! They actually open up in return a lot of the time, and that’s good for everyone. These kinds of therapeutic conversations are the best. It took me ages to get to that point though, and I still struggle sometimes. What I do in the interim is I write about what’s going on as honestly as I can. Again, if that seems like your thing, it’s important to put away the critical voice in the interests of emotional clarity.
I know that was a lot. I kind of scatter-shotted in hopes that something will work for you. Thank you again for sharing! If you wanna talk, let me know. I’d be happy to chat.
It’s within your power to make things better. You can do this! It’s your life, after all. Thanks for reading.
Hey @JustAnotherPerson,
Take a deep breath, friend. You’re asking yourself many questions and you’re thinking about many different things at the same time. It’s going to be okay. I’m glad you were able to write down these thoughts so it’s not only spiraling in your mind. When you’re struggling with so many thoughts at the same time, it can be really overwhelming. Try to ground yourself to your environement, to focus on what you see around. It can help you to reduce your worries, even if it’s only for a short moment. I hope that, since you wrote this message, you wera able to get some rest.
This little voice in your head, telling you that you’re not enough in many different ways, is entirely wrong. And you know that. It’s related to the way you may be seeing yourself, to what people did or said to you or, maybe, to present circumstances you can’t really control. Miffy, you are really wonderful just as you are right now. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.
You’re already aware of the fact that this little voice shouldn’t be at all. It’s quite normal to have worries sometimes, or to doubt about ourselves, depending the situation we’re facing. But it shouldn’t end in doubting about your self worth or hurting yourself. You don’t deserve that. You deserve plenty of love and gentleness. And the first person in this world who can bring this to yourself is you. Self-love is like a garden we need to help flourishing. You do belong. And maybe you didn’t already find people or got opportunities to make you feel it. But you have worth and value. And there’s absolutely nothing in this world that will change this.
I think we all get that feeling of being different and isolated at some point in our lives, because of many different reasons. You are not alone. You are a unique person and I’m so glad you’re here, even if I’d prefer it to be in better circumstances for you. Also, if you think there are particular reasons that makes you feel stuck, we can always talk and think about it together.
Sending much Love your way.
hey @Rick
Thank you for replying, that honestly meant a lot! I will try to see if I can do some of the things that you’ve been talking about. tbh I sometimes don’t take the time to do some of the things that I know will make me feel better and at other times I just forget till everything seems so broken that I don’t know where to start… but making lists seems like a good way to start… and writing about things sometimes helps… talking to others about it seems a bit more scary though… especially when it’s one on one… sometimes I just don’t know where to start though… and what problem to tackle first…
anyway, thanks for your reply 
hey @Micro
Thank you for your reply, but I do have a question. you say “Self-love is like a garden we need to help flourishing.”, but how do you do that? because I don’t think I know how to do that, sorry…
Also the reason I feel stuck is because I often think too much about what needs to be done and don’t know how and where to start. Like I will think “I want to do this, but before I do that I need to do all of this” while that sometimes isn’t even logical.
I don’t need a completely clean room so I can do my homework. Does it help if it was clean? yes, but I don’t need it to be clean… but before I realize that I’m in that spiral of thoughts of “this needs to be done before I can do the real thing”. I’m already a few hours into my thoughs and that just sucks… but it’s very much a box feeling: like everything needs to be like this… not that it’s a possibility… no it needs to be like that, because otherwise it doesn’t fit. I don’t know why… it just is…
Thanks for listening
Oh, I can totally understand that. Sometimes I think it can be considered as procrastination because in the end I don’t do anything. Well nothing I wanted to do at first. The example you described, I got this for almost anything I have to/want to do. Like… I have a ton of things waiting behind but when I finally decide it will be the moment to do it, I start to think about how I’m going to do it, what environment I need, what tasks I need to accomplish before. But after that, it just feels overwhelming and I end in doing unproductive things like… idk, playing video games, bingeing a serie on Netflix, things like that. It feels like constant avoidance/self-sabotage.
For example, I had an article I needed to write one day. But to do this, I thought I needed to read a bunch of other articles about the same subject before, then undirectly linked subjects, then having perfect notes about it (like written on a computer/printed and classified, after writing it on a notebook, because I needed to read in the living room and not somewhere else, because of the light, and coffee, and large table…). In fact, I could have started this task with just… writing something. 
I’m still struggling with this, to be honest. But I try to remind myself this, as much as possible: “Doing a bit of something is better than doing nothing at all.” At first, I tried to apply this with things I don’t really care about, like cleaning for example. So it wasn’t too stressful, and it’s part of the things I tend to do to avoid the rest. Like “hey I have to pay this but I’ve got a bunch of emails to declutter before” or “okay, but I need to have my stuff next to me, to declutter this desk, to put that kind of music…”.
I seriously think that it’s a way to not do anything at all. And I think it’s also related to some kind of perfectionism. Because when you try to make a task, you also try to get every details perfect.
Making lists can be helpful, as Rick said. What works for me is to write everything I have to do on a paper. Then I try to classify each entry in different categories, on an other paper. To distinguish urgent things from things that could wait. Also, some hobbies can be helpful to try to learn how to act without thinking too much (in a safe way, of course). For example, dancing is one my hobbies. And when I was still able to do it, I got this habit to improvise different moves at home, as something spontaneous. Writing in an active way can also be helpful. Like, you have a blank page in front of yourself and you try to write everything that comes to your mind during a limited time. I’m sorry if it sounds a bit silly but I know that, for me, creating some “exercises” for myself to learn how to start something without thinking too much, was helpful over time. And still helps. 
*Edit: I don’t know if you’re the kind of person who likes journaling, but there are also a bunch of great ideas with “bullet journals”. Like ideas about progress trackers, so you can see what you’ve already done, even if it’s just a little bit.
And just to finish with this, there’s a website named Habitica which I used when I was really struggling with building new habits and needed to stop thinking about everything everytime. It’s entirely free, a bit playful too. There are some groups/ a sense of community there too, depending on your objectives. Maybe it would be worth to check this.
hey @Micro
thank you for the ideas! I will definitely try them out. but I’m still a bit stuck on the “self-love is like a garden we need to help flourish”… like how can I start with that? it’s okay if you don’t know, but I’d just thought I’d try