Hey @solace,
Thank you so much for being here and sharing all of this. 
but i still think i need to solve my own problems, but they said they feel like if you get emotional support somehow you are much in a a more advantageous place to work on that. now, i’m not entirely convinced it really helps even if i want it, because i talk to some of my friends, spill pain out, still have bad habits myself.
I guess it depends on what are your expectations when you reach out to your friends. Indeed, nobody can “save” someone else. When it’s about emotions, feelings and mental well-being, the hard work has to be done by ourselves, it has to be the result of our own willingness to change one way or another. Some people reach out to others with the expectation that their friends or family would “fix” them and yes, it’s not healthy and incredibly unfair for those who try to be supportive. But it sounds that you’re really aware of that possibility, which makes me believe that you’re unlikely to reach out to someone with this expectation.
Why reaching out though? In my humble experience, it can help in many ways: feeling less alone/breaking down some kind of isolation; being reminded some truths that we forgot because we’d have some kind of tunnel vision made of negativity or even hopelessness; feeling validated, heard or understood; having a sense of connection with others while we feel like no one cares or understand; learning about others experiences and being inspired by them; just giving ourselves some time by being with a caring presence when we feel at the end of our rope.
At the end of the day, none of this solve our problems, for sure. Self-care and inner reflection still need to be done. Steps forward still need to be taken. But reaching out gives some kind of strength if we talk to the “right” people, especially when we feel highly vulnerable. I’d say that’s why it’s really worth it to have a support system.
For me personally, my mind is not a friendly territory for myself. I have this tendency, if I don’t put myself out there, to withdraw and let myself drown by the numerous self-hate thoughts that are spiraling in my mind. It creates a dangerous cycle that makes me stuck, unable to move on. I’ve spent most of my life without any support system, and it’s only now that I’m learning to create one that I slowly give up on the idea that I have to handle everything by myself all the time. It helps to learn to be more patient and compassionate with ourselves, because we have the love of others reflected on ourselves too. But on the other hand, that should never erase the possibility (or need) to see a professional as well. There’s just a place and a time for everything.
also how do you acknowledge a feeling but not judge it, cause that’s what my therapist told me to do. i try to start, but all i can think about is how it’s not okay for me to have been feeling these things for so long. so what do i do?
That sounds a little bit like a mindfulness approach. If that’s the case, then basically it’s about learning to be present and curious about what’s going on inside of our mind. Something that helped me to understand that concept, is to visualize your thoughts as if you were in a movie theater. You sit down and put yourself in a role of a spectator. When you notice a thought, you can tell yourself “ok, I see you. Now I’ll get back to that other one…”. The idea is to create some kind of temporality between the moment you acknowledge it, and the moment you start to judge it automatically.
Just for the fun, this practice always reminds me of a scene from the movie Ratatouille. Hope it can help to illustrates this “visualizing” process, haha:
Another interesting thing that you could try to dive into is journaling. Writing down what you feel puts you in a position of observing yourself again. Even more: you see your thoughts on a piece of paper. It’s a physical, tangible way to sort out your thoughts. It kinda works like a mirror effect once your read it.
Hope this helps a little. Congrats for working with a therapist by the way. That’s really a huge step and you can be proud of yourself for doing what’s needed to take care of yourself.
