this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Self Improvement

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Why the fuck does everyone tell me "You should do it for yourself"? (hexbear.net)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I’ve been depressed since about the age of 13. I can barely motivate myself to get out of bed; it took me years to get back on food stamps just because on some level eating isn’t important to me.

So right now the only thing that really motivates me to go to fucking rehab and turn my life around and not die, is a friend I love but who won’t talk to me.

I think if I get sober (or at least become a functioning addict, like they are) and go to therapy and stop being obsessed with them and shit, they might talk to me again. They’re used to being disappointed by people, and my drug use seems like a reason they don’t trust me (and it was a contributing factor to me pushing them away).

And for a while I was getting my life back together, until I kind of got the rug pulled out from under me.

Everyone tells me I’m just obsessed and that I should move on and I know it looks a lot like I’m twackin’ out. But I love them, and they really are different. I don’t even give a shit about dating them ( I’ve never dated anyone). I can’t just move on or make other friends because I don’t fucking like people. There’s a reason I never really even had a close friend.

It’s not even just a matter of “winning them back.” I don’t want to be another disappointment in their life.

But anyways…

Why the fuck does everyone have to rain on my parade?

Even if they still won’t talk to me after I’ve gotten sober and shit and then fucking relapse, that’s way fucking better that sitting here in my shack made out of a folding table and pallets, hitting my meth bong and snorting Ritalin until I pass out, sulking, and only leaving to charge my phone and use the bathroom.

Hell there’s a decent chance I’ll find other reasons to live. This is just the carrot on a stick to get me moving.

And anyways I think getting the love of my fucking life to talk to me again is “doing it for myself.”

It’s just like the “Love yourself first” non-advice that used to drive me insane.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

everyone's telling you to do it for yourself because it's the only reason and the only person that'll still be there with you at the end of it all.

Doing it for someone that doesn't want a bar of you isn't going to help them, and won't help you either. They've clearly said their piece, it's now up to you to move on and do better next time, or continue to wallow in this shit.

Love yourself, don't love yourself, just do better. Love is a verb, and it's something earned and learned. You're right, you don't deserve it, you havent earned it. But you can learn it, learn to value yourself, to love yourself. Do it for yourself because it's never going to stick otherwise. Stop hanging your self worth on someone that no longer wants to give you the time of day

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

it's the only reason and the only person that'll still be there with you at the end of it all.

literally wrong, have higher standards for your friends. We are social creatures and support each other. The fact this maxim exists is a sign of immense atomization

What does “at the end of it all” even mean? When you die? Because that’s wrong, people huddle around those they love as they leave this world more often than not. When you’re at your worst moments? There will still be people that stay with you there, you just have to find them. And they’re far more common than you’d think, most people don’t like abandoning their friends.

Does it mean that everyone is ontologically, permanently alone? Because that’s also wrong, and tautological.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

do it for yourself because it's the only reason and the only person that'll still be there with you at the end of it all.

I'm incredibly lonely and you're telling me that no matter how hard I work at it I'm still going to be incredibly lonely. That's the opposite of motivating. There's nothing wrong with living for others

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I'm incredibly lonely and you're telling me that no matter how hard I work at it I'm still going to be incredibly lonely. That's the opposite of motivating.

Maybe so, but it is the truth. I've gone from being actively suicidal, horrific personal health, doing drugs to cope to now being stable and sober. I feel exactly the same as I did at the start, some days it's worse because I know I can't blackout at the end of the day. I have good friends now, I have things I enjoy, but I'm still fundamentally the same person I was at the start. The pain doesn't get easier, but you learn to get stronger.

Everything gets better, but you will be you at the end of the day. Changing that requires something more than what other people can give you.

There's nothing wrong with living for others

Of course, but they won't be there for you always. On a bus ride, you'll be alone with your thoughts. Even if you fill your apartment with friends and loved-ones they have their own lives. Even your spouse will go to work or hang out with friends. What will do then when you're at rock bottom and they can't be there? Sometimes, you'll even be surrounded by people who love you and you'll feel just as lonely.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

because they don't understand how bad it is.

advice has huge survivorship bias problem

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's because doing it for someone else is part of the depression. It's not that you shouldn't do it with hopes and dreams about others, too, but the advice your getting isn't meant as "do this, then it will get better" but rather "doing it for yourself is equivalent to solving this piece of depression".

Use your carrots and sticks. Aspire to arrive at the place where you are that person you wish to not disappoint.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Nah, I totally relate. Most of the time I'm doing it for friends, family, or some abstract idea that I gotta stay alive so I can keep fighting for a better world. I don't think most people have any idea how bad it can get, and how much you can hate or just be indifferent to yourself.

I think there's some of the extremely indvidualism in society rearing it's head. Therapy and self help are very focused on the notion of an individual who isn't part of a community. People are just individuals, and everything has to be self actualization or self improvement or whatever. Community, humans as social creatures, doesn't enter in to the thinking. And I think that just doesn't work for a lot of people, especially when you get to the point where you're only eating and showering because you don't want to upset other people you care about.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think the intention is that you don’t do things because you feel external pressure to change, but because you want to change for your own reasons.

Based on that, I think you fit that criteria, this reads like internal motivation to me. You don’t seem to be being actively bullied by your friend or anything, though if I’m being honest they seem pretty shitty

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Their best friend who they hung out with every day for two years randomly one day pulled his whole dick out (they always use those exact words lol, “pulled his whole dick out”) and started stalking them. And that’s on top of a whole lifetime of trauma, plus part of what I see in them is how detached we both are. I discard people who fucking annoy me all the time.

They’re a beautiful person with a big heart. They’re not a shitty person just because they don’t want me around.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

people are miserable pieces of shit and not getting in cheap dunks is too hard to resist. People down and out are easy targets to stomp on ig. Wishing you good luck. definitely dont know if I could walk in your shoes, so I am not going to give you advice lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Absolutely use whatever you can to get yourself to a better place. You know deep down what you want and whatever means you need to get there is no one else's business.