>>33719
>When you want to go loud, go quiet instead. I honestly doubt anyone will even notice
Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates? I could occasionally pick out a person to lean on and 'develop relations with' but would regularly convince myself not to because it's weird to force familiarity on someone.

>If people say you're talking in riddles, you're probably thinking a bunch of thoughts really quickly and then telling a story that feels relevant to you
This is exactly what it feels like I'm doing, in hindsight. Stringing those thoughts together is often a challenge, even when they clearly have relevance to one another from my perspective.
It's often that I'll start typing a new sentence before concluding the previous - this even happens in verbal conversation too, to the point of multiple strings occuring beside one another (sometimes even varying in tone, it's very interesting to experience).
I keep recalling that a part of autism is presuming people know the same as you. There's that classic test in kids where a person hides an object from one location to another, then the observing autistic kid can't comprehend that a third person doesn't know the new location. I never had that problem specifically but it definitely happens in the way I communicate.

I have calmed down an awful lot now.

>>33720
>Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates?
You can talk to some friends about this, but not others. And I don't think there's any way of knowing in advance which ones you can talk to and which ones you can't. However, I don't think I've ever had anyone turn against me or abuse me for wanting to talk about feelings, even if they don't care at all about what I have to say. If you can just say a little bit at a time, you should really be okay in almost every situation.

The husband of the woman who ran the Save A Fox animal rescue (2.43M Youtube subs) just released a video saying she killed herself. Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online, and due to her BPD and autism and depression she couldn't take it. She had saved hundreds of foxes from fur farms. It's pretty sad.

It really upset me, more than I would like. I think one reason is it's sad that the foxes don't have their friend anymore. Another reason is that I struggle with suicidal thoughts a lot and did attempt suicide about a decade ago, and the husband crying made me think how sad my loved ones would be if I killed myself, and I felt bad for being suicidal and potentially putting them through a bad time. Then I thought how would I cope if my wife died, I reckon I'd be pretty sad.

Fucking foxes having me pondering mortality.

>>33732

That's genuinely awful. Bullying is the worst impulse of the human psyche. I hope those people live with deep and painful regret for the rest of their lives.

Fur farms are disgusting too. It's one thing to farm and animal for food, it's quite another to farm it just because you want to rip off its skin and wear it as a fashion accessory. The worst part is even the rescues can't be properly released or allowed to breed, because they would introduce severe genetic defects into the wild population. Knowing that gives me a very existential kind of sadness.

Humans are terrible.

>>33732

I think it is entirely normal to be sad to learn that this happened, and I hope you are well on your way to circumstances that lessen your own suicidal thoughts.

I can't help but wonder about this, though:
>Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online

Excuse me? One would think that animal rescues would at the very least be too busy rescuing animals to engage in this, if not actively supporting one another. Was there some controversy?

I suppose the specifics don't matter, unless it's parlayed into a more productive conversation about how cruel, thick, and plain old careless people can be.

>>33734
It's never "single story", I don't mean to trigger anyone. I obviously don't know the story of the bullying, but usually suicide is at least a 4-5 part explosive after teen years. Interacting parts, sadly.

So mental issues plus criticism (for profit or method) gives us plenty of powder to set of en episodes, and the trouble with determinded episodes is it takes only one.

>>33733
Some of the Reddit trolls behind the online hate are now being targeted by Save A Fox fans, telling them to kill themselves. The Sharty has doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander against Save A Fox. Seems fucked up to try get someone to commit suicide as a response to them contributing to a suicide. Violence breeds violence.

>>33734
Animal rescues seem to be full of people who think the people who don't do things the same way as them are scum. Many of the domesticated fur farm foxes were rehomed with private owners, and some rescues see this as the pet trade and therefore bad. Another thing is that she had an OnlyFans (non-nude), the proceeds of which she put towards the rescue, but she caught flak for that.

I don't know what a happy fox looks like, these seem quite happy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZa5eSBnQgM

>>33736

>doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander

Furlad here, didn't want to say anything but I would have bet money on it. The dark triad traits are never far around the corner with those lot.

I suspect that for many of them, they are narcissist powder kegs first and foremost, and the trans/autism/furry etc stuff comes second as a way to blend into a "tolerant" community which has no mechanisms for countering their malicious behaviour.

I'm going to cave some skulls in.

>>33778
Whose, and why?

>>33779
Anyone who gives me hassle. Why? You'll have to ask them.

>>33778

And yet there's a reason you are posting this in /emo/.

If you are anything like me your anger is a sign of being hurt or upset by something, and most people are too short sighted to see that. Even when they do see it, they are too judgemental to cross the line into genuinely understanding, and consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways. Which is, in turn, an extra sprinkle of that bitter injustice that adds to your mounting frustration.

So go on, tell us what's got you wound up.

>>33738
>>33781

Lads for the last fucking time. Every single other board, you can be a smarmy dickhead on. From /pol/ top /nom/ to /poof/, knock yourselves out. I encourage it, in fact. But on this one, specifically this one, be an adult.

>>33782
People won't leave me alone. so I'll now make them leave me alone, or ruin their day the same way they're trying to ruin mine. If you want to shout at me or laugh at me for whatever it is you don't like about me, fine, but I will, from now on, be carrying a hammer in a rucksack and I will use on any cunt who takes the piss.

>consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways
Not really, I actually want horrible things to happen to people who go out of their way to make my life worse for no reason.

>>33784

That sounds like a good way to end up in jail, and very little else, honestly mate.

I know how you feel, but the issue is, the time for telling people to fuck off and leave you alone with physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school, and if you didn't do it then you sort of missed the chance. I wish somebody would have taught me it was actually the right thing to do then, because it undeniably was and my life would almost certainly have turned out better if I gave a couple of cunts in particular a good smack in the gob when I was a teenager; but it won't do any good now.

Do the people in question actually go out of their way, as in, contact you out of nowhere, visit your home, or contact you via phone etc with no provocation to? Or do you mean like, these are people you are forced to interact with as a part of daily life, who you find yourself at odds with?

>>33786
I've got nothing going on.

I walk down the street, I get shit. Fucking builders and fucking cunts in vans and fucking cars, they just give me shit. Was it my black t-shirt and beige jeans I was wearing that upset some cunt in a BMW today? Is there some kind of Man Burqa I should be wearing so as not to upset other blokes? Doesn't matter, the next time one of them does it, if I have the opportunity, I'll hit them over the head with a hammer. Because let's be honest here, if I square up them, what do you think they'd do to me? Say sorry for hurting my feelings and let me go on my way? No, they'd kick the shit out of me. I know this is true because the last time I did stand up for myself, some cunt almost did attack me, but stopped because his very young kids were in his car and started screaming "daddy!" at him. But I won't give them the option of beating me up, because I'll just hit them. Go ahead, try to intimidate me, but I hope your bitch mother remembers how to spoon feed you.

>physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school
Wrong, I've got Polish ancestry, which can easily be spun out into Jewish ancestry, and you know what that means: a one way ticket to chaos and genocide in the Gaza Strip, baby. But that's not really my scene, I'd rather just get a bit Niko Bellic on some slab brained twat.

>>33787

As you mentioned you have calmed down today, I hope you don't mind continuing to elaborate. So, your angry response was "I'm going to start caving these cunt's skulls in", but how is it you normally react? Do you react? Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off? Do you do that "you wot cunt" shoulder shrug and neck craning thing? Do you just try to ignore them?

The other week I was driving towards some traffic lights. This bellend was sauntering across the road, in the middle of three lanes, so I slowed down to a near stop, and motioned for him to carry on. He hesitated so I motioned again. He was eyeing me up as I eventually moved past, so I leaned to the window slightly and pulled next to him, and made that sort of "what?" gesture. He said "The fuck are ya doing ya tit" (he had a Teesside accent). And I instantly went "Letting you across, you prick" (I have a Beeston accent). He turned left without another word.

I have thought about it a bit because it seems unlike me. The "old me" normally got quite anxious at the slightest confrontation, but I didn't feel a thing, it just happened without me even thinking about it, and it seemed to head this guy off from what was otherwise a confrontational situation. But I feel almost certain if I had just ignored it like in the past, he would have followed up and tried to carry on giving me grief.

I dunno, I don't want to make it about me. Just sharing an example of a similar thing. I think the way you react matters a lot. Not that you should always "rise to it", definitely not. But I think these sort of folk do probe for targets to harass.

Is it normal to be gripped by a panic in the middle of the night as you get older. One where your mind almost forces you to deal with the fact that you're getting older and nothing has really worked out as it should have? Do men in any situation feel this?

I try to address the facts without judgement; that I'm middle aged and single, that my career has long plateaued and I've achieved nothing of note, that I'm in a period now where my physical and mental health will only decline. Then I try to treat it with some compassion, that I'm still doing better than most people, I have savings and I can still run a fun meeting even if I never cured cancer. But it doesn't stop my unconscious mind of racing.

Maybe this is how midlife crises start and as we're all about the same age things will get weird on here.

>>33790
Personally I was laid awake at 1am thinking about, if the only two Beatrix Potter books to be translated to Welsh in the previous century were titled "Hanes Meistres Tigi-Dwt" and "Hanes Benda Bynni", what the other titles would have been as opposed to the contemporary translations, which are quite different. I think what you're describing is a stress response that can be had at any time of life, but realising that your best years are behind you might be a common trigger for stress.

>>33790

I don't wake up in the night panicking about things like this, but I do sometimes have very downer low mood days where I do think that way about myself. It'll usually be triggered by a hangover or being ghosted on a dating app or something like that, and it'll send me into a bit of a paranoid thought spiral.

I think it's important to recognise that often, you are just being hard on yourself. There are probably plenty of things you have achieved. You have plenty of things you are good at. Even just the fact you have your own home and support yourself as a single man, that's a barrier seemingly half my generation can't overcome and they still moan about constantly. I mean, I am not trying to downplay how fucked up the property market is, but by the same token if you succeed in having your own place despite that, that is in itself a sign you are doing something right. It shows that you, for lack of a better term, "have your shit together", in a way that a huge chunk of supposedly adult people just don't.

Personally I've been trying to big myself up, in my own head, lately. Without letting it get to arrogance, just reminding myself that actually, I have plenty to be proud of. I might not have a stellar career, but I have never wanted one, work is just work to me. I have, on the other hand, succeeded in many creative pursuits that most ordinary people have never even attempted to apply themselves to. I'm fucking good at music and art, like legitimately fucking good, I can confidently say. And I fucking well should be, after 15 years at it. When I show people (not that I often do) they go "wow, YOU made that? It's really good!" and I'm like yeah, yeah I fucking did. I told you I'm fucking good at it. You thought I was just bullshitting like every other dick who bought a guitar during lockdown, but no, I am a fucking musician.

You have to remind yourself of your good qualities and not be shy about them.

I'm so shit at everything and I hate myself and everyone forever. I wish someone had helped me become a proper person instead of just idly staring at me like my waste of flesh parents. I'm too old to blame my parents, but they definitely didn't help, also I'm pissed off so I don't care.

The funeral suit I ordered didn't fit, so I ordered a replacement jacket, only it was "next day", even though I paid for it. So now the replacement jacket is arriving the day of, and I don't have a jacket. j,mnlknm That's me punching my keyboard.

So now I have to go to this funeral dressed like a cunt. Seeing all these fucking family members that I have met in more than ten years looking like a fucking cunt. I don't know what kind of cunt I'll look like like yet, but it's certain to be some kind of useless, failure, cunt.

I was looking at this really neat job opportunity. It's the kind of bollocks I could actually get. But I'd have to move all the way to Surrey, and I'm looking at rentals and it would be more than half my income to live in a tiny flat. Whatever, I couldn't afford a deposit anyway.

I can't recall a single thing my therapist has said to me in the past six months. She's off soon anyway. It genuinely troubles me to think how much time and money the NHS has wasted on me.

>>33789
>Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off?
Yeah.
>Do you just try to ignore them?
Sometimes.

>>33793

It's going to be too warm to wear a jacket anyway mate. Don't worry about it. You'll be reyt.

>>33792
What do you make?

What do you think about this, britfa.gs?
It seems to me as though 'therapy' as a concept is reletively modern, whereas humans have been working out their mental knots for generations. For better or worse, that's where we're at now.
Could it be that people should just exist and not think about existing?
There's the whole idea in Buddism or Taoism that knowing is not knowing, coupling with rhetoric of intuition.
It could be a problem if a persons intuitive behaviour is offensive, but that's not really going to happen for me, is it? I don't feel a pull to risk.

I've had a satyr on my shoulder for a couple of weeks now and am starting to think that maybe doing the thing is therapy, to a degree. I feel better and more engagable with life, save for my current exhaustion. To think all I needed since puberty was a deep massage.

/emo/ because there's a shadow of doubt - I'm unsure if it's legit or the sting of 20 years of supressed cuiosity and playfulness.

>>33796

Specific types of psychotherapy are valid, evidence-based treatments for some psychological disorders, particularly mood disorders. Doing some vague kind of "therapy" if you don't have a diagnosable disorder and don't have a specific treatment goal is a bit like taking random pills out of your dead nan's medicine cabinet on the off chance that they'll do you some good.

Several clinical trials on interventions designed to prevent mental illness in the general population (e.g. teaching coping skills or mindfulness in schools) showed that those interventions actively caused harm and increased rates of mental illness. We don't know exactly why this is the case, but it's plausible that these interventions encourage people to see normal ups-and-downs as the symptoms of disease, or to worry excessively about completely normal thoughts or changes in mood.

Behavioural change is a core goal of all good psychotherapy, arguably the core goal - the point isn't to sit there navel-gazing until you feel better, but to provide you with the encouragement and support you need to make real changes in how you live your life. You don't fix anxiety or depression just by sitting there and thinking, you fix it by facing your fears or doing things that give your life meaning.

If you're stuck in a miserable rut and don't know how to get out of it, then psychotherapy genuinely could change your life. If you've got a plan for improving your life and that plan seems to be working, then psychotherapy probably won't help you and might hold you back. A lot of the most enthusiastic advocates for what we might call "therapy culture" - the kinds of people who believe that everyone should be in therapy all the time - are generally using that belief as a defence against change. Their belief that "therapy" is an essential way for them to "work on themselves" is just an excuse to legitimise their self-obsession and their unwillingness to do the real work of being a better person.

You know what it is? I didn't survive the pandemic. I was a casualty.

My body might be here, I might have lingered on in the sense that I wake up on a morning, go to work, get home, make dinner, pay my bills, and that responsible adult stuff. If I were to just tuck away some of the more unsightly, self destructive habits, and take the selfie from the right angle, it would appear I'm a model citizen, in fact.

But that's just not true. Ever since the lockdowns, there was some kind of schism. It was supposed to be this temporary break that things would bounce back from, but it wasn't. Ever since then, it's all been slowly falling apart, like in a cartoon- You when they are driving a car, and they are still chugging along while all the doors and side panels all fall off around them, until they are left just holding a wheel? That's the perfect visual metaphor for how my life's been going.

I've lost contact with all my mates, I had a bad break up that I never picked myself up from and I've just been stuck single ever since, I've stopped caring about most of the hobbies and goals that I had before because why do they matter any more. I've got nobody to share anything with, so why bother doing anything other than just sit there watching YouTube, and having the occasional episode of binge drinking/substance abuse to take the edge of when it starts to feel a bit too lonely. I just feel extremely apathetic. I'm not suicidal, but if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.

Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.

>>33798
>if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.
I've been feeling something like that regarding health concerns, to be honest. Cancer of the arse or intestine, blacking out occasionally, etc. It's probably a fantasy that suddenly I'll have some energising secret in enjoying life, then go out quitely having inspired my family or some shit.

>join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.
I absolutely agree that it's easier said than done. There's a degree of me that simply doesn't want to 'join a social group' even when I feel socially desperate.

What has been interesting is that I've found an organisation that I probably want to volunteer with as it's relevant to an unexplored interest. With this group I could learn something more than just how to be around fellow losers.

I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

It's taking me a while to realise what 'join a social club' means - it's general, abstract, and must be applied to your lifestyle and interests.

>>33798
>Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.

Yeah pretty much. I'd start small with the low-hanging fruit that brings you joy and that in turn will help energise you and bring momentum to then tackle the bigger stuff.

I'm not talking about small like 'just go up and talk to her mate' I'm saying get a houseplant, go for a walk everyday, try reading a book instead of going on Youtube. If you're really struggling then changing your bedding and getting some new clothes might at least start to pull you out of the death spiral.

>>33799
I can report with that dick cancer scare I had a few years back that it doesn't magically change everything in your life. When I walked back from the doctors I wasn't skipping with joy and hearing the birdsong, my mind was racing about how I can build up a nest egg for my nephews because the thing about dying is that yeah, nothing matters but also yeah, nothing matters gg. Then as I waited for weeks because it's the NHS I gradually just forgot about it.

My mum had a different reaction when she had cancer of wanting to leave my dad because she found him boring but I think that was her being vulnerable with my auntie whispering in her ear and my dad trying to keep their finances under control but either way she wasn't having a great time either and that's without getting into her physical issues.

By the way your job or anything else doesn't give the slightest fuck when it comes down to it. Don't be under the illusion that you're anything by a cog in the machine and the moment you slip up the system takes a look at the defective part. Our value is what people can get out of us.

>>33799
>I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

Not cynical at all. You're talking about sharing resources for everyone's benefit. There's a difference between treating a relationship as entirely transactional and instigating a relationship by offering something - thinking about it, that might be a big hole in the rhetoric of dating and romance, too.

How do you deal with The Algorithm feeding you stuff you're not ready or willing to digest? I'm afraid to use it lest it show me somthing about myself I can't confront. Like Dorian Gray at his portrait or summat.

I recognise I'm being vague but the actual content of my concern isn't directly the issue, just irrelevant (It's probably not, right, but what).

>>33802

"The Algorithm" will serve me all sorts of bullshit I'm not interested in just because there happened to be a keyword on a page I clicked on once to see what it was before immediately closing it. If I accidentally click on an article about Labubu and it starts trying to direct me to a dozen Labubu forums and shops I'm not schizophrenic enough to interpret that as having some deeper meaning about my subconscious. It's just pareidolia, you're reading too much into it.

>>33804
I don't know, Amazons "Other people also looked at this" can be accurate, though my sample size is small.
If you keep the algorithm focused, ie minimal mistakes and misclicks, it would surely describe a character.

I find my youtube feed hideous. My youtube feed apparently believes my optimal watching habits are people who I turn off after 5 minuites because I realise they are wasting my time by making vague promises they are going to teach me something new that they padding the shit out of that i conclude if they had somethingto say they would have already told me. Its like a short form non fiction version of a thousand JJ Abrams. I guess I cannot blame the algorithm as these videos seem to some times to have millions of views despite being rubbish, so it's the fault of other people's non decerning nature that I am bombarded with aimless rants that purposefully delay delivering on their premise.

>>33805

Because I looked at a vacuum cleaner on amazon before buying one elsewhere it doesn't follow that I want to see vacuum cleaners for the next month but that's what the incomplete marketing data concludes.

Obviously there is associative information that can be inferred about a person some of it over presumptive some of it more general, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am a house proud middle-aged women who will buy anything associative with cleaning, but it would probably follow quite reasonably that I am both not a small child or homeless. I suspect the nature of the algorithms are that it is far too enthusiastic to assume the former rather than the latter because deranged housewives engage with it more than I do, and therefore give it positive feedback that those are the ways it should behave.

>"Other people also looked at this" can be accurate

Is it accurate or is it that you ignored the 1000 suggestions that were barely connected, and remember the time that it did the equivelent of when you bought a lamp it suggested a bulb.

>>33807

I've said this before, but you are in fact astonishingly likely to buy a vacuum cleaner immediately after buying a vacuum cleaner. About 17% of everything that gets bought online is returned for a refund within 14 days. Most people who return something will end up buying something similar shortly afterwards - they probably didn't change their mind about needing a new hoover, they just didn't like the first one they chose. Showing you adverts for a thing you've just bought seems completely stupid on the face of it, but it actually has an insanely high return on investment.

Likewise, a recommendations algorithm that keeps suggesting things that you hate but watch anyway is working exactly as intended; an algorithm that flatters you but delivers lower total watch time is a failure.

>>33805
Not in any particular detail. It's just trying to sell you things you might be tempted to buy, given that other people have bought the same things. It is not a psychic able to see into your soul.
Go on a clicking spree of random shit if you're worried. Build a gift list as though you're pregnant, then one as though you're about to go on a Vietnamese holiday. Throw stuff into the mix.

Bloody hell. You can tell I'm depressed because I've spent all day watching Steve1989MREInfo. It's one of my comfort habits I suppose.

Anyway it's nothing really important going on, I have my life together for the most part, I still need to cut out the drink and drugs properly but I've been doing better. I get frustrated and very hard on myself when I have a bit of a relapse and waste a whole weekend or two in that intoxicated foggy haze.

I think the catalyst for this one is that a girl I've had a sort of long term mostly online fuck buddy thing with (we've only met a handful of times, but have always reliably been there for each other whenever one or the other needed a wank) is no longer interested. I had become more attached to her than I realised, and was getting a lot of my validation from that attention. It hurts a proper break up, honestly, it's fucked up.

I just feel like the pool of things I enjoy in life is ever shrinking, either because I just don't enjoy them any more, or they are being taken away. I'm running out of new avenues to explore.

How do you know when you should stop eating?

This time last week I was hungry with stomache growls, weak muscle cramps and a strange almost light headed sensation that wavered in an out with activity in my stomache, yet I was reluctant to eat.

Now I've stuffed 2 tuna wraps and have stopped myself making a 3rd, fighting against a desire to stuff my face. If you'll excuse me saying, I can feel mass in my stomache and slightly in my belly and I seem to want to fill it.

Wtf is going on with this? Being hungry is perversely pleasureable, I'd love to lose weight but this contrary desire to eat while I'm not physically hungry is confusing me.

>>33828
See, I'm hungry again but don't want to waste it. Now's the time I can drain my body for a hard reset. I can feel there's some energy in my chest, abdomen and legs. That's how it's appearing to me. Is this when I should be excercising? I know it's a very simple question but some of us (I) are retarded.

>>33828>33829

Sorry for the boring answer, but I'm not sure there's such a thing as a "hard reset" for the body, only varying degrees of (dys)regulation. This is particularly tricky in interpreting your own hunger and energy levels, which have a strong subjective element.

>Being hungry is perversely pleasureable, I'd love to lose weight but this contrary desire to eat while I'm not physically hungry is confusing me.

This makes me think that you've developed a somewhat unhealthy relationship with the feeling of hunger. Try to remember that hunger is an important but imperfect signal. It's not an objective measure that you're losing weight, it's your body producing ghrelin because your stomach is empty. The ideal eating pattern is one where your hunger signals can still usefully signal when it's time to eat, but stop when you've eaten within a range of calories that leave you at a healthy weight in the long term. This state of satiety is caused partly by leptin.

I'm sure you already know that if you're aiming to lose weight, you'll need to be in a caloric deficit. It's often more helpful to think of this in longer term blocks, though, like how many calories you consume over a week rather than a single day. This is because most people's bodies are quite good at regulating food intake (via things like how hungry you feel) and energy expenditure (via things like how much you fidget and move around unconsciously) in the short term. Note that there are some exceptions, like if you're diabetic, but this will hold true for most people.

If you have reason to believe that you are not able to trust your hunger and satiety signals, like for example if you are or have been very underweight or overweight, then I would focus on trying to impose a structure on your eating (e.g. three square meals at least four hours apart adding up to roughly this many calories) and seeing how you feel after following that for at least a week.

If you're not certain whether you're in a caloric deficit, you can make some rough estimates using a basal metabolic rate calculator (https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html), which tells you how many calories you burn just to stay alive, and reading the labels of the ingredients/foods that you use to prepare a typical week of eating. This doesn't need to be completely accurate, only to give yourself a benchmark of whether to scale up or down.

As far as I'm aware, most studies of fasted exercise don't show much of a benefit in terms of losing weight or maintaining muscle. Conversely, it also doesn't show much of a detrimental effect, either. If you feel most energetic when you haven't eaten, then it is entirely up to preference whether you exercise at that time. However, I also think it's very important to start disassociating the immediate feeling of hunger from your long-term weight goals and overall calorie consumption; for those, it's far more important to focus on your food choices and portion sizes.

TL;DR - being hungry is a signal, not a sure sign of weight loss or when to exercise. Fasted exercise is down to preference; it won't cause you any harm, but may not bring any additional benefit. Try to focus on longer-term calorie consumption with a reasonable structure for meal timing for at least a week and see how you feel. You may find that this structure will help you feel satiated

>>33830
Thank you for taking the effort, this is helpful information.

I've been incredibly dismissive of it in the past, but my most recent go at CBT has actually been very helpful. It wrapped up not ten minutes ago, but I'm genuinely in a better place than I have been for a long time, and I think that's in no small part to actually being challenged by my therapist. I think she herself put that down to her being Eastern European, but whether it was that or just being a good therapist, it has been a serious mental restorative to be made to self-examine, and when that fails be examined, in a critical manner. I suppose some people might balk at anything that feels too hostile, so therapists have to walk a fine line in case someone finds it too overwhelming and stops engaging. However, the gently-gently approach has left no impact on me in the past, so I feel genuinely indebted to my most recent mental-heath-helper. And something that's especially odd, given recent discussions on /b/, is that one of my longer term goals we had been dicussing was my moving to Manchester. Don't worry though, my presence there will only drive down rents.

So, with my diet is carrying on as planned, my moderate exercise remaining a daily routine, and my actually having a loose approximation of a social life, all that remains is to get a proper job.

Also, even though I thought she was very attractive, at no point did I lie to make myself look better, so that's growth too.

More of a blog post than anything to do with "minor angst and existential dread", but you've already read it now so tough.

>>33839
>I'm genuinely in a better place than I have been for a long time, and I think that's in no small part to actually being challenged by my therapist.
If you'll excuse the incense, there really is something to facing fears and overcoming appropriate obstacles when you can do so with a reasonably stable mindset. Even without a stable grounding you can probably do some serious development, it's just gonna spin in some wild directions. I can start to understand how people come to believe strange things when you consider the influence of adrenaline (and god knows what else) on the brain whilst it's making new pathways.

It really is about tempering the soul. I too feel I've taken a significant step in actualisation that I've been struggling against for many years. I'm steadily tidying my house, I'm paying closer attention to hygene and I'm tracking my diet. Small things on the face of it but that I've been using these as an anchor for such a long time, finally being free and able to do things without being held back is liberating - the sensation is so light, as though I could lift onto the wind and breeze into a better being.

I'm still scared, but i'm showing more capacity and willingness to develop than I had ever previously realised.

Good on you mate, hope everything goes well and that you can learn from the times it doesn't.

I have been a NEET for about six months. In that period, I've only spoken to my wife, shop workers, and medical professionals. And my mum over the phone. My daily routine has been "wake up, go to the shop, fuck about on the internet, drink, go to bed". Sometimes I played games but I always felt guilty having fun while my wife worked.

I am no longer a NEET, and am waiting on a start date for a job. Good news!

But I'm pretty anxious about going from incredibly antisocial and inactive, to commuting to work in a busy office with hundreds of people in it, five days a week. Had a similar job before, the work was fine, the interpersonal relationships and politics were not. I'm very much autistic. And I forgot how to interact with people.

What's the best way to come across as acceptable and good? I'm not aiming to be the office cool guy. But I know from past interactions with people in jobs I am an obvious sperg and have a bad aura.

>>33841

I wish I had answers but I largely struggle with similar issues. The fact that work has become a social event rather than a professional environment drives me nuts. I switched to working from home around two years ago and am incomparably happier.

If I could approach the whole "office" thing again, and I might well have to in the future, I'd probably either i) come across as Mr. Normal-and-Happy to the greatest degree possible. Drive a boring car, have boring hobbies, feign a love of football, etc. or ii) just put a bit more effort into fostering one or two good friendships that make my work life tolerable.

>>33841
You were able to do it before; you just need to fake it for a day or two till the instincts come back. I assume you've spoken to your bosses and people at any job interviews you had for this job, and they obviously didn't think you had a bad aura or they wouldn't have hired you. When you show up, speak to them and anyone else who speaks to you first, and that's all anyone expects. It won't be that different from speaking to shop workers or hairdressers.

You're probably just nervous because it's a massive change to your routine. Everyone hates that, so if you're as massive an autist as you say, you'll hate it even more. But after a day or two, it'll be fine. If you want a really basic conversation-starter, ask your colleagues if they enjoy their jobs.

>>33843

>It won't be that different from speaking to shop workers or hairdressers.

Not that lad, but I think a fair amount of the low level workplace anxiety when you have some degree of autistic/ADHD/general spergitis tendencies comes from the fact that it is different, because unlike shop workers, you are going to have to see them again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. So it makes the stakes higher not to say some dreadful embarrassing shit, to keep your mask up for longer, to continuously keep the act consistent, and so on.

But this is the main reason I like having a job where I am by myself and left alone a majority of the time. I took a long time to acknowledge and admit it but it's probably the most important part of my job and allows me to function better outside of work, because I have more energy for it.

To that end, the advice I would give to otherlad is to just not worry about over-exerting yourself to "fit in", you'll no doubt have some wank introductory couple of days where you can introduce ourself and so on, perhaps best of to start as you mean to go on and introduce yourself as being a quiet and reserved type and prefer to keep your head down and get on with things, so that way people don't get the wrong idea that you're being rude or aloof if you don't join in The Bantz all the time. Just be as polite and curteous as you would to anyone else, smile and look people in the eye when you do speak to them, and then when you have created that first impression as a nice but introverted fellow you should have an easier time of it going forwards.

>>33842
>>33843
>>33844
My biggest anxiety is the training period. In my last job, a very corporate organisation, there were ice breakers and games played in training that made me want to die. Once I was doing the job it was fine. It was everything surrounding the actual job I'm paid to do that fucked me off. Also mandatory office fun like egg and spoon race around the filing cabinets.

Not saying "no fun allowed", but sometimes people really need to fuck off with """fun""".

The office job I had before my last one was during COVID so lovely social distancing. Working environments make you wish for an eternal pandemic.

I'm not miserable I just hate having to socialise beyond the bare minimum. Sorry.

>>33841
>I'm not aiming to be the office cool guy.
Without any relevant work experience I'd say be agreeable.
Imagine yourself nodding in agreement with your colleges. Laugh at simple jokes, excuse poor taste and give eye contact to people you interact with (they will notice if you don't but it shouldn't be a massive problem if you can glance to the eyes every so often).

Mild topics about the weather, no matter how trite or cliche, are perfect brief introductions to anyone you're not known by name.

>>33844
>unlike shop workers, you are going to have to see them again tomorrow.
This is pretty much why I left work The same cycle of horrible bullying people every day, drilling my head. I went on robotic autopilot, broke down and have been in maintainance since.
I now cycle shops for the same handful of items just to avoid the possibility of meeting certain floorstaff - people I don't actually know, just recognise and vaguely interact with.
That's the worst part for me - maintaining even trivial relations. Especially when on particular days I just don't fucking care.
I think there is something in forcing yourself to interact though - capacity to engage certainly flexes.

>>33847

>That's the worst part for me - maintaining even trivial relations. Especially when on particular days I just don't fucking care.
>I think there is something in forcing yourself to interact though -capacity to engage certainly flexes.

I definitely get what you mean.

It's one thing to make up some bullshit smalltalk with a random stranger, that doesn't take a lot of effort. I'm a lot better at that than I used to be certainly, at some point it just srot of clicked that it's of no consequence so why worry about it? Then I started treating it like a little bit of a game, like I am playing a character, and it felt less painful to deal with. With work people I quite literally don't care, I don't even know the name of more than a handful of my colleagues. I sometimes worry that I might seem like an autist but again it really doesn't matter- I don't need to interact with them at all most of the time. So even if I am vaguely concerned about it in the back of my mind, it's a non-issue, essentially, and I can dismiss it.

But actual friendships are what stresses me out nowadays. Remarkably, I do have friends, it's just a fucking pain to keep on top of being friends; but if I don't, I am unquestionably lonely and very rapidly become depressed. With friends, you have to worry about how long it's been since you last text them, or if it was you who replied last is it needy or rude to send another one, if you want to hang out you typically have to think of some kind of more substantial pretext than just "come sit in my house", you have to remember to take an interest in what they are up to, and on and on and on... It's exhausting.

>>33848
>like I am playing a character
I'm enjoying this an awful lot but I'm finding it difficult to track who I am on any given day. It's not as bad as that sounds, but it has been a necessary consideration.

>With friends.. you typically have to think of some kind of more substantial pretext than just "come sit in my house", you have to remember .. It's exhausting.
I'm getting to the point where I might like to try that as a game, alongside comments to random strangers.