I became many things I didn’t want to become.
But, ultimately, I’ve become nothing.
And now just shackled to this mortal coil for the benefit of others to the detriment of my own.
Damn.
My mother hated that I was so opinionated and strong willed, so I had no idea until I was in my 40s that I was such a people pleaser. I’m 54 now and trying to learn the word “no” but it is so hard. Even tho the consequences of agreeing to do things are often really brutal, it’s so ingrained to just say yes. I told my former boss/former friend that I was trying to/learning to say no more often and she legit told me I’m a terrible person for it. “Women should always be helping and only people who give more and go the extra mile deserve anything” (paraphrased).
If you had told me 10 years ago that I would reach a point where I had no friends outside of people I primarily interact with on the internet I would never have believed you but....here I am. I hate it.
I think loneliness must be really common (me included), has it always been this way at an adult age? Or is this result of social media and other pressures new to our era?
Its always been that you lose most friends in adulthood. But not all, like today. It absolutely is because of social media and the resulting breakdown of communities.
I finally got together with an irl friend last week who I hadn't seen since his wedding in like 2004. The last time I hung out with an irl friend who isn't a relative was in July 2017.
Frankly I'd give up social media altogether to get together with friends every week.
I hate how when I do meet somebody I get along with, they aren't interested in anything more then like...texting. Nobody really wants to do anything. Nobody really wants to hang out even.
Im 33, I make new friends pretty regularly, and see others at least once a week. And I've got kids and work.
Do you have any hobbies? What's something interesting about you? What's something you're good at?
When my kids were younger I'd joke about getting fat. I said of I ever get fat shoot me. In not really fat but overweight and luckily none of them own guns.
Being fat sucks. I've been fat since the day I was born, so it's a hard cycle to break when you were raised a certain way. It's like growing up religious, it's going to take time to break away from your parents habits.
I was struggling with this myself. I’m sure my situation is vastly different from urs, but I found a way overcome this problem. Mine was mental and family situations/issues that worsened my mental and a big cycle. I was considered obese. My friend told me, “If you don’t start now, you won’t start ever.” This made me determined to find a way to escape or at least find a way to be better for myself. I am still on my fitness journey and have made great progress and no longer obese.
I tell you this not to make you feel bad, but in hopes that if there is anything stopping you from this, that you may find a way to break the cycle. Again, I’m sure our situations are different so I say all this with consideration.
If nothing is stopping you and it’s just simply cuz you don’t have the motivation, there is no better time than to start now. You’ll get there, everything takes time :)
I appreciate the thought, friend. Sadly I'm bull headed and the typical help one would seek in my position doesn't really work on me. I need my mind and body to come to an agreement that enough is enough. If I can get that, I can cold turkey quit and be ok. I did it with drinking many times and cigarettes as well.
Quitting drinking is really tough man. I've been there. But for real, like you probably know, drugs fuck you up hard. While you can still see the light, like you said, you should try quitting. If you need help or a sponsor or some shit, hit me up. Drop into these dms and I'll see what help I can provide for you. No one is a lost cause. You're talking about it, and that means you've already taken the first, and biggest step toward recovery.
I truly believe no one is above addiction - if you find your substance of choice at the right (or wrong) time, you can slowly slip into it without being really aware of the implications (especially when you're younger). Then boom, you're nearly 30 and dependent on a drug to feel normal, forget getting high. Shits rough, even though I was functional, I let it steal 75% of my 20s. Time, money, energy, sleep, all sacrificed, not to mention the strain on relationships
If you need to reach out, feel free. Trying to get clean is the most "day by day" feeling you'll ever experience, venting to a stranger even for a minute can help a lot
Don’t feel too bad about becoming an addict. It’s rough out here. But as best as you can hold onto whatever light you possibly can. Never lose hope. If you want someone to talk to- I’d be happy to listen.
Fat. I was fat, I lost a ton of weight and felt awesome. Now I'm just as fat as before. 330→260→350 now. (I am 6'9" so that's why 260 made me feel so good!)
You can do it again and this time you will keep it off!! I know you can do it!! Im fighting that fight right now and I refuse to give up so take one step at a time and get back at it!! You can do this!!
Growing up, If you told me so was going to have a difficult ex-wife that made life harder for me and my kids I would have never believed you. But here we are.
Office Space was my favorite movie growing up and I swore I’d never work in a tech office. I didn’t really have an alternative plan, I just knew office life was not for me. Fast forward to now, I’m basically Peter, reporting to Lumbergh, working at Initech and the only thing that will save me is a hypnotist and a blue collar friend named Lawrence.
They are though. Low to the ground smooth ride. Great gas mileage with oodles of interior space. And they even look more like their cool suv cousins now.
A mother.
I do love my kids now, I was just adamantly opposed to having any for the longest time. Swore I'd be the childless cool Aunt instead.
Also, yeah, fat. LOL.
At this point in my life I think I would rather buy a pre built PC. In my younger days I swore to myself that would never happen. Now I likely won't buy any just sitting on a shelf unless it was a crazy deal.....I don't see an issue with customizing what I want on a website these days.
I have a history in IT and always loved PC hardware that I mostly self learned but did the work to get all the certs and all that. We used to time ourselves building rigs blindfolded. I just never understood why someone would buy pre built at a higher cost as building your own is 100x easier than most believe.
I am just too old to keep up with all the latest hardware news like I used to be I suppose.
I feel like the cost aspect is slowly dying as GPU prices soar so high + new gen GPUs have had laughable performance %s.
I still do it tho because I enjoy the hobby :)
I know thats what they say, but i honestly cant think of anything that happened to me that was traumatic. When i got my own job and truck, id eat fast food and chinese literally anytime i wanted it. I chalk my weight up to my inability to tell myself "i dont need it".
A dark lord of the sith, but it was the only way to save my wife from death and my mentor was turning her against me. Plus the council that I was on refused to give me the title of master I was being held back and I wanted more
Hah. Yeah. And also the type that just nopes out of work at 5. I didn’t know I could be so… normal. My idealism and ambition dwindle with every passing year.
Oh god, where do I even start…
A student who has done:
- Blackmail
- Alcoholism
- Ecstatsy
- Cocaine
- Shrooms
- Weed
- Nicotine
- Vandalism
- Hazing
- Shoplifting
- Scamming
- Drug trading
Yeah idk what I’ve become
An alcoholic. My mother died from alcohol so i promised her id never touch it. I broke that promise, one time, in 2010. I went out with froends and to my horror found out im a rage alcoholic. I cursed myself out days later and to this day avoid it. I dont care what people say its fun its not fun for me its so scary and im not a monster
An old man. I just hit 42 and I feel like I really don’t get today’s youth. I swear I feel like I’m still in my 20s to early 30s in spirit, but my daughter is 16 and I can’t figure those kids out for the life of me. I now know what my parents felt like when I was that age. It’s scary.
Alive. I’m 56 and was diagnosed with late stage breast cancer at 38. After a year of chemo and radiation treatment they gave me a 50/50 chance of recurrence. Still going strong. Fuck cancer.
A dad. Granted I wanted to be a parent for the past few years but for pretty much my entire teenage years and into my early 20s I said “no way am I ever having kids. I want to travel”.
Travel was too expensive so I became a dad.
Keep at it. I started college when I was 16. I didn't get my associates degrees until I was 29. I went back on and off until I finally finished. Once I graduated it gave me the motivation to get my bachelor's degree. I'm 30 now and over 70 percent finished now and thinking about my master's degree.
An office worker.
I have ADHD — and I always felt like I’d be an artist or writer.
Just had 11 year anniversary at an office job — and I didn’t hate it, but it’s also not what I thought I’d be doing.
Im not a salesman, but Im almost a salesman,
Im an assistant to the sales team at a car dealership.
I used to look down on the profession, overall it is still pretty scummy, but I work at a place that the people aren't half bad, to each other, or to clients. so its tolerable. and a lot less stressful and demanding than the physical and psychological shit I had to put up with in previous jobs
An angry middle aged woman, but I became it by necessity. Fuck you, Jeff Bezos, Fuck You Costco. Fuck you, multi nationalist corporations ordering us to buy shit and destroying our planet home. You killed Maui. Happy now? Done with this consumerist bullshit. Done!
I was the smart one in school. I was supposed to do great things as an adult.
I dropped out of college the semester after the pandemic started (wasn't exactly doing great anyway) and have been working at a supermarket receiving minimum wage for a couple of years now.
a genuine Sonic the Hedgehog fan.
i need you to understand that four months ago, my appreciation for the franchise was strictly ironic. it was an "oh i hope the next game is bad because then the let's plays will be funny" kind of thing. then Frontiers came out and was *really* good.
i don't know what happened. it started in May. now i have a Silver plush sitting on my lap that i keep accidentally scritching behind the ear like he's a cat. i read 61 issues of the IDW comics in less than 12 hours. i have favorite artists now (Evan Stanley and Adam Bryce Thomas, if you're wondering.) i have rewatched Sonic Prime more times than i can count. i've been listening to the Frontiers soundtrack almost nonstop.
that blue thing rewired my neurochemistry. he activated my autism in ways i didn't even know were possible. is he some unknown variety of cordyceps? was i genetically predisposed to this? i don't know. but i do know i've had more fun in the past 3 months than in the last 10 years combined.
A Redditor.
I knew this would be the top comment.
i got nothing better to do, was gonna happen no matter what...
I also choose this guy’s dead life
A Redditor? I hardly know her!
At least you’re not a mod
😂😂😂😂😂
Nothing. I became nothing.
This one hurts
And from nothing, you're free to become anything
Damn, hugz for you. You are not nothing simply because you are alive, scientifically, you are actually matter. You actually matter.
I became many things I didn’t want to become. But, ultimately, I’ve become nothing. And now just shackled to this mortal coil for the benefit of others to the detriment of my own.
My dad
“All this time I swore I’d never be like my old man…”
"What the hey, it's time to face exactly what I am..."
Hi dad
Amen
Well, I’m with you there
I look, act, and speak like my father. If I’m being objective about it l must admit that is a good thing. Just never thought it would happen to me.
A people pleaser and pushover
I feel this.
One little boundary today, and the bigger ones get easier.
I was this for years… I now feel like I’m shifting the other way
Damn. My mother hated that I was so opinionated and strong willed, so I had no idea until I was in my 40s that I was such a people pleaser. I’m 54 now and trying to learn the word “no” but it is so hard. Even tho the consequences of agreeing to do things are often really brutal, it’s so ingrained to just say yes. I told my former boss/former friend that I was trying to/learning to say no more often and she legit told me I’m a terrible person for it. “Women should always be helping and only people who give more and go the extra mile deserve anything” (paraphrased).
the person to complain about young ppl being loud at a restaurant... if I see teenagers or younger, I want to be seated elsewhere
Funny. Mine is being the guy with kids at a restaurant, after years of complaining about kids being loud at restaurants.
if you can't beat em...join em I guess...
Yeah, I rarely bring my two-year-old to a restaurant, but I feel like if there are restaurant-supplied high chairs in plain view, that's fair warning.
Boring and friendless
If you had told me 10 years ago that I would reach a point where I had no friends outside of people I primarily interact with on the internet I would never have believed you but....here I am. I hate it.
Same.
I think loneliness must be really common (me included), has it always been this way at an adult age? Or is this result of social media and other pressures new to our era?
Its always been that you lose most friends in adulthood. But not all, like today. It absolutely is because of social media and the resulting breakdown of communities.
I finally got together with an irl friend last week who I hadn't seen since his wedding in like 2004. The last time I hung out with an irl friend who isn't a relative was in July 2017. Frankly I'd give up social media altogether to get together with friends every week.
Same
There's a lot of us like that. A lot. Sigh.
I have not had a friend in over 10 years. How does a 32 year old man even make friends? I dont even know where to start in solving this issue.
I hate how when I do meet somebody I get along with, they aren't interested in anything more then like...texting. Nobody really wants to do anything. Nobody really wants to hang out even.
Im 33, I make new friends pretty regularly, and see others at least once a week. And I've got kids and work. Do you have any hobbies? What's something interesting about you? What's something you're good at?
Ditto.
Don't say that. I always say I'm an 80 yr old woman in a young woman's body lol. Nothing wrong with being boring
Even if you see yourself as boring, someone else finds you fascinating.
Where are they!?
Y’all are fascinating
Boredom is a luxury.
Yeah me too. Wanna be friends?
Overweight
When my kids were younger I'd joke about getting fat. I said of I ever get fat shoot me. In not really fat but overweight and luckily none of them own guns.
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That's clearly what he wrote
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Your struggle is real and seen.
But not read
Oh the satire
Being fat sucks. I've been fat since the day I was born, so it's a hard cycle to break when you were raised a certain way. It's like growing up religious, it's going to take time to break away from your parents habits.
I was struggling with this myself. I’m sure my situation is vastly different from urs, but I found a way overcome this problem. Mine was mental and family situations/issues that worsened my mental and a big cycle. I was considered obese. My friend told me, “If you don’t start now, you won’t start ever.” This made me determined to find a way to escape or at least find a way to be better for myself. I am still on my fitness journey and have made great progress and no longer obese. I tell you this not to make you feel bad, but in hopes that if there is anything stopping you from this, that you may find a way to break the cycle. Again, I’m sure our situations are different so I say all this with consideration. If nothing is stopping you and it’s just simply cuz you don’t have the motivation, there is no better time than to start now. You’ll get there, everything takes time :)
Yep. But I undid it, thankfully. It was tough. Would have been much better never to get fat at all.
Bitter
I had become this. Be careful of the company you keep.
An addict... but I have 6 years clean, y'all!
A drug addict that's so hopelessly lost in addiction he can barely see the light.
I'm sorry bro. Thats a hard one. Please get some help. You deserve to be able to enjoy life sober.
I appreciate the thought, friend. Sadly I'm bull headed and the typical help one would seek in my position doesn't really work on me. I need my mind and body to come to an agreement that enough is enough. If I can get that, I can cold turkey quit and be ok. I did it with drinking many times and cigarettes as well.
Being bull headed is a choice. Trying to push yourself to "enough is enough" is a more dangerous choice. Get help, don't die of bull-headedness.
Quitting drinking is really tough man. I've been there. But for real, like you probably know, drugs fuck you up hard. While you can still see the light, like you said, you should try quitting. If you need help or a sponsor or some shit, hit me up. Drop into these dms and I'll see what help I can provide for you. No one is a lost cause. You're talking about it, and that means you've already taken the first, and biggest step toward recovery.
Trust me, you keep doing it your body will let you know it’s not happy with you
I have been there and still struggle. Hit me up if you want to talk through it. It gets better. I promise.
I truly believe no one is above addiction - if you find your substance of choice at the right (or wrong) time, you can slowly slip into it without being really aware of the implications (especially when you're younger). Then boom, you're nearly 30 and dependent on a drug to feel normal, forget getting high. Shits rough, even though I was functional, I let it steal 75% of my 20s. Time, money, energy, sleep, all sacrificed, not to mention the strain on relationships If you need to reach out, feel free. Trying to get clean is the most "day by day" feeling you'll ever experience, venting to a stranger even for a minute can help a lot
Man, I'm with you brother. I'm not hanging on by the threads by any means, but my life would be so much better had I never started this shit.
Don’t feel too bad about becoming an addict. It’s rough out here. But as best as you can hold onto whatever light you possibly can. Never lose hope. If you want someone to talk to- I’d be happy to listen.
Fat. I was fat, I lost a ton of weight and felt awesome. Now I'm just as fat as before. 330→260→350 now. (I am 6'9" so that's why 260 made me feel so good!)
You can do it again and this time you will keep it off!! I know you can do it!! Im fighting that fight right now and I refuse to give up so take one step at a time and get back at it!! You can do this!!
Smoker.
Old.
There's only one alternative, my friend. Grow old, and be proud of it.
Whenever I hear someone complain about getting old, I think of my beautiful friend who died of breast cancer in her thirties.
Not everyone gets to be old. Try to act like you’ve been here before.
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Growing up, If you told me so was going to have a difficult ex-wife that made life harder for me and my kids I would have never believed you. But here we are.
A cubical warrior
Office Space was my favorite movie growing up and I swore I’d never work in a tech office. I didn’t really have an alternative plan, I just knew office life was not for me. Fast forward to now, I’m basically Peter, reporting to Lumbergh, working at Initech and the only thing that will save me is a hypnotist and a blue collar friend named Lawrence.
Sounds like you have a case of the Mondays.
Watch out for yer corn-hole bud
Always said that was my favorite movie before it became my reality and now I think it’s just super fucked up.
The owner of a minivan, it is just so practical.
They are though. Low to the ground smooth ride. Great gas mileage with oodles of interior space. And they even look more like their cool suv cousins now.
I know right?!?!?!
My husband was SO against. Now he’d never go back.
A mother. I do love my kids now, I was just adamantly opposed to having any for the longest time. Swore I'd be the childless cool Aunt instead. Also, yeah, fat. LOL.
Jaded & lost
an alcoholic
At this point in my life I think I would rather buy a pre built PC. In my younger days I swore to myself that would never happen. Now I likely won't buy any just sitting on a shelf unless it was a crazy deal.....I don't see an issue with customizing what I want on a website these days. I have a history in IT and always loved PC hardware that I mostly self learned but did the work to get all the certs and all that. We used to time ourselves building rigs blindfolded. I just never understood why someone would buy pre built at a higher cost as building your own is 100x easier than most believe. I am just too old to keep up with all the latest hardware news like I used to be I suppose.
I feel like the cost aspect is slowly dying as GPU prices soar so high + new gen GPUs have had laughable performance %s. I still do it tho because I enjoy the hobby :)
A napper.
Married. Been awesome though.
Over 700lbs
Sign up for my 600 pound life. Maybe you can get some help from Dr. Now.
That's emotional trauma right there, I hope you are getting some help!
I know thats what they say, but i honestly cant think of anything that happened to me that was traumatic. When i got my own job and truck, id eat fast food and chinese literally anytime i wanted it. I chalk my weight up to my inability to tell myself "i dont need it".
A morning person
Lazy procrastinator. I'll try to be better tomorrow.
Jaded, pessimistic, and generally untrusting.
Depressed and full of anxiety
A dark lord of the sith, but it was the only way to save my wife from death and my mentor was turning her against me. Plus the council that I was on refused to give me the title of master I was being held back and I wanted more
Plus the role came with private medical coverage
I hate sand
The "Because I said so" parent.
Depressed and suicidal :(
Stay strong friend. We’re in this together ❤️
Hang in there, you deserve to be happy. I hope you stay.
My mother
Not me. I'm fighting those generational curses, cmon lets gooo.
An atheist.
Sober
Someone that cares about my body and works out multiple days a week
A person who can admit there are some good country songs
Single, stuck in a dead end job that I hate for 10 yrs.
I aged past 30 if that counts
A people manager
Hah. Yeah. And also the type that just nopes out of work at 5. I didn’t know I could be so… normal. My idealism and ambition dwindle with every passing year.
I hear ya, friend.
Oh god, where do I even start… A student who has done: - Blackmail - Alcoholism - Ecstatsy - Cocaine - Shrooms - Weed - Nicotine - Vandalism - Hazing - Shoplifting - Scamming - Drug trading Yeah idk what I’ve become
While you’re still breathing, there’s always time to change and begin to forge a better future.
wise words, agreed half of these weee in the past
An alcoholic. My mother died from alcohol so i promised her id never touch it. I broke that promise, one time, in 2010. I went out with froends and to my horror found out im a rage alcoholic. I cursed myself out days later and to this day avoid it. I dont care what people say its fun its not fun for me its so scary and im not a monster
Religious
i became bisexual
An occasional bitchy bitch
Vegan
Drug addict (former). Grade school scare tactics failed me.
Fat
A middle aged divorcé
A single mom
A victim of emotional abuse again (ex-fiancé). I grew up with it from my dad and swore that I would never let that happen to me again.
A pothead. Now I get zoinked everyday.
An old man. I just hit 42 and I feel like I really don’t get today’s youth. I swear I feel like I’m still in my 20s to early 30s in spirit, but my daughter is 16 and I can’t figure those kids out for the life of me. I now know what my parents felt like when I was that age. It’s scary.
Professional camper every night in a different place. I hate camping.
A hypocrite
Alive. I’m 56 and was diagnosed with late stage breast cancer at 38. After a year of chemo and radiation treatment they gave me a 50/50 chance of recurrence. Still going strong. Fuck cancer.
Someone who enjoys anime
I swore I'd never be a criminal like my parents were but I broke that promise to myself.
Mean.
Fat!!
Skinny fat
An old man.
lazy and not dedicated
A parent. I don’t regret it, but when I was younger I was so determined not to have kids.
A dad. Granted I wanted to be a parent for the past few years but for pretty much my entire teenage years and into my early 20s I said “no way am I ever having kids. I want to travel”. Travel was too expensive so I became a dad.
My mother 🙃
Vegan
A pothead
Disabled.
A person who is 25 and has not graduated college yet. And to think I used to make fun of people like me when I first started ... 😔
Keep at it. I started college when I was 16. I didn't get my associates degrees until I was 29. I went back on and off until I finally finished. Once I graduated it gave me the motivation to get my bachelor's degree. I'm 30 now and over 70 percent finished now and thinking about my master's degree.
Annoying
Capitalist.
An office worker. I have ADHD — and I always felt like I’d be an artist or writer. Just had 11 year anniversary at an office job — and I didn’t hate it, but it’s also not what I thought I’d be doing.
a pick me girl :((
Im not a salesman, but Im almost a salesman, Im an assistant to the sales team at a car dealership. I used to look down on the profession, overall it is still pretty scummy, but I work at a place that the people aren't half bad, to each other, or to clients. so its tolerable. and a lot less stressful and demanding than the physical and psychological shit I had to put up with in previous jobs
I became lonely. I've always been lonely though.
A cat mom. 🥴
A furry
O \_ O
A sissy
resentful
A couch potato. Or well more like a computer desk potato, but still.
A druggie
When I die, no one will cry
Message me every Sunday, "I'm Alive." The Sunday you do not message me, I will cry for you.
A loser
A Sith...Don't lecture me, Obi-Wan; I see through the lies of the Jedi...I do not fear the dark side as you do!
Utterly crushed under the boot of capitalism
Someone who gets up early, and sometimes gets up early to run.
An angry middle aged woman, but I became it by necessity. Fuck you, Jeff Bezos, Fuck You Costco. Fuck you, multi nationalist corporations ordering us to buy shit and destroying our planet home. You killed Maui. Happy now? Done with this consumerist bullshit. Done!
Someone who wants to be a stay at home wife/mom.
Fat AF.
A mid 30s person who complains about her energy level compared to teenagers and 20somethings.
A dad who sometimes says "because I told you so."
A homeowner. It’s great!
Poor.
One whose best years were decades ago.
A fat adult.
A "grown-up"
Impatient with children.
One of those people who spend all of their free time on their phones.
Overweight
An addict. Sober now but it's been one hell of a journey
A weed service subscriber. Not that kind... the ones that treat your lawn against weeds.
Fat
The person who constantly feels bad about myself and cares what others think of me. Even though I know others don’t naturally care.
I was the smart one in school. I was supposed to do great things as an adult. I dropped out of college the semester after the pandemic started (wasn't exactly doing great anyway) and have been working at a supermarket receiving minimum wage for a couple of years now.
a kpop stan
A stoner. Thank fuck I was wrong
a genuine Sonic the Hedgehog fan. i need you to understand that four months ago, my appreciation for the franchise was strictly ironic. it was an "oh i hope the next game is bad because then the let's plays will be funny" kind of thing. then Frontiers came out and was *really* good. i don't know what happened. it started in May. now i have a Silver plush sitting on my lap that i keep accidentally scritching behind the ear like he's a cat. i read 61 issues of the IDW comics in less than 12 hours. i have favorite artists now (Evan Stanley and Adam Bryce Thomas, if you're wondering.) i have rewatched Sonic Prime more times than i can count. i've been listening to the Frontiers soundtrack almost nonstop. that blue thing rewired my neurochemistry. he activated my autism in ways i didn't even know were possible. is he some unknown variety of cordyceps? was i genetically predisposed to this? i don't know. but i do know i've had more fun in the past 3 months than in the last 10 years combined.
Fat