Oh to be fair I'm quite insufferable and a total dick head in real life, I have just worked on my personality/soul a lot as of lately.
Losing 1) my cat, 2) my ex/best friend of five years, 3) a family member, and 4) an IRL friend all in a ten month span in 2019 kind of...humbled me beyond belief and made me realize what's really important w/ life...that we're all into this together, we're all someone's mom, dad, son, brother, etc and it can't hurt / can only help the planet to help one another out.
I know, it's like I drank the Liberal KoolAid™ that the leftist American crowd are selling.
I also realized any problem/issue I have with the "non-me" (physical outside world, inorganic, organic, human or other species) is largely a problem I have with myself, and part of escaping reality through nirvana is learning to let go of all resentments, non-joy/acceptance feelings. I have worked on this a lot (not because I'm buddhist, I'm not, but just because it intuitively made sense to work on acceptance in the truly fullest sense I could).
I still have a way of repelling others. It might be splitting type behavior i.e. "love me or hate me, I can't interpret anything in between" so people quickly gravitate to "ally" or "foe" with me. There's little in-between because I largely despise basic social discussions of "how's the weather" and such. I don't know how to read into small-talk codespeak (and quite frankly I can't tell if people asking me questions are them being ignorant, friendly, or hitting on me, it makes me feel like I just want to be alone more for no reason in particular). Even though I enjoyed the last random social interaction I had, it was hard. Ugh.
And you're right I need to be MY OWN cheerleader, and the BEST I can do is, when I get really down on myself I remind myself:
That I'm grieving over four things and
I do have at least four good things going for me (three if you count the rest of family + close friends that are alive and well, one real life thing, another real life thing and IRL relationship).
And I know it's a Christian cheesy saying but when a door is closed, a window tends to become opened through the power of air displacement/gravity due to good insulation
Or maybe god's doing it, I don't care. All I know is, some windows opened and a breeze of fresh air came in
I also try to remind myself, when I'm having bad thoughts, that this is a part of my mental disorder (ptsd, depression) and that it's OK to get negative, to have the thoughts, to cry, but repressing it wasn't / won't work for me, I just have to move through them and remember that there's a happy future in it for us all.
It helped me this year to admit those four losses were the #1 triggering thing for me, and it wasn't triggering me directly to lose, but was so devastating I wanted to die, very badly for about 8 months and I had to use drugs or would have sought suicide out, this is how bad my mind was. THANKFULLY I didn't use bupe/heroin during this point in time; the one bane that would have re-delivered me to 12+ months of withdrawal. But I'm still not proud of 2019. I did not live a fully sober life (even ignoring marijuana/shatter) and I was no role model for the community, and went out of my way not to post about my insanity / issues here so as to be able to rotate out of it when I felt able, and I since have.
Oddly because an amazing in real life relationship started budding *while* I was finally getting over being suicidal, I don't even want drugs now. I just want my friend and if I can't be with them I get devastated but I basically just get depressed not drug seeking without him. It's odd; I used to be a DRUGS over PEOPLE person, and.... it switched, very quickly, over night. I've been in love before but this is ... undoubtedly the real thing to the max.
My #1 suggestion is to hangout with real life people in the real world, they will appreciate you more. Nothing wrong w/ reaching out online but there's just a lot of toxicity. Sometimes just having like a 2 minute flirty conversation with a check out lady (YES I am very gay but will still flirt with the ladies!) at a grocery store or retail store is all I need to feel a confidence boost. I go in there with zero game, zero agenda, and just let it happen, then cheerfully continue on my day knowing I've still got... at least some of "it".
I WOULD BE going camping but, it's 12/31 about to be 1/1 which means DUI CHECKPOINTS and LONG BOUTS of traffic. If I wait a few more days ALL the camping spots will open up and I can be there practically by myself :D I truly am aiming to get away for a few days, maybe just one or two, and get nature in my body again.
To be fair I'd go out today but I still have a nasty, fucking awful flu cough/hot/cold sweats and that's not a good sign, I've been resting for OH MY GOD IT'S A TUESDAY AGAIN? THREE WEEKS? I HAVE HAD THE FLU FOR THREE WEEKS? Wow. Yeah, so I have my reasons for hunkering down tonight LOL but if I had a HEALTHY, non-flu ridden body I'd be packing up for a camping trip *Right now*.
Even if all you can afford (I'm on a budget at the moment, I get it, it happens to us) is more like a few miles walking around the city/country side, go for it, you won't regret it and it'll be nice and afterward you'll feel like your "world" has become bigger. When our "world" shrinks down to a small room, a cell, a singular point, it tends to have two types of outcomes. Good, if you're hyperfocusing on making a work of art by blocking out the real world. Or, bad, because typically people feel "lonely, stuck, imprisoned" etc. where they are without being able to move about.
So just try to stay mindful of what you're doing, and how it makes you feel, because you deserve to feel good and you're a cool guy and I'm sure others would totally love hanging out with you in the real world
sometimes it's hard to find similar interests. Literature/book clubs at a coffee bar is more my thing. Others like video game friends/groups, friends to go camping with, friends to go see the movies maybe once a week etc. A once a week friend can really help add a lot to ones week.
Again these are my simple things i've done to try to build up a better life *tiny bit* by *tiny bit*. Maybe none of these really work for you, maybe they all do. I imagine something does because you're a cool enough guy and I can imagine some of these working for you.
