How can one genuine GREAT day break your cycle of "happieness"

Hi all. I just need to get this out of my head. If anyone have some advice or anything to add, feel free. It will be much appeciated as I feel stucked and I just want to bang my head against wall.

Yesterday was just perfect and today I feel so drained. I feel empty inside and I feel nothing. I feel scared and useless and not worty. I dont even know why. I just want to stop all that and especially todays misery.

Yesterday I had a date, it was nice, both of us had great day (at least I think she had great day too, as signs of feeling bad were not there). Maybe I did some mistakes but I was genuine and she was too IMO.

Now I feel like shit. I did not do much today, as I felt exhausted after yesterday (on feet, driving and hiking from 7AM to 10PM). I am going to do some workout, even if I dont really want to, but I need to start moving or else my thoughts and depression will kill me today. I feel so alone, I am thinking whole day today and I am practicing present moment and I did not do any overthinking so excesively in few weeks and I even took afternoon nap. And it is worst day in last 2 months and if I will not count relapses then it is worst day since October last year.

How the hell can one great day with someone who you see for the first time change mindset and mood that much?

I am not saying that I felt instant connection or something, but I felt so alive yesterday. Today I feel like dead inside. Until yesterday I was completelly perfect (in some sort) with my conditions, like having stupid lockdown here, being alone, not having SO, working on myself and having troubles with dating and socializing.

Yesterday I broke that cycle and I just dont know what happend. I feel like I went 4 months back or even more and not clearly seeing what I achieved so far. It all like blured somewhere far.

Thanks for at least reading this, as was initially not planned to write it here, but I feel that if I write it just for myself, it will not help me.

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  • We often tend to catastrophize. Things are usually not as good as we think they are/were, and things aren’t usually as bad as we think they are/were. Don’t worry about the feeling- go sleep, and tomorrow morning you’ll wake up and laugh about how you felt today.
  • There are few things as wonderful as loving and caring for someone. Don’t underestimate that. The social touch is really powerful.
  • Practise gratitude. I note that you referred to the lockdown as ‘stupid’. While the lockdown may be annoying or inconvenient, it is certainly not stupid. Maybe get into the habit of gratitude journalling daily, else practise gratitude meditation.
  • Some days, life feels perfect, other days, it just doesn’t seem to be working. Don’t worry, just keep living.

Good of you to post this- I agree, putting thought to words often helps clear the mind and clarify what and why we think about. Maybe reflect on why you are really feeling like today was a bad day.

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Well I did not laughed, but I felt better. But I need to break that and stop worrying about future and past. I mean I did good for last few weeks and just one good day and then snap back to reality and bad old habbits came so quickly, that I did not even notice them. How is that possible :confused:

Yeah I got carried away by my emotions. I am partially happy about lockdown as without it I will not have that great success with self development and carrying about myself as I have now. But its a bit annoying when I decide to do something with my life and I already started to notice some changes and figuring out patterns and started to socialize more (as this is one of my issues) COVID came and my whole part of that life is now postponed. And sometimes old “habbits” or patterns crawl back and I feel like sh*t.

Do you have some hints, because I tried that in past and I am quite pesimistic person so find positive stuff in life is quite hard for me. It was almost each day the same things and I always thought about something big, not like simple small things like “today look like it will be sunny day”.

You mean think about what I feel and why I feel like that. I get it, I wrote it down to my journal and then thought about that during my evening meditation (I figured something out I guess), but I kinda knew that already. I knew that I aready felt something to that person, but I did not know why, so let me explain. I figured out that I was emotionally attached to day before yesterday (THAT day) as it was WAY out of ordinary and also I was partially attached to person with whom I spent it as that person is asociated with that day (seems logic to me). And yesterday (day after THAT day) it all went so quickly from unordinary to ordinary that I lost myself. I basically fell from a sky so quickly that I broke inside.

Also I still have strong social programming, even tho I know it is not ideal to follow “rules” as they are just rules created by someone. Also my strongest “society programing” part is find SO (thats why I think I broke down), but I am not enlightened enough to overcome this “programing”. I know that I should be able to be happy alone and have full life and then SO will be the ultimate thing as it will just add more to your life. I know it takes time and practice and determination to be that person and cope with all of that and even then you might not achieve that state.

I want to be that person, but sometimes these old stuff and habbits and feeling and “programing” crawl back and beat me. I thought that I already have some resistance to them as I can see my progress, but apparently not.

IDK if there is any advice for that TBH :slight_smile:

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The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
- Robert frost

This poem completely matches your situation.
You know ,a sudden event can change your whole mode completely. Good day and bad day are totally dependent on your mood. Someday you feel Happy for no reason but another day you feel drained. Don’t think too much about them.

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The first thing to do is to get out of this mindset. How are you planning to do noFap if you still consider yourself to be a fapper? Believe that you are an optimistic person and act like one.

If you need someone else to make your day feel special, that’s wrong, mate. Happiness is a choice, not a matter of circumstance. That’s why you can see a beggar smile and a rich man cry.

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Well heres the thing. As far as I know, I am pesimistic if and only if I overthink stuff. Then I dont think too much or I am generaly present in the moment, then I dont feel anything. I mean I am not pesimistic, but not optimistic too. I take stuff as they come to me.

But if I start to think, I tend to think about bad case scenarios if I feel depressed or dont know what to do next, which is like 70% and whats left is good case scenarios if I am happy or expect something new or am enthusiastic about something. So basically my view of things is shaped by my current mood, but mostly pesimistic. As I am quite neurotic person and I have high withdrawal aspect (I took big 5 aspects scale test by JB Peterson).

I was very happy for last weeks as for most of the time I lived in present, so I felt almost nothing. I took things as they come to me. At Sunday I started to think too much and I spiraled down to being pesimistic.

I know that be pesimistic is bad and I would verry happy to be optimistic all the time ot at least when I am thinking as I am totally ok with being without emotions when I am present.
##### But I dont even know where to start. Or how to start to practice that

Hope it is not written to complicated :slight_smile:

PS: Here is something about what is withdrawal
Individuals high in withdrawal may feel above average levels of anticipatory anxiety. This makes it much more challenging for them to approach new, uncertain, unexpected, threatening or complex situations. They are instead substantially more likely to avoid or withdraw in the face of the unknown and unexpected.

People high in withdrawal much more frequently feel sad, lonesome, disappointed and grief-stricken. They have higher than average levels of doubt and worry, become embarrassed easily, are self-conscious and strongly tend to get discouraged in the face of threat and punishment. Their anticipatory anxiety is likely to be general. They are sensitive to social rejection, and can be relatively easily hurt. Once hurt, frightened, or anxious, as well, it takes them longer to recover. They can be argumentative and lose their composure. They can be provocative in a dispute (particularly if also low in agreeableness). Perhaps people high in withdrawal are concerned that something bad might happen, while people high in volatility (the other aspect of neuroticism) get upset if something bad does happen. Technically, withdrawal has been associated with activity in the brain systems that regulate passive avoidance.

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I just have one thing to say, and you may not like it, but all this is in your head.

No offence, but it seems like you are fishing for things to defend your current mindset, when in reality it;s just your mind trying to stay the way it is. No one likes change, but change is life. :slight_smile:

Practise gratitude meditation or journalling. I don’t have to say anything more here, the rest is up to you. Don’t make excuses, make improvements.
(I have to do the same too :D)

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Hi @koaxicek

I can relate to some of the stuff you are saying about being neurotic, doubtful and all. As @debellator suggested regularl journaling and meditation will be definitely be helpful.

Don’t get too much into labeling of things optimistic and pessimistic. Overly optimistic people become delusional and overly pessimistic people become sad and fearful. Just take life situations as it is.

Also the type of personality you are describing it comes with certain positive benefit. It’s not entirely negative.

Regularly talk with people. Sometimes we create illusions in our mind. Talking to others helps to break it.

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I have this high and low situations. It still comes sometimes. When you feel like this just understand it’s just your mind creating illusion. Just rest and do the stuff. Don’t get disurturbed by it. It will pass after certain time. The more you will react to it the worst it will become.

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Well I did not mean it that way. What I meant was more an explanation, like acknowledging that this mindest can exist, but I did not meant that it is any good.
I know that my mindset can be changes, I did it for few weeks FFS and I was happy with almost every situation. I was not even mildly depressed.

I think what happend was, that I had some expectations from that date or I just fell for her and I felt so happy afterwards so I was eager to repeat it and get another “boost”, but I knew that it will not be soon so I fall into the “thinking” pit. Which is not good, any of it. I mean fall for somebody is fine, but you should still be rational especialy if it is forst time you are seeing somebody. And logic and everything seems to go away for day or two.

It all started as normal convo and I did not even think about something more, it was basically pleasant and enjoyable conversation, but at some point it switched from my side to something more and there was where I got caught.

Does it even make sense? I know I moved into different topic now, so apologies for that.

So basically what you are saying is treat it same way as thoughts during meditation? Acknowledge it as “something” or just illusionic situation and move on, dont act on it, dot even try to think, just do something else and it will go away?

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Exactly bro. Like thoughts our emotions are also transient. Anxiety, feeling pesimistic all these are our state of mind can be triggered with anything. But it will pass away if you don’t give it much attention. If you react in those states then things will become more bad for you.

Also I got 2 questions @debellator @anon65589122

  1. I do journaling for almost 4 months, but IDK if there is right or wrong way to do it. Is there something specific, what I should write about to practice graditude journaling (if thats even a thing).

  2. What exactly is gratitude meditation. I know about gratitude prayer or something like that, when I should say to myself or think abut few things that I am gratitude about. Because IDK if I should repeat that, or just think about them for few minutes or what Is that it, or is it something different?

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Then thats what I did totally wrong, I loose up guards and started to thinking about it, firstly positivelly and then overthinking kicked in and then I was screwed.

Thanks a lot :slight_smile:

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I am not journaling expert. I have started recently. @debellator may give you more advice. But in my jornal I try to write what things currently worrying me. Can i fix it? Then I write few thoughs and events about the day.

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@anon65589122 @debellator

Hi guys, I just want to inform you that I slowly returned back to my “zen” mindset. Although I am not totally there, but close. It took a bit, but I am glad that I did not lose myself at all. I also returned to my old evening routine - turn off pc and all devices at 9pm and start before bed preparations (brushing teeth, journaling and meditation) at around 10pm. I was neglected it and maybe that had small impact on me as well, to “lose” myself.

Also @debellator do you have some notes for “graditude journaling” ? Just asking.

Thanks for all guys :slight_smile:

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Gratitude journalling can be as simple as you want it to. Simply make it a point to write 3 things you are grateful for, everyday, either first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

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