JustThinkingAloud

I agree with taking medication to help you while you’re fixing the problems that caused your anxiety. It’s a bit hard to know whether your anxiety has improved while you’re on it. You need to fully understand your anxiety and have ways how to deal with it when it happens without fully relying on the medication. Just be careful not to use the medication to escape and ignore the problems, feeling bad can be a big push to fix things.

Our mind likes to be optimally active. Whenever it’s not fully active, it will fill the void with more tasks, that’s why we have a tendency to multitask. Whenever it’s too busy, you will have problems remembering new information that you’re trying to put in. If you want to fully concentrate on one task make it more challenging on your mind to fully occupy it and use simple activities to analyze and integrate new information eg when I’m eating I’m thinking about what I’ve read and trying to put it together with my existing knowledge or thinking how I would use it in practice. This is as important as learning new information.

Find ways to make yourself happy again, happy moments give you energy and motivation. It might be difficult to start with but when you persevere you'll get there. This is very important, don’t worry about other unimportant things, they might be sucking the energy out of you. Once you get more energy and motivation, then you can deal with the rest of the problems.

What kind of person’s judgment do you go by? It’s good to keep it real and check how other people see us but you need to have a look at yourself through different people’s eyes including yours. I usually look at what I would think of someone else if they did what I do, also what a nice person would think about what I do, what a mean person would think about what I do, what a person that I respect would think about what I do etc. This way you get a number of perspectives and learn what aligns with your personality the most. I wouldn’t rely on one person’s judgment even if it’s just an imaginary person in your head.

Wow, that’s a really good effort. Don’t give up, it’ll be easier next time as you have more experience now and can learn better ways of doing it. Next time, I’d put on a movie that gives you courage, eg some story how people can be happy on their own. And also whenever you start feeling bad, start thinking about and imagining things that give you courage and make you feel better. It will still take some effort but each time you try will make the next time easier and eventually you’ll have no problems at all. Good luck

Can you give us more details? It’d really hard to say what’s exactly going on.

Yep, that’s me, a bit less now, I used to be much worse. It’s just that when someone’s wrong I have this need to correct them, it’s their problem that they don’t like the truth. It’s the truth. I used to have a label “brutally honest”. It started with rebelling against my dad that always got angry with me whenever I proved him wrong. So I did it on purpose, I enjoyed proving him wrong. Now, I realized that I have to choose between honesty and good relationships with others. What is more important to you? When I don’t like someone and want to annoy them, I love being “brutally honest”. When I like someone or need them, I sugar coat the truth when they benefit from it and when they don’t benefit from the truth then I shut up. I like them and respect them so I don’t what to upset them for no reason. Nobody likes to be wrong. Another problem is the rebelling, it can actually destroy your life, you should do what YOU want to do, not what others make you to do. You actually let others influence your actions even if it’s the opposite of what they want you to do. You still do something because other people said something, you don’t do it because it’s your choice to do it. Whatever other people say, you still need to do what YOU want to do, whether it aligns with what they say or not.

Depression is really hard as there’s many causes not just one. The main problem is that you don’t do anything that makes you feel happy to give you energy and motivation so you need to find new enjoyable activities. You are the one that creates your happiness so it’s up to you to find these activities. I know it’s easy to say but it’s you who can fix it, focus on finding new ways to make yourself happy, you can start with something small and then grow it. You might not find something that will instantly be exciting, it might just be interesting to start with and as you do it more and more you’ll start enjoying it more. Or you can even start with something that you don’t mind doing and find more interesting ways of doing it. Have a look at what you enjoyed in the past, experiment, play with things, try all you can and eventually you’ll find something. Just keep looking, trying and experimenting till you find it, most of the people did find ways to make themselves happy so you can too! All the best

I thought I’ll start a thread to lift our spirits and share the things that made us happy today. Share whatever made you feel good or better today. It can be anything big or small, even a tiny progress towards what you want.

Yes, usually when I'm bored or can't make up my mind about something. When I'm in the zone, I'm usually doing something while feeling like it's all happening on its own without thinking. I'm not really sure whether it's what you meant.

Do you have to learn Chinese now? Maybe focus on your business first and once you have time and money then you can learn Chinese.

Have you tried doing things that you enjoy? It’s usually a good start as it’s much easier to keep working on something that you actually enjoy doing.

Whatever you think is real is real. It is possible for your thoughts and emotions to make sense when you want to.

Even if you fix it with her, the parent issue will still be there. So it’s not only about you and your upbringing, it’s also dealing with your parents and their attitude towards her. There might be more hurtful moments for her in the future. How will she deal with that? Can she handle your slip ups now and then even if it’s not meant? Can she handle the constant rejection by your parents? I think that for this to work, you both need to understand what you are getting yourself into. I think you need to have a very honest conversation about this because moments will come were you have to choose between her or your parents. Of course, things can change but it’s easier to be prepared for unpleasant surprise. Personally, I don’t talk to my parents and don’t ever intend to just because they hurt me way too many times and I have no regrets.

Some people might be just in a bad mood that has nothing to do with you. I still think that facial expression is important but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s you causing it. It’s still good to be careful when someone’s in a bad mood because they might let it out on you but you need more than a facial expression to know that they don’t like you. Most of the time you’ll never know. It is reasonably safe to be around people that are in a good mood and have a happy facial expression while interacting with you.

Yes, I'm here and I'm living my life without you even knowing

I’d setup a day when you allow yourself not to have any goals. Just enjoy the day, do whatever you feel like doing and enjoy the life you’ve created. You’re working hard, you deserve a break. I don’t think you’ll lose your momentum because this day will give you more motivation and energy to keep going. You might even be surprised that you end up doing the right things, just in a more relaxed way.

How advanced the new information is? Our knowledge builds up from basics to more advanced. If you don’t fully understand the basics, the advanced knowledge can be quite confusing. Maybe step back and review you basic knowledge to see whether you’ve missed on some information or understanding and then build up from that.

We still need skilled people in the renewable energy field and at this moment it’s something that you can actually do. You might not see the results now but you surely have my appreciation for doing it. It’s great that you want to help people too but as any other profession, it needs a new set of skills that you need to learn before you can do it. Maybe just try to do it first and see how it goes before you make a permanent decision.

Have you fixed the reasons why you were rejected? If yes, then it’s great, you should be proud of that as you have become a better person, a new you that is much different to the person you used to be. If not, it might be easier to fix the cause. Trying to ignore the fact that you get rejected and hoping that it won’t happen again will not work. There needs to be some change. Once you fix the cause, you’ll become a better person for it and will have more confidence that it won’t happen again and can start enjoying your life.

@Harikrishnan Here's pdf and html versions of the book, that might make it easier to read. The questionnaire is an exe file so no, you can't run it on a mobile.

This book and related material helped me a lot when I was going through very tough times. It's really very generous of him that he gives it all away for free. You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression by Tom G. Stevens PhD "You Can Choose To Be Happy" Self-Development Plan The Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ)

Maybe start with what’s real to you. Our thoughts, emotions and actions are real to us.

This is what I do: Have a dream – it has to be the ultimate wish, no compromises, it has to feel awesome every time you imagine it. This is not a goal, goals are more realistic, when you have a dream you shoot for the stars! This gives you motivation and drive to keep going and get through tough times. Don’t worry about details too much, it just has to feel awesome, you’ll work on details as you go. Have next couple of steps towards it – this is what you work on, think about, analyse, learn, research etc Celebrate every progress – your motivation is your biggest energy source, you need to keep feeding it

All up to you!