“Back burner”

Post Reply New Topic

My therapist told me she thinks I should put wanting a relationship on the “back burner” and to turn my focus on other things. I just don’t know what to focus on because I find everything so hard to do and I keep seeing couples every day so the reminders of my single hood remain in my mind. I hoped a TMS would’ve helped me have different neural pathways but I was denied it and this year already feels like a failure.

That's advice you've been receiving on here for ages too.

What's another category in your life where you feel improvement can be made? I know you often speak of wanting to make music, so learning a skill related to that might be a good place to start.

Like everyone, you have a list of excuses for why improvements in your life can't be made. Some of those excuses are solid and not likely to be altered (like the need to keep your current location and living arrangements) but some aren't so solid. For example, if you want to make music but don't know how to record, or don't know an instrument well learning to use a digital audio workstation would be a good place to start. Once you've learned the basics there might still be excuses for why you can't, but you've eliminated one of the big ones.

Going to college represents somewhere you can focus effort and try to improve things, but at the same time building a more impressive educational background might not be as useful as it seems if you struggle with job-hunting and interviews.

Of course, the one objective the therapist might not have directly said is, if you make yourself busy you might be more prone to saying 'I don't even have time for that right now' to yourself when your craving for a relationship hits. The long game being to make you better at dealing with that feeling instead of having those thoughts becoming all-consuming.

I feel you on that. I had to put getting a job on the "back burner" cause of my anxiety and depression and also traffic noise. I remember at first I had no focus and felt lost cause I had no idea what to do, then I decided to focus on dealing with traffic noise and depression. The traffic noise has been dealt with pretty much(took about 2 years) but the depression and anxiety is still there.

If nothing else you could focus on dealing with your depression or possibly focus on getting college done(iirc you said you were doing online classes). Just remember that it will take a while, like I said it took 2 years for my traffic noise issue to go away.

I honestly forgot I posted this topic. Depression seems to be erasing my memories.

I’m only taking one college course due to low finances.

I am unable to take my therapist’s advice. I still see couples everywhere despite being told that singleness isn’t bad, I don’t feel like I am actually moving towards being able to get a relationship, and I have been getting asked again by others if I have a girlfriend or if I want children.

What someone on another forum posted to me:

They aren't wrong.

Maybe a little bit blunt at the end, but I mean do you feel you have anything to offer women right now?

And no matter how you slice it, no one wants to be around someone who is constantly negative regardless of why they are that way. I know from experience...

I mean to be honest thinking back about the TMS that didn't end up happening, I was a little concerned you kind of seemed to think people were suggesting getting TMS was to help you get a girlfriend. That wasn't really the point....the point is the potential it could have to help the depression. If you had gotten it no one was suggesting you'd get TMS and then get a girlfriend within the month or even making any promises it would lead to a girlfriend. It is possible if you told your mental health team you wanted TMS to get a girlfriend that may have been part of why they didn't end up approving it.

The goal of mental health treatment is to deal with mental health issues so you are more mentally stable not grant you your wishes in life. That said they may still be more willing to approve trauma therapy which could help and that one as far as I know doesn't really have any side effects so could be better to start with something less intensive than TMS anyways.

I can’t answer your post fully because I am short on time as well as suffering from stomach cramps but the person who recommended me the treatment before turning a 180 on me already knew about my depression about not having a girlfriend.

Can you at least understand why I feel lonely without a girlfriend? I don’t even want to go on my family’s summer vacation like I did last year. My siblings had their wives with them as well as their kids and it was a constant reminder of how I don’t have either and I am at the age where I should at least have a long term relationship. It really sucks to be constantly the odd man out.

Yes I understand loneliness, I have lived it...when I was in highschool and that girl got shot, you know what the vast majority of my classmates did? They ostracized me even more than I was already...no one asked if I was ok and that still hurts a lot like I actually felt unwelcome when I tried to go to gatherings or things for my school to for us to support each other while they were all being nice and kind to each other. That is just one example.

But yeah the idea with any treatment would be that you could be single and see those other people coupled up, without getting stuck on it and comparing yourself to them. Like you could see them and it wouldn't bother you at least not as much. But yeah I can't say I understand exactly what you've gone through but trust me I know its a struggle so don't think I am ever trying to downplay how you feel as that is never my intention.

Also a little bit off topic, but perhaps you might want to look into The Satanic Temple...I just ran across a documentary about it on hulu and I am seriously considering joining or at least checking it out in person already browsing their website. They have a chapter in Austin, Texas. But yeah they do charity work and challenge religious legislation, its pretty cool also it could be a good avenue to meet people and make friends. I suspect a lot of people involved have also felt like the odd one out so could potentially relate to you.

Where you blamed for that girl’s death or was she similar to you and they used that against you?

I just really wish I could post about finally having a girlfriend and proving my detractors wrong. Alliekit was going to help me celebrate but she’s gone now and I will probably never hear from her again. Are you saying I should just give up ever posting about finally getting a girlfriend?

For what I can offer to a woman, I’ve been told my calm nature and emotional attitude should be considered attractive to women. Some have even told me I shouldn’t have any problems so I am confused by the experiences I keep having.

I looked up the Austin chapter but they don’t have any upcoming events listed. Even if I could go, though, I fear history will repeat itself as my experiences with social groups has always been frustrating and disappointing. Even the Meet Up group I used to attend for a few years whenever I made myself go I struggled with and finally just ditched it. The people who went were mostly “bar gamers” and drank as well as smoked like crazy so I was the odd man out. I resisted peer pressure but if I had known it would make me socially isolated, I would’ve laughed off the church morons, school teachers, and my grandmother back then.

Most people also don't have so much trouble getting a relationship, and most people don't go as long as we have without getting a relationship despite our desire to do so. When someone's need (or in some cases, intense desire) isn't met, the need is exacerbated. Most people don't get angst or obsessive or miserable when they're not eating food, but deprive someone of food for a long time and the intensity of their desire to eat will increase

NothingToSeeHere, post: 679646, member: 11596 wrote:

...You've missed the point. The point is to do things without constantly worrying over whether it will lead to a relationship, but instead to find value and enjoyment in your life without a relationship.

There's some truth to this. I don't think people should generally enter situations with their hopes up that they'll get a relationship out of it, particularly if they seem to have below-average success in this area.

But at the same time, a chronic inability to get a relationship despite one's desires is going to cast doubt on their capacity to ever get a relationship, which can lead to them having a fairly bleak outlook of their potentially loveless future, and when you feel as though your future may not be worth living out, it's more difficult to find value and enjoyment out of your life, and what little joy you can find is dulled by the looming prospect of living out an undesirable future.

NothingToSeeHere, post: 679646, member: 11596 wrote:

That said, it certainly will increase your chances of finding a girlfriend in the long term, there is nothing more boring and off putting than someone who constantly angst's over not having a relationship, or puts all their hopes for fulfillment and happiness on a theoretical other person and the opportunity to put their dick in them. As you are now what do you actually have to offer to a woman?

Unfortunately, I think this is true. People who are not able to find a relationship despite wanting one over a long period of time, particularly those who've never or almost never had a relationship seem to often face a frustrating self-enforcing loop wherein they can't get a relationship, which intensifies their desire to get a relationship, but their intensified desire to get a relationship is off-putting to people so they have a harder time getting a relationship, so on and so on.

The more I think about how far behind I am and how my life is running out, the more I feel like I should just commit suicide.

The more you post like this the more I think you should listen to the therapist, forget about the calendar, and just quit worrying about "your life running out" and all that.

Take care of yourself first; charity binds us to attend to our needs then to the needs of others. Going above and beyond is extra-ordinary because it is out of the ordinary. The reason the therapist is saying to wait on finding a girlfriend is probably because of the same thing as you talking about not being able to keep friends...people cannot live with negativity in their lives from other people. You are having a problem dealing with your own brand. Get that fixed first and then see how you ARE, not how you FEEL.

Just because Hard Mode is hard doesn't mean you should quit without saving.

Getting out of depression is hard and painful.
That's because depression numbs us and once it recedes, the pain becomes sharper and more obvious, things become more obviously scary. So the first reaction may be to retreat back to the numbness of depression and stay there.
Additionally, after lingering in depression for years or decades, it becomes the "home", something known and predictable, unlike the chaotic and challenging world outside. The world where one needs to make choices and put efforts and still fail, and need to stand up and go on again and again... that's the world. Yes, it also contains pleasures. Satisfaction. Joy. Love. But it's not made of them. It's made of choices, consequences and randomness.

That's why it's so hard to leave depression for good. While it depraves one of joy, it also makes fear and suffering number. Facing the world after so much time in the darkness requires enormous strength and courage.

I wish you find them in yourself

No she was just friends with the more popular crowd and I wasn't so no one could be bothered to include me in supporting each other. One of the other girls during the lockdown even told me they were surprised I wasn't the psychopath with the gun.

And no I am not saying you should give up on ever being able to come here and post that you have a girlfriend. I hope to see that post someday. But it just can't be your all encompassing focus or it makes a vicious cycle which only actually makes it harder to get a relationship.

Also I'd say a lot of women probably would find a calm nature and good emotional attitude to be good things. Also you do have a car. But like what kind of things would you do with her? Do you at least have willingness to look at moving in somewhere just you and her if things get serious? What kind of stuff would you talk to her about. Also though if you're at home a lot and don't want to look to online dating at all...could certainly limit how many people you'd meet.

As for that Satanic Temple thing, didn't appear there are much public events in my area either looked like they had an upcoming death metal concert but not much into death metal. Anyways though I suspect its not going to be 'bar gamers' who make up the majority of members...seemed more like a lot of misfits according to the documentary. Either way just a thought it was something you could be interested in looking into, not sure if it even is. Seems like you may have to join their fb groups for different chapters to get more info on what they are getting up to if you really are interested.

I just saw the documentary what they were about really spoke to me, and how I felt growing up in forced christianity. So I want to support their cause at least, maybe even become a member but that's me...you may not feel the same, just struck me as people you might get on with since you've felt frustrated about being in the bible belt and all that.

You need to get your obsessive thoughts and depression under control.

If you don't, even if you get a girlfriend, your brain will sabotage you.

Take care of yourself.