Depressed/Want a Girlfriend

[tree]

She thinks it’s not helpful because it’s rumination and not being mindful nor focused on the present.

And what do you think?

 

[Markness]

And what do you think?

It makes me feel awful and sometimes even makes me want to cry. I just can’t find a way out.

 

[Markness]

I wish my detractors would stop wishing for me to remain single.

 

[tree]

I wish my detractors would stop wishing for me to remain single.

Where do you hear this exact statement being made?

Last I knew it was your mother saying that.
There's other people saying it?

 

[Tony Ramirez]

My mother keeps telling me "if it's meant to be, it's mean't to be". It's becoming annoying because she says to get over it.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

She thinks it’s not helpful because it’s rumination and not being mindful nor focused on the present. I am in the “dorsal stage” too often.

That's mental masturbation and not good for you. When you are mindful and in the present you can change your vibe and have confidence to take opportunities that you may run into. I swear, women are sensitive to how you present yourself to see if you are boyfriend material. The more in the present you are, the better that presentation is. The day I knew my future spouse and I were falling for each other is one I was very much in the present, enjoying our time together as a gift. That set the stage for me to profess my love for her and have it returned.

 

[MildredHubble]

I agree rumination can be bad for you. The problem is that for some people it's very difficult to break out of it. My mind ruminates almost all the time, but it really depends on what it "chooses" to get focused on. It can be something positive, like a project I'm working on or something I need to get done and positive solutions will present themselves. If my mood swings low, the rumination can become stuck on negative things.

It can be the backbone of a person's psychology and a form of analysis that helps them function. So trying to stop isn't going to work very well. In my experience, finding positive things to get your mind stuck on can help. It's the "switching tracks" that is difficult.

I try to encourage myself to start things I have wanted to do for a while. Like creative projects, for example I just recently bought a better digital camera as my phone can't keep up with taking pictures of cool things I see and want to capture. I've always like the idea of photography but put it on the "to do" list. It occupies my mind and gives the negative rumination less space.

Picking a task and trying to focus on it doesn't work very well for me. My brain just focuses on the task while simultaneously bombarding me with the negative stuff. This can make me more anxious.

I've come to realise that I can't do much to impact this and spoke to a mental health specialist about anti anxiety meds. Thankfully at long last they have given me some and they do seem to be helping, but it's early days.

I believe @Markness said they were seeing a therapist or were hoping to see one soon in a previous post (sorry if I'm misremembering). I think Markness needs to impress upon them that they may need some extra help to break this cycle. Sometimes this may mean medication is necessary, but not necessarily forever. In conjunction with other therapies things might just start moving in a positive direction.

 

[Aspychata]

Your mom isn't really an emotional support. I understand financially she is there for you. You will kinda of need to tune her out. Just live your life. Get out of credit card debit is good too. Are you still in college?

 

[Markness]

Your mom isn't really an emotional support. I understand financially she is there for you. You will kinda of need to tune her out. Just live your life. Get out of credit card debit is good too. Are you still in college?

I am taking an online summer course. My return to college has been disappointing so far.

 

[Markness]

Your mom isn't really an emotional support. I understand financially she is there for you. You will kinda of need to tune her out. Just live your life. Get out of credit card debit is good too. Are you still in college?

I wonder why college has been so underwhelming for me socially.

 

[Luca]

I wonder why college has been so underwhelming for me socially.

College was also very underwhelming, and even turbulent, for me socially.
I made most of my close friends outside of a college setting, as well as online.

Obviously most of the time it isn't good to put all of your eggs in one basket, and college is a lot more challenging and troublesome socially than people say it's going to be.
I genuinely don't believe (from my experience anyway) that college is really the best or easiest place to make friends.

I would actually encourage you to go to more concerts and live music events, because you already met one person, you will meet more

 

[Markness]

College was also very underwhelming, and even turbulent, for me socially.
I made most of my close friends outside of a college setting, as well as online.

Obviously most of the time it isn't good to put all of your eggs in one basket, and college is a lot more challenging and troublesome socially than people say it's going to be.
I genuinely don't believe (from my experience anyway) that college is really the best or easiest place to make friends.

I would actually encourage you to go to more concerts and live music events, because you already met one person, you will meet more

Back in 2006, when I discovered that I was on the autism spectrum (I was diagnosed before then but my parents didn’t explain things to me.), I remember a doctor telling me college would be better for me socially than high school was. I hoped she was right but I got disappointed when I actually got there.

Why did you struggle so much socially in college?

I thought I wasn’t going to make it to the Godflesh show this Sunday but fortunately my car’s brake pads got replaced yesterday!

 

[AdamG]

She thinks it’s not helpful because it’s rumination and not being mindful nor focused on the present. I am in the “dorsal stage” too often.

What I do, with thoughts that are self harming to me, and want to stop thinking like that. I don't try to remove the thoughts, or make them go away. This doesn't help and then makes me feel like I failed. So, I let the thought through my head, I just tell myself "well that's just an old pattern that hasn't been deprecated yet" and do my best to ignore it. This does help, though it can take me several weeks. But eventually, the thought feels "neglected and ignored" (or, the neural pathway linkages with other thoughts weaken from disuse) and to a large extent goes away, or at least becomes much less frequent.
.
Not sure if this would work for you or not, but just wanted to share my experience.

 

[Markness]

What I do, with thoughts that are self harming to me, and want to stop thinking like that. I don't try to remove the thoughts, or make them go away. This doesn't help and then makes me feel like I failed. So, I let the thought through my head, I just tell myself "well that's just an old pattern that hasn't been deprecated yet" and do my best to ignore it. This does help, though it can take me several weeks. But eventually, the thought feels "neglected and ignored" (or, the neural pathway linkages with other thoughts weaken from disuse) and to a large extent goes away, or at least becomes much less frequent.
.
Not sure if this would work for you or not, but just wanted to share my experience.

My therapist has brought up similar explanations and advice to me.

 

[Markness]

Where do you hear this exact statement being made?

Last I knew it was your mother saying that.
There's other people saying it?

Some users here have said that to me.

 

[tree]

My therapist has brought up similar explanations and advice to me.

And?

 

[Markness]

And?

I find it difficult to not think about my struggles. I get so many reminders of what I don’t have in my life.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I went to college with limited funds lived on a farm crappy summer jobs farmers do not have to pay minimum wage
money made in summer had to carry me through the remainder of the year.my first budget was $25 $18 for rent remainder for food. socializing was not on my radar. Made one friend he approached me. The way the college worked only the top students were allowed to go to third year. two classes of 70 started. after second year had to pick stream My new friend and I both took both streams concurrently picked engineering in third year only five of us graduated. My new friend and his family let me live in his basement. room and board for second year. then my new friend and I went to my graduation party for high school. Meet a classmate of mine started dating, got her pregnant. so, she moved into his parents' place. I was on my own again. meanwhile my parents sold farm. bought hardware store. Worked summer there. I concentrated on college. Truth be told I used mt student aid money to buy a stereo system. And some albums as I was so good at living cheap.

 

[Markness]

I remember back in 2006, someone on another forum reached out to me because he thought my struggles with being depressed and not having a girlfriend while being 18 years old were like his own. He called himself an older version of myself except he apparently got over the struggles in getting a girlfriend. He offered to talk to me directly offsite and claimed he could send me “stuff” to overcome my “girl problems.” But I didn’t take him up on it. I wonder if my life would’ve gone differently if I had?

 

[Markness]

When I am at work, my feelings of loneliness over not having a girlfriend do not get put aside. If anything, they get “louder” in my mind and so many things reinforce the thoughts. Most of my co-workers are in relationships themselves, I have to check out items to couples, I see items about romance as well as sexuality, and I get flashbacks of past failures, especially when I originally volunteered at the library and was worried why I didn’t have a girlfriend when I was 17-18.