Do you feel everything has changed but only in your head?

dxp

Member
I feel like my world has shifted around for me many times, but when I really think about it I realize all the changes are just manic thoughts in my head. I go on extreme mental journeys all over the place for years at a time and in the end nothing much has changed in my personal life just my perception of things.

I kind of find it hard to take because I feel like a different person now but realize nobody else seems to gone on these thought tangents everyone seems more or less normal. It also feels lonely because I feel so different and others aren't going to be able to relate, at least not in the same way.
 

FountainandFairfax

in a VAN down by the RIVER
I spend my life detached. I snap-to whenever life demands, but other than that, I'm in my preoccupied, disconnected inner world. This takes different forms, sometimes it's video games, sometimes it's art, sometimes it's movies, sometimes it's fantasy. You can't cope with social phobia without developing coping mechanisms, unhealthy as some of them may be.

I may not go on the kind of mental journeys you do (honestly, I'm impressed by the idea, of it, though) but I have literally wasted decades of time unhooked and hiding from a very unhappy reality.

Miles of nowhere.
 
I feel like my world has shifted around for me many times, but when I really think about it I realize all the changes are just manic thoughts in my head. I go on extreme mental journeys all over the place for years at a time and in the end nothing much has changed in my personal life just my perception of things.

I kind of find it hard to take because I feel like a different person now but realize nobody else seems to gone on these thought tangents everyone seems more or less normal. It also feels lonely because I feel so different and others aren't going to be able to relate, at least not in the same way.

I can relate to that. Most of my life is spent in solitude and I'm one of those rare people who goes through mental journeys rather than real life journeys. If someone were to ask me what I did yesterday, not that I forget what I did in real life, but the thing that had a deep impact in me more are the mental states that I went through. Like in the morning I woke depressed about something, in the afternoon I felt a fleeting euphoria but then I slumped into depression again, at night I went through a nervous breakdown.

Just right now before typing this post I was in bed wallowing over how much of a social reject I am. My eyes are brimming. I feel you because this is such an emotional aspect of who I am, my whole life revolved around a journey of just me trapped inside my head.
 
I have been told that i live in my head, and i think that may be true. I don't very much like doing things in the real world. And my moods are normally very troublesome to say the least. I have a bit of Asperger's, i'm sure.
 

Kiwong

Well-known member
My head has changed lately, and surprisingly the world is changing with it. Kinda sucks that I waited for 15 years to start to change it around.
 

grapevine

Well-known member
I used to feel like that and also feel like that a little now too. Only difference is that I discovered a little over a year ago how important it is for me to believe that I can do the things that I want and to do that to make a big effort mentally. That I can do anything. To fully believe it and think my life is an open book. Then I can work on those things that get me down to bring me up. Which later, in when I achieve those things, in my mind theres those starting points and I feel like Im actually living so to speak.
Ive gone through ten years and another ten years of passing time with not much to recall of important dates, milestones etc in my past life, I can understand how limiting in the mind it can become.
 
My head has changed lately, and surprisingly the world is changing with it. Kinda sucks that I waited for 15 years to start to change it around.

How did you manage to change things in your head (as old habits die hard)? :question:
The past 15 years for me have been "the lost years".

In the past few days, i have been watching porn online (which i rarely do these days). And i have joined a hookup site. So my mindset is in a very rare place - a place of hope & renewal & freshness. If i do manage to "hook up" with any women, i'm sure it will "blow my stale old world apart". I mean, i've been a hermit my entire life, never having had a social life, a romantic life, ANY life.
 
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lily

Well-known member
I feel like my world has shifted around for me many times, but when I really think about it I realize all the changes are just manic thoughts in my head. I go on extreme mental journeys all over the place for years at a time and in the end nothing much has changed in my personal life just my perception of things.

I kind of find it hard to take because I feel like a different person now but realize nobody else seems to gone on these thought tangents everyone seems more or less normal. It also feels lonely because I feel so different and others aren't going to be able to relate, at least not in the same way.

i also have been feeling differently these days. i've been having these what-if worries in my head and so on for 5 years and it goes round and round in circles i can't stop worrying about the situation so i avoid it. but i think things have gotten better in some ways but not another. you're definitely not alone. but i don't think you should focus on your head too much, you should focus on talking to others and getting out of your head.
 
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Kiwong

Well-known member
How did you manage to change things in your head (as old habits die hard)? :question:
The past 15 years for me have been "the lost years".

In the past few days, i have been watching porn online (which i rarely do these days). And i have joined a hookup site. So my mindset is in a very rare place - a place of hope & renewal & freshness. If i do manage to "hook up" with any women, i'm sure it will "blow my stale old world apart". I mean, i've been a hermit my entire life, never having had a social life, a romantic life, ANY life.

Lowesthand, Medication, exposure therapy mainly. The medication eased my fear enough to enable me to
face the world more often. Instead of avoiding a situation i expose myself to it and face the fear. I do mindfullness, mediation, relaxed breathing.

I'm trying to re build my social skills, which as a hermit myself, I have lost. I use social situations as a way to practise. This time last year I wouldn't go to meetings, morning teas. No I go to them and face the fear. It gets easier the more you expose yourself.
 
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theoutsider

Well-known member
A few years ago I came to realize just how much time I spend in my imaginary world. I had to make a conscientious decision to spend more time in reality. It was kind of a downer at first because I had to come to grips with the fact that I was not nearly as successful, popular or well received as I was in my imaginary world. It took some soul searching but I was finally able to find value in the fact that I was my own unique person who I actually like despite my many flaws. It changed the way I saw the people around me as well. Things change, people (including yourself) do change with time. It might not seem like it, sometimes I feel like my growth stopped somewhere around the time when I was in my mid-twenties but then I'll come face to face with someone who actually is in their mid-twenties, see how they behave and realize I was once just like them but have changed in the years since. It may not seem like it to you at first but I think time and experience changes everything and everybody to some degree.
 

lily

Well-known member
A few years ago I came to realize just how much time I spend in my imaginary world. I had to make a conscientious decision to spend more time in reality. It was kind of a downer at first because I had to come to grips with the fact that I was not nearly as successful, popular or well received as I was in my imaginary world. It took some soul searching but I was finally able to find value in the fact that I was my own unique person who I actually like despite my many flaws. It changed the way I saw the people around me as well. Things change, people (including yourself) do change with time. It might not seem like it, sometimes I feel like my growth stopped somewhere around the time when I was in my mid-twenties but then I'll come face to face with someone who actually is in their mid-twenties, see how they behave and realize I was once just like them but have changed in the years since. It may not seem like it to you at first but I think time and experience changes everything and everybody to some degree.
That's true! After being so damn bored on spw I've finally decided to go out and do things in the real world and now that I'm doing better! :) but if there were things to do on spw I'd still come every now and then or so I thought.
 
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theoutsider

Well-known member
That's true! After being so damn bored on spw I've finally decided to go out and do things in the real world and now that I'm doing better! :) but if there were things to do on spw I'd still come every now and then or so I thought.

I'm glad you're thriving outside of SPW but I hope you continue to be a regular here. I enjoy your well thought out posts and hearing of your experiences. Please don't see your presence here as some kind of failure. Different forms of communication are okay. Some online and some in-person. I think balance is the key.
 
That's true! After being so damn bored on spw I've finally decided to go out and do things in the real world and now that I'm doing better! :) but if there were things to do on spw I'd still come every now and then or so I thought.

I wish i had your "get up & go" lily-j :sad:
(mine "got up & went" years ago)

Can you tell us the things that you do, to help us with ideas for things to do in the real world?
(But i understand if you would like to keep them a secret, as it's for security reasons, which is very important to you)
 
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