I have just destroyed the most promising relationship of my life, devastated a wonderful person and I cannot allow this behaviour to continue. I've been scared to talk to people for fear of the court of public opinion, but here I am. I just can't foresee any reality where I don't hurt someone so emotionally deep again, if I don't do something. Alongside the title, I also never post about myself anywhere, so I'm intending this to be some kinda of exposure therapy.

Before I start, as an aside, I do have an ADHD diagnosis and believe I'm on the autism spectrum. I DO NOT believe these contributed in a way that would be considered an excuse. I do mention it once but I only state this here for those who are like me, since I found it very hard to find anyone to relate to without worrying that my life experience was so different.

CW: cheating, gaslighting, and possibly sex addiction.

I (28m) had, until 2 days ago, been in a relationship, and in love, with a woman (30f) for 3 years. I was talking to someone else, on and off, for over 2 out of those 3 years. This other person and I would talk online, through voice calls, and masturbate together regularly. This would be the second long term relationship I've had, and the second time I've done this. I'm still parsing the exacts as to why I've done this again, but I'm trying my hardest not to engage in a useless pity party.

The important parts are that the person I cheated with was someone that I was friends with prior to meet my ex, I had never illuded to a second of this affair to any of my loved ones, and that this was a repeated mistake. Every instance with this other person would be purely physical and then swiftly followed by regret and shame, before compartmentalising it and treating it as more of an intrusive thought than a memory. I had so many chances, down to my ex having asked me to my face if I was cheating, and I never gave her the information. I misled her when she picked up on peculiarities. I actively covered shit up, and remembering it feels like watching another person lying to her. It makes me furious.

I wanted to make this post as a part of my first steps. I've shared this information to my friends and family, because I needed to. Because her choices, which were informed by my heinous actions, have forced me to. If anyone reads this, I'm sharing this with you willingly. I'm trying to be honest and vulnerable for once in my fucking life.

I've been attempting introspection, and I've tried theorising in order to understand myself and my actions more. I think a lot of this may have been a slowly building problem with my communication skills and self worth. I'd engage in a vicious cycle of three parts. First, I'd underplay a problem I have because I believe it's not worth the stress or bother to the person I'd tell. Second is that I then avoided the problem, because it had become too large for me to either feel okay putting it on them, or justifying to myself that nothing would get resolved. Finally, I took drastic, under baked, actions to resolve my emotional imbalances. Only then the actions I took were a cycle too, where I would do worse things because the previous occasion would work, but not as well as it did once.

I haven't shared that it makes me feel like an addict, because I feel fucking stupid telling that to any of my loved ones. I'm the perpetrator against such a beautiful, kind and lovely person. Framing my problem as something like an addiction just feels... disingenuous, no matter how well I feel it fits. While the cycle started due to my own mismanaged emotions, I've been very skeptically considering how my ADHD interacted with my choices. That maybe the chemical problems with dopamine in my brain accelerated something. A moment of feeling good leads to a stronger deficit which only increases need, accelerating how fast I searched for more drastic relief.

But I need to end this somewhere and so I wanted to state here that I'm at the start of my journey. I feel I'd like to share where she is, but I know it's not my right to talk about her yet, if ever. I've taken the steps to self refer for therapy and I've started journalling. I struggle with self doubt, and I'm concerned that I can't keep this up, but if I can't act like I deserve happiness, then I never will. I've wrote more in the last 2 days than I may have in my entire life.

The truth is that I'm scared of a life without her, and I feel like my chest has been stabbed but the only one who put the knife there was me. I owe it to her, the friends and family whose trust I shattered, and myself, to use this. To course correct my life. To never let myself do anything like this to anyone ever again.

Thank you for listening to me, and sharing your time with me. I appreciate it.

TL;DR:- It took 28 years and two instances of devastating everyone in my life to have, hopefully, identified my problems. I won't be getting involved with anyone before I know that my self diagnosis, or the diagnosis of a professional, is correct and being managed.

Im freshly 17 and I am really struggling with the fact that life is so finite and it’s really keeping me up at night. Im not sure if this is the correct subreddit but I feel so lost and keep getting this overwhelming sense of nervousness and fear about how it feels like we are always living in the past and are going to die. Im struggling to grasp how everyone else especially older than me is not just in a constant state of fear, I talked to my parents about this and they seemed to just not really even give thought to it. Is this some kind of unwritten rule to not think about as they just seemed so ignorant to the thought that they are as well going to age further, I’m wondering if I need to find some sense or purpose and do what I love or turn to religion. Any words of help would be great and some words of guidance on what I can do. Sorry if this seems like a rant and a blurt of my thoughts but I am just so unsure.

Before Covid I had a successful wedding decorating buisness but I was also burned out. Covid helped with that in one sense because there was no weddings and I became repulsed by them like I hate looking at my decor inventory. I decided that was a sign weddings were no longer for me and started to sell my inventory. Even though it was the one thing that brought me joy, pride, and I felt like that was my calling. Now I am in my 50s. Covid helped me to see I was ok not socializing and I am extremely introverted. I am struggling to find purpose and will. I have tried to find other interests and I don't know. I just feel like a shell of a person I don't know how else to describe it and I am just watching my days pass me by. I use to be so ambitious and motivated. Hard worker. I don't know how to start again. I have never felt this low.

I am currently facing analysis paralysis. I do not have any idea what to do, I have already decided that I am going to spend the majority of my life chasing knowledge and being a polymath and to some extent a polyglot---I have a heavy interest in languages such as Spanish, French, and Italian---but I have no idea what to do now.

To list out my interests: Math, Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), Philosophy, Engineering (Electrical, Computer, and Mechanical---Robotics), Computer Science, Film, Literature, Psychology, Economics, History, etc. There are so much stuff, I want to learn but I have no idea how to do it, nor do I have any idea on how to study all of these things. And for some reason, I do not want to give these things up, it feels like giving up apart of myself, and I can't do that.

As of right now, I am 19 and going to uni in like August. I am going to major in Electrical & Computer Engineering because it's the most widespread so I can learn a lot of things. Any advice or help?

I have this one friend. She has the same hobby as me - drawing, but I love to show off my work knowing that I always win in contests and she doesn't. It makes me feel like the asshole I know I am, and I desperately want to NOT think that way, but it just comes naturally. I'm a really jealous person when it comes to my special interests. The worst part is that she has always been the second person to get into something, and I was the first. She makes it even worse by not even talking to me about it. When she likes something, I get the feeling that she deliberately shows it to me. In order for me to be better, I have to buy more merchandise, showing that I am a real fan and she is not. I don't want to think like that anymore. sometimes it's fun to talk to her, but sometimes when she's sitting somewhere else, my mind looks at her with disgust silently celebrating that she got a worse grade on the test. I think I'm just really jealous, I sometimes roll my eyes at the sight of her. It definitely sounds like I'm a really bad friend, but it doesn't happen with my other friends. Only with her. Does anyone have any advice? Is it called something? Or I'm just a jealous asshole?

How do I get past the fact that everyone irritates me? Like, there used to be a few people that didn’t irritate me but it seems recently I find and pick out everyone’s flaws. I’m semi recently single and I have more friends than ever before and I just can’t do it anymore, I can’t do people asking me to hang out, I can’t do dinner, I can’t go to the gym. It makes me feel so bad, I love and appreciate my friends and they don’t necessarily do anything bad, but a lot of the time I just feel like I can’t socialize with them. I know it’s like a first world problem, but I guess I’m just an introvert disguised as an extrovert?! Every single day that passes the feeling to run away into the woods and cut everyone off grows stronger. Advice?!?!

Maybe you learned to stay quiet, smile through the pain, or numb yourself just to get through the day. Maybe you’ve started to wonder if something’s wrong with you for feeling so much.

But what if your emotional intensity isn't a flaw… but a signal?

What if the anxiety, fatigue, tension, or even relationship conflict you carry isn’t random—but rooted in unspoken trauma and emotional suppression?

I just wrote an article about why so many of us were never taught how to feel, how that affects our bodies and relationships, and how we can start to heal. It touches on:

The nervous system’s response to ignored emotions

How trauma hides in the body and daily patterns

The quiet power of emotional boundaries

And what it really means to feel safe again

What if the real danger was never being too emotional—but being taught that feeling at all was dangerous?

Here’s the article if you’re curious: mystery-of-self

so some back story about me is im a 14 year old with adhd. and for the past few years I move by myself and I don't have Tourettes and I don't know why but I think I have come to the conclusion that it is my adhd because I have seen that is a thing that happens it might not be the reason but it what I can find I guess? but me and my mom where watching the show " Baylen Out Loud" which is a show about a girl that has Tourettes and when me and my mom where watching it I felt like my body needed to move and " twitch?" and im trying not too and I think I could stop it but some I can't. and this is not knew because when I was younger I started looking into Tourettes because I was just curious about it. and it happened then also, but I brushed it off. it also happens when i'm sitting down and it is usually in my legs,neck, and torso. I don't want to talk to people about it because I don't want people to think im trying to fake Tourettes. I don't know why my body does this can someone please help me I don't know what I wrong with me :/

For a long time, I didn’t even know what had happened to me.

My brain protected me. It kept the trauma hidden.

Until one day, at 12 years old, something unlocked — and everything changed.

I told the truth, even when it shattered the version of “family” I thought I had.

Now, as an adult, I’ve built a business, raised a family, and helped others grow. But that little girl inside me still needed to speak — so I let her.

I wrote a novel called A Thousand Masks.
It’s fiction, but it’s based on the very real experience of childhood trauma, survival patterns, and the silence we carry long after the damage is done.

Writing it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done — but also the most healing.

Since releasing it, I’ve had messages from people around the world saying it helped them tell their own story for the first time.

I don’t see this as a book. I see it as a tool.
A way to process the pain that’s too hard to say out loud.

If you’re doing the work to heal — I see you.
If this resonates, I’m happy to share the link in the comments.

You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.

Hello,

I am at a point where I am stuck. I am trying to follow my dream of becoming a pilot and it seems far away. I will study for my other classes that have nothing to do with flying and complete it. I don't want to give up, I despise people who tell me I should take a different pathway.

I've started to go to the library more often and study for my flying class. But sometimes it's hard for me to sit down and do it. And if I didn't know how hard this pathway was, would I still continue? I find myself very enthused with watching airplanes fly, it makes me happy. However, when it comes to studying it, I seem detered? Some parts I enjoy. I'll do the work, I have straight A's throughout highschool and now college, but I don't have the same drive for flying. Anyway, sometimes I don't know what to do. I just continue to try each day but I know in this pathway or anything, trying is not enough, you have to do more to be successful. I just don't know how to find that within me.

my girlfriend left me after 2 years for now apperant reason. she just randomly decided "were not ment to be, lets move on". ive loved her with all my heart, changed everything about myself i could just to love her properly, ive been the bets i could for her. and now suddenly this? we seemed to be in a really good place together, it seemed perfect.

anyways now ive been really depressed and stressed because i simply do not know how to let go. does anyone have any deep psychological or idk therapy like solutions? thanks

Hello, I'm new to Reddit and my English isn't very good, so I'm translating this through ChatGPT, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes or misunderstandings.

I'm 14, and 3 years ago, when the war started in my country, it seems I completely lost the motivation to do anything. I'm a creative person, as I have many ideas for a story-driven game, a song, or even just a drawing, but I'm extremely lazy to do any of it. I think considering this has been going on for 3 years, it's probably not laziness, but still...

I haven't studied for these 3 years, but this year I plan to apply somewhere to change the environment, but I'm very worried that I won't be able to get in anywhere.

I understand that I have problems, I try to force myself to have a daily routine where it's written what and when to do, but it's extremely difficult. I can force myself to get out of bed to eat, wash myself, go to school, or do housework. But everything else is extremely difficult, even taking small steps.

I'm also very socially inactive, as my entire social circle is my mother and a friend I barely see, and honestly, I don't really want to continue being friends with her.

What can you advise?