Denying your fear is not helpful. Fear is good. Fear is life.

Brain & mouth: "I have no fear. I have no fear. I..."
Heart & body: "what is he talking about? FEEL THIS!"

A mantra of "I have no fear" when you are in fact soaking in anxiety sounds like a perfect recipe for disassociative events.

"my fears are only my fears"
"I want to be braver. I am braver. I am brave enough to..."
"I am willing to be afraid and behave very well."

But I don't know what to do then. I feel like fear is holding me back. If I could only annihilate my fear I think I would be able to accomplish anything.

I feel like I should call the Jedi Temple and warn them of what's about to happen

LOL. Ok you got me there.

But seriously, I know what I'm capable of. Back when I started university I was very nervous at first, and genuinely felt terrible. But then I started reading stuff on the internet, essentially looking for self-help, philosophy, whatever I could find to make myself feel better. I found some good resources and over the course of a week I transformed as a person. I proceeded to cruise through my classes effortlessly, like it was nothing at all, and often scored the top or near the top marks on all of my exams. I literally felt like a god.

I want to be able to activate that again, but it's been several years since that happened and I have failed at every attempt I have made.

I think one of my problems is that I'm too damn skeptical of everything I read. I don't think I'll ever fall for some self-help "life is special, just believe" bull**** again, but it's almost a shame that I won't. I think I'm better off blindly having faith in something and going out and getting results, as delusional as that seems. The more I think about it, the more I realize how great blindly religious people have it. Humans aren't meant to be critical of stuff like that; they're meant to just have blind faith.

I'll probably just start taking drugs or something, I dunno.

You probably can accomplish anything nullspace. You'll never know if you don't try. You will surprise yourself I promise.

"They are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense of both the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger"

Thucydides

nullspace, when you feel rage building up tell yourself "focus on what I can control, stressing about things beyond my control is not productive"

At least that's what I do.

Well I can't control anything.

So no anger, ez

Edit: Holy crap you've solved it.

Edit 2: nevermind. temporary solution is tenporary

Every solution is temporary. **** this

Seriously, go outside and take a walk. Right now. Nothing scary about that (I hope).

Go see a therpaist or psychiatrist.

Definitely exercise. But I mean, you are completely stuck. You gotta get unstuck. Thinking and talking don't unstuck anything. Only DOING gets you unstuck. Until you make some sort of mental/emotional gestalt switch, you'll stay stuck. Until you make a real switch you can for sure pretend you are a different person. Pretend you are someone who exercises. Pretend you are someone who goes out and does things. Pretend it's research, act like it's your last day on earth. Whatever you need to go do stuff and try doing things.

Also, this was lol not really true but I mean, that doesn't mean trying to get into "being a pua" will be helpful:

The solution is that there is no solution. You can't solution an emotional state, you have to do stuff to change it and eventually reprogram your subconscious - which at some point you (or something or someone else) has programmed it to make you think your worthless and make you act like a little bitch.

True good point. It's quite obvious, and infuriating at the same time. Obviously I have caused my mental state to be this by all the actions I have done in the past. I have spent years telling myself to avoid certain situations and I have essentially destroyed my confidence. Now that I've realized how big of a hole I've dug myself in I am overwhelmed by how much climbing I have to do to get out (unless I take drugs).

Honestly man it sounds like you want things to change without doing anything.

And forget the drug addict idea. That's a pretty hard life. All that will do is tap every resource you have today and then those of the people that care about. Then you'll be doing 3x as much work as a degenerate fiend as you would have had you just started going for a couple walks as suggested. The fiends around here do a lot of walking.

Just stop rationalizing and philosophizing and over-analyzing your situation and get started on something. Anything. It's like the Nike slogan, "Just Do It." Notice it doesn't say anything anything like "Just Think and Talk About Doing It."

Look just make a plan to go for a walk tomorrow. Lay out some workout clothes for that all ready the night before. Get up an hour earlier than you normally do to get really for the day. This means going to bed early enough to get a good nights' rest, whatever your schedule is, so you'll want to get up at all.

So then when tomorrow comes you get hell up, throw a cap on and grab your ipod, and just go for a stroll for about 45 minutes. From there just jump in the shower and start your day as normal. Do it for two weeks and you'll have accomplished something, which in this case getting a lethargic depressed guy (yourself) to walk a couple miles a day. That's hard to do.

Make a plan to take a walk tomorrow, as LOL as that sounds, is pretty good advice for OP I suppose. I thought he could just go out and take a walk right now but it's possible "taking a walk" requires planning and preparation for him. Scary thought.

OP are you on board with this taking a walk plan? It's the babiest of baby steps but at least it's something.

Well I think what I'll do tomorrow is walk or take the bus down to the bank (I don't drive) and get some cash. And then when I get home I'll exercise for an hour using the equipment I have at home (elliptical machine, dumbbells, abdominal machine). I'll probably do at least 30 minutes cardio (with HR monitor), rest on weights. A couple months ago I was into exercising and I sort of made up my own little plan based on some reading I did on the internet, but I got bored of it and stopped.

Don't take the bus. Walk. Seriously, it has value for someone who spends almost all his time sedentary as it appears you do.

Nothing is holding you back. Not your hard feelings, and not your difficult thoughts. Nothing is preventing you from doing what you need to do. So do it.

Stand up. Walk out the door. Walk around the block. Be afraid while you're doing it. Be sad. Be angry. Be happy. Whatever, doesn't matter. But do it.

Only you can stand you up. Only you can walk you out the door and around the block.

Do it. Now. **** tomorrow in the goat ass.

are you a crazy person?

I was in a bad mood.

It appears that you're agoraphobic. If the gym is too busy for you, how the hell do you deal with a crowded college campus where people actually push past you?

That being said (and I'm aware this is girly, but it builds on quite a few responses), read 'The Secret'. It's about positive thoughts and drawing positive energy toward yourself. The happier you are, the happier you will be, essentially. You will inherently attract people in your daily interactions because people want to be around positive people, and they'll associate you with the positive chemicals released in their brains when they're around you.

Finally, I take HUGE offense to your drinking comment. Are you ****ing kidding me?!? That's like me not dyeing my hair because eventually I'll have to re-dye it, or not working out because the results aren't permanent. YOU NEED A SHORT TERM SOLUTION to build your self confidence! The confidence you develop from alcohol-aided (NOT FUELED) social interactions will give you the confidence you need to be less of a weirdo while sober.

ETA: Also, the fact that you feel the need to 'break things' while losing at Starcraft means that you may just be immature and childish. Might be one of the reasons you have trouble dealing with other people - you feel like you're better than them because of your 'superior intellect', but they feel that you're immature because...you are. I genuinely felt sympathy when reading your OP, but reading all of your responses to OOTers' well-thought-out responses makes it pretty clear that you are like a fat person who wants to magically lose weight without changing anything about their lifestyle.

Re agoraphobia: Well I think I have social anxiety. I guess the two could be indistinguishable in certain contexts.

Re The Secret: I saw the movie a while ago. Today I'm pretty much convinced it's bull****. I agree that something like that could work, but I'd have to be more gullible than I am now. That said, I can be very gullible in certain contexts (partially due to being a social ****** and unable to detect sarcasm), but I won't be fooled by the same thing twice.

Re drinking: Of course alcohol is useful in social interactions, as long as alcohol is appropriate for that particular social interaction. Of course a short-term solution can be used as a stepping stone into the long one. What I was trying to get at is if I'm nervous about being a cashier, for example, then it is clearly not appropriate to drink alcohol to cope with that, hence alcohol not being a "way of life" (or what I should have said, a "way of coping with life"). You really don't need to take offense; I'm not criticising alcohol use.

Re your ETA: In restrospect my responses to some of the renowned OOT posters are pretty bad, and pretty clearly immature and douchey. In my defense, obviously it's hard to get smacked in the face with the truth. Everyone has defense mechanisms set in place (some more than others), but in the long run I think I can see past my instinctual self-defense as long as I permit myself to be challenged. One problem I have (that my psychotherapist brought to my attention) is that I keep my thoughts to myself too often, which prevents them from being challenged and replaced with more realistic thoughts.

now i like you again good that you're speaking to a therapist - i had an eating disorder for years and a therapist is what finally helped me to get better.

how do you have money if you don't have a job?

Anger is something you will be much more prone to when things are not going well in life. The longer you have had it rough the more likely you are to have irrational angry reactions to stuff that is rather insignificant. The more you have irrational anger the worse things get which just feeds the cycle.

That is what sucks about being on a downward trajectory -- once you are on it you are pretty much stuck unless a fluke event happens or you choose to force a change. You can't sit around waiting for a fluke event so just go out and exercise and get small victories. The exercise will help with your mood and anger and the small victories will get you going the opposite direction and this time the feedback loop is actually a blessing as it will help you stay in an upward trajectory.

When I'm down, reading about how other people are down makes me slightly happier. Plus this guy is legitimately agoraphobic.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15..****-dr-1123196/