The Shame Monster's reign of terror over me is starting to crack. He scurred now.

Life update: got a frenectomy today. That is all.

Damn you waited this long? Had one done quite a while back. Good times

Working on social skills with my therapist today. She has an idea for an exercise she wants me to do. You go somewhere with lots of strangers around (train, grocery store, restaurant, etc) look at people and basically start wundrin' about them. Come up with questions about their life and personality. Like "I wonder where that guy is from, I wonder where he works, I wonder where that woman got those fuglyass shoes and why she thought they would look good."

I guess the point is to think more about other people so that you'll obsess about yourself less and not be as self conscious. I'll give it a try and report back.

Estimate how many of them are plugged and report back.

Yeah this is dumb and doesn't help my social anxiety at all. Maybe I just need a Buddha Box.

I'm not on bumble or tinder anymore. Dating or even thinking about dating just makes me start obsessing about what other people think about me. Or in H&F terms: wondrin' about what people are wondrin' about me. I don't see a way for me to date that won't make me insane with anxiety and self consciousness. **** it. I have a new hobby anyway. I'm gonna talk about that in my House of Blogs thread tho.

Ugh...I used to have that exact crippling anxiety, worrying about what others saw when they saw me, as weird as that sounds. I just always hated attention focused on me.

I hope it lessens. It did for me.

I’m off to find out what your new hobby is.

Went to my therapist on the 20th. I got a decent ab workout from crunching my stomach so hard trying not to cry. Everything sucks right now.

- I'm still mad at myself for how the last 2 jobs turned out.
- I expect the next one to be another terrible decision, so I'm afraid to look for jobs.
- I'm getting low on money from not working for 4 months.
- People are asking me to come to family holiday gatherings that I don't want to go to.
- I'd like to be able to tell my family it's not that I don't like them, it's that I can't stand being in the same room with my mom because she's a pervert weirdo. This will never happen.
- I can't date anymore, even though I want to, because it ****s with my brain too much and I can't handle it.
- I don't want to talk to any of my friends because I'll just annoy them and bring them down.

I spent the last 3 days mostly in bed. Intense suicidal thoughts. Didn't go outside. No lifting. Eating about 500 calories/day. All you fatties out there should consider The Depression Diet. Who needs will power when you don't care about living anymore?

Sup H&F. Fresh out the loony bin. I was easily the fittest person there, aside maybe 1 staff member. More info in house of blogs.

Body is ****ed from inactivity, lack of sleep, and hospital food.

Krunic 2019. This is my life now.

I've been following that thread in House of Blogs -- didn't know whether it was appropriate for me to post there, but I was sorry to hear about what happened and glad to hear you've come out the other side at least a little bit. Let me know if there's anything I can do. Best wishes. We're pulling for you.

Carbs for anxiety:

+1 to Monte's sentiments, Krunic.

You probably could make a career in writing.

Been taking St. John's Wort for 10 days. I think it's helping. No side effects.

It's currently mid-afternoon and -13F/-25C here.

Lifting again. Soon I'll be leg pressing 500lbs with only one hand.

Took the SJW for 3 weeks, it started making me tired all the time and wasn't doing much so I stopped.

My old boss texted me last night and we agreed that it's great to be not working in a restaurant on v-day. Worst ****ing day of the year always.

I heard an interesting theory about anergic depression from an evolutionary angle. When you have a goal that feels impossible to achieve yet impossible to let go of, your brain shuts down and makes you tired so that you won't keep wasting time trying to do it. It's from an interview with a psychiatrist on The Mental Illness Happy Hour. The whole interview was good: https://mentalpod.com/archives/5082

This theory makes sense to me. Sometimes absolutely everything I want to do feels impossible to achieve and impossible to let go of. Even the simplest daily tasks.

Have about 2 months of living expenses left. Will need jerb soon. This is my life now. Krunic 2019. See you.

Got a job at another Italian restaurant. The pastry chef is a guy I worked for in 2011 for 3 months on an unpaid internship. He's chill and a great chef.

We're starting to get 40+ degree days on the regular. Winter is almost over, and this was a rough winter for me.

I saw my therapist 2 days ago and right when I sat down she commented on how positive I seemed.

A few weeks ago I binged the netflix shows Russian Doll and then Maniac on consecutive days. They're both brilliant and illuminating, despite what a few emotionally stunted philistines in the LC thread would have you believe. Too bad for them.

Both shows have a similar theme, but very different styles. They're about examining our patterns of destructive thoughts and behaviors and how to break them. The patterns we learned in response to trauma or ****ty parenting in order to protect ourselves. The patterns that hold us back from becoming the people we want to be.

I've had a very consistent pattern of relationships with females since age 13-14, and it makes perfect sense now. My goal has been to get the type of relationship I wanted but never had with my mother: unconditional love and support, someone to talk to and feel safe with. Why have I always felt threatened if I sense a woman is attracted to me? Why would I rather go shoe shopping while talking about my feelings than go on a normal date with a woman I'm attracted to? Because any kind of sexual or romantic relationship would ruin the chance of getting the relationship I really want. If anything, a sexual relationship might even remind me of my actual mother.

I relayed this insight to my therapist.

Her: That's really interesting. Maybe it would help if you worked on repairing your relationship with your mother. Are you still opposed to having your mother come in for a session?

Me: Yeah

I'm at a steady plateau with life. Jerb is k. One of the pastry sous chefs quit a few weeks ago. I didn't consider asking to get the promotion. Going from cook to sous chef is not really much of a promotion. Sous chefs work ridonkulous hours and get paid about the same in terms of hourly. At this point in my life I can't handle much more than 40 hrs/week, and I don't need the money anyway so **** it.

The only reasons to be a sous chef are if you really really really need the money and can afford the time commitment, or if you're trying to be an exec chef/pastry chef as soon as possible. I don't understand how sous chefs don't kill themselves or go on mass murder rampages on the regular. Spending more than about 2 years of your life as a sous is insane. I think it's a little known fact that sous chefs do by far the most work in a kitchen. I've been in kitchens where the exec chef does like 10 hours/week of actual work, although it's not a coincidence that was the most poorly managed kitchen I've ever worked in.

I haven't had any severe depressive episodes since getting out of the psych hospital. Which is nice, but I still don't know how to really live the life I want.

I still don't know how to stick to a routine of eating well, lifting, sleeping normally, and maintaining good mental health.

I see the N1 show got canceled. That's facking bullsheit imo. He's an H&F legend and will never be forgotten. N1, if you're reading this:

I'm trying to piece together the chain of events and possible causes of a hypomanic episode. It began around july of 2017, then gradually eroded and turned into the severe depressive episode which led to my hospitalization in january this year.

The hypomanic symptoms included constantly feeling unusually energized, lack of sleep, hypersexuality, and obsessive repetetive sexual thoughts.

The most significant consequence of the hypomania was destroying a solid friendship with a woman I'd known for about 4 years. This happened through having a 3-day bizarro text exchange which involved me being super horny and needy and her jerking off in the bathroom of the daycare center where she worked (she said she was thinking about me going down on her and had to cum). Then she eventually ghosted me, understandably, after she'd had enough of my manic aggro neediness.

Not long after that I purchased used panties from 4 different women on Reddit. I have absolutely no explanation for this, other than that it seemed like a good idea at the time. It's not a fetish I've ever been into, before or since. I made the purchases by sending amazon gift cards from my real account, so I'll have those in my purchase history until the end of time. So that's just great.

I recently read the book Anatomy Of An Epidemic which should be required reading for anyone and everyone who is or has ever taken psychiatric prescription drugs. I learned that SSRIs are known to cause manic episodes within 2 years of withdrawal. According to my logs, I stopped taking Lexapro 6 months before the hypomanic episode began. I had never experienced anything resembling a manic episode before then.

The investigation is ongoing.

I'm never going to tell somebody to discontinue any psychiatric medicine or anything like that, but I'm glad you're keeping an open mind and approaching psychiatric drugs with some skepticism. I don't know exactly what you believed before, but I had the impression you were perhaps less skeptical and more willing to believe the guy in the psychiatrist's office before. TLDR, this **** is dangerous and toxic af and I don't think medical professionals really accurately disclose this to patients and seem to prescribe these a bit too readily.

Good look with your recovery; hoping you start a proper lifting log as well.

I've had a cold/flu (I don't know the difference) for 4 solid weeks and finally feeling better today. My imune system is trash.

Today I will resume lifting. My body feels stiff and weak, because it is.

Got a bill for $4400 last week from the psychiatric hospital. Astute readers might realize this is 11 months after I was in the hospital. Health care in USA#1.

I called the hospital and we worked out a plan in which I'll pay them $200/month for the next 2 years. Pretty sure N1 will be wealthier than me for the foreseeable future. This is my life now.

After a few years of trying to lift on a regular basis, it's clear that I: 1) get derailed very easily, and 2) have consistent patterns of derailment. One thing I've done consistently is keep logs of all my lifts (plus other things like mood and sleep quality). Every year around early-mid december I stop lifting and don't start again until early-mid january. This is from the anxiety and dread of the holidays having such a paralyzing effect on me that I just shut down and have no energy.

I also get derailed whenever I get sick. I've gotten sick 3 times since starting my current job 10 months ago. Every time, I'll be too sick to lift or go to work for maybe 3 days, but then it takes me another 2-3 weeks to start lifting again, just because I lost the momentum and starting up again feels overwhelming.

My lack of a clearly defined training program also makes it less sustainable. My training program would best be described as a combination of bro splits and doing whatever I feel like on any given day, with no planned rest days. This causes me to go way too hard on days or a series of consective days when I feel good and have plenty of time, then I get burned out and quit shortly after.

I need a more formal program but don't know what to do. I like Jeff Nippard's recent videos about full body 5x/week training. I think that might be more sustainable for me, as long I keep the volume low enough at the beginning to not get burned out and quit. I like how it's designed to never make you super sore in one muscle group.

Any other ideas are welcome.

Mental health has been good. I've been listening to a podcast where they were talking about psychedelics and how they help you look at life in a different perspective. I think maybe doing acid or mushrooms or whatever else might help me be less grumpy and cynical all the time. I've never done any drugs so I don't know how to get them or what to do.

Financial situation is ok. The stock market went down a bit today and I'm rooting for a big crash. I had to sell all my stocks late last year and early this year to cover living expenses and medical bills. 2019 was the first year in a long time that I didn't have any money to invest, so of course the market goes on an epic heater. I don't like it when other people make money and I don't, so I want everyone else to lose their gains now.

I've been reading books about trauma and why talk therapy doesn't really work for trauma. Traumatic memories are stored in the body, it doesn't heal by just talking about it. If anything talking about it makes it worse. I want to try EMDR or some other therapuetic techniques.

I don't see any logging.

3x a week much better for beginners, 6x a week full body for pros who recover fast. He talks about it in one of the videos. Nice job finding a legit Natty who knows what he is talking about, I am impressed bro. Guys like Nippard and athleanX are true Natty superheroes.

My upperbody recovers super fast since it's more advanced, i am trying to hit it up 3+ times a week. Lowerbody is weakish so I only hit it up 2 times, with a goal of getting to 3x.

I know Nips said he likes 3x/week for beginners but I don't really get what the difference is between doing 3 or 5 days/week as long as the volume is the same. His program is like 5-6 exercises 3x/week, I've been doing 3 exercises 5x/week. I like the 5x/week plan better because it feels like more of a consistent routine that I do every day when I'm working 6-7 hour days, then sat/sun are off days when I work 8-9 hour days. Then mondays I'm off work so it's easy to jumpstart the lifting routine again.

If I can maintain this for at least 5 weeks (on week 4 right now) without getting derailed for whatever reason, I'll start gradually adding more.

Also in semi-related fitness news, I've decided to start playing tennis again after a 20-year break. For two reasons: 1) this chick I know who currently lives in CA said she really wanted to start playing tennis, when she was in town for xmas she said she wants to move back to chicago this summer. I suggested we should be tennis buddies. 2) There is a super crazy Ukrainian line cook at work who likes tennis. He's super annoying, always repeating nonsense he hears on fox news and talking **** about how he's the best at everything. He's also a compulsive liar, saying he has 5 kids and that he's a lawyer during the week (he only works weekends at the restaurant). We're all pretty sure he's actually a paid Russian troll/spy. He's very spazzy and unathletic, and I'd like to beat the **** out of him at tennis, Seinfeld vs Milos style.

I got layed off on March 15th. I have no idea when or if I'll have a job again. The entire month of March I was paralyzed with anxiety and depression and hardly did anything. The two weeks after I stopped working were the hardest. Getting out of bed was a challenge every day and some days I didn't.

Last week I was able to get on unemployment, and get my brain stable enough to start lifting again. I don't know how long the government money wil last. I've been saving my amazon boxes in case I need to move back in with my parents soon.

The weights feel about 20% heavier than they used to. It's the weight of fear and uncertainty.

On saturday I had a dream about a gay couple who were quarantined in their small apartment in a country where martial law had been declared. There were military and police stationed on every street and if you went outside you'd be immediately stopped, questioned, then only allowed to proceed if you needed food or medical attention. The couple got along ok for the first few days then gradually started arguing more and more. The need for space and alone time denied by circumstance. The relationship deteriorated quickly, turning every interaction into a heated argument, then eventually becoming violent. One day a fight got out of control, and one guy accidentally kills the other in a fit of rage.

He panics. He feels terrible for the crime he committed and wishes it never happened. But he doesn't think anyone would believe it was an accident, because of all the blood, and the bruises on both their bodies from previous fights. He'll have to dispose of the body, but how? There's no way he can risk going outside. The only option is to dispose of the body and any evidence from within the apartment. At least no one else will be coming over to hang out anytime soon.

Maybe I'll write a novel about it.

Lifting music has been mostly alternating between old school dimmu borgir and asagraum.

If I don't have income, I'm homeless, I'm living in a refrigerator box. You spoiled #$%#@%!