Welcome to the whale fall!

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

Tumblr post: xyz is proof you're irredeemable

Me to my therapist in college way back when: It's awful to admit this but I... I experience xyz. It feels horrific and shameful and I don't know what to do

Said therapist: xyz is extremely common, and it means nothing about you as a person. But since it's making you miserable, here's how you can work on experiencing it less

.

Like, you don't have to wait for the ideal time to start doing things that could make your life better

but "ignore the fear and just do it anyway" is such an unstoppable and inescapable message, but on a basic level it is not true that fear automatically goes away when you expose yourself to the feared thing. Fear goes away when you expose yourself to the feared thing by your own choice and free will (not forced, coerced, or out of resignation because it seems like the only option), and when the experience feels safe enough that it can be a positive or at least neutral experience and help heal the fear.

people are very attracted to the idea that others have problems because they are not strong enough or too weak-willed or sensitive. Many people seem to like to believe that everyone's problems come from unwillingness to "do the hard thing."

As someone who viciously hated herself from very early childhood for being not strong enough, too weak-willed, and too sensitive, I have found that the method of doing things in spite of their "hardness" through sheer stubbornness and pain tolerance only created minimal progress.

"Pushing through" is useful in some circumstances, but using it as a primary tool for facing challenges results in expending enormous energy and difficulty for very slow results.

it's like the modern utilitarian/rationalist thing of designing an outcome that looks best from the outside and then completely failing to consider the fundamental changes that trying to implement it from the inside wreaks upon the whole thing.