[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]TX iron wrote:
buying weed high[/quote]
Genius!!
My advice…for what it’s worth.
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Buy some used, adjustable db’s and start training with them about three times a week. Do a routine which revolves around: Suitcase deadlifts (db squats), db swings, push-ups, db rows, db ohps & pull-ups (if you have somewhere to do them). This kind of routine won’t turn you into a Mr Olympia contestant though it will be a decent starting point for adding strength & size…+ it should give your confidence a much needed boost.
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Keep a diary OR (as a like to think of it a ‘Mind Dump Log’ of your feelings). This will help you to realise how ultimately TRANSIENT much of your feelings are…Plus, in the future, you will almost certainly look back you wrote & laugh at some of your mawkish ramblings.
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Only smoke weed after you’ve taken care of business (ie, applied for jobs, trained etc).
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Consider counselling, if, even after taking some of the advice in this thread you still feel like shit warmed up!
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Consider applying for jobs where having good communication/social skills are paramount! This can be hugely beneficial for young, shy & or introverted types.
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With regards the whole: Women only go for big muscly dudes thang, as others have pointed out, this is complete codswallop. Dudes, primarily lift weights & get swole to impress THEMSELVES & other men. In much the same way, women do the same through following fashion & getting a ‘cute haircut’ etc.
Women, invariably go for confident, outgoing, funny fellas <<< Find ways to become at least a bit more like that & I can assure you your problems WILL start to dissipate.
- With regards diet, you don’t need anything fancy, just go for high protein & moderate everything else & should do just fine.
Good luck & don’t give in:)
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]TX iron wrote:
Hell, some can be regular smokers and still thrive, but these folks are either rare or are very well-established in their trade.[/quote]
Not sure about that. There are quite a lot of functional alcoholics out there, so why not stoners? Hell, I even worked with a guy once who used cocaine heavily, yet was a professional by day, bartender by night, and still made it to the gym regularly.
Most drug users aren’t junkies.
That said, when you have less than $500 to your name and quit your job before finding a new one like a fucking idiot, buying weed should not be high on your priorities list.[/quote]
Pot’s got a special knack for hindering drive, a quality that (anecdotally) doesn’t seem as pronounced as with say booze and especially cocaine. Yeah, a buddy of mine is a huge pothead and has several degrees, and currently working on his doctorate at a top tier university. For every one of him I’ve seen though, there are many others who don’t do nearly as well. Now again, I’m not talking about casual smokers, but the all day everyday stoners.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Depression in men often looks like anger. Women are more likely to be weepy, cry and look sad. Men often get MAD. Even anxiety will often look less like scared and fearful and more like pissed off in men.
With anxiety, people often recognize that their thoughts are irrational, but they still have a hard time getting their body to turn off the physical anxiety response. In my experience with depression, people are less likely to realize that their sad/angry thought patterns are irrational. So the “attitude” seems justified. They they will selectively find things that reinforce that. Like talking to a bunch of muscle-heads online and only focusing on people who’s comments make you feel bad.
These dark, skewed thoughts dig a grove, so you tend to circle around those same maladaptive ideas. It becomes sort of a feedback loop, where the messed up thought patterns reinforce the negative emotion. Sitting in your room writing angry poetry, or listening to depressing garbage will just help reinforce that grove. Sometimes people assume it’s good to release your anger and you’ll get a cathartic effect but research has shown that that usually isn’t the case. Get it off your chest if you need to, but don’t dwell on it. It’s far more productive to just start doing positive things, and trying to think more positive thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be really helpful in getting people to break the negative patterns.
Our guy is depressed here. When Brick was talking about his younger self having tunnel vision, and thoughts and perceptions that weren’t accurate, that’s exactly what this is. And that’s why he seems “stubborn” about focusing in on the negative, or focusing on things he CAN’T change even though there are so many things that he CAN do. He’s not an arrogant jerk. Right now he’s an angry/depressed jerk. 
It’s hopeful because this stuff is really common, and can be changed. People come out of this crap all the time.
Yes, I get to play arm-chair psychologist. [/quote]
Ms. Puff, I sincerely thank you for writing this; I believe this describes what is going on with my father. He is in his late 60’s and I thought he was developing dementia. I won’t be able to change anything with him, but it gives me an explanation for his irrational attacks.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
Uh oh. I just remembered you really don’t appreciate that kind of joking around, do you?[/quote]
Wait, what kind of jokes don’t I like? Glasses jokes? Being a girl jokes? Pretty jokes? I can’t think of a single thing you said that would offend me.
The only kind of joking I can think of that I don’t love is the kind that would make me feel disloyal to Hockey if I participated. But that’s on me - if someone makes a joke that I would feel I crossed a line to answer, I just don’t. Very few people here at TN have ever said anything that would offend me, and I’m inclined to think those few said whatever it was for that purpose - which generally just gets a shrug of disinterest from me.
[quote]dave670 wrote:
Last night, while deeply under the influence of magical herbs for the head, I have come to a realization. I will probably just get flamed or harassed again for saying this, but here goes.
Baby faced guys get laid. Baby faced guys get jobs, and (even decent) jobs. Baby faced guys act assertively and make something of their lives. I know guys who look younger than i do and do all these things.
The problem i have is not this other shit, or lack of muscle. It is my mindset and attitude, and just living like a fucking loser like I have been.
As I am now an unemployed stoner, living with three other stoners and with $500 to my name, I had best start finding work and started to make something of my life.
[/quote]
Well, I guess you did something to change your situation. Something ill-conceived and self-defeating, but at least it’s some form of action. Good choices are the product of experience and experience is the product of bad choices.
If you do truly realize that your mindset is the problem, it should follow that your job is/was not the problem. If nothing else this should be an opportunity for you to realize that decisions made based on emotion, especially emotions like self-pity are rarely productive and that actions taken without some kind of intelligent plan rarely produce desireable outcomes.
School of hard knocks is in session.
Edited
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
Uh oh. I just remembered you really don’t appreciate that kind of joking around, do you?[/quote]
Wait, what kind of jokes don’t I like? Glasses jokes? Being a girl jokes? Pretty jokes? I can’t think of a single thing you said that would offend me.
The only kind of joking I can think of that I don’t love is the kind that would make me feel disloyal to Hockey if I participated. But that’s on me - if someone makes a joke that I would feel I crossed a line to answer, I just don’t. Very few people here at TN have ever said anything that would offend me, and I’m inclined to think those few said whatever it was for that purpose - which generally just gets a shrug of disinterest from me.
[/quote]
Oh, ok. I’m just foggy about what kind of goofing is ok with who after my hiatus.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
Uh oh. I just remembered you really don’t appreciate that kind of joking around, do you?[/quote]
Wait, what kind of jokes don’t I like? Glasses jokes? Being a girl jokes? Pretty jokes? I can’t think of a single thing you said that would offend me.
The only kind of joking I can think of that I don’t love is the kind that would make me feel disloyal to Hockey if I participated. But that’s on me - if someone makes a joke that I would feel I crossed a line to answer, I just don’t. Very few people here at TN have ever said anything that would offend me, and I’m inclined to think those few said whatever it was for that purpose - which generally just gets a shrug of disinterest from me.
[/quote]
Oh, ok. I’m just foggy about what kind of goofing is ok with who after my hiatus.[/quote]
No, no, your eyeglasses jokes are okay with me.
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
buying weed should not be high on your priorities list.[/quote]
I see what you did there
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]dave670 wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrotee:
You lost the job?[/quote]
I quit. I don’t have to get screamed at by fat men all day
[/quote]
That’s debatable.
What sort of other work can you do?[/quote]
Barista? Get screamed at by skinny girls all day?
Not epic thread is… not epic?
[quote]aeyogi wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Depression in men often looks like anger. Women are more likely to be weepy, cry and look sad. Men often get MAD. Even anxiety will often look less like scared and fearful and more like pissed off in men.
With anxiety, people often recognize that their thoughts are irrational, but they still have a hard time getting their body to turn off the physical anxiety response. In my experience with depression, people are less likely to realize that their sad/angry thought patterns are irrational. So the “attitude” seems justified. They they will selectively find things that reinforce that. Like talking to a bunch of muscle-heads online and only focusing on people who’s comments make you feel bad.
These dark, skewed thoughts dig a grove, so you tend to circle around those same maladaptive ideas. It becomes sort of a feedback loop, where the messed up thought patterns reinforce the negative emotion. Sitting in your room writing angry poetry, or listening to depressing garbage will just help reinforce that grove. Sometimes people assume it’s good to release your anger and you’ll get a cathartic effect but research has shown that that usually isn’t the case. Get it off your chest if you need to, but don’t dwell on it. It’s far more productive to just start doing positive things, and trying to think more positive thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be really helpful in getting people to break the negative patterns.
Our guy is depressed here. When Brick was talking about his younger self having tunnel vision, and thoughts and perceptions that weren’t accurate, that’s exactly what this is. And that’s why he seems “stubborn” about focusing in on the negative, or focusing on things he CAN’T change even though there are so many things that he CAN do. He’s not an arrogant jerk. Right now he’s an angry/depressed jerk. It’s hopeful because this stuff is really common, and can be changed. People come out of this crap all the time.
Yes, I get to play arm-chair psychologist. [/quote]
Ms. Puff, I sincerely thank you for writing this; I believe this describes what is going on with my father. He is in his late 60’s and I thought he was developing dementia. I won’t be able to change anything with him, but it gives me an explanation for his irrational attacks.
[/quote]
Your welcome. And aeyogi, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.
This might be helpful here. Read when you’re sober. People with distorted thinking patterns have to learn how to recognize these so they can change the way they think.
Common Cognitive Distortions
A partial list from Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn’s Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2012).
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Mind reading. You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.”
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Fortune-telling. You predict the future negatively: things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. "I’ll fail that exam, or “I won’t get the job.”
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Catastrophizing. You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won?t be able to stand it. “It would be terrible if I failed.”
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Labeling. You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.”
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Discounting positives. You claim that the positive things you or others do are trivial. “That’s what wives are supposed to do so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.”
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Negative filtering. You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.”
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Overgeneralizing. You perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.”
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Dichotomous thinking. You view events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone”, or “It was a complete waste of time.”
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Blaming. You focus on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, and you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “She’s to blame for the way I feel now,” or “My parents caused all my problems.”
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What if? You keep asking a series of questions about “what if” something happens, and you fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. “Yeah, but what if I get anxious?,” or “What if I can’t catch my breath”?
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Emotional reasoning. You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.”
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Inability to disconfirm. You reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example, when you have the thought I’m unlovable, you reject as irrelevant any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be refuted. “That’s not the real issue. There are deeper problems. There are other factors.”
[quote]batman730 wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]dave670 wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrotee:
You lost the job?[/quote]
I quit. I don’t have to get screamed at by fat men all day
[/quote]
That’s debatable.
What sort of other work can you do?[/quote]
Barista? Get screamed at by skinny girls all day?[/quote]
Nowadays, its tougher to find skinny girls than barista gigs.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
This might be helpful here. Read when you’re sober. People with distorted thinking patterns have to learn how to recognize these so they can change the way they think.[/quote]
That is a good list, but it’s also difficult to work with. It can easily give the illusion of understanding some things before actually, truly understanding them. Within CBT, without some sort of actual framework – namely, “here’s a thought you had, what does it represent, now rephrase that and replace the old thought with the new thought” – it’s actually really difficult to work with.
Even so, I’m not really convinced that depression is an accurate diagnosis. There’s certainly some unhealthy thinking patterns (at least, per some formal definitions of healthy vs unhealthy), but I have a hard time actually seeing depression in all of this. From the things he says, it’s like he’s about 80% there in sounding like depression, but that missing 20% is what I haven’t seen. That difference is enough to differentiate “I really don’t feel like moving from my couch” from just being lazy, to being in the throes of an MDD episode.
Maybe “lazy” is too strong of a term, but he’s definitely disoriented and ungrounded.
Laying off the weed would do him well. Laying off any CNS depressants (like alcohol) would also do him well.
Not that I think he should, but if he’s going to mess with any sort of intoxicants, stimulants are probably his best bet. He’s certainly smart enough to do a lot better with his life, he just hasn’t figured out how.
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]dave670 wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrotee:
You lost the job?[/quote]
I quit. I don’t have to get screamed at by fat men all day
[/quote]
That’s debatable.
What sort of other work can you do?[/quote]
Barista? Get screamed at by skinny girls all day?[/quote]
Nowadays, its tougher to find skinny girls than barista gigs.
[/quote]
Well, I live in one of the “skinnier” cities in Canada, statistically speaking, so my perspective is admittedly skewed.
When I walk into Starbucks on any given day, on average 7/10 of the other clients and staff are likely to be university aged females on the slim side of the spectrum.
The “obesity epidemic” is a slow starter around these parts.
[quote]TX iron wrote:
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]TX iron wrote:
Hell, some can be regular smokers and still thrive, but these folks are either rare or are very well-established in their trade.[/quote]
Not sure about that. There are quite a lot of functional alcoholics out there, so why not stoners? Hell, I even worked with a guy once who used cocaine heavily, yet was a professional by day, bartender by night, and still made it to the gym regularly.
Most drug users aren’t junkies.
That said, when you have less than $500 to your name and quit your job before finding a new one like a fucking idiot, buying weed should not be high on your priorities list.[/quote]
Pot’s got a special knack for hindering drive, a quality that (anecdotally) doesn’t seem as pronounced as with say booze and especially cocaine. Yeah, a buddy of mine is a huge pothead and has several degrees, and currently working on his doctorate at a top tier university. For every one of him I’ve seen though, there are many others who don’t do nearly as well. Now again, I’m not talking about casual smokers, but the all day everyday stoners.
[/quote]
I would say this is individual. I wouldn’t call your buddy a pothead. Basically, if you’re in control of your life, you can do whatever you want. The OP is not functional. He’s a pothead. He should not be using anything.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
This might be helpful here. Read when you’re sober. People with distorted thinking patterns have to learn how to recognize these so they can change the way they think.[/quote]
That is a good list, but it’s also difficult to work with. It can easily give the illusion of understanding some things before actually, truly understanding them. Within CBT, without some sort of actual framework – namely, “here’s a thought you had, what does it represent, now rephrase that and replace the old thought with the new thought” – it’s actually really difficult to work with.
Even so, I’m not really convinced that depression is an accurate diagnosis. There’s certainly some unhealthy thinking patterns (at least, per some formal definitions of healthy vs unhealthy), but I have a hard time actually seeing depression in all of this. From the things he says, it’s like he’s about 80% there in sounding like depression, but that missing 20% is what I haven’t seen. That difference is enough to differentiate “I really don’t feel like moving from my couch” from just being lazy, to being in the throes of an MDD episode.
Maybe “lazy” is too strong of a term, but he’s definitely disoriented and ungrounded.
Laying off the weed would do him well. Laying off any CNS depressants (like alcohol) would also do him well.
Not that I think he should, but if he’s going to mess with any sort of intoxicants, stimulants are probably his best bet. He’s certainly smart enough to do a lot better with his life, he just hasn’t figured out how.[/quote]
Getting off the weed for sure, and NOT replacing it with alcohol.
Depression or no, he’s absolutely demonstrated many of these distorted thinking patterns in this thread. Awareness is just a place to start. That’s all I would expect from someone reading that list. That they might start to say, “Hey, I do that.”