I heard someone mention my name
Sorry you are having a tough time
How much of your psychotherapy work has dealt with stress management?
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Definitely hit me up if you ever find a solution mate! 
Not a lot. And I think right now this is actually the main issue for me - stress. Most of it is selfmade. I am digging myself in a hole and instead of climbing, I keep digging.
I need to write you a lengthier reply than I’ll do on my phone. As does my log need some tending to (including your reply there). I’ll get back to you when I’m at a keyboard. Tomorrow.
But: stop. Maybe you don’t need to hear it but on the off-chance that you do: stop!
Any stressor you can cut out: put it aside for now. Add things back in one’s you’ve caught your breath and are tingling to include more.
Use whatever training analogy or diet analogy that gets you to act on this. Overtraining comes to mind.
Yes, it might be dull and yes you want more out of life. I get that. I truly do. But, you need to create the best circumstances to which you can gradually add things in. I’ll write more exhaustively about this tomorrow as I share in your experience through my own.
And if you continue digging… Okay, so, I won’t go so far as to label what it is you are doing but when I do it it’d be correct to label that as a form of self-harm. You’re great, you don’t need to harm yourself. I get that doesn’t make it any easier to not do, truly, but try and don’t. Assuming that’s what you are doing.
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I am definitely looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts!
This should really be obvious and “easy”, right? The problem is, I really don’t know where to begin. As I failed to explain a few weeks ago, when I mentioned that I am stressed by things that others wouldn’t find stressful, the bulk of the stress is in my head. Things that I have very limited or no control over.
It’s not like my life as such is super stressful, full of deadlines and things to accomplish. If you knew me in real life you might even get the impression that I am lazy. I know that certain things stress me and then there is also school and university which are definitely stressful but not over the top. Those things that I know of however, aren’t things I can willingly cut out.
The more I think about it, the morr I realize you’re right, I just don’t know how to implement it yet.
Training is a weird one. It can stress me, especially injury and lack of progress but I know for sure that I would be absolutely lost without it.
Yeah the feeling of inadequacy definitely is a familiar one.
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Oh no!
As others have written, please keep sharing.
I (and others) am here for you.
I understand what you’re going through to some limited extent. Sorry I can’t be more helpful
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I have no clever things to say right now, but keep sharing.
Plenty of internet semi-strangers backing you.
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You might want to read up on the concept of aversion, this might be what you are engaging in. If you recall from yesterday, I resonated with this statement, but for me aversion doesn’t fit. My need for company stems from another root.
Following your log, it’s quite clear that you are stressed. And have been for some time. I’m not necessarily well-equipped to offer any suggestions but perhaps it’d be beneficial for you to hear the musings of another person that is trying to learn to navigate stress after such a point where it has gotten to a point where we’ve, for the lack of a better phrase, suffered an injury.
To me, I view my tolerance towards stress through two lenses/analogies: as a (transient — hopefully) allergy/sensitivity & a muscle tear.
The first lens helps me frame why I have a problem dealing with ordinary stressors that pre-burnout would conceivably have me running at a higher RPM to “get things done” but now causes a much more adverse reaction. Furthermore, certain allergies/sensitivities can be combatted through exposure therapy. But it has to be gradual. I’ve heard that adults that didn’t have a lactose-allergy growing up but now have sensitivities to dairy can successively include lactose into their diet and over time the body will replenish the enzymes necessary to break lactose down. Usually you start with hard cheeses. Progressive overload.
The allergy analogy also aids me in not assigning blame or inadequacy to myself. Right now, the circumstances are such that there are things I cannot do despite wanting to do them. There’s no sense in beating myself up over that.
The second muscle tear analogy helps me realise that I need to engage in some form of rehabilitation work, and also maybe revisit my “movement patterns”. To further our dive into strained analogies what happened isn’t that I dropped a plate on my big toe and suffered a boo-boo, I metaphorically tore the mental equivalent of a pec, or a hamstring, or whatever. Why? Chronic acute overuse, potentially faulty form, poor programming or that supporting musculature isn’t firing. Or nutrition was off so recovery was poor.
That’s the mindset I’m in when I practice mindfulness exercises. That’s the mindset I’m in when I have bad thoughts, I equate the thoughts to being akin to physical pain. When I’m in the gym now and do an RDL for an example that does potentially cause my hamstring to hurt. I need a frame of mind that guides my actions in response to that pain. For instance, if the pain level is a 2/10 then I consider that to be acceptable and might even aid in my physical recovery as the tissue will be forced to remodel, it’ll be more sensitive to the actions of insulin, and so forth. 2/10 is good, continue doing the exercise.
If I’m at an 8/10 pain-level, that’s causing me to regress in my healing. That input demands another output. Another action. Namely, seizing with that exercise right there and then. I try not to think ahead that it means anything for the next upcoming weeks of training, I just focus on not causing further damage. Same with stressors. I expose myself to a stressor and depending on the severity of how my body responds I adjust my actions accordingly.
I really like this model, because I can continue to draw parallels from it. Like, at the moment I need to be judicious about my rehabilitation work. In the future, there are habits that I can engage in that will reduce the odds of a flare-up. For instance, I’m currently nursing a climber’s elbow. I do some stuff for that daily. In the future, it’d behoove me to continue to do these same things 2-3 times/wk as I have a pre-disposition for this type of injury now.
Everyone has to brush their teeth, or they’ll have poor dental health. Some of us, we have to be mindful of how our actions impact our stress. It’s not that we’re inadequate by comparison, it’s just that we have a different default behaviour that demands this upkeep.
It’s not as if you look at a perfectly healthy person and go “oh, wow, they do mindfulness exercises on their own and that’s why they never have any problems”. But, if you were to have complete insight into their life you’d find that maybe they are better adept at autoregulating. I see this with my current group of friends. I’ve observed two mates recently navigate a lot of work stress by realising that if work is demanding a certain piece of the pie, then other aspects in life can’t have the same pie slice as they normally do. Rather than overextend themselves, they cut back on other things, got the work done, and then reduced that pie slice in relation to everything else to have some much needed eustress.
Granted, part of the constellation that caused the stress and the burnout where also out of my control (arguably). So, really it’s not just an allergy and a muscle tear, but also a little bit of a freak accident (plate-dropping on toe). But, forging ahead in life the parts I can exercise any control over fall within the domains of the first two mental models.
With that in mind, to tie this back to your experiences. You’ve had a lot of stressors going on for years and you haven’t had much rest from them. Chronic acute overuse. I saw this picture yesterday and I can’t speak for you but I’ve spent a lot of time in this cycle
so of course you don’t have a vast reserve of excess energy to fall back on when life gives you shit. I try and view it as combat fatigue. What I must do, I can’t say what you need to do, is try and focus on getting some wins in to start building that reserve. Create the best circumstances I can to later try and live life as I want to. And that takes time, but it takes even longer when we get caught in a cycle of trying to do too much too soon.
Start with the (proverbial) barbell. Or bodyweight stuff.
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Sorry, I will get back to this tomorrow. I want to give your entry the attention it deserves and didn’t have the time today.
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1 power clean + push jerk (beltless)
5 x 3+3 @ 85 kg (clean + press the first 3, then press 3 more)
2 floating deadlifts - slow eccentric, lower to an inch before the floor
3 x 5 @ 130 kg
3 floor press
3 x 15 @ 70 kg
4 bent over row
3 x 8 @ 100 kg
5 lunges
3 x 12 each @ 40 kg - ca. 90 sec rest
6 side bends
4 x 12 each @ barbell - slow ecc.
Notes:
- used the deadlift bar for everything. In hindsight that was nonsense
- I have a pretty stupid dilemma for the c&p: I want heels for the clean but flats for the press, lol
- power and confidence off the floor is still down and I didn’t dare to do the deadlifts without my belt. This is just a note, no complaint! I am very happy with the progress my back is making this week!!!
- really surprised myself with the rows. They were far from perfect and I’m not bending over far enough but I did not think I would be able to do them at all. Even talked to my coach yesterday about how I don’t see them happening.
- I am implementing a mindset of zero pressure towards training rn. I try to not bully myself into anything. Don’t think about the weights at all, take as much time as I want to for a session and if I encounter an acessory exercise I don’t feel like doing whatsoever, I simply won’t. Get done the minimum and move on. That’s what I’ll try to have as a mantra for now. I need to make training a stress relief, not a stressor.
- today was a great ‘tread the water’ session
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C&P moving. Dumb question, in the catch wouldn’t you want your elbows higher?
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Yes you would. An especially bad example is every third rep of all 5 sets. The others are usually just my lack of flexibility. Today was a bad day for cleans. They moved better in the gym the other week. But that’s okay 
Also I cleaned to press after. If I just clean, I catch the bar in my fingers or even remove one or two fingers from the bar. That makes a big difference. I can’t do that if I want to press (lack of flexibility again)
I couldn’t really find something on this. Most google search results seemed to be about economic behavior.
I really dig the analogies, you have a talent for writing man.
The problem with this very point is, that it’s very difficult for me to in- or exclude singular stressors. I know there has to be a way but I’m not seeing it myself here. Most of the things stressing me are just in my head, I can’t willingly quit them or add them in.
Good point. Slightly frustrating but correct.
Very true points. I feel a lot of time pressure (which is stupid because life isn’t running on a clock) but I can’t help it. It furthers the feeling of inadequacy.
Thank you for your well thought out response my friend, I absolutely appreciate it!
Even though last Monday wasn’t the best day for progress pictures because of bloat and random weight spike, I still think there is some substantial difference compared to the 28th of September.
If I have a pump these days, things are actually looking quite passable.
The pic with the blood pressure machine is not from Monday. Just didn’t have a relaxed front pose from Monday at hand.
Also pls excuse my facial expression. All photos were done first thing in the morning and I was just videoing myself, not taking pictures.
Especially liking the back.
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I’ll write something up soon.
Thank you. If everyone understood lifting I might find a larger audience
My email is in my bio, lest you want to share it here, but if you share the stressors in your head maybe we or I can offer up another perspective
Hard relate. Had hoped to spend my twenties in a different way.
My pleasure
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The kind of aversion that I suggested that you’d explore as a possible explanation for the behaviour that you described is a term used to describe how one can (or rather seeks to avoid) dealing with uncomfortable sensations.
The term seeks to encapsulate how we as humans respond to essentially any sensation we find uncomfortable. At the base level, we’d use words as “avoid”, “escape”, “get rid of”, “numb”, or “undo” to label the actions we engage in to avert whatever makes us uncomfortable be it a situation, our own thoughts, or whatever else is the source of our own discomfort.
In practice, this can express itself in more nuanced ways such as we experience a resistance, an sense of apprehension, unease or anxiety, rumination, ignoring, fight or flight, self-criticism.
For illustration purposes, consider waking up sad and deciding to grit your teeth and rolling up your sleeves regardless. That’d be resisting the sensation.
Another example is when feeling down how easy it becomes to focus on everything bad that has happened, essentially blind to all positives, and getting stuck in analysing the past. Rumination (and usually self-critical at that).
Now, aversion is entirely natural. It makes sense to try and distance oneself from whatever causes discomfort but as far as responses go it’s much better reserved as a reaction to immediate threats and not internal thought processes.
The problem it presents is that usually it doesn’t afford us any escape from ourselves. And by perpetually running from our own internal discomfort we do not seem to always be able to manage a psychological healing process either. There are times when we must simply actively engage in the emotional process of being sad to complete the experience. Maybe you’ve in the past experienced that if you set aside or sweep your problems under the rug that might work for a while but the baggage does not disappear and it bites back at you once it has accumulated sufficiently?
Allegedly, the way to address discomfort without it starting a negative thought spiral is to greet the discomfort with a greater degree of stoicism. Rather than facing depressive sensations with “Fuck, not this shit again” (which can be a trigger) facing it as a more casual observer with less judgement might serve to not make things worse. To be clear: the aim is to take these negative mindsets (anxiety, depression, anger, …) and try to take them less personally and not necessarily escape them as much rather than let it fuel a negative trend.
So, my question now is
What happens if you stop fleeing?
Looking strong, my man. I’ll let those with a better perspective give you advice about the other stuff, but just know there are lots of internet strangers on your side.
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Damn you look huge on that back pic (well you’re already huge but you know what I mean haha). I’d say you look like you’ve lost fat from your chest and stomach. I can’t tell if your back pic looks so different because your waist has gotten smaller or you’ve got wider but carry on with whatever it is haha.
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Yes done and failed that a lot in the past.
Very good argument. I have been trying to adjust my mindset these past days to view Monday as an outlier, just a apoint in time and not an indicator of a greater downward spiral.
My mother had a good and incredibly simple argument that showcased my neagtive thought patterns pretty well. I told her I was angry and disappointed that I took Lorazepam ans that I didn’t have to take such a drastic measure in half a year. She simply said “why don’t you put it this way: You’ve made it half a year without taking one.” (Btw. for anyone unfamiliar: Lorazepam is the ingredient in a strong sedative. The dosage isn’t that high for someone my size, so it doesn’t impact me psychologically (I don’t get high), it just makes me calm down. It’s also incredibly addictive which is part of the reason I am so hesitant to use it even if warranted).
Honestly: Nothing but my thoughts catching up to me. It’s literally myself that I’m running away from. Not a specific situation of discomfort like the classical anxiety disorder patient who may come to mind. I actually need distractions from being alone.
Also I just have a skewed bio feedback from my experiences. That’s sonething that is getting more and more clear to me. Like my body is always in alarm mode, scanning for anything at all that’s slightly off balances in my bio feedback mechanism, to which my psychological pr biological response is than much greater than necessary. Just something that I’ve been aware of lately.
I might take you up on the email offer but feel free to revoke that anytime. I don’t want to cause you more stress in turn, if you’re taking on the problems of semi strange people on the internet.
@Cyrrex thanks buddy!
@caesium32 hey mate, thanks for the compliment. I have been thinking about that as well and I did train my back more (alllllll the rows) but I think it’s mainly the waist getting smaller and the fat melting, making the muscles appear bigger.
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1 oh squats
4 x 6 @ 35 kg
2 power cleans
5 x 3 @ 85 kg
This was tricky because of the rusty barbell I used.
3 deadlift
3 x 5 @ 150 kg
4 vertical jumps
5 x 3
5 btn strict press
3 x 10 @ 50 kg
6 db row
3 x 10 @ ca. 42,5 kg
Notes:
- guys guys guys!.. I deadlifted and didn’t throw a fit about it afterwards! Still light but my 3rd deadlift session this week and post blowing out my back. Can’t be dissatisfied with that. Felt pretty good on a very stiff bar (which doesn’t make a real difference at 150 kg but I just like the feeling of a bendier bar).
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