Most of you know my saga with rescue dogs well yesterday i picked up a fantastic Black Lab about 6 months old and im very happy. The emotional support that these animals are to meis unparalleled. Chronic pain and illness take a back seat when i am with my special dog. The isolation and loneliness doesn't matter as long as i have my buddy Magnus #MentalHealth #ChronicPain #MuscularDystrophy #Anxiety #DegenerativeDiscDisease #etc
May hits, and suddenly the world gets loud about “connection,” “showing up,” “being present.” That works for some people. For introverts, it can feel like being handed a megaphone when all you asked for was a quiet corner and a little understanding. Social distancing never felt strange to us. It felt familiar. Sometimes even necessary.
There is this assumption floating around that being alone equals being lonely, or worse, struggling. That misses the point entirely. For a lot of introverts, solitude is not a red flag. It is maintenance. It is how the system resets. The real strain shows up when the world keeps demanding output long after the internal battery has dropped into the red. Conversations stack, expectations pile up, and suddenly even small interactions feel like climbing uphill with no break in sight.
Mental health for introverts often lives in that quiet tension. You want connection, but not overload. You care about people, but your energy has limits that do not negotiate well with constant noise. Social battery drain is real. It is not dramatic, it is not attention-seeking, it is just biology and wiring doing what they do. Push past it too often, and the cost shows up later as exhaustion, irritability, or that foggy sense of being disconnected from yourself.
The tricky part is that it does not always look like struggle from the outside. You can be present, smiling, even engaged, while internally counting down to the moment you can step away and breathe again. That gap between appearance and reality is where a lot of introverts carry their mental load.
Mental Health Awareness Month should make room for that truth. Not everyone heals in crowds. Not everyone recharges through constant interaction. Sometimes the healthiest move is stepping back, choosing quiet, protecting your energy without apology.
Final thought, simple and honest: “Not all distance is disconnection. Sometimes it is the most honest way we take care of ourselves.”
2 reactions Author's Remark: I originally wrote this for myself, but ultimately decided to share it on here and Reddit. Far too many people have been through similar battles with healthcare.
My therapist gave me a homework assignment; write a letter to the doctors I had before finding my current team. As I let the words flow, I realized that so many others probably feel exactly the same way I do. This letter will never make it to my doctors, but writing it helped me release something I have been carrying for over a decade. If any of this resonates with you, I hope it encourages you to do the same.
When you decided to become a doctor, you knew it was going to be years of schooling, residency, and a lot of money. You probably decided to be a doctor because you thought you would be helping people; why else would someone choose a career that takes years of schooling and thousands of dollars? You took an oath to do no harm. You wanted to help people, but the system isn’t always built for that, and I get it. You got into medicine to help, not realizing you’d have patient quotas and only around 15 minutes with each person you see. How can you possibly help people on a 15-minute time limit? I can tell you that it’s not an ideal time frame to see patients, but that listening to what they have to say is probably a good start.
I came to you so many times in hope of getting help. You told me it was anxiety, my diet, my exercise, my weight… Anything and everything you could use to dismiss me. I suffered for over ten years with chronic whole-body symptoms. You said my headaches meant I needed to see a neurologist, joint pain meant seeing a rheumatologist, debilitating stomach problems meant going to a gastroenterologist, and severe cramping meant going to a gynecologist. So many visits to the doctor, so much bloodwork, so many different labs and procedures. Did you think I wanted attention? Did you think I wanted to spend so much money and free time talking to you for fun? Did you ever stop to think that, maybe, this wasn’t in my head? Maybe a young woman who has a laundry list of symptoms across her whole body may have something wrong? Maybe I should stop trying to treat symptoms with meds, refer her to every specialist under the sun, and look at the bigger picture on why she feels this way? No.
I spent over ten years of my life going to doctors to try and figure out why I felt the way that I do. I left a dream job and career field I was passionate about, and quite frankly really good at, because I was too sick to be working on an ambulance running 911 calls for 12-15 hours straight; I cried when I had to send my letter of resignation. I had to leave early from not one, but TWO bachelorette trips because I got severely ill. I love going out and riding my motorcycle, and it is one of the things that brings me joy; I could ride for hundreds of miles in a weekend, but I became intolerant to heat and worry about being too far from home because having flares is crippling. I carry a mini pharmacy of rescue meds in my bag everywhere I go now. I have severe anxiety about going out in any capacity because of the fear that a flare will cripple me. I watch my husband fight tooth and nail going to doctors with me because they take a man more seriously than the woman living with the illness. I have had to grieve the person I was, give up things I love and plan my life around my illnesses that debilitate me, all while you tell me its anxiety, IBS and that you can’t do anything.
I now have an amazing team of understanding doctors that have taken the time to listen and take me seriously. I am pushing and advocating for myself and my life. The craziest thing has happened; I got a diagnosis. I suspected this was part of my problem all along, but you didn’t want to listen or look at the big picture. I have a diagnosis that has comorbidities that will likely also be diagnosed now, and I have treatment options to help my quality of life improve. I have hope now that I will be able to get back to feeling like myself and living my life how I want. I have hope because someone took the time to listen, look at the bigger picture, and not just write me off or send me to the next specialist.
I will say, your gaslighting has caused me more trauma than I care to admit. When I received a diagnosis, I was happy at first; I felt like things were finally clicking into place, finally making sense. A day or two went by, and while my family wanted to celebrate me finally having an answer, I started wondering, “do I actually deserve the diagnosis?”. I questioned if I was sick enough, in enough pain, or if my diagnosis fits; then reality hit and I looked at all I have lost. I see that I do deserve the diagnosis. I have lost so much of myself to being sick; I have had to cancel plans, miss major life events, missed career opportunities, and had to experience a level of loneliness and isolation I wouldn’t wish on anyone, all because I wasn’t taken seriously.
I know this is only the beginning of my journey back to myself. I know there will be bumps and things will suck at times, but that’s just life. I have hope now for continuing my care and rebuilding parts of what I lost. I have lost too much of my life to invisible illnesses, but I won’t lose anymore. Now is the time to rebuild and have hope; thanks to an amazing support system and doctors that listen and care, I can start that after over a decade of suffering. You had all the puzzle pieces, just like they did, but they didn’t dismiss me. You probably thought I was a hypochondriac, and I can see why you might think so, truly. Had you put your opinions aside, listened to my symptoms, pain, and read my charts, you could have seen there was something real going on. I know you are crunched for time, but you can listen to your patients and take them seriously in the time you do have. After a decade, I have some answers and it’s no thanks to you. At the end of the day, you did no harm, right?
#heds #adhd #chronicillness #medicalgaslighting
3 reactions 
It’s been a while…
But I’m okay. Slightly reclusive but generally okay.
I’ve been single since November 2024… I’m loving single life. Am I lonely? Sure. But I don’t have a toxic partner to hurt me. I have a horrible relationship history, lots of narcissists and red flags. Guess you could say I am gullible to love dumping. So being single, and actually living my life the way I want to live it is a good thing. Probably the first time this has ever actually happened.
20 years ago I May 30th I had a baby boy. I was not in a good place to raise a baby. I was given three months to fix myself while my son went into foster care. I showed very little improvement, mind you… they took me off of ALL meds during my pregnancy. I went nonverbal and they induced me so that I could go into treatment. I was given two options. 1 I could let his foster parents adopt him, or 2 he would go into the system. His foster parents officially adopted him a year and a half later. Why am I going down memory lane? Because I met my son!! He’s a wonderful human being. He’s actually visiting right now. I have both of my kids under the same roof as me, and it’s an amazing feeling.
Anywhos… to those who actually read this… it’s been 11 months since my last incident.
7 reactions The cracks began where trust should live—
I broke the vows, took more than gave,
let silence fester, lies I’d give
to hide the self I couldn’t save.
ADHD, depression—names
for all the static in my head.
But pain explained is not the same
as pain endured. The words I’ve said
(and didn’t say) became a wall.
Now every stumble, every fall—
she catalogs with surgical care:
the tone, the time, the unpaid care,
the way I breathe, the way I sit.
My flaws, a script she won’t forget.
I know I broke her. Know the cost.
But god, the silence makes me small.
Each try to heal, each step I’ve lost—
she meets with, “You. You feel it all.
Your feelings always come in first.”
And maybe that’s the curse, the worst:
I try to speak a small hurt’s name—
she turns it back into my shame.
So am I narcissist? Just lost?
A man who broke what mattered most,
now flinching at the daily frost?
My brain just aches. My heart’s a ghost.
I want to get better. I swear I do.
But how when every word I use
feels like a weapon turned on me—
no room to breathe, no truce, no sea
to wash this low, this lonely through?
Fuck.
4 reactions 
Pi, Flowers, Waves, and the FAB Method
The deeper I look into nature, the more I believe human beings are not separate from it.
We are patterns.
Pi fascinates me because it is infinite, impossible to fully capture, yet somehow creates structure and order everywhere.
Planets move in circles.
Waves rise and crash.
Breathing follows rhythm.
Heartbeats pulse in patterns.
Flowers bloom, die, and return again.
Nature does not move in straight lines.
It moves in cycles.
Human beings are no different.
The problem is that modern life teaches people to expect linear growth.
“Fix yourself.”
“Be successful.”
“Be positive.”
“Move on.”
“Get over it.”
As if healing is a straight road with a finish line.
But real life feels more like waves.
Some days you feel powerful.
Some days you feel lost.
Some days you feel connected.
Some days your own mind feels louder than the world around you.
That does not mean you are broken.
It means you are human.
A flower does not panic because winter arrives.
It understands seasons are part of the process.
Human beings struggle because we think difficult emotions mean failure.
Sadness.
Anger.
Jealousy.
Fear.
Shame.
We try to eliminate them completely.
But maybe emotions are not problems to destroy.
Maybe they are signals to understand.
A wave crashes no matter what.
The goal is not stopping the wave.
The goal is learning how to ride it without drowning.
That is one of the biggest ideas behind the FAB Method.
Most people try to think their way out of emotional chaos while their nervous system is still in survival mode.
But when the body is dysregulated, the mind usually follows.
That is why the first step is movement.
Not because boxing magically fixes people.
Not because exercise cures trauma.
But because movement changes state.
You breathe differently.
Your nervous system settles.
Your mind slows down just enough to reflect instead of react.
Then something interesting happens.
The conversation changes.
People stop performing.
Stop pretending.
Stop trying to sound perfect.
And they begin to notice patterns.
The same patterns appear again and again regardless of background, money, status, or age.
A teenager angry at the world.
A recovering addict full of shame.
A mother overwhelmed with anxiety.
A businessman stressed to the point of burnout.
Different stories.
Same loops.
Thought → emotion → reaction → regret → repeat.
And this is where pi connects again.
Pi never truly ends.
Neither does growth.
You do not “solve” yourself once and suddenly become complete forever.
You learn.
You adapt.
You become aware.
Then life gives you another lesson.
The circle continues.
But awareness changes the direction of the circle.
What FAB tries to do is interrupt destructive loops and replace them with healthier ones:
Movement → regulation → reflection → connection → better behaviour → repeat.
Tiny adjustments repeated over time create massive change.
The same way tiny invisible decimals inside pi help create the structure of entire galaxies.
That idea changed the way I see people.
I no longer think most people are “bad.”
I think many people are stuck inside unconscious loops they never learned how to understand.
A person snapping in traffic.
A child acting out in school.
Someone numbing themselves with drugs, alcohol, gambling, validation, or anger.
Often underneath it all is the same thing:
Pain trying to protect itself.
And the strangest part is this:
Two people can experience the exact same external reality and live completely different internal experiences.
Two people stuck in traffic.
One suffers in rage.
One sings along to music.
The traffic stayed the same.
The relationship to the moment changed.
That is the shift.
Not controlling the world.
Understanding yourself within it.
Pi also teaches something important about perfection.
It can never be fully seen.
Only approximated.
Human beings are the same.
You never fully “figure yourself out.”
The more I work with people, the more I realise the goal is not perfection.
The goal is awareness.
Not:
“How do I become perfect?”
More:
“Why do I react the way I react?”
“What pattern am I stuck in?”
“What emotion am I avoiding?”
“What happens if I stop running from myself for five minutes?”
That is where growth actually begins.
A flower grows toward sunlight naturally once the conditions are right.
Human beings are not that different.
Sometimes people do not need more pressure, judgement, or motivation.
Sometimes they just need space.
Movement.
Connection.
Safety.
Honest reflection.
Maybe that is why nature feels calming to people in the first place.
Because deep down we recognise ourselves inside it.
The waves.
The seasons.
The circles.
The chaos.
The order.
Infinite complexity.
Perfect structure.
Maybe the goal of life is not to escape the pattern.
Maybe the goal is to become aware of the one you are living inside.
3 reactions 
Recently, I came across the term cognitive distortions, and for the first time, I felt like I had language for the way my mind works.
For the longest time, I thought I was just really self-aware. Hyperaware, if anything. I thought replaying conversations meant I was emotionally intelligent. I thought anticipating every possible outcome meant that I was prepared. And I thought overanalyzing people’s tone, body language, or noticeable patterns was simply me paying attention.
But really, a lot of it was anxiety, fear, and insecurity. A nervous system constantly trying to protect itself from rejection, embarrassment, abandonment, or emotional pain before it could happen.
And when you live like that long enough, your thoughts stop feeling like thoughts. They start feeling like facts.
There have been countless times where I’ve convinced myself someone was upset with me based on almost nothing. Whenever I’m around friends, I’ll start making up ideas that they genuinely don’t want me around or enjoy my company. It’s usually triggered by the smallest things — an eye roll, a delayed response, a shift in tone. My brain immediately fills in the blanks and creates a narrative before reality even has the chance to exist on its own.
Every single time I leave a social situation, I replay every moment that occurred. Thinking things like:
Did I talk too much?
Did I sound awkward?
Did I overshare?
Do they secretly think I’m weird?
The worst part of it all is that the thoughts feel so believable when you’re stuck inside them.
That’s what cognitive distortions are. They’re patterns of thinking that twist perception in ways that often feel incredibly real emotionally. They usually attach themselves to our deepest fears and insecurities, which is why they can feel so convincing.
For me, one of the biggest distortions has always been catastrophizing.
If something feels uncertain emotionally, my mind immediately jumps to the worst possible outcome. If a friendship feels distant, my brain assumes the relationship is ending. If someone acts differently, I convince myself that I did something wrong.
I’ve recently mourned the loss of a friendship even though it’s technically still intact. We’re still friends, but we haven’t really talked in a long time. We never text each other, and when there is communication, it’s usually initiated by me. She never checks in. Never really asks how my life has been.
We used to be incredibly close, but now it feels different. I’m not sure if it’s because of distance, life changes, or because she genuinely doesn’t care about me anymore. In my mind, I assume the latter. I’ve convinced myself the friendship is already over, even though no one has actually said that out loud.
So now I tread lightly around this person. I don’t want my feelings hurt more than they already are. I still love her and probably always will, but maybe we’ve just changed. I honestly don’t know. I’ve gone back and forth with these thoughts in my head for a very long time.
And the hardest part? She probably has no clue there’s even something wrong.
People around me keep convincing me that it’s not the way I see it. That she does care, and honestly, when we are together, she often shows it. But somehow my mind overpowers those moments. It dismisses the good and clings to the fear instead.
This happens in other areas of my life too. My mind spirals into thoughts like:
What if I never figure my life out?
What if I stay stuck forever?
What if this feeling never leaves?
And when you’re already mentally exhausted, those thoughts multiply fast.
I also think loneliness can make cognitive distortions even louder. When you spend a lot of time alone, like I do, your mind has more room to spiral unchecked. There’s less outside grounding. Less interruption. More time to sit with thoughts until they start echoing.
Recently, I experienced a real friendship breakup, and I noticed just how quickly my brain turned loneliness into self-blame. Instead of simply accepting that relationships and people change sometimes, my mind immediately latched onto finding reasons why I wasn’t enough. What I could’ve done differently. What was wrong with me.
That’s the difficult thing about distorted thinking — it often disguises itself as self-reflection.
But there’s a difference between healthy reflection and mentally tearing yourself apart trying to find explanations for pain.
Another distortion I struggle with is emotional reasoning — believing something must be true simply because I feel it deeply.
If I feel annoying, I assume I am.
If I feel left behind, I assume everyone else is ahead.
If I feel emotionally overwhelmed, I convince myself I’m incapable of handling life well.
But feelings aren’t always facts. Sometimes feelings are fear, exhaustion, burnout, grief, overstimulation, or old wounds resurfacing.
And I think learning that has been one of the biggest parts of healing for me.
Not eliminating the thoughts completely — because honestly, I still struggle with them all the time — but learning to pause before immediately believing every thought my mind throws at me.
Learning to ask:
Is this actually happening, or is my anxiety trying to protect me from something?
Am I reacting to reality, or to fear?
Would I speak to someone I love this way?
I also think cognitive distortions become especially strong when your nervous system has been in survival mode for a long time. Your brain starts scanning constantly for danger, rejection, discomfort, or signs that something is about to go wrong. You become hypervigilant emotionally. Even peace can feel unfamiliar.
It’s exhausting constantly interpreting yourself through fear. Constantly questioning your worth. Constantly trying to predict pain before it arrives.
But one thing I’m slowly realizing is that not every thought deserves trust simply because it’s loud. Sometimes our minds are trying to protect us using old survival patterns that no longer fit who we are now.
Healing, for me, is learning that I don’t have to automatically believe every story my mind creates about me.
What thoughts about yourself have you been treating like facts, simply because you’ve felt them for a long time?
“Don’t believe everything you think.” — Unknown
#MentalHealth #Anxiety #ADHD #Autism #CognitiveDisorders #Depression #MightyTogether
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Hi, my name is Ivan. I'm here because help on my depression and loneliness with panic attacks
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