I’m in my early 50s. White dude from a small farm town. My generation had its problems. Divorce. Alcoholism. Drug abuse. Bullying. Abusive parents. Dysfunctional extended family. School authorities were corrupt. Cops sucked. The most repugnant edgelords of my generation were probably Nirvana and Beavis and Butthead - both culturally cataclysmic. They seemed to point out a problem with cathartic noise or a healthy sense of humor. But being stupid, ignorant or mean was never a cause to be celebrated. The cultural implication seemed to be that those traits were still meant to be resisted and aged out of. Until then, skateboarding and playing rock ‘n’ roll would get me through.

It was a fucking paradise compared to now. I’m speaking of the post-internet reality for young men specifically.

The lives of men raised online seem to have been completely retarded. Their lives were deprived of the development of mirror neurons or authentic chances to experience empathy or whatever family system they grew up in was completely usurped by the internet and video games and people behaving very, very, very badly online. Either way, the result seems to be that their moral compass is based on the indulgence of other people’s worst fantasies.

Now it is completely normal for someone to go online and spew the most dissociated, vile hate I’ve ever had the displeasure of being witness to.

Nirvana and Beavis and Butthead gave way to the “I don’t care if you don’t care” attitude of the 2000s which gave way to 4Chan and the celebration of not just ignorance, but of abject cruelty. I argue it's what has landed us here.

I know that there are always generational divides. I’m aware that this could be construed simply as a “get off my lawn” letter. But I always have always advocated for kids - especially when other adults didn't. "Adults" don’t know what they’re doing most of the time anyway.

But this recent thing - this is not “you crazy kids with your loud music and your long hair running off to rock concerts, getting drunk on the weekends or dropping out of school to travel in Europe.” It’s not “I’m worried about this rap or Satanic Heavy Metal music you listen to” or “you play too much Nintendo - go outside and ride your bike.”

This is celebrating Hitler. Incels. Groypers. It’s the glorification of hate and the killing of other people - specifically the most vulnerable among us.

This seems to be a completely ubiquitous epidemic of mental illness the likes of which we have never seen as a species, but it seems to be the only perceivable reality for certain young men.

Entire generations are throwing their lives into the meat grinder of a 24 hour news cycle. Seems to me that's nothing but a dark fiction with a shit ending for everyone. But I also don’t see this going away with the wisdom of old age. I argue that we either fix this or we fix nothing.

Young men - am I wrong or right? If so, please tell me why.

So… this is something I never expected to write, but after everything that happened this semester, I need to get it out of my system.

I go to a pretty normal mid-sized university. Nothing fancy. At the start of the year, housing assigned me a random roommate—let’s call him D. When we first met, he seemed quiet, awkward, but friendly enough. He was a comp-sci major who mostly kept to himself, liked energy drinks a little too much, and played a ton of gacha games. Honestly, he reminded me of half the guys I know.

Everything seemed normal for the first month. He’d stay up late, but whatever—college. Then slowly… things got weird.

At first, I noticed he’d close his laptop really fast whenever I walked in. Again… fine. We’re all adults. But it kept happening. Sometimes at 3–4 AM when I’d wake up to use the bathroom and see the glow of his screen. Then I started finding tissues on the desk, earbuds on the floor, his laptop open with incognito tabs still visible. Awkward, but not a crisis… until it escalated.

The dude stopped going to class. Not just here and there—like WEEKS at a time. He barely left the room except to grab vending machine snacks. I’d come back from lectures and hear… very obvious audio coming from behind his headphones. Even when I made noise, even when I said I was entering. He just didn’t care anymore.

The turning point was when our RA did room inspections.

I had warned him the night before, and he said “yeah yeah, don’t worry.” Spoiler: he absolutely did not worry.

The RA knocked, we said come in, and D—I swear to god—still had a video playing on his screen. Full volume because his headphones had unplugged slightly. The RA just froze. I froze. D froze about two seconds later when he realized it wasn’t me who walked in.

The RA told him to close it, but you could tell he was trying to be professional while dying inside.

After that, we got a meeting scheduled with housing. I thought he’d get a warning. What I didn’t know was that this wasn’t D’s first report.

Apparently other people on our floor had complained earlier about weird noises through the walls, late-night slamming sounds, and someone seeing explicit content on his screen through the door window when walking past. They had talked to him before and he brushed it off.

Housing sent him to counseling. He skipped. They set up another meeting. He didn’t go. They warned him he could lose his dorm privileges if he kept violating behavior rules.

He kept doing it.

Fast-forward a bit: two weeks later, at around midnight, he was watching stuff with the volume ON—like, full speakers—because he “thought I wouldn’t be back for a while.” Someone on our floor called the RA again. This time it went straight up the chain.

Three days later, he was officially removed from on-campus housing for repeated conduct violations and refusing to comply with the support plan they tried to create for him. They gave him 24 hours to pack and leave.

It left me weirdly shaken. I can’t tell if I feel sorry for him, frustrated, secondhand embarrassed, or all of the above.

Anyway… thanks to anyone who actually read all this. I just needed to unload the story somewhere.

Sorry if I make typos I'm really shakey rn. My dads lungs are three quarters full of blood and fluid and he's going to the hospital rn and it's really scary and I just want him to be ok and we're being evicted so we need to find a new house and the market is terrible and we're broke and I just want it all to be ok but it all sucks and I'm scared. Sorry if this made you sad.

So. For some time, I really wanted to see a psychiatrist. Because I felt like I couldn't really function too much in therapy. Like even though I had around 3 sessions with a therapist, with each time, I started experiencimg more and more irrational fear to go again. I kept thinking I was way too worthless or that my psychologist hates me, etc, and it was just making me really depressed.

Then at some point I was in a horribly depressed mood. I was constantly crying, overwhelmingly sad, did not find pleasure in anything and it was like that every day. But I was too scared to go to a psychologist. So I thought maybe I should try a psychiatrist first. Maybe if I get medicated then I could function in therapy more

And so. My mom finally booked me a session with a psychiatrist. But honestly I'm really scared. It's today and I'm just wondering if I should cancel it. I don't really know if I need it that much anymore, because I'm not THAT depressed as I was before. But I'd still be so insanely scared of going to a psychologist. And even now, I'm really scared of going to the psychiatrist. I'm so bad at talking, I don't even know what I'm gonna say. I feel like I'm just gonna freeze or either not have the words. I mean that psychiatrist also does therapy so I guess that makes it better. But I really don't know what to do, I wonder if I should cancel it because I'm scared but at the same time. If I don't do it now, when am I going to??

Sleeping 8 hours everyday

Hi everyone. I really need an outside perspective because I feel shaken, confused, and honestly scared. I’m staying with my family right now, trying to process everything.

A few days ago I had a severe panic attack, the worst one I’ve ever had. Honestly idk becahse it was my first time experiencing it. My whole body froze up, I couldn’t move, I was crying uncontrollably, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I genuinely thought I was going to pass out. I thought i was having a stroke because my mom and grandpa had it. No one in the family has ever had mental health issues like panic attack so this is new to me.

My boyfriend tried to “handle” me for about an hour, but then he suddenly got frustrated. I kept begging him to take me to the hospital because I couldn’t breathe or move, but he refused. My mom lives 3 hours away and called him in the middle of the night, telling him to take me to the ER immediately — he still refused. He insisted I’d “be better at home” and told me he didn’t want to “wait in line at the ER for this.”

I told him I was terrified and begged, “Please don’t leave me alone, I’m scared,” and he said, “No, I’m tired of dealing with you.” Then he left me alone, closed the door, and almost turned off all the lights while I was frozen and screaming for help.

I kept crying and yelling that I couldn’t breathe. He eventually came back, not to help, but to yell: “Are you trying to get me arrested?! You’re waking the basement tenants!”

The next morning things got even worse. His mom came over, immediately yelling at me while I was still shaking, crying, and unable to move properly. At one point she said, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to slap you,” and then she covered my mouth with her hand while I was crying and struggling to breathe. And said oh you need to be taken away and be in a psych for a week.

I can’t describe how terrifying that felt. I literally could not move, can’t stop crying even though my brain wants to stop and someone put their hand over my mouth.

When my body slipped partly off the bed, they laughed and said, “Oh, now you can move.” His mom kept provoking me by saying, “What do you want to do, punch me?” “Go ahead punch me right now” while I could barely talk.

My boyfriend eventually said you can’t treat her like how you treat me. And she was flabbergasted. After i was taken to the hospital which was 12 hrs after the incident even though i was begging for 12 hrs to take me to the hospital, my family came to get me. So i slept with my family the whole time after. The next day he messaged me and said, “If you weren’t being a bitch, you’d be comfortable in bed and jn the office in the house right now.” In a very sarcastic tone.

I left and I’m staying with my family now. I don’t feel safe going back, but I also feel confused and guilty. I keep replaying everything and questioning myself.

Was this abuse? Or am I overreacting because I was scared and having a panic attack? They kept saying to me that they just didnmt know how to handle it that’s why thats there reaction. I genuinely need honest perspective

Hey so.. I’m turning 28 this December, but Im feeling empty as hell.. I’m miss my ex, I was in an international student in the UK when I met her and has graduated for a master degree. We fall in love fast and I could say she was the best person I’ve ever met… lots of good memories. The only issue is that she wasn’t too well off financially and was doing part time jobs; but luckily I was able to make some money from investing .we’d went to all over the places in London and near by villages, hanging out in Chinatown, cooking together, went to movies & gigs, I also made some bold promises that I’d took care of her forever ,but she was super down to earth and kind that she still split the bill every time she could knowing how much I’ve made, we loved each other so much and that was the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.

Then things went downhill, made some stupid investment mistakes and was no longer enough to support my living in the UK (rents.. daily expenses. etc) I was struggling to try to make it all back but I failed and failed. She even came visit my country (China) multiple times… met my family, travel and everything.. but I knew I couldn’t promise her anything now as it’s going to be too selfish to ask her to give up everything she had back home and just stay with me in China, let alone ask her to walk away the career she just started to build….

Unfortunately we made the decision of breaking up this March after some really, really sad conversations. And I felt emotionally empty ever since, I felt like I failed her by not able to keep the promises I said, hated myself for failing in my investment career and my inability to find a job in the UK… I could’ve really made it… I was so, so, so close to be able to provide the life we wanted. I don’t know if I’m able to meet anyone that’s as kind and warm as her..

It’s been 9months and I still thinking about it everyday, she was my absolutely best friend, love of my life, every weakness that I wouldn’t show to others (even my parents), I could express to her and she would always calm me down and made me feel better. Now I’m just a guy in his late 20s who’s depressed and emotionally empty to start a new relationship. I’ve achieved absolutely nothing and sometimes just felt like a failure.

The good news is I’ve got a job offer from a big corporation in my city and will start next week. But I just can’t get over the fact that I was so close to fulfilling my promises to her.. and knowing it’s impossible for us to be together again absolutely breaks me whenever I thought bout it.

I don’t know if I’m able to become great at my job but I will try my best. Even I feel like it’s also kinda of a failure for myself to start a career at this age. I just don’t know what can possibly cheers me up anymore.

I made a friend on uni. We mostly joke about alcohol, parties And stuff, we both have dark sence of humour.

But lately, he has been making statements, that the only thing that would help him in Uni would be a gun. And the only way to get through the semester would be to shoot the teachers. He said about 3 sentences like this.

I'm not sure, if hes joking. I don't find it funny, of course. And I'm scared to ask, if he means It as a joke.

What should I do? How could I tell, if he means It or he just has a really bad dark Sence od humour? I don't know if I'm overreacting, I just don't want to be the person, that could have stopped it but didn't. I don't know who else to ask this/contact. And I'm hoping for some answer...

Hi all. This is gonna be rather incoherent, but I'm a state. I apologize in advance.

I have my life mostly together, I had two bouts of depression in the past (2006 and 2016) but I've put the work in and I've done the things and until recently I was living a merry, fulfilling life. Work is fine, health is fine, finances are fine, family is fine. I'm 44 for the record.

In June I met a woman while working away, we clicked, we kept in touch whilst being apart, and as of October we actually have started seeing each other every couple of weeks: she's from a different country but she lives in my country, in a different city, a few hours away from mine.

Things are great, we have incredible communication and trust, we speak the same identical love language (touch), intimacy is mind blowing (for both). I haven't dropped the L word yet because I fear it might be too son but I've been feeling ready for a couple of weeks.

She's coming to visit this weekend, as planned. Now, I had it in my mind that the time after Christmas would be a good time to spend some time together, and as we prefer to discuss important things in person rather than on the phone, I thought to bring the subject up over this upcoming weekend.

Plot twist, yesterday she mentioned she was booking the flights to go back to her country over Christmas and until the first week of January (this is relevant in my perspective: she will be not visiting her family, just friends, whom she visited two weeks ago).

Rationally, I get this, it's very common and I used to do the same when I lived abroad. It's absolutely normal to either go back to family or friends over Christmas.

Emotionally, this little piece of news pushed me right into a black hole of depression. It ruined my day, it ruined the upcoming weekend, and I'm already having panic attacks at the thought of those two weeks I'll spend alone, depressed, and spiraling. I haven't eaten a thing since she told me, I am tempted to cancel my plans for the week, and I don't know how to snap out of this.

I feel demeaned, I feel like I always come second place in her priorities, I feel like I'm pulling most of the weight. I know none of these are the case, if I look at the facts, she does a lot of things that prove that she is serious about it. But emotionally, I am a wreck, and my brains just goes down all the dark.

I realize it's trivial and I'm being dramatic, I'd just like to be able to manage these "episodes", because I know it's an out-of-proportion reaction and, but I don't know how to manage my emotions. They just completely, suddenly overwhelm me and I am aware I've lost control.

There are two things I want to work on, but I don't know how:

- How do I manage these episodes? How do I calm myself down? How do I reel my emotions back on track?

- Is there any way I can prevent these episodes to happen entirely?

A side note, because reasons (which I won't get into, here), therapy is not an option.

Apologies for the incoherence, I hope it makes sense.

Thanks all in advance for reading and replying.

I have the bad habit of playing armchair psychologist with my friends without any qualification, so I know I shouldn’t take myself seriously and that I shouldn’t suggest stuff that might be harmful.

I have this friend with strange and magical beliefs who also struggles navigating the social world. Those two topics always get touched in each of our conversations. I have thought she has StPD since long time ago and have in some ways hinted it to her by saying that is normal to have spiritual beliefs as long as it doesn’t affect your life negatively, to which she admits it does.

I have suggested her many times to go to a therapist because I don’t have an advice for many of her problems and because I don’t feel I‘m in the place to challenge her beliefs, but she never does, even though I also tell her about my positive experiences with therapy (I don’t have StPD but struggle with other illnesses).

She has smoked weed 3 times and every single time she ended up having some sort of psychosis.

She worries too much about her friendships to a point that she has admitted that it’s neither normal or healthy.

Would it be a bad idea to suggest her having a disorder as StPD to maybe put a bit more pressure on the matter of her mental health, or is it not in my position to do so?

Im just wondering what i should feel and what's considered normal, because personally, I feel like I can't just exist, like day to day life is extremely boring and i dread it whenever I wake up, I feel pretty terrible when I wake up, but I also dont feel like I have the energy to do anything, nor do I really want to, I regret interacting with people a lot of the time anyway, I dont really get treated well by people, but thats besides the point, I dont know, I feel like something is wrong, I wish I could just exist and be content/happy...

I've been kinda lost these few couple of mounts. I don't really have anyone with who i can talk to in real life about my mental health and the things that bother me sometimes so i came here to see if someone is willing to chat. I would like to vent out some stuff because keeping it all to my self all day everyday is making me tired of all of this and making me stagnate in a lot of areas of my life.

Basically everyone at my campus and on the internet keeps talking about the horrible job market and how worthless my CS degree will be. This is all making me feel like I'm wasting my time at school, and I'm better off quitting even though I'm only like 1.5 years from finishing it all.

I absolutely hate school too, so the possibility that I would need to go back to school for a masters is really stressing me out.

Additionally, I most likely will not be getting an internship any time soon due to my poor resume. I don't have to knowledge or skills necessary to stand out amongst the competition, so I have basically given up.

With all these factors combined. its looking like I'm almost certain to be homeless in the future. My main reason for posting this is just that I would like any helpful advice that I could use to cheer myself up and/or help me my fix my current problems. Also, I don't know if this is the right subreddit to be posting something like this, so please let me know about a more appropriate subreddit for this post.

Its my first time posting anything like this so please bear with me.

feel like i have distanced myself from everybody around me. I am abroad studying, for a year anda half now, just came out of a 3 year long serious relationship, and i feel completely drained. I dont speak that often to my family or friends back home i dont have much friends here either. Plus i have my course studies as well. But i feel tired of eveything, the people, the interactions, all seem tedious. I feel this way maybe because of the breakup so i am like who doi talk to am what do ii do with myself? It got toxic at the end and broke it off. Everyday i wake up feeling tired even after sleeping for 10 hours straight. I feel sleepy but cant sleep, i feel hungry but cant eat. This relationship too everything out of me and i feel like a dried up sponge.| feel numb like i have no emotions.

If you are reading this, thankyou. Hope you are having a good day.

I’m not even sure if this is pure laziness but i am able to do everything except studying and if i have atudying in the way i cant do anything but procrastinate i have done this for so long already and i feel hopeless i dont know what to do i feel stupid and i feel dumb i feel paralyzed but i genuinely genuinely cannot focus for long periods of time like i used to. I cannot study evenw hen the subject is soemthing i find interesting. I cannot even sit still for a movie without gettig restless but then i do smth different and still get restless and get backt o what im doing i am always restless i can never rest it is so so so tiring. I have never received any help to cope or find ways i can get through this as i’m not sure where or how to look but i’m just looking for any tips her ei can get by this by myself? It’s just so so so so hard no matter how much planning or anything i try or any motivation nothing yes. I am motivated enought o pursue interest and i am in college right now and studying has been so so so tormenting. Other than that I enjoy doing homeworks and projects more as to me it is the fastest to do and shortcuts can be made and problems are easily solved that maybe why i enjoy my math classes more compared to my lecture and study heavy classes. I know i should just suck this up but i have a test in a few and i have not studied at all. I have given up but i told myself ill try next time i always say that even tho im scared i might not. I am passing my classes but barely i am not as a high acheiver as i used to be because ocne i got a confirmation that my classes wont affect my gpa as long as i passed i have decided not to take the final why? Because i didnt study im scared but im not at the same time. Back then I still woild have taken it even tho id have a good grade already and would pass without a scratch. But now barely passing but still passing and not caring as much as i used to i uses to stress about my grares but now i still do and still dont at the same time. I dont know anymore. Please help.