ReachKid's log - Positive focus

[pancakemouse]

My current goal is to get money so I'm not too poor to do anything, new job will help with that. But in the short-medium term I would like to find a sort of life-coach, someone who can teach me what kinda things you can fill up a day with if not Instagram reels/YouTube/gym/nights out. Someone who can motivate my positive thoughts and help me get over the negative ones. And someone who can help me become more sure of myself when I'm needing to put myself out there, whether that be with a beautiful girl or in my job etc.

I think that having someone in person I'm paying and will be accountable to will help me a lot.

You are literally describing what MakingAComeback does for a living, and he happens to be in the same country as you!

 

[jeagle63]

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[jeagle63]

update on 30/01/2023: I changed my name for the log to ReachKid because the other one I had sounded kinda weird, and I'm nostalgic as fuck for reach, my favourite game of all time. Bit random but it'll work.

 

[jeagle63]

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[jeagle63]

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[jeagle63]

The other day I finally reached out for help about my drinking problems. I think it's just a solution to a bigger problem anyway, but it is causing me a lot of pain and I miss life without it.

I also temporarily am taking a break from my friends. I deleted whatsapp and snapchat from my phone and feel free, no more texts from my friends asking me to go drink in shit bars/clubs that I don't like.

It's easier to say yes to friends and stay in the cycle. I've learned to love the downs from alcohol as much as the ups. A familiar parallel is to porn addiction. To a rational person its nonsensical. Which is why at least for now I need to live for myself and cut them out.

Im hopeful, and ready again to try and fix things.

My potential is endless and I hate limiting myself because of comfort.

 

[jeagle63]

I got a new job as a cocktail bartender, I'll no longer be finishing work at 7-8am and instead the latest I'll finish is 12-1am. This is my way of trying to convert my sleep pattern to the daytime, where everyone else is.

I really wanna give up trying to get laid on nights out like all the other students, because some weeks as I've shown in my logs I do really well, but others I dont get anything, but because of the alcohol my mood when I dont get anything makes me feel really shitty about myself. Last log entry is kinda proof of that

I think that if I went a sober week trying to pull and failed I wouldn't be so harsh on myself and wouldn't feel so bad.

I have a new goal, I want to find a bartending job abroad for the summer, maybe in europe but I would prefer the USA as over there I'm prime british real estate, a novelty icon, the game will be on easier difficulty than home. Thats a joke but everytime I have been there I did love it, and its the only real place thats abroad and novel to me yet also everyone speaks the language I already know.

Lets see what happens.

 

[Squilliam]

The other day I finally reached out for help about my drinking problems. I think it's just a solution to a bigger problem anyway, but it is causing me a lot of pain and I miss life without it.

I quit drinking about a year and a half ago. It's not easy, but absolutely worth it. Alcohol is so normalized and it's easy to write off binge drinking behavior as "normal" when you're young and partying.

Naltrexone has also been immensely helpful in stopping.

 

[jeagle63]

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[Akilles7]

Passable?

Anything is passable online, but what we're aspiring to here is what's top-tier.

Photo's average IMO. You look like a pretty bland and generic white guy. The black jacket does add some edge, but it's pretty minimal. The resolution is terrible too.

Now if your friend(s) had been in the shot as well, and it looked like he/she was actively listening to what you were saying and you were posed - naturally - as if in the process of speaking, that'd be a different story.

 

[jeagle63]

Passable?

Anything is passable online, but what we're aspiring to here is what's top-tier.

Photo's average IMO. You look like a pretty bland and generic white guy. The black jacket does add some edge, but it's pretty minimal. The resolution is terrible too.

Now if your friend(s) had been in the shot as well, and it looked like he/she was actively listening to what you were saying and you were posed - naturally - as if in the process of speaking, that'd be a different story.

Yeah that's fair, I was trying my best to just talk naturally but it's kinda weird when u know someone's watching. My friend used an iPhone pro so idk why the quality is bad but we were indoors with bad light so I get it.

For £4 the jacket isn't too bad.

I've been working to push my fitness goals getting up to 52kg on the chest fly to fill my shirts a bit better and am planning on buying a new necklace soon (and getting black ear piercings when they've both healed) just looking for a bit for inspiration at the moment.

 

[jeagle63]

Never thought I would say this but the other day I spent about 5 hours shopping for rings and bracelets, to really find some I actually like and Ive replaced my old ones. I still have a spinning ring because it's a great stress relief tool but I spent a little more on a new one rather than keeping the cheapest one I got from amazon.

I found a really fancy ruby ring with eagle engravings on the side, and I think it looks amazing. It's probably quite bold looking so Im basically just planning to wear that ring on its own and have all my other stuff on the other hand/arm. I've been looking for a ring with eagles for a while cuz it's an important symbol to me from my past doing gaming and youtubing, and I think this may be the one I've been looking for. I will ask for it for my birthday and only send photos when its on my finger, no spoilers.

I may have said this a couple times in this log already because I have a bad habit of repeating myself, but I'm pretty sure I know my trigger for binge drinking and porn use now. It's not really jealousy of other people in relationships or other people making out with each other etc, its just deep-rooted insecurity that I get sometimes when I see people with a above normal/strong build. I have made progress in the gym and I just got a badge from my gym for completing 50 sessions, but its still a horrible feeling that I cant see my muscle definition through an XS tshirt whereas most guys (muscular or not, and I'm not gonna say all guys are muscular) will easily fill a small or medium shirt.

I wouldn't rather be fat than this skinny but I am quite sick of it getting me down and making me feel insecure. I also think people don't take me as seriously as they should because I'm so skinny, I think my fear of confrontation literally stems from bullies in school that told me I'd be thrown into the ground by anyone if I stood up to them because "I was built like a twig" etc etc. I talk to so many people bigger than me, and they eat less than me, which makes 0 sense.

I do know that its not healthy though to be insecure about your body size, and it could be a fact that I will always be skinny even if I can tone my muscles more. So I set my new goal to try and love myself and get past this. But I've restarted tracking my calories, stopped eating chicken in favour of full fat mince, stopped eating rice and I'm onto the pasta, and I'm trying to get at least 2800-3000 per day. I'll post a screenshot of my lifesum streak at 30 days at the end of march. And one of you can hold me accountable to that.

 

[jeagle63]

Doing a lot better recently as I've got a full time job, and been consistently hitting my calories for 14 days now. I weighed myself today at the gym and I'm up 10 pounds from where I was when I initially started. Not bad, but I can do better. My job burns a lot of calories actually so I think I probably need more than my tracking app says. But I have consistently been hitting my protein goals which I feel great about.

Also started taking a 3g creatine supplement each day and placebo or not since starting I feel I have a lot more energy throughout the day although so far I haven't seen noticeable improvement in my workouts but I was not expecting to at this stage.

I also started budgeting and whilst it's definitely a learning curve and I'm still missing the mark and overspending in some areas it's so much better than wasting all my money and burying my head in the sand like I used to do before.

Overall, whilst I haven't really met any new people or been interested in any girls recently, I've been working on myself and had a really good couple weeks. I'm almost off nicotine entirely, basically quit caffeine cuz I don't need it, and I don't want to give up tequila but my alcohol intake is way down from months prior.

I very much hope and believe this good trend can continue

 

[jeagle63]

Back when I was doing a CS job during covid, the realization that I missed out on Uni and doing real human things instead of living through a video game made me breakdown and ultimately lead me on this path I am right now.

But I'm reflecting now and I'm not sure this experiment wasn't really worth it. It feels like I want to go back to CS, I miss it, and I don't know if I'm just being nostalgic for it, or I'm getting close to burn out. Since leaving that life behind,

The positives include:
- I got to travel on my own to the other side of the world and meet people/experience places I never would have seen before
- I've just met hundreds more people than I ever had met in my life
- I have stopped feeling socially awkward when I'm "in the mood" to socialize (more on that in a second)
- I started going to the gym to improve my body and mood - it was initially a tool I used to stop feeling depressed and get an endorphin boost, now gym and calorie tracking are a huge part of my life
- I can bartend meaning I could theoretically travel and work anywhere doing this kind of job

But the negatives include:
- Out of those hundreds of people, I didn't really make any close friends. That has changed this year and especially very recently, but for a long time I tried to fit in and socialize with people I really didn't want to be around.
- I went back to University because I thought it was the only way to make friends, but really because I missed out the first time and wanted to do it again. This backfired, because I'm not interested in the course I'm doing, had to take out so many loans I can't afford to do it, and I wasn't 18/19 so pretending to be a naive young student going clubbing and joining socials didn't work for very long.
- I only become in the mood to socialize after having alcohol. Whilst sober I'm stressed about my finances, questioning whether I even want to work in bars anymore, not sure if I like most of the people I hang out with, etc. It now only takes a single tequila most of the time to block out all stress and allow me to be extraverted, chatty and fun, the persona I wish I could be all the time. Unlike before where I would need 6-7 shots before I could even talk to anyone, and 10-12 before I'd be euphoric, I now get euphoric from the sheer act of having a single shot because I know that even for 1 hour if I only have that one shot all the noise will go away.

Alcohol is not a necessity for me to socialize or have fun, as I have recently discovered by making a really close friend for the first time in a long time. Around her I felt like I can actually act like myself around her and my other friends. And as she is a very positive person which is definitely rubbing off on me. I've felt like I can act like myself around my other friends and new people way more than before. Yet I still struggle to hang out with her and keep myself from stressing myself out about the future unless I have some drinks.
It's not really about getting blackout drunk/steaming, its more the personality shift and the living for now rather than later, as mostly it feels like I don't really live for myself, I'm just living to protect myself from being homeless by working and protect myself from depression by hanging out with as many people as possible even if they treat me badly/with little respect.

I've lost interest totally/become burned out from using tinder or trying to find girls to sleep despite the fact I've been getting compliments on how I look all the time and I'm not insecure about myself anymore. I'm not 100% over rejection of course, but being rejected by a girl doesn't really even cross my mind at the moment. Because I cant switch off the stress voice that says, even if this girl said yes, she'll realize you're broke, can't do anything with her, and get bored of you. I can't ask a girl on a date right now, I can't afford to go on a date. And I'm tired of kissing girls in clubs and nothing else happening, the prospect of it doesn't really excite me anymore. Until i am financially stable I don't believe I can progress as I'm not going to have the headspace to go after girls until I know I'll be able to pay for things properly.

This is why I'm getting nostalgic for CS and want to go back. Even though my old life was so mind numbingly boring and I couldn't imagine living it now:

- I have to do my masters Uni course now, I've invested money and time into it and it will help me find a way better job than I can get now afterwards
- But mostly, I want to live for myself again and not be constantly stressed about money and wasting my time doing things I don't like

I know that I could go back to a CS job and make a deal with them that I can still do University (because I only do it part time anyway), make way more money than I currently make doing bartending, and fade away from going out with people all the time to save money for things that matter. I could also way more consistently goto the gym 4 times per week like I want to, eat way better because I wont have to get takeouts, and make much faster progress. And crucially I can stop living with constant money stress.

But I feel too scared to do it because I don't want to regress back to where I used to be.

The reason I fell in love with doing bartending was the overstimulating nightclub environment that I worked in. Despite the stress managers gave me, or customers gave me, or the sheer amount of work you had to do, it was an adrenaline rush, made me so high that it didn't matter if by the end it was 7am and I couldn't stand up from tiredness, because it was just the best. It sucks that it doesn't pay well. Ideally I would love to keep doing it on weekends whilst also working a CS job in the week. Bartending is not stimulating enough during the week because theres so little customers, and I need stimulation to prevent myself getting super bored/losing energy/losing motivation etc.

I stopped posting here really because I kept posting on my log just to try and get responses from people, sometimes validation, sometimes sympathy, but I wasn't really posting for myself, which is what a log should be. But I am posting this asking simply for someone to tell me I won't lose my self improvement progress if I go back to a CS job. I know my friend would tell me that not only would I not lose it, that I would be able to do it way better as now my social skills have improved so much. I'm so close to believing it. I just can't go back to the life of having nothing worth living for.

 

[jeagle63]

Yesterday I weighed myself at the gym after 1 month, I've decided that I'll start doing that once a month. Last month I gained 1.2kg and have improved on my lifts since I changed to a program more suitable for me around work and started tracking them properly.

Since starting weight lifting too I also have developed way better knowledge about nutrition/health, and although I've stopped tracking every single meal / gram of food I eat, I have now a solid understanding of macros and calories so day-day I'm pretty sure where I'm at. I still weigh all my food to make sure that my estimations are more accurate than if I was eyeballing. After learning so much about this its very obvious why I have been skinny for my whole life, because I didn't have enough food pretty much throughout child/teenage hood.

I took progress photos yesterday (which I also have decided to do once a month now) and my chest, arms and shoulders are a lot more defined than before. The last time I took photos was 6 months ago, and I haven't balooned in size or anything but I'm a lot happier with my body than I was before. In the next 6 months I'm hoping that I can see way more improvement than the previous by being better and working harder. I would say that I still think I'm too small/want to be bigger, but the pumps on my arms at the end of a day session fill me with a lot of pride/confidence I didn't have before.

I plan to do a photoshoot soon for dating apps that will highlight this progress as well as the progress with my fashion, clothing and jewellery. I've now got 2 hands (did have those before actually) decorated with two styles of jewellery, the left having black rings/black bracelets and the right having my steel watch and steel/lighter/more detailed looking rings. I'm going to also try painting my fingernails on the left hand black (maybe just finger 1/index) but whether this will appeal to girls or make me look gay I don't really know yet.

My next plan is to join a self-defence class of some kind. Sure I love being a confident "alpha" for 10 minutes when the tequila kicks in but I hate that I'm too weak/scared to stand up for myself most of the time. I used to be bullied when I was younger for my size and was told anyone could destroy me in a fight, and no girls would find me attractive etc etc. I proved the latter wrong to myself but I want to prove the former to myself too. Not because I actually want to fight everyone, but just so I can learn how to be assertive and do things/say things I want without the fears I have now.

 

[vibe]

The other day I finally reached out for help about my drinking problems.

I was drinking heavily for about 15 years. I quit doing it in 2017. If you want to talk about it, just reach out.

Also, here’s a book that helped me a lot:

https://www.amazon.com/This-Naked-Mind-Annie-Grace-audiobook/dp/B078N5JTP4/