I’m not being sarcastic, and I don’t want to sound flippant, but I want to say that I will pray for you, Machinaforce.
Living life without a sense of purpose and meaning leads to all kinds of misery, and I hope you find a way out of it.
One of the biggest comforts of Christianity is knowing that faith is a gift of God and if you ask for it, you will get it.
I don’t know what I am looking for, I don’t know what success looks like. I only know what I have heard and what I have been told. I am afraid to lose my current view of seeing the world which is why I stopped reading anything else. But the fear of being called ignorant, a “sheep”, or a “slave” has me unwillingly going forth to seek these things out. Like why I can’t stop with Buddhism, for fear of being accused of “choosing to suffer”. It’s why I feel bad about not being able to let go of desire which they say causes depression and suffering.
Get
Professional
Help
A fear of being called a sheep or a slave has you unwillingly going forth to do this? Kinda like you were some kind of a, whadyacallit, a sheep, or a slave?
Okay, so — start fearing that someone will accuse of you of “choosing to suffer” by not stopping with Buddhism. Heck, maybe whole crowds of people will so accuse you of so “choosing to suffer” by continuing on the way you have!
Could that help you to stop?
You don’t search out the right thing. The right thing finds you.
I’m agnostic/atheist, and perfectly happy with what found me. Some will call that a cop out. Fine, don’t care. It fits with my general out look and live let live/what ever floats your boat approach to life. Try to force your religion on me, and I will ignore you.
Golden rules boil down to, “Don’t be a jerk.” Try not to fuck-over others and you’ll be doing well.
Another cliche: “The purpose of life is to find a purpose.” That’ll keep you occupied.
What’s that school of philosophy where debaters argue over whether they exist and if so, why?
I found that assembling electronic projects distracted me from philosophizing. Busy hands flush idle thoughts.
It doesn’t work because this isn’t really a mental illness type of issue. They can’t really help me in finding the “right way” because even though they are a therapist at the end of the day all I can really say is that they are just another human. Also that whole thing about them being “mainstream” when it comes to thinking gets in the way a little.
I have a habit of thinking that someone who thinks differently than me has to be proven wrong about what they said or I won’t be able to move on. It’s honestly one of the major sticking points on why I haven’t been able to move past Buddhism. They seem to have the responses to common criticisms of what they preach, or at least I think they do. It’s not the same thing as people who believe in God as I know what their responses are and have seen the arguments they make be dismantled quite easily. I don’t see much about what I read mostly because it’s either not well known or not really a problem. It’s why I don’t see many videos critiquing Buddhism since they most just leave others alone (but I am bothered about how in the few I do see they tend to wave criticism off as “you just don’t get it” or “you misunderstand it”, and then I don’t know what to think).
Pretty much when it comes to conflicting ideas with me it’s not a “live and let live” but more of a “if I can’t prove them wrong then I can’t move on”. My brain is filled with different remarks, ways of thinking, and ideas that I haven’t been able to prove wrong and so they stay stuck in my mind. I can’t let them go for fear of being a fool for “choosing to suffer” or “closing by eyes to the truth” or “being a slave to society/mainstream”, you can get the gist of it really. Any time I try to enjoy life and move away one of these data bits flashes in about how what I am doing is “wrong” (like a video game where you kill things for rewards is fueling psychopathy, or when I’m watching a love story and Buddhism pops in saying that’s attachment). Almost anything I do brings these stored and unresolved thoughts back into the fore (mostly Buddhism and some “psychedelic, anti-authoritarian, etc stuff”).
Let’s have a look, shall we?
That’s a mental illness issue.
That’s a mental illness issue.
That’s a mental illness issue.
That’s a mental illness issue.
That’s a mental illness issue.
That’s an XKCD 386 issue.
Maybe Buddhism is your thing. It’s more or less flawed like every other philosophical system. None are perfect. Some are much worse than others. Call yourself a Buddhist and stop this pointless search for something better or perfect because it doesn’t exists. Nobody is hiding the perfect philosophy of life from you because no-one has ever made any credible claims to have found one. People say shit. Ignore them. Live your life knowing that what you found works for you most of the time. And when it doesn’t, learn to accept not knowing.
Continue your treatment and meds for your obsessive behavior and remember that your therapist is not your spiritual guidance counselor. They are there to help treat your mental illness, not help you find the answer to the meaning of life.
Try helping other people. There’s a worldwide crisis going on and many people find meaning in looking and actig outside themselves.
“How do I find out “the right thing”?”
Do what almost everyone else does. Believe what you want to believe and then move on and try to enjoy your life.
Buddhism is not my thing but from what I heard around me other people make it seem like it has the answers more than anything else and so I listen to it out of that.
How can all of that be mental illness?
I wanted to add to the bit about Buddhism but the edit window was missed. My point is that Buddhism (and similar flavors like it) seem like they have all the answers, the stuff it says sounds so profound that on some level it seems like it must be true.
Like in this one that says the secret of life is “to die before you die and realize that there is no death”. It sounds cryptic and mysterious and like it has truth to it in some manner. I usually end up falling for this “crazy wisdom” all the time.
Beatles records, backwards. Just sayin’
An inability to make decisions or choose ways forward, also known as “decision paralysis,” can be a form of obsession known as abulomania.
But if you’re going to insist that “it isn’t really a mental illness issue” and that psychiatric help won’t be useful because a therapist is “just another human” then I’m not going to pester you about getting professional help.
Instead I’ll just ask, if nothing you can think of that might work hasn’t worked for you, why shouldn’t you consider something that other people here recommend?
Yeah? Well [URL=“Faith Hill - The Secret Of Life Lyrics | AZLyrics.com”]this](Reddit - Dive into anything) site says that the secret of life is nothing at all. (Though I’ll admit that it gives conflicting claims.)
Mental illness is bullshit. A brain can be ill. A mind can be perplexed, frustrated, confused, chock-full of beliefs that aren’t very well-grounded, occluded with misery, murky with drug-induced intoxication, lots of things… but it can’t be ILL. Illness is a medical term. There’s absolutely no reason except metaphorical ones to think of the shit that a human mind has to go through as a medical consideration.
In medicine, what is normative is healthy. In social-political thought, what is normative is often oppressive and what deviates from it is often revolutionary. Why are these mental states dumped into medical? Because it’s a conservative approach. If you are not a social conservative you should totally reconsider the entire paradigm. I’m a revolutionary nut. Proud schizophrenic who doesn’t consider my state of mind to be an illness. Deal with it. Yeah you not me. I deal with it every day and it’s not a problem, I like who, and how, I am. Nor do I hurt people. I may challenge you but not violently.
Machinaforce — assuming absence of trollocity — is stuck in trying to sort some shit out. I find Machinaforce frustrating and annoying but rational. The questions are real enough. The personal revelations attached to the processing are real enough. I may occasionally want to whack Machinaforce with a non-lethal whacking instrument but I think it’s because I want him to jump to where I jumped. Get off the search for someone else having the answers, dammit. Find your own. Be your own fucking guru.
Quit psychiatrizing him. I find it offensive. Call him a jerk or a dweeb or whatever if you want. but quit medicalizing this shit.
There is nothing out there with “ALL” the answers. And that’s a major part of your problem. There’s no “the right thing”. Life isn’t like that.
You need to get help. I’m guessing you have either some kind of autistic disorder or OCD.