Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

Does she like to read?

If so, I highly recommend you get her the book "Feeling Good" by Dr. David Burns. It's the #1 book recommended by doctors for depression.

You can get it on Amazon.com or at your local library for free.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

Take a look at the book Feeling Good

It outlines ways to reframe words or ideas that are affecting your emotions using a system developed in Stanford University called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

You may be having “automatic thoughts” as you lay down, prompted by anything (including these wacky times).

Since you’ve become anxious about bedtime, it could now be looping back on itself, and this book will help right away, within a week.

Honestly, this isn't the only answer and I'm sure others will have other things to say, but - therapy is helpful. I've been in therapy and the fresh perspective that therapists can give you is really amazing. If you're still in school then your college should offer some sort of resources.

If you want to read a book, Feeling Good is a popular one related to cognitive behavioral therapy, which could be a good fit for you given its focus on targeting unhelpful thought patterns.

For what it's worth, I think automatically comparing yourself with others is a common struggle. It's definitely something I've experienced recently too. CBT has been helpful for me here but it's still something I'm working on.

You sound like you have a low self-esteem, which will likely need professional therapy. You may not like my response, but I'm pretty sure it's your best option. This kind of damaging self-talk is not going to be fixed by a few Reddit posts. I could post paragraphs and paragraphs, but I don't think it would be enough, honestly. This kind of behavior gets embedded and can be difficult to shake.

Low self-esteem does NOT mean you're a bad person, or unworthy of friendship or love. You are worthy of friendship and love. You can over come it. I say that confidently, because I did it. So, please seriously consider finding a therapist.

While you're looking for one, I might also recommend very handy book called Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy. It could help you fight off all of the damaging self-talk you seem to struggle with.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

In first place by a mile, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Revolutionized the way I think in a way that measurably improved my depression/dysthymia within minutes of reading it and doing the "triple-column" technique. I think it would be useful for just about anybody, depressed or not.

Tied for second place are a bunch of books that each offered some useful tips or techniques:

• Getting Things Done: gave me the concept of determining the Next Action, which was the single most useful tool for me in overcoming procrastination.

• A bunch of mindfulness/meditation books and podcasts, including some by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Naht Hahn, Tara Brach. Mindfulness is a skill which actually enhances a lot of other techniques.

• Some "mental game of" books/podcasts which all complement and reinforce: Jared Tendler on poker, Basketball FundaMENTALs, The Inner Game of Tennis

• Tony Robbins despite his critics is extremely motivating at least in the short term. Can be very useful for getting started. Some good insights about managing your moods and feelings, again, at least in the short term.

• The Motley Fool book. My most important (maybe only) takeaway: invest in an index fund as soon as you can, take ALL employee matching, hold until you retire. Don't try to choose individual stocks and don't pay others to do it for you. I'm pretty bad with money everywhere else, but my family's going to be set for retirement because I did this one thing right when I first started working 20 years ago. (Set it and forget it. It all happens automatically.)

• Especially helpful for software engineering and related: The Pragmatic Programmer

• Cal Newport's writing & interviews

• Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: contains a simple journaling technique ("Morning Pages") which is really good for getting in touch with yourself in a way that's probably particularly helpful for the stereotypical nerd who is good at reason and terrible at emotional intelligence.

>No matter how many pills I take people will never like me and I’ll always be lonely and because of that I’ll always be depressed.

This is the problem with "depression" right now. It needs to be broke down into sub categories.

Ill start with me and come back to you.

Ive had some variant for 20 years or so, along with ADHD and panic disorder. Im by all accounts functioning. I have a career and a wife, friends, material assets (ha) and yet this little bug in my brain coding always rears its head and says "fuck you Bill".

How it manifests in me is mostly physical at the start, but then it turns into a brain fog, lack of focus, lack of interest in just about anything, apathy, no libido, no interest in social activities, normal tasks feeling overwhelming, procrastinating important things, avoiding everything.....I could go on and on.

When this happens its time for a med change. Im on my fourth med change in 20 years. So yes, they work for me, they are literally a life saver. Without them I would have "shut her down" when I was 24.

Now having said that, they aren't a 100% cure. They only treat the symptoms, not address the underlying fuckery. So after a few years, my brain figures out how to kick them out, and gets back to my shitty baseline.

Even when Im at my "best", Im still only at about 70%, but thats good enough for me to get "some" enjoyment out of life.

So back to you:

>Taking a pill won’t make people like me and change that. On top of that the mere thought of me taking a pill for depression makes me more depressed. No matter how many pills I take people will never like me and I’ll always be lonely and because of that I’ll always be depressed.

It seems to me like your situation is largely based on social isolation. Will a pill fix this? I don't know. Would a therapist? Thats where I would start. Or if thats not an option, buy this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

What this book will teach you is how to reverse these negative thought loops you have about yourself. I think in your case cognitive behaviour therapy (which is what this book is) is a better solution than a pill. You have to like yourself if you want others to like you. Its a chicken and an egg thing. This book will teach you to LOVE yourself.

LOVE yourself first, then worry about connecting with other people. It will happen.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

If you are interested maybe you could try out the first few chapters of this book: Feeling Good

I'm spoiling the premise, but it is about how easy it is to utilize cognitive biases to basically fool yourself into a bad mood and an imposter syndrome.

So: "I could've done this faster" becomes a bludgeon you can use in your inner dialog to hit yourself over a few days, tying your self-worth to that specific task that was either really harder than you thought, or your assessment of your skills are off-sync and now all you need is to come up with a way to remember this problem's solution or practice how to solve it when it arises again.

I'm sorry to say this but no one can help you unless you help yourself first. The path to personal recovery starts within you.

You can definitely have a professional therapist guide you and show you methods in how to be in a healthier state of mind but, again, that depends on you. You need to be the one who puts in the work, the time, the desire to change. If you don't do that, then no one can do that for you.

I'll give you a suggestion: Get this book.

Now the ball is your court.

Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy.

To Hell with Valentine's Day, another creation of the greeting card companies.

What do you offer a potential partner? A pile of "need" next to a pile of "want"?

How would you react to a girl who presented that way to you?

You need self-confidence. You are looking for a relationship to give you confidence. It doesn't work that way.

You have to offer a "self" that is interesting, warm, insightful, helpful, caring, accomplished (at something), pleasant, funny, and more.

When you open up with "desperately seeking...", it puts people off.

Become expert in something useful or interesting. I'll give you one example. Pest control. If a woman has mice or insects in her world, she wants to know what she can do about them. An "undesirable" pestguy becomes "desirable". Oh, and a positive attitude goes a hell of a long way, too.

The book has been in print for >20 years, it's in the library. It works, can attest.

I hope that this is meant tongue-in-cheek, but in case not please do feel free (encouraged) to message me. I'd also highly recommend this book if you're at all interested in further understanding anxiety, depression, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc. I personally found it super helpful for shaking off a feeling of emptiness or blandness in my life, and imagine some here may find it similarly impactful.

You’re welcome! Not to get too mushy, but it was easy for me to write, because I was typing from my heart ❤️

I’m glad that you’re catching yourself; that’s an important part of stopping! Here’s a book that talks about how to catch negative self-talk. My therapist has me do the feelings log exercise sometimes.

Please DM me if you ever need to talk more.

Hey, a dad here. Losing weight and keeping it off is possible but very rare. I myself have lost 100lbs and then gained back about 40, so I understand the struggle. I could give you advice about that if you really want (/r/keto worked for me, check out /r/loseit too) but the good news (other than the fact that it is possible) is you don't have to lose weight to feel good about yourself.

What you have to do is to stop believing that you are a sack of shit. You can live a normal, happy life even if you are obese. Obese actually is "normal" in much of the Western world. You can have a fulfilling career and a good relationship even if you never lose another pound.

So how do you stop believing that you are a sack of shit? Well, first realize that just because your dad said something doesn't make it true. He is a flawed human just like the rest of us (maybe worse than average or maybe he just had a bad moment.)

Logically speaking, it is just not true on its face. You are not literally a sack of shit, you are a human being. Oh, you say he's speaking figuratively? Well then un-figurative it. Write out, on paper, the most precise and true version of it you can think of and keep iterating on it until you reach something that's actually true. I can guarantee that whatever version of that which is actually true will make you feel much better than "sack of shit" would. Maybe the truth is something like you have, so far, not successfully gotten to and maintained a typical BMI. OK, fine, so what? You can still feel good about yourself as a human being.

If you need help defeating this irrational thought, as most of us do, you can seek out therapy or teach yourself with a book like Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.

I hope that your dad was just doing a terrible job at motivating you because he wants what (he thinks) is best for you. Maybe his intentions were good. But regardless of his intentions, what he said was awful and I hope he regrets it.

Other than pharmaceuticals Cognitive Therapy is proven to treat depression as well as pharmaceuticals. But it requires homework. There are psychotherapists who use it their practice but there are books and workbooks about it that you can use at home.

One popular book is by Dr David Burns

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

The basic idea is that depression is a thought disorder. People who are depressed have characteristic distorted patterns of thinking. Read a few posts here after you pick up the book and it's easy to see. Something like "I had to drop out of college because of depression, I'm a loser" Well first of all you aren't a loser because you got into college in the first place. Second you were not well and no one performs when they aren't feeling well. And loser is a blanket statement. To apply the term "loser" to your entire life because of a set back isn't reasonable. So the technique involves identifying that faulty reasoning and replacing it with reasonable thinking as my response just did.

All you really need is pen and paper to use the techniques. It's good to use the written techniques on the fly as depressive thoughts arise to nip them in the bud rather than a once daily kind of thing.

It's not a book that helps by osmosis. It's kind of like mental yoga, you get better with practice. Iguess you could think of the techniques as learning how to become your own best friend.

You can try this: https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336 . PDF probably around the internet. It helps some people.

But still, even though you've tried before, therapy. You have to keep trying until you find the right one, one of my friends (unfortunately) went through a dozen before she found the one that finally got her head on straight. Hopefully the average is a lot lower.

Yes, it sucks. After your previous disappointing experience with it, trying that again is probably the last thing you want to do, but do it anyway.

Thank you man for some hope boost. Is it this book?

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

If you still have difficulties getting the right kind of help, here's a book that is widely recommended:

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

I'd recommend this book.

Yes.

OP, you break my heart. My story is different, but the same. The best "mindset" I can think of for your perusal is this:

Think, when you are (as relaxed as you can get) ready, of the person you admire most. What is it that you admire? What aspects of their emotional makeup catch your attention? What abilities or rare qualities, exactly, make you feel good about that personality?

Emulate that person. I won't tell you how, you will realize what you need to do. The trick is to do something every day.

But something I have used successfully is this:

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Einstein - I call it "leveling up". Now, when I feel myself slipping into old habits or negative thought flows, I just remind myself to "level up", and it reminds me that I'm better than that, and need to pay attention to making good habits to replace the ones holding me down.

A book (I detest self-help books. This one's different) that enabled me to stop the internal trashing of myself that I wasn't aware I was doing(!) was a Godsend. I have gifted it four or five times. Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy by David Burns MD. No jargon, no "cult" crap, no moralizing, no bullshit. It's been in print for >twenty years, so it's in the library.

A therapist I saw recommended it to me. He has met the author a couple of times, says he's just the nicest guy. I had (I learned much later) one (throat) of my chakras clear as I was reading the book the first night. I didn't know what had happened, but I could feel the "like a weight lifting off my shoulders" thing as it happened, and after, I was "healthier", and I felt it.

Please, if you think I waste time shilling books, think again. This is real.

I'd be happy to talk, OP. PM me if you like.

Sounds like you’re ruminating and maybe having some cognitive distortions. There are techniques you can learn to talk back to these distortions. You can check out Feeling Good by David Burns to learn how

Any other sub would say the same thing to you regarding your husband. Relationships are a partnership. A pregnancy is temporary, and your lower desire for sex and touch temporary. Instead of supporting you during the difficult time of a high-risk pregnancy he chose to go get sex elsewhere, then somehow gaslit you into taking responsibility for his emotions and actions. He's not a good partner.

I would recommend 2 books: Feeling Good and Boundaries. You need to stop taking responsibility for his actions and emotions and start owning only your own. You also need to develop and enforce a healthy set of boundaries. Eventually he will push and push until you reach a breaking point.

No one here is saying that you should leave him because we get a kick out of dumping on your husband. We are saying that because we can recognize the cycle of abuse that you are going through and we care about you and don't want to see you suffer any longer.

First off, good work sticking with a practice despite experiencing depression and fatigue. Getting to stage 3-4 TMI in a few months is already significant! Honestly, it sounds like what you are doing is working. Not every day feels amazing, especially not when you are just starting out. Having challenging meditation sessions is 100% normal.

Here are some non-meditation things that helped me a lot when I had chronic fatigue / burnout / depression. Perhaps one or more may be useful for you too:

• Electrolytes. A large number of people who have chronic fatigue have electrolyte imbalances. This is especially relevant if you feel thirsty all the time, like no amount of water is enough, or if you drink a lot of coffee or alcohol. You can chug gatorade but that's pretty sugary. Coconut water is a better idea. But even better is electrolyte packs that are sugar free or low in sugar, or you can DIY your own with table salt, potassium chloride (not too much), and some magnesium glycinate tablets (powder tastes awful, just do tabs).
• CoQ10. I take a brand I get at Costco. It's the reference drug for fatigue.
• Rhodiola. I found this made a significant difference in my fatigue, but everyone is different. Don't take more than 680mg.
• Quitting caffeine. Yea I know, it sucks, but it helped a lot for me, especially in noticing when I needed to rest.
• Quitting sugary junk food. Awful at first, but really helped me to balance my energy levels eating more slower digesting carbs.
• Doing a small amount of exercise. Only increasing when I was convinced it wasn't giving me more fatigue. I started with just 2 or 3 modified pushups on a railing and waited 48 hours before I did it again. Exercise is key to overcoming chronic fatigue, but too much of it and you can set yourself back days or weeks. So you have to find that delicate balance of getting enough to create an adaptation and not too much that you overdo it.
• Lying down to rest several times a day. Even better was a "zero g" outdoor chair I got from Costco for about $50, where you are reclined almost horizontal but legs are higher than your butt. When that deep fatigue would set in, I'd find that 10 or 20 minutes in the "zero g" chair was very helpful. If I didn't have that around, I'd lie down on the floor and close my eyes and do a body scan meditation.

The main psychological method that was useful to me was Core Transformation (full disclosure: I work for the author). It took a lot of repetition, but after 2-3 years of regular practice I was depression-free as well as anxiety-free. Worth the effort.

The other thing worth looking into for energy is Zhan Zhuang or standing meditation. Check out the book The Way of Energy by Lam Kam Chuen or his videos on Youtube Stand Still Be Fit. Even 10-20 minutes of this a day is really quite remarkable in what it does for energy, especially after a few months. Even Buddha talked about 4 meditation postures (standing, sitting, lying down, walking) but we typically only practice sitting and walking. Standing meditation is powerful stuff for increasing energy over time.

Also if you aren't doing therapy for depression, CBT is pretty good. The book Feeling Good is a classic that you can work with on your own too.

These are apps based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A largely successful branch of psychotherapy, mostly used for anxiety and depression. It's sort of a talki g therapy, where in you note talk about(note down in case of the app) your negative thoughts, at the moment you are having them and keep asking questions about these thoughts that help you segregate the thought and find a proper rationale for that thought.

As per CBT Negative thoughts have certain traits, and when you find out those traits, it gets easier to neutralise such thoughts. These traits are called cognitive distortions, and there are originally 10 recognised.

You can read more about cognitive distortions here

If you want to get more into CBT, you can refer to this book. I found it very useful personally especially with my own anxiety.

Been through a lot, I found this book very helpful. https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336.

If the price is too much, DM me an address, I'll get it for you.

from reading your post I feel like you are depressed, I have been there with the help of therapist and really nice book by David Burns "Feeling Good" I get over it, I highly recommend you to get this book: https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

Please read it! Main idea is, you don't suck, your life doesn't suck, it is just your thoughts about your life sucks. When you overcome that thoughts, your life will be different, Mr Burns teach you how to get over that thoughts which lead to depression.

\> seeing everyone else be great while u alone

Keep in mind, some people try to show that they have everything, but in reality, everyone has their own problems.

Please read the book!

That's very kind of you to say, thank you! It was definitely difficult taking care of my emotional needs earlier in our relationship because I was so scared that any negativity from me might push her into depression.

Fortunately, we've gotten pretty good at dealing with her depression as a couple, but also she's put in a ton of work on managing it and actively working against depressive tendencies. It sucks how much she has to fight just to reach what I have for a baseline, but she's constantly improving and I'm so proud of her! When we started dating, her depressive episodes could last for weeks. Now she gets about one a week and usually works through it in about half an hour! We're also in a place where I can express negative feelings to her, feel heard and/or address the issue without worrying (too much) about the depression latching on to it.

Yes, depression still happens. I doubt it will ever go away entirely, but it is so manageable now, and we know the tricks to dealing with it.

Haha, sorry, this turned into a bit of a diatribe on dealing with depression in relationships. If anybody reading this feels like they want to combat depressive tendencies, I'd suggest the following things that have helped my wife immensely:

• The book Feeling Good. Research conducted on using this book, alone, as self help suggests that just reading it can manage depression (on average) as well as medication or therapy!

• Therapy. A single session is what got my wife on her path to effective management. I am still shocked at the difference that single therapy session made. A lot of people are scared of the cost, but there are low cost and free routes to therapy/counciling if you need it.

• Medication. At first she was scared of the stigma, resentful of the idea that she couldn't address this "on her own", and frightened that they would change who she was. After trying them for a few months, however, she felt that the meds let her shut off the voice in her head that was shouting that she was worthless. They helped her get to a place where she could make good mental pathways and eventually she was able to transition off meds entirely!

Hey there, first a background of myself I am sort of in the same situation as you I'm at the stage of my life where I've decided to not to go to College(Its my own preference) and pursue art on my own but before that decision Ive actually gone to one because I thought this self thought journey of mine wasn't working.

this was just last year ,the workload and the commute really took a toll on my mental health that I couldn't do the assignments, I just snapped, I didn't get out of my bed, played video games. I didn't turn up for school and just forget all about it.

I think (take this with a grain of salt, im no expert), the reason why we feel like this always comes down to the feeling of failure. which leads to procrastination, which leads to depression. this negative loop is whats making our outlook life so grim as if there is no hope left in sight.

I really don't know what to advice and some of you might think what I have to say here might be invalid because I'm actually going through the same feelings. over the past few days the isolation and the situation thats going on because of the pandemic is just making me feel down and depressed.

but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone in this. If you need someone to talked to you cant Direct message me.

P.S: the book that the other user recommended might be pertaining to this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

I have it as well and Ive read it the last few months and I remember helping me tremendously during those times. It has a lot of practical exercises that you could do. helps you to articulate whats going on inside your head.

I do this book along with therapy and meds:

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

I went every week for an hour. Number of sessions totally depends on you and your unique needs. Yes, I found CBT to be useful in conjunction with pharmaceutical interventions. It works to retrain your brain to observe itself, rather than just acting in a reactionary way. Honestly, just try this book if you want to see what it's about: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380810336/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=feeelinggood-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0380810336&linkId=fc4d131a7ed73813b6a09fbd431b66fd

What cured my depression and anxiety:

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

Fundamental thesis of the book is that long term thinking patterns cause long term emotional patterns. Slowly changing your thinking patterns will change your emotional patterns.

Furthermore, there are 10 thinking patterns to watch out for.

http://www.pacwrc.pitt.edu/curriculum/313_MngngImpctTrmtcStrssChldWlfrPrfssnl/hndts/HO15_ThnkngAbtThnkng.pdf

There is hope. My struggles feel like a distant memory. I learned a lot in overcoming my problems. Feel free to dm.

I feel you- depression truly sucks. Also- my suggestion would be, try not to force it. If you don't feel like doing a full beat, who cares! Sometimes I'll just even do a finger-applied solid color on the lid and nothing else. Or experiment with a wild color liquid lip I would never really be able to pull off but do nothing else. Don't force yourself- I go through phases where I'll be completely into makeup and love doing new looks each day, and then a few weeks where I won't wear anything. Go with the flow. Life is a long journey :)

Re: depression- here are the two books that helped me IMMENSELY- the first one is The Depression Cure by Dr. Steve Ilardi and the second is Feeling Good by David Burns. Feeling Good is a classic, I think he wrote it originally in the 1970s but has been updating. imo the Depression Cure helped me more. Both are excellent.

Hang in there!! These are crazy times, so be kind to yourself. Much love.

When Anger Hurts. And also Feeling Good for emotion management.

What kind of therapist are you seeing? Have you told them about your anger? If not, make sure you bring it up next time. Don't hold back. Let them know what your real day to day struggles are.

There's 2 things: Firstly the idea that people who make more money derive self-worth from that, and secondly that there is nothing else to live for. The second problem is very hard, so I'm going to put that aside for a moment.

You might be surprised, but a lot of people who make a lot of money really genuinely hate themselves. I guess it makes sense, because the lower the self worth the more you need to achieve to feel good. A lot of people at these big tech companies in particular, they just want to die 100% of the time. No matter how much money they make, there's always someone at a higher level who is making 2x what they're making.

Now, as far as developing self-worth in and of itself, that's a much harder task. I really think that meditation can help a lot with that, because the weird thing is is that it's not so much that you sit in a room and look at a candle and suddenly realize you do have value as much as you realize that you have about as much value as anything else that exists in the universe, and that the concept of "value" is totally made up. There's also a great chapter in Feeling Good that's about this idea of value and how the more you drill into it the less sense it makes.

Three things:

1. Read/listen to chapter 12 of David D. Burns’s book/audiobook Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. This well help you with the desperation aspect.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=nodl_#mediaMatrix_secondary_view_div_1587220126769

1. Conquer any fear of rejection with rejection therapy exercises. Go up to a random girl who you find attractive and start a conversation and ask her for her number or ask her out to dinner. You will get rejected a lot and you will put yourself in awkward situations but ultimately this will almost exponentially increase your likelihood of meeting someone once you conquer fear of rejection.

https://youtu.be/-vZXgApsPCQ

1. Put yourself out there. Dating apps (Hinge is my favorite), go to social events etc. I think finding someone is truly a numbers game. So the more you can put yourself in the position to find someone the better your chances are.

Number two is the toughest. You will be very bad at first but eventually you’ll begin to feel more comfortable.

The number one thing is that you have to take action. Nothing good comes of sitting around over thinking. It’s all about getting experience and doing.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

Every morning I do yoga, I meditate and I plan my day ( I do full time youtube so I plan what I will do etc.) Then I start working. I try not to go on reddit too much, not to read news and not to react to the outside world, but try to only be active in my own world.

​

Also I read a lot, right now I am reading siddharta (wonderful read) and this book https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

I am optimist and positive person, but reading this helps me even more, I recommend everyone to get feeling good book.

Hi, I am a Nigerian, in Lagos to be precise, I've been struggling with social anxiety since I can remember. And trust me I know how it feels. I recently came across a book called "Feeling Good" by a renowned American Psychologist named David Burns. You can check him out. A lot of people who have read his book have succeeded in overcoming their social anxiety.

Personally, I've been listening to his podcasts and they're so amazing. They've giving me hope that I can overcome social anxiety. Right now I'm trying a kind of therapy called "Exposure Therapy", where you go out and gradually face the things that scare you. While I'm not there yet, I know I can beat social anxiety.

My advice to you is just to start by listening to these podcasts (they are free by the way). And if you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Best of luck!

Just a guess but maybe Feeling Good by David Burns, some editions have a yellow cover

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

(serious) https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

Have you tried Cognitive-behavioural-therapy books or rational-emotional-behavioural-therapy books? These are based on decades of research and science and they work.

Check out Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable: About Anything - Yes, Anything!

Again, these are not typical self-help books written by greedy idiots. These are based on decades of clinical research with actual patients and written by some of the most intelligent psychotherapists in the world. Just read the reviews at least. Reddit loves the first book to death

Rent this book from the library! (It's definitely the best self-CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy written in a novel-like arc)https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

From a personal level, I get it. There's nothing especially wrong with you.

Think of your brain as a computer. When you lost your job, you basically lost your life as you knew it. Your brain is showing error messages trying to figure out what that next step can be, especially if there isn't an easy path ahead.

Take things an hour at a time. What's the next best thing you can do? If you're tired, take a nap. Make the hour after it better. If you're anxious, set a timer and do something for 20 minutes to tackle the anxiety. Keep going. Keep solving the problems in front of you.
It'll get better but it's up to you to do the work.

This is 100% a symptom of the way you think. This is the type of that can be helped by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

> Cognitive distortions are errors or biases in thinking that can lead to faulty assumptions, and can worsen mood. Cognitive Therapy teaches that much of what fuels depression and anxiety are patterns of distorted thinking. Thus to reduce depression and anxiety, it can be very helpful to learn to recognize and respond to common cognitive distortions.

You are a victim of your cognitive distortions. These are defined in the literature around CBT. Particularly, you are falling victim to the Mind Reading (Fortune Telling) cognitive distortion: you think you know and can detect what people are thinking, but you really don't know.

I STRONGLY suggest you look into CBT. Read a book about it or talk to a therapist. You can get through this.

This seems to be a good overview: https://positivepsychology.com/cognitive-distortions/

This is a good book, which I own: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380810336/

This is a better one in my opinion: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GCFVV0

But again, a therapist is best, but if not, get a book and read it (and do the exercises!!!!)

Feeling goodAnxiety ManagementAnger

1. continue to exercise, add in some jogging or body weight exercises and core work.

2. seek a therapist, if possible. if not I suggest reading THIS book.

3. THIS youtube channel has helped me gain some self-knowledge and new perspectives. Watch his video on meditation and look into starting a practice for yourself.

For now, you will need to accept what you are able to do at this moment. You can't do everything you want at the same time and the current environment makes it harder. You say you don't have motivation, but you have been doing morning walks for ~2months. Thats something to be proud of. Start small and build up from there.

I struggle with own creative pursuits and I'm beginning to learn that I identify too much with what I create. If I make a bad drawing, I am "bad" and hurts my ego and identity as an artists or "creative" guy. But of course the vicious cycle is that you avoid practicing because you're not very skilled and you're not very skilled because youre not practicing. Control the actions you can take today and not focus on your desired results. Do you want to write or do you want to write something "good" that you will praised for? Maybe you avoid writing because you will have to face the fact that you're just not a very good writer (yet) which will hurt your ego. "Writing " is not a very achievable goal, writing for 30 minutes is a goal that is achievable and reasonable relative to circumstances now. SMART goals is a very useful technique and approach.

It's a lot of information, I believe you need to focus on your personal physical and mental health as they will be the foundation of everything else in your life. I highly suggest meditation, after exercising and seeing a therapist, its next most impactful thing I have done to help myself.

Based on your comments it sounds like you might have a hormone imbalance caused by high levels of cortisol. This can effect the amount of testosterone your body produces and cause you to develop an androgen deficiency which will effect your libido. I would recommend you see a doctor to check your your hormone levels and consider supplements to boost your testosterone.

http://www.bumc.bu.edu/sexualmedicine/patientinformation-physicians/androgen-insufficiency-in-men/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_deficiency

For the depression/anxiety, well that’s a lot harder to fix and it doesn’t happen overnight or by taking a pill. You should consider seeing a therapist to treat that, talk therapy is a major factor in overcoming depression and anxiety. I would highly suggest trying CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) it can do wonders for your mental health. I would also suggest getting into mindful meditation to learn how to calm your mind and take back control over your thoughts. If you can’t afford or are afraid to see a therapist you can start with biblio therapy by reading books on these subjects. Here is a good place to start:

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336

https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/dp/1451636024

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/1503280462

Feeling Good by David Burns

Quoting Slate Star Codex: Mental Health On A Budget

>Bibliotherapy: If you’re doing a specific therapy for a specific problem (as opposed to just trying to vent or organize your thoughts), studies generally find that doing therapy out of a textbook works just as well as doing it with a real therapist. I usually recommend David Burns’ therapy books: Feeling Good for depression and When Panic Attacks for anxiety. If you have anger, emotional breakdowns, or other borderline-adjacent symptoms, consider a DBT skills workbook. For OCD, Brain Lock.