Thank you Anita. My pets are amazing, I love them so much. Thank you for your empathy and compassion, I am really grateful for it. Also thank you sharing all of that information.
I agree Anita. An access to professional help would really benefit me. I’m possibly looking at cheaper online options for professional help. Thank you again. Your support means a lot to me.

Hello,

I was thinking about this. I have a few issues, but a big one right now is focusing and motivation.  Have a few things that probably are affecting this and possible things I could do to help myself :

1) I think I have taught myself that being unfocused is the easiest way. When I am focused I usually bully myself into being focused, or I bully myself into doing the work. So it’s more unpleasant to focus, and I’m more hesitant to sit down to do work.

2) I set goals/time limits and I never reach them so the goals/time limits become useless.  I can never follow through on those promises to myself because I have taught to myself that I always have to break them. (It’s kinda like if you snooze an alarm every morning and go back to sleep, you teach your brain the alarm isn’t important)

3) my head is full of stuff. I can barely focus because I have a million things going on in my head. I’m thinking about my past, I’m thinking about my parents, I’m thinking about my sister, I’m daydreaming up fake scenarios, I’m thinking about my pets, I’m thinking about the future, Im thinking about future tests and such. I was thinking- one thing I haven’t tried is using focus and study time almost like a meditation, having it be a relaxing and healthy activity to be present in the moment. I would meditate before I begin my work, and in conjunction with the pomodoro method focus on breathing and being present while I complete my work. What do you all think?

4) I’ve trained my brain in some part to be this way, I have created a bad habit essentially and I’ve been working against myself for a long time. Anita suggested that I be kind to myself and not call myself names. I think it’s time to challenge, but work with myself in order to get what I need done, and to stay focused on my work.

I am going to look for a few ways to correct some of the habits I’ve been building Over the years (it’s going to be a lot of work. But I’m hoping to stick with it), and I’m going to not make promises to myself that I can’t keep. I’m hoping to build back the meaning of that ‘promise.’ Any suggestions or additions to what I’ve stated would be much appreciated and welcomed. Thank you Anita and Helcat for everything so far.
(Ps Anita, I’ll get back to you in the other thread within the next few days, I’m still thinking and processing what you told me in the ‘Once a victim always a victim?’ Thread.)

Hi HoneyBlossom,

Thank you for your reply over here!
Let’s just say he was a questionable figure. Sounds about right, I tried everything to get him to just leave me alone. Somehow he found out where I lived, luckily he only came yo my house once.
He would follow me at lunch break- unless I got out of there quickly. He would come bother people I was talking to and they would leave because he didn’t want them to bother me. I yelled at him frequently, and I tried lots of things to make him go away but he usually would just run along and tell the teachers on me and I would get in trouble.

One time in 11th grade I believe- I was reading under a tree during my lunch hour and he came up and tried to rip the book out of my hand telling me that he needed a friend because he had no other friends and I needed to pay attention to him. I ignored him and kept reading and he just stood there tugging on my book. I told him to “F#%^k off” and he went and told on me because I was ‘being rude’ and I got a detention.

He and everyone around me always made me feel ridiculous for not listening to him. He asked for my number constantly as a ‘friend’ and I repeatedly said no. I even told him that I didn’t know if he was going to spam me text messages day and night. I remember how mad he got at me I’m pretty sure he screamed in my face and stormed off. My other friend at the time thought why can’t you just pacify him and give him your number.
He was strange because he always thought everything was a joke. I would tell him something and he would laugh and keep being weird and annoying. When he would drop his persona it was scary. He would suddenly get this calm tone in his voice, usually when he was going to tell me about how ridiculous I was being.
The school counselor told me in 9th grade to just ‘be nice to him he’s struggling and he needs a friend’ I remember bring frustrated- I wish I would have asked her “what about me? Don’t I deserve good friends?” He chased most friends I would make away. He’d follow them or bother them, he probably grabbed a few he would say things. Then the ‘friends’ would look at me with distain like ‘control your dog’ when I turned 13, 7th grade I had exhausted all friend opportunities in the school and no one wanted to be my friend because I had an annoying shadow doe that would harass them. From then until 11th grade when he went to a different school than me, he kept everyone away because no one wanted to be harassed like Lea.

He had several mental disorders if I remember correctly- I just don’t remember what he had. Near the end of 11th grade he became more popular in the school, apparently he was funny and the popular boys liked him. I though ok this is my chance but he still would come and follow me and blabber to me about how we should be dating. People actually thought we were dating and for some reason it really bothered him- I didn’t care at that point, nothing I could do about it. He would try to get me to do these weird ‘skits’ where he would like publicly break up with me because I was ‘controlling and annoying’ so that other people wouldn’t think we were dating. I obviously declined. Then he tried to get me to date him again.

Then he finally moved schools, where he told everyone that he was dating me. I heard stories that he would talk about me and make up these wild stories of things we did. It was scary. Then apparently one day he ‘broke up with me’ because I was ‘ungrateful and unforgiving’ and everyone felt bad for him. I was so angry. Like I am not an angry person but man was I ever angry. Luckily when I graduated my family ended up moving away from that area.

laat year I did somehow find him on social media and messaged him, he seemed much more reasonable and apologized for being that way to me in elementary, middle school and high school. He didn’t harass my social media and I haven’t spoken to him since.

Anita, this was so helpful!!! Especially the part you mentioned:

“when you are thinking about your parents, sister and pets when you are alone in your room trying to study, your thoughts are not matching your surroundings because your parents, sister and pets are not there in the room with you, and thereforfe, they do not require your attention.”

I have never thought about things in this way, I gasped when I read this section. Thank you Anita!!! I hope you have a wonderful day, I’m going to go do some homework and I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!!

Good Afternoon Anita!

I just finished all the work I had set out to complete in three days- today. I did 2 hr and 36 minutes of work, (using pomodoro so I had breaks in between) I did 5 different assignments including an essay, and completed a few hours of reading using text to speech. Before I began I did a quick focus meditation and focused on not thinking about the future or what I had to do later- as you mentioned focusing on what is in the room and nothing else. I’m quite happy with my results and I went and bought myself an ice cream (ice cream might be my favorite desert) because of it. It’s now a long weekend and I’m looking forward to it. Thank you Anita.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!