Advice on OnlyFans Addiction & Being Forever Alone | Discord Submissions

hi i'm dr k uh i'm a harvard trained psychiatrist and we're doing something a little bit different from interviews today uh viewers from our discord and subreddit submitted problems that they're going through and i'm going to try to help them out and today's theme is about relationships if you guys want to join in next time our uh join our discord and post scenarios in the channel ask dr k there's also cool stuff on the discord like a meditation group people supporting each other's mental health and also um you know people are are crushing it in league and other games and for real like we offer a ton of workshops um this is all community driven from everywhere from baking to coding uh we have like a room cleaning group that meets once a week to kind of clean stuff up so it's it's really a place for people to work on themselves and acquire new skills and support each other so uh feel free to join our discord and maybe submit some questions okay so good afternoon dr k i'm a guy and i'm wondering how i can get better how can i better understand and communicate my feelings of attraction to another close guy friend he's been one of my best friends for just about four years now and we've even spoken about mutual attraction it always ends up feeling like we've just missed each other i care for him deeply but it's been confusing and painful as well as vague as that all is i would love to hear your thoughts on what attraction is uh what different forms are there about the shame that so often can come with being gay and all that can entail with a close and all that can entail with a close guy friend really good question okay this is a little bit tricky so let's start with this so the first thing that i like about this question is that i think it's a very well framed question so as we start to think a little bit about you know how do we approach problems as we say a lot on stream good diagnosis precedes good treatment and so how do you find the right diagnosis by like asking the right question or ordering the right test right so like let's take a step back and think about how should we approach challenges in our life so the first thing we should do is understand our challenges but even before we understand challenges we have to understand how to understand challenges and so in medicine you know they teach us like the art of diagnosis which is all about asking the right questions or ordering the right tests so what i really like about this question is actually this first part over here which is i'm wondering how can i better understand and communicate my feelings of attraction so the first thing you've got to do is better understand your feelings of attraction okay so and then before you communicate them you've got to understand kind of where you are and you don't have to understand everything fully but but in order to communicate effectively you have to understand effectively and so let's um let's think a little bit about this so i also like that that you know this person has multiple shades of feeling which is probably closer to the truth than like one directional so we see this a lot where people will say i'm deeply deeply in love with someone and like what they'll say is like it's all like one directional and it's very intense and that oftentimes gets people into trouble when all they sort of recognize is one shade of color in terms of their internal environment um and so you know it's interesting because it sounds like you care about him a lot it sounds like um you know you care about him as a friend uh frankly it sounds like you could be in love dude um and so you know i think it's important to just ask yourself that question like am i in love like you do you know what it's like to be in love if not this really could be it and that it's confusing and painful as well so i think it's really good that you sort of understand all those different parts about himself i mean yourself and so um [Music] and it sounds like you guys have kind of like even gotten into the discussion a little bit right so it says we've spoken about mutual attraction and it always ends up feeling like we've missed each other so that i think is an important feeling so i i wonder if what's going on here is that like the two of you actually are interested or do have some kind of romantic feelings for each other but that neither of you feels comfortable enough to like put yourself out on a limb and risk like ruining the friendship to see if there's more to your relationship and i i could sort of imagine that like you know your friend could be feeling exactly the same way which is that you guys are really really good friends your your friendship matters a lot to you it matters a lot to him that there's it sounds like you guys have sort of talked about being attracted to each other um and then neither of you has been willing to sort of like step into that vulnerable space and say like hey do you want to actually try something here um and so you know i think the way to approach this is first of all to understand like what do you really feel about him is are you you know or because it's possible to be really good friends with someone and physically attracted to them but like not have a romantic component right so like we see that in platonic relationships all the time where like you may be attracted to you know someone of the opposite sex assuming you're heterosexual and you guys could be really good friends but like you guys wouldn't actually like be a good relationship or there isn't actually a romantic feeling um and so that's possible so i think the first thing to figure out is you know just ask yourself and it's like one of these gut checks right like am i secretly in love with this person and i'm just scared to admit it and if the answer is yes then i don't know that i would go about sharing that directly with the person but i think probably the best way to approach this is to have a conversation and say you know hey i care about you a lot as a friend and i find myself being attracted to you and i feel like we keep on missing each other and maybe there's a chance for a relationship but i also value your friendship and i i don't i kind of don't want to risk that and then ask an open-ended question what do you think about that so this is something that we often teach our coaches which is that like they'll come to me with a question and they'll say i have a client who um you know it feels like like i had a case the other day so one of the coaches had a little bit of trouble with this it was kind of talking it through and they said that you know i have a client who kind of came in and wanted to work on a goal but um you know the goal is like something that's really painful for them so i'm not really sure like how to talk about it because any time we sort of bring it up like my client gets emotional and i'm not sure like what to do so it seems like talking about it is hurtful to them but at the same time that's what they're here to to work on so these negative emotions come to the surface and i don't know what to do and what i would tell that coach or what i did tell that coach is that's exactly what you should say to your client right say hey like i know you're here to work on this but every time we kind of bring it up like it seems painful for you which is exactly why you want to work on it but at the same time i sort of feel like i don't know if i should push you or not because it seems like it hurts and i don't want to say anything that's going to be like hurtful to you and at the same time we have to work on it so kind of enroll them in your decision-making process right so like too much about what what problems we run into in relationships is like when one person makes all the decisions right so what i mean by that is like a good example of this is like friend zoning where or girlfriend zoning right where like one person all on their own builds up all these thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and you're all like in your mind you like create this whole world about who this other person is and you fall in love with that person and all the wonderful and it's like all in your head and the other person doesn't have any like say so in what you create in your mind it's not like a mutual relationship that you've created and i know that sounds weird that we you know aren't all relationships mutual no right sometimes we create all these relationships in our head that are sort of like solo relationships and you build up all these like ideas about who this person is like you meet this girl and she's nice to you and you're like oh my god she's the one and so what i think you should do is like let your friend be a part of this process right so like tell him like hey man this is what's going on with me i value your friendship i feel like i'm attracted to you we've kind of touched on it before but like you know i feel like we keep on missing each other and i'm not sure if this is worth exploring or not what do you think because the foundation of a successful relationship absolutely is communication because it's like two people right so you've got to like work with them and if you want it to work i think a good way to start like a good solid foundation for a relationship is like the tui all sitting down and deciding hey do we want to try this or not is there something here or not and recognize that you yourself are going to be afraid of rejection right and that you don't want to like so like kind of notice that too but it sounds like you guys have gotten close for been close for a while and you all have been friends for four years so you know a little bit of rejection can hurt but hopefully it won't you know torpedo the relationship that i've never really heard of um you know i've never heard of a relationship where one person sort of explores their feelings with the other person and the relationship just crumbles apart after four years i've certainly heard about relationships where you catch feelings for someone and then you are deeply in love and then like you guys used to be friends but now you're deeply in love and that sort of falls apart because you can't be friends with them anymore because of your feelings but you know i don't know if we're here if that's what this scenario is so i'd say overall you know the way to approach it is just to have a conversation where you basically say exactly what you said to me and what you post the way you posted your question and then you explore it with your friend and you guys kind of figure it out together as vegas that all is i would love to hear your thoughts on what attraction is what different forms are there and about shame that so often comes with being gay and all that can entail with a close guy friend okay let's talk about what what attraction is i mean i'm not an expert in this but i'll toss out a couple of different ideas right so one is like physical attraction um and that's just like you're physically attracted to someone someone's you know the way that they look or something about them like appeals to you sort of like on a physical and biological level then there's also you know more of like emotional attraction so as you get to know someone and this happens a lot with men so you know as as you start to express emotional intimacy men are rarely taught to express emotional intimacy outside of like very close nuclear intimate relationship so you may express emotional intimacy towards your parents maybe your siblings and then like the other thing other place that you express emotional intimacy is with romantic partners so sometimes what can happen is emotional intimacy can get confused as attraction and and what i mean by that is that like if if you have a female friend and you guys are emotionally kind of intimate with each other and we hear this a lot from you know bitter dudes on the internet where they say like i was there for all of her emotional needs and then she friend zoned me and it's like yeah that's sort of that's sort of true but i think the confusing thing there is that like for a lot of women and i'm just sort of using the kind of heteronormative average person here so women are taught to be emotionally intimate outside of romantic relationships and men are not so like what what being emotionally intimate with a woman sort of entitles you to is not necessarily a romantic relationship but you to be emotionally intimate with them without a romantic relationship which can be really confusing for us because we're not taught how to like do that right it's kind of confusing for us so um you know i think there's there's an emotional attraction which can grow into love but oftentimes is confused with sort of emotional intimacy and then uh you know the third thing that i'll say i know we don't really talk about this much because it's not very scientific um is is i i do think that there's like a spiritual attraction so just my personal experience has been like i fell deeply in love with i didn't understand what it was but i felt deeply in love with my wife like literally the first time i saw her and i didn't even understand what i was feeling like i remember i still remember the moment where i was like walking outside and i was walking past a picnic bench and she was like walking the other way and i i just saw her and it felt like someone had slammed me in the chest and it was just a weird [ __ ] feeling and like i didn't understand what the [ __ ] happened and then like i didn't even talk to her for three years like i didn't know who she was it was just like i don't know what that was that was weird um and and so you know i i i do sort of like believe in this weird destiny kind of crap like i know it's not scientific i know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense i know it's old-fashioned but my own experience has just been so altering that like i do believe in that i mean it's weird um but i i do sort of you know think that that's an important thing to acknowledge whether it's real or not i don't really know i i still don't know you know whether it's real um but i think that if we're trying to understand the lenses to view attraction through it's important to acknowledge that some people do have experiences where they feel like their attraction to another person is like destiny or fate or like whatever that they were like destined to be together and there's only one person in the world for them and we see that in our stories right like they're like all these hopeless romantics out there and so there's something about the human condition where people interpret it that way i'm not saying that it's like cosmically true what i'm saying is that if you look at human behavior that's something that you have to acknowledge right you have to acknowledge that people consistently have this experience and that this is like an archetype that runs through our stories and our history as human beings so i think that there is that sort of spiritual kind of attraction and then i'd also say that like this is where things get really confusing because a lot of times what happens is we feel that emotional intimacy and we kind of confuse emotional intimacy for that faded love right and that gets really tricky because how do you understand what the difference is and then the short answer there is that i think the more tranquil your mind the more you'll be able to differentiate is this some kind of attachment that i have that's out of proportion or is this like actually like destiny that we're supposed to be together and i think the more calm you are and the more detached you are the better you're going to be at telling which one is which and then the last thing which i just want to touch on because it's like sort of a neuroscience take on it is i just want to talk to you guys a little bit about oxytocin because i think this is an important part of attraction so oxytocin um is a hormone that sort of deals with emotional bonding so for example uh you know there are a lot of hormones that lead to milk production for new mothers and then oxytocin is the hormone that facilitates something called milk letdown and what that means is that when a child is ready to feed there's actually milk in the breast and then like there's like a release valve when when a child nurses that causes the milk to kind of like go you know leave the breast right so to be consumed by the child and so that hormone is actually oxytocin so oxytocin governs milk letdown and along with that comes a lot of emotional bonding so oxytocin you know i i know that this is a terrible thing to bring up but it's like come on chat just run with me get like you know stay with me for a minute okay like let's not make boob jokes okay so oxytocin is also like the hugging hormone so oxytocin is a hormone that facilitates emotional bonding and comes from things like cuddling so oxytocin also improves our mood and like improves like emotional relationships um there are actually some trials which have found that have tried to test intranasal oxytocin for people with schizophrenia to see if they can like form better social interactions turns out the trials really didn't show a whole lot of benefit but the idea is that you know sometimes people with schizophrenia have trouble forming like social relationships and so some people hypothesize that it's like kind of an oxytocin deficiency so if we supplement oxytocin will they be able to form relationships turns out clinically it doesn't seem to help much but the theory is sort of there and we know that oxytocin is sort of related to um emotional bonding and i don't know if you guys like cuddle with stuff right so i know there's going to be a lot of you know pepe hands here but even like a cat or a dog or you know like kids like so i have kids and i enjoy like cuddling with my kids and what happens is like when you do that like literally you get you know oxytocin being released like when you hold your child and you rock them to sleep and stuff like that you get oxytocin release um and oxytocin forms emotional bonds with like other human beings so whenever you get an oxytocin spurt whoever is around you you're gonna feel like emotionally bonded to and the reason i think this is important is because nowadays we have a lot of like fluid relationships that are forming and i think they cause i have yet to really see an open relationship that i would say is like very successful and lasts for a long time um i'm not saying there's anything wrong with open relationships it's just you know i've worked with a lot of people who have been in them and i think something that happens when you start having like friends with benefits and stuff like that is that a lot of times things will get muddy like it's really it's a really hard tight rope to walk and i think part of the reason for that is that you know when you engage in sexual activity with someone your brain is going to be like hey like let's bond with this person like this person i'm going to start caring about them so it's almost like a hormone-mediated like boost in how much how emotionally invested you are in someone and so you know i think that there's also like a component of let's forget about physical attraction let's forget about emotional attraction or spiritual attraction and let's just acknowledge that if you have you know a sexual relationship with someone or now i also hear that there are people who are professional cuddlers that um you're probably going to start to f form emotional bonds with these people even if you sort of don't want to and on the fr flip side you know if that's oftentimes what happens is even if you don't form the emotional bond baby the person that you're physically like you know sexually engaged with could start forming bonds with you and that's just it's sort of neuroscience it's kind of how we're wired we're wired to be emotionally invested in the people that we have sex with last thing is so talking about the shame about that so often comes with being gay and um yeah i mean you know i i i don't mean to be insensitive but like i don't really understand that right because like my experience as a heterosexual male was that like i don't really understand what it's like to have i've worked with a lot of gay people i've worked with a lot of transgender people um i've helped them sort of find their sexual identity and and and sort of like you know i've helped them through that process but i got to be honest with you it's one of the things that i understand the least like i don't you know i feel like i have a good understanding of a lot of stuff but when it comes to a sexual identity like i've got a rubric that i i sort of help people work through um so i've sort of figured out like from almost like a stimulus response kind of way like from like a testing hypothesis way how to help those people through those journey and i feel confident in being able to do it but i also want to acknowledge that i actually don't know what it's like emotionally you know to have a sexuality or identity that is generally speaking faces a lot of judgment and a lack of acceptance and confusion by society and this is where i'd say that you know and i'm sorry to say i just you know this is not something that i understand i wish i did i really do but i i feel like i would be doing you a disservice if i wasn't honest about saying i don't know what it's like to be gay i don't know like i said i've helped people through it but i still don't really know what their experience is like it's sort of like i've helped deliver babies but i don't know what it's like to be pregnant i don't know what it's like to go through childbirth like i just don't know and what i would say is that like you know if you do have shame with with being gay and stuff like try to find communities we're actually thinking about starting um you know topic specific groups and and healthy gamer and one of them may be sort of around navigating gender identity and sexuality so um you know we'll keep you guys posted about that but i think like it's really helpful to be with other people who are going through your journey you don't necessarily need to have answers from someone who's gone through it and knows all knows everything it can be enough to be with other people who are just as confused as you are and you guys kind of like work through it together which is really what we've seen in group coaching okay dear dr k my name is amelia and i'm a 23 year old introvert who has never had a boyfriend girlfriend and probably never will at this rate i feel so stuck in this constant loop of feeling like i'll never find love or even experience it i look around me at my friends or even siblings and they have never suffered from this problem is there something wrong with me is there something i didn't learn or miss out on why am i so out of the loop everyone around me is either in a relationship they have kids they are married almost everyone has at least experienced love once before in their lives i feel like such a loser it's so embarrassing to even think about i've never even kissed anyone and let alone anything further than that it hurts when you realize you've been missing out on these things in your life things that everyone experiences i want something real i just want i just want that feeling of being happy with someone but also knowing that i make someone else happy what is pulling me back so much i feel like i just sabotaged myself anytime i get any hopeful opportunity ah see good our community is evolving chat like they're starting to be reflective so this is what i want to say like i just want to pause for a second this first half we've heard a lot right we hear this a lot it's awesome that this person gives us the second paragraph we haven't even read it yet but like do you guys see how this person is setting up the question and then they're already exploring a hypothesis so this is awesome i actually feel really hopeful for amelia at this point i know it sounds weird but just the fact that like you know you're starting to it's okay to have problems in life it's okay to ask questions in life and then taking that next step to start to figure out like let me at least think about this like what have i observed what have i noticed that's ultimately the strategy that i think leads to success so let's see what they have to say i feel like i just sabotaged myself anytime i get any hopeful opportunity i've been asked out on dates but i've never actually been or gone to one okay i get so scared and anxious that something will happen to me and i end and i end up making excuse or cancelling i feel guilty if i'm even if i even think about accepting the date i feel guilty that i would be wasting this person's time if i did accept and ended up not seeing them again i'm extremely scared of even the thought of getting into a relationship with someone or even trying to i feel like since i've gone this long without finding someone if i did get into a relationship with someone then it would have to be perfect but i never even give it a chance or even try i have this impending doom that i will be taken advantage of and be used i just don't understand what makes me do this or feel this way i yearn for a real relationship so much and wonder how it feels to experience but my head automatically tells me otherwise that it will never happen and if it did happen that it would go wrong i tell myself that i'm happy being alone and single but deep down i know i'm not i just need help and guidance on how to love and trust again damn this is a good question chat so this is interesting right so like let's look at the language first so i want you guys to notice um the extremities of this person's thinking so uh never had a boyfriend probably never constant never never everyone almost everyone never sabotage myself anytime i've never okay have to be perfect never even give it a chance impending doom sort of qualifies i think automatically never so this is interesting right because they say i just need help and guidance on how to love and trust again now we could be i could be making a mountain out of a molehill here right so like when i see all these nevers i would imagine that the last sentence should say i just need help and guidance on learning how to love and trust right so that that's what you would expect like if someone has never done anything before then you would expect them like that they don't it's not that they lost something it's that they never had it but what i'm hearing here is that i just need help and and guidance on how to love and trust again and this sort of makes sense with me because we have i have a running hypothesis here that something happened to this person right so like all these thoughts and feelings that they have that you know they clearly want this and yet something in their mind is telling them that like they get really scared or anxious they feel like they're not going to live up to the other person's time they feel like they if they did accept they have to be perfect they have to commit that the first date is the person that they have to spend the rest of their life with so then the question becomes like where do these thoughts and beliefs and feelings come from and and my guess would be that there's something that happened potentially traumatic to this person like early on where you know they got taught in some way shape or form that they're different that they aren't worth it that they're not good enough that they have to be perfect that and the interesting thing here is like needing to be perfect is about not being yourself right like why does someone need to be perfect if you guys feel like you need to be perfect if you really tunnel down into that what you see is that needing to be perfect has can only be true if what you are is not worth much right so what this really comes down to is where did this person learn that they're not worth much like where did this person lose their self-esteem and lose their confidence in themselves so they can't afford to be themselves right do you guys get that like that what this person is saying is that i can't afford to be me i can't be myself it has to be like this way that i see everywhere around me people are in all these perfect relationships and i'm not because there's something fundamentally wrong with me and we can kind of see it here because like you know they've never suffered from this problem like so first of all i don't think that's true is there something wrong with me like that's what this person feels right this is this is a question that is born out of an emotion is there something i didn't learn or miss out on why am i so out of the loop so like this is that's the question you've got to answer right so so the way i'd approach this if you guys feel stuck with something like this in life and this is what we we do with people by the way um so i think like this actually is a great person for for group coaching this is a great group coaching candidate so concretely what i'd say amelia is that you should think about signing up for group coaching because and here's why so like the problem is that that this person thinks that they're alone right like that i'm the only one who's ever experienced this like this is only me and so what happens is they they show up and they say like since this is a problem that no one else suffers from you know i want to do personal coaching and i think one of the personal coaching is great don't get me wrong but i think one of the most valuable lessons this person can learn is when they show up in a group and they say this everyone else is like oh [ __ ] this is exactly like me and then you have 10 people who all feel this way that there's something fundamentally busted with them that the rest of the world is normal and that like i'm messed up in some way or i like missed that day of class where you learn how to have a relationship and then there's there's a value to that like sure you can work with a personal coach about the origin of your feelings and stuff but there's a value to realizing like oh [ __ ] this is actually like there are other people who work through this and then something really cool starts to happen because then you guys can work on it together right and then you guys can kind of explore with each other and you haven't figured amelia hasn't figured this picture out but she's figured out pieces do you guys get this like here are the here's the questions here's a hypothesis and then when you get eight people who form eight hypotheses and you guys kind of work them together then you get like an answer floats to the surface and so my first thought emilia is like you should sign up for group coaching and bring this to your group and see what they have to say about it second thing is i'll tell you like what you know what i would do if i was running this group is i'd asked you like when did you start like did you always feel like you were different did you always feel like you were out of the loop or did your feeling of being out of the loop start at a particular point and the really tricky thing here is that when i asked when did it start a lot of people assume that it has to be like a large traumatic event like they just assumed that like oh no nothing like super traumatic no that's not how it works it's usually a very very small and seemingly insignificant thing but when you're young when you're like five or six um and and like something happens to you like you start this like the seed is planted in your mind that you're different and then what happens is that seed gets watered by like small experience after small experience after a small experience and then it even gets further watered when you look around and as a cognitive bias starts to form in your mind and then you look around and you start making these statements like they have never never suffered from this problem that's not true right like it's just not true but that's what your mind tells you and then what happens is you start to have a lens through which you look at the world and the more that you look at the world through this lens the more it reinforces your core belief about yourself and then you're giving it a lot of water a lot of water and then it's growing and it's growing and it's growing and it's big and it feels huge it feels like this insurmountable problem and then you have to so what you have to do is you really have to go back and try to figure out like where did you start to feel this way about yourself right where did you when did you start to learn that you are different and that other people you know learned learned something that you didn't learn that you're broken in some way that some some part of your brain just isn't working and so i think the more that you kind of explore that you'll begin to realize that like that feeling is like a holdover or an echo from a past experience it's not necessarily true today but what's happening is like each of these experiences forms a little bit of an echo in your mind and then after a thousand of these experiences you've got this cacophony that feels really overwhelming in your mind and dominates your thinking but the funny thing is that all of the energy for those echoes if you stop feeding it it'll actually all die out right in order to have that sustained echo you have to create new sounds and so this is where you've got to kind of explore where that comes from and the second thing is that you know i would really consider exploring your feelings when you do get asked out because like this is important i get so scared and anxious that something will happen to me and i make up i end up making an excuse canceling so when we approach problems like our you know my approach to problems healthy gamer approach problems one is to find the root and one is to work in the present so recognize that like you can ignore the root of this if you can learn a little bit more about how to not let your feelings control your behaviors and so it doesn't matter what you think or you believe or you feel the the basic problem here it sort of doesn't matter whether you feel like you're overweight so you're anorexic and you don't eat food or you feel like you're overweight and so you're refused to socialize with other people i had anxious thoughts about my growth today and i was like should i shave and i was like ah what right so we all have thoughts and feelings that prompt us to things i thought about cancelling stream because i can't shave right now and i was afraid of how i would look and so you can have these feelings that can cause you to want certain behaviors and then understanding in that moment how do you like what is this feeling that like is is so strong that you want to make up an excuse or cancel and then in my experience what happens is um as you tunnel down into your emotion in the present the more carefully you look at it the more you realize that it's not based on a solid foundation that it's sort of like this feeling in and of itself it's like a self-contained entity and it's not really based on like something real which i know feels really strange because the feeling itself is real but the more that you look into it the more that you tunnel down into it the more you're going to realize that the the emotion is like an entity of its own that's pushing you to do something but it's actually not like reality it's just your emotion right that's what happens when you're like emotions make you feel like things are real even though they're not and a good example of this for people who are severely depressed they have this feeling that they're worthless and that their like children would be better off if they weren't alive which is a crazy thought and is absolutely untrue but in that moment that person feels like that thought is absolutely true and you have to dig into that thought you have to dig into that feeling until you begin to realize actually hold on a second of course my kids love me of course they would be better off if i was here but you're not going to realize that until you dig into that feeling in the moment and so i'd say is try to find the root and the second thing is you know try to figure out like what's going on in these moments where you pull back and as best as you can try to let yourself not pull back and choose the kind of path that feels painful to you in in that in that mode right like even if you you know because there are a lot of thoughts and feelings here which with i think which i think are really like cognitive distortions like if i did get into a relationship with someone then it would have to be perfect no it doesn't there's no such thing you know like and some of this stuff is some of these fears are born of lack of experience it's sort of like you know if you've never been in the like if you've never been in a swimming pool you may be afraid that you're gonna drown the second your foot goes into the water and it's sort of a reasonable thought even though it's like not true but like you just haven't done it yet so you're not really sure and so acknowledge for a moment that like you actually are inexperienced so a lot of your conclusions are likely to be wrong and and just kind of work through that stuff but i think there's really two angles here one is to um you know really try to figure out where you got these thoughts or feelings and the second is fine they're here now how can you start to work on not letting them control you and very practically i'd say that meditation is a very good tool to start to explore yourself i think if you want to see a therapist i'd highly recommend cognitive behavioral therapy in in this case like try that out if you haven't tried it already because cognitive behavioral therapy helps you understand the relationship between your thoughts your emotions and your behaviors third thing that you can do is sign up for group coaching because i think you'll be surprised to learn that you're not that alone um and then that other people will help you work through this and i think the other really important thing that that i like a lot about group is that there's a lot of value which i think we underestimate to being able to help someone else and so you know what amelia really needs more than anything else is to have someone else in group who feels similarly to what she does and and amelia needs to help this person right help this person find confidence and that in of itself is going to give her the most confidence okay two other thoughts one is but my head automatically tells me otherwise so this is important because what i want amelia to understand is that this is not actually you right so do you guys see how sometimes she uses the first person and sometimes she uses the third person to talk about her head and that's what i mean that this emotion is like a separate thing it's not actually the real you it's like some some scar it's a samskar or like some automatic programming some malware in your cognition that tells you otherwise it's just like some [ __ ] malware that's like sending you pop-ups it's not actually you and so that understanding and the more that you begin to realize that the more freedom you're gonna gain from it okay the second thing is i want you guys to notice how future focused amelia is like she's paralyzed in the present because so much of the future is determined by the now if she goes out with someone it would be a waste of time if she ended up not seeing them again if she goes out with someone she has to be perfect for the rest of her life it's like she's putting she's the weight of a perfect future is being weighed in her mind against the present and so how is she expected to right so i want you guys to be really careful when you do this this is a really important point don't weigh the future against the present don't do it because when you weigh the entirety of a future against the present moment the future is always going to win so like i i we we had a question or something someone was talking about you know being 27 and and wanting to finish college and they were like thinking about like how embarrassing it would like in in the moment when they're trying to think about okay should i re-enroll in college i'm 27 years old and in that moment what they're doing is they're weighing all of the future of that right like if i go to college i'm going to be older than everyone i may be the same age as like my teaching assistants and they're like all of these future things that they're thinking about i'm going to be like a 29 year old college graduate it's going to be so embarrassing and they they pile on all of these future possibilities pile and pile and pile and pile and then like that gets weighed against the present which is like do i just ignore my problems for a moment for one more day and do i just queue up for whatever i'm playing so anytime you weigh the future against the present the weight of all of the future against the present you're going to lose you won't it's absolutely paralyzing and so start by acknowledging that like what you're doing today is just going on a date that's all it is is there gonna be another date who knows do you have to be perfect who knows all you're doing is you're meeting with someone that's all you're doing because that's literally all you're doing and to really let go of the expectation of everything in your mind about what needs to happen in the future or what is going to happen in the future because you have no idea you can't predict the future are you psychic amelia but that's what your mind tells you your mind tells you oh my goodness i know exactly what's going to happen if you say yes to this person they're going to take advantage of you and you won't like them and you'll be stuck in a relationship right so there's another some scar here you guys are paying attention about her being stuck she's afraid of being stuck you guys see that why why can't she get into a relationship because she's afraid of being trapped it may not be like low self-esteem so one option is low self-esteem the other route here is that she may have gotten stuck with something with someone a relationship that she didn't want oh oh man i'm so glad we found this one i read this post on my on my um on on the subreddit and i was tempted to respond to it there i love this this is a great post um and i think this is the kind of thing that we should really think about having someone on stream to sort of talk about this sort of thing um struggling between only fans or love dating i was lurker here for months awesome thanks for posting only fans or gf um i'm seeking someone who can try to understand me cool welcome to our community my dude i've noticed very kind and compassionate replies here so i figured i should post my story here hopefully you got kind and compassionate replies and didn't get a bunch of trolls but i've been having a thing with only fans girls for the last three years it started after i was dumped by my girlfriend when i was 21 it felt like it filled a hole in me that's what only fans does even though i'm aware the love is fake it feels real that's also a very good analysis i can choose who will love me i can choose to pause or leave my only fan's girl it's so much freedom and it felt real enough but it has cost me over 10k which is almost all i had in my bank after working a lot at my father's company during my childhood i started dating a girl recently and even though it it's great it feels icky i want to switch her off sometimes i want to be able to choose or date other women sometimes i feel like i'd rather have the shallowness of only fans than to feel like i'm in a cage with one woman for the rest of my life i don't want to enter a relationship with her and at the same time have my only fans thing going on that wouldn't be fair for the girl irl but i just don't want to give up only fans i'm working a lot during college to be able to pay for it and it's worth it it feels shameful since no one seems to understand me okay this is a fantastic post okay so here's what i like about this post so first of all this is a real issue i was about to say problem but i'm going to say issue that a lot of people struggle with right so like if we think about why is only fans so popular right it's because it makes people feel a certain way which they control it's a faucet of love and all you have to do is pay for it which is fine because that's what we do for things that we like right it's a faucet of love so i really commend this person for coming out of the woodwork because i think that this is a far bigger problem than people realize precisely because it is so shaming right so so like if like if you try to talk to someone in real life about this problem boy are you going to get a ton of judgment all you're going to get like no one's going to help you they're just going to judge you and i what i really like about the so first of all incredibly courageous to post this i think it's going to make the world a better place by posting this because it's a problem that a lot of people struggle with um next thing that i really commend about this post is that there's actually a lot of really awesome insight in here right like even though i'm aware the love is fake it feels real you know what you like about this i get to choose who will love me it's a lot of freedom and it felt real enough and then like even this person's dating again and then like you recognize like oh like your brain is sort of like comparing the real girl to the only fans girl and what it's saying is like we're getting some of the same stuff here but i much prefer the situation where i get to turn it off when i want to um i want to be able to choose or date other women sometimes yes or that's another thing about only fans right it's not exclusive you get to have multiple faucets and then this is this is i think the really strong sentence i feel like i'd rather have the shallowness of only fans than to feel like i'm in a cage with one woman for the rest of my life right it's really hard to be really non-judgmental about your feelings here and that's what i think this is really great about this post is the person is like admitting he's like i know this sounds really bizarre and i know it sounds kind of like you know shameful but i actually like the shallowness i don't want to give it up it actually means something to me it's not like they're because usually what we see is like a lot of self-judgment and blame and like i i can't stop i really want to stop you know like you know you know like people are very judgmental towards themselves whereas this person says this does something for me and i actually really like it and i'm going to admit to myself that i really like it i don't i just don't want to give it up it's worth it right and this is what's really important to understand about like addictive and destructive behaviors is that like the reason we keep doing them is because the payoff is huge right when we think about an addiction we think about it as a negative thing but the one thing that has i think made me the one lesson that has made me an effective addiction clinician an effective addiction psychiatrist is the acknowledgement the addiction isn't a bad thing it's a good thing it's a solution it's not a problem right like the reason that an addiction is so hard to kick is because it takes your problems away it's an escape it's like like imagine how opi it is it's like god mode it's like i have all these negative emotions and feelings and i feel like i'm a waste of space in the universe and i can drink this alcohol or i can play this video game and boom god mode all those feelings go away and so like this it's hard to admit that that the only fans means a lot to you but i think that's the first step right the first thing you have to do is like acknowledge your enemy it's like back in the day when people used to like bow before dueling like this is what you guys need to do if you guys are facing the problem the first thing you need to do is respect it bow because you're about to rumble and it's like it's gonna be a tough fight but respect it respect what the only fans does for you the next thing is that this person is also falling into the trap so i don't know if you guys caught this but we we've already talked about this so what's the principle here chat i feel like i'd rather have the shallowness of only fans than to feel like i'm in a cage with one woman for the rest of my life what is this guy doing here absolutely so no wonder right all of the future it's like if i give up only fans i'm saddled with one person for 40 years 50 years 60 years 70 years when if you really stop and ask this person you know how do you do you want a relationship like a loving relationship for 40 50 60 years they may say yes to that question we don't know and so i think also this person's like a decent dude because he he realized i'm assuming that he's a man but um you know that he's trying to be fair to the girl in real life um and yeah i mean i i think it's it's tough so i think there are a couple of principles here so the first is like you know once again don't compare the entirety of the future to your present circumstance because that's a battle you're never going to win the future's always going to win you don't have to date one person for the rest of your life so the other thing is like i don't know if this person is dating exclusively like this other person exclusively like whoever their irl girl is but like it's possible like you know a lot of people will date a couple of women at the same time to figure out or a couple women will date a couple of men whatever or men will date a couple of men right it's not like there's still this idea of like going steady or being exclusive which nowadays is you know people understand that sometimes you're going on dates with multiple people so that's acceptable you know and then i i i mean i think this person is pretty far along the way right i think that like this is this is definitely something where they understand what only fans does for them like they get it it means a lot to them and i'm not going to disagree and so oddly enough i feel like this is the kind of thing where this person has demonstrated so much insight that i think like the next phase is actually questions i don't really have a whole lot of advice you know i'm not gonna say i mean i think you should quit only fans because i think it's like what happens with the only fans is that they've figured out how to you know activate some parts of your brain without the rest of it so they figured out how to make you feel like you have a relationship without it actually being a relationship right so they scratch that positive itch without some of the other stuff so my concern for this person is that you know the end of the day like if you hurt your back i don't think the only fans girls are gonna come and like take care of you and when i think about a relationship i don't think about the positives i think about the negatives like the real advantage of a relationship is like when your chips are down i'm thinking about sort of a committed monogamous relationship that is right when you're sick like who's gonna take care of you and the other thing is that you know i i know that only fans is you know it's like video and stuff right like in pictures but like i i don't know if people actually you know not to be in delicate but i don't know if people get laid through only fans or not but like i think actual physical connection with another human being in a sexual way is like an important part of life and going back to the oxytocin so not just sexual connection but like you know being held and hugged and cared for like all those things are important too and so i think what you're doing is you're investing a lot into these online relationships that do [Music] absolutely fill a hole and they do a good job of doing it which is why it's so successful but they're not going to fill the other holes and the real problem here is that when you fill one hole so completely it's easy to forget about the other holes and then if we really think about getting free of this the real question is like you're not going to be free from this curse until you process the hole that was left by the first girlfriend when she broke up with you so if you really want to be free from this that's what you have to fix right because if she left a hole in your heart you've got to patch up that hole otherwise only fans girls are going to keep filling it once that hole is no longer there your chances of being free from only fans are a lot better so i think the real question that you need to ask yourself because he's done a lot of he's done a lot of introspection and understanding about his feelings in the now the real question is like how did she make you feel when she dumped you and how do you overcome that because when you get free of that then i think the only fans will be easier to shed

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 110,908

Rating: 4.9558115 out of 5

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist, onlyfans addiction, onlyfans, onlyfans addict, relationship advice, forever alone, alone, loneliness, dating advice, dating, nofap benefits, love, relationships, r/relationshipadvice, therapist, relationship therapist, onlyfans girlfriend, girlfriend advice, onlyfans advice

Id: JnPyjTFBV9k

Length: 56min 16sec (3376 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020