YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

All I want to do is eat. I just finished watching videos of people eating because I shouldn't eat before I go to work out. Why can I not handle being alone? What about being by myself do I find so intolerable that I need to numb and distract myself? When I think about my life I am really content. By that I mean, if you told me when I was 12 years old that when I was 27 I would be independent of my parents, in a loving relationship, had 2 awesome dogs, a growing career with a good schedule, and living comfortably in Chicago, I would have been proud. I really am so grateful. However, when I am alone, I can't feel anything. I don't want to do anything to better myself. Any efforts made to better myself when I am alone are barely done if I have a good enough memory of how longing I was of being better when I had the ambition the night before.

Slow self-improvement is the most self-loving. It just isn't true that "I don't want to do anything to better myself" or else you wouldn't have made such progress from 12 to 27.