u/Efficient-Web-1653

I know I have some issues with low self-esteem, but this feeling completely takes me aback. Some days ago, my mother sent me some photos she dug up of me as a child, and I just felt absolutely unparalleled rage and hatred when seeing this tiny, stupid and small version of me.

I can't really pick out where these emotions are coming from exactly and why they're this strong. Any advice on what to do with this?

My childhood wasn't too bad. My parents didn't hate me, and I definitely felt loved by my mother. So why am I feeling like this?

I am a vivid dreamer and sometimes have incredibly long and realistic dreams that would be as real as real life if I didn't wake up after that.

One dream that sticks with me, even years later, was one where I lived a mostly normal life.

It included all of my family from my waking life and everything was just three steps sideways - what would have happened if my parents had made a few different choices when I was young and I was raised in a different place. It wasn't any better or worse than my actual life, just different.

I spent the entire dream just going through the routine of regular life. I met up with friends, stressed about a conversation with my mom, went shopping, got giggly over some friend I had a crush on, planned some things for my dad's birthday, thought about a lot of random & regular things, ruminated on the meaning of life, ate ice cream, and just lived a regular life.

Then I started waked up and the reality of things just hit me.

I was still the 'other' me, but I could feel that I was starting to wake up from the dream and realized what was actually happening.

In those last few moments of the dream, I cried because I understood that I was about to lose my life. I would never be able to talk to my friends again because they wouldn't exist, I wouldn't be able to finish the conversation with my mother and wouldn't be there for any future birthdays to come. I wouldn't be able to ever again go back home to my apartment, and I would never see the trees there again.

In effect, I was about to die. And the worst thing was, that when I woke up, I wouldn't even care about everything I lost; it would be just a dream.

I woke up. And it was just a dream.

To this day, I don't feel sad at all about losing the other life because everyone in it were only characters I very vaguely remember and not real people to me. But those last few moments of awareness still really bother me at times.

I am a vivid dreamer and sometimes have incredibly long and realistic dreams that would be as real as real life if I didn't wake up after that.

One dream that sticks with me, even years later, was one where I lived a mostly normal life.

It included all of my family from my waking life and everything was just three steps sideways - what would have happened if my parents had made a few different choices when I was young and I was raised in a different place. It wasn't any better or worse than my actual life, just different.

I spent the entire dream just going through the routine of regular life. I met up with friends, stressed about a conversation with my mom, went shopping, got giggly over some friend I had a crush on, planned some things for my dad's birthday, thought about a lot of random & regular things, ruminated on the meaning of life, ate ice cream, and just lived a regular life.

Then I started waked up and the reality of things just hit me.

I was still the 'other' me, but I could feel that I was starting to wake up from the dream and realized what was actually happening.

In those last few moments of the dream, I cried because I understood that I was about to lose my life. I would never be able to talk to my friends again because they wouldn't exist, I wouldn't be able to finish the conversation with my mother and wouldn't be there for any future birthdays to come. I wouldn't be able to ever again go back home to my apartment, and I would never see the trees there again.

In effect, I was about to die. And the worst thing was, that when I woke up, I wouldn't even care about everything I lost; it would be just a dream.

I woke up. And it was just a dream.

To this day, I don't feel sad at all about losing the other life because everyone in it were only characters I very vaguely remember and not real people to me. But those last few moments of awareness still really bother me at times.

I've previously only read excerpts from Moby Dick in class, and it seemed like one of the most boring pieces of text on Earth. I couldn't fathom how it had ever become a classic.

To be fully honest, I only started reading it again just to be able to say I've read it lol. Pretty much everyone else I've talked to about this book has said that it was incredibly boring, and it was a torture to have had to read it. I wanted to also read the book in full to brag about how I got through the whole thing lmao.

It's genuinely turning out to be so interesting though??? How did no one ever tell me this before!!

Ishmael is such a character. The first chapter surprised me so much because I had been expecting something incredibly dry and convoluted, but Ishmael is someone I could see existing in the present so clearly, just plopped down in a different setting.

He was surprisingly relatable. I too, get periodically depressed and want to escape life and society, Ishamel. And I too sometimes want to get away from the bad and boring stuff around me by falling into my weird, niche interests.

The writing itself was actually so nice too. I really liked the style of storytelling, and all the different descriptions of people and places. And all the random whaling and sailing facts? Perfection.

Queepeg's introduction near the beginning was another fun discovery too. For some reason, I had assumed Herman Melville had been a very dry, comfortably rich, and homophobic man. Reading some of his personal history definitely explained a few things.

I still haven't finished the full book, but I really like it so far!

I'm mainly talking about my family here.

I'm just so much more afraid of losing their good opinion of me and their love to actually be myself and do the things I want.

It leaves me in a really suffocating kind of purgatory where I don't want to actually go the full mile and do the things I want to do, but I'm still enough of a disappointment to my family that everyone's unsatisfied. And I KNOW it's not working, but I really can't make myself take the metaphorical jump in either direction.