u/visdiary0

Does anyone else get sudden intense waves of anxiety mixed with loneliness, especially in the evenings?
I haven’t dated or been in a relationship in a while. I’ve mostly been working on myself and trying to figure my life out, and part of me feels proud of that. But lately I’ve been feeling this really heavy fear around putting myself back out there.

I want to date again, but I’m also terrified. I’m scared of not finding someone, or of looking and realizing there’s no one out there for me. Dating apps especially give me so much dread. I’ll open them and immediately feel anxious or hopeless.

Then I get even more anxious because I start feeling like time is running out, or like I’m wasting time by not trying harder. It turns into this awful loop where I feel lonely, then scared to date, then guilty for not dating, then even more lonely.

I know this might sound dramatic, but it’s really starting to bum me out. Has anyone else been through this? How do you deal with the anxiety of wanting connection but also feeling terrified of trying? Arughhhhh

Just upgraded from the 14 pro max and when turning to take a picture (selfie), the image looks washed out, dull almost grayish to me compared to the 14. It’s like my skin tone has been rendered into something completely different. Maybe it’s just me or maybe I’m going crazy but I’ve seen other people talk about it online. They are saying to change a bunch of settings or play around with the photographic modes, but I really would prefer not to have to do that. I’ve just been hyper fixed on this for the last few days, but maybe it’d just in my head and there’s not much of a difference. I’ve turned the hdr stuff off etc. what do you guys think?

Social anxiety is kicking my ass this week and I feel like all progress I’ve tried to make it down the toilet. I’m in my last year of my PhD so it’s a like of conferences, public speaking etc. I am also a teacher at my University. That has been really difficult for me because it’s basically like presenting a project everyday to a class . It’s made me incredibly nervous at times (sometimes I still get sick beforehand). However, I always push myself to do it and feel super relieved afterwards. I’ve actually started to really enjoy that aspect.

Now for why I’m writing this today. I was supposed to be presenting at a small conference tomorrow at my university just for my department. It was just a 15 minute presentation on PhD progress etc. Well that completely destroyed me and I have used every excuse in the book to avoid doing it. For some reason presenting to a smallish room of my peers has terrified me and now o feel horrible. I wanted to do it so badly and feel like such a disappointment for not having the strength to just do it. I feel like everyone else is able to do these things and here I am not being able to, which is so ridiculous and stupid. In the moment of getting out of it I felt so happy like a massive weight was lifted off my shoulders. Now as I sit here thinking about it I feel like shit and super embarrassed I’ve acted this way.