I've hardly done any good

That's not true - your blog is a good proof!!

I've tried like hell to not do any bad, and all I ended up was inert.

- You mean during the meeting with the pdoc? I know this . My "lesson" from 2 years of therapy is that I shouldn't "try to do any bad" when I'm with my therapist, as it ends like you said - I'm almost inert.

- Or you mean "in general" (-not only when talking to the doc)? In this case, it it good. Better feeling "inert" than "do bad" - but... in your case, you did well - just check your recent blog entries!!

And what did (s)he tell you?

Take care!

Pdoc basically said Xanax was only suppressing the symptoms, and combining Wellbutrin and Xanax was basically like hitting the breaks with one foot still on the gas pedal.

No I meant doing good for other people. Not necessarily mother Theresa type do-good, but simply being a good friend or being comfortable with myself.

My real personality is shown here, mostly because I feel anonymous. IRL I'm pretty wooden and annoyingly awkward out of fear I'll do something horrible because I don't really know how to behave.

I've had some more time to think about it now, and have been planning to do my best to figure it out. It's just that sometimes depression clouds out that ability to think about it pragmatically like that.

No I meant doing good for other people. Not necessarily mother Theresa type do-good, but simply being a good friend or being comfortable with myself.

My real personality is shown here, mostly because I feel anonymous. IRL I'm pretty wooden and annoyingly awkward out of fear I'll do something horrible because I don't really know how to behave.

I understand. I used to struggle (many years) with the same (not knowing how to behave), just to a smaller extent. I used to blame myself every time for behaving badly - "surprisingly" now it seems to me it wasn't always as bad as I saw it then. I suppose it's not as bad as you see it also in your case. But in every case, this is the key part: "being comfortable with myself" . So it seems to be a vicious circle: you're not comfortable with yourself, don't believe you're able to behave fine when "just being you", so you're nervous and awkward and then blame yourself for being like that . All I want to say by this is that this is a usual "vicious circle" of many people and a part of us succeeded to "break the circle" and to be just fine and comfortable in most situations. For me, it was easy as my med (anxiolytic) helped me so much that I started to feel fine and behave "freely" - without the constant fear that "I'll be awkward" - and so I learned that it's possible and then ... I've been behaving like that even without the med. So... I think you need a situation or an idea that will allow you to feel good (at least once) about your own behavior and then you'll be able to "deduce/derive" your new, positive, attitude from this new, pleasant experience. Any idea where and how could you achieve this?

My real personality is shown here' date=' mostly because I feel anonymous. IRL I'm pretty wooden and annoyingly awkward out of fear I'll do something horrible because I don't really know how to behave. [/quote']

I realized that this is very insightful: you "behave" very nicely here and you really seem to be a nice, caring. compassionate and rational guy - and that's, as you say, your personality. So the question is: what and why do you try to hide when you're with others when the real you is so nice and fine? Why aren't you just yourself IRL? You might say you're trying to hide how insecure and clueless you feel - but you feel insecure and clueless only because you're trying to "act like a nice guy and hide your true you". So I repeat the key question: What do you want to hide (maybe unconsciously!) and why do you "need" to hide it? What advantage does it bring to you to be like this?

The advantage is to be invisible rather than misunderstood. Most people don't get me IRL. My personality type is introspective and abstract. I am not aggressive. I am expected however to be very aggressive and my more rational approach to problem solving rather than confrontation, and the fact that I am careful with language makes it hard for most normal* people to deal with me. Over time I stopped doing things that people don't understand, which is pretty much anything that comes naturally to me.

*By normal people I mean those with a marriage they don't like and not too passionate about their work either, but have some moderately close friendships and go golfing on the weekend or some other hobby. The normal people would never end up on this site because they only go online for things like shopping and fantasy football.

By normal people I mean those with a marriage they don't like and not too passionate about their work either, but have some moderately close friendships and go golfing on the weekend or some other hobby. The normal people would never end up on this site because they only go online for things like shopping and fantasy football.

Yeah, it's hard and often painful not to be "normal", but... I'm happy you (we ) are not!

Maybe the question is how deep relationships with those "normal" peole you wish to have and how it affects you when you're "invisible" to them and missunderstood. It seems to me (or better: I only guess) that you care too much about what they think about you and then/so you behave awkwardly. But maybe beling more relaxed with them would be possible and better.

So... the main problem is to find at least some (or: at least one which could be with you often enough) people who are not "normal" and who are more like you. They are not only in cyber-communities - remember we all have an "outside" life !

What do you think?

Yeah it would be nice to find some people I could be myself around. I'm thinking try meetup to find people with similar interests. First I need to finish up my goals so I can choose activities that support my goals and help me get/stay clean.

That sounds good! I like your plan .

Good luck!!!