A Better Alex, stage 2: ASC Journal

[Benjamin]

Ahh planet fitness... how do you handle their crap? Everything i've seen about it is horrible and makes it seem like you can never get a proper workout in without alarms going off and them trying to feed you free pizza.

[apollolux]

Quick correction: the guy in question is actually a trainer at that PF and goes to the Starbucks regularly, not the other way around. I must have confused him for a similar looking Starbucks barista who did the opposite.

I've been to 3 different PFs in the New York City area and I've never heard the Lunk Alarm™ sound off in any of them, and my local one has a surprising amount of lunks and I've seen a lot of dropped weights. I tolerate the free pizza because my local one uses my local pizzeria, which I've loved since I was a kid, and the 55th Street one uses a relatively high-end pizzeria local to them that uses quality ingredients (can probably Google "Upper West Side Manhattan" for articles on how expensive it can be to live there).

I can deal with it because I stuck to a particular set of compound exercises until 10 months ago, when I started a routine that almost exclusively uses dumbbells in some manner. Acquire a copy of "The New Rules of Lifting for Abs" for an awesome 12-week routine that has enough variety to give it replay value.

[apollolux]

Breaking format a bit early to mention two things:

1. Today I had the appointment with the psychiatrist I mentioned and was given a prescription for the anti-depressant Prozac (20mg). He said it usually takes about 30 days to see visible changes and I took one today. Now starting a 30-day counter for Prozac

2. I've finally reached my official worst point financially. I have $165 in my bank account and around September 4th or 5th my storage room auto-pay will take $147, leaving $18 if I don't touch it or $13 if the monthly service fee does; 9-day counter for storage room . After that, a $25 minimum payment is due on my credit card (which I only originally had for overdraft protection, but now had to use it to pay bills directly) on September 16, a card with only an $800 limit and currently drawn at $796; 21-day counter for credit card . The next day my monthly $20 fee for the gym is due and that's on auto-pay; 22-day counter for gym . Phone bill of $38 is due the 22nd; 27-day counter for phone .

Essentially, if I don't put $250 or so into my bank account in 21 days I'd get hosed for credit card, 22 days hosed for gym, 27 days for my only phone, and get hosed for the next month for my storage room. That's not even counting transportation to school once my monthly pass expires in 30 days.

I don't know if my financial aid is gonna kick in soon enough, my work study award is in limbo and I don't know if I'm going to have my on-campus job again, and I don't know if I'm going to get any other paying gig soon enough.

I'm at my wit's end here and I don't know what to do. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.

[apollolux]

==First 32 days done==
The first 32 days are done. I don't know what to focus on, since during this first month with ASC my life has been a Splash Mountain but with muddy water.

I started on a prescription of Prozac for anti-depression yesterday and started school today. My one-itis has a class with me again this semester (in the spring we had three classes together because she desperately wanted to be in my classes, and with my help she passed all three) and chose to sit next to me again even though I left things really badly with her over the summer. She seems to want to still be friends but also it still feels like she wants to use me; I keep my conversations with her to a minimum now because she keeps making excuses about various things and trying to one-up me in the "whose life is worse contest" (I admit it's partly my fault for indulging in such a topic), but part of me still wants her in my life.

My financial situation is terrible (posted earlier), I'm in dire straits and would like to know if it's within forum rules to ask here for donations to my Paypal. (boldfaced to highlight). Given my programming abilities I've been referred to a few "code bounty" sites like Top Coder by a few people I know in other places as a way to potentially earn money, but I've found that many of the problems with few to no attempts at them on sites like those are above my current abilities, and the ones that could be within my abilities have already been spoken for.

On the flip side, I seem to be paying more attention to people, men and women, when they're speaking to me, focusing on their faces (especially the eyes) while they speak and if I'm sitting I seem to feel more comfortable with them the longer the conversation goes. I don't know how to feel about that because I usually feel my life is crap right now with my lack of timely positive results and impending financial doom and the dissonance is relatively new to me. Am I finally starting to be more present in my interactions with people?

[Benjamin]

Seriously? I think that should be obvious not to come on a forum and ask for donations to your paypal.

[apollolux]

Seriously? I think that should be obvious not to come on a forum and ask for donations to your paypal.

Ok, thanks.

[apollolux]

Breaking format to mention that my one-itis decided to call me "hateful" in a conversation this morning. I don't know how to respond to that, and later in the day after I finished classes and took a shower it finally set in and I started to worry that it could be true. I felt like planning to kill myself and make a show of it to guilt her, and called my therapist because I felt like I couldn't rationalize myself out of it quickly enough by myself.

I don't consider this "absolutely self confident" at all. I need to change something externally soon, since according to my doctor the Prozac will apparently take 30 days or so to kick in.

[ArcticFox]

Hi,

I've read your EHPRA and ASC threads. Very interesting and it sounds like you are going through some hard times, i really hope you pull through and we are all routing for you.

You said you read "how to win friends and Influence people", my best advice would be to read or listen to the audiobook "How to stop worrying and start living" by Dale Carnigie. Its a great book filled with amazing stories and my goto book for when im feeling down.

The ironic part is you have friends, and from what it sounds like a lot of people who have, can and will help you out. Which is more than most people can ask for!

Pick yourself up and keep going, you know you will make it.

[apollolux]

==7 days done, month 2==
7 days done in the second month. I feel like utter crap.

My libido is going haywire; some days it's up, some days down, and it's affecting my interactions with female classmates. I'm not having positive results asking them out, though, as I probably still have plenty of insecurities to deal with before my vibe is congruent with my desire.

Ever since that girl called me "hateful" and I cut her out of my life I feel like I don't have any friends, though I'm trying to reach out to new/semi-new people in the hopes of beginning meaningful friendships. I don't know how successful that's going to be because it's been my experience that whenever I'm open I tend to bring people down with my depressing life. I know that's mainly a byproduct of the attitude I have when I talk, but it's quite difficult to avoid while it feels like my life sucks. My fallback tactic as a result is try to talk as little as possible to avoid bringing them down, and that feels worse for me somehow. Even when I'm in a large group of somewhat likeminded people (e.g. in one or two of the clubs at college) I feel alone, and this bothers me greatly.

I don't have motivation to do anything productive or useful, and I'm worried that will carry over to schoolwork and potentially ruin my semester. I had to force myself to get up this morning to sign up for swim class, and I don't know yet if I'll feel like going. I know I need to and to also restore my gym routine in order to maintain some level of fitness, but I feel fatigued and tired all the time now.

I feel lost and I don't know what to do.

[apollolux]

Hi,

I've read your EHPRA and ASC threads. Very interesting and it sounds like you are going through some hard times, i really hope you pull through and we are all routing for you.

You said you read "how to win friends and Influence people", my best advice would be to read or listen to the audiobook "How to stop worrying and start living" by Dale Carnigie. Its a great book filled with amazing stories and my goto book for when im feeling down.

The ironic part is you have friends, and from what it sounds like a lot of people who have, can and will help you out. Which is more than most people can ask for!

Pick yourself up and keep going, you know you will make it.

Thank you for the book recommendation, fakiee, I'll be looking for it shortly.

Re friends - I hope that the effort I'm putting to make good friends pays off; I've had a life where too many so-called "friends" have let me down, some repeatedly.

[apollolux]

I want to scream at the top of my lungs (probably into a pillow or pillows) and punch walls.

[apollolux]

I feel angry and aggressive all the time and continue to feel the need to scream and punch walls. I have no outlet for releasing my aggression and anger.

[apollolux]

==16 days done, month 2==
16 days done in the second month and I'm exhausted.

Dealing with depression and medication to offset that depression is not a pleasant experience, and my efforts to connect with people, especially women, continue to frustrate me. I'm displaced to Westchester at the moment, which necessitates me waking up an hour earlier to make sure I can catch the extra train into the city to get to school.

I'm tired all the time and I don't feel like I'm presenting myself congruently with how I feel, and that's partly because I don't know how to present myself anymore and partly because I don't know how I "feel" anymore. There's a bombardment of positive messaging coming from ASC and it almost certainly conflicts with the existing negative messaging of how I feel naturally without it, and I don't want to outwardly present the inner turmoil. I feel anger and aggression all the time, sadness and depression, impatience with myself and others, and constant loneliness.

The biggest question I keep asking myself is "Why?" Why am I here? Why am I in this situation? Why aren't my efforts good enough? Why won't she love me? Why won't other people make the effort I'm making? Why don't I feel good enough?

[RTBoss]

Check out a book: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. It's a coupla bucks on the Kindle Store.

I have been having some despair and anger issues, and I'm already feeling better. Sometimes it's the simple, free, Universal truths that help us heal the most.