Do you ever feel like the internet knows what you are thinking before you do? Or perhaps like you have already lived the moment through a stranger’s TikTok, Instagram, or Reddit post? It’s a kind of déjà vu that tells you this has all happened before.
This happens to all of us as we mindlessly scroll on our phones, absorb snippets of others’ lives, and compare them to our own. Whether in headlines or in the main post, we see our lives unfold in someone else’s experiences, and because of our excessive scrolling habits and perpetual online activity, we see the parts of our lives that we don’t say out loud. We see our secrets, our confessions, our regrets, and our everyday messes portrayed under someone else’s name. We read, and we watch, and we learn so we can figure out our own truths.
We often don’t fully understand our feelings, so we create to express ourselves and find our identity. Through visual art, the written word, or even music, we can better project our thoughts and emotions. This article, made up of Reddit story titles, is all about processing feelings and relating to one another on an emotional level. Whether you resonate with an image or with words, what comes next will make you feel something.
Sometimes we find ourselves aimlessly following the same path, goal, or light and forgetting why we started following it in the first place. We are guided down a path that we never really wanted to go down, trying to figure out where we went wrong and what else we should do. There’s a pressure to continue down that path, causing us to question whose path it truly is. But how do we tell the ones we love?
Should I tell him?
Should I tell him my life is falling apart?
Last week, I thought fossil fuels came from dinosaurs
Probably because I’ve fried my brain using ChatGPT
It’s from being introduced to social media early in life
Full of AI b*******
Don’t know how to experience real life
But it is fine because I can show off my laundry-folding skills
I chose to learn French over Spanish
And got a degree I don’t even like
All because that’s what my parents wanted
I regret not being selfish enough
Life can be overwhelming at times. It’s common for people to say that they feel like their heart is going to burst out of their chest or that their head is spinning. We get these feelings because we don’t give ourselves permission to slow down and breathe. We don’t give ourselves the time to look at the simple things in the world.
I told a guy I like him
I guess I expected too much
Since he said I’m a f****** obsessive bitch
So I slept with my best friend instead
Do you ever realize something too late in life that almost doesn’t matter?
I realized how f***** up my childhood was today
That’s why my therapist says I cheated less than a year into marriage and destroyed everything
I think it is because I didn’t want to build my life around my spouse’s career
So I fell in love with a friend who got back with his wife
And now I’ve lost control
Life is falling apart
We fail a lot. We hate to admit failure, but it is a part of life. We fail, and we fall, and we get back up and try again. It is unavoidable, and while sometimes we may feel fatigued or overwhelmed, we can’t let that feeling win. We can’t always be fatigued.
I think a dog is my answer
That’ll prevent me from staying with my ex after he told me he would kill me
But I still can’t get over him
Maybe a cat would be better
Less maintenance
Please do not think about the elephant
Do not remind me that I am damaged goods
I already f****** know
But I confessed my feelings to my best guy friend
Loving is hard, but being loved can be even harder. Getting unconditional love from a dog is something we constantly take for granted. Their loyalty asks for nothing in return, filling a void within us. A dog is not always the answer, though my dog was certainly my answer.
Grandma’s mac and cheese
I blame my neurotic tendencies on the fact that I didn’t eat my grandma’s mac and cheese when I was 6
But I still can’t get over him
I should have asked how he felt
Do you feel physical pain whenever you remember the regretful things you do?
I feel it in the pit of my stomach
A vicious pain that has no end
I’m consumed by grief, and I bury it with drugs
I’m scared, overwhelmed, and don’t know how to face my dental situation
I don’t belong at my job
I built a partially fabricated resume, and it worked
What was I thinking?
I turned down a career-defining job opportunity for what?
We often ignore the signs that something is wrong. Whether the signs are real or not, the danger is always there. It’s easy to convince ourselves that our problems will just go away if we simply don’t think about them. But shouldn’t we try to do the hard thing and face them? Do we navigate past mistakes by trying to change what already happened, or do we move forward?
I want to go back in time
I want to go back in time
I’m an obsessive b**ch
And I secretly love when plans get canceled
Because I’m only here for my pets
I don’t believe in love
Because I told a guy I liked him
And he told me I’m damaged goods
I wish self-euthanasia was possible to access
When we feel tempted to change the past, we have to look for the good signs amongst the bad. We have to find the will to keep going and to keep the past in the past. It is easy to become consumed by those issues and allow them to take over our day-to-day lives. But all we can do is keep going and hope the next day will be better.
I Lied About My Cat Dying
I lied about my cat dying and got time off of work
It was a good vacation
And goddammit
I’m spiraling, and I don’t know what to do
I don’t believe in love
I have no talking stages left in me
I regret not being selfish enough
18 years ago, I traded my Darkrai for a Munchlax on Pokémon Diamond
It still keeps me up at night
Our feelings don’t just disappear. They can seem distant or buried at times, but they are always there, waiting to creep back up to remind us. Memories and emotions are beyond our control, always teasing us with a longing that we may not want to feel anymore.
I confessed my feelings
I confessed my feelings to my best guy friend
But we do not think about the elephant
We don’t believe in love
We are not damaged goods
We do not think about the elephant
Every day is a new one. A small reset; a chance to let go of what doesn’t matter. Our secrets and confessions can connect us in ways we don’t always understand. In the end, we all experience similar feelings, and we all learn how to cope in our own ways.
We try to keep moving forward. We try to follow a path that we think is right or that was laid out for us. Sometimes we even try to disguise, bury, or ignore our feelings. We buy shiny toys or adopt pets to satiate our need for attention. Yet we never seem to realize that we are all on different versions of the same path.
