Reddit mentions of The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

This is pretty much what current psychology research says and teaches with acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

It doesn't mean the "positive thinking" crap, which never works, as you can't control your feelings.

But it means to neutralize (NGAF) destructive and unproductive thoughts.

The standard ACT book is probably the happiness trap

I read your story and it's heartbreaking. I cried when I got to the last paragraph. It's just so sad that you feel this way about your life.

You've done amazing things - losing all that weight, 60m 10k, fixing your chronic health problems. Wow, so much dedication and perseverance. Congratulations, it's really impressive and only a tiny percentage of people can do that. It crushes me that you think no other woman would want you. I'm sure that's not true, especially with the physical transformation you've undergone.

Have you tried to do therapy on yourself to recover from your difficult childhood and depression? One book that helped me a lot was The Happiness Trap. You just sound like such a good-hearted, thoughtful person. I hate to think of you suffering like this. You deserve better.

Mindset, and the ability to stick with things, matters more than the path you choose. How to get the right mindset? Read or listen to things that help you attain the mindset you need to conquer your obstacles. It's like hanging around with ultra-successful people who are mentoring you every day. Here are some good things to read or listen to:

• The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
  
  
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (free online, or pay for the Hays Translation which is supposedly better)
  
  
• The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
  
  A TL;DR of the mindset you're going for: There are some things you can control and some you can't. For the things you can't control, don't worry about them! For the things you can control, be like a blazing fire that consumes anything that stands in its way. If you have even an ounce of control over something, master yourself and push will all your might against the obstacle.

There is a free app called "ACT Coach" available on iOS and Android.


The Happiness Trap: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XI12O8/


Your Life on Purpose: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LLII08


Free Resources and videos: https://thehappinesstrap.com/free-resources/


I was able to get a lot out of the self-help stuff but after that working with a therapist helped me fine-tune things because they are able to ask good questions I didn't think of or give additional clarifying examples.


My local library had both books so you can probably get them for free that way then buy them if they're helpful

Hey, it sounds like you have normal symptoms of depression. Depressed individuals often feel periods of low self-esteem, lack of interest in things normally enjoyed, and feelings of being unmotivated or stuck. Are you seeing a therapist for it?

I think a lot of depressed individuals sometimes don't realize, that depression often causes some pretty inaccurate thinking (you don't just feel bad like most people think, but your reasoning is also thwarted at times). There was actually a study where they took people that were going through depression and measured their ability to define the meaning of parables and sayings and it was shown that some of their ability was hampered.

Where am I going with this? I bet a lot of the harsh things you tell yourself aren't completely true, and I bet you probably maximize the faults in yourself (like zooming in onto a flaw) and probably minimize the good things about yourself. You probably mess up sometimes, but it isn't true that its all the time. It is impossible to mess up all the time. It is also impossible also to never have "earned" anything at your age. If you've ever done any homework, paid attention in class, or passed a single class, you've earned that. Also, you might feel like people don't take you seriously, but feeling doesn't mean that's true. Unless they say something, you can't read their minds. That might be the depression talking to you.

You are a senior in college, so it actually sounds like you're doing pretty ok in reality, even if you don't feel that way. Not everyone needs to have a job in college. (I don't work right now and I think that is a very very good thing.)Your parents sound like hard workers, but I think comparing yourself to them is probably not helping you much. I also don't see any issue with living with your parents during college. It saves a lot of money.

Therapy is probably your best bet. I'm not someone who has depression, (I instead deal with anxiety and was sort of born with self esteem) but I do read self-help books related to depression.

Here are a few that I've enjoyed, maybe you'd like browsing through some of these. I think it is a great idea for you to develop some tools for dealing with this and ebooks can be a way to start.

http://islamiconlineuniversity.com/counseling/resources/David%20Burns%20-%20Feeling%20Good.pdf This is a book that will help you practice cognitive behavior therapy. I like to do some of the exercises in this book. It focuses on helping you get a bit more active and also combating negative thoughts. It can seem silly sometimes, but try it out. I kind of love it.

Little book of contentment: http://zenhabits.net/little-book/
This is a nice and short book just intended for anyone to read. I think it makes some smart points. It is good for working on your self-esteem and moods.

The happiness Trap could be beneficial to you as well. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XI12O8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

This will introduce you to ACT (Acceptance and commitment therapy), which is another technique you can use to deal when sudden negative thoughts pop into your head or you suddenly just feel down.

http://images.kw.com/docs/2/1/2/212345/1285134779158_htwfaip.pdf
A book by Dale Carnegie you can use to spice up your social skills.

Hope that helps a bit. Learning to manage moods and feelings takes work and time, but I think progressively a person can learn to deal better.

One aspect of feeling down is that it appears that things will always be as they currently are. So I am not just dealing with the way I feel at the moment, but the fear that this is all there is to my life experience. This aspect, that of projecting the current circumstances forward indefinitely deserves to be called into question.

Firstly, unless I have some supernatural ability to see the future, I cannot know what the future will actually be like. But more importantly, this presumption-based fear is preventing me from actually experiencing exactly how good/bad this moment feels right now, based on it's own merit, free of the idea that things will always be just like this. I like to use a technique I call 'going down town' with it. For example, if I have a head ache, instead of taking an aspirin, I'll sit quietly and focus on the exact sensation of pain, going to the very center of it with my attention, and inviting the pain to increase as intensely as it intends. In many cases, I've witnessed full blown head aches disappear within minutes using this approach.

It wasn't the headache that was bothering me, it was not wanting a head ache that was the actual problem! And many times, so it is with my emotions. If I open myself up to the possibility that things could get better, I move away from that presumptuous fear and toward a more neutral mind set, at least. What I find then, is that as bad as things are right now, I'm still breathing! And at the very bottom, I will sometimes think of the expression, 'you can't get blood from a stone'. That numbness that I feel at the bottom is actually protecting me! Wow, as bad as things are I'm still here. At a certain point, I began to see that no matter how bad things get, I can be present in the moment and experience this moment fully.

I've been in a place where I couldn't even imagine things getting any better. The deepest, darkest of lows with inexplicable, poignant and piercing emotional pain. And in that moment, I vowed to myself that I would never die by my own hand. I could not imagine thriving, so I was left with the option of surviving, and that was all I could focus on.

I couldn't see it then, but that focus on survival saw me through until eventually I could imagine the possibility of my life improving. And later saw glimpses of actual thriving, and today I see it even more clearly and these past 10 years have seen the return of that undefinable appreciation for life, that spark that ignites a burning love in my chest.

Last year, a relatively new friend and romantic interest of mine, took her own life. I knew she was struggling. We had a date to go for a walk around the lake here in my neighborhood. I was going to give her this book: The Happiness Trap (http://www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Trap-Struggling-ebook/dp/B004XI12O8/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1)

It would be highly presumptive for me to think that any of this will speak to how exactly you are feeling right now, but I really just want to express that you are not alone in the general way that you feel, and that someone actually cares. I would sign off with a quote from Valerie in V for Vendetta as though they were my own words:

"I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you."

You are fortunate to be in treatment with a therapist who understands CEN. If they haven't mentioned reparenting you might bring that up as a way to give yourself the nurturing that you missed as a child:

https://yourholisticpsychologist.com/what-is-reparenting-and-how-to-begin/

A way to be less at the mercy of your emotions is a mindfulness technique. One would practice viewing thoughts and emotions as passing events rather than getting caught up in them. This book covers several methods for doing that (from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy):

https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living-ebook/dp/B004XI12O8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Again be grateful that you're in a position to resolve this and go on to a successful, happy life.

Yeah, now that I think about it--getting a new relationship to my thoughts was a big part of feeling more positive after I left Mormonism and made acting positively much easier.

I mentioned in a post below about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which is a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and is considered the best supported type of general psychological therapy to my knowledge. It was definitely a turning point for me. I highly recommend it. There are a few good books out there. I like this one the most, but I think even it overcomplicates the process a bit.

The gist of it is to learn how to keep your thoughts and feelings flexible, so that you don't get stuck in them for too long. It involves learning a bit of meditation and noticing the difference between your automatic inner thoughts and the input from your senses in the present. Once you get good at this you'll find it easier to choose to "move towards" things you value in the long term, rather than feel like your only choice is to "avoid" or "attack" the stuff you fear that in reality might not ever happen or even exist.

I liked it, so just passing it along.

I can definitely relate. I spent years feeling extremely lonely. I have a tendency to attract people who are not good for me and not feel very connected to people who are. I also work remotely to avoid dealing with face-to-face politics. I have WAY too much anxiety and PTSD to deal with office life day after day.

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The only/best antidote I know of, at least for me, is to give something to someone or help someone. Volunteer or join some kind of service organization. Seems counterintuitive but it works for me.

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Also, keep an eye on those stories you tell yourself. The idea of rejection vs. years of loneliness sounds scary and not necessarily true. I say that with love -- I know what it feels like to wholeheartedly believe the scary, disheartening stories in my head.

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I know you said you've learned it all, but just wondering if you've learned about ACT? It's a mindfulness based therapy. Your use of the word "accept" suggests you may have. But just in case you haven't, I've found this book to be a relatively simple and helpful way of tackling some of the things that I struggle with:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XI12O8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1