Lol depression is not counter-revolutionary, don’t worry. It’s hard to not to apply our protestant work ethic to our revolutionary politics, but depression is caused by a whole load of different things, none of which can be solved by being pissed at yourself. We don’t call people unable to fight in a revolution because they have a broken leg “counterrevolutionary” for the same reasons.

I would say you have depression rather than “in your comfort zone”

Yoga and mindfulness exercises can be a good way to get more comfortable in your own skin. Being aware of your body and feelings might help you learn why you ‘escape reality’ by staying in your room all day. When you do get out of your comfort zone, try to find out what’s holding you back from doing it more often.

If you’re terminally online then it might be the case that you’re not allowing yourself to process your thoughts and feelings, because you’re constantly stimulating your brain with distractions. This can lower your tolerance to other stimuli, and make it more overwhelming to exercise or leave the house.

If you have the means, getting a therapist might be helpful in your transition to live a healthier life. Because not wanting to leave your room is a pretty clear indicator of being mentally unwell.

It’s a difficult journey that you need to take, you shouldn’t feel bad if progress is slow or if you lose some. As long as you keep trying, progress will come. I wish you the best.

feed the homeless near you. you have to learn to cook, socialize, and it usually requires a bit if walking. and you will feel great at the end of the day (and youll deserve to)

Be more uncomfortable, but make it more comfortable to be uncomfortable. Yeah that’s a confusing sentence. I have two and a half suggestions.

First, even if you’ve already dug your heels on consumerism, purchase a pair of comfortable shoes. My gold standard I can suggest to anybody is Adidas boost, specifically the Ultraboost. However it isn’t worth it unless it’s on sale. You can get them as low as $40, but I do suggest buying new. Boost is just better that way. Adidas has stock clearing sales on ebay, definitely worth checking out. There are shoes that you can get consistently cheaper. New Balance is great, but particularly evil politics, Asics are GREAT, probably better than UBs longterm, but extremely hard to get used to but UBs just work for anybody. Also UBs are worse than useless on a slippery floor.

Second, taper yourself onto eating better. Buy mirepoix or whatever your local veggie combo is, and a box grater. There are things you can add to make this easier, but a box grater is the only tool I’d consider absolutely necessary. Including knives or even pots and pans. If you’re making most entrees, I promise it will taste better if you grate in a bunch of vegetables. Gravy? Grate carrot, onion and celery into it, it will be better and thicker. Soup? Yes. Picky kid? I’m a skilled professional chef, that’s what grating is for. By the end, you’ll be so used to vegetable, you will just automatically consider it in your hunger rotation. If you need any recipes for moving past the grating stage, let me know and I’ll give you tons. Seriously, if you like the flavor and don’t know how to cook it, just grate it and overcook it for flavor. Adding more vegetables into your diet is the gateway of realizing the rest of the world has been lying to you. That broccoli is actually one of the best vegetables, but simply isn’t cooked well enough for most people to enjoy. Gateway vegetables. In the same way DARE says people go from smoking weed to crack, you also can go from eating tendies to broccoli and tendies.

My half (not a real suggestion) suggestion is to go homeless or extremely poor. Don’t go homeless as an experiment unless you’re REALLY able to stick to those sorts of things. I knew one person who was able to stick with it hard enough to be valuable, but that’s the most minor example of them being an insanely contradictory anomaly. Otherwise, it just happens to many working class people, an event that brings them over any sort of comfortable delusions they hold. You have 8 hours of space a night, where you sleep, and that’s if you’re lucky. While I’m no longer homeless, those moments of homelessness/pure poverty have made me appreciate what I worked up to far much more. Comfort is hard to come by when you have no where to go, and you learn to take solace in the few moments of comfort you do have. It’s (literally) how air conditioning and TV are things that you probably don’t think about actively. Once you’re out in 100+ degree heat for hours at a time, A/C all of a sudden becomes an oasis in the desert of national austerity.

The only real way to adjust your feelings is by drastic change that simply makes you appreciate what you want so much. Putting yourself in a spot where you have to decide when you do and don’t have the good stuff. The way you deal with this is by changing your idea of good stuff (veggie suggestion, comfy shoes) Or by changing what is bad (the FEW working class/slaves who just learned to be happy with their conditions).

Consider that you may be depressed. Being depressed is not something that can be hand waved away by anyone. It’s real, and it has a heavy effect on you.

I recommend forcing oneself to go outside at least one point in the day for a week, try it out. Its encouraging to myself to see that I can get going like that. Its small but it really does help. Find audio-books with a podcast or theory book (It gives me that good productive feeling). Play it on your phone while walking. You don’t have to even walk, just sit down outside. I like to take it easy, if its too hard at the beginning my brain will talk myself out of it.

Just some offhand advice, try it or don’t. Different methods work for different people.

I find putting on shoes puts me in a more active mindset, and it’s easier to start and complete tasks.

I think that’s a Pave-loave per-sychololology. I wear shoes at work, so when I’m wearing shoes it must be so I can get work done.

You have to find something you want to motivate you. If you really truely want to just vibe all day that is what you will get. You have to want somwthing, to have some Intrinsic motivation to force yourself to move towards a goal. Which, in some way just vibing and taking care of yourself is important. If nothing else find a club to join. Just having a routine for getting out and having fun will start building your capacity to get out and do more. Play is important

You sound very depressed. Your self-criticism can either drive you to become a better revolutionary, but it can also turn into masochistic self-destruction, where you end up wallowing in self-pity/-hatred. There are no revolutionaries driven by great feelings of self-hatred. Putting it into metaphors: Kick yourself in the ass, but don’t end up landing face-down in the dirt.

I found it helpful to turn anger into more productive feelings. E.g., I clean my place when I am mad. You might want to delete social media and games from your devices if they end up being eating your time.

There is no shame in getting a therapist if you have the means, but be careful: There are very bad therapists out there.

I think most people dont accomplish things without being a part of a community somehow and I think you have to force yourself to get out there. Othello had a good point but in absence of that there are tons of good things you can do if you’re wary about joining a political party.

The all-purpose suggestion is to make your “default options” the right choice. E.g. if I only have apples on hand, when I want to idly snack I’ll eat the apple instead of going to the store for cookies. You want to expend as little willpower as possible. Habit and routine help a lot but it is difficult to build that quickly.

Last year I read The Flinch by Julien Smith, which is a shit book you shouldn’t read. But it has a good concept: a built-in propensity to flinch away from difficult things that becomes a general reflex. The feeling of not wanting to get into the shower, or not wanting to get out of the shower, or not wanting to get out of bed, etc. Smith says that this is a pretty general pattern of behavior, and if you can practice pushing through the hump in one area it will extend to other areas. Personally I’ve noticed that my mental state before I get into a cold shower does seem similar to that before I deadlift or do some other difficult thing.

So in addition to the default options thing, I suggest you schedule one unpleasant but achievable thing in the morning. Maybe a cold shower. Anyone can start there. It can’t hurt you, it just sucks. There’s no reason to do it other than to prove that you can do hard things. But with that proof you will find it a lot easier to believe that you ARE a revolutionary communist and you can get shit done.

you join a club for birdwatching . So you have company , get forced out of your house and you see birds …

I think @Othello@hexbear.net had a sick ass suggestion in feeding the homeless. That seems like the north star to feeling better about yourself.

If I might offer some advice in addition to this, I would want you to ask yourself what is different at this point that you’ve made a thread about it compared to any other time since the pandemic started. What caused this post? Plenty of people are antisocial weirdos and get along relatively fine. I would posture to guess that the person you want to be wouldn’t be suffering the damage to their personal life or at least would only be doing it in exchange for revolutionary praxis. Like you’re getting a bad deal on the suffering and see no end to the bad deal unless you do something. If that’s the case, then there’d be a sick irony to knowing that doing these nice things like eating real food would simply be a superior experience, but struggling to move towards it. All that to say is if moving towards an image of yourself that you like isn’t cutting it, then maybe remembering that you’re getting a dog deal on suffering without helping others would motivate you. What if you went out, fed the homeless, and asked them what they’d do around town if they had $20? Then go do that with them. I just don’t think the opposite of your comfort zone is some kind of languishing in acid rain - you’re still on a pursuit of happiness. You might find purpose that makes being a middle class dilettante seem boring.

since you have low energy levels, my advice is to start off not even worrying about your diet, just go on walks sometimes or do some pushups and squats once or twice a week (doing it 3 or more times a week might over-train you or cause burnout). you actually need a surplus of caloric intake to build muscle, it’s almost impossible to build muscle while losing weight unless you use steroids or something but i’m not familiar with the specifics. getting your body used to more activity will eventually give you more energy for whatever else you might want to do. and once you have that muscle, it might make it easier to lose weight if you decide you still want to.

idk how to solve social anxiety or be the ideal communism builder but i do like 30 or so pushups and squats once or twice a week and i’ve been adding one rep each time. i eat like 2 ‘mega bowl’ microwave meals a day and have 2 ‘ghost’ energy drinks with reese’s cups in between as snacks if that tells you how crappy my diet is lol.

oh yeah and drink a bunch of water, more than you probably think you need, it helps with digestion, helps prevent heartburn/indigestion, all kinds of stuff.

If finding an actual therapist doesn’t work for you, you could try to set yourself a small goal, post about it here and see if any of our comrades’ can help give you some sort of psychological support.

Set a small goal, “Walk in the park for an hour” or “Just sit somewhere where people are like a Library or the Park and just let yourself ‘Be’”. From there, look around for signs advertising for things like reading groups or flower planting or something that are open to the public and make yourself attend. Think about some things to say when you’re asked to introduce yourself to others.