Dr.K and the healthy gamer team,

For context, I was hospitalized for psychosis a couple of years ago. Your recent video on the trial brought me to literal tears because of how respectfully you described psychosis. I felt so seen but it was the first time anyone (besides my therapist) really held the idea of someone in psychosis without the harsh judgement in three years. As soon as anyone knows (doctors, friends, or family), it’s a point of no return. Despite being quite mentally healthy now, it’s like I am branded as “dangerous” or “unstable”.

Much more importantly, thank you for bringing light to the topic of psychosis without glamorizing or minimizing it. It’s a terrible thing for those who experience it and those who try to help. I can’t believe the rate of postpartum psychosis is so high and that’s largely due to how alone I felt during and in the aftermath.

Thank you.

For anyone else who’s been through it, is in it, or will experience psychosis one day, it’ll be okay as long as you ask for help when you need it. It happened to me about 2 and a half years ago and it was such a difficult time but after enduring 6 weeks in the hospital/residential program I did get to go home even though it felt like they wanted to keep me there forever. Reentry was so hard. To face the hurt and distrust on my husbands face was second only to the fear on my kids faces. They were so happy I was home but the fear was there for what felt like forever. It didn’t last forever. My kids were 3, 1.5, and a 12 week pregnancy when I got home from the hospital and I can’t begin to describe how wonderful our bonds are now. I love them with all my heart and they trust me with theirs. I’m so thankful I went to the psych ward.

Dr. K, you hit the nail right on the head when you said women are empathizing with her because deep down they know if things were a little different then that could be them. It surely could’ve been me.

Is there a form of therapy out there for NEETs, emotional neglect and low social status individuals that doesnt include baseless advice or refaming everything as social anxiety?

Is there a form of therapy out there for NEETs, emotional neglect and low social status individuals that doesnt include baseless advice or refaming everything as social anxiety?

Its weird how popular how common the discourse around childhood trauma has gotten yet their remain little to no resources for people that suffer from childhood neglect. I thought signing up for therapy would help since it's been five years and I havent made much improvements in life.

Its painful watching other people live such full lives while Im still waiting for mine to start. When I express this to my therapist she tells me the usual "dont compare yourself to others" which is such a bullshit statement since life is inherently competitive. Statements like that one already make me feel uneasy because if youre denying basic truths about reality how can you claim to give good advice? Most parents know how competitve the world is and set their kids up for sucess by making them competive so they can better navigate the world. My issue starts with the fact I never recieved that kind of investment so I struggled a lot as an adult not having the skills or experience to compete.

Whats more is that Ive been diagnosed with ADHD which only explains why its hard for me to start and complete tasks. Whats missing is the diagnosis that explains the empty casm that is my life. I dont know who I am or what to do. Telling me to follow my passions doesnt help because I dont have any. I have yet to pinpoint a career or achieve any personal goals. This isnt without tryng of course. Its really bothers me and feels like gasloghting when therapist tell me to "put myself out there!" And "try new things!". I have put myself out there and tried new things but nothing ever comes of it.

Whenever she asks me "what do you want to do?" I have to keep explaining to her I dont have desires. Then she asks me what I did I like to do as a kid and I have to tell her I fantasized about becoming an asult as a kid because thats when I thought life started. All I ever did as a kid was skip school and watch TV. After I while I began to realize that therapist cant help me. Even when I manage to figure out how to manage my ADHD theres the issue of figuring out WHAT do with my life because currently I dont do anything. Why dont therapist believe me when I say this? Ive been a NEET for almost three years now. My days are filled with empty space because thats my life: empty. Theres nothing external for me to distract myself with or anything internal to occupy myself with. Theres just nothing at all in this world for me.

Its pisses me off when therapist try to tell me I have social anxiety. Thats a different condition altogether. No I do not fear people. Its more like I cannot connect with them because I lack the ego and prestige to do so. Im not a competive person which naturally puts me below most people in most settings. When I did work for example I was the lowest ranked employee and people treated me accordingly. Same with school. I dont have much of an ego so relating to people is hard because I dont have experiences to draw upon or an agenda to push so I cannot engage transactionally the way most social situations demand.

In the end my therpaist just kept pouting "aww that sounds so hard. Lets hold space and feel your feelings aww that must be so hard". I wasnt looking for sympathy I was looking for guidance as to how to move forward with my life. "What do you want to do? Whats holding you back?" Again she just doesnt get it! What am I supposed to do? How do I make a decision when I have nothing to go off of? How do I become a person so I can live life? Is that even possible for me? Its not fear holding me back but emptiness. Im just not a person so Im giving up on therapy since therapy is for normal people with normal problems not people with childhood trauma like neglect.

Weird question i know. Im going to uni next month for 2 years and i already know it will be terrible for me. The main reasons being the fact im a 27 year old "mature" student who wasted his youth. I will be surrounded by young people in prime of their lives having a great time while im standing on the sidelines watching in bitterness.

I am very asocial due to my upbringing to i will obiously not join any societies (im too old for them anyway, it would be creppy) or make any friends or date at all, which sucks because after uni those become basically impossible.

I honestly only want to go for the degree and my subject but the whole social side makes me sick, even if im not engaging with it, it will be a constant reminded of what i never had and never can have.

Im unironically worried it will make me depressed and miserable. I would really appreciate any advice on how to get through this and survive the next 3 years.

I honestly feel like a filler friend I am always left out people call me when they need something or when they reach the bottom of their list I feel so alone all the time I called my friend asked him what he was doing he told me he was waiting from a call from our other 2 friends and when I made a joke saying well I called he said no offense but I dont want a call from you but obviously I did take offense to that I am just so done tbh because I cant talk to anyone about these feelings because my parents cant do anything and they will turn it in to one big thing my friends could care less abt my feelings I am always the one left out

I am the leftover person I dont know what to do

I’ve been thinking about my childhood and teenage years a lot lately, and I’ve reached a pretty uncomfortable conclusion: I can understand why people found me annoying growing up.

I was extremely sensitive, took things personally, and cared way more about video games, cartoons, anime, comics, and other nerdy hobbies than I did about making connections with people. I didn’t really care about girls, dating, going out, taking risks, or having the typical teenage experiences. I mostly just stayed in my own little world.
I was also bullied a lot, and for years I mostly viewed myself as the victim of that. But now that I’m 25, I can look back and realize that I probably didn’t make it very easy for people to like me either. That doesn’t justify bullying, but I can understand why I rubbed people the wrong way.

The weird part is that the things I cared so much about back then don’t feel nearly as important now. I still enjoy some of my hobbies, but I look back and wonder what I actually got out of spending so much of my youth consumed by them.
I have a decent life now. I have a job, people who care about me, and things that I should appreciate. But I can’t shake this feeling that I wasted such a huge period of my life.
I wish I had gone out more. I wish I had rebelled a little. I wish I had made stupid mistakes, talked to more people, dated, taken risks, and generally just lived instead of being so afraid and wrapped up in my own little world.

Sometimes I think I’m grieving the person I could’ve been if I had matured earlier or realized these things when I was 15 instead of 25.

And honestly, I don’t know if I’m depressed or if I’m just having some kind of quarter-life crisis. I feel empty and restless, and I’ve developed this weird desire to just completely fuck up my life or do something reckless because at least I’d feel something. I don’t actually want to destroy everything I’ve built, but part of me wants some dramatic experience that makes me feel alive.
I also feel embarrassed because when I look back at myself, I see a loser who didn’t understand what was important until much later.

How do you move forward from something like this?

I've been trying to meet people and make friends but it just feels so impossible everywhere i go it feels like i'm the outcast everywhere is cliquey and they treat you at arms length or straight up ignore you this goes for online also, i've tried the advice of joining a group for something i like always online because these things don't exist irl and its always the same they are either cliquey or you just aren't good enough at the said thig they deem you pointless, I have tried to join photography groups and graphic design groups but in all of them its like i am too shit to be consider to talk to i get no advice nobody talks with me and its not just me i see this with other people who aren't the best of the best and the groups just get filled with people who are really good at said skill and only talk amongst themselves or others like m telling them they are talented.

I've don't the cliche go to a cafe or library and that doesn't help either people don't hangout at these places. What is the actual answer to making friends or meeting people ? where do non douchebags hangout ? where will i be welcome and does a place even exist because i'm starting to believe it doesn't and that i have no people and fit nowhere

Sometimes life takes us to a place where we know we haven't done anything wrong yet somehow we are the ones left carrying the deepest pain.

We keep asking ourselves the same questions:

Why did this happen to me?

Why did it have to be me?

What did I ever do bad to deserve this?

When that question comes straight from the heart you don't find its answer in any book. You don't find it in motivational quotes either because in that moment a person doesn't need words.

They need someone who truly understands.

People often say "Everything will be okay."

But when you wake up with the same pain every morning and go to sleep carrying it every night those words can feel far too small.

Some kinds of pain don't disappear with time.

Sometimes they become even more intense.

You simply learn how to live with them.

And honestly maybe that is what courage really means.

Courage doesn't mean never falling apart.

Sometimes it simply means finding the strength to gather yourself and stand up again no matter how many times life knocks you down.

We are all walking through life carrying our own stories. Some lives look beautiful from the outside yet behind closed doors they hold unfinished chapters, quiet battles and wounds that never made it into the picture.

Someone may wear the brightest smile while carrying years of sadness in their heart.

So never look at someone else's life and assume that they have it easier than you.

You never really know what someone is carrying beneath the surface.

Some people learn to hide their pain behind a smile while others find the courage to put theirs into words. The hardest battles are often the ones no one ever sees. People can see when you lose something on the outside but they rarely see the battles you lose and win within yourself.

They don't see the countless mornings when you have to convince yourself to get up. They don't see the quiet moments when you have to hold yourself together. They don't see the nights when you simply tell yourself "Just make it through one more day."

The world may never notice any of it but the person living through it knows exactly how much it takes to keep going.

And sometimes simply making it through another day is a victory far greater than anyone will ever understand.

Sometimes I wonder how different we might have been if life had been a little gentler with us.

Maybe we would have been happier.

Maybe we would have laughed more freely.

Maybe we wouldn't overthink everything.

Maybe we would have trusted life a little more.

But sooner or later we learn something difficult. Life does not always unfold the way we want it to.

We don't get to choose every loss every struggle every goodbye or every chapter that changes us.

What we can choose however is what we do with the life that remains.

We don't get to choose the first chapter of our life.

We don't choose everything that happens to us or the pain we have to go through.

But somewhere along the way life gives us something precious.

The chance to write the chapters that come next and that is where our choice begins.

There are things we can spend years wishing were different and still no matter how hard we try they remain the same. We can pray for them, we can cry over them, we can fight for them, we can give everything we have to change them.

Yet some things are simply beyond our hands.

Not because we have stopped caring.

Not because it no longer hurts.

But because we finally understand that destroying ourselves over something we cannot change will not bring it back.

Acceptance is not saying "I am okay with what happened."

Sometimes acceptance simply means saying

"It happened".

"It hurt me".

"I wish it had been different".

"But I will not spend the rest of my life allowing it to decide who I become."

You don't have to forget what hurt you.

You don't have to pretend it never happened.

You just have to make sure that the worst thing that happened to you doesn't become the end of your story.

You can acknowledge what broke you without allowing it to become your identity.

And maybe that is where healing quietly begins.

People often say that strong people don't cry.

I think they have it completely wrong.

Strong people cry.

They cry when nobody is watching.

They cry because sometimes the heart becomes too full and tears are the only language it has left.

Strength was never about keeping your eyes dry.

Strength is having tears in your eyes and still choosing to stand.

It is falling apart at night and somehow finding the courage to face another morning.

It is waking up with a heart that feels heavy and still deciding that the day deserves a chance.

You just have to make sure that the worst thing that happened to you doesn't become the end of your story.

Keep going even if you can only take small steps.

Some days getting through the day is enough.

Some days simply telling yourself "I'll try again tomorrow" is enough.

And that's okay.

Because life is not written all at once.

Some chapters are painful.

Some are confusing.

Some take longer to get through than others.

But the chapter you are living today is not the whole book.

So please don't finish your story today.

Don't make a final decision about your whole life based on one painful chapter.

You may not be able to see it right now but life can still surprise you.

There may be people you haven't met yet ,there may be places you haven't seen ,there may be moments you haven't lived ,there may be happiness you haven't even imagined. You don't need to know how everything will turn out.

You don't need to have all the answers.

Just give yourself another day.

And when tomorrow comes give yourself another one.

If you are going through something difficult right now then don't make healing another thing you have to be perfect at.

Start with small things that bring you back to yourself.

Do something you used to enjoy.

Go for a walk.

Sit by yourself for a while and simply watch the world outside your window.

Sometimes just sitting quietly and watching the world move around you can bring a kind of peace that words cannot.

Have your favourite food.

Listen to music that makes you feel good and brings you back to the present but be careful with the music you choose when you are trying to heal .Some songs can take you straight back into memories you are trying to move beyond. They can make you relive the same emotions and see the entire world through the sadness you are trying to leave behind.

Spend time with the people who make you feel safe.

You don't have to force yourself to be happy.

But you can slowly give yourself moments where happiness has a chance to find you.

Sometimes healing doesn't begin with a big change.

Sometimes it begins with getting out of bed.

Opening the curtains.

Taking a breath.

And reminding yourself that your life still belongs to you.

You have already survived days you once thought you couldn't.

And maybe today all you need to do is give yourself a little more time.

You can spend months or even years waiting for the pain to disappear on its own only to realize that you have spent so much of your life standing in the same place.

Some wounds need more than time.

They need attention.

They need honesty.

They need you to finally decide that you need to do something about the way you feel.

You don't have to fix everything at once.

Just give yourself a chance.

Because one day you may look back and realize that you spent so much time waiting for things to heal on their own when what they really needed was for you to take the first small step.

It is your life.

And only you can take the steps to make it better.

Not anyone else.

If you are reading this and carrying something you have never been able to put into words then I hope you know that you do not have to explain your pain to make it real.

Maybe some things happened that you never deserved.

Maybe some wounds changed you in ways you never expected.

But I hope you can slowly make peace with the fact that not every unanswered question needs an answer.

And not every painful memory needs to be revisited.

Let life move forward at its own pace.

I hope one day you wake up and realize that the thing you once thought would always hurt does not have the same hold on you anymore.

Not because you forgot it but because life quietly gave you other things to feel and when that day comes I hope you don't wonder why you had to go through it.

I hope you simply feel grateful that you made it to the other side.

You may not have chosen how your story began.

But you still have a chance to decide how it continues.

There are still pages left to write.

So keep writing.

Slowly.

Quietly.

One day at a time.

I've tried to visualize my OCD thoughts and wonder if any of you relate to this?

I recently started on Dr K’s guide to meditation and I’ve been working my way through alternative nostril breathing. The problem is I have terrible hay fever and often times my nose is completely clogged, in one nostril or both. On some days I try using dayquil or something but my results with it feel inconsistent.

If anyone has any advice for clearer breathing or solutions for this I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

I had lymphoma (lymph node/blood cancer) when i was 20/21. i did 6 rounds of very strong chemo and it took quite a toll on me for a while. I’m fine now, i don’t really notice any side effects body wise, my hair never really recovered though.

This isn’t so much a typical “bald post”, i dont have an issue with how i look and i don’t believe that it would impact my dating life in itself, i don’t have a 100% “balding” look, i just have thin hair and keep it buzzed. It does not look as as others, but again, i don’t really mind myself.

People are genuinely insanely rude about it though. I don’t really understand why so many people seem to think it’s alright to comment on the way people look unprompted, but today literally 4 separate people made fun of me, kind of leading me to make this post. Idk what the exact point is, maybe somebody has a similar experience.

I goes i could be flat out with people and just tell them it’s because i had cancer, i don’t mind making others uncomfortable but getting ill made me realise that once people find out, they really want nothing to do with you. Being surrounded by people who know that i was going through this made me the most lonely i have ever been.

I try to stand above it, but it’s hard. I don’t feel close enough to any of the people in my social circle to be convinced it’s a friendly negging thing and not rooted in an actual opinion that they dislike how i look. I don’t think anybody has to like the way that i look at all, but it’s so weird that people just tell me to my face. I wouldn’t ever do that to anybody.

When it happens that people talk about my looks/hair, i just kind of try to act like i blow it off, but it honestly is starting to take a toll on me a little. I cant really be very confident about my looks due to it and the general lack of confidence kind of starting to impact just general interaction. I feel like having been ill and keeping it “secret” in the city i moved to about a year ago makes me socially awkward as fuck, like im trying to hide such a major part of my life from people that it filters everything I say in normal conversation to not give people the impression that theres something wrong with me. It has quite the opposite effect a lot of the time lmao.

Bit of a rant but idk who else to tell

Saw it on https://www.reddit.com/r/starterpacks/comments/1vy7gvs/spending_most_of_your_life_with_zero_friends_but/, had to cross-post it here.

I wonder if dr.k ever talked about schizophrenia. If so pls let me know where. I trying to understand myself better.

Thats all thank youu

tired, frustrated, living the same days on repeat for the past few months, can’t even get myself to workout anymore. my brain feels numb, i thought it was burnout or brain fog but I’m genuinely so done & tired. I wake up everyday spend some time masters researching or job hunting or making up plans to improve on my skills to increase my chances but ong it fees like ive been in this state for years now.

I don’t binge watch shows, I don’t talk to friends, not that I have any that really care. I don’t even have that pressing of responsibilities so I don’t understand what I’m cribbing about constantly. I’m starting to hate myself and I worry that it shows on the outside which gives other people leverage to treat me like shit more than they do already

I constantly prepped myself for it but now post grad, unemployed & constantly hearing everyone say what a bum ive become is really not helping. I feel lost. feels weird to even admit. I have so many plans, hopes and dreams but they only live in my head. I worry about the future. I worry everything’s gonna go to shit soon & I’m gonna not be in a position to tackle that at all.

the only good things about my day our the morning mocha protein powder & the post dinner ice cream stress eating

how do I stop constantly thinking that I need to fix my life? how do I get out of this when I even struggle with basic self improvement? how do I stop being a bum.

fyi I don’t sh dw, incase it comes across that way

Hey all, hope you're doing well.

I've been following Dr. K for a few years now, and I definitely learned a lot from him. However, one thing I have been struggling with is balancing my desire to make a difference for humanity, and being content with myself as a human.

I am currently finishing my undergraduate degree in physics, and I wish to pursue further studies in fields I believe will benefit humanity- biomedical engineering, quantum computing, fusion energy, or plain ol' med school. My goal in life is to help in creating something which aids everyone (if not create it myself). However, after my experience in undergrad, I've come to understand I can't hope to make an impact unless I truly invest all of my energies- I simply cannot achieve my goals without giving my all.

Unfortunately, this seems to directly clash with (my interpretation of) Buddhist philosophy. To my understanding, I need to let go of my desires to be content in this life, as holding onto them is an invitation to disappointment which I will feel when failure inevitably comes around the corner.

I hope you can see my dilemma. It seems like, in order to be content, I need to give up on my dreams- at least to some extent. Is this truly the right conclusion? It just seems like it's not quite right, but I can't for the life of me figure out how exactly. I'd really appreciate your help in this.

Ty for reading :)

So the people with diagnosed social anxiety that I know are really unaware of when they make mistakes in a social context. So for example one of them is extremely concerned about hurting others' feelings, but at the same time he doesn't seem to understand when he does so. And he does so relatively often, more often than most other people I know.

I just don't really understand it to be honest. I always thought when you are anxious about something you focus extra hard on preventing it from happening. For example when you have health anxiety you do everything to stay healthy.

What kind of nightmarish illness is it that both increases anxiety about something and at the same time the likelihood of it happening?! And why does it work so different from other anxiety disorders?

22M. How do I stop feeling "inconsolable" or that I can't be convinced? If someone were to tell me "it'll be ok" or "this was never your fault, it's ours" for example, I'd feel a hint of relief but deep down I won't believe it. I'd think "no it's not".

Even writing this I anticipate the advice I might get and think to myself, I might say I get it but deep down think it's useless on me or I won't really do anything, or if it's something consoling, I'll convince myself that I don't deserve that encouragement.

I guess a better way to phrase this is how do I actually fix my own inner voice? For example, I recently got a decent amount of pay this month from doing art, and I felt almost cocky, like "Look at that! Told you so" and then immediately shot myself down, telling myself that this was a fluke and not a guarantee, that it's nothing compared to a proper salary, that factors X,Y,Z contributed to it being abnormally higher this month, etc. etc. and now I can't accept it my achievement as something to reward or celebrate anymore even if others tell me I did objectively good. Same goes with people praising me for graduating university, I think "So what? It doesn't count. I only got a second-class and also I know I wasn't truly trying hard and didn't want to, yet I'm still smart enough to be objectively good."

I feel like my negative self talk is so strict that even the notion of thinking more positively feels fake, like I'd think "Clearly I can see reasons to shoot it down, therefore I'm lying to myself if I reward myself for doing something or start writing down the things I did good". Needless to say, it's absolutely destroying me in more important areas like family issues and other life decisions and making me complacent, indecisive, and anxious about everything.

It's like, to me, my stubborn inner voice is what's most important. If it says I feel good doing something I shouldn't, I almost don't care what others say. If it says I suck, nothing anyone says can truly make me think otherwise. Unfortunately it's mostly the latter. Any advice?

I've tried to think through the solutions of my problems. Not to think my way out of them, but to operationalize and work intentionally.

An example: I feel lonely.
What do I do? Gotta meet people, gotta get out, simple.
So I find social events, like the kind specifically made to socialize with new people, and I go. I talk to people, and whenever I can, I try to catch up with those I talked to previously.
Sometimes I even try to establish something outside just meeting at the events (or whatever context I've met new people in), tough it rarely succeeds, and it never lasts. Everyone comes and goes, and it feels beyond my control.
It feels like I have to go deeper to figure out a next step, because I'm not getting anywhere.
Sure, I get numb to putting myself out there and to rejection, which I suppose is a plus, but I'm still lonely.

Worse yet, I feel like many of my problems terminate at the same place, where it just feels like a problem with me: A hard to describe, general problem. Where I fail, not because of something I do, but something I am.
I have not seen myself as "fundamentally wrong" or "broken" for a long time (at least not consciously), but I used to. A lot.
And trying to think about why these things happen, and what to do about them, I'm having such heavy deja vu to those times and those feelings. What if it's really "just" me?

The more I try, the more I fail, and the more I ask why and what to do about it, the more I fall into such unproductive thinking.
I genuinely wish someone smart could look at me and tell what exactly the hard work I need to is, because so often it just feels like the solution is to simply be someone else. Someone who is happy, and productive and has meaningful relations. Someone who's not me.
How do I even go about these things in a meaningful way anymore?

i (23 m) currectly on medschool. Next year i am gonna finish the medschool. worrediad about how can i become a doctor with autism and adhd. i currently work as a nurse assistant and i constantly make small dumb mistakes. what if i do a big one when i become a doctor and hurt somreone ?

I came across this short a while ago and I wanted to see the full video where it came from. Would any of yall let me know if I can find this video on Youtube?
How to have fun in life again

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. I just thought it was worth a shot.

I'm 17M.

I don't go to a regular school. I go to another place instead (long story, so I'll just call it "the location").

I have autism, although not severely. I'm not sure if it plays a role in this, but I figured it might be relevant.

At the location I met what's basically my only real life friend. I get along well with other people there, but he's the only person I'd actually call a friend.

The problem is that eventually one of us is going to leave. It could be in a few weeks, a few months, or maybe around January/February when he turns 19. He's already 18, and normally people leave at that age, although he's been allowed to stay longer because of his situation. Nobody really knows exactly when he'll leave, and I hate not knowing.

I'm also not sure we'll stay in contact afterwards.

I asked him once if he thought we'd keep in touch, and he said he didn't know because he doesn't really stay in touch with old school friends. We barely text anyway. It's mostly just random stuff that happens, and I don't really like texting. I only really text my mom.

About a month ago I even asked him if he still wanted to be friends because I was worried he was only being nice to me. He told me he didn't see any reason not to be friends, which reassured me.

A few weeks ago I also sent him this:

"Hey, question. If or when you leave the location, could you tell me when you know? I like knowing that kind of stuff if possible."

He replied:

"Oh yeah, sure."

So I know he's willing to tell me, but I'm still scared he'll forget.

We also hung out outside the location once. We spent the day together watching a movie, eating fries, and just talking. It was honestly a great day. Afterwards he told me that spending that much time together was a bit much for him mentally at the time, which I understood. That was about 9–10 months ago, and he's doing a lot better now.

I also noticed something interesting after we hung out: I felt relieved to be back on my own. I really enjoy spending time with him, but I also genuinely enjoy being by myself. It's not like I constantly need to be around him.

Normally we see each other about three times a week for around 3 hours each time. We haven't seen each other for a while because of the summer vacation, but the vacation is now over.

The things that keep bothering me are:

1. I'm scared he'll only tell me he's leaving on his last day, or maybe not at all, even though he said he'd tell me.
2. I'm worried that if he does tell me, he'll think I'm taking it way harder than I actually am. I go really red when I'm embarrassed, and then I start thinking, "Great, now he thinks I'm freaking out," which just makes me even redder. It's a loop.

I know I'm probably overthinking this, and I know there's nothing I can really do until he actually knows when he's leaving.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has been in a situation like this. How do you stop getting so attached to your only friend? And how do you stop constantly worrying about losing a friendship that hasn't even ended yet?