Previous posts:

• Comment: Becoming eligible to donate due to change in FDA guidelines that impact gay men
• Topic: I donated blood for the first time!
• Topic: I donated platelets for the first time!

Not sure if anyone here has been following my little personal saga on this front, but I have now officially donated a full gallon of blood products: two whole blood donations (1 pint each) and two platelet donations (3 pints each). All together that's eight pints, or one gallon! Not too bad for someone who just started this in January!

Having done it a couple of times now, I can confidently say that the worst part of the whole process for me is the finger prick at the beginning to check your hemoglobin levels. Because there are a lot of nerve endings on your fingertips, it hurts more and lingers longer than the needles in the arms. Those sting a little bit going in, but the pain isn't too bad and goes away very quickly.

I've been doing the platelet donations on my own, but my husband and I have been doing the blood donations together, which feels really cool to do as a gay couple since we were barred from doing it for so long. After our most recent donations we got free matching T-shirts, so now we can not only donate together but also look super cute while doing it too. 😁

This is probably the final update about this I'll post here. I don't want to come across as self-aggrandizing or anything, and I'm not posting this for any sort of kudos. I'm simply excited to share something that I've waited literal decades to do!

Also, while I was in the chair and watching my pint bag fill up, I did have a thought of "I should ask Tildes about this." In the US, they, of course, measure my donations in pints and gallons. In other countries however, is a pint still the standard measurement used for a "unit" of blood, or do they use a different easy metric unit (e.g. half a liter)?

I have stage four colo-rectal cancer. It's not curable. It's not particularly treatable. I'm getting palliative care, but I'm not yet end of life. They're not offering surgery or radiotherapy (yet, that may change). They are giving me chemotherapy (capecitabine and irinotecan) and immunotherapy (cetuximab).

Prognosis is difficult, but if everything goes well I have about 18 months.

I've had 6 cycles of treatment. I had a re-staging PET CT scan and the results were very good.

But, here's the thing: chemo & immuno therapy suck. I don't just mean "I feel a bit bad sometimes", I mean "I feel awful most of the time."

We've just about got nausea under control, but those meds cause constipation and that's causing problems with my stoma. And because the nausea meds are only used for the first week it means the second week I have problems with fast output, and that's causing other problems with my stoma. My stoma team and my oncology team are not particularly joined up. In theory I can build in laxido for the first week and loperamide for the second week but that's complicated because side effects are so variable. And that's just stoma output -- there's a bunch of other stuff around pain, fatigue, skin toxicity (I'm not allowed in the sun, even on bright but overcast days. I have to use three different creams, but not too much of any of them, and they're not compatible with each other), loss of appetite, etc.

One example of how healthcare isn't joined up and I'm getting conflicting advice (there are lots of these): My stoma team want me to wear a hernia support belt to prevent my hernia getting worse, and to help my stoma work properly. But this is a tight broad elastic belt going round my lower abdomen, right where my diaphragm is, and so it makes it harder for me to breath. My physio doesn't want me to wear the belt because it's interfering with fatigue treatment (which is "do more stuff, but do it slowly, and build in breaks, and FOCUS ON YOUR BREATHING"). My oncology team have no opinion and are leaving it to the other teams.

I know some people just want more life, and they don't care about side effects. "Do anything you can to give me more life". But that's not me. I'd much rather have 3 months of mostly feeling okay and then a month of active death over a year of mostly feeling fucking lousy and then a few months of active death.

I don't know how to talk to my family about this. I have spoken to my care team and they're giving me all the options - (1) continue chemo and immuno therapy on 2 week cycles until I die or until it stops working, and try to buidl in better support meds. (2) continue chemo & immuno on 2 week cycles, but build in breaks (3) stop chemo & immuno and focus on pain relief.

Some tricky decisions to be made.

A little over a week ago, I got an official diagnosis of hypothyroidism from my GP. Fair warning, this post is going to be a little bit of a rambly discussion of my thoughts and feelings surrounding my diagnosis and other circumstances surrounding it.

I'm a US American, but I moved to Germany to do my master's degree in 2018 and have lived here ever since. I've struggled with depression and social anxiety since before I moved to Germany, but my symptoms got notably worse in 2020 (perhaps unsurprisingly). In late summer of 2020 my psychotherapist finally suggested I go on an SSRI, but she wanted me to get a blood test to rule out any physical causes. I went to my then-doctor and got such a blood test. Everything was within the normal range except for my TSH.

For those unfamiliar, TSH is the hormone your pituitary gland sends to tell your thyroid to get a move on. It doesn't directly measure your thyroid function, but it's a pretty good indicator something's up, so doctors use it to screen for thyroid issues. High TSH is a sign of hypothyroidism, and low TSH is a sign of hyperthyroidism. Your average person with a healthy thyroid will probably have TSH between 1.0 and 2.0, but some variation exists. The normal range that doctors use here has 4.2 as its upper limit. In 2020, my TSH value was 4.8. My doctor then said that people with hypothyroidism have higher numbers than that, so I was fine. She wrote my a prescription for a low dose of an SSRI, which did help me to an extent.

I've been fat for a long time, to different degrees. After I first moved to Germany in Fall of 2018, I quickly lost a lot of weight. There were likely a lot of factors -- I wasn't living at home where snacks were constantly stocked, I was buying food on a student's budget, I was eating out and ordering takeout less because of my social anxiety and shitty German skills, and I was walking a lot more. When I came back to the US for family vacation in 2019, I constantly got compliments about having lost weight, which felt weird. I was still overweight according to the BMI, but more of a classic midsize chubby at that time. But it wasn't to last, and I did start gaining the weight back. For a while it, I attributed this to my getting more takeout and walking less. But a year or two ago it felt like it stopped being directly attached to my activity or food consumption. I went on medication that suppressed my appetite as a side-effect, but I continued to gain weight. Since I was already fat and had been gaining weight for a while, I didn't mention anything to my doctors because I was already getting lectures about how I needed to lose weight and exercise more. I don't know for sure what I weigh right now because I've avoided weighing myself for months, because I'm scared I weigh over 100kg and I can't handle seeing that triple digit on a scale.

I've tried and failed to become more active and start an exercise routine several times. I joined a sports course at university with some of my friends, but I quit after a couple sessions because I was hyperventilating before warm-up was over. I've tried to do some basic strength training, but I'd be sore for days after even incredibly beginner-level stuff. More recently, my wife and I tried to take regular walks through the nearby park during last spring and summer. But I'd tire out after an embarrassingly short distance, not even enough to get to where we see the ducks (the highlight of the park for me). As the weather got worse in winter I basically stopped leaving the apartment. It's a struggle to put my shoes on without an extra long shoehorn so I don't have to bend over, and anything that requires me to tie my shoelaces is basically off the table.

I've been struggling with work for the past several months. I can't seem to focus on it, even if I take my ADHD medication. I look at the computer screen and I just can't mentally handle the work. Every day of work is exhausting, even though I work a pretty cushy job as a data scientist and I work from home. I do way less than 40 hours of actual work a week but I'm still too physically and mentally exhausted all the time to do anything but the most trivial household chores. I haven't cooked dinner for myself in months (thank God for my wife).

I switched to a new GP at the beginning of 2024 bc I was having trouble getting timely appointments at my last one. We agree to do one big blood test covering everything, since I have a myriad of small complaints and it's been years since I've had one. That test comes back mostly normal, except my cholesterol is a little high and my TSH is a smidge above 5. My new GP then says we should do a follow-up blood test to look at other thyroid measurements (this would be directly measuring the hormones my thyroid produces) to see if I have hypothyroidism. I mention offhandedly the interaction I had with my old GP in 2020 and she says that's not how you're supposed to do that; high TSH means further testing even if it's not that high. A few weeks and another blood test later and I've now got a new diagnosis and a prescription for artificial thyroid hormone.

It turns out that pretty much everything I've been struggling with for years now? May be because of my underactive thyroid. Your thyroid is apparently pretty damn important and it not working right (in either direction) can result in a truly dizzying amount of things going wrong. Depression, brain fog, fatigue, and weight gain are all pretty classic symptoms, but apparently it can also cause problems with your lungs or even contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome. Everyone with a properly-functioning thyroid, take a moment to thank that lil butterfly-shaped guy in your neck.

I'm so glad to have something that's basically a "feel better" pill now. But I'm left with a sense of deep frustration that I've had so many problems that even I dismissed to myself because I assumed they were just cause I was a stupid out-of-shape Fatty. It turns out it's actually not normal for someone in their mid-20s at my age to struggle to put on their own shoes without assistance, even when they're obese. Being unable to take a short walk without needing to sit down because I'm exhausted and out of breath isn't just because I'm fat and out of shape. I've had no shortage of symptoms heavily impacting my life, but most of them I hadn't even bothered to mention to my doctor because I assumed they were just Me Being Fat and that all I'd get was (yet another) lecture.

This is, of course, coupled with a lot of anger at my old doctor for not even running any follow-up tests. I've only been on levothyroxine for about a week and I already feel like I have a little more energy. I could have been spared years of suffering if that doctor had only done what she was supposed to. Fuck that.

But at the same time, I feel such relief. This all wasn't just me being a bad and lazy person. There was actually something wrong. And, even better, hypothyroidism is pretty easy to treat. I just wish I hadn't gone through over three years of unnecessary suffering when I could have gotten this treatment then.

I'm 46 years of age. My childhood and youth and post-youth life wasn't traumatic or anything. I had an okay life. I guess I might even have had a good life. But for some reason, reminiscing about it just doesn't feel pleasant. Some folks find talking about their past highly enjoyable. So why don't I like it? Is this normal?

Follow up to this post

I did my first ever platelet donation!

This one was a bit more intimidating than the blood donation. For platelets, the donation takes around two hours not counting the onboarding time. Additionally, during the donation, you can’t move either of your arms, as you have needles in both. The blood draws from one arm, goes into a centrifuge where they separate out the platelets, and then your blood gets returned to you in your other arm.

I was a little worried about how it was going to go leading up to the appointment, but I’m very happy to report that everything went fine! All of the needles went in easily and it was a nearly painless process. After that it was actually kind of boring! They had a screen with Netflix on it, so I watched three episodes of a TV show.

My least favorite part of the whole thing was not being able to scratch an itch when one arose, which is not so much a complaint as it is an endorsement. If the worst I can say is that I couldn’t scratch my nose once or twice during a multi-hour process involving multiple needles and my blood leaving and re-entering my body, then I’d say it went really well!

The staff kept checking in to see if I needed a blanket because most people feel cold when donating platelets, but, weirdly, I actually liked the chilled sensation I got? It wasn’t like a regular “cold” feeling; I found it genuinely pleasant.

Also, the whole experience was an interesting experiment in forced attention. I couldn’t check my phone, so I just watched a show, uninterrupted. I can’t remember the last time I did that? I got home and tried to continue watching it and, sure enough, now that my arms were free I was looking at my email and checking messages and the news instead of paying attention to what I had on. The whole donation session had a genuinely nice, calm, almost meditative quality to it. It was a nice way to start out a Saturday.

You can donate platelets separately from blood, and platelets have a much lower “donation cooldown” (you can donate them every seven days). I don’t think I’ll be keeping to that rapid of a turnaround, but I’m going to start doing it once a month. One thing I learned from this is that, unlike blood which can be stored for up to a year (edit: turns out it’s only 42 days), platelets have to be used within five days, so they’re pretty much constantly in demand because they can’t be stockpiled.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my little mini-milestone with everyone here. The novelty of being able to donate as a gay guy still hasn’t worn off for me. I love the idea of being able to do it regularly and support people over time!

I'm not here to talk about the New York Times bestseller, so apologies to anyone who's come looking for an informed discussion on that. Apologies if I'm posting this in the incorrect place, please move or delete the post if it's inappropriate. I had something of a breakthrough in therapy recently and I don't have anyone to share this with (for reasons that may become obvious) so I'm turning to Tildes to vomit these thoughts out into the world somewhere.

Like a lot of us growing older, I've been spending a some time trying to better understand myself and come to peace with the person I am. One of the aspects people around me (and myself) find perplexing is how I'm able to be personable and friendly, even popular in some circles, but given the choice I will stay away from people as much as possible (except for a very select few I can count on one hand). I often joke that if it weren't for my wife and kids I'd probably be feral and live in the woods, bite anyone who tries to get too close. That lady that lived alone in a cave for over a year? Life goals. I thought I was just a mega introvert, but something my therapist and I discussed made me realise that that side of my personality may be (at least partly?) a manifestation of past trauma. So here is my villain origin story.

I've shared before on Tildes that I was very sick with cancer for a good chunk of my infancy. Whenever someone finds out I had cancer (it's left fairly visible marks, so the topic inevitably comes up) I always say it's ok, I don't remember it at all, so really it's my parents who lived through the trauma, not me, ha ha. I no longer believe that is entirely true. The body does keep the score after all. My therapist pointed out that I must have spent many moments alone dealing with the consequences, unable to fully share or understand what I was going through. Moments where I was physically manipulated whichever way, by people and instruments, dealing the nausea, the pain and the fatigue. I was too young to fully articulate my distress, ask for help (beyond crying) or seek solutions to the problems I faced. So for some moments at least I had only myself to rely on. Did the part of me that would normally seek out others die a little then?

My parents used to remark that as a child I never cried out, just tears streaming silently down my face. They speak of how I used to play contentedly alone for hours. How I rarely asked for help when I really needed it. Don't get me wrong, I'm able to form relationships with people, and I'm perfectly capable of functioning in society. I do seek out others for company, connection, validation, love, etc, and vice versa. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something broken in those connections. It feels like something is amiss, even if I've mostly come to terms with being this way. I'm left thinking - did the trauma (at least partly) make me who I am? Where does the trauma end and where do I begin? How many of us are potentially totally different people today because the body remembers when we have completely and utterly forgotten? And if that's the case, is that...ok?

This is a post about the topics mentioned in the title, and how they are related in my life. I suspect it might provide a point of consideration and discussion for other members, as I provide an argument that could be applied to other people and situations.

For good or bad, I put much value on morality, and see the world through a moralizing lens. This is not necessarily a case of reducing everything to "evil choices", it's more complicated than that, but it's been bothering me for a long while. It's partially because I often find myself judging myself too harshly, especially after failing to live up to my moral ideals.

For example, I don't like overconsumption and the surrounding hyperconsumerist ideology, so I hadn't bought any sort of "geeky" merchandise for some years. It's because, even though I thoroughly enjoy fictional works, there's this hyperconsumerist ideology and culture surrounding geekdom. So I thought, and to some extent still think, that buying any kind of merchandise was being tricked by the system.

I bought a simple merchandise item -a mug- the other day, which prompted me to question why I bought it. It feels shameful to write even now, but it's because I thought I should treat myself to something. It was cute, after all. When I thought about this issue, I realized certain things.

For starters, I put too much emphasis on personal responsibility when it comes to moral issues. One reason is I tend to blame myself. I often question myself first before questioning others or the wider picture. Another reason is that there are many, many moral tales that emphasize the role of personal responsibility. Too many stories have the hero look down on the villain and declare: "There's always a choice." And then the hero explicitly or implicitly says the villain just wasn't strong enough.

I think this is to a great degree due to how personal responsibility is mythologized in the contemporary culture. Abrahamic religions often put much emphasis on choosing the morally good choice. After all, the whole afterlife dichotomy is built upon this idea. Furthermore, with the "Enlightenment", the idea that individuals are rational and free to choose has become very prominent. So, both pre-modern and modern beliefs about morality puts much emphasis on personal responsibility.

This has different effects on different people, and I recognize that my experience is not necessarily generalizable, but I do think that it provides a kind of insight on some issues. At least for some people. Basically, I've come to realize that ethical issues have more of an emotional impact on me than most people. I also have a dysfunctional pattern of trying to live up to unreasonable standards. When these two and the emphasis on personal responsibility were combined, it created a very difficult pattern for me. It made me more vulnerable to moral purism.

I've recently realized why this moral purist tendency is straining for me, and there's a very simple why: it's because it's a thought that belongs to a fictional, idealized world. It doesn't consider the complexities and realities of the world I live in, it demands that I should live in that fictional, ideal world. In other words, it fails me, because it doesn't recognize that I'm a human with real needs and wants.

I don't mean this in the cliche "Oh, humans are imperfect," way, because that way of thinking still puts the moral purist way on a pedastal. It just tells you that you are weak and imperfect, and tells you to compromise. I think this is not a good way of looking at it, because it still reinforces the idealized thinking. It just tells you to make concessions, which is unacceptable to a perfectionist.

Instead, I say that it's a shitty psychology. This way of thinking doesn't consider how a human mind works, what it needs to be healthy and happy, and the overall workings of the world. Healthy thinking comes from being able to cope with realities of the world—in a way, it's being in tune with the reality you live in, and that necessitates recognizing your own emotional needs and wants. Moral purism encourages you to neglect your own emotional needs in pursuit of some fictional, impossible person you want to be. It's a fantasy.

In this context, it's healthy to come to terms with your own limits as a single person. The wider picture should be considered. For example, in my situation, buying merchandise now and then doesn't make me a bad person, nor does it make this act morally bad. I live under capitalism, and no matter what I do, as long as I continue to live in a society, I will always contribute to its workings (and healthy people don't go "off the grid"). From my point of view, it's bad that doing things I love contributes to an inequalizing system, but in no reasonable way should I be expected to give up what little or moderate joys I get by participating in this system. Of course, there should be a limit regarding consumption, but the bar is certainly not as high as I thought.

This is my personal experience with moral purism. I think the culture of overemphasis on personal responsibility feeds into it. What are your thoughts about it? Have you had similar experiences? The don't have to be about consumerism, as moral purism is seen many, unrelated issues.

Note: This goes without saying, but this post doesn't suggest that having a better world in mind and striving for it is bad. It just criticizes an unhealthy way of approaching the mentioned topics.

Follow-up to this post
(Summary: previously ineligible to give due to US FDA rules aimed at gay/bi men which were changed last year, then subsequently ineligible due to anemia which was resolved with an iron supplement)

I gave my first ever pint of blood this weekend!

The appointment went fine. I was a little nervous about the needle going into my arm, but I barely felt it. Taking the bandage off afterwards hurt way more! Even the finger prick at the beginning was worse. The actual blood donation part of the whole thing was painless and effortless.

I had no idea that the machine rocks your blood bag back and forth while it’s filling. As I sat there killing time during the donation, I watched my blood in its little cradle. It felt cute in a weird way?

Once my donation is processed, I’ll finally learn my blood type. My husband and I plan to start doing this regularly. There’s a donation center near(ish) us that’s easy to get to, and the staff were great. I might even try a platelet donation eventually, though that one intimidates me a bit. The idea of 2-3 hours with no use of either of my arms makes me nervous.

Anyway, I know donating blood is not a huge deal or anything, but I wanted to share a little mini-milestone of mine. As a gay guy, I spent a big portion of my life assuming I’d never be able to donate blood, so it feels really cool to finally get to do it!

I'll try to be brief.

I lost my older brother March this year. Barely a year after I moved to the same city as him, he passed away from a bacterial infection he got in a hospital. He went for stomach surgery, everything went fine. Suddenly, a month later, this bacterial infection got to his brain and he was gone.

It was a big shock to our family and things are not the same anymore. My parents are old, mother is 73, father is 78.

My mother is simply just existing these days. She is barely eating and is now weighing 48kgs (105 lbs). She needed to go to the hospital a couple of days ago because she was so weak.

She already had problems before the death of my brother. She is losing her eyesight and despite all the treatments, it does not get better. She can see up close, she can use her smartphone, but it's hard for her to recognize people if they are not right up in her face.

She has three hernias and can't stand too much. She can get up to make breakfast or coffee, but after 20 minutes has to lie down because of pain. It does not help that she barely eats and is getting weaker every day.

She does not want to go to a psychologist. She just says she is not crazy and won't go. I tried contacting one that can go to her house, but she says she simply won't open the door. My father is trying to convince her, but I know it won't change.

I can understand her and I can't see what more can I do. She never had much going for her, now her oldest (and dearest) son is dead all of a sudden, she has all this physical pain going on for years, eyesight getting worse and I can understand the fact that she simply don't care for it anymore. She simply lost her appetite.

She is going to doctors to take exams, she did a battery of tests and everything seems fine. Even her cholesterol which was problematic is fine.

He prescribed something to help with her appetite and vitamins, but it is not the first time. Don't think this will change much.

I don't know really what I'm asking here. I sometimes think I should do more, but there is already my father which lives with her and my other brother who is there in the same city. I already tried sending a psychologist to help her at home, I don't know what more can I do.

I go visit every two or three weeks (i am going for christmas and new year) and she is the same way. 80% of the time lying down in the couch, she gets up to make food or coffee, go sit in the front of the house for some time, then it's time to go to bed. This is repeated every day.

It's not like it was much different before, but at least she ate some food. There was a day that she just ate an apple and that was it.

She goes out of the house if she needs, like going to the doctor or groceries, but avoids for any other reason.

My son shares a lot of my traits, including being Gifted. He's in kindergarten now, and we were looking into getting him a IEP (individual education plan) because he's Gifted.

In doing so though, someone brought up that it might result in an ASD diagnosis essentially - and they were right. Haven't had the formal test yet, but a lot of what I considered "idiosyncrises" in my son are also found in autistic individuals. Some of which I share. I have little doubt in the ultimate conclusion, which is that he's 2e (twice exceptional).

And it seems quite likely I am as well. It's gonna be a niche audience, but anyone in a similar boat? It feels weird looking back and (at 34) retroactively realizing why I do certain things the way I do.

Edit: I should add - it didn't really 'matter' to my development because I was Gifted. I can learn whatever, pretty darn fast. So I just taught myself social stuff, on purpose, when I was in high school and college. It takes a lot of effort on my part, but I can be "charasmatic". I ascribed the effort to my general tendency toward introversion, but it may have been, essentially, the mental cost of masking.

Edit2: oh man I even went out of my way to try and alter my personality towards more extroversion in college because it seemed more normal.

Edit3: and I taught myself to understand body language in high school, particularly to understand and help with reading girls I liked, and how they were reacting to various levels of flirtation.

Edit4:
My spatial sense is god level. My wife doesn't bother remembering where the car is, because I just know.

My audition is similarly unrivaled, I hear things others don't, and my phonological loop is amazing - I can hold audio in my head for a time if I'm truly concentrating on something else.

My imagination is virtually non-existent, I'm nearly a complete aphantasia case - the best I can ever manage is a pulse of a 2d image, kinda.

I'm incredibly good at math, computer science, etc. I know more about science than... anyone else I've met.

I've never really felt like I didn't belong, though. I just learned how to be an effective communicator from books and videos. I almost feel like I have weaponized ASD.

I have Bipolar I with minor psychosis, CPTSD and OCD. I was born into an emotionally abusive family, and they are the only people i know, because i am also chronically alone and have dealt with feelings of loneliness on some level since i was a young kid. I had some online friends who helped me a lot with mental health issues but i lost access to them. The main reason im suicidal is because i feel like i have really bad luck. No matter what i do it ends up amounting to nothing. Everytime i start having hope i lose it because something bad happens to me again.
I hear about mental illness and people having a successful life despite it and despite feeling hopeless, but i just dont see that its possible to ever have a life worth living.
I really hope there are other people who relate, or maybe people who used to be that hopeless but ended up living a good life.

Everything indicates that the continuous tinnitus I've had for the past 20 years cannot be cured. Up until very recently, I was able to live relatively well with it. White noise was only required when things got too quiet and before going to sleep. In the last month or so, my tinnitus got much worse. It is hard to quantify this, but it went from a nuisance, something I'm reminded of every once in a while, to an overwhelming presence.

I now listen to white noise for hours several times a day, sometimes even while watching TV. I try to avoid this, but the feeling of despair is sometimes inescapable. I will make a doctor's appointment tomorrow, but I gotta be honest, I'm not very hopeful.

A Brazilian celebrity said his tinnitus went way when he stopped eating sugar, so I'm controlling my sugar intake. I sometimes wonder if I could just remove the freaking ear canal altogether, and become half deaf. But then I would be just one ear way from becoming completely deaf. My grandpa was deaf in one ear, and all his brothers were completely deaf. So genetics is against me. Oh, well...

For context: my mother said that my father has used these decongestants regularly for as long as she has known him. He passed this habit onto me when I was young, originally with Afrin, then Narix. Given there is a recommendation to not use these decongestants for extensive periods of time and apparently a rebound effect and syndrome called rhinitis medicamentosa comes from ditching it's use after said long periods, my mother decided using it like this is unhealthy and thus cut my use of it for the day, and given this stuff is cited in Wikipedia and a fair number of news/medical articles, it seems legitimate, and thus I agreed.

After that, my skin is more prone to goosebumps and being overly sensitive, my eyes are watering more, my throat feels more scratchy (although I already woke up with that, before my mother made this decision) my nose is running way more than it used to.
Can I blame withdrawal on this?
What happened to me?
How long does this last?

And is this site really where I should turn to to try to find out?

Around 2 years ago, when I first made a reddit account, I spent a lot of time on AskReddit asking about 'why are women so hard to date' like a personification of the dunning-kruger effect (while I don't think I've really learned anything about dating and socialization since then, I have stopped thinking women don't share the same basic emotions and reactions as men and in general don't think they're so removed from guys). Given that and how little engagement my threads were getting (it's AskReddit, but I didn't know what I was expecting) I was basically ready to be made an incel. Thankfully someone snapped me out of it by calling 12-year old me a neckbeard, which terrified me away from touching dating for a few months at least.

PS: If the answer is "if you don't feel like this you're in trouble, people don't/shouldn't just stop developing like that", I won't be surprised.