Hello

Hello,
I may not completely fit in here, but I did not know where to start so I joined the forum. Partially, I do want to get over my fear of women but at this point my main focus is to just improve my mental health by slowly taking steps to change my lifestyle. I apologize if this offend you in anyways since this is mainly a pick up forum.

I'm 34. No job. No social life or support. A single dad.

Long story short, past few years I successfully(?) isolated myself from the rest of the world. The isolation contributed to majority of my depression, anxiety, and stress I'm dealing with right now. At least...I think.

Deep down inside, I think I always knew that not isolating myself will relieve negativity I've been dealing with..At least a huge chunk of it, if not all.

So after a couple of episodes of "falling into darkness" last week, I felt like I really need to change my lifestyle and also stumbled across a youtube clip where this guy was explaining about how he had isolated himself for 5 years and what he went through mentally and how his condition had started improving when he decided to step out of his bubble.

So I started off by participating a little more in my group therapy and even contacting some of my old buddies which I haven't talked or seen in years. Thankfully, one of my buddies even responded to meet up with me.

I drove hours to meet up with my old buddy yesterday who is also into meeting girls, we hung out and I was surprised I could even manage to hit on a girl which I haven't done in years. It was just a big step to go somewhere outside my vicinity and meet up with someone..let alone approaching a girl...

I even had the urge to go to a strip club last night since I haven't even seen a real naked girl in years. It was pretty intimidating and every time a girl would try to come talked to me I tried to be as polite as possible that I just wanted to be left alone and watch girls dancing on stage. I was just nervous and didn't know what to do so I just wanted to sit by myself...but maybe they thought I didn't enjoy the girls. One girl even sat on my lap and was rubbing my chest trying to see if I want a private dance. I liked it but I was too nervous. I eventually got the courage to ask for a dance from one of the girls I thought was very attractive. And she was gorgeous but I was just too nervous and awkward to fully enjoy it.

I know this little excursion from yesterday may sound very trivial and pathetic, but for me who has a lot of anxiety and fear of girls, it was a huge step.

And this gave me a bit of motivation to continue to work on myself to get myself out there. I may not be focusing on just hitting on girls like some of you players in this forum, and just focus on tiny steps that may seem trivial to most average folks, but what I've been doing a past few days turned a little bit of light in my brain and gave me a bit of hope.

I appreciate anyone that read this. Thank you for letting me be a part of this forum .

First off I'm glad your taking steps to improve your mental health.

Now I have 2 pieces of advice for you fear of women.

1. Just approach as much as you can. the more you approach women the easier it gets

2. Meditation. Do it about 10 minutes a day, it does help.

+1 on the meditation. It's a great way to lessen your anxiety and get in touch with your body/"get more in the moment" (essential for interacting with girls, or people in general).