Lots of video games.

I endure, painfully.

…Does it have to be a healthy coping mechanism?

Alcohol… Feel like ive been overindulding in it for a few years… but what else to do?

There is a singular niche community that I involve myself with where I pop in and make highly desired items to give away for free.

It makes me feel like people care about me for a while. For now, that’s good enough for me.

As a kid I used to talk to my stuffed animals and this continued until middle school when my folks threw my stuffed animals away. After that I just started gaming more, my folks used force me outside of house and tried to get me to interact with my peers, but to no avail.

Listen to lots of music, the amount of sad love songs in my playlist keeps increasing lol. Work out at home with calisthenics as well, and try bulk when I find the time to do meal prep. Unfortunately most of my real life friends and the person I’m dating live on the other side of the city and I can’t afford a car, so lots of loneliness

To be frank, I can’t. There is a compounded problem in my case - my only major social contact is my mother who’s wound up being rather controlling. My father left, my sister is reducing contact with her, my family on my father’s side has moved away from us for obvious reasons, and I never really had much of a friendship in school, or high school, or college for that matter. That leaves me woefully unaware of how to interact in an existing social circle without feeling like a burden to them, so I basically live as detached from society as possible.

For me, my loneliness was really rooted in my self-loathing. When I was able to deal with that, I was able to deal with my feelings of loneliness.

Take some time, like 30 minutes to an hour, and just try to desensitize from everything kinda. No music, no games, no phone. Whatever I want to do in that time I do. Be it some cleaning, a walk in the woods, just laying there mostly lol. And just think about whatever I need to think about.

A lot of the times it’s negative thoughts, but it’s been more less negative the more I do it. But I’ve found you have to just work through those negative thoughts and feelings and let them be. They will always be a part of me, doesn’t mean it has to always be a hurtful thing. Lessons are best taught the hard way IMHO, and all I can do in try to be a better person. Once I started letting those bad times play out and think just how I can be better, I thought about them less as I gave myself more time to just freely think.

After a while, those times where I’m disconnected from everybody stopped being frightening and now are something I happy partake in.

I can keep writing a bunch on this lol, but I heard a thing where when naming the top 5 people you love, you should be number 1. Not in a selfish, narcissistic way but you are going to be the one that’s always there for you. So may as well try to be your own best friend.

The same way I distract myself from anything even slightly unpleasant or uncomfortable.

Escapism via gaming, reading, music, and YouTube.

Usually multiple at once. Sensory overload makes it easier to distract yourself completely.

I pretend to have imaginary friends in my head until it seems like real enough and the day passes.

Watching others having fun together oddly helps me a bit. I might binge a youtube channel like Corridor Crew, for example. Sometimes I even prefer being “a fly on the wall” because I don’t have to participate and be drained of energy. I also don’t have to worry about feeling rejected or offending anyone (and thus no “social hangover”).

i go chat with strangers on the internet and/or talk or make plans with friends.

Though my lizard brain demands me to be around other people, most of the things that bring me genuine life satisfaction are just easier to do solo. When I’m at purely social events I also get this sense of dread that I could be making better use of my time.

The voice in my head is making contradictory demands, so I’ve learned to not feel bad for circumventing it. I have my own goals in life, instincts be damned.

I find that listening to people casually talking is usually enough to satisfy the lizard brain, so I listen to a lot of stuff in the background: YouTube video essays, Twitch Just Chatting streamers, etc. When it gets particularly demanding I’ll try engaging with the people, but usually I just let my subconscious listen while I’m focusing on more important stuff.