Down the Rabbit Hole
As the weeks passed, I started to slip. The motivation I usually counted on—whether for work, the gym, or even basic routines—faded into the background. I stopped showing up for myself. I did just enough to get by, but everything felt heavier than it should. The drive I once had—the sense of direction, purpose, energy—was gone. It was like someone had pulled the plug, and I was just running on fumes.
My thoughts became harder to manage. I’d always been prone to overthinking, but now it felt constant. Worse, it felt darker. I kept going over the breakup in my head, searching for what I could have done differently, replaying conversations, analyzing small moments. I told myself that I had ruined everything. That I had pushed her away. That if I had just been less anxious, less sensitive, less me, things might have turned out differently.
Eventually, the guilt morphed into something heavier—something closer to apathy. The sadness didn’t go away, but it stopped feeling sharp. It dulled into a numbness. For a while, I started to believe this was just who I was: someone destined to mess things up, someone too emotional, too intense, too unsure of himself. The narrative in my head was unforgiving. “You’re a loser.” “You’re not enough.” “Nothing will ever change.”
That mindset stuck with me longer than I care to admit. I wasn’t just sad—I was stuck.
But at some point, something shifted. Not overnight, but slowly. The apathy began to fade. I didn’t have hope exactly, but I felt restless. I stopped wanting to accept the version of myself that felt helpless and broken. I still blamed myself for what happened, but a new thought started to creep in: Maybe I could do something about it.
I looked at my life more objectively. Rationally, I knew I wasn’t as hopeless as I felt. I had things going for me—I was intelligent, emotionally aware, professionally successful, even in decent shape. But none of that mattered if I couldn’t feel it. I still didn’t see myself as attractive. I still didn’t trust myself to hold a relationship. And I still didn’t know why trying to be kind, attentive, and loving had left me feeling rejected and confused.
So, I made a decision. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. I wanted to understand my anxiety, challenge my insecurities, and rebuild the confidence I had never really learned to trust. I began reading about mental health, psychology, emotional regulation, and attraction. I started looking for answers—to why my patterns kept repeating, to why being “nice” didn’t always work, to how confidence actually develops.
And that’s when I came across the manosphere.
