And the other person believes there is something I can do about it. I don't have to take it laying down. What impact do you think those two attitudes will have on these people's lives? So that's the first adaptation is simply believing that you can affect your life or you can't. Can I shape my circumstances or can I not shape my circumstances? And I'm not saying that people are stupid for believing they can't shape their circumstances. Remember that if they believe this, they believe this for a good reason. It is because they haven't their circumstances. So this is the other thing about the human organism. The human organism learns from the past and it carries that forward into the future. Now the problem is that sometimes the learning that we do is maladaptive. So I'll give you all a great example of this. So I don't know if you all play Dark Souls 1, but in Dark Souls 1 there's this like cheat kind of thing that you can do. There's this dragon and you can shoot the dragon in the tail. And if you shoot it enough times, the tail falls off and you get this thing called the Dragon Tail Sword. Now the Dragon Tail Sword is OP. You can one -shot a lot of enemies. So when I first played Dark Souls 1, I got the Dragon's Tail Sword because someone me about it. And then I was one -shotting all the enemies and then I gave up on the game because it became too hard. Because at some point the dragon tail sword stops scaling and you can't one -shot anything. So later, a friend, I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, you know what? The dragon tail sword is the biggest scam in the game. It is the biggest noob trap in the game. No wonder you gave up. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, if you get the Dragon Tail Sword, you never learn how to play the game. You don't need to roll. You don't need to parry. You don't need to like zone people out. You don't need to pay attention. It is such a crutch. So the way that I learn to play the game based on my circumstances set me up for failure in the future. And now if I ask you, okay, so if I play with the Dragon Tail Sword, does this mean that I can't beat Dark Souls? Of course not. But it requires you to adapt your general approach to the game. And this is exactly what Shit Life Syndrome is like. It's very unlikely that I'll ever be financial independent and it's unlikely I'll ever find something interesting enough. I deem worthy worth pursuing. These realizations make me jump like, you know, I've had patients like this before, and there are things that you can do to change this, right? So what I'd say is, oh, that's so interesting. So, unlikely I'll ever find something interesting enough, I deem pursuing. So then I would talk to this person. This is like what I've done, right? As I'd asked him, what is the nature of interest? What determines how interested you are? Is there anything that you can do to change your level of interest in something? Realizations are alone, alone or enough to make me apathetic. OK, so let's talk about being apathetic. If you are apathetic, does that mean that you cannot act? What is the relationship between feeling like and being able to act? So as you start to dig into a lot of these nuances, you start to see a lot of positive change because it's this stuff that is truly deterministic. But my point is that the adaptations to survive will oftentimes keep you from thriving. And so you need to unlearn those adaptations. And one of the most important things that I want y 'all to pay attention to is how quickly your mind jumps to a conclusion. I can bet y 'all money because I've seen this before. Anytime I talk about super challenging things, what inevitably happens is someone will respond. Dr. K was saying this and they will jump to some kind of conclusion. Are they saying I'm screwed? So think about even how you are receiving what I'm saying. Are you looking at it critically or is some part of your mind jumping up and saying this is wrong? There are a thousand different things that your mind will jump to so quickly and look at where all of those thoughts go. All of those thoughts result in inaction. That's the problem. Look at where your mind goes. This is a paper that shows that when you have a low perceived control, when you don't believe you are in control of your life, that creates stressful situations. So our perception and results that dependent interpersonal stress mediated the relationship between low perceived control and higher levels of social anxiety in girls. Conversely, boys who exhibited low perceived control experienced a greater occurrence of dependent interpersonal stressors. So this is really important to understand. When you you are out of control, this creates stressors. What this paper really shows us is that it is the perception of low perceived control that creates problems in your life and I'll give you all an example if you're skeptical of that. So let's say that I have a family emergency and I have a big paper due in one week and I need to email my professor to let them know there's a voice in my head that says, hey, let your professor know that you have a family emergency. But then what happens is I procrastinate or I think maybe I can get the paper done or maybe I think I don't want, I don't, I don't feel good. It makes me feel ashamed to ask for an extension. There is a right action to take in this situation, but you procrastinate in doing the right action. And then what happens is a week goes by, you haven't worked on the paper, now it's the night before the paper is due. And now you begin to question yourself because you're like, now if I ask, like if I tell them, oh, there was a family emergency a week ago, but now I'm asking for an extension on the paper, the professor isn't going to believe me. They're going to think I'm making it up. I really should have done it a week ago. This anxiety creates a negative situation. If you had not been anxious in the first place, you would have sent the email, you would have said, hey, I have a family emergency, I'm not quite sure if I'm gonna be able to get to the paper, just wanted to let you know. We all know that is the right answer. And if you look at your life, you're fucking procrastinating, you know what the right answer is. The problem is you can't do it. And it is not that your life is randomly out of control, it's because you fucking neglect it. You procrastinate. That creates your situations. We see this so much in our life. I'm not saying bad things don't happen to us. Absolutely there's bad RNG. And now we get to really the of shit life syndrome, which is that in this life there are things that are outside of your control and things that are inside of your control. And the beautiful thing about the homeostatic nature of life, this isn't just humans, this is like even amoeba. When amoeba detect the wrong chemical gradient, they will move in the opposite direction. They are responding to life. And the problem that we have in Shitlife Syndrome is that we cannot respond appropriately to life. I need to send my professor an email asking for an extension. That is what the situation demands. There is a right answer here. What is it that gets in the way of me engaging the right answer? This is what gets in the way. Interpretation bias. Attentional bias. Oh my god, my professor will think I'm pathetic. Oh my god, he'll dislike me. Oh my god, this hasn't worked in the past. I've asked for help in the past and it hasn't worked. There's a memory bias there, but it doesn't mean that it's all false. So another big thing that people with shit life syndrome learn and think about how devastating this is to learn. Asking for help doesn't help. Two kinds of people in life, those who ask for help and those who don't. And why does someone stop asking for help? Because they learn it's useless. All of the thoughts and beliefs that you have in your mind if you have shit life syndrome are warranted. They are justified. That does not make them right. This a very important nuance to understand. You can have a lot of logic for believing what you believe, but that does it the construct that you have in your brain does not dictate what happens in the future. So the first is even the belief of self -determination. The second is jumping to conclusions. The third is not asking for help. And the fourth thing that we also talked about is the loss of future orientation. This one is very hard. So if you look at some people, like you look at some of these people and they're like living a life, and part of living their life is like a dimension of future. This is so simple that it's like, I don't even know if this makes sense. You look at some people and they're doing shit in order. You guys know what I mean? They're like, today I'm gonna, I'm training for a marathon in August of 2025. And I look at these people, I'm like, what the fuck, man? I'm trying to get through the week. And they're like, yeah, I have a bucket list. I'm like, bruh, I'm trying to survive the day. I'm just waiting for the next Dota patch to drop. How do you have a bucket? Like, I don't have a bucket list. Someone recently asked me, and they were like, what have you done on your bucket list? And I'm like, I don't have a bucket list. And then I was like, kind of like, is this because I'm yogically detached from my life and I'm like, content with my life? Or is it because like, when I was a fucking degenerate gamer and I was just like, fucking waking up every day and playing video games for 20 hours a day, I stopped thinking about the future. I think it's a little bit of both. The concept that I can accomplish goals in my life is foreign to me. This idea, and think about the hubris of having a bucket list. This idea that if you set these random ass goals that are so far away that you will one day achieve even a portion of them. Like what the fuck? Do you all get how that's a different, their brain is working differently. It is thinking about the future dimension as something that can be realized. And literally half of the people that I work with, and I mean half, okay? I think it's a pretty good estimate. Because I work with losers and I work with winners. And the winners I work with have all these goals. And the losers that I work with don't have any. And it's like their mind operates in a different way. This too relates to trauma. So we know that once again, surviving in a prisoner of war camp, thinking about the future is a waste of time. So our brain unlearns thinking about the future. So when we have shit life syndrome, is it bad? Absolutely. Is the deck stacked against you? Absolutely. But there is hope. Because what is really holding you back is not the circumstances. That is what has held you back. That I completely agree. And this is a nuance that's important. But what holds you back, what's held you back for the last five years is different from what will hold you back from the next five years. And even remember, there's no future orientation. So even the capacity to realize that is impaired, that the future will be different from the past. When all you are trying to do is survive, every day is the same. And we see this so much. It's so sad in our community. I'm proud of this in a weird way, because this is a place where I want y 'all to come and feel this. It's okay to feel this. We don't want to, we don't want you to feel ashamed of feeling this way. But people come here and they're like, I'm existing. I'm not living. So that's what we want to help you with. And the really sad thing about this is not fair. Forget about fair. We can get caught up in fair as much as you want to. I don't know about fair. It makes me sad. I don't think life is fair, right? I can't, I haven't seen that. I mean, I decided on this. My first rotation is a third year medical student. I was one week third year and I decided fairness is fucked. All you have to do is spend one week in the pediatric ICU and you'll realize fairness is a waste of, I don't even know how this works. There's a six -year -old kid with glioblastoma multiforme. Actually not a six -year -old. Patient with glioblastoma multiforme was a couple years later. That happens closer between 25 and 45 years old. With a kid, it was like a blood cancer, leukemia or something. You look at this and you're like, there's no fairness here, this is dumb. And I'm thinking about this patient with glioblastoma, well, let's just do, great dude, had kids, was happily married and it's like, boom, one day you got a terminal cancer, you've got three months to live. Like that's how glioblastoma multiforme hits ya. It's a rapidly progressive, very debilitating, doesn't happen when you're old, happens when you're young, when you're in the prime of your life. There's no fairness here. But there doesn't need to be fairness. That's the crazy thing, right? There is what you can control. And when you're looking for the world to fix your problems, like, I just have lost faith in the world. Like, I hate to say it. And now this is where y 'all have to be careful, right? Because your negative bias, if you're depressed will be, Dr. K has lost faith in the world, which means I should give up. No, I'm saying the exact opposite. I've lost faith in the world, but I've not lost faith in you. There's a huge difference. I don't count on the world to fix anything. That's why I'm here. Because I saw a generation of people whose lives were getting screwed. And I was like, I don't know if anyone's gonna fix that in fact I went to people so many smart people so many compassionate people so many dedicated people who are doing nothing about technology addiction We're doing nothing to address rising suicide rates rising unemployment rates in young men who are doing nothing to address Toxicity towards women online stalking and dick pics. I have no faith in the world, but I have faith in you because this is all we can control. So if you see some problem in the world, there's once again two options, right? Either I can't do something about this or I can try. That's it. Those are your two options. And that's why I think shit life syndrome can get better because I have worked with people to address these cognitive biases and we have moved from there is nothing I can do about this to I can try. And the really sad thing is that even when circumstances improve, it doesn't always lead to better outcomes. So if you look at women who are abused in the household, they're more likely to be abused in romantic relationships. I think something like one in six women will be sexually raped actually. So even sexual assault could be higher. Intimate partner violence, 30 .7 % of women with ADHD are likely to have intimate partner violence. This is a staggering number. And if you look at this, like this is bad. And the problem, why does this happen? Why is it that if you were abused once, you are likely to be abused again? Is it because the world is rigged against you? No, this is the really crazy thing. It is because of the way that you engage in relationships. See, when you have a high self -esteem and someone mistreats you, you leave the relationship. But when you are dependent, when your goal is survival, not thriving, then you are willing to tolerate abuse. It's a completely different way of looking the world. What's the goal? And in Shit Life Syndrome, the goal is survival, not thriving. That creates all kinds of problems. It keeps our life in this weird limbo zone of not actually ending, right? Like we're struggling along, we're kind of chugging along, but we're never getting anywhere. We're not quitting the race, because once again, I had a brilliant patient who taught me this, who tried to commit suicide seven times. And I was like, do I need to be worried about you? And he's like, no. And I was like, help me understand. Brilliant guy. And he said, well, the seventh time I realized that like, some part of me does not want to die. I've been trying to kill myself. And something within me is fighting for life. So I'm going to stop fighting that thing. And that's all it took for him. No more suicidality. Right. So there's something within you, even if you feel like everything is like lost and whatever, there is something within you that strives. We look at this post and here I am fucking bashing this person, right? And I'm saying, Oh, look at this cognitive bias. But I want you all to point out, pay attention to something. This person posted, this person is trying to change. This person is saying my life is unsolvable. Nothing's ever going to end up anywhere. And they're not taking it laying down. This is a huge prognostic sign in the right direction. This is a win. The post may be full of negativity, but the fact that there is a post is a win. And this is our bias, right? So now what I want y 'all to do is if you're listening to this, if you've been listening to this, did you consider that? And if the answer is no, why not? This is bias. So shit life syndrome is not deterministic. I do not believe that. Is the deck stacked against you? Absolutely. Can we count on the world to fix things? I don't know. Big question mark. The world isn't all bad, by the way. It's a lot of good in the world. Right? But what I have faith in is y 'all. I have faith that if you understand the way that you function, if you understand what your biases are, if you understand the way that you view the world, determine some of the way that the world is, then you can change. Your life can change. you