I need something to fill the void? (long, but PLEASE read?!)?

I need something to fill the void? (long, but PLEASE read?!)?
Don’t judge, just read. And no, I swear I’m not trolling. I’m completely serious.

For three years I have had violent thoughts that I know were NOT normal. The thoughts have been getting worse, and just recently I decided to get rid of them on my own.

-I used to have sadistic fantasies. I would imagine people screaming in pain and horror as their blood spilled eagerly to the floor. I would imagine them pleading for their lives, begging to be spared. These fantasies made me happy, and helped me fall asleep. My most recent one involved drilling a knife into the palms of someones hands, threading a rope through the holes, hanging them from the ceiling, and pelting them with a nail-gun.

BUT I haven’t fantasied about that since I’ve decided to stop the thoughts. It’s hard, because I liked the thoughts, but they’re gone.

I also used to listen to the voices of my classmates and imagine how they would sound if they were screaming, or pleading for their lives. There’s one guy in my cooking class whose scream I couldn’t imagine. I tried, but I couldn’t figure out how he would sound. It made me curious. Every Friday we cook, and one time I just happened to be washing three knives and he was standing right beside me, but turned away. I could imagine the look of horrified shock, the look of pure pain on his face if I cut him just once. Just one small slice in the arm. Obviously I didn’t do anything, I’m not an idiot.

All on my own I’ve stopped both the fantasies and imagining the screams of my classmates. For at least a week, or maybe just under a week, I’ve been distracting myself from every potentially violent thought I have.

But it’s left this hole inside me. It feels like something’s missing. I want so badly sometimes, to fantasize just one more time, but I won’t allow myself to. It leaves me feeling empty, and I need something to fill that void.

Any ideas?

And please don’t tell me to get a therapist. I know I should, but that’s not what I’m asking.

Suggestion by Heather
You are a very vivid writer (I mean that as a good thing). I think that if you wrote short stories and wrote down your fantasies it might help. You could also try volunteering at an animal shelter, that helps me. I hope that this helps.

Suggestion by Ally
You seriously need to go rent Dexter……..not kidding, do it seriously
and uhhh………. I really have no ideas aside from therapy which you said you are opposed to, and I’m sorry but however badly you dont want to, you have to. For the safety of the people around you. It may go away with time, or it could get a lot worse with time until you eventually hurt someone

Suggestion by John
Keep a journal. Be very specific in detail, writing in it whenever you get a chance. What I want you to write about are not the fantasies, but normal events within your day, and how you felt when they happened. Good, bad, even write about being bored. All of it. Then after each entry, tell how strong the urge is to think about the violence. It won’t take long, and you’ll begin to notice the pattern. After you have found it, you can find things to do that fill your time, and help you avoid the dangerous stuff that is filling you up with poison, in the form of violent fantasy. If you continue to dwell on these thoughts, eventually the fantasies will no longer fill you, and you will act to feed that void.

Suggestion by billi_leli
I will not tell you to see a therapist; that’s for the individual to decide on their own.

As long as you don’t act on your thoughts, that’s all they are, just thoughts.

You are processing something, maybe? I dont’ know.

I don’t know if you can consciously try to practice different thought processes. This may at first feel unnatural. I mention this because I often think angry, scared thoughts and recently I have attempted to practice thinking their opposites. For instance, if I think about killing someone, I might imagine saving someone’s life.

Just my 2 cents.

Ani

How much cardio can you mix with weight training in a single session?
I’m about 20 pounds overweight. Do I really need to worry about “overtraining” or spacing out cardio and weightlifting? It seems like there is plenty of stored energy for my body to use.

I was trying to figure out if I should lift before or after cardio (roughly 50 minutes in my ‘cardio zone’ according to a treadmill with a palm grip heart monitor).

A lot of advice I’ve read seems to warn of overtraining – as if your muscle all of sudden starts getting eaten away if you do to much in a workout session. I always figured that the body would turn to muscle for energy as an absolute last resort, am I missing something?

Suggestion by E Sings
Doing 20-30 minutes of cardio after a 45 minute weight training routine would be fine.

Suggestion by Shae
as much as you can handle, you can work out untill you fall over but then you might not be able to work again for a week ha so you know you gotta think about that, a good way is to do light to medium cardio then weight lifting then intense cardio to finish. your muscle won’t eat away from doing to much in one session but what happens is when you work out your muscle it break muscle fibers that need at least 24-36 hours to repair if you work them before they heal then you are just working broken muscles fiber and if you do that too much they get damaged and you loose strength so if you go to the gym every day you can do cardio but work certain muscle groups so that when you go back the next dayyou will be working new muscles bla bla bla

Suggestion by Joy
Hi there!

Overtraining is important. If you become overtrained, you will weaken your immune system and, in terms of packing on muscle, you will lose strength and your muscle mass will decrease. Therefore, it’s very good to avoid it.

There is no single answer to your question. Individuals differ.

If, though, you are like most people, you should try separating your weightlifting and cardio. You are right: it is best to do both. While cardio will burn extra energy during and immediately after exercising, proper strength training will build muscle, which is your metabolic furnace that will burn extra energy 24 hours a day.

In terms of losing body fat and keeping it off, strength training is more important than cardio. Therefore, if you insist on doing them together, do your strength training first and then do your cardio.

Permit, me, though to make some suggestions.

First, it’s excellent to use a treadmill and it’s also an excellent idea to monitor your heart rate. However, do not attach your hands to the treadmill supports when exercising. Doing so reduces the value of the exercise.

If you are jogging or running on the treadmill, buy a heart-rate monitor that goes around your chest. Here, though, is a better option: do not do any jogging or running. Any intense cardio is likely to be counter-productive in terms of your gains from weightlifting.

Instead, walk briskly. ‘Briskly’ means at a 4 mph pace. You will probably need to walk the equivalent on the treadmill of two miles (at a very slight incline) to avoid gaining body weight. You will probably need to walk the equivalent of three to six miles to lose body weight. If you walk briskly for 50 minutes six days of the week that would be plenty.

Or just go for a brisk 3-mile walk before breakfast six days of the week. You don’t even need a treadmill. That would still be plenty of mild cardio.

In terms of strength training, is your frequency good? Here’s the right way to train: concentrate on whole-body routines that use the basic, compound exercises, which are full squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, dips, and chins. Do each movement using perfect exercise technique. A workout should last about 45 minutes.

Once you are able to train intensely, you’ll experience DOMS (delayed onset muscular soreness). In order to ensure systemic (not just localized) recovery, wait 24 to 48 hours before doing another weightlifting session. In practice, that may mean that you’ll be training only once every 4 or 5 days.

Using these suggestions, you can easily avoid overtraining and mixing cardio and weight training. Most mornings of the week you’ll walk, and once or twice a week in the afternoon you’ll do weight training.

That’s a sustainable program that you can use into your 90’s.

If you are serious about losing and keeping off 20 pounds of body fat, look hard at your carb intake. (Three out of four people are addicted to carbs.)

Eliminate ALL unnatural (processed, refined) carbs from what you eat–permanently. Instead, allow yourself up to 75 grams of carbs from natural sources such as (preferably organic) low starch vegetables and low carb fruits like berries.

Eat a meal about every three waking hours, and never skip a meal. Ensure that each meal has at least 20 grams of protein from natural sources (such as game, grass-fed grazing animals, and wild-caught deep ocean fish) if you are male and 15 grams if you are female. Avoid dairy products. Drink plenty of water; again, individual needs vary, but 3 quarts daily may be about right.

If you eat and train using these suggestions, you will avoid over-training and you’ll maximize the results you get from your weight training and cardio. Just try it for 4 to 6 weeks and you may be amazed at your results. Your body composition will improve, you’ll lose fat, you’ll enjoy both kinds of workouts more, and people will begin to notice.

I hope this helps.

All my best wishes.