I’ve Had E.V.D. & You May Have It Too | by Frederick Norwood | Jul, 2025

Now if you’re a person who’s struggling with this right now and you feel a little helpless, don’t worry. There are a few things that you can do to help take your power back and start validating yourself. These are a few of the ways that have helped me out.

Keep in mind that if you’ve been suffering from this for a few years, it’s going to take some time to rewire your brain. Give yourself some grace as you go on this healing journey and take it one step at a time.

A Week To Yourself

One thing that can help you out with EVD is to take a week to just be with yourself.

Don’t go into any Discord calls after work, don’t go to any friend’s house, don’t do anything other than just head home and do the things that you enjoy doing the most. If anybody wants to hang out, you just schedule it for another week and tell them you’re busy this week.

You may feel a slight tug inside of you that will make you feel obligated to join them since you’ve been doing that for years. This is normal. This is how your body has been reacting every time this pops up. All you have to do is reassure yourself that you’re just taking a week for yourself and that you’ll see them again soon. This internal tug, as I’ve experienced, comes from a sense of abandonment. Anybody who’s been a people pleaser for so long feels this inside of them. You’ve been there for them for so long that even taking a week for yourself feels as though you’re abandoning the people you’ve always looked after.

This is so far from the truth.

You’re not responsible for the well-being of others unless it’s your own immediate family. It’s not your job to always make them happy when they’re sad. It’s not your job to make sure they take certain opportunities when they don’t feel like doing it.

This is why I propose that you do a week-long reset for yourself. Get back in touch with what you want to do without the validation or approval of others around you. You’ll soon realize after the week that you not only got a lot of things done throughout your week and had fun doing it but also that your friends are still your friends even though you took a week for yourself.

(Side note: If any of your friends make a big deal about you not making time for them like you normally do during this time, that just shows you that he/she was the one who was dependent on you more. That’ll give you something to think about later on.)

Achieve A Personal Goal

What’s one thing that you’ve always wanted to start doing, but you just couldn’t find the time to do it because you were so busy giving your time to other people?

Was it a workout that you wanted to try out? Was it a place you wanted to travel to?

Take the time to go after a goal. You’d be surprised at how far you can get with it when you’re not constantly comparing yourself to the people around you or trying to impress them with every photo or trip you’ve been on. (Newsflash: No one cares about your trip. Sorry, not sorry)

Get Off of Social Media

I’m sure this one is blatantly obvious, but it needs to be said as a reminder. Social media algorithms are designed to keep you on the platform as long as possible. They’ve also been known to cause people to have depression due to the constant comparing they do between themselves and their peers and influencers.

Social media is designed to cause people to have EVD. From the likes and comments to the followers and subscribers, it’s all designed to make you determine your worth based on a number next to your name. Like a social credit score system.

Therefore, one really good way to take back your power from EVD is to get off social media. Delete it off of your phone indefinitely. If you ever want to go back to them, they’ll still be there. These are multi-billion-dollar corporations. They’re not dying anytime soon. For now, get off of it and start to redirect your full attention to yourself and your family.