Exercise, eating healthier, studying topics that interest me, pushing myself to go outside my comfort zone and finding purpose. My home environment doesn't help nurture those ventures; I really need to move out on my own, but not working is a massive obstacle. My goal right now is to get enough income to move somewhere that better serves my needs and hopefully stabilize to become a productive member of society. It all takes time, too much time.
Right now I just can't see anything in a positive light. I know it's there, but it's being covered by all the negativity.
What happened when you tried studying topics that interested you, AHB? How did the negativity play out?
Also, congrats on the weight loss, that's no easy feat!
For those who are dealing with their own personal demons, emotional baggage, or whatever, I want to say this:
It sounds so cliche, but suicide is never the answer. Even if you feel like there is nothing else to live for, there always is. You are in charge of who you are & what you do in your life, and you have to make the most of it. If you are alone and you are considering doing yourself in, PLEASE seek help!
You wonderful people have a solid Christmas (or winter holiday, if you prefer me to say that). And stay safe, where ever you are. :,)
Thanks for the holiday wishes, Blues! I'm glad to hear (& see) that things seem to be going a bit better
This is so true. I was (am?) at a point where nothing to do was the 'norm' and was content with it. Now I am an impasse on how to create meaning. There are days where (like right now) I feel like doing nothing because I don't feel accomplished nor do I feel any interest in indulging my interests and it makes me incredibly anxious. Thus, I feel like I am struggling to gain a sense of meaning in my life. I don't want to become some 'edgy internet nihilist' because quite honestly, that type of thinking is annoying, even to me.
There's an old French saying that essentially amounts to "you get your appetite while you eat" and that was the case for me when it came to working my way out of my "default" state of doing nothing. As I started doing a few things here and there and they were at least sorta semi enjoyable I was able to keep motivating myself to do other things and and built from there upwards. This was, of course, coupled with work on my end to try to finally confront
why doing nothing had become my ideal. For me, it was because I couldn't deal with the anxieties and uncertainties of my future and so I wanted as much free time as possible so I could hold on to it and try to control it and just hope it would never end. Of course, that's not how it works.
Can you describe the state of anxiety you're in on those sorts of days? Does it center on your anxieties about accomplishment?
Doc put me on wellbutrin. We'll see how that goes, I guess. I just want something to change.
It works really, really well for a lot of people, Steamlord. It may cause some sleep troubles in the first few weeks but they'll pass. I hope for the best.
Damn. I reactivated my facebook profile yesterday and it gave me one of the strongest melancholy feelings I've felt since I started taking mood stabilizers. Remembering who I used to be before depression took over my life has made me really sad and at the same time is giving me the push I need to move forward.
As an aside does anyone know how to deal with the sedating effects of seroquel?
Facebook sucks. Full stop. I had to duck out of it for a year and a half when things were bad because it made me feel so, so bad. No shame in ducking out if you have to.
As for Seroquel, this may sound basic, but have you tried a cup of coffee in the morning? For a lot of people the issue is the morning "hangover" but once they shake it they're good to go. Obviously if you're having a persistent, all-day fatigue from it then you may need something different. Also, if you recently started taking it or upped your dose the fatigue WILL improve.
Facebook is always a deathole for me. People show no restrain in declaring their dislike for me in public, on facebook.... clearly an attempt to drive me out... theyve won, Im gone. Cant say its underserved, I have been a shitty guy; pretty sure im retarded, supposed to be on medication, but trying not to go that route, nothing was different when i was on them... I am devatated... some guy said its in my dna to be full of shit. Deep inside I DO KNOW THIS I deserve every single piece of it.
Why do you feel you're full of shit?
And why are you trying not to go the medication route?
(Sorry if answers are too probing, feel free to ignore)
On a 2 week winter break after my first semester of medical school. Felt depressed yesterday and today. Only have a few select friends here who I hang out with and they've been busy lately. Video games satisfies me most days but some days I just feel really down and alone. I've also had some issues where I hate my body a lot, so I work out every other day but I still feel so unattractive but that's another issue I suppose...
I kinda hate everything. It's weird because the holiday season is my favorite but since I just finished school on the 18th and I'm going back across the country on the 2nd, I feel like I have no time for anything.
Video games are fun ways to pass the time, Rainy, but I find that for me, a lot of the time, they just don't provide the sense of connection I
need in order to keep marching through this life. Sometimes I can get by if I game / voice chat with a friend on Steam, though.
As far as attractiveness, I've long felt that it's a matter of meeting yourself in the middle; work on changing the things you (reasonably) can, and work on accepting what you cannot. For me, I felt better when I changed up my haircut, started working out and got some better fitting clothes, but I also had to open up to myself and others about what I didn't like about myself and go about making peace with my being who I am.
What do you mean when you say you kinda hate everything?
So I only have a month to go before I leave work. My only contingency is still a plan and have not materialized yet. My sister I believe is willing to help me procure a loan to be used as capital for the business that I want to start.
Anyway at work, my bosses talked to me about my situation. They simply are incompetent in handling a situation such as the one I have. They kept speaking about the realities of life and how I should have a positive outlook. Lectures are simply the least thing I want right now. Not one actually listened. Mental health is truly still a taboo here in the Philippines.
People want to help even when they cannot necessarily understand. I hope you're able to figure things out with help from your sister, jsnepo.
Thanks for answering me again. I'm going to try to stay positive and acknowledge that I'm different from the rest.
Of course, MisterLuffy. Even in trying to stay positive - which can mean a million things - try to be gentle with yourself! If we're
forcing ourselves to be positive then that's not really much of a positive feeling at all!
The holidays have been a very depressing time for me for a while. It use to be that we would all gather at my moms. But im not allowed over there anymore. So me and my wife and kids just did our own thing. She (my wife) left me about 5 months ago so I have to spend the holidays at home, alone. Makes me sad and very depressed.
I cannot claim to understand the difficulties you're going through Faltimar. I'm sorry you're suffering, and I hope you can take things one day at a time. Sometimes, in tough times in my life, when everything seems too much, I take to writing in my journal every night: "one day at a time" over and over again. It helps, somehow.
Sorry I took so long to respond. Didn't see this.
Anyway, I mostly just find people boring, which I imagine is a factor in warming up to them. It takes a lot for me to actually think "yeah, I want to hang out with this person", even if I've been exposed to them long enough to make an accurate judgement. Though I probably have developed some suspicion towards them as well after all this crap.
I also feel it's a bit tough to make friends in your late 20s. I'm the only person younger than 60 at my job and that's generally the most outside human contact I get.
I guess at some point I'll have to force myself to put myself out there, but with the mindset I have now, nothing's going to change even if I do, which I've learned from the high school reunion and a few parties I've been to since all this started. I'd like to remain hopeful and I still probably got a long life ahead of me, so I imagine things will work out at some point. It just doesn't seem feasible to me in the near future.
Yeah, at some point we have to invest time and effort and vulnerability into trying to connect with others, which can take some time to pay off but is, as far as I understand social interactions, the way it works 99% of the time.
It stands out to me that it takes you so long to want to hang out with a person, and I wonder whether it's as simple as finding people boring or whether it has more to do with the suspicion you mentioned. After all, we've got to trust people to open ourselves up to them, and sometimes people run afoul of that trust and really, really hurt our feelings. That can sometimes lead to us being very closed off from others for a while. Is there a way to open back up? Hmm. Just worth thinking about, I suppose.
After six months of being on anti-depressants and anticyclic medication, I can see I've seen improvement in my emotional state. Its more of a mind over matter and disciplining yourself is key for starting on the right foot. It surely isn't easy, having anxiety, depression and OCD makes it rough but the depression is slowly going away and I'm learning to control my anxiety and OCD. Something I could have never said back in June. Keep up the good fight folks, 35% of the way there and I ain't stopping this gravy train!
I'm glad to hear that you're able to feel some progress, BakedYams! There will be ups and downs, but I hope you can carry this sense of momentum forward with you.
Ugh. Feeling especially shitty today. Whole body feels sore and whatnot and my depression is especially harsh.
Do you have anything you try to do to smooth things out on days like that?
My mom is dead and this is the first Christmas without her.
Fuck everything right now. I cry everyday since she left us.
Fuck Cancer.
All my mental issues + this = I might be dead in 2016
I'm sorry for your loss, SM. I cannot understand the pain you've gone through.
As I mentioned to Faltimar above, I hope you can just try to take it one step, one day, one hour at a time. We're not to 2016 yet, and there are many days and hours in 2016 that we've yet to encounter. There is a road up, a road to a better place, but it's a road that must be taken one step at a time.
Sorry to get to it so late, but I think it has to do with ego. For example, playing the story of "me" of the mind, I compare that image with the concepts made of others, and in that game of comparison there is a feeling of lack. Of course, it is not simply a lack of whatever my mind is comparing, but a true lack of being present, engaged and with the goings on, moment by moment.
That's the sense of being alone, I guess. Caught in the mind and pettiness which creates the isolation, and not genuinely here in presence which feeds it.
All of this reminds me of a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was legit as shit on the nature of mind and its problems.
"Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. Thats what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparisonwithout comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no lowthere is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to mewhat have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to becomebut when I dont compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison."
That's a really, really interesting quote, Foffy, and everything you're saying hews very closely to the principals of mindfulness, which in turn draws heavily from vipassna meditation (also just called mindfulness meditation). Have you heard of a book called Mindfulness in Plain English? Maybe you're already way beyond the exploratory stage (sorry if I've missed any explanation!) but it's a great primer on, well, Mindfulness!
That being said, while I found being mindful of my loneliness greatly reduced my suffering, it didn't on its own get rid of loneliness. Ultimately I do have to work at creating a sense of connection and support around me that I can carry in my lonelier states. Both approaches have been helpful to me.
So I completely fucked up one of the most important and possibly valuable things I have ever attempted during my recovery. It's been a week as of today and it's killing me.
I have wanted a dog of my own ( not shared with or also trained by family) for ages but it's always been a financial or practical impossibility. This year as of about February I'd started talking with my psychiatrist about raising and training a psychiatric service dog ( there are no charity funded programs in my province that offer psychiatric dogs for veterans and first respondents.) We agreed in February that it was too soon and I was in no place financially to care for a a dog nevermind be raising an eight week old puppy.
Months pass, I have a crisis in April but slowly recover and determine that yes I would like to continue living. Things still aren't right for a dog to be joining my life but I spend spare time doing research, looking up local laws, joining service dog handler groups, asking questions and formulating a plan for how I will handle basic training, task training socialization etc when the time is finally right.
I get granted disability status in October, and start attending an 11 week dialectical behavior group I'd been referred by the psychiatrist. Things aren't great but they are better then they've been in a long time and while my physical health starts to get dicey in certain areas things are slowly starting to come together.
Early November my psychiatrist agrees to prescribe me a service dog. We talk about the challenges I'll face as an owner trainer even with the help of professional service dog trainers once the future pup is old enough to begin task training and public access training. I acknowledge that as a team we may wash out long before the pup ever graduated from service dog in training to an official service dog. Still I have wanted this forever and I have done so much work and i have accomplished so damn much in less than a year. I am still broken in a lot of ways but I can do this !
December 12th I bring home the world's sweetest standard poodle puppy from a wonderful breeder I annoyed half to death with my many questions on their breeding program, the assistance and service animals they'd already placed and had in training as well as various little things about the best health practices for x,y,z that I was somewhat sure of the answer of due to research but that I wanted their opinion on just in case.
My boy ( one of two pups I'd had held in reserve while I waited for the results of professional temperament testing to see which one starting out had the best chance to succeed as a service animal) was with me from early saturday afternoon to the following wednesday afternoon. in the space of a few days my physical and mental health tanked, i hallucinated, my mood swings were at dangerous levels as if i wasn't even medicated and I was quite ready to put myself in the hospital. The worst part was the pup was a god damn sweetie. He didn't bite or growl at people. He took to training with a clicker like he was a genius and aside from a bladder infection making him hard to house train he was everything the breeder and temperament assessor promised him to be.
He would have been perfect. Even if we had washed as a service team he would have been a wonderful pet and I sent him back because I wanted to die after several days of what turned out to be more responsibility and disrupted schedule than I could handle. Yes the day I called his breeder to ask for them come to pick him up I got more bad physical heath news and yes i as of that day have 2 new medications to get used to 9 with a third recommended non prescription one) and potential surgery on the horizon but god dammit I promised that pup he'd be with me forever no matter what and I lied.
I lied and I felt relief in those first few days he was gone and I could find balance again but now, now there's just emptiness and guilt. We could have made it. I could have held on, even maybe if I had to burn or cut the hell out of myself and spend a few nights in the hospital I could have waited out my brains fit and we'd be together now. I wanted him so badly and I had the rest of our lives planned and now it's over because I wasn't strong enough to tough out even a week of something I was so sure I was prepared for. I have been stomped on by calves, bit, pissed, clawed, pecked at, sprayed on and been made to bleed by various pets and farm animals in the past.
I was sure I could raise a puppy, so sure I had myself, the breeder and even the dog behaviorist certain I could make a great owner and potential service dog handler. I was wrong and what hurts most of all is that even though i know truly know it was best for mine and the pups health all i want is my little fluffy boy back. I want to tell him I really meant forever and feed him cookies and let him run about the yard proudly carrying a pinecone.
More than that I want what forever means, I want winter romps in the snow, fur soaked with spring slush and carrying teething items in my pockets for several months. I want puppy classes graduating into general obedience classes and hell maybe even competitive obedience or Rally-o where inevitably I screw up an otherwise qualifying run by giving the wrong signal or doing things in the wrong order. It would be okay though, a learning experience and we'd still have each other even if we never won a ribbon in anything.
Same as how even if i never got my running down to a competitive or proud to brag about on facebook level our outings together would always mean something because we'd be out there together. we were going to be partners in everything.
I wanted years of laying on the couch or bed together with me brushing out his long coat and grumbling about why couldn't I keep him in a nice short pet clip but no I wanted a proper looking fluffy poodle and line brushing takes forever but it's worth it.
Twelve to fifteen years down the line I wanted to be there with my old guy as he took his shorter walks, jumped a bit less high for the frisbee, maybe struggled to see or hear and eventually let me know that he was ready to take a journey I couldn't follow him on
Everyone tells me I made the right choice but it hurts so much, it stopped for a while but not it's even worse than the day i let him go.
Shinypogs,
I am sorry you've had a turbulent few days, and the sense of loss from a separation, especially from something that obviously held so much excitement and promise for you sounds quite tough.
I've thought about it for a bit now, and I don't think you did anything wrong. I mean, quite evidently, from how you describe it, you made the best decisions you could have at several difficult points. Of course it's tempting to rethink those decisions with 20/20 hindsight, but that is not a luxury we have in the present moment and it does not sound as though you made any unreasonable or indefensible decisions in the midst of some real difficulty.
Is there a possibility of applying for another dog down the line? Perhaps it's best to way for things to smooth over in the short term, and let the experience settle and learn from it a bit first. There are many, many loving, adorable dogs out there that would be honored to have you as an owner.
<3
Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it, and Happy Holidays of all stripes for everyone!