So, with any luck we'll find something. Thanks for letting me vent. Hopefully this is the year things change (wife is getting health issues taken care of after years of being unable to afford to do so; so hopefully this means I can get a job too!)
It sounds like your perspective has evened out, Cth, which I really respect given the difficulties that you're going through. I'm glad you and your wife sound to be on the same page, and I hope you're able to make the most of this difficult transition.
I think it's time to do a mass-purging of my Facebook. Today already started out very badly and then I saw a picture of my college teacher with one of his students who had just won some competition award. And all I could think was that could have been me, if genetics and fate had turned out just slightly differently. And then I completely fucking lost it.
Three years ago, I tried to take the position that I was deeply grieved that I couldn't perform anymore but I was still glad that my friends could. Time has greatly eroded that position because the grieving has never stopped (nor can it) and my "friends" have largely drifted away because I'm no longer of performing use to them. All that's left is anger and resentment and those aren't exactly doing the best job of keeping me fueled.
I think I'm going to knock myself out early with some drugs tonight because I'm fucking miserable. Anything that'll get me to sleep faster.
I've done a couple of mass purgings over the past few years and am very much glad I did. It eased a lot of my anxieties about people who I don't really keep up with any more looking at my Facebook and judging me. That being said, it didn't totally fix the issue, and after going without a Facebook for 18 months I finally had to start working on
why it was something that made me feel so awful and the such.
Back when I did it there was a Firefox extension that let you mass-unfriend people with checkboxes rather than do it one at a time. I don't remember what it was called, though. Sorry things are tough right now, jb.
Still feel disconnected, I hate talking to my family and want to avoid them.
Also, I've attempted to take my life 2-3 times, I know when I was 9, I wanted a car to run me over because my extended family wasn't paying attention to me and then 2009, I held my brothers gun and wondered...
It's been a battle but spending New Years alone hit me the hardest. 3 weeks and I still hate myself. I keep thinking what if...
Right now, I'm just punching myself.
Feeling disconnected is really tough for me, given the existential bent of my anxiety. What sorts of things bring you a sense of connection mreddie? And have you ever considered seeking mental health treatment?
It eats me up some days. Ill just stand in the shower and ball my eyes out. I went from being a very physically fit muscular 235lbs who worked out daily to now barely being able to eat a meal a day because of all the meds, the gym just can't happen because I can't handle it, ive lost most of my muscle and I weight 170lbs. Its gross. I know in the grand scheme of things that is nothing but it doesn't help.
Ok im done im just whining now. Whining does noone good
, still got my sense of humor at least
You're welcome to vent as much as you need, GB. I cannot claim to understand the intricacies or difficulties of your situation but I do know that this life we're going through is a constant process of shifting our expectations, aspirations, frame of reference and so on to an ever changing present situation. It's difficult and frustrating to do so much of the time, for loosening our grip on our static hopes and aspirations means admitting that we have less control than we wish, and if there's one thing we all want, it's control. The point is that by one standard you used to hold for yourself - such as of your physical fitness - you may be a "failure" but if only we could adjust our expectations to our present reality then the situation is much more nuanced.
The question is, of course, HOW do we change that frame of reference? How do we forgive ourselves for not being the image of perfection we imagined? Well, I haven't got a universal answer. It's a process. But it's definitely possible for each and every one of us.
To add: none of this is anyone's fault, mental illness is very much a physical illness with unknown and complicated/subtle etiologies. As much as there is a classical view that the brain and body are separate and "mind over matter," the reality is current literature suggests our free will is limited (which calls into question a million things about the way our civilizations/societies are organized but thats a topic for other posts) and so we should all try not to blame ourselves as hard as that is. No one deserves any illness especially mental illness. Best of luck to everyone!
Interesting, thanks for the links, ugaboga! Can you point to some of the current literature / thought about free will? Preferably something that isn't totally impenetrable. That stuff really fascinates (and scares) me.
I feel like my entire life is being controlled by my own fear. Fear of being unemployed so I stay at a job that is ruining my life and relationships. Fear of failure which is stopping me from going to school, and so many other examples. I've posted the same thing probably a good ten times the past year. And yet I've done nothing. Made no steps to change things, because I still believe that I can manage things even though the second I start to have to care for someone aside from myself, everything falls apart.
That is an incredible important realization to have, StaticJam. I didn't realize how much fear controlled me until a couple of years ago. Then the question becomes what to do to break the control of fear or unwind its presence altogether. It's also worth considering further what stands in the way of you making steps toward changing things, especially if you seem to know that that's what needs to be done.
Anhedonia (sp) sucks. My therapist says its like the reverse manic/depressive where instead of fluxing between manic and depressive you just flux between 'meh" apathy and depression. I honestly don't think its ever going to be "fixed" or get better. For me its more of learning how to live with it and plan around it. My "manic' moments are trying to fill my life with things to distract from it (like Lego sets or games) and then not touching them for various reasons. Recognizing those signs is big, I guess i'm just having problems with what to do with those signs and self awareness. I don't know, I don't mean to try and make it sound hopeless but just learn to enjoy those apathy filled swings somehow and stay strong brother from another mother.
My psych dr. is about to change up my meds big time because its became my normal flat line again with more dips down lately. From what they said you sometimes have to change up your meds because your body has gotten to use to them. My neurologist is actually getting involved now mostly because he wants to try depakote since it has the added benefit of helping with migraines. I'm not to sure about going on that though because I heard it makes you lose hair and thats like the only thing i'm happy about with my body is still having a full set of hair. I know some drug changes are coming because i get my results from the DNA test they did a couple weeks tomorrow.
For me it helped to reframe my goal in life as
contentment rather than
happiness. After all, one can be perfectly content being sorta sad or can be restless in a time of happiness, already looking for the next source of happiness. Contentment seems like a much more realistically attainable state of mind than "happy forever" which I'd long hoped for.
Hey guys just wanted to say stay positive (or try to at least) we can all get through whatever troubles we may have. Just remember to never give up even though that may be the easy way out. Just believe in yourself, try and stay positive!
I am about to go on a journey of getting of xanax so I am not looking forward to the withdrawals (hopefully with tapering they won't be too bad) so I hope to come out of it a happier person!
Just remember never give up hope guys/gals! We can all do it! I just want to spread some positivity in here.
Good luck with your journey, MJ, I hope things go as smoothly as possible!
Unfortunately, I've come to depend on her for my self-worth. Now, in the past I generally depended on others' perceived opinions of me in order to feel good about myself, but their expressed opinions were never strong enough to make me feel half as good as my best friend makes me feel. But any time something threatens this dynamic, my stomach drops and my self-worth goes to shit.
For example, nobody's perfect, including my friend. But whenever an imperfection in my friend comes to light, I start doubting whether her opinion of me really meant anything, and since I have nothing to fall back on, my self-worth takes another tumble.
I know all this is really unhealthy, and I'm going to talk about it with my psych Thursday.
I'm interested to hear what perspective you get on this issue, game_boy. I've suffered from something similar since my late teens - I always need "girlfriend figure" in my life to affirm my worth and give my life meaning, whether that be an actual girlfriend or a very close friend whom I can lean on, usually also female for whatever reason. I didn't really realize it until a friend pointed it out to me a little over a year ago in the context of why I was trying to rush into a serious relationship with this girl I'd been dating. It wasn't about the girl, it was about needing the girlfriend.
It's a really interesting issue to investigate now that you've identified it, and it connects to larger questions of meaning, worth, and self-sufficiency, the exploration of which I firmly believe greatly betters our independence and ultimately our feeling of "wholeness". I hope you're able to stay open with yourself about it and find others to talk to - it's important and you've already made the big first step of identifying a pattern.
How do you justify living when you know you will never be happy?
There is no god. There is no afterlife. This is all there is, and im no longer sure its worth it.
You speak with certainty of that which cannot be certain. I do not know my future nor yours and know that noone can rightly say what that future may or may not contain.
So I disagree with your certainty, I think it's a flawed premise from which to judge whether or not to continue living.
For the past 2 months I go to bed wishing I would never wake up and then I wake up wanting to blow my brains out and disappearing into the ether pretty much every fucking day (used to be maybe a few times a year, then once a month, etc). Just completely erasing everything about myself from existence. I've missed so many days from work because I can't get out of bed or because I've been so miserable and fat that I feel like my immune system has gone in the shitter. I used to maintain like 100 hours of vacation time and 40 hrs of sick time every year at this job, and this 5th year I'm basically sub 20 for vacation and like perpetual 8 hrs for sick time if even. That's how much time I've been taking off because I can't summon the fuck to go to get out of bed and deal with living.
I've not seen any of my friends that live in my city in over like two years because I feel so poorly that I keep everyone at least at arms length, trying desperately to avoid dumping my misery onto their lives. I hate imposing on other people and having anyone shoulder my burdens or troubles but me. I can say that most of what used to be waking hours outside of work are now sleeping hours. That includes weekends and now week nights.
I've been wanting to find new work since I basically got the job I have but haven't been able to because I lack any kind of special skillset to enable me to do anything in the game, film, or art industries and/or because I'm fucking HORRIBLE at interviews because they're basically my nightmare scenario of trying to go to a club meeting in college, but compounding that with the fact that it's like a test/verbal presentation (stage fright to the nth degree) of some kind which always stressed me out to no end in school. Everything I want to say ends up getting fucked up or straight up forgotten and when I speak in those interview settings I'm jittery and extremely nervous. I know it looks absolutely unfortunate and bad from an external perspective because I've asked for feedback once or twice. So I'm kind of stuck with the job I have now, not just because I can't get anything else but in addition because my job pays well and is rather secure despite it kind of tiring me the fuck out and not offering me intellectually stimulating anymore. I've never felt as boring as I do now.
And I've only just come to the realization recently that - what a shock - I've been absolutely miserable and something is seriously wrong with me since high school and that I've just been distracting myself to avoid that simple truth with friends, school, work, food, video games, tv shows, movies, etc since then. Even during the happiest year of my life I still irrationally LOATHED myself and was really just completely unable to be OK with myself to the point where I would just never even try to engage anyone for a romantic entanglement because I would just fuck it up with my deep rooted unhappiness.
Looking from the outside, intellectually: I know that my life is actually pretty ok, that I shouldn't hate myself as much as I do because I actually have qualities that are good, great even, that I'm not an ugly piece of garbage, that maybe I can change careers, maybe I can improve my life, my weight, my skills, maybe I am not complete shit and actually worthy of being loved.
I know there is hope for me but I'm just at the point where I'm like "...nah".
I'm so far at the end of my rope I literally can't summon the motivation to breathe most days. If breathing was optional I would have opted out like a month ago and just willingly let myself die. Instead I go through the motions wanting a meteor to vaporize me, or a truck to hit me hard enough to kill me, or for my heart to just give up.
If I ever had a passion or purpose for living, the spark died for it a long time ago. And my spark for just living in general is gone now too. I just can't care about anything anymore to warrant persisting any longer.
I don't know what to do anymore. I can't help myself at this point and I seriously doubt any drug or chat time with a psychiatrist will change anything. I don't even know why I posted this.
Thanks for joining us, XAL. I read your entire post and there seem to be a lot of moving parts in your present unhappiness - unhappiness with yourself, social concerns like being burdensome (which often are a result of unhappiness with ourselves) and those move into creating an empty or disconnected life.
First of all, if you're thinking of harming yourself please call 1 (800) 273-8255, seek emergency medical help or both.
It seems like there are a whole host of places you could start in making changes in your life - any of which would probably give you a greater sense of momentum that would make further changes a tad easier - but there's no use in my listing them if you're in a place where you can hardly find the motivation to breathe let alone take decisive steps. Well, in a way you
have taken the first step by being honest with yourself about what's going on and beginning to reach out to others about it. You mention having briefly been on Prozac in high school but, outside of that, have you received any mental health treatment? I think it could be particularly beneficial. Therapy could further illuminate what's going on and how to change it and medication could take some of the gloom away so that you have the means to do so.
I skipped my last dose of medicine and can't sleep. It's already past 3:30 AM where I live. I'm tired of the side effects so I want to get off the med I'm on. I finished a game, so that was cool, but I don't feel tired at all... I guess the Mtn Dew voltage has a lot of caffeine, but I didn't think it would keep me up since I had it this morning...
Also, yeah, I've always tried to find things I'm interested in to keep me going and have something to look forward to.
Have you been able to get any sleep, whiterabbit? Medication changes are hard. It goes without saying that I hope you're always doing so under the supervision of a doctor.
Kind of nervous posting this... But my mind tricks me into thinking that I don't exist. And when I look around it feels like it's not really there. At times I wake up feeling confused.. I've always felt like this since I was a teen when I began to question reality.... It comes and goes. It'll bother me for like a few weeks to a month and then it leaves me alone for like a year or so and pops back up. Back in November I had my first panic attack... I think it comes from loneliness of being in college because all of my relatives are 2 hours away. My family has always known and when it bothers me my mom comes visit me or I go home and spend a day with them.
Questions of reality and existence are difficult but often fruitful to explore, SS. Have you considered seeking therapy? There are often services offered through school.
I can't say enough how much I thank GAF for being a safe place to vent and be patient in helping me out. =) I'm not on any medication or even take counselling.
Anyway I don't know if this is helpful or not, but those who are suicidal I really recommend calling hotlines and speaking out whenever someone offers help. It's not important to think how much they really care or not. The fact that they are there is all you need to know.
I'm so, so glad to hear that things are looking up, izunadono! I hope you're able to spend the "up" times continuing to learn from the "downs" so that the next time you're down you don't have to go down quite so far.
Oh boy. Just got a phone call this morning that my insurance is not accepted at my therapist's clinic. I had one insurance last year, but they pulled out of the market place, so I had to get new insurance. I got insurance, pay $300 a month for it which, which I can barely afford because I don't have a job, and thought I would be good. Nope, they are not in network. The largest network in the state.
So, I either pay $155 everytime I go see my therapist or just stop going because I don't want to reinvent the wheel with a new therapist. Again.
Fuck mental healthcare in this country. I Fucking swear.
It's a pain, it's unfair, it's frustrating and it's idiotic. However, I still think you should start seeing a new therapist who is in network, wilsongt. It may take a few months to get things back up to speed with your new therapist but in a few months you WILL be glad you did.
So tired of having no energy. There's a lot I think I want to do throughout the day, but I'd rather just sleep honestly. Cold weather doesn't help.
Cold weather definitely doesn't help. Sometimes energy is a matter of "spend some, get a little more" but it's harder to do so when the weather doesn't permit. Sometimes a 20-30 minute walk will get my brain and body moving a bit more.
