Jump to content

Mental Wellbeing Thread


HexMachina

Recommended Posts

On 2/28/2019 at 12:53 PM, Toth said:

Well, thanks for the concerns and suggestions. But then again, please take in everything I complain about with the very specific grain of salt that I only vent here when it's particularly tense or me bringing up something difficult like this had backfired. Usually we do get along comparably well. I really don't want to vilify her even if it looks like I'm just complaining.

The only ongoing problem is in large part my own sense of suffocation that causes me to not being able to focus on my preparations as effectively when she is bustling around than when I'm alone. That's mostly in my head and I don't really know what causes it. I just end up being unable to work because I don't want to get in her way and end up retreating into some corner where I spend the whole day hunched over my laptop. I guess it's a weird case of claustrophobia where I have no room to work because she takes up all the spaces at once. It's just two spaces though, given how tiny our flat is.

Well, right now I still don't have any tangible job offers anyway, just recommendations where to apply and a load of initiative applications. The only reply that came so far was from one of the latter, telling me this morning that they have no positions free. I'm not really concerned about that, given how it was just a shot into the blue and I was actually more than a little intimidated by how elite that school was.

Therefore... I will have to see where I will get a position and then I will breach the topic with my mother again. The problem, of course, lies mostly at the money front. Until I have any kind of safety net, I can't do anything to change my situation anyway. I'd just appreciate not to be discouraged at every step of the way just because she doesn't feel like 'splitting up'...

I hope you don't mind me butting in, but I post in this thread occasionally and follow it semi-regularly, so I've seen some of your posts about your living situation with your mother.

I hope you don't mind if I'm just frank about stating my reading of the situation, but you seem to be caught up in a classic cycle of abuse with your mother. 

It starts with you showing an attempt at establishing your independence. She then tugs on the strings of guilt she's ensnared you in over years of her living with you, saying that you have to take care of her, etc., etc. Then she transitions from that to lobbing insults and verbal abuse at you: calling you an idiot, saying that it'll be your fault if she ends up on the street (as if a grown-ass woman is incapable of caring for herself), and generally grinding your spirit into the dirt.  And then you internalize the guilt that she's been encouraging with her emotional and verbal abuse when you start telling yourself that you're a terrible son, that she's more important, etc. And finally, you and she enter the "honeymoon" phase of the abuse cycle, as evidenced by you coming in here and telling us to take everything you say with a large grain of salt, things have been going better, etc.

I seem to remember sometime not too long ago where the point of contention was over you wanting to go running, as you were maybe training for a race or maybe just doing so for exercise? I don't recall the exact particulars, but I encourage you to go back and read your posts from that time, and reflect on how this current situation is nearly a mirror image of that one, and how you and your mother have fallen into unhealthy (for both of you) patterns that are intended to stifle your perfectly normal sense of independence as you are at the time in your life when you should be pushing to establish independence from your parent(s). 

That voice you mentioned, the part of you thinking that you'd both be better off with some distance? That is YOUR voice, espousing a completely reasonable (and probably correct) assumption that your current proximity to one another is affecting you both negatively. The other voice, the one telling you you're a terrible son for wanting things? That's HER voice that you've internalized, even if it sounds like your own.

I know change is difficult and scary, especially when there is someone you care about actively trying to maintain the status quo, but change is also good and necessary, as otherwise you'll end up stunting your emotional growth, and will eventually internalize more and more of her invective towards you, until eventually you will have no voice of your own advocating on your behalf, telling you that change and space and growth are good things. 

Instead, you'll end up spending the rest of her life trying to please her, unsuccessfully, because she seems like the type of person who needs to have something to criticize in those close to her, even if the aspect being criticized is specious or even made up. And then what will happen with you when she is gone, after you've spent your entire adulthood living your life at her direction and solely for her benefit? From what I've seen and experienced personally among people I've known in similar situations, you'll spend the rest of your life seeking affirmation from someone who is no longer around to give it. And that will be a lonely and unfulfilling existence. 

I notice you mention not being able to get much work or planning done when your mother is around. Is there anyway you can take your laptop and other stuff you need to a coffee shop or a library when you need to work or do planning? Even just having a few hours away from her would be beneficial to your well being, I expect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I hope you don't mind if I'm just frank about stating my reading of the situation, but you seem to be caught up in a classic cycle of abuse with your mother.  

Mmh... I wouldn't describe it as harshly, but I certainly see where you are coming from. I just also see how much my mother is troubled by all the stuff flung at her and how she is entirely driven by fear thanks to so much uncertainty in her life. That fear mostly causes all the nasty discouragement of hers. I recently also noticed how she treats our pets this way. The bird isn't allowed to ever leave its cage because she fears it gets hurt. And the cat since last week when the cat accidentally hit herself jumping on the desk now isn't allowed to jump to any high places anymore for the same reason. It's silly, but she really would like to wrap everything in cotton.

4 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I notice you mention not being able to get much work or planning done when your mother is around. Is there anyway you can take your laptop and other stuff you need to a coffee shop or a library when you need to work or do planning? Even just having a few hours away from her would be beneficial to your well being, I expect.

That's really difficult. In this town there is no library I know of and I don't know much about other places... The thing is, my preparations usually need quite a lot of materials. I doubt I can take half a book shelf, computer, printer, scissors and glue with me. Even if I'd find a library, I don't think I can work as extensively there (or rather would fear that I'd end up forgetting something at home).

Then again... today I came home early thanks to a cancelled prep course and wanted to spend the time writing the level of expectations for my exam that I have to turn in as early as possible. Instead my mother had spent the last 7 hours raging about a court ruling that came in today and I ended up not being able to do anything at all so far...

Heck, even right now as I write this, my mother still sits in my room and makes me check the correspondence with our lawyer...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I always someone who wonders what they did wrong because I learned when I was a kid that I was nice only treating people in a bad way. Not even bad, "Come on!" I'm like now about it, like somethings are a backlash for me because I will never be able to have my real people back and 6 members of my family have died and I'm only 26. I'm not sure if that is normal for someone to lose that many people who are that special to them in a short amount of time and it really disturbs me that I cannot be with them. 

Now I make up stories, but never really do the drunk ass shit I did when I was depressed enough to convince myself to be a loser because I knew it was going to happen.

I am always good at making fun of myself though because my Dad always takes care of me. Plus he always makes fun of me and I have his sense of humor. I'm guy-ish. Nothing but past little mistakes should be made fun of and it's like I saved myself from being Lost and I can admit that here. A little mind game, I played with myself and I'm not even a doctor. 

I am sarcastic about how intelligent I am because it is just because I went to Catholic schools that I am ever smart in most things that I do. I'm not really that Catholic. Never really was and it irks me because no one could have bought that one Bible that I own with all my heart. And yes, very much saying I love Catholicism. I just bought this one book once and it was St. Joseph's Edition of the Catholic edition of the Bible. 

Something else that bugs me about myself is that I'm technically proud, definition-ally, without being prideful. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
16 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

Had a really relaxing sleep last night and I think this Youtube video helped.

10 hours of rain sounds falling on a car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SegtDyi25U&t=12749s

 

I'm a big fan of MyNoise. It's got loads of different white noise and other background sounds that you can mix together.

At work I like to listen to Distant Thunder mixed with Fireplace. It's incredibly soothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

I have my first appointment with the Autism counselor this evening. I hope everything goes well for me.

I am sure you will. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Fingers crossed :) let us know how it goes x 

Everything went very well. It was my first time meeting her so she asked me some basic questions, such as what medications I'm taking, what obstacles I hope to overcome, do I have a family history of mental illnesses, etc. Next appointment is where I will begin my cognitive therapy. I'm feeling more hopeful than ever now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

Everything went very well. It was my first time meeting her so she asked me some basic questions, such as what medications I'm taking, what obstacles I hope to overcome, do I have a family history of mental illnesses, etc. Next appointment is where I will begin my cognitive therapy. I'm feeling more hopeful than ever now.

That’s brilliant I’m glad it went so well & you’re feeling more hopeful! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m riding a real high at the moment for reasons i will elaborate on in due course. But i genuinely feel like skipping and can’t help but keep smiling randomly at nothing. Its unusual but very pleasant as a change to be feeling like this

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I’m riding a real high at the moment for reasons i will elaborate on in due course. But i genuinely feel like skipping and can’t help but keep smiling randomly at nothing. Its unusual but very pleasant as a change to be feeling like this

I’m really glad you’re feeling this way at the moment - that’s awesome :D 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just have to shake my head at all the (s)mothers who are attempting to guilt their children into staying and taking care of them for the rest of their lives.  Fathers are guilty of this too - Shakespeare wrote a play about it, actually. <grin>

A parent's job is to prepare their offspring to become an healthy, independent adult.  PERIOD.  

Human beings would learn a lot from watching the birds with their chicks.  Feed, protect, shelter them, then boot them out of the nest.  You're on your own, kid.  This concept of using your children as substitutes for a spouse or partner is unhealthy for both parent and child.  It holds both parties back from becoming fully developed people with their own circle of friends, partners, and support system.  

There comes a time when adult children must come to a parent's rescue and help them as best they can, but it should never be at the expense of their own mental and physical wellbeing.  No good parent would want that either.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm happy to read positive news here! Thumbs up to you guys and gals!

Meanwhile for me... well, I guess it is once again one step forward and two steps backward. Today was the ceremony of getting our certificates as teachers and afterwards was a small party planned at the house of a fellow teacher trainee. Those who have read my anguish about the farewell party of one girl from my university study group nearly 2 years ago might already get what comes next. So... I intending to go there as a way to work on my social ineptitude, but quite a lot of factors worked against me.

Chief of them was just how atrociously horrible my grade ended up being. Cause for that is a long story... basically one of my prep course teachers was switched after the first semester with a woman who had a 180° different approach to her course... which somehow involved no teaching and only judging. By giving out ridiculously inflexible constraints how all the lessons are supposed to look like, then say that what I'm doing is shit but refusing to specify how I can improve myself ("That's not my job") and then using the rest of every conversation to psychoanalyze me about how my introverted personality makes me deeply incompatible with the job (also maybe how I refused brown-nose my way into her good graces). Working with her wrecked me on a multitude of levels and let me come to the conclusion that teacher training has caused more harm to my lessons than anything else. In fact, it has sucked out pretty much all the fun out of my job and caused me a horrible amount of anxiety.

All this came back to bite me last week when, after having successfully shrugged off my memories of her, she came back spamming our course with mails inviting us back to do some farewell nonsense (including a goddamn homework we would have to do if we came to this totally voluntary thing!). At first I actually found it so brazen that I it was funny again. Unfortunately I made the mistake of showing this to my mother (in a "You won't believe what she is thinking!" kind of way to mock it), but much to my surprise and distress she completely blew it out of proportion and berated me for not going there, urging me to write an apology and then thinking up that she will retroactively worsen my exam results if I don't (despite me arguing that this isn't formally possible no matter how you look at it). It was all a bogus concern, but it was enough for my anxiety to hit me right back and completely engulf the entire weekend and the rest of this week. It all came back to me, all my betrayed expectations from teacher training and how I suffered both professionally and socially. I was wondering how I could pretend to belong to this group despite already having had a really bad episode after weeks of my attempts at forming study groups getting turned down only to later learn in casual conversation that they all have formed study groups with each other in the mean time, explicitly excluding me.

And then today arrived... Truth be told, the atmosphere of the ceremony was already strange. The prep course teacher in charge (a different man, but one who got right away told by my nemesis prep course teacher how much of a hopeless case I am right after seeing my first lesson, basically taking away all my chances of asking him for help) sighed when he shook my hands instead of telling me encouraging words like he did with the others (with this telling me quite clearly that I had worst grade in the entire room), but admittedly I then grabbed my certificate and interrupted him quite roughly saying that he doesn't need to say anything. So my mood was sour from the get-go. After all was said and done, two fellow teacher trainees put out sparkling wine to some toasts and invited him, but he then actually did what I later would do: Walked out without a word. We waited 20 minutes for him to return, thinking that he was just taking his documents to safety, but when then two of us went to search him, they came back saying that he wasn't in his office either.

So... in the middle of everyone then toasting and congratulating each other, I was standing there cornered at the height of total anxiety and panicking while also feeling intensely that I don't belong there because I don't have anything to celebrate, unlike them. While I was standing there like that, one person asked me whether I couldn't just take an empty glass and pretend or at least fill it with water. So I reached for my water in my back pack... the closed back pack with all my stuff in it... and in a rather primal flight reaction I just grabbed the whole bag and fled the room and went straight home, typing some rather abrupt farewells into the What's App group because I still felt somewhat guilty. I spent the rest of the day sorting documents and preparing stuff for my new job. Much to my surprise, one guy with whom I had been talking today actually wrote me a rather concerned message now... I'm really doing my best to confirm my prep course teacher's words that I'm useless.

But at least there is one "good" take-away: My whole reaction has now confirmed my most recent suspicion that I'm not depressed at all. This is textbook anxiety. And a really odd one at that, given how I usually have no trouble at all facing people in a professional setting, but shrink immediately away if I am trying to interact in any private conversation. Like here, pretending that I'm having something to celebrate...

Now just comes the question how to shrug this off to be able to embrace my new school and its colleagues...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of my side gigs of two years just told me they're laying me off July 1st. I'm sadder about it than I anticipated... today was also a weird day and I have some definite transitions going on in life -- trying to get a new roommate before my current lease ends, and I also started a new fulltime job two weeks ago. Someone is going to sign the new lease with me this upcoming week. She isn't nuts about the lease term, but seems convicted to move in here... regardless, I'll feel better when that's done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

No, my parents. So my mom is in the hospital, and expected to be there for possibly weeks until they've brought down an inflammation enough to do surgery. She has been there for three days - my sister texted me about it this afternoon. It seems like its more-or-less under control, but, I don't know, maybe its me - 'weeks of hospitalization' still seems like news where I'm from.

Well, scratch that - where I'm from is from there, and, yeah, we don't talk much. I don't know whether to kind of shrug this off and go, well, that's what my family is like, and tbh, in the same situation, my instinct would also be not to tell my parents if I was in for a reasonably-routine hospitalization. (I didn't tell then when I had malaria a few years ago. That said, I didn't know at the time it was malaria.) BUT! Maybe that's not that great? Hm.

For some reason though, what really gets me is that my parents got a smartphone. Like, the two of them. Together. It lives at home where, quote my mom 'it has its wifi'. (To clarify, my dad works in tech and my mom is an architect. This a purely affected luddism.) Apparently months ago, and didn't tell me. Now I'm trying and failing to add my parents of WhatsApp, while my mom is in the hospital and thinking to myself that this is serious and important but also this is kind of funny but also is this why I'm like this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I don't usually feel it is my place to post in this thread, as I am generally mentally an okayish-adjusted person and don't need specific help and stuff, but ... I am not feeling well these days at all. I am stuck in a city I don't want to be in because I associate it with bad things and feel like I am being rejected by the place. I don't know almost anybody here, and definitely nobody personally. I am only supposed to be here to study, so sit in the library and read and write a paper, and the loneliness is getting to me. I don't have anything to do apart from work, and that doesn't really require me to communicate with anybody, and I don't have anybody to communicate with. I am staying a little under three weeks in total, which is not enough to meet and make new friends, and I am feeling guilty if I take half a day off because I am not doing the best I can with the opportunity of being here ... but I am just sick of researching all the time, I mean, I like my topic and most of the stuff I read is interesting, but just all the time is exhausting. And the terrible loneliness, I literally have nobody here and that makes me feel terrible, every day more.

Nine nights remaining ... yes, I am totally counting down, basically from like the second day here. I cannot wait to leave here. I got scared of my own thoughts a few days ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

So I don't usually feel it is my place to post in this thread, as I am generally mentally an okayish-adjusted person and don't need specific help and stuff, but ... I am not feeling well these days at all. I am stuck in a city I don't want to be in because I associate it with bad things and feel like I am being rejected by the place. I don't know almost anybody here, and definitely nobody personally. I am only supposed to be here to study, so sit in the library and read and write a paper, and the loneliness is getting to me. I don't have anything to do apart from work, and that doesn't really require me to communicate with anybody, and I don't have anybody to communicate with. I am staying a little under three weeks in total, which is not enough to meet and make new friends, and I am feeling guilty if I take half a day off because I am not doing the best I can with the opportunity of being here ... but I am just sick of researching all the time, I mean, I like my topic and most of the stuff I read is interesting, but just all the time is exhausting. And the terrible loneliness, I literally have nobody here and that makes me feel terrible, every day more.

Nine nights remaining ... yes, I am totally counting down, basically from like the second day here. I cannot wait to leave here. I got scared of my own thoughts a few days ago. 

Hugs, lots. That sucks, and its also really familiar. I guess I can say I travel a fair amount for work/research at this point, usually for that kind of 3-6 week stretch, and even when I'm working on fairly intensive team projects, the amount of alone time always becomes overwhelming, fast, much less research, much less archive/library work, which I don't do. But have-their-shit-together friends of mine that do always seem to make a proper vacation of it, plan lots of evening activities, and often drag along a partner/kid/even parents. The loneliness of spending weeks in an archive is very, very real.

That bored, antsy doldrum feeling and lack of structure and finding yourself wandering around alone evening after evening and gradually forgetting what normal human interactions are actually like are the part really no one ever talks about when traveling. (I want to say it gets better, but I was counting down the days by my second week in on a project earlier this summer.) I'd say its also totally normal though, I think. And the sense that what you're doing is supposed to be exciting and interesting and an opportunity, and you're not taking full advantage of it, just makes things worse.

I know this is trite advice, but it is possible to kind of 'force' these things - its not perfect, but going to like a couchsurfing meeting or a meetup group or a write-in group (look those up, these may be your people and you'll still be working so no guilt) can help just to break up the stretch of alone time and help to turn the analytic thinking brain off a bit. Social interactions that are fleeting and diverse maybe aren't deep meaningful friendships, but they can be fun too and kind of part of the travel experience. I mean, it can backfire - I've been places where community life was so reticent and limited that trying to fit into it was so despiriting it made me feel worse about myself, but hopefully you're not in that kind of place, and anyway in retrospect I realize it was the place, not me and its just more fodder for 'well, I survived that too.' (And then the place earlier this summer I was down to tindering people on nearby closed military bases. And, well, I survived that too.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Datepalm. I am glad I am not the only one who feels that way. Usually I feel way better in the morning, when I am still well-rested (although I don't sleep that well most nights), and then in the evening, the tiredness and the loneliness kick in together.

So today I feel better because:

- I sent what I deem is a finished paper to two professors (one of them emailed me back straightaway, which made me feel better as well)
- it looks like it is not going to rain anymore - the weather we had till now was terrible, way too cold for July, and I like summer
- it is Sunday and every day is a day closer I am going to leave this place and visit good friends in Vienna!

I tried to join a board game group here, but now it looks like they won't have any open events until after I leave (yay, that means I am leaving soon, yes?), and there doesn't seem to be a working couchsurfing meet-up group here ... hmmmm. Also, I am terrible at fleeting conversations and meetings, I just really miss time with people I feel close to and trust. But I talk to my family almost every day, so that helps.

And I think I am going to make a more touristy day out of Tuesday.

Aaaaaanyway, thanks for the detailed answer, and thanks, board, for providing me with a space where I can share all this ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...