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Mental Wellbeing Thread


HexMachina

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7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I appreciate the outreach. Yeah, that's most likely the cause. And I've gotten somewhat use to them. Oh well, what can you do?

And yes, 2020 has been a total disaster. 

Damn, that’s simply unfair. You’re trying to do something great for your health and the response is something like that... Hang in there and stay strong! Things can’t get infinitely worse, somewhere along the way the sun is bound to come out. 

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On 7/7/2020 at 10:25 AM, Tywin et al. said:

The meds are only for after you have one. The troubling part was at the end being told this could either be a one off event or something you have to deal with for the rest of your life, which would likely shorten it by a good deal

All the best luck - my experience with my fathers seizure meds is that they will monitor and make sure they are under control, and then try to dial back dosages and wean you off of them if you respond well - because of the “we have no idea if this is going to be a recurring thing” factor you mention. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/8/2020 at 12:30 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Sigh, I guess this is the best place to write this. For many years I'e been a relatively high functioning alcoholic. For better or worse I never vomit when I drink, even if the binge drinking has been excessive. A few nights ago I really hurt my HS sweetheart. The details don't matter, but I was wrong, and I did it impart because I was trashed. 

I have not slept since I woke up Saturday morning, and I polished off most of a 1.75 over the last two days. And on the following mornings I woke up vomiting my guts out all day, and yet I still kept hitting the bottle. Happened this morning again, so the third straight morning. And I'm fucking done with this. I've set my life back years due to this, and as I sat there on the floor, shit running down my face, and I made myself a promise, this ends now. I can't go cold turkey, but I made myself a road map to get to 0-2 drinks a day except at parties, and I hope it takes less than two weeks. This is going to be the hardest battle of my life, and I know I will fail at times, but if I don't try I'm never going to live out my dreams, and I had such great expectations just a few years ago. To travel the world, to becoming a lawyer or get to a PhD, to have healthy relationships with women. And to stop letting my family down. So here goes nothing.

I want to sincerely apologize to any and everyone I was a dick to here when I logged on while smashed. This is not going to be fun. It will be easier if I still get this week and next off.

This post becomes funnier with time. Of course life happens that way.

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

This post becomes funnier with time. Of course life happens that way.

What happened? 
 

 

My father (who hasn’t exactly been at our family home since last November and admitted to living somewhere else in March and to living with someone in mid June) lives with a healthcare worker. Now I’m not sure how I feel about this.
On the one hand I’m happy that someone’s there to keep a semi-professional eye on his health (of which he allegedly takes care of although I have a  continuous impression that he doesn’t - this may stem from the time my then best friend’s father died of cancer since which time I’ve been rather obsessive about my parents’ health). On the other hand, for the above mentioned reason, I’m also not sure I like that he’s around someone who may (or may not, I know no details about this person’s place of employment) be exposed to infection during the current pandemic situation.
Yes I realize this is completely selfish as in case the person does work in an institution where she may encounter coronavirus patients, she is one of those healthcare heroes we clapped for in April and I do respect that. I just don’t want my daddy near potential virus exposure. He’s had way too much on his plate this summer already. 

Since that traumatizing event/chain of events/process he and my mum have been interacting like two normal human beings, however, which is quite nice to see. Mum has been asking me and sister about my father whenever we visit her or talk on the phone. If he’s all right and how he’s doing. And since June, he has been asking about mum too, how she is and if she’s okay. The other week I went to see him at his office and he was on the phone with my mother(!) when they showed me in.  And yesterday he told me on the phone to have a nice time in the country and to take care of my mum. That’s weird but nice. To see them actually care about the other in a way. I haven’t seen that since I was 12. 

By the way their secret separation is still terribly awkward as my grandmother doesn’t know and she keeps asking me and my mother about my father and we have lie around the whole business. And I get that my dad wants to protect his mum and spare her the pain/stress/disappointment. But this is hardly a long term solution. In fact the bells will ring in in exactly three months when we should all show up for All Saints Day for a family reunion. But say the quarantine will get us out of that. What about Christmas? Say the quarantine gets us out of that too. What about next Christmas? It also appears that my aunt doesn’t know about it either. (She would have no reason to lie to me about it since I know and if my father had told her - my aunt is his sister - he would also have told her that I know) What a mess. 

And the irony is that in spite of his mess, all anybody wants is for him to be finally okay and the weight of the current shit to be lifted off his shoulder. (Anybody being his immediate family and his friends, because my grandma and my aunt don’t know about that either. The first is only right, my grandma’s heart would give out on the spot, but it’s beyond me how my aunt doesn’t know, she has internet.) Well in five years we will all remember this with nostalgic smiles over an extended family dinner. I hope.

That was all the emotional incontinence for today. For further comedy effect, I’ve got sunburnt, covered in dog salvia and my towel was stolen and chewed while I typed my heart out. 

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6 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

What happened? 

I feel selfish now given what I snipped. Anyways, this scene kind of captures what I meant.
 

The exact day I decide to have the best day of my life, may have also been the worst, as I collapsed, had a seizure, and woke up in the hospital, idk when.

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15 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I feel selfish now given what I snipped. Anyways, this scene kind of captures what I meant.
 

The exact day I decide to have the best day of my life, may have also been the worst, as I collapsed, had a seizure, and woke up in the hospital, idk when.

Yes, yes, you posted about the seizure and the weird meds. :( Are the side effects any better? And how’s your health overall at this point?

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8 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Yes, yes, you posted about the seizure and the weird meds. :( Are the side effects any better? And how’s your health overall at this point?

The answer to the first is things are inconsistent, but to the second overall a lot, yes. A minor victory is my hands don't shake anymore. I can fire a baseball off and hit exactly what I want from a long distance. Some other things still aren't the same as before, but I'm mostly back online. The thing that still scares me is when I go on a long bike ride or hike on my own. I've done it, but still. 

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17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The answer to the first is things are inconsistent, but to the second overall a lot, yes. A minor victory is my hands don't shake anymore. I can fire a baseball off and hit exactly what I want from a long distance. Some other things still aren't the same as before, but I'm mostly back online. The thing that still scares me is when I go on a long bike ride or hike on my own. I've done it, but still. 

That sounds like a good start for a beautiful and full recovery. I’m glad to hear your are doing so much better. Do you let someone know when you leave or give yourself some other kind of safety net? 
As for the victory’s minority, my hands don’t shake and I can’t even throw a ball for the dog without landing it in a shrub. Celebrate those steady baseball skills! 

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  • 4 weeks later...

It’s getting embarrassing that I keep posting my shit here, but what are you gonna do?

The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is taking its toll on my mind just as the first one had. And my sister and I are still very different characters who are stuck living together (for a couple more months anyway, though heck knows what life brings). Her take on the virus is still very much relaxed - she’s young and health, if she gets sick she’ll just recover. She doesn’t really meet our mother and our father has a similarly outgoing and relaxed view on the pandemic, so even though she worries about passing the virus to him, there’s little chance that out of all people he meets, he’d get it from her. I’m on the other hand extremely anxious and accordingly more and more cautious. Even though I absolutely wouldn’t want to experience Covid myself either, I’m most worried about passing it along to our mother who I meet pretty much weekly. I keep racing my over catastrophe scenarios for each and every catastrophe it can think up. While it’s obviously induced and enlarged by the pandemic, I am generally an anxious, hypochondriac worryworm too. No denying that. 

And we just keep clashing and clashing over this topic and it honestly doesn’t help me at all that I keep being bullied about being afraid or willing to keep distance or stopping to go out. And I have no clue how I could possibly make her understand or respect that. I know I nag her about stuff too (although I still stand by the opinion that it is objectively disgusting and unhygienic to hoard a 3x2feet pile of dirty laundry on the guest room floor and it isn’t a personal pathological obsession that I want it gone), but I also do my absolute best to accept and respect her choice to keep going out until authorities straight up prohibit it and close down restaurants, cafes, clubs and shops and the rest. I consciously pay attention to not even indicate that according to my personal view one should be more careful, all I do is wish her a nice time and ask her to be safe. So why do I have to endure being bullied for doing things differently myself? Well, I don’t have to, and I don’t want to, I just have no idea how to make it stop. We keep trying to talk about it agree to respect each other’s wishes but it never lasts longer than a couple hours and there’s so much judgment and resentment... 

I generally don’t have any means or tools to earn an ounce of her respect and beside irritating me, that also kinda hurts. I mean I’m annoyed by a lot of her habits but I also absolutely admire her for all the amazing character traits she also has (and I mostly don’t). While at the same time I kinda feel like I’m an under appreciated 24/7 entertainment/management/support service to her. I know that’s not how she actually sees me, because she feels like I patronize and parent her which puts me in her mind at least above herself in the hierarchy. Maybe this is what she fights in her attitude to me. Maybe it’s just a character difference that is also mirrored in her relationship with our mother and in our mother’s relationship with our father. Maybe we all just fuck up One another according to the exact same patterns and there is actually a way out. 

It’s ironic that the most toxic relationship I ever had is with my own sister. We should all have been in family therapy like 15 years. Anyway, I don’t know how to deal with this. And honestly, between trying to harness my 2020 mental health, struggling with her house renovation, dealing with our family dog drama and trying to stay afloat in my own life, I have zero energy to experiment. 

And meanwhile the second coronavirus wave anxiety is giving me reflux and I just keep losing and losing weight because when there isn’t a coronavirus wave, there are policemen and prosecutors in the house and lawyers on the phone, or I’m listening to my mother screaming and wailing on the phone that one dog murdered the other and racing to her house to handle the dead body of a family pet of 13 years, then finding out in the cab that he’s actually alive and racing to the vet instead, the arranging personal dog training so the new one doesn’t try to kill the old one again and if there’s still time I’m going to freaking job interviews because society expects me to have a job and it’s embarrassing to not have one even if the last thing on my mind is to actually get one, because I’m busy thinking about what the fuck I should lie to my aged grandmother about my father’s whereabouts who just won’t come clean to his own family about separating from his wife of 30 years. So I really really really don’t have any energy left to fight about whose approach to coronavirus safety and laundry storage is more pathological. Good lord in heaven, just let us finally get through this year and in one piece, please... I’m so done with this damn year, I’m so done. 
 

And I’m so sorry for boring you all with my shit, I know this year is difficult for everybody for all different reasons and I’m probably still so much better off than so many people in the world and I should focus on that and appreciate that and try to keep faith and look ahead and all instead of wallowing in everything that’s wrong. 

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After a couple of false starts, I got some therapy organized for the Fall. The last time I was in therapy (a couple of years ago, after the unexpected death of my dad), it was verbal and inquiry-based. That helped me a lot and gave me an intellectual framework to help me keep my shit together on an ongoing basis. Even now, that inquiry-based approached helped me identify a lot of the issues I'm struggling with so I can recognize them and name them. But I've chosen art therapy this time around because even though I can recognize where and how things are becoming a problem, I'm having trouble actually getting out of those spirals. 

Anyway, curious if anyone else has done art therapy or movement-based therapy?

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My mother's mental state continues to deteriorate. I'd call it full on dementia now. She still remembers everyone who has been in her life for a while. New people she remembers she met someone but if they don't come over frequently she has no idea who they are.

She is just constantly worried about everything. All her life she's been someone who had to know everything that was going on and would not stop asking questions until she got everything straight. She's still like that only now we get everything straight, only a few hours later she forgets. I'll take 2 hours answering her questions...who is her physical therapist...what does she do...who is her occupational therapist...what does she do...why is she coming again didn't she already come by this week? (Both the occupational and physical therapists come twice a week, this has been going on for 3 weeks now.)

She needs to know when the nurses and mental health counselors are coming. She needs to know what all appointments are coming up, when they are and who with. I'll spend over 2 hours going over things with her, I'll write it all down, I'll make calendars.

I'll finally get her settled with what's going on and a few hours later it's all gone.

Every time the mail comes it's an ordeal. She forgets all the bills we get and freaks out each time. She remembers we are paying down some pretty big bills but forgets the financial planning I'm doing to make sure things get paid off on schedule and in the end have to pay as little interest as possible. So she freaks out and is in constant fear not knowing what we are going to do.

Every day I'll spend hours talking to her calming her down and her health care people come over some days and do the same. But then I go away for a while for some badly needed alone time, when I find her again it's back to freaking out and being terrified and in tears.

She wants to know what we do if this happens...I'll have an answer for her. Then it's either what do if that doesn't work? Or flat out "that won't work". There are A LOT of issues going on here, repairs to the house that must be made, paper work that must be done, organizing and getting so much stuff in order...slowly I'm getting it all taken care of...I'm going at the speed I need to go without burning out...I think I'm still burning out though...

I'll give her contingency plans or ideas for other avenues to pursue when she is afraid and wonders what will happen if plan X doesn't pan out, I'll say I'm then plan Y which is a little bit more vague but right now we first needs to see how plan X works out. But then she asks for plan Z and I got to tell her to just stop. She stops....for a while....but then later it's back to not remembering anything I told her about plan X or Y and in a cold sweat worrying that there are no solutions to the issues we are having.

I don't mind taking the time to go over everything with her slowly and carefully, making sure all her questions are answered. But then when a couple hours she's asking the same exact questions, like the conversation we just had never even happened...especially if I'm on to doing something else and concentrating on that...I'll get short tempered and start snapping at her and then come the tears and me feeling like a complete ass.

As you can see, we are getting people in to help us, which has been wonderful, all of them are wonderful ad I owe them so much gratitude...and yes, some of the mental health people are for me too...but still it's getting to me bad and I just need to vent. I don't even mind if this is all tl:dr for everyone, it is just helping my mental well being being able to write this all out.

2 years ago my father passed away. Before that my mom and I shared the responsibilities of caring for him. At least with my dad, he was never a worrier. All his life for him it was "I want this." And his parents, his siblings, then my mom, then me would take care of it. I mean when he was younger he absolutely did his share and more of the heavy lifting, he worked very hard, but it was always on his own agendas and he always needed someone to tell him or give him an idea of what to do. On the occasions when I or my mom just couldn't do what he wanted...he'd sulk, maybe be mean and nasty to us for a while, but he never had this deep seated fear to his code like my mom does.

Back when Frank Sinatra was alive but really getting up there in years and his health was declining, Don Rickles would be one of his friends he'd still see often. People would ask Don how Frank was doing and his stock answer was, "Oh, you know, he has Sicilian Alzheimer's...he only remembers grudges."

That was SO my dad!

Anyway , as my dad's health declined, so did my mom's. It got to the point where I had to take over almost 100% of the care taking, mom just couldn't do it. However, she could still do the dishes, once in a while the laundry, and she could take care of fixing food for herself, getting her own drinks, going through the mail, knowing how to operate the TV.

After my dad passed I was terribly sad, but I did feel like the load on my shoulders had lightened. But it was within a year that my mom went downhill so fast. Losing feeling in her legs so she could barely walk and often fell down, not wanting or afraid to do anything for herself...if I'm off on my own she just won't fix anything to eat, not even the simplest of things or even get up to grab a bottle of water (I usually make sure she has a couple bottles of water and a couple bottles of Carnation Breakfast Essentials...which is like Ensure...in easy reach before I settle down or just needing to have some solitude for a while). And her dementia...it just came on so fast...She never had the best memory,  but it's just gotten so bad now and so fast. It was like in no time I was back where I was taking care of my father but even more so!

And watching TV...first of all she can't get into any drama shows anymore, no movies at all, any of the new sitcoms...I think she's so used to shows having laugh tracks, watching a show and not hearing any laughs is automatically boring, no matter what is going on. So it's old game shows, but mostly just Match Game, and particular sitcoms, Taxi, Wings, Cheers, Mom, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Its a Living, Becker, Dear John, The Big Bang Theory...but on just the amount of times I've sat in the living room and seen the same episodes of Two and a Half Men...well that alone can drive a man to eat (cause I don't drink), Oreo...why the fuck did you have to make those new Peanut Butter Choco!are Pie cookies?!! Why?!! Was regular Oreo cookies and Double Stuff being the number 1 cookies in the world just not doing for you?!! Don't even get me started on Pepperidge Farm's thin and crispy cookies!

Of course she always offers me the remote and tells me I can put anything on TV I want...sometimes I do...but I've gotten spoiled, I like watching TV on lap top or tablet where I can peruse Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, You Tube, etc. alone giving whatever I'm watching my full attention.

And my mom is always saying how horrible T V is and there's nothing on...and I'm like, "Mom EVERYTHING is on TV now if you know how to find it. I've got so many shows lined up I want to watch...I don't think I'm going to get to all of them in my lifetime!!!"

And she keeps accusing me of ordering sports packages on TV at extra.cost. I hardly ever watch sports! It's just bundled in with the most practical cable package for her. If it was just me I'd cut the cord completely and just watch streaming content, but mom would be completely lost with that!

We have voice assistance remote, it is the most amazing user friendly thing I've vs ever seen! She can use it mostly with the most bare basic functions, I've written down the channels there's usually something she likes or can at least tolerate. I've written down the show she likes available for streaming that she only needs ask for, about 25% of the time she accomplishes it and I can't believe how proud I am of her.

But I've tried to explain to her what I still think is basic stuff, but she just can't get it. Browsing through Netflix, Hulu, or whatever, how to skip to next episodes, get back to previous screens, stuff that seems so intuitive...but have to talk her through the same steps every single time and tell her what the same buttons do every time, or tell her the same voice commands every single time...and once I leave, she remembers none of it...and then I'm in another room and hear: "Men, men, men, men, manly men men men..."

This so PERFECTLY describes how explaining the TV to her is like. I mean on the nose perfct!

Daniel Stern = My mom

Billy Crystal = Me in the beginning

Bruno Kirby = Me later

 

 

I'm sorry for writing this long maniacal rambling rant in this thread...but it sure feels good to get this all out!

 

tl:dr:   Me = :bang:

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Okay I’m done. I googled therapist and seeing prices and decided that I’ll try to give myself one last chance to pull myself together on my own. You know, what would be the first things any consultant would suggest I do? 

Exercise - at least semi-regularly. 
Get better sleep - I have a ton of herbal stuff for that so I just need to drink/take them. 
Get a project/task/goal anything that gives me joy - I can attempt to get back into writing or I can finish/restart my side-table  Spray painting project or I can return to scrapbooking or just make artworks from rubbish I’ve been collecting over the quarantine (mostly takeout packaging) - this might help with perfectionism too as the output is elementary school level at best but the process of crafting had always had a positive effect on me. 
Get out - I will have a job interview in an hour and a half, but I’ll go for a walk after that and I’ll continue to go for a walk every day even if it’s a small one, and I will try to stay conscious of not connecting these walks to any errands I have, I just want to walk for the sake of walking. 
Socialize - this is the trickiest because of Covid (and my having pushed away a lot of people with my Covid anxiety and general bad mood lately) but I might try to reinstate the quarantine Skype calls we had with friends 
Eat better - I can certainly reduce my sugar intake (although it comes with a tremendous amount of guilt as my dad dropped a 40 pieces pack of macaroons on us the other day and I don’t want to hurt his feelings and waste the money by not eating it but I suppose this kinda of attitude is part of my issues so I’ll just not eat the macaroons because I consider that to be better for my selfish self), and increase my fiber intake and try to get myself back to 108 pounds first and then 110 and try to keep that. 
Get off news apps - this is admittedly the worst for me, potentially worse than all the other things combined. So no news. I don’t care about how and at what speed the world is heading toward apocalypse.

And if I do these I should be intact enough to handle the virus, cohabiting with my sister and horrible public moral in the world. And if I’m not, I can still pay for professional consulting. But first I should do all the things I can, shouldn’t I? Because that’s personal responsibility and shit. 

Exhale. Okay okay it’s alllllllll going to be okay. 
 

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