Mental Wellbeing 2

[RhaenysBee]

27 minutes ago, Toth said:

Ah crap. Another holiday over in the blink of an eye, another birthday on the horizon, but nothing has changed. Same isolated me, wallowing in self-hatred as I only get older and keep failing to get anything done with my life. Meanwhile the world is plummeting to insanity, making the end of civilization as we know it the most likely outcome, so why am I even bothering complaining about my own worthlessness?

You are not worthless. For all you know, you maybe one of the chosen few who end up in a Moon colony to have a do-over for humanity. Don’t waste what little time we have in life as we know it on self-hatred. Try a new hobby! Survival skills course? 
I’m joking. Give yourself a break, take a deep breath and do something nice for yourself on that birthday!

[A True Kaniggit]

3 hours ago, Toth said:

Ah crap. Another holiday over in the blink of an eye, another birthday on the horizon, but nothing has changed. Same isolated me, wallowing in self-hatred as I only get older and keep failing to get anything done with my life. Meanwhile the world is plummeting to insanity, making the end of civilization as we know it the most likely outcome, so why am I even bothering complaining about my own worthlessness?

I agree with @RhaenysBee.

Do something you enjoy on your birthday.

[Toth]

3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

You are not worthless. For all you know, you maybe one of the chosen few who end up in a Moon colony to have a do-over for humanity. Don’t waste what little time we have in life as we know it on self-hatred. Try a new hobby! Survival skills course? 

I don't think they take scrawny, asthmatics with glasses to space.

And heh... no time for new hobbies I fear... I have to put all the energy I have left after the self-hatred into my job as it is.

4 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Do something you enjoy on your birthday.

Well, that's one thing: I would enjoy my birthday very much if my mother wouldn't insist that it is my birthday and that I should be happy. I am decidedly not, it's just a stupid day like any other, except that it is used as a reminder for how many years I have wasted without any growth, not to mention the issues I have with how often it is used against me by children trying to make fun of me at my birthday or by pretending it is my birthday on random other days and bursting into song to get a reaction out of me. It is a day I only connect with getting publicly humiliated at and haven't celebrated it anymore since I was seven. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

[A True Kaniggit]

4 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well, that's one thing: I would enjoy my birthday very much if my mother wouldn't insist that it is my birthday and that I should be happy. I am decidedly not, it's just a stupid day like any other, except that it is used as a reminder for how many years I have wasted without any growth, not to mention the issues I have with how often it is used against me by children trying to make fun of me at my birthday or by pretending it is my birthday on random other days and bursting into song to get a reaction out of me. It is a day I only connect with getting publicly humiliated at and haven't celebrated it anymore since I was seven. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

Blah.

Without any growth? I doubt it. You now know more than you knew last year.  You can not tell me otherwise.  

[Toth]

15 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Without any growth? I doubt it. You now know more than you knew last year.  You can not tell me otherwise.  

Well, I can't deny that I made some new experiences, but that doesn't mean they were positive or I learned anything.

In order: I tried out and gave up upon the online dating nonsense, coming to the conclusion that someone like me is absolutely incapable of triggering any attention whatsoever, much less romantic feelings, my lessons got shittier with a smaller amount of effort that I can put into them because of my moping, I feel even more isolated and unable to create even the most superficial relationships with my coworkers while watching some asshole showing me how he gets instantly all the attention, I lost an online acquaintance who ghosted me because she got bored of me, I got out of shape because I had no time for even the tiniest attempt at training and I lost my temper at antagonizing students just a couple of weeks ago.

So all in all a really shitty year while I'm still stuck with my mother 11 years after her divorce, with her still insisting I have to take care of her until she dies, making any real life connections very troublesome anyway as I have to hide my home situation at all costs in order to not to get judged. Also changes nothing about my experiences with birthdays being only something that make you vulnerable to attacks.

[A True Kaniggit]

6 hours ago, Toth said:

Well, I can't deny that I made some new experiences, but that doesn't mean they were positive or I learned anything.

In order: I tried out and gave up upon the online dating nonsense, coming to the conclusion that someone like me is absolutely incapable of triggering any attention whatsoever, much less romantic feelings, my lessons got shittier with a smaller amount of effort that I can put into them because of my moping, I feel even more isolated and unable to create even the most superficial relationships with my coworkers while watching some asshole showing me how he gets instantly all the attention, I lost an online acquaintance who ghosted me because she got bored of me, I got out of shape because I had no time for even the tiniest attempt at training and I lost my temper at antagonizing students just a couple of weeks ago.

So all in all a really shitty year while I'm still stuck with my mother 11 years after her divorce, with her still insisting I have to take care of her until she dies, making any real life connections very troublesome anyway as I have to hide my home situation at all costs in order to not to get judged. Also changes nothing about my experiences with birthdays being only something that make you vulnerable to attacks.

Hmmmmm. This hamster from Bojack Horseman has some pretty good advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FOtyg7lnrE

At some point you have to take responsibility for your own happiness. And you should never feel bad about it.

Edited April 25, 2022 by A True Kaniggit

[RhaenysBee]

On 4/24/2022 at 8:03 PM, Toth said:

Well, I can't deny that I made some new experiences, but that doesn't mean they were positive or I learned anything.

We learn from every experience. That’s how we are wired. You are no exception. You may not have learned anything life changing or anything noticeable or anything you hoped or wanted to learn, but I’m certain you did learn something. 

[KingintheNorth4]

The SSA realized their mistake, so beginning this month they're restarting my disability. I can once again start doing more adult responsibilities.

[RhaenysBee]

I will once again attest to the fact that stepping out of your comfort zone does wonders for your mental health. Apparently air travel and a weekend abroad become something quite out of my comfort zone over the past two years. But I went, and it was marvelous, even the annoying/frustrating/not-how-I-planned-or-envisioned moments were marvelous. I was so zen. I stepped into the market hall and thought, crowd, stuffy air, narrow space, oh my. But then that thought turned into, well I didn’t come here to get anxious about this amazing market and the kind and polite people having fun, so let’s just rise above that and have fun because I can’t control this and the best I can do is just lean into it in good faith. And I did. And no tragedy happened at home, the flights went as smoothly as physically possible, nobody got covid or other illness, nobody lost anything, everything that happened was either great or completely safe and regular and it was amazing. I am still so zen. So much calmer about the grand tragedies of the world and the small annoyances of life and other people’s quirks. And I try to keep that thought with me, about control and rising above and letting go and apply it to everything. And it feels very different to hope for good and average, than to prepare for bad and worst. It’s so much easier and lighter. Well fingers crossed for keeping this positive mindset up. 

[RhaenysBee]

Well thank God for my shit mental health, how else would this thread survive? 

Man, do we all remember 2020? That joke of a kiddy pool? What it was like compared to the fucking piranha infested cesspool that 2022 is? 

[Clueless Northman]

I suppose Alzheimer could be put under "mental health" category. At least it's what fits most of the last month's topics around. So I'm just gonna drop this here:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/22/2111914/-Two-decades-of-Alzheimer-s-research-may-be-based-on-deliberate-fraud-that-has-cost-millions-of-lives

Basically, the last 15 years of research have been totally wasted on a red herring because they were based on a supposedly very promising and grounbreaking, yet totally fake and hoax study, including photoshopped evidence. I'm feeling quite sick and massively pissed off, considering the entire medical research on Alzheimer is basically back to square one with the only inch of new knowledge being that the clues they've been following since 2006 were totally wrong.

[dog-days]

The thin silver lining being that at least after this, Alzheimer's research will hopefully now move in different, more effective directions. Sodding awful though. Shocking that it's taken so long for this to come to light. I was going to say "at least the MMR-autism study fraud was debunked quickly" but then checked, and found it actually took twelve years. 

The original science.org article by Charles Piller

Edited July 23, 2022 by dog-days

[Zorral]

That's ... just, evil.

[Kalbear]

Reminds me a lot about the standard treatment for low thyroid, which has the effect of increasing t4 levels in the blood but for a whole lot of people doesn't actually help symptoms at all.

[HoodedCrow]

I won’t mention the cholesterol fake outs then. The aggressive marketing of highly addictive black box drugs like Effexor and so much more. Homework is required:)

[dog-days]

Police arrived at 1am to take away my next door neighbour in the shared house I live in. I woke up when the male policeman said he'd kick the door down if she didn't open it, with a loud enough voice to get through my noise cancelling headphones. She'd apparently been threatening to hurt someone else and/or herself.

No problem there - it's just frustrating that when this happens they always bring her back after a day or two instead of leaving her somewhere a long long way away from me.

My upstairs neighbours have been having enthusiastic (celebratory?) sex on-and-off since then. More power to them. 

Couldn't get back to sleep probably because of raised stress hormones or something, and have given up on it. Feeling fine now, but work later today isn't going to be fun.

Saving for a deposit is a grand idea, but I often wish I could borrow the TARDIS and jump eight months into the future.

ETA: Bugger it, she's back. The one person in the world who isn't a politician that I could wish extradited to North Korea. This post probably sounds deeply heartless to people who haven't lived cheek-by-jowl to her for eight months. I just know that I wasn't on beta blockers when I came here, but I am now. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by dog-days

[Teng Ai Hui]

UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett had some comments recently about mental health that I personally found very moving.

Quote

"There's a stigma in this world that men can't talk. Listen, if you're a man and you've got a weight on your shoulders and you think the only way you can solve it is by killing yourself - please speak to someone. Speak to anyone," he said.

"People would rather, I know I'd rather, have their mate cry on their shoulder than go to their funeral. So please, let's get rid of this stigma and men start talking."

 

[Toth]

Mhmh... mmh... mhmh... Somehow I have been all of a sudden hit with a triple whopper of post-writing depression.

So it's summer break and I'm even more starved of social interactions as usual. Already almost two weeks ago I went to a convention for the first time in my life in the hope of connecting with like-minded people, even went in cosplay hoping to use it as a bit of an ice-breaker (though hiding the costume from my mother had been quite nerve wrecking). Of course with me being me, I pretty much rushed through everything and then just camped at the event stage enjoying the shows, obviously barely having two conversations and not using the occasion for any connecting.

After that... well, I overwhelmed myself with doing all the stuff I intended to do at the same time again. Learning Japanese, continuing writing, finishing some of the videogames I started, getting back in shape with far more training... Actually all of these things relatively successfully so far, so I can't really complain, even with the up and downs with the current heat waves. It is very frustrating however that even what few internet contacts I have are extremely monosyllabic at the moment, so I haven't had a proper conversation in weeks and am just silently doing these things.

Anyway, I recently finished a chapter of my current story and while anxiously waiting for feedback because I'm that much of a whore (and obviously not getting any so far -.-), I... I... well, to be honest it's a bit embarrassing writing it out, but out of boredom I spontaneously had the stupid idea to look up what in the current Anime season the show is with the most problematic premise, simply for the bile fascination to look at that train wreck... and... well, a train wreck it certainly is, but the overthinking writing gremlin in me latched hard onto it going "damn, it should be possible to fix this highly disturbing wish-fullfilment into a story worth telling if it would just embrace its fucked-up-ness and explore the repercussions of it instead of brushing them off with flimsy self-serving excuses" and ended up writing an essay about what the promising aspects are and how to put them to the front... even so much as thinking up three possible fix fic approaches, though the last of them being a blatant self-insert in which an outsider character could just tell the main character that he is being pathetic.

... and after that it hit me. A large part of the reason I got so worked up is that what little is known of the main character is that he's a bullied loner with severe trust issues who avoids approaching any other people out of fear of getting betrayed. So... yeah, fuck, it seems I felt personally attacked when this kid then acts morally reprehensibly out of his starvation for love when in a setting that allows him to do so and now I really wanted to see him realize that he's still lacking intimacy, not to mention point out all the freaking rape going on in the story. But while going through that conversion in my head, the main character did shoot back at me that I'm just as pathetic as he is and that my moral grandstanding doesn't change any of that. Point taken, still a rapist, but point taken.

Argh... so what's the conclusion of this really weird brain vomit? I guess that I'm still hurting very much about my ongoing isolation and continue to be clueless about how to get real life friends. Having spent the last three weeks at home isn't helping in that regard and given that I'm screaming this here out into the void, it seems I also have severe trouble processing any of that because of my lack of vents. And all this together caused me today to pretty much shut down and not do anything at all as I was crippled by my awareness of that extreme isolation. Life sucks.

[RhaenysBee]

I’m sorry but I need to get this out of my system. 

Who, who in the living hell that this reality is, brings their girlfriend’s son to their daughter’s flat for AC replacement and doesn’t tell their daughter that the AC replacing gent is their girlfriend’s son? It’s not like said daughter is 12 or an idiot, because the moment you give roundabout answers about the AC replacement person you know, she is 98% aware that the AC replacement person is one, and 80% the older son of your girlfriend. How are you so cowardly and disrespectful that you willingly put your daughter into a position in her own home where everybody knows with certainty who the other players are, except for her? How is that an acceptable behavior for your on any level? How would you feel if someone consciously put you into this situation out of their own awkwardness and discomfort? What are you fucking afraid of? That your nearly 30 year old daughter will stick her tongue out and speak rudely to 30something year old man who is willing for replace her AC at a lower price and faster pace that anybody on the market would? That is your concern? That a grownass woman will say something out of line to another adult who is doing her a favor because he happens to be her father’s girlfriend’s relation? What does it say about you that you would think this of me? 

and of course the day after it’s my job to corner you with questions until you confess what we both know. Or do we? Which is worse, if you think me so stupid that I can’t tell, or if you know I know but still don’t say a thing? 

What annoys me more is that I was cranky and frustrated because I was thinking about how this guy is 99% his girlfriend’s son instead of presenting my best social skills (which are below average even on their best day). So I can’t even say I’m satisfied with how I was in this situation. Which perhaps pisses me off more than coercing this answer out of him and losing the 1% chance that this wasn’t what it was. Why do I have to deal with shit like this? 

 

[Zorral]

On 7/26/2022 at 4:19 PM, Toth said:

I guess that I'm still hurting very much about my ongoing isolation and continue to be clueless about how to get real life friends. Having spent the last three weeks at home isn't helping in that regard and given that I'm screaming this here out into the void, it seems I also have severe trouble processing any of that because of my lack of vents. And all this together caused me today to pretty much shut down and not do anything at all as I was crippled by my awareness of that extreme isolation. Life sucks.

I'm so sad for you.  I wish I had advice, but knowing nothing of where you live and so on, I don't.  Other, than, often it seems, animals help.  Even working in a stable, learning how to care for horses, is good for that sense of isolation -- but one has to like horses, presumably, to make this work?

This shouldn't be THE REASON to find work or activity at a stable, but stables tend to have a lot of women coming in and out, riding, working, boarding, etc.

If the only reason one goes to stables to meet women, that won't work out at all.  For one thing, the horses always, always -- or should -- come first, in everybody's minds. 

Horses, particularly those who have been raised and trained and treated right, are damned interesting all by themselves

Edited July 28, 2022 by Zorral