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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (September 2023)
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
I find that creating long-term fulfillment for ourselves is less a matter of willpower and more about design. If you structure your life in a way that makes it easy to be healthy, you don't have to will yourself to be healthy. In other words, you want to make specific, actionable plans for your life that you can mindlessly follow whenever you lose focus. You want to create templates for good habits.
I think of my mind as the emergent combination of three competing forces. My human-brain may have all sorts of lofty goals for my life, but my monkey-brain mostly just wants to eat, sleep, and procreate while using as little energy as possible, physical or mental. (My lizard-brain is concerned only with the most base, adrenaline-fueled aspects of survival, and is probably not aware of my other brains.)
Simply put: these forces are "analytical," "conservative," and "reactive," respectively. My goal is to make my resource conservation-focused monkey-brain think it's in its best interest to do things that happen to align with my analytical human-brain. In other words, make "being lazy" effectively equivalent to "being healthy." Win-win! Some amount of willpower is always required to do hard things, but you can minimize how much if you plan well. (We don't mess with the reactive lizard-brain. It does its own thing, which is irrelevant to this strategy.)
When you happen to find your analytical brain in control, consider what systems you have in place in your life. You must first think small: what are your routines? Write them out on a piece of paper and be very specific. How does each day go? What exactly do you do, typically? With that all written out, what do you not currently do that your analytical brain wants to do? For instance, you mentioned that you want to lose weight. (Great, but too vague.) Ok, so you want to maintain a caloric deficit. (Still vague.) Well, then you want to eat fewer carbs. (Better; still vague.) Hmm... don't eat any carbs for breakfast on weekdays. (Very specific!)
That's our specific goal. How do we make it actionable?
Take a step back. Evaluate why your routines look the way they do. Why is it that you eat carbs for breakfast on weekdays? Well, it's only physically possible to eat food that is accessible to you. Presumably, carbs must currently be accessible to you. Action: by making carbs inaccessible to yourself (for all intents and purposes) on weekdays at breakfast, you can achieve this extremely specific goal. Now to implement your action: the next time you are at the grocery store, and your analytical brain is running, buy something other than breakfast cereal and pancake mix. Maybe... Greek yogurt! Just make sure it's something that's at least as easy to prepare as cereal/pancakes. The next morning, when your exhausted monkey-brain is in charge, you'll notice there's no cereal, but there is yogurt. Are you going to bother getting into your shoes, going to the store, and buying cereal? Of course not, it's 7 am. So you'll eat the yogurt. And there you go: no carbs for breakfast on this weekday. The key there is not that you're making a difficult choice at your lowest point (when you're tired in the morning), but a relatively mundane choice when you're more alert and analytical (while grocery shopping). Critically, you are only making one mundane choice (while shopping) instead of 10+ hard choices (at breakfast, every day until you run out of food). Eventually, even the choice at the grocery store becomes habitual and requires minimal effort. By allocating your energy in this way, you can set yourself up for success.
I encourage you to incorporate the phrases "why do I have the belief/habit that..." and "how has society shaped my belief/habit that..." (shamelessly stolen from Vicki Robin). Why do you not exercise? Why is your commute to work sedentary (via car) and not active? Why do you live in a place that requires you to commute in a car, specifically? Why do you work a job that requires you to commute in a car, specifically? Why do you believe your home, in your neighborhood, is where you need to live to be happy? Why do you believe your job, in your industry, is what you need to do to pay for your lifestyle? Is this really your belief? Is this a societal expectation? How has society informed your belief about what a "nice" home or a "nice" neighborhood is? How has society shaped your routine to use a car (specifically) to get to work in your office at your job in your industry to pay for your home in your neighborhood? And so on. You can see how this gets broad quickly because at this point you're evaluating structural aspects of your life, not quotidian habits. You eventually need to narrow down your questions to specific, actionable goals. If you decide you want to cycle to work instead of drive, you have a goal for a routine: what do you have to change, structurally speaking, about your life to make that a reality? Move homes? Change jobs? Buy a bike? (Sell the car? Buy a bike that can carry the kid? Buy a bike that can carry groceries?) Learn how to ride a bike? Identify a safe cycling route? Identify the most pleasant cycling route? Get your wife's approval? If you analytically choose to live in a place where it's easier to walk or cycle to work then drive, and you make it easy to physically get on the bike, then your monkey-brain won't make you drive! Simple. These are decisions you have to make, which is a more involved process, but you can certainly answer these questions hypothetically in order to draft up potential plans. You can decide whether to execute them later. Once you have one or more specific, actionable plans to achieve a specific goal, the rest is relatively straightforward.
As stated, improving your life requires effort. But only careful, targeted bursts of effort whenever your analytical brain happens to be the one you're listening to the most. If you can utilize those brief opportunities for careful thinking, you can align the rest of your day with your long-term analytical goals without putting in much effort at all. For me, it is unhelpful to try to be "on" or "perfect" all the time. I doubt most or any of us can do this. This strategy is what gets me through every day in reasonably good health. Perhaps it can be helpful to you too.
on reddit, r/stopdrinking is a very supportive community. If you seriously want to quit for yourself and for your child, please consult a doctor. Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous.
I’m realizing me and my friend (and roommate) don’t really have anything in common. He doesn’t have any hobbies, purposely doesn’t keep up with current events unless they’re on instagram, and doesn’t watch tv/movies. We often don’t have anything to talk about anymore, after 6 months of living together. He is/was closest friend here so I’m feeling a little bummed by it. I’m going to keep trying to find some commonality. For me, that’s important in a friendship.
So what does he do?
all he talks about is dating and memes on instagram and tiktok. i can’t keep up with all the people he’s dating (he’s polyamorous) and i don’t have social media.
I realize suddenly that a friend I drifted apart from last year would probably say this about me.
From my perspective, we had shared interests, then she suddenly gained a bunch of new hobbies in which I had zero interest, and flailed frantically for a bit trying to get me into them. It was a close relationship for a long time, but I didn't try very hard to save it. People drift apart sometimes, and that's okay.
I'd say try to reach out to him and talk about it. What brought you both together as friends in the first place?
we talked about it two weeks ago and there wasn’t much dialogue. we initially became friends because we both were looking for new friends and we just getting to know each other. i’m new to the city and he’s just out of a marriage. i’m sure we’ll work it out, just having feelings about it today.
I realized 2 weeks ago that my SNRI is not an option. By the time I stopped it I was only eating every other day and wasn't sure if I would ever leave the house again.
This week I'm feeling much better. I'm eating a bit more. My rescue anxiety meds work again. Slowly digging myself out of the depression hole. I'm mad at myself for letting it get so bad before I realized what was happening, but proud of myself for surviving it again. I really didn't think I would. I'll be ok.
Fuck yes. Good work. As hard and at times seeming impossible that it is, we must advocate for ourselves. Especially in our own head.
I finally got diagnosed for ADHD in my 40s, I had long suspected, but due to anxiety of getting a referral and making phone calls to book an appointment, I let intrusive thoughts saying that I just wanted an excuse and I truly was just lazy get the better of me. ADHD was still not well understood when I was a kid so my teachers and parents had repeated the standard lines of "great potential if he wasn't so lazy/careless and paid more attention" or "why can't you just focus on X when you can focus all day on your Y" all my childhood and I let myself believe it.
My wife had heard of a group that lets you do a self assessment then book a professional assessment online and they just call you instead of having to make calls and go to appointments in person. It was like a godsend to bypass that initial barrier. When I finally talked to a professional for over an hour about my history it was so silly how much a slam dunk diagnosis it was. In the end I presented with something like 8/9 indicators for inattentive and 5/9 for hyperactive.
What came next I wasn't prepared for relief that I was finally seen, but also a lot of regret and grief for how much of my life was wasted trying to overcome this issue without any help and trying to hide it, especially in professional settings. Wondering what I could have done if I had just been able to focus on my goals. Though it's tempered with the knowledge that I might not know my wife and child had I gotten help in my than my 20s.
It's been about a month since I started medicating and at first I didn't think it was really helping until I went off my meds for a weekend because I was just lazing about the house, and wow, I was unable to do a single thing without getting sidetracked, with the exception of one task that I really shouldn't have been doing in the first place, some admin stuff for my job which I hyper focused on until my wife came to see if I was going to rejoin the family at any point.
The other effect of my meds I had not expected was that my anxiety around large public gatherings all but disappeared. We were attending a wake for a school friend of my wife's and on the taxi there I have realized I was as calm as being at home watching tv. That was a very first for me, I cannot remember the last time I didn't dread going to a formal occasion with a bunch of people I didn't know. I suppose being unfocused allowed for the intrusive thoughts to seep in and just jump from one ot the next without ever deciding on whether they were worth worrying about or block them out completely.
When I last checked they confirmed, based on my check-in assessment, that my anxiety and depression levels had basically dropped off to nothing. And taking a little more stock I've been able to accomplish my work tasks without nearly as much social media distractions or needing aids like music/background television. I honestly feel pretty great.
I’m in my mid 40’s and I keep seeing ADHD memes and discussions that I really relate to. I’m currently in that same stage of putting off diagnosis because it’s either too many hoops to jump through or I tell myself that I’m just subconsciously latching onto an internet trend. But I know that’s it’s really because, like the autism spectrum, a lot more is known about it today than when I was a kid so people share their experiences more freely.
Is that self assessment thing something local to you? Because that sounds like a path I might need to pursue.
It's for a group available in every province west of Quebec in Canada. But the self assessment works without an account if you want to see what it recommends and seek someone out locally. talkwithfrida.com
I see, thank you!
I've got a pinched nerve down my back and it has been weeks. The pain is insane. I can only stand or lie down. Sitting hurts. But I can't lie down for too long either because that hurts too.
Standing is the most comfortable, but of course I get tired standing all day. So I alternate between standing and lying down.
I went to the pool to walk in the water and made the mistake of going too deep and making the pain way worse from the pressure of the water.
I tried again and stayed at the shallower end and made sure the water was at chest height. I don't know if it helped.
I have a heat pack that I use very often whenever I need a break and lie down.
My vision is also kind of blurry.
Doctors have given me pain killers and all that but ihe pain is still pretty bad.
Those of you who have handled this before, how did you manage it and how long did it take for it to heal enough so that it's not insane pain.
I've had sciatica that I've been beating back for over a year now, so a little similar. Sometimes it's so bad, it's like you describe. My condition can possibly benefit and be "fixed" with exercise (my spine segments are close together, so they pinch my nerve iirc), so I'd be building a base of muscle to support it better. There are certain positions my physiotherapist said are neutral or relaxing as well? I personally only stand all day these days, so I use a fatigue mat or towel, as well as fifteen minute breaks for movement. (Physiotherapist recommended me to) Although I'm not certain how similar our conditions are, I just noticed you didn't get a reply since the last time I saw this thread.
Alternative but tried and true ideas include leaving granola bars on the floor for if or when you're immobilized; Have you tried floating, specifically?; And, when all else fails, do what feels good and don't do what hurts you, if you can.
On an emotional level, back pain is a real drag. Emotionally, it wears me down. When I'm sitting, I try to enjoy why I'm sitting and be mindful, but it can be a detractor, where I don't even realize what's going on around me. Hopefully you can give yourself that space to zone out and get through it however you can.
Thank you for the reply! When I posted that, I was really quite distraught and bothered by the pain.
But I've come to accept that it's going to be part of my life for some time now. So I don't know. I'm still sad but I'm not panicked at the lack of sensation at some parts.
But yes. It really does hurt a lot. I went to physiotherapy and it hurt a lot more right after? I have no idea if that's normal. But it subsided afterwards.
I too just stand around these days. I alternate between lying down and standing. Travelling is a huge literal pain though. Sitting in a bumpy car is the worst. The bus is similarly terrible. The train is by far the least painful option.
Thank you for the reply. I'm trying to not be warn down emotionally too. And this reply has helped.
Doing alright with a mix of good and bad to be quite honest. A short-ish rant incoming.
Main good highlight is I've been meeting up with my old high school friends every few days as we've all moved back in with our parents after college and all work remotely. We don't have the deepest friendship but its fun to just hang out, talk shit about each other to each others' faces and just chill. Brings back good memories from high school and none of us have really changed much since then.
The main bad for me is that I feel like I've kinda gone backward in life. After graduating college, I moved back in with my parents. Since I work remotely and rent costs are rising, it made a lot of sense to just move in with my parents. While the savings has been nice, it's taken a toll on my mental health. In my final year of college, I had a 1 bedroom apartment and I really came to love living by myself and being in complete control of my life and having that freedom. However, I gave up all that freedom when moving back in with my parents and I absolutely hate it. I just feel like I'm in high school again with my parents constantly nagging me to do things and being pushed learn more and do better. My dad in particular has become extremely annoying recently as he is constantly nagging me to learn everything computer related. AI, Blockchain, Web 3, LLMs, data science, etc. You name it, he's told me that I NEED to learn it otherwise I will struggle in the near future. I'm still rather burnt out from school and feel happy with where I am but my dad just doesn't seem to understand that. I get that he means well and wants the best for me but man, I just want to move out. I tried bringing up the idea of moving out with my parents before and they got rather depressed at the idea so I've been kinda avoiding the topic. I do hope to rip off the bandaid for this topic soon as I want to move out at the beginning of next year. The financial hit is worth it if my mental health improves.
Your main bad resonated with me a lot, because I've gone through something similar. I moved back home almost exactly a year ago, and the months before I was dreading it, because I felt like I was moving backwards. After all, I had a good life in a new state and had so much independence. I figured moving back to my hometown would make me feel like I was regressing even in my own mental health.
Honestly though, this last year has been one of the best years of my life. If you go back through my old posts you can see my post about travelling solo, and I feel like that has helped me a lot. If it's within your means, I highly suggest it first, especially since you're financially a bit better. Even if not, I suggest just going somewhere and doing something new, to break up the monotony of remote working and living in your hometown. If you have any more questions please let me know! I just finished a long gaming session so I don't even know if this is coherent lol but i'm always glad to answer more questions when I'm more lucid!
I've actually been doing some solo travel and do have some trips planned for the near future so I appreciate the recommendation! I agree that it's been great for my mental health. Besides the transportation required for my trips and some basic things I absolutely need to see, I've just winged my trips and it's so freeing not being on a rigid schedule when traveling.
I'll definitely be trying to break up the monotony of the day-to-day by working elsewhere soon. I've been wanting to work at one of the local coffee shops for a bit so I might try doing that on Tuesday. I've actually also got a team event coming up soon that'll require me to be in the office all week so I was able to get an Airbnb expensed out for it since the office is like 40 miles from my house. I'll be using that to see what it'd be like living alone near the area I was hoping to move out to anyways.
You might want to consider moving out of your folks place and in with a roommate or two. It comes with it's own challenges but can be mitigated if you and your roommate(s) figure out the boundaries and expectations up front before moving in. You don't save nearly as much money but as long as you do your due diligence with whom you co-habitat with you will have a lot more freedom and, potentially, fun.
Oh yeah getting a roommate is something I've considered too. It makes a ton of sense financially since the rent cost per person is more reasonable. My experience with roommates in college was great and I'm still great friends with them. I do have some friends who I could room with and do trust so I have discussed getting a small house with them. I'm just a picky and selfish bastard sometimes and kinda just want to experience living alone a bit more. I just need to be patient for the next few months and see how things evolve and change.
I started listening to the "trapped in treatment" podcast that another user mentioned on another thread. It's really good, but I can't stop crying. I'm only two episodes in, and I'm listening to it with my spouse so that helps, but fuck me does it hit hard. One person mentioned on it that their parents now understand it was a mistake to send them there and that its their parents biggest regret, and it just broke me. I wish my parents felt that way. My spouse suggested that I send my mom the podcast when we finally get through it, but I don't know if that would do anything but hurt my mom, and I feel like there's been enough pain in my family that maybe I shouldn't be beating a dead horse in the hopes of some kind of catharsis that almost most definitely won't happen.
I'm in physical pain! It's been three months now! I don't know when things will end but I'm trying to handle it.
My pain gets worse when I get panicked or depressed and I've called my psychiatrist about it. But I'm on the public system where they said they'll get back to me and they have not.
I'm better mentally now but I'm still in pain. It kind of sucks but I'm handling it much better.
If you asked me "how are you?", I would say fine, good, okay, or some variation of the sort. That would not be fully true. I don't like to share it, but I am under quite a lot of stress, and such. There is my classes. I am now going only on MWF now, but I think that is doing more harm than good. I have to do this or that, do the reading for one class, or do the lab for another. Its just a lot. When I am not going to campus for classes, I am home. That brings along its own kind of stress. For several reasons, one is I don't know how to shut myself off. I feel like I always must be doing something. That is even when I know I can just take a break. Another reason is because my family is a mess. To put it simply my mother is a narcissist. My step-dad is good, but he can act the role of a flying monkey at times. So when I am I at home, I am stressed because of that. Its been ingrained into me for a long time that I must always be available, a door must always be open. It makes it troublesome for me to close my door, so I can focus on homework or reading. I have other family troubles too. My uncle is in the hospital, my aunt is staying with my grandparents, which live right beside me. My aunt has this kind hard to describe kind of personality, bitty maybe?, that makes it hard to be around for long periods of time. I go up there to drink my coffee in the mornings, its a non-stop stream of westerns, john wayne, and other tv shows that were made before any of them were born. All of that at a very loud volume. While that doesn't stress me, it sure does irritate me. There is more from the other side of the family too. My half brother wants me to go to the fair with him tomorrow, not bad but that's just the leader. On Monday, or Sunday, my biological father (note: father not dad) is coming to town for a week. Being around him is stressful, and thinking about him coming is stressful. You can never predict what he is going to do. He smokes (tobacco and weed) like a freight train. It reeks, and it gets on you, I have to take a shower every time after I am around him. So, I got to juggle being around him and homework next week. Just the thought of that is stressful. As you can tell there are very obviously issues there, and I can go on, like not even exist then show up in your son's life after 19 years, but I won't. Things are tough, things are stressful, and I haven't even wrote about it all. Like there is the admin stuff I do for a local facebook buy/sell group. I have to keep it clean and ban lots of fake people. Very easy to do, but times 100, it gets repetitive. There is also the moderation I do for the navigator's, not bad, but I do feel like I am never doing enough. With how few mods there are on the team, I can't think about taking a break or not doing it. I feel like I am always running late with my posts and such. It's a lot, but typing it out here does help some. There is also stuff like I know I am having trouble with stress and such, but I don't do anything about it. When I do something about it, it doesn't work imminently so I don't continue with it. Anyway, I'll just stop here or I'll never get this posted.
Writing/journaling a lot more due to having bought some devices that entice me to punch keys and write my thoughts out, keeping my gray matter somewhat clear and less intrusive in my daily life. A lot of introspection happening, which I guess is a good thing.
Haven't been on Tildes in a while, but i decided to go here because i have no one else to talk to. The only people i know and mainly interact with are my abusive family, i don't have a phone so i can't call a hotline and webchatting with a hotline wont work because i use Tor (if you have any suggestions i would greatly appreciate it).
OCD is really bad lately and am in a really bad depressive episode. I don't have any hope it will get better. Its like the universe keeps fucking with me. I keep building something up just to watch it collapse. If I had a way i think i would give little consideration before ending my life. I don't think im going to leave a note (maybe an online anonymous note), i don't know what i would say.
Despite cptsd, ocd, bipolar (probably?) and gender dysphoria being alone + abuse is one of the worst parts. Im just trapped with no escape. Everyday i have maladaptive day dreams about being with a romantic partner and not being in contact with my family. But i remember that it wont come true. I don't really connect with anyone my age, it feels like i just have to pretend to be someone else to fit in. And ocd makes me really paranoid around unknown people. I really don't want to die. It feels like there's still a will to live but it keeps on getting smaller. Cannabis was the only thing that helped but i dont have access to any.
I think this might be the end for me