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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (November 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.
Have definitely been feeling the SAD set in. I can tell when I hear songs like I Really Want to Stay at Your House by Rosa Walton & Hallie Coggins and start crying. The song is linked to when I was basically at the deepest part of my depression over losing my dad, middle of winter, my wife and kid were out of town for the weekend and I binge watched a bunch of bittersweet anime like Your Lie in April, Erased, and Edgerunners.
The song is on a fairly regular rotation on my general playlist and, while I do get a little melancholy when I hear it, to actually just break down and cry is not regular. It's always a bellwether to let my wife know that I'm not in a great spot, I should probably get out more and visit with family and friends.
S.A.D. hit me hard this year and I definitely understand. I'm not much of a crier but I've felt about 85% of the way toward tears multiple times in the past couple of weeks.
Do you use an SAD light and take VitD supplements? If not I'd recommend it, as they are very helpful for moderating the symptoms.
As a Canadian and a bit of a shut in I take vitamin D supplements all year, 600 in summer and then up it to 800 in the fall. Due to the price I completely disregarded sun lamps when I was younger but I have a disposable income now I should look back into getting one.
I did the same re: price, then decided to just spend the money (I think it's a $300 Apollo model) and I still use it 15 years later.
Ive tried a good, high-powered sad lamp in the past and felt "meh" about it (not to say you shouldn'tgive it a whirl, just my experience).
This year, I've instead been attempting take a short walk outside first thing in the morning and close to sunset as a way to "max" my daytime experience. Hard to say if it's doing much, but there's no harm in walking, gives my eyes a rest, and is quite mentally calming.
Eh. I'm "Fine". I've got a combo of things going on.
I'm in between my old job finishing and my new starting. I've got five weeks to basically relax, swat up on some new tech platform and that's fine. But I'm mentally unloading all of the absolute nonsense, horseshit that I had to put up with at my old job. I'm quite inspired to write a blog post (I write prolifically) around bullying and neurodiversity, because my old Director was a bastard for bullying. So, there's that.
I also realised that I don't really have anyone around me who I trust beyond my wife. My Brother (from another mother) passed just over four years ago and my other closest friend basically walked away six months later because ... reasons? They never really gave me a good reason to walk away from our friendship (ten years) beyond "I didn't know what to do with my life." Which just felt like a cop out. So since then I'm really kept myself to myself, Covid certainly didn't help.
I know people in this city, I'm even friendly with them and we go for dinner, sink pints or do activities together. But I don't feel 'close' to them, I barely feel like they know or understand me. There's the psyche part of my brain going "You're terrified of getting close as another person might leave", then there's the other bit of my brain that goes "I'm not actually upset, I don't think I want to be close with people anymore."
And I think it's the second part that has left me really bereft with my own sense of identity. I used to be a serious social buttterfly. I was ALWAYS out and about, clubs, bars, museums, galleries, what have you. Since I moved to the new city, I haven't really gone out of my way to do that and I am perfectly fine about it. But the dissoance and reason (or lack thereof) on so much has really faffed with my mental health this week.
Maybe I should just adopt the brooding, melancholic loner thing? I do that REALLY well.
So. I'm 'Fine'. I've got stuff going on that I'm trying to figure out, but I'm not down or low, or anything else. I'm just a bit perturbed?
I had been going through a pretty rough bout of depression, anxiety, and apathy lately but then my wife told me she's pregnant. She's only a couple of weeks along so it's far too early to officially tell anyone, but I'm thrilled (in my own blunted and stunted emotional way). Somehow my own problems seem so much smaller and easier to skate through with this news.
Early congrats!
I do totally hear that about putting problems in perspective. I often have a problem of feeling overwhelmed by things that feel so important.
A trick I use is the 5-5-5 rule.
What is the 5-5-5 rule?
Ask yourself 3 questions.
Will it matter in 5 days?
Will it matter in 5 months?
Will it matter in 5 years?
As you go through the questions, it forces you to think bigger picture.
Early congratulations, friend!
I feel lonely. But I have friends. My therapist suggests I spend time with myself. But I don't know what to do; I have no motivation to "date myself," as she suggested. When I try to interact with myself, it kind of feels like there's nobody home.
Also when I interact with people, I've been feeling like there's a plastic wrap barrier between me and them. Like I can't fully emotionally connect. I feel distant in some way. It feels strange. Muted.
I don't know how to resolve these feelings. Feels sad. And lonely.
Are you ever intentionally vulnerable with your friends? Do you talk to them about sad and lonely? I think I get what you mean about the plastic wrap.
I talk to my partner about it, but I'm likely like a broken record to them at this point, so I don't really bring it up much to not be annoying. I've talked to (texted) my best friend about being lonely once, a few years ago. It was a good discussion. Now she has a baby, so it's more difficult to talk to her about it. I probably don't want to bother her about it again. All my other friends, I am not close enough to, or they are "fair weather friends," or I know they are not going to be helpful based on past discussions, or they are not able to be vulnerable themselves.
I know I struggle with being vulnerable. I likely have "trust issues." I do not know the appropriate time to "be vulnerable" with friends.
You can have a look at my post in this thread if you like, your comments here resonate in a similar way.
I can't offer any help, we're in a hell of a lonely society globally at the moment. I just want to say you've been heard / read. It sucks buddy.
Try little things, going out for a coffee every couple of weeks or to a bookstore or whatever you like doing. Go for walks, they're fantastic for clearing your head over time and it's one of the best things you can do for your future self in terms of overall health.
Baby steps. You got this!
Oh, maybe see if you can find some group therapy if you're in a larger area? It might help to hear others to know you're not alone in this.
This might be an odd question, but do you know who you are, deep down? It reads to me like you lack a certain self-image and with it, self-love. If so, it'd make sense to me why you can't emotionally connect with others too, as it is very difficult to feel connected with others, when you don't feel connected to yourself.
Not an odd question. No, I don't. I have been finding myself saying "I don't know who I am" often this past year. Part of the reason I'm going to therapy is because I've realized I basically spent my whole life living for others. I think the issue is now that I know that and am trying to stop, the void that is now there is not going to instantly get filled with "myself," it'll take time.
I assume that's probably why my therapist suggests "dating myself," so I can fill the void with myself. It's just hard. I feel like I've never been internally motivated, so doing things for myself is kind of foreign? It's weird to explain or understand even for myself.
I feel that in my soul, ngl. I've spent years trying to piece my identity together after neglect and trauma. It's not easy to do something for yourself when the opposite has been the default for your entire life. Trying to see yourself as an equal being as others when your self-image is void and null is extremely difficult. Let alone figuring it out how.
Only thing I can suggest to you is to look at the very primary emotions of yourself. Even simply enjoying the outside air, but also 'simple' accomplishments such as baking a cake. I don't know how universal it is, but my experience is that people with a background like you and me are often told to go full-on self love when small enjoyments are often easier to reach.
It's like trying to meet yourself, and the closer you are to something the more difficult it often is to see things. And yourself being the closest to you, if you've never learned to observe yourself(or even learned to ignore yourself) the first step is often not dating yourself, but meeting yourself.
That is beautiful. :) Thank you for sharing. I'm going to try my best!
One cool concept I learned lately was something like self-tolerance, self-acceptance, or self-neutrality. It's kind of like a bridge which those of us who were not able to develop a stable sense of self in our youth can build before being able to handle self-love. It's less jarring and intense than self-love, it starts with just being okay with, acknowledging, and tolerating oneself.
I'm my youth, I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to kill themselves. Later, I kinda understood it, but never felt the urge myself, even when things felt hopeless. Today, I randomly thought that I wouldn't kill myself as long as my parents were still alive. But what about my brother? Narh, fuck him, but still. This practical approach made me feel slightly peeved. I sort of feel like I'm heading in the wrong direction. Like, becoming more open toward the concept of suicide sorta indicate that my mental health thing isn't doing as well as it could. That it is becoming worse instead of better. And I even read self help stuff and everything.
This is going to sound weird, but it may well be because of this. Either because now you're more aware of your problems, or you're burying them deeper through self help(as opposed to digging up the deeper parts of your issues). I can't tell you which it is, of course.
Would mind telling me what happened between you and your brother?
My brother's a pretty swell dude actually. The "Nah, fuck him" part of my post were a lot more lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek when I composed it in my head. I think you're right that self-help fails to address the deeper issues. Thanks, hadn't considered it from this angle.
I visited Krakow including Auschwitz, Sunday to Tuesday just gone.
I had an amazing time in Krakow, but I feel a bit scarred by Auschwitz to be honest.
While walking around the Birkenau camp a tour of Jewish people about 20-30 sang a prayer or hymn in Hebrew and it was incredibly powerful. I was almost brought to tears a few times. I think visiting on the backdrop of current events in Gaza made it even more poignant.
I think I struggled a bit getting around there and I kind of wallowed in the infinite sadness and evil that took place there. It's pretty incomprehensible that out of the often touted >6 million jews and others who died, over 1 million of them died at that specific camp.
I'm back home now and I'm still kind of sad in my soul.
Good.
Hopefully you know what I mean by saying that.
I was there about 10 years ago and I also still feel scarred by it - the nail marks on the walls in the gas chambers, the torture area, the execution wall, the seemingly endless field for prisoner barracks... however I think the worst thing for me was the large rooms filled to the brim with luggage, glasses, shoes, clothing, and hair.
It is a horrific experience to walk through those buildings and areas, but it is very sobering. Everyone should go to an extermination camp and see what was done. It's important.
I Have bipolar I with mixed and psychotic features and have been going through a mixed manic episode for i think almost 2 months. Psychosis has not been happening as much lately but the depressive symptoms are getting worse. Shit in my life keeps getting worse in general though, and i've been thinking about life being worse especially with emotional abuse and loneliness and i lean torward believing that i just dont belong on this planet. I feel like for my whole life i've just been an alien or something trying to fit in. I am just really bad socially in general, incredibly anxious and paranoid around other people, isolated, and have to use a different personality when im interacting with other people. And it seems that the people i do end up knowing don't seem to genuinely care about me or at worst will betray my trust and hurt me. Humanity just feels seperate to me, and I have been this way for as long as i remember, and my general condition is a lot worse now and is continuing to get worse and cannot be cured so i don't see much of a reason to keep living. There are a few people who have existed who i deeply relate to and feel understood this but of course they're all dead now.
I don't think i will die yet as im programming some stuff but i am definitely sure that i am not going to live long. I wish it didn't have to be like this. I think i take comfort with the projects i am working on because i know that i will have mattered and will have some legacy. But other than that i won't matter. That will have been one of the only testaments to my life and me having existed to the world.
Have you ever watched BoJack horseman? You might want to watch the episode "The View From Halfway Down." It's grim, but paints a surprisingly good picture of the immediate regret virtually every suicidal person experiences during a suicide attempt (as reported by attempt survivors - All 29 people who have survived a suicide attempt jumping off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge have said they regretted their decision as soon as they jumped).
Heres the poem he recites; for context, the character does indeed jump off the bridge.
The View From Halfway Down
The weak breeze whispers nothing
the water screams sublime.
His feet shift, teeter-totter
deep breaths, stand back, it’s time.
Toes untouch the overpass
soon he’s water-bound.
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
the view from halfway down.
A little wind, a summer sun
a river rich and regal.
A flood of fond endorphins
brings a calm that knows no equal.
You’re flying now, you see things
much more clear than from the ground.
It's all okay, or it would be
were you not now halfway down.
Thrash to break from gravity
what now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
the safety back at top.
But this is it, the deed is done
silence drowns the sound.
Before I leaped I should've seen
the view from halfway down.
I really should’ve thought about
the view from halfway down.
I wish I could've known about
the view from halfway down—
I have never watched Bojack horseman, but that poem is really good. Might watch that episode if i ever get the chance. Though I don't think that regret is felt during every suicide attempt, as i have attempted I think 3 or 4 times in the past few weeks and didn't feel regret that i was trying to die, moreso that i did so with a bad method and at a time i didn't prefer.
I hope you're still around. That's a lot of attempts in a very short amount of time :(
Your comment above was really relatable too. I also really feel like I just was not cut out for really living - I'm too different to function normally in this society.
Would you mind sharing who these people are?
I am still alive (as you can guess by me commenting this), and i haven't attempted since then but mostly because i don't have anything at my disposal to do that with that would be any more successful and i keep on procrastinating trying to get better methods.
But yeah this world currently feels inhospitable for many. I can't handle education or employment. And i feel like most people don't understand and a lot of people are hateful, ignorant and abusive. But its so hard to find other people who aren't this way. I daydream alot about having a soulmate or close friend but often just end up feeling sad because i don't have any expectation that that will ever happen.
I think Elliott Smith and Van Gogh among others are some of those people i relate to and like the most. Just the way they experienced and portrayed abuse, not belonging, psychosis, etc, as well as hope and joy during certain periods. And they're some of my favorite artists too.
It's a relief to see this comment in my inbox. I am very glad that you are still here <3
And please do keep procrastinating about finding methods.
I'm in no way able to counsel about this stuff. Having been there myself however, I do know that random strangers on the internet saying "HaNg In ThErE" is pretty annoying and at best invalidating - especially that old line about it being a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Makes me so mad to see that lol
But please reach out to someone, even if it's a hotline. Because who knows? We might get better one day.
Cool to see that someone cares that im still alive, it means a lot :').
But since i don't have anyone to talk to in my personal life about this my only other option is the hotline which due to a large number of factors doesn't seem appealing. And i really hope that it could get better and i really want to believe that but I have determined that unless i am extraordinarily lucky i wont see much love or affection in my life, which i daydream and long for constantly, and i don't want to be on any of the known for most my conditions (namely anti psychotics and benzodiapenes) because they dont seem to improve too much and have a lot of negative side effects.
I know that you have very good intentions, but i think i will chose to die at some point when i can. I hope you will have a wonderful live though
I had the same reservations about calling a hotline. And I will say that it's pretty much 50/50 whether you get someone good to talk to, or someone bad. The best I ever had was a guy who told me about his own experience, and how he actually succeeded in killing himself - but he was then resuscitated by paramedics. It was really nice to hear his story and how it was evidently possible for him to overcome his struggles and find meaning in life afterwards.
The worst I had was someone who kept sighing while talking to me. As though she could not believe that she had to deal with me.. I ended the conversation when she said something along the lines of "well, *sigh*, have you tried thinking of something else?" - it was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. It made me laugh how ridiculous she was, like the absurdity of the situation ended up helping. I sometimes think maybe she was playing 4D chess and reverse psychology-ing me, but I lean more towards her just hating her job lol
So yeah, it can be hit or miss and I understand if you don't want to call. But I hope you do.
Yeah i think i might call at some point, but tbh since i am really socially anxious and struggle with language from ptsd and psychosis i feel like it might be more stressfull. It feels a lot more helpful to talk to online strangers or (if i had any) to talk to loved ones
I have phone anxiety too, it really sucks. I don't know if you saw my comment elsewhere in this thread from a couple of days ago, but I had to call an ER hotline as I was bleeding a lot more than usual from a SH relapse. I was mess the whole time and could barely hold my phone still to let the doctor see the problem (they connected me to a platform thingy where the doctor could use my camera and see things in order to guide me through it)
Anyway, there's more than just phone hotlines - you can text message some of them and also just chat to someone. Your mileage may vary of course, but I think it's worth a shot
Eh i might, textings still bad for me because i still have just as bad social anxiety and adhd makes it hard to type but it might help, though i kinda doubt it. I can't pinpoint exactly why but it feels different and not as genuine when talking to hotline operators rather than people online. And they can't really change my situation and im not sure that they could make me more hopeful or anything since ive spent uncountable hours over the course of months even with help from other people trying to do that and it barely worked.
Can't blame you for struggling with all the things you're dealing with. Each of your diagnoses by themselves are bad enough, so I can imagine how difficult it would be with 3-4.
What are the things you've tried over the last few months?
I don't have much at my disposal, mostly its just been trying to find hope or reaching out to people online but as of late i have completely given up
I understand. I really do hope you find it. Sending good vibes your way <3
Thanks, sending good vibes your way too :)
To be honest I don’t have anything helpful or insightful to say, just that I wanted you to know that I 100% feel you and can relate to this because this is exactly how I have felt my entire life. Complete alienation with everything getting worse and absolutely nothing going my way.
Life has been hard lately. I’ve been battling depression for most of my life but for the past few months there has been more symptoms. I moved in with my long term girlfriend and everything seemed to be going well, I felt happy, she did too until a few weeks ago. She decided it wasn’t working for her. I had been putting too much pressure on her to lift my mood and for her to encourage me to go out and be social. Since then I’ve started medication and I’ve been pushing myself to attend more events and hang out with friends.
But there’s still part of me that feels lost and I’m sure I’ll feel this way for a while. I no longer have the apartment I was so excited about. I’m out of work and jobs could take me anywhere throughout the country. Losing my girlfriend/best friend has made this all so much worse.
I’m hoping some things start making sense and I can be comfortable being on my own again.
I am struggling with grief. I have lost a lot of people I cared about, three to suicide, and one in particular in 2017, my cousin. It still feels just as painful as it did when it happened, and I guess I always thought time would have some healing property, but it hasn't. It is like a spiritual amputation. I found a box of photos in my parents attic 2 weeks ago, that were from his house. It was full of albums of us as kids, stuff I didn't know he kept and had never seen. I don't know why they put it in the attic and didn't tell me it existed, it was honestly a shock to my system. Really wonderful memories. But like.. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt.
I joined a group therapy thing, virtual. First meeting was yesterday. Some friends are part of it so it feels safe. But I am a little afraid of traumatizing them. A lot afraid of opening myself up.
Im sorry to hear about your situation.
I've been dealing with grief too and have found success with therapy, except mine has been 1 to 1 in person. For me there was talk about leaning into those emotions and talking about them - from the sounds of it, it's probably a mutually understood thing that some upsetting topics will be spoken about.
I wish you all the success in your journey.
Last month I wrote how I was having anxiety issues and had started an SSRI. I'll find the link after writing this and paste.
Edit here it is: https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1aya/hi_how_are_you_mental_health_support_and_discussion_thread_october_2023#comment-as0m
I'm happy to say I'm starting to do far better. My anxiety attacks have stayed greatly lessened to the point that I've been able to take up a new hobby (guitar) which I have bounced off before and it's sticking so far. I can go out more than once a week for the essentials, or go to more than just one place outside before retreating home.
I'm not back to where I was, but I'm back into a virtuous cycle of betterment.
Things sometimes get worse, but remember they can also get better. Stick in there everyone
I'm better and I hope it'll keep getting better.
My physical pain has lessened enough that I can finally travel around on public transport. But not without many breaks.
I know it's a mental health thread. But my mental health has been better together with my physical health. I don't know which made the other part better but they're very interlinked.
I'm not melting down and crying several times throughout the day anymore. It has been a while.
I can finally do work and I'm hoping my client doesn't drop me because I've been very behind because of my debilitating health issues.
But I'm struggling with self doubt now that I'm back to doing work.
I'm looking forward to playing board games with my friends this weekend. They offered to come to my place but I really just want to her out of the house, despite the pain. I'm hoping it's not an unwise decision.
I tend to not notice the pain when I'm having fun with friends anyway.
My birthday was beginning of this week and I have been noticing a lot of anxiety attacks lately. At my family get together thing I just felt really off and shaky. And usually I am pretty good just around family. So in not sure what the deal was, is just uncomfortable especially when I know I don't have any reason to be feeling that way. I get really hyper focused on how my mouth looks and how I talk and then my mouth will start shaking and voice will also shake. Aside from that have just been kinda getting flare ups like that. I'm pretty good at working through it but it's just uncomfortable and annoying lol. Have been getting a lot accomplished lately though.
Some days I wake up and I just wanna die. This is not something I am ever truly inclined to do, but it's a broken record of images and I die in all of them. Pretty dark stuff. I can spend 1 to 2 hours in that stage. It's awful and I can't really move. Then I get up and start my day.
I used to look at my phone in the morning but I keep it away so I'm not too screen-addicted, but it might be a good idea to have it near me for when that happens.
I'm already on an antidepressant but I can't have too much cause I'm bipolar.
When I tell people, they sometimes answer "Why didn't you tell me at the time? Or every time?", but the amount of time I am depressed is so big that they really don't know what they're asking for. I don't know many people who could handle me saying "I pictured my head exploding for 2 hours this morning".
It is difficult to handle any extra stress when I wake up already stressed out by this. I look normal to most people, which is a blessing and a curse.
I have many days like that too, though my head is stuck running through thoughts of the past instead and not to the point of wanting to die.
Years ago I had a sick kitty that I would get out of bed to take care of. She was a sweet old girl and I loved her very much, but I kept seeing her illness. It was hard not to, she needed medicine, subcutaneous fluids and a lot of encouragement to eat.
What I needed was something to want to get out of bed for, rather than simply have to. With my kitty, it was a weird mix of the two feelings, and when I was tired or depressed I felt more of the latter.
Nowadays it's coffee and my garden. No stress or negative associations.
I keep my phone on the bedside table, sometimes it's a step towards getting up to make coffee or gardening. Better than staying immobile in bed ruminating. Still, sometimes all I want to do is stay in bed with my phone, so it's probably not the ideal step up.
That actually sounds like it could be OCD, potentially. Higher likelihood than a random person given it would be comorbid with the bipolar disorder.
It's worthwhile to bring it up with your psychiatrist. There are medications for OCD as well, if it turns out that is what's happening.
Thanks. OCD medication tends to be the same for depression. For example, my doctor prescribed Escitalopram, which is an antidepressant but it is also good for OCD. Hopefully, it will help with both -- even though I am not "officially" diagnosed with OCD.
Coming out the other side of a break-up and simultaneously trying to battle the sense of guilt after looking after my terminally ill grandparent who took a fall and deteriorated severely whilst in my care.
My therapist thinks what I've done is ok (bringing the relationship to a close for my own sanity whilst i work through the grief of losing grandparents), but my ex couldn't continue being friends with me if there was no future together. Because of her autism, she needed timelines and plans: I didn't know how long therapy might take to see results, so I ended it indefinitely and told her as such. At a later point I did say I regretted the decision and wasn't averse to rekindling things, but wanted to remain firm that now wasn't the right time and friends was the best option.
After 6 months of being friends (still going for food, talking, cinema trips, and visits to each others place), she told me she couldn't do it anymore and we haven't spoken since. I get she's doing it for her mental wellbeing (it'd be pretty stupid to be anything other than understanding after I did the same thing) but it still ripped me up.
Im trying to take the positives from it though - the relationship was stressful and I've just bought my first house, so I have that to keep me distracted along with work until therapy helps me work through the mess that has been this last ~5 years.
Going crazy from my mood swings (I have BPD)
I've been okay the past week or so, to the point of feeling like it's all made up and I can probably function perfectly fine in life and go back to uni and get a job etc. Then yesterday I had a meeting at the psych facility for a potential 20-week group, but it felt like a job interview and either I'm overly sensitive as per usual and felt my therapist and psychologist were judging me and didn't feel satisfied with how I answered their questions, or it went fine and I'm still overly sensitive but wrongly so... anyway I went to sleep when I got home and just felt like shit that evening and night.
TW for self-harm:
I relapsed and bled a lot more than I usually do, to the point I had to call a hotline - who couldn't help me as they don't deal with somatic health - so then I had to call the ER hotline instead, and again I felt super judged about everything but the doctor guided me through how to patch myself up as I didn't want to actually go to the hospital. It's going to leave a nasty scar though and for the first time in years, I really do regret doing this stupid bullshit to myself.
And then today I'm okay. So yeah, going crazy from mood swings..
I miss the comfort in thinking I was insane. I miss thinking there was a therapist with an argument strong enough to convince me life was worth living. I miss thinking there was a psychiatrist with the right handful of pills to restore my broken faith in humanity. I miss thinking I was wrong.
Not sure what to do next, life-wise, and it feels like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.
Moved from NA back to Asia, back in with the 'rents, earlier this year. The trigger was work-related—I was on a team that got gutted over 2022 until I was the only one left, then the manager tried to push all the resulting unowned responsibilities onto me.
Similar thing happened at my two jobs prior, one of which was in a different country—I'd moved from Asia to NA partly hoping to escape these kinds of shenanigans, among other things. Indeed, my first three years in NA were free of those things. So it was incredibly deflating to eventually go through the same stuff again, on the other side of the planet.
For the past few months, I've been trying to figure out if I'm going to stay here or go back to NA, and I can't decide.
Hey there, I appreciate the reply!
Well, what I've wanted to do since I started working ~2010 is amass enough capital to move into something like div.-paying stocks and just live off that and never work again. Note: I don't mean be a bum and play video games all day—I like being productive, learning new things, helping people, etc.
I wouldn't characterize myself as someone who gives excessive meaning to work. I view it as a means to an end. That said, maybe I think too much about how I dislike work that makes me attach more meaning to it than I realize? I don't know. I'm not at a crossroads between NA and Asia because I'm torn between finding "joy in work if only I were in X place" though.
What I find joy in is really what I mentioned above. Learning new things, exercising some of my creative muscle. I find joy in some aspects of work too: solving problems, helping coworkers—I've always had good relationships with my coworkers in every job. My issues always had to do with managers, really.
Unfortunately, I don't find as much joy in being with people though. I have a few friends I've kept in long-term contact with—note how I focus on the long-term contact, and don't automatically call them 'good friends,' which I think is the more common way to refer to long-term friends. This is because even after long-term contact, I think many are just fair weather friends. It's nothing bad, it's no ones fault, but it just happens with time and them moving on after, e.g., starting families.
Being back with my family does not bring me joy. In fact, it was a bit of an ego hit due to some things that happened as I was about to leave for NA around six years back. I came back to stay with them for two reasons: 1) I felt some sense of—not love—but 'filial piety' after one of them suffered some health issues during the pandemic; and 2) I knew that if they let me stay with them, that would cut my living costs drastically, giving me time to think about what I was going to do.
What do you stand to gain from going back?
I think the biggest thing would be more jobs I could apply to. This is because: 1) there are more "remote in NA timezones" jobs than there are are remote jobs in my current timezone; 2) there's a language barrier for me in my home country.
I guess I listed those two in reverse logical order: I have a language barrier in my home country, therefore I've been looking at remote jobs in the region instead. But, remote work is frequently—actually—"remote in X country." And I can't just move to some other country in Asia without the requisite visa or work permissions—permissions I do have in NA though, hence going back to NA being my other option.
What other factors effect this decision for you?
Great question. I would say these are the big ones, in no particular order, together with my thoughts:
It sounds like you've got support, income, and passions in NA that you don't have to the same degree in Asia.
My best friend is either having a complete alcoholic paranoid mental breakdown, or someone is actually trying to kill him. My brother got laid off (again), and the house where he rents the basement is getting sold. I had a panic attack five minutes into tonight's after-work coding class and quit the lesson.
At least my parents are doing good.
I've actually been doing great in terms of mental health the last few months. I've had a lot of health issues improve lately and I think it has done wonders for my mental health as well. I've even found myself more resilant towards negativity and hostility somehow.
This morning has really got me down, though. My husband woke up feeling very sick. He says it's just allergies. He blames it on an air filter blowing dust into his lungs, but that doesn't really make sense because we've been running that filter for days in the same place and beyond that, it's an air filter - it filters out dust!
He's terrible with his health. He's never had a physical as long as I have known him and the only time he has ever seen a physician is when he got injured. He has a number of issues that keep recurring that he doesn't ever get addressed. He was so upset about it this morning and told me that I should focus on more important things, and that kind of broke me because he's the most important part of my life.
I managed to get him an appointment for a physical, but not one for the issues he was dealing with this morning. He wouldn't take time off work and because of the kinds of symptoms he was having - which he swore weren't that bad - they wouldn't let him make an appointment that wasn't same day or next day. I really should have pushed the issue and made him use his sick time. I know he's going to be fine, but part of me can't help but worry. I haven't been able to concentrate on work today at all.
Have you said this to him?
If it's upsetting you this much, he should suck it up and go just to help you if nothing else.
While it is his health, it is also inherently part of the marriage... That's just how marriage works. If you show him the post above, and he still won't go, he's being incredibly selfish.
I think he understands how I feel now. I'm going to talk to him some more when he comes home. He made the comment that he didn't want to get to a point where he has to go to the doctor all the time and pay big medical bills like I have had this year. I need him to know that all of those doctor visits has resulted in me physically feeling better than I have in years, and he's going to end up like that if he doesn't see the doctor.
Are you aware that you meet a ton of the criterion for a depression diagnosis?
First: get a therapist. Those are some pretty intense feelings / trains of thought. They'll help.
Second: talk to your partner. I'd wager a pretty penny that your reticence to do so is (partially) due to your symptoms.
You don't have to say what you said above exactly, but it goes a looong way to helping maintain the relationship if you're as vulnerable as you can be. If they're a good partner, they'll meet you with empathy, not judgment. It took me years, literal years, to figure that out with my wife. I'm doing a bit better now, partly because I just talk about it when I'm having a breakdown or whatever.
You claimed your thoughts are like knives - but the blades are pointing internally. You could use a little help from someone that can grab the handles from the outside.
Medication can also be important. All the therapy in the world wouldn't make me right in the head completely. I've been on meds for 15 years, and I likely always will be.
Edit: in case you aren't aware - depression isn't just sadness. I actually tend to get angrier when my mental health takes a downturn. You may too. Same with the isolation.