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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (June 2024)
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.
Honestly I feel so crap, mostly due to being overstimulated.
I have so many things I want to do, too many things. Some of them are quite obligatory too. And it's just making Autistic/ADHD brain go in overload mode. I've been isolating myself more, even though in reality I probably need help from my friends to get over this barrier in my head.
Oh, and I'm probably unemployed again. So the only way to distract myself... is with games. Making it even worse.
I've been stuck with this situation for weeks now and I absolutely hate it. It essentially makes me mentally disabled and by this point I'm incredibly anxious and afraid to start any of the tasks I want to do.
Diagnosed ADHD and have wondered if I may be a teensy bit on the spectrum.
I feel that overwhelm. ADHD sucks. And I'm unemployed right now. Coming back from it has been damn hard due to the unemployment and several coincidental and very unfortunate and unfortunately timed tragedies.
YMMV but here is what's been helping me: I try to find things that give me even the smallest sense of autonomy and mastery over my own life. And I do mean small.
First step: keep taking those meds. First thing, every morning. I'm far less happy without mine!
Next step: find something really small that I can do to feel some sense of control over my life. Like "take a shower", "brush your teeth", "make your bed".
Next next step: find the next thing like the previous.
A little further down the line, I got back to meditating daily in the morning.
If I've got more energy, go a little bigger. What's the first thing I need to do to be employed again? Grow some new skills? Update that resume? Start applying? Pick one. Do it and see how it feels. Still not wiped out or overwhelmed? Do more.
When I run out of energy or things, it's ok. I did my best. Be kind to yourself, get some rest, and do it again the next day.
The anxiety and discouragement has been getting a little better, day by day. The key has been to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Each day I get a little better is another day I won just by not quitting on myself.
Your situation feels eerily similar to a combination of myself and my girlfriend. Me for the Autism/ADD portion, her for the distracting with games portion.
I'm sorry you are experiencing this. It sucks.
I feel weird. Maybe y'all can help me understand or better explain it to my therapist on Thursday. I've been on 10mg of Lexapro for a month. Love it! My anxiety is pretty much gone. I have almost no nerves about leaving the house. I want to and am making plans and going out with friends. It's great!
But I have no motivation to do anything necessary to live. I'm never hungry. I have to remind myself to eat and then nothing sounds good. I shower every 2 weeks. I haven't done dishes in weeks. I haven't done laundry in longer. If I don't have anything to do, I just lay in bed scrolling or nap. I feel like a slug. I have ADHD and I feel like my executive function is at 0. My motivation is gone.
I don't know if I'm just complaining about me and this is as good as it gets, or this is a side effect of Lexapro, or this is a step in the Lexapro journey to feeling better and I just need to ride it out. But I feel better and worse at the same time and it's weird.
Google says Lexapro is for anxiety and depression both, but your motivation being gone as well as chores building up sounds a lot like your depression has not been helped by the medication at all? And that, like you say, you're better and worse at the same time - so has one thing replaced another?
The only thing I can think of that would be useful to aid in explaining these things to your therapist is using something like this to help you find the words? And maybe once you find the best fitting word, it will get the ball rolling a little bit on how to talk about it.
Don't know how much help that is but I want you to know that you are definitely not just complaining. Nor are you alone in these things, for whatever that's worth. For example I only managed to do my dishes the other day because I simply had nothing left that was clean.. not exactly on top of things.
I'm on the same dose of Lexapro, and lack of motivation definitely isn't a super common side effect. That sounds more like the classical depression symptom to me. The only caveat is if you'd just started it -- I was half-dead for the first week while my body adapted to it -- but by a month in, that can't be the issue. After that first week my only side effect has been some loss of libido. If this is a side effect of Lexapro for you, it's the wrong choice of medication for you.
I think the wording in this post should be more than sufficient to explain your problem to your therapist. It lays things out really clearly, so hopefully they can decide from there what the next steps will be. I don't think any more technical terminology or assessment would improve communicating what you're currently going through, if that makes sense.
Also, are you taking any ADHD medication? My understanding is that treating the ADHD first is the typical route for people with both ADHD and depression, and my ADHD meds definitely improve my motivation and executive function more than my SSRI does (though like you I find Lexapro has greatly improved my anxiety).
I think you explained yourself well, for what that's worth.
Imo first priority is eating. Totally understand the struggle, but not properly fueling the meat suit is going to make everything that much harder. Protein is key, so protein shakes are a good place to start (I really like Soylent, they sell it at Target if ordering online/waiting for delivery feels like too much). Tillamook makes some good meat sticks, or get some jerky or peanut butter and crackers. Deconstructed sandwiches work too, piece of cheese, some lunch meat, carb-of-choice.... Nature Valley sells bags of broken up oat and honey bars, I like to snack on the big pieces and then put the crumbs in kefir/yogurt. Basically, identify some snacks you like that aren't too unhealthy, things you can just shove in your face real quick and move on. But like, if you really just can't eat, don't beat yourself up for something unhealthy, just eat something.
And caffeine until you can get that ADHD medicated. Black Blood of the Earth is super-concentrated cold brew coffee, very low acidity and a good kick in the executive dysfunction. Or if tea is more your speed, mate. It's a really nice, smooth boost, won't make you crash like coffee, and it's a stronger flavor than most tea, which I prefer.
Hopefully this helps a bit until your appointment, but regardless go easy on yourself. This is not as good as it gets, I promise.
Absolutely agree here (I'm still a coffee drinker but I drank easily 3-4x as much of it before my ADHD meds) and this is one of the few scenarios where I'd actually recommend an energy drink. Don't overdo it on the caffeine ofc, but energy drinks also typically contain B12, and B12 deficiency can cause a TON of bad neurological shit. Here's a video from a doctor about a time when this affected him.
@slothywaffle I cannot emphasize how much I relate to your experiences. I hope you find something that works for you.
Feeling OK-ish, better than my average currently, though I experience regular mild-to-moderate depression and significant executive dysfunction (many, but not all the symptoms).
The depression is kind of an adapted-to baseline for me since COVID. Near total lack of social interaction.
The executive dysfunction is more of a problem though. I've transitioned most of my income generation to an eBay store. I buy stuff (commercial electronics / tools / lab instrumentation...) at auction, test, refurb, and document it, then sell it on eBay. Doing this has kind of made my hobby into my income. Problem is the actual listing-on-eBay portion is just boring work and that's where the executive dysfunction hits me.....
...heh. You know, I was about to abbreviate it as ED, then realized what that would be mistaken for, then also realized maybe it's appropriate since this represents a, um... 'failure to perform' on my part. Hah. That genuinely got me laughing.
The ED, for me, comes on as an inability or significant mental 'block' or 'hill' to push past in order to do any number of things that just need doing. Chores like washing dishes or cleaning, listing stuff on eBay, working on the various non-small projects I have going (vehicle repairs, projects to upgrade my electronics workbench), that kind of thing.
So, yeah, at least in theory the eBay/Craigslist work is ideal for me. If I put... I don't know, probably less than 10 hours a week into the non-interesting 'just boring work' portion I can make an adequate income while the 'fun parts' are effectively my hobbies being paid for as part of the business costs. I feel crappy / ashamed / lazy about it when I don't (or can't) stop myself from falling into that mindset - which social conditioning says I should feel for not getting work done, but those mental states just feed into the depression and result in fewer productive periods and less total work getting accomplished.
Logically, how I have set myself up to earn a living makes sense for me and should be way better than any normal job I could get - the same or better pay for at most 1/4 of the hours of actual work. One of the things I know I should do is find a psychologist and see about getting meds to help. From my research, other people with what I have (Autism-spectrum and ADD/ADHD) have reported massive improvement with the executive dysfunction issue after taking Adderall - so that's on my to-do list.... a to-do list which the ED interferes with :) sigh.
Feeling like crap, on the weekend.
People in the next building over had a porch party twice, Thursday and Friday. Each day they started blarring music, getting drunk, and singing along in the afternoon. Thursday they stopped around dinner time. Friday they did not. I had to call the police to get them to stop around 11, a few times after that they had to assert their adolescence and crank it up a few more times before midnight.
I feel tired and stressed.
God I hated that about living in a studio with some roudy neighbours. While I certainly don't like living with my parents again (yay crap housing market), this is something I really don't miss...
Sound pollution is a genuine stressor and causes health effects. I'm sorry you have to deal with that, it's horrible to deal with that shit.
Thank you.
Currently live in a studio in the city and yeah, I can relate.. I am anxious every single weekend on Friday and Saturday because there's always the question of if it will be peaceful in my building or not. Makes me want to move into the countryside somewhere with no neighbors
Fun - reminds me of my previous building, where for some reason the most popular area to get together and yell drunkenly was outside my apartment in the 31st floor hallway. Definitely exchanged some heated words with people in the hall at 1AM a few times.
Here, police can confiscate people's stereos if they are being too loud, plus fine them. Can't believe they kept going even after police was there!? That is so stressful - hope you can relax more the coming week.
Where is here?
The area I live in the police refuse to write such people a ticket or punish them in any way. These neighbors have had the police visit them many times. It doesn't change their habits.
Denmark on Funen, deepl translated:
Sucks that they won't do anything where you are. Does that really mean that nothing can be done at all?
If I can provide evidence to the town code enforcement officer ( American north east ) that they exceeded the town decibel levels they could be fined or brought in with me for a hearing.
There is an phone app that will record decibel levels with a video.
The problem is that the neighbors are in a neighboring apartment building. They are smart enough to pull their shades down, now. When they party on the porch I would have to get in front of the porch to get the building address in the video, but I would also be in their view -- which would be confrontational and risk escalating the situation.
I'm open for suggestions!
FWIW in the U.S., the laws for different municipalities vary greatly. In some municipalities near me there are no laws about noise - at all. I was shocked to learn that too.
It sounds like you know what you need to do - I can definitely understand that actually facing them is really scary though. So do you have to get the address in view? If police has been there before, I can only assume that they already know who they're dealing with if you send in a recording from where they can't see you. Surely the cops would recognize the surroundings and put 2 and 2 together.
The recordings would be about proof. Without an address to identify them they could say it was someone else. The police will not do anything more than come out and tell them to turn down the noise. The code enforcement officer for the town seems like the only person with the city willing to do something.
I need some some advice.
I have grown quite lazy over past few years(6 years), with very bad food habits. I'm working on my food habits quite hard these days, but I can't seem to escape my laziness. Years and months go by and some works are still there to be done. It has cost me dearly. Once I was considered bright but now I am just guy getting by, relatives make fun of me. I want to feel like that bright child I once was, or at least I want to be satisfied with my effort in my life. I keep failing at this. I feel so disappointed and lonely sometimes over all this. Even when I get my shit together, it lasts for a week or two. Sometime I feel so motivated and other time I am just as lost as a grain in sand. Everyday I wake up and think today will be better but I end up doing same shit. once I was very good at taking decision now I rely on another people due to self doubt over decisions I took.
I know the change should be coming internally from me. Still I'm looking for some pointer and I wanted to write all of this for it to be out there.
edit: My head is mess these days. there are lots of noise, lots of internal discussion.
This is kind of a dumb reference, but one of the mantras Bill Murray's character uses in the movie What About Bob? is "baby steps". He repeatedly says it out loud, and takes is way too literally, but for whatever reason that mantra has stuck with me, and actually works for me. And now whenever I feel myself getting really lazy or anxious, and putting things off for way too long, I just start repeating that in my head for motivation to get me to take that first baby step towards doing something productive for the day.
I typically start really really small by picking a very easily achievable goal for the day, like "baby steps, take out the trash today" and then repeat it in my head over and over to force myself to do that thing. Not worrying about anything else I need to do that day, just focusing on that one thing until I get it done. But once I get that first done I can then move onto the next, like "baby steps, do the dishes", which I find I can more easily motivate myself to do since I am already up and doing something productive anyways. Rinse, repeat, until I do all the things I need to do that day.
The key to starting the whole thing is just to take that first baby step though. And even if you don't do everything you needed to do that day, at least you got one or a few things done. Don't beat yourself up over it. Just try to kick off another chain of baby steps tomorrow, and see how long it lasts for. :)
Thank you! At one point I was doing this with "one step at a time" in my head for few month then at some point I stopped doing this. Your comment just reminded me of that. I'll start this again. Thanks kindly, I appreciate your words.
YVW. Hopefully your similar technique helps you as much as mine has helped me over the years. Just try to stick with it. The more often you do it, the easier it seems to get to take that first step every day, and the easier it gets to maintain the momentum for longer. :)
Offer yourself grace when you can't meet your goals, but at the same time, try to make the sort of situations you would succeed in. Keep healthier low prep snacks around to make your lowest common denominator of food stuff work towards your benefit, and maybe look up The Sad Bastard's Cookbook, it made the round on Tildes a while back. As far as other things, take deep breaths, talk to people in safe places, maybe a doctor or a therapist. If those are expensive, double check your benefits to see what's available. If nothing else, try to enjoy and process the food you're eating to try and break the circuit on shoving food in there on time, and make steps towards activity to even things out. This thread is here for introductions and progress updates.
Thanks for kind and encouraging word. I am trying to be kind to myself, but failing again and again doesn't help it.
I'll look up that book, thanks for recommending.
Everything about emotions is always subjective and every person is highly biased about themselves etc., right? And yet, I am fully convinced that by all objective, reasonable, and rational measures, my life is just fucking shit.
I was sitting staring out the window, thinking about how I best answer the question of "how are you?" this time and I kind of wanted to just do a brief comment with a summary/list of things that's going on. But no, I'm gonna rant lol
TL;DR: there is too much vendor trash and not enough epic BoE's
CW: SH, SI, SA, generally depressing rambling
Hopefully it's not too disorganized to read but this venting is mostly for myself anyway.
In any case, my life is objectively shit because there are so few things that go well. And even the things that truly ought to be good are almost always soured by other things that are only ever inherently bad. So I'm left feeling so hopeless about my life. I have no goals in life and I have no realistic dreams. My best hope is that my father (whom I have cut contact with) has not disowned me and I can buy a little house or even a car with the inheritance once he finally dies. On the other hand, I wouldn't feel very good knowing that it's him who bought those things - it would feel like blood money.
Since I left school at 16, my life has just been aimless. I tried a lot of different things since then, and went back to school in my late teens however it never amounted to much. Since 20, I have spent a total of 7 years on welfare and 4 years in school, and if that isn't rationally super shitty, I don't know what is. I somehow managed to finish a HF (this translates to a GED but slightly higher level) in those 4 years though, with actually quite good grades. I worked hard for it, but I only barely scraped by on account of being close to dropping out multiple times because of my mental state and also the pandemic didn't help. Also, a HF is supposed to only take 2 years but I have never been able to keep up with a regular schedule so I halved the weekly hours, meaning it took me 4 years to get through it. It's like my uncle always said, "there's nothing wrong with you up top" - well yeah except for all the mental illness lmao
After the HF I got accepted to university and I was going to study humanities but I had a full on meltdown and lasted just a single lecture on the first day - this is coming up on 3 years ago now. It didn't help that I was broken up with only 4 months after this which only made me spiral and plummet even further and I have usually been in a state of helplessness since then.
I am privileged to live in a country with decent welfare and understanding social workers who allow me to focus on therapy instead of making me do all sorts of things to earn the welfare, however this is not exactly a lot of money - nobody is able to live a fulfilling life this way. You can survive, but not really live. Anyways, it's a relief that I get to put all my effort into therapy and that I don't have to worry about all sorts of criteria, but despite of that, therapy just is not going well. I had a breakdown in my group two weeks ago and had to leave (read: flee), and then I got a letter saying that if I was absent for even one more session, I would not be able to participate. So I responded to it quite frantically and even though I had a good conversation with the psychologist, and was warmly welcomed back last week, and nobody held it against me, etc.. I still feel this nagging pressure that I am on an extremely tight leash and I cannot fuck up again. This pressure of course only means that I am more likely to fuck it up. There are no reasons for this to happen, but I am highly unstable and it is not unlikely that something triggers me again - the trigger two weeks ago was that I couldn't answer the psych's questions because doing so meant that I was going to, in front of the whole group, admit to having relapsed. And my brain just short circuited at this, and so I fled because even though it doesn't sound that bad, it became a fight/flight situation for me and my brain was fried, so it was pure instinct to flee the situation. I clearly remember not thinking, as strange as that might seem.
So that event has been on my mind a lot lately. Because if something as small as a once-a-week therapy session makes me break down, what the hell is ever going to become of me in this life? Again, I am 31 soon. I had a job for 6 months when I was 16, but nothing since then. I have been on the outside of society looking in for the majority of my adult life. I did nothing from 20 to 25, school from 25 to 28, then again nothing from 28 until now. So even if I somehow did get my mental illnesses under control, and became a functioning member of society, who in their right mind would ever hire me? I have no real experience and I certainly do not have any useful skills. I am at the bottom of the stack of 100 resumes that an employer has on their desk.
Not to mention that I also have something called non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder, which put briefly means that my internal clock is about 25 hours. So if I try to adhere to a normal sleep schedule, I will be fine for a couple of days, but then it's going to start feeling like jetlag, and after a while it's going to be sleep deprivation. So this is of course also a major thing to deal with in terms of stable work. I'm not ever going to be able to do any sort of freelancing because during the pandemic, when classes became streaming and Teams, it became clear that I am unable to deal with working from home. Oh and I also have asthma and an insane amount of allergies, so I would be unable to do physical labor outdoors because of pollen, and I would also be unable to work in a warehouse because of dust. I know I sound extremely defeatist but I could go on, and none of these things aren't not legitimate concerns.
Like I said to begin with, it's not like truly good things don't happen, but you can really tell how hard it is for me to focus on anything but the negatives. Anyway have had braces since August 2020 and I will be getting them off next week, which while I am looking forward to it, it's just so meaningless overall. I'm so used to them now that it doesn't really feel like a victory or anything - it'll be a relief to be sure, but it's like I'm just going through the motions. Besides, the negative impact of them have been far greater than the positives, at least so far. Maybe I will look back in 10 years and feel it was worth it. But right now, in no way do I feel it's been worth it - mostly because of the accompanying jaw surgeries. It was not meant to be plural of course, but one of the implants kept getting infected so I've had 3 jaw surgeries now, however the surgeon is sure that this third one has fixed it for good. There is going to be a 4th one too though, because they messed up my chin so that needs to be fixed as well sometime at the end of the year however I'm not sure how tough the recovery from that one is going to be.
This third one was not too bad because it finally went well, but the first two were excruciating since they break your bones and allow no chewing for a month after the surgery. So I was on a liquid diet for a month after both of them, and the second one landed me in the psych ward because I was only told after waking up what had happened, and I had not been told that there was a chance that I'd been walking around with a broken jaw for half a year.. so they had to fix it while I was under, but I obviously never consented to this nor could I mentally prepare myself that I was going to go on a second month of liquid diet. So yeah when the doctor told me this I started crying uncontrollably, but he just fucking left. I became completely neurotic and started cutting myself (with a spoon, can you imagine?) right then and the nurses obviously saw it and called the psych ward to have me committed. I was told that either one of the nurses drives me there, or they will call the police. So that was a fun way to be threatened.. it ended up being my mom because she was scheduled to take me home after the surgery, however she didn't know about my mental state before she arrived. I am not usually one to feel a lot of shame about things, but all this happened a year ago and I still cringe in the most visceral way that I had to put my mom through these things. Because unlike my father, she is a good human through and through, and I love her a lot. And I hope that I won't have to put her through something like that again - also why selfmurder is not a real option for me, because I will do what I can to not have to put her through losing a child to suicide.
I have straight teeth now though. But it has not even been close to worth it, and I am convinced that nobody with 2 brain cells would say that it was.
Another good thing that has happened though is that I brought up C-PTSD with my therapist, then spoke to my doctor about it, and then they conferred with the rest of the psych team. And they are certain that I don't have it, which is of course pretty good! It left me all the more confused though, because why then, do I among things have such frequent nightmares? But she said that one can have many symptoms of a disorder despite not satisfying the diagnostic criteria, and that my trauma are not less valid, and that the diagnosis I do have of BPD already covers quite a lot of the symptoms of C-PTSD. But to have the complex variant, you need to also have the 'regular' variant of PTSD, and plenty of people go to war and are victims of rape etc. without ending up with the disorder itself. But, she said, that does not mean they aren't still traumatized.
The main problem with this though is that once my current course of therapy finishes in 2-3 months, my therapist said that she's not sure how much help they can give me down there at the psych facility. So she wants to refer me to another place to deal with my traumas, centre for the sexually abused. But seeing as I do not have C-PTSD, it's a lot less likely that they will accept me. Because while socialized healthcare is free and that's great and all, institutions like this end up gatekeeping quite a lot because otherwise they will become overwhelmed with patients - so they only accept those they deem need it the most. So I am once again left with this quandary about what's going to become of me.
There is no plan. And there never was, for anything, ever. 16 was the last time that I had a clear structure to my life. Everything since then has been one long series of improvisation. I've never been able to answer questions about where I see myself in 5 or 10 years etc., and these recent years I haven't even been able to say where I see myself a single year from now. And I know that's not super rare but it's just that while there have been the occasional good thing, even a pretty great period of about a year when I was in a relationship, I always end up where I was. The graph has gone up and down, but it has only ever over all trended downwards.
I feel like the frequency at which I self harm is a pretty good measure of how I'm doing. I am doing better than this time last year or two years ago where the curve really reached the bottom. However compared to three and four years ago is incomparable, I am still not even close to doing as well as I did back then. I was on a 3+ year clean streak from self harm, mostly maintained by being in a relationship with my ex (however I never told her this because it would be a lot of pressure to put on a person) and the idea of her inevitably seeing it and my having to explain it.. just no. So I abstained.
Of course, after the break-up I relapsed harder than ever, I think it was every other day at least when it was at its worst, and at best I was going about a week or two. Beginning this intensive therapy though gives me new reasons to abstain, for example I managed 3 months this winter, as well as 2 months this spring (currently 10 days), which is way more than what I could do two years ago. However I am still not even close to being able to get to 3+ years again, and I fear I never will - even with all the coping skills I am learning in therapy. And the worst thing is that even though I'm able to hold out for way longer now compared to one or two years ago, it's also becoming way more dangerous because I accidentally cut deeper since I'm not used to it and I forget how much pressure I used to apply. I think you can talk about it in the same way that a recovering alcoholics or drug user that relapses is more dangerous. They used to drink X amount or take Y amount of drugs, but if they've been clean for a while and then relapse, they no longer have the 'feel' for it - or their tolerances have changed - and so it's more dangerous.
It turns me into such a doomer to see that even three years on, I still haven't recovered. I don't function. Someone else in this thread talked about chores and hygiene and it's kind of the same for me - I rarely do the dishes unless I have to, same with cleaning and decluttering etc., and I often only shower once a week, mostly two times per week though that's if I'm having a good couple of days maybe. Every one of these things are just becoming these monumental tasks though. In this state, I just cannot imagine ever going back to university or finding a job (that will even take me) because how am I going to study/work for 8 hours a day when washing a plate is difficult to do?
And I mean not only am I completely undesirable in terms of a job, but I also feel like the bottom of the list for what's useful in a relationship. A friend recently went back on a dating app and so we got to talking about it a little bit and she suggested I do it too. But like, what do I even say? Nobody in their right fucking mind would find me desirable (and that's not about my looks although those aren't great either), and my dating pool is already super tiny on account of not being cis but also really wanting to be with someone that is. But she also has to be queer. And I mean already this means I'm at less than a percent of the population. Then you have to sort through the amount of people that very reasonably would not want to be with a chronically unemployed, mentally ill, dysfunctional person, and also too traumatized to get intimate. It would be different if I was actually attractive, because pretty privilege is very real, so maybe somebody would at least like me for that? I don't even have that going for me though, and I know it's a vain fucking thing to say, but I'm just trying to make the point that I have to learn to deal with being alone, lonely, and empty, because there is nothing else in store for me.
So yeah.. not only do I feel like trash, I am also convinced that I am trash. There are reasons for it, obviously. And excuses. But it's like a family member said to me not too long ago, "at least you're not a drug addict", and this hit me really hard because while I have absolutely nothing against people who end up in substance abuse, quite a lot of people - this family member included - see it like the bottom of society. So this is apparently the bar for me. A hell of a standard to set for another human being.. I don't blame them though. It is exactly how I feel, too, just genuinely useless in most aspects. Not only am I pretty much worthless to society at large, I am a drain and a burden on everyone around me.
I'm not actively suicidal at the moment but I also don't know how I'm meant to ever live a fulfilling life. Since my at least my early 20's, I said to myself (and a psychologist or two) that if things didn't improve by 30, that is then where I would off myself. Well I am still here somehow so I guess I'm sticking around and will be going through the motions of whatever does end up happening in my life.
Most days, I don't leave my apartment. Which, honestly, that is such a loaded word because I live in a studio, so it's basically a glorified dorm room. I have about 25m^2 which while it is certainly better than living with my mom, is still super depressing when compared to almost everyone else I know. I have a handful of cousins and we are all around about the same age, and all of them live in houses and apartments, only 1 is still renting and the rest are owned properties worth millions of kroner (1M kr = $150000) and it's just not something that will ever be feasible for me. Not to mention their good educations, their marriages, their children, their jobs.. and here I am, forever stuck. I sit at my desk almost every waking hour, and the kitchen is the bedroom is the office is the closet is the entrance..
This weekend I'll be going to my cousins wedding, and I'm looking forward to it. I only hope that I won't have an episode in the lead-up or during, because it's not unlikely that I will need to cancel if something happens that makes me break down completely. I still need to find some nicer footwear because my casual stuff won't do because the ceremony itself is in a palace church, Frederiksborg Slot, and the party is at a resort on the coast. So looking nice is a must, and that's fun because I never got to do that before. However it's a struggle to find something but at least it's an excuse to go out.
Good things happen, but bad things are so much more common that it always detracts. And after this weekend, I'll be right back to my shitty existence, probably another relapse because that's become a pattern - that after a big event or family gathering, I will be so exhausted that my mind is unable to stabilize in any other way. I am getting a lot of help in therapy. But I don't know how my life is ever going to improve to any significant degree. Realistically, the best I can hope for is to become an early pensioner which means that I will get slightly more in welfare each month and not have social workers breathing down my neck with rules and regulations and requirements about doing X and Y and Z to satisfy criteria to deserve to survive on the state's money (which, by the way, is below my country's threshold of poverty but it doesn't count in statistics about poverty because it's "temporary" lol)
There is seemingly little end to the amount of shitty things going on, present and past and future, and certainly no end how sorry I feel for myself. I could keep talking, believe it or not, but I'll stop here - if anybody actually read all this, thanks a ton. I appreciate it a lot.
I've read it all. And I just want to say, I'm so sorry. That's an insane amount that you're forced to work with for no other reason than it happened upon you.
If I may point out one thing... At it's core it's your life, something you 'own' in a sense. A lot of people who struggle with this are often abused/neglected. Given what you mention of your father, and the tone of your comment, do you by any chance still feel the 'lessons' from your father? "I have to do this", "I have to be like that", and worst of all: "I should not be seen screwing up."
The last one specifically, I ask given how you almost seem like you to punish yourself for what you perceive to be failing. Not just feeling embarrassed, ashamed or guilt, but punished.
I was in a similar situation a bit more than a year ago. It sucks. Such an enclosed space becoming your world really fucks up your brain. Given how humans developed as tribal creatures in open spaces, it's about the last environment that's healthy for us. Unfortunately, when things get so bad as in your situation, retreating to such as shell is, at the same time, about the only thing to make the pain of isolation temporarily go away. Creating a horrid cycle.
It sucks. It really does.
Given everything going on in your life, you have the right to feel bad. Having empathy with yourself is not 'excuses'. And saying 'at least you're not a drug addict'? Well, I can see how you learned to feel shit about yourself in this manner, growing up with such an attitude around your family. That's incredibly judgemental, and short-sighted of this family member. It's also incredibly unfair towards you.
Judging you, setting this 'at least not on the bottom level of society, just barely'-image onto you, when they can't see what you're going through completely all the while you struggle so much... If you ask me, by setting that label upon you she deserves that label far more herself than you.
For some people, just surviving day-to-day is an achievement. And I hope you can appreciate that in yourself, too.
Thank you for reading all of that, and thank you even more for taking the time to respond. Very, very kind of you.
I don't know where this idea of perfectionism comes from but it certainly could be from my father. Maybe because I somehow got it in my head that if I did things really well, he would finally pay attention to me? He was always very neglectful, occasionally outright abusive, and so I'm aware that this response would be quite typical of the child. I really couldn't say if it's about embarrassment/guilt/shame or punishing myself - I just wish I wasn't like this and that I was able to be better and able to stand on my own feet. But I'm just not and I will never be persuaded that I'm not a failure, but it's nice of you to say that I perceive it to be failing.
It really is a horrid cycle to self-isolate. I have done that for a long, long time though, and it has always been to such an extent that I barely even registered a change when covid lockdowns happened - classes moving online is what did me in, however I was in that relationship during the whole pandemic as well so I'm not sure how I would have coped without that. Anyway how did you get out of this cycle yourself?
What you say about empathy reminds me of something I read about taking the decision to cut a family member out of one's life - I am butchering it completely but it was something like this: if you are continuing to live with an abusive or toxic family member because you want to "keep the peace", that means you have more empathy for an abusive person than you do for yourself.... so yeah, you're right, I do not have a lot of empathy for myself.
I wish I could see surviving day to day as an achievement. Maybe it's something to work on? I have therapy in two days, I think I'm gonna write it down and bring it up actually.
Thank you again for taking the time to engage with all this. Really, it means a lot.
Hey smoontjes,
I read all of what you shared. Thank you for trusting us with so much of yourself.
I don’t have any advice to give, but I want you to know that you’re heard and that I’m happy you’re here with us.
That's very kind of you. Thank you ❤️
Not doing so well lately. People talk about "autistic burnout", and while I'm not sure I buy into the idea, I'm probably feeling some kind of burnout. I have trouble with motivation and focus even on good days, but lately I'm finding it difficult to do basic things like keeping the apartment clean and doing the bare minimum necessary to stay abreast of work. Probably related: I always struggle with thoughts that everyone around me looks down on me and believes that I don't belong where I am, and it's become much harder to push those thoughts down recently.
I've experienced this sort of feeling before, and it led to a depression spiral that left me non-functional for basically my entire young adulthood. For several reasons, I don't think that will happen again, but I'm trying to move forward professionally, and it feels impossible right now. My partner has their own (objectively much worse) acute problems which, compounded with their own neurodiversity and my inability to vocalize (or even acknowledge) my needs, means that there isn't a lot of emotional capacity left over for me. I normally deal with this okay---just okay---but it's not easy right in this moment.
Not great. My pain is a lot better and isn't debilitating. I changed to a new psychiatrist and I'm finally getting help for fibromyalgia. I'm still in pain from time to time though.
I'm randomly sad and breaking down and my anxiety is terrible without Xanax. But I know not to take it too often. I've only taken it twice this week so far.
I know feeling normal is possible. I get a glimpse of it from time to time when I'm on Xanax.
I think I'm actually finally getting better, but because I'm better, I finally have the space to be sad about my situation. I was too busy being bothered by debilitating pain before this.
I want to work on my resume and get back to a full time job but I still feel too terrible to handle anything.
Yeah, people often consider the darkest spots of mental health issues to be sadness, but really, is emptiness. Feeling sad is often quite wonderful compared to the alternatives that are even worse.
Quite often we prescribe how people ought to be doing at a certain age rather specifically, as an adult, somehow, working full time is the benchmark of being a 'good person' in many societies. I just want to say, it's okay if you're not in a spot where you can do this.
Something has snapped in me to the point where I don't spiral anymore. My brain finally got tired of being a fucking weenie (not calling anyone a weenie, just me) and I've decided that no matter what the fuck happens, be it horrible or good shit, I will keep moving forward. I will get what I want in life, not because I deserve it, but because I am willing to go the distance.
Bring on the climate change. Bring on the bird flu. Bring on everything else. All shit that is (mostly) out of my control, so why spend even an iota of time worrying about it? Every second I do, the world simply moves on, further and further from me.
So I'm going to focus on what I CAN control. My thoughts. My actions. My feelings. Whether I wake up in the morning to run or not. Whether I finish all the work I set out to do today.
It's tough, but the alternative is to continue being a weenie lol
I feel stuck. I'm unemployed, but I can't seem to start working towards anything. That means I have to either take money from my parents or be homeless; so far, I've been taking the money, which I really hate. I feel like a big part of why I hate it so much is because its clearly a privilege, but its terrible for my mental health. It pushes my back to being the scared kid who needs to depend on people he doesn't trust or like.
I've been realizing I don't really know what a good life for me even means, what I even want. All I know is trying to get a point where its possible, and I think its possible now, but I just don't know anything specific.
I'm feeling quite bad, to be honest. The weather is unbearably hot, my legs keep chafing, my friends don't initiate VC if I don't (I'm pretty upset at them), I grew tired of a reactionary shithead in a core social circle of mine so I'm not talking much to them anymore, and as usual my physical health is bad nowadays again.
I usually philosophize or write poetry or fiction when I'm in such a mood, but I feel like these aren't helping me as much anymore. Especially the philosophizing, because I feel like it enables me to create some awfully pessimistic narratives that reinforce a negative worldview (which I'm actually doing much less compared to the past); or it distracts me from focusing on the the more important but emotionally heavier personal issues.
It's both a blessing and a curse to be someone who thinks abstractly a lot. It allows me to be very successful in my field, I can perceive the world in a systemic way much better, but I also can use it to avoid my feelings. I think I have to learn to utilize it to focus on me a bit, instead of focusing on the world.
Just writing this message helped, actually :) I sometimes forget how hard a life I lead (chronically ill, kind of isolated, with a very faulty social support system). It feels liberating to say "Dude, I feel like shit, because my life is shit! SHIT!!"
I just wish summer to be over. I can't quite deal with these temperatures on top of everything. It worsens both my physical and mental health. Fuck anyone who denied and denies the climate crisis. Especially the rich ones.
Have a sense of impending doom about work and this gum issue on this one tooth that might become an issue, trying to look at insurance that says it pays for everything but didn't so trying to find where the disconnect is. Also doctor is changing up my meds and looking at my weight and eating habits, so it looks like I have to give a crap about them. On top of that, my car had trouble and then had trouble again despite being relatively new so I'm looking at trade in options and despite everything it feels like if I took time off of work I wouldn't have enough time to even get into the headspace for all of the stuff I would have to do. Maybe that's what the new meds are for?
Work situation is passed, got myself worked up over nothing in particular, again. Teeth seemed to be okay, not worth an emergency appointment at this time. I did get started on Wellbutrin, and the first couple days were pretty good. Felt energized and more able to get things done, a bit focused. Then I took my evening pill after a nap but right before bed, and barely slept a wink. Looked up "Wellbutrin bedtime", Google auto completed me to "Wellbutrin bladder" and I had all night to go down a rabbit hole of fun side effects and things to keep an eye out for. (So far, we got panic attack, sweaty everything, more water intake, and some pelvic pressure resurgence, that may be a side effect or just a subset to the stress.) On the plus side, I'm walking around more, eating better (probably not 100% the drug), feeling like my default activity has been changed from lounging around to pacing and stationary cycling. Wellbutrin was something I was on before for post high school depression, and while I generally don't like the idea of a forever drug, it's working out okay, at least halfway through week 1.
And I'm keeping the car.
Wellbutrin is not a medication that agrees with me, doctor said I could discontinue completely, going to try to free wheel for a minute and see how I feel. Current anxious stuff include whether a week of this stuff did lasting damage physically or mentally (probably not), whether the bladder related issues was a UTI that happened at the same time (doubt it, should probably check though), and my car having issues again and my dealership offering a pretty good buyback. (It had its chance.)
I'm the unhappy frustrated dissatisfied one in our relationship. He's happy thinking about marriage, supposedly thinks our problems will all work out because he loves me unconditionally. I'm just looking for mutual understanding and respect, yet why is it so hard of an ask?