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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (August 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.
I'm feeling stuck and confused. My partner and I of 9 years are taking a break. I've been feeling off about our relationship for a while - we have a distinct inequity in the decision making of our relationship - and we've been in couples counseling for 6 years trying to figure out if we'll stay together. It's felt like an extended, uncomfortable limbo through that whole time.
In general we get along, we're into similar hobbies, and have similar life goals. But I often feel steam rolled, not considered, and like I'm having to haggle for my needs. For example, we live near to my parents, and during Covid when they visited my partner had them sit 15 feet away, outside, with no physical contact. We all agreed as she had strong fears around health. 2 weeks later her family visited and immediately they hugged and sat on our couch. As if all the prep and demands on my family had never existed. I don't think anything she does is intentional or in malice, or even that bad, it's just incredibly frustrating how frequent the feeling is.
I spend the last 3 weeks deciding if we're going to get married, have kids, the whole shebang. Our landlord is moving his niece in and we got our 60 days to move and we decided it was a good idea to figure us out first; rather than move in together with uncertainty again. I took the time and decided I couldn't accept the inequity in our relationship and asked to break up. It was heart breaking. I thought I would have an immediate sense of relief but it never came. I just felt incredibly sad and scared. So we decided to take a 3 week break and see if those feelings change. I love the pants off her and would love things to work, but I'm so so sick of not being prioritized.
I guess my ask to Tildes is have any of you been in a similar situation? Did anything help? If you've had a difficult break up, what helped you get clarity or relief? Thanks for listening.
Edit: Credit where credit is due. My partner has been an active participant in all of the couples counseling, has identified some of the behavior is problematic to our relationship, has been working (and succeeding) on communication changes, and wants things to work out for us. She is trying and I really appreciate it. It's just this underlying anxiety, or need to be right from her childhood, that ends of kicking off the issues. Sometime it takes an hour to get her to hear my perspective, but often we'll get there.
Since you specifically asked for feedback.
What didn't help: repeating the Cycle - from "hopeful" to "slight unease but can't put my finger on it" to "unhappy but not enough to form words" to "struggling to communicate/get through" to hopeful again. We weren't spiralling up and out of a passing storm, we were merely going in a circle like those ants in a death spiral.
I would posit that it's not common for relationships to require couples counseling only three years in. And six more years later, do you see a clear end in sight of the struggle? Did you originally dream of a relationship where you have to work this hard?
Sometimes, someone can be trying very hard and truly loves you and they're not a bad person etc, but it is still not enough. Is this relationship as it is right now, if it doesn't get much better, enough? Can you be at peace and feel like you're not starved of oxygen or sunshine?
Sometimes, people can love us for how it makes them feel, or that they desperately want to appear to be the kind of person who is in a loving stable relationship with someone just like you.
Oof, that hits home. I did not dream of working this hard, it's been a bit of a surprise.
I'm trying to figure out just what you're asking. Can I jump into the relationship with both feet and accept the challenges we currently face or not. Thanks for the insight and perspective.
It's super super super hard and heartbreaking. There are no right or wrong answers; sometimes we just want enough strength to go on just one more day. You have my cheer and my best wishes
I know this is difficult to hear, but it's very rare that people change fundamentally. It sounds like an incredibly difficult situation that may just come down to evaluating whether or not the inequities outweigh the long-term potential for growing together.
Are these behaviors something that you can live with indefinitely when they may or may not change in time? It sounds like this might be having a real impact on your personal well-being, so only you can decide what and how much you're willing to contend with. Don't let the sunk cost fallacy trick you into staying if it's actually something that might cause long-term damage to your well-being.
In saying that, I also acknowledge that it is incredibly difficult to disentangle from someone you've been with for so long, and for so many reasons a dissolution of a long-term relationship is undesirable. There's reasons you are with this person and love them, and those reasons are legitimate. So I encourage you to take this time to think hard on how you want your next year's to look, and take into consideration the factors that will influence how your next chapters look.
It sounds like she is able to talk honestly about these things, at least some of the time, so work on being clear and open about where you are and what you're thinking. However it turns out, I sincerely hope the best for you. We each get one life, that we have no choice but to mostly navigate blind, our one advantage in that is self reflection and self direction, both essential things to focus on in this time of change.
I appreciate the insight. All those thoughts and worries are swimming through my head as I make this decision.
I'll be completely disconnecting for about a week tomorrow and head into the backcountry so I can get space, take away distractions, and really sit with everything. Thanks for the support, empathy, and advice.
Of course. I just went through a divorce that was ironically not that difficult, all things considered, but after 8 years of marriage and 10 years living on the road together, we did the whole relationship on hard mode. We were fortunate enough to have no kids or debt, so that wasn't a tangle we had to navigate. Also, as difficult and hard as he was on me during our marriage (some similarities but not the same as your relationship), I'm grateful that he's been absolutely stand-up through the whole divorce process. This shit ain't easy, but again, we only have one life. Enjoy your backcountry trip. I love being in the middle of nowhere where humans are the exception, not the rule.
I don't feel down, depressed or anxious, but I do feel like I mentally just want to be somewhere else and have felt this way for the past week or two. It's been a struggle to get through the day with my kids, because I just wish they'd go away and leave me alone for an entire day, so I could just do whatever I wanted. It's not like it's been bad, they haven't been any worse than usual or anything and I've been largely an active participant in doing stuff with them and enjoying their company.
But I'm struggling to face another day of having to get them out of the house, make lunches, just do the routine. School starts in two weeks, so that'll be nice for me, but again by the same token, it's just been a struggle for me mentally.
I've also been drinking a lot. Even as I write this, I've cracked my first beer and will probably have another 3 or 4 before bedtime. I have alternatives, but I've just been wanting to feel a little buzzed in the evenings lately, probably something to do with wanting to mentally be somewhere else.
My boss just told me she's going to put me on a PIP, and while some of the reasons behind it are genuine failings on my part, I've largely been washed away by a deep sense of hopelessness. It seems like the amount of effort I put in is disconnected from how what I do is perceived, and I feel like I'm held equally responsible for things that are out of my control (e.g., a bug in some tooling we're using that needs fixed for me to perform a task) as I am mistakes that I actually made. The result is that I feel completely helpless and utterly demotivated as a result. Obviously this isn't exactly improving my performance either.
My wife has been supportive (and even in the worst case scenario where I get fired, we have enough savings that some time job hunting on my end won't impact us too deeply). But I'm scared of finding another job now that the field is a lot rougher than it was when I got hired here, especially if I get fired and have to explain that in future interviews. I live in Germany but don't speak German fluently, so I'm cut off from a lot of opportunities based on that as well. And since I'm not a citizen, I'm not entitled to the unemployment benefits a normal German would get as far as I'm aware -- and I dread figuring out how to sort that out bureaucratically.
I just feel utterly empty and hopeless about the situation, and I know that's going to make me less effective at doing any of the things that should be done in response to this. I spent almost all day today (Saturday) sleeping -- I was only awake for a couple hours tops. I can find some joy playing videogames but there's only so much they can overcome the feeling of impending doom as this situation hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles.
I'm really sorry that you're in that situation. A combination of situations in and out of your control mixed like that can be demoralizing and really hurt your ability to tackle the things you do control.
Just to make sure, have you also pointed out the things to your boss that are out of your control? It feels oddly similar in some ways to how I experienced my last thesis, and looking back I think I needed both more guidance as well as some other people also taking responsibility. It might be very different ofc, but still.
I'm worried at this point that anything I say that isn't me taking responsibility is just going to be seen as me shirking responsibility... I don't really know how to approach it at all honestly.
So... asking for help is often talked about as if it's one skill, but it's often more of a skillset. The fact that you tell me that you don't know how to approach it at all paired with
Makes me wonder about two things:
I definitely have had situations where something isn't working for reasons that are out of my control and I delayed things further by not asking for help from my teammates in a timely manner. So I do think this is a skillset I'm lacking. The problem is that I'm not exactly sure how to fix that, especially under the current circumstances.
Yeah this is one of the nastiest parts of lacking this skillset. The times it becomes the most apparent are also the times where it's worst time to ask for help in it.
However, there is one thing you can do here. You can bring these two struggles up to your boss: Asking for help, and knowing how to communicate about things that are beyond your control.
That's most likely going to be very difficult for you. As this would be a very vulnerable thing. It would also make a lot of sense, given the PIP would be in a way, a perfect opportunity for you to learn it.
Given your experience, do you think your boss would be understanding about this?
My overall impression of my boss is that she's been an understanding person and good mentor, so I hope so. She's very explicitly asked me for anything I think will help my performance. But I honestly don't think that I can be objective in my assessment of how well things will go given my current mood. But since I'll be fired if this PIP doesn't go well anyway, I don't think there's any chance it'll make things worse, so it's worth whatever chance there is that bringing it up will help.
I'm in love with a bi man. I'm the first man he's ever been with. This is the most intense, organic connection either of us have ever felt; he says the emotional connection feels 1 in 1,000 for him. He's open-minded and wants to explore himself.
And he admits that he struggles with internalized homophobia. He was deeply Christian until a half year ago.
He recently confessed that when he looks at a woman, he feels that he wants to pamper her, care for her, protect her, love her, do anything to make her happy, buy a house together, start a family together. But when he looks at a man like me, he sees... friendship, maybe companionship. Not love, not longing. It's not up to him: it's just his rural, fundamentalist Christian programming.
I wasn't biphobic before, but maybe I am now. Maybe it's not fair to be biphobic: I don't know if this will last, but I don't want to experience this pain ever again in my life.
tl;dr: I'm in love with a bi man whose internalized homophobia prevents him from seeing me the same way I see him.
Depression makes me isolate myself, and the loneliness is making me depressed. Still no job in sight while my social network is crumbling and everyday I have less energy to try and fix it.
I really don't know what to do anymore. It's like I'm stuck in a cycle that is nearly impossible to get out of.
In many cultures, there is a belief that those who do not display the correct emotions in an overt fashion and in socially approved occasions must be bullied into emotional conformance. That belief is not always explicit, but I do believe it is pervasive. We, the cold assholes, must be compelled to feel. The real people, those who know how life must be truly lived, require ample emotion on command. While it is sometimes possible to escape actual commands from broadly recognized figures of authority, no one can escape the subtle tyranny of the well-meaning.
Suddenly I no longer wish to go to the theater because it is impolite to not applaud every play regardless of my opinion of it. Not only that, I must also stand up and show genuine enthusiasm! The last husband who did not do so was called "autistic" behind his back (as if it was a slur...) by all those beautiful, perfect, progressive theater people. I can understand not wanting to hear my opinion, and I will gladly keep it to myself to avoid ruining someone's evening. But do "normal people" have any idea how much effort does it take for me to put on that kind of show?
Yesterday my son had his first birthday. Do I love my son with every ounce of my being? Absolutely. Am I happy that my son remained alive, healthy, and happy for an entire year? Absolutely. Do I really attach any emotion to the fact that a year has 365 days, a decade has 10 years, and a century is 100? Am I in love with the Gregorian Calendar? Does that exact date mean anything to me? Absolutely not.
And here I was yesterday with an extra dose of anti psychotic in my body trying to pretend that it is normal for people to address me as if my wife had birthed the Second Coming of the Lord and I was some kind of important person because some time ago I didn't wear a condom. Laughing in every picture because that's what you do, dying inside while reminding myself that it all was really important for my wife and I so wanna make her happy. And, just today, I decided not to tell her how I feel. She deserves it. It's been 24 hours and I still feel like I was emotionally violated by what felt like 800 thousand people in my home for a party that I would have traded for half an hour in an empty room with the AC on and Star Trek playing on the TV.
Being weird is tough sometimes.