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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (December 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.
The doctor put my mother on antidepressant because she is not eating and is super thin and frail.
Backstory here and here.
She is still not eating and is super weak. The doctor did a full body scan and bloodwork and found no problem at all. It's her deep depression that's making her not eat.
She is now on venlafaxine and it's been one week, she is sleepy all day and still not eating. The doctor said it takes at least 15 days for the medication to work so we are hoping she improves, because if she keeps going like this she won't live much longer.
So yeah, my mental health is not that good. I've been sleeping bad these couple of days, but it's manageable. Since my brother died, things seems to be slowly getting worse around me.
At least we finally bought a house.
Congrats on the house! Parents aging and going through their own stuff is always stressful as an adult and I'm sorry that your mom's situation sounds so acute. Not sure which hemisphere you're in, but if you're like me, spring will be here in 3 or 4 months and that season has a way of putting a spring in people's step.
I hope things improve with your mother -- when I first started antidepressants I slept a lot and didn't eat much for the first week, but perked up a lot afterwards, so hopefully things work out well on this medication.
A new month a new chapter. This month it's a possible autism diagnosis. Depression is still very much a thing. I don't really care for my life, where it's headed. I just want peace of mind and I can't find it anywhere. Some days all feels good and well and then I just get jolted back into thinking the worst of myself. It sucks being traumatized. It sucks even more when the people closest to you do not understand how they can help you despite their willingness to but it sucks the most that asking for help has become such a huge mountain each time that I feel less human for hardly considering it and not being the go-to.
I fill my days with trying to stay educated, watching content that mildly seems interesting or I play a game with friends.
Wishing to just be normal, participating in society, taking on responsibilities without feeling so bad after the slightest critique or feedback. It all feels very much like a pipedream and has put me on the sidelines of life. Watching most of your friends find jobs or engaging in satisfying hobbies, having healthy relationships, seeing them buy a house and even having children. For most these are normal things. For me they are a dying light.
Oh man, I'm so sorry about that. While my Autism diagnosis was early in my life, my ADHD diagnosis was not and I was also dealing with trauma during that time. (Arguablly still am...) and I never felt more blessed than when I had people who understand what it's like.
Unfortunately I feel similar. While I try to remind myself how comparing myself with others doesn't help anyone, nor let me see the potential burdens they have, it's... also a reminder of what I've lost due to having to spend years of my life on mental health issues. It's like having to mourn the life that could have been yours.
Relatable. Got my ADHD diagnosis at 48. Still have questions about whether I have mild ASD and mild dyslexia.
I also suffer from mourning a life of that could have been but for an earlier diagnosis.
All we can do is play the hand we're dealt. Life isn't fair. Plenty of people start in better places in the game than we do. We didn't know that we started in a worse place than we understood.
yea, I feel that very much. I'm sorry to hear you went through a rough patch like that but also that it seems like you're dealing with it a little better. Picked up a positive note in all of that.
While it's nice that probation has been going well... It has also oddly enough made me feel all my other problems in life again. Having a job won't fix my lack of housing, nor abolish my debt in the foreseeable future.
After half a year, I may have to look for a job in northern Scandinavia or something if I actually want to have my own place. Which is a very weird thing to think about.
I've also been isolating myself to some of my friend again. I never really learned how to process being overwhelmed as a child, and it now makes a very deep, old part of me scared that they'll shout at me if I return.
Which they almost certainly won't. But well, I was forced to 'be social' as a kid. And this is the result.
I started counseling last week via a free-to-me service through work. They found a counselor who takes my insurance and whose experience supposedly matched what I was looking for (he's not online so I have no idea what his experience is). My first session was last week, and I was immediately impressed. He has already reframed a few things in a way that is helpful and (kindly) reminded me that if I want to work on difficult things, sometimes the work will be hard. Namely, my father has had some deeply concerning mental health episodes, which have led to me feeling anxious and responsible for him. Counselor proposed that I talk to my dad to address the root of this issue, rather than trying to "fix" my anxiety myself (which is what I wanted to do). The proposed solution would also probably give my dad a bit of a feeling of agency and control, which I think would be helpful to him, as well. I haven't yet figured out when I want to do this - if I want to try to do it in the next week or so before my next appointment, or let it percolate some more and ask the counselor for more advice first.
More than anything, I'm deeply appreciative to have been presented with a counselor who is strategy- and solution-oriented. The last counselor I talked to about issues with my dad didn't offer anything memorable other than participation in a drug trial (...nope). Hopefully I can motivate myself to do the work now.
I just got diagnosed with ADHD. We've been suspecting it for a while but finally I've got validation.
I've posted asking about ADHD/Autism before, but I didn't reply to many of the comments because I couldn't bring myself to.
Reading about ADHD at the time brought up complex feelings. Now I can though. Probably. Maybe.
A long while back I ended up crying at my therapy session because I was finally realising that life didn't have to be this hard and I felt sad for the person (past me) who worked really hard to exist like everyone else without knowing I wasn't just weak and lazy.
So now I'm fine? Maybe? Maybe.
You're allowed to spend time feeling conflicted or complex feelings about having ADHD -- I personally had the opposite experience where I was super enthusiastic at first but more complex emotions about it came later. I think a big part of coming to terms with it is self-empathy, and it sounds like you're already on that path. Best of luck with your treatment going forward!
Serious SA and CSA trigger warning below.
For those that don't know, that means sexual assault and child sexual abuse.
Most therapists I ever had and talked to about what happened to me as a child only ever gave empty platitudes like "that must have been hard for you" or "your bounderies were crossed", and only one single one was completely honest who said "I don't know enough about this to help you" and then referred me to the Centre for the Sexually Abused.
That was a year ago but I wasn't ready, being scared what would come of it. Well I called them and was given an appointment the very same week. It was a 2 hour talk with a psychologist who is an expert in the field of child sexual abuse. I didn't contact them before now because I just feared deep down that I could no longer be on this odd fence between acceptance and denial that I'd been on for 20 years. Well, mostly very willing denial. Often shrugging it off by telling myself that it was just siblings exploring or he was teaching me things or whatever.. but no.. this psychologist validated it all, like she could not have been more clear. She looked me in the eye and said unequivocally that I had been taken advantage of, I had been sexually abused, I had been attempted raped all those times across all those months that it lasted.
It's been 2 weeks since this appointment and I still get that sinking feeling when I think about it, and teary eyed when I say it because every time I do, it becomes more and more real. It has been and is immensely difficult to accept it. It will be 2-3 years before I can get treatment though (free socialized healthcare creates waiting lists..), but it's apparently very thorough. Weekly sessions with a psych for 1½ years. I don't entirely know what to expect but I dread it.
Where I before could pretty easily socialize with my brother, sometimes entirely forgetting about it, I now can't look at him without it being on my mind constantly. I feel a seething hatred of him and I felt such shadenfreude when a horrible thing happened to him. But I only wish for more.. I fantasize about doing something very loud like this to ruin his life. I want him in imprisoned forever. I'm ashamed of it but I know it's not rare to feel this way about one's molester.
Problem with this though is that he is the golden child and has received so very much support after his child died. I never truly felt supported got despite struggling my whole life with mental illness, now so severe that I don't function. He is widely liked and loved, and I am not. I have cut my father out of my life due to neglect and emotional abuse over me, despite him not even being liked - so that should say something. And so I can only think that the other side of my family would choose my brother over me. People don't even get why I cut my father out despite almost nobody liking him. For them, it seems like a cardinal sin to cut contact with a parent. I have been questioned about it a dozen times, all by separate family members. Some have been invalidating to the point that it triggers me and makes me doubt myself just like my father did with his gaslighting. It's really triggering.
This is also the family that still engages with an actual Nazi, one of my mom's cousins. He actually believes in something like the Madagascar plan - the last time I saw him (before I came out), he told me directly that homosexuals are unnatural and should all be removed to an island. He is genuinely a bad person - all four of his children have cut him off and the only possible reason for that is if he was extremely violent or also a sexual abuser. But my entire family immediate and extended turns the cheek, just saying "we don't talk about politics" to brush it off. Very willfully ignoring it all. Even if he isn't an abuser, he is still a racist and homophobe to the extreme. My cousin is also gay, but they don't care. They still accept him..! Thankfully he lives in Australia and rarely visits Denmark and that's the only positive. But every time my mom brings him up, has spoken to him, gotten a letter, etc., I wince and mention that line about one nazi at the table. She always brushes it off though, like it simply doesn't land, and it upsets me deeply that she engages with him at all.
Seems like a digression but I'm mentioning him because considering this, and how well liked my brother is, and that everyone accepts that uncle, and judges me for cutting my father out.. who is then going to believe me, the black sheep, the severely mentally ill person? 20 years after the fact? I would have now cut two out of three immediate family members out of her life. There is just no way I would be believed. I am convinced that people would write it off and talk about that it's because I'm mentally ill, maybe they would call me a poor thing and talk about how I need help and it's all such a shame etc.. it would also utterly destroy my mom, and I can't do that to her. And her being crushed is best case scenario even. Worst case would be that she kept in touch with my brother like she does my father and my first cousin once removed. I can't demand that she doesn't still talk to them.
So I just have to continue suppressing these traumas, pretending nothing is wrong, and I don't know how I'm going to do that. I'm pretty sure that on top of my 4 diagnoses, I also now have C-PTSD. Almost everything is a struggle for me, few things are ever easy - I just don't function and I sure don't fit into society. I don't know if that's because of this, if it's because of the bullying, if it's because of my neglecting and abusive father, if it's because of the weird relationship with a 34 year old I had when I was 16.. I'm just so fucked up. I have been in and out of therapy with dozens and dozens of mental health professionals, but nothing works and I don't believe I'll ever truly get better or happy in any way.
Good things are like a flickering light that's struggling not to extinguish. Bad things are always there in the background, even when I'm enjoying myself with friends. I'm going to be on a plane tomorrow to spend a week with my bestie - her and two other really good friends are about the only things I have going for me. I am thankful and grateful for them as they and my mom are the only things that keeps me going. But my life is still in shambles.
I think these threads tend to get a bit depressing since most people, myself included, tend to only post when bad things are happening. I want to try and change that.
Things are going fantastic for me! I am in school, and I am handling it very well. My ADHD is well managed, and I am mostly on top of my classes. I have medication to last until next July, so I don’t have anything to worry about for a long time. I have been in and out of college classes since I graduated high school 10 years ago. This is the first time I have felt like I was handling school in a healthy, sustainable way.
I had a thought the other day. I have always been a very impatient person. Since my diagnosis, I just assumed impatience was an undocumented direct symptom of ADHD. But it might not be a direct symptom. Instead, I think it’s a maladaptive response to other ADHD symptoms. If something takes a long time, I will end up forgetting about it, so I unintentionally trained myself to be impatient to counteract my forgetfulness.
I'm really glad things are going well for you and that your ADHD is well-managed! I resonate with your description of impatience as not being a direct symptom of my ADHD. I think a lot of us with ADHD condition ourselves to counteract it with anxiety in a variety of maladaptive ways, and I think what you describe is one of them for sure.
You're not wrong that they're depressing, but it's a support thread so I feel that that is a given.
Happy that things are going well for you though. Sounds like things are looking up!
Last week my depression was bad enough that my therapist and I talked about me going inpatient (which, because I'm in Germany, is something that's very doable financially even when it's not an emergency -- and it's not in my case!) I was honestly fully on-board with it but this weekend we had some friends over for a casual hangout and my wife cleaned the living room, and I'm now erring against doing it right now. It would probably mean being inpatient for the whole Christmas season, which would be kinda sad, and I think if I don't improve over the next couple weeks at home I can always initiate the process later in the winter.
A lot of my current mental health problems are based on me feeling overwhelmed by a bunch of shit I have to deal with and incapable of keeping my life from feeling like it's falling apart on a more material level, and while going inpatient could get that off my plate temporarily while I'm there, it's not actually going to deal with that shit for me, which is what I feel like I need right now. I wish I could fly my mom or my sister or my childhood best friend out from Ohio to just help me get my stuff together like they did when I was in college. The distance from people that love me is by far the worst part of moving across the world because there's no actual solution to that part. The language barrier can be surmounted, but the fact that my family can't come help when I'm going through some shit is never gonna change.
I found out late last night that my wife has been cheating on me. For the last five years I have taken care of everything for her in terms of housing, cars, insurances, basically all financials, while she bounced from college program to program, failing out of physics, astronomy, nursing, and now aviation mechanic school.
We had arguments, but I always supported her and encouraged her to be positive. If this didn't click, that's okay. You'll find your thing.
We had a kid. I take care of him. She goes to school half heartedly. Lots of parties and festivals that leave me at home alone with my son. I love being home with my son, so I tolerate it. He's three now.
I found out last night that she's cheated on me. Two people, at least three different events. Most recently with a kid from her mechanic class. She'd been staying close to school on weekdays and being more mean and avoidant when home. Doing weird stuff while out with friends. Blaming me for her behavior.
I feel so unbelievably hurt right now. I stayed home from work today, with her. We talked a lot. Idk what is going to happen. I desperately want us to be okay, but I have always said that I'd stay with her if and only if she is faithful to me. We've had lots of struggles before this, but this is an absolute and total violation of the one rule I had in our relationship.
I'm worried that if I don't end things, that she won't change. She'll continue being mean to me, leaving me holding the bag on every "responsibility" front, and then using my exhaustion as an excuse to rationalize lying and cheating on me.
I'm worried that if I do end things I am giving up on the deepest love I have ever found, violating my wedding vows and promises to her grandmother, and giving up on my son having a happy childhood.
This isn't appropriate probably, but I cannot talk to anyone. If I share with my family, they'll never accept her back into the fold. Friends are all split loyalty, and she's lied to them about me to poison the water there. I just feel awful. If not for my son, I think I would've ended myself last night. As is I just wish I could teleport him and myself somewhere far away, or have some magic tool to undo so much of the past.
Oh my god I'm just so sorry you are going through this.
No matter what you decide, in the end it was her violation, not yours. I understand that it's right now difficult for you to get your head straight. But if it ends on this, it was her choice to cheat. Not yours.
Take care man. :/ I'm so sorry.
Not great, to the point where I'm now thinking about seeing a doctor.
I've noticed myself getting irrationally angry over the past year. And last night, after an eve of mild drinking and karaoke, I got food, travelled back home (early night) and just felt irrationally paranoid all the way back, like thinking I pissed off people who are out to get me.
Something feels wrong with me. It could be alcohol related but also it might not because it doesn't feel like a normal symptom. I think part of me is worried about seeing a GP and being made to feel like I'm wasting their time, and I've definitely had shitty experiences on the NHS. I have private medical insurance which is good, but I don't think it'll be much better. My specific workplace plan is only really great if you get diagnosed with cancer - my boss had a melanoma diagnosed and treatment was very swift.
I do have a lump on my neck that I've had two ultrasounds on in the past (both turned up benign, and doctors won't operate on it unless it's cancerous), but it has grown quite a bit in the last few years so that has me worried.
This on top of an apartment purchase and an upcoming exam is really stressful.