28
votes
Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (May 2025)
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.
My dad died a couple weeks ago. It's a lot. He wasn't that old, but his health has been failing over the last 15 years. My feelings about it are very complicated, which makes sense seeing as our relationship was complicated. All things said and done, I loved my father, and I know he truly loved me.
I feel for you. My mom died 5 years ago tomorrow, and I'm still trying to work it out in my head. I really hope you can be extra kind to yourself and give yourself lots of time.
Thank you. Its such a massive life mark without words. And noone has the words, which is simply apropos. What was your mom like?
Sorry to have not answered. Turned out that my mom's cat (which I inherited) died on the 5 year anniversary of my mom's death. She was 21 but honestly it seemed like she was gonna outlive us all. She was also the 3rd of my old cats to die in a month-long stretch (all old, but each unexpected and awful) it really knocked me over and I'm still grieving them all.
Caring mom's cat was the last thing I could do for her, and that loss has really illuminated the finality of my mom's passing.
To answer your question--My mom was an enigma to me and so she will remain, I guess. She hid herself for her own protection and became what she thought people wanted her to be. Only rarely, and and near the end, did I get any real sense of her. During the last few months she had periods of compete memory loss that lasted for days. During those times she became like a child--incredibly sweet, simple, curious--I think it was the bare essence of who she was. I feel grateful that I was able to see that.
How are you doing?
It's such a rough thing to work through, you have my sympathies.
It's coming up on 10 years since I lost my dad and it still catches me out unexpectedly at times. Be generous to yourself and take the time.
I do get what you mean about complicated relationships, it can be hard to unpack yourself and just as hard to talk ill to others about someone you're grieving.
Just really getting it to me that I'm still living with my parents, and never had a relationship... It's not as bad as when I did not have a job but it's still like watching my life pass me by at times. Not much irl contacts at this moment either, and I wish I lived somewhere in a city. It just... Suits me more.
Then there is the resurgence of fascism and stuff. Y'know, the minor details. sigh
In my city its still possible to move into an apartment and split the rent between two or three room mates. Not sure how your city is. Theres services for finding room mates too like they’ll do background checks for you and everything. Friend of mine did that quite a few times about ten years ago.
I was just really broke for a long time cause I didn’t want to live with my parents. A lot of the time I wasn’t even on the lease of the place where I was staying. Rent is pretty cheap when you squeeze 5 people into a 3 bedroom. I was so broke after paying the $300 rent though that Id go days without food.
I think a lot of people start out on their own like that, just really really broke. I definitely could have had a better standard of living if I had stayed at my moms house but I don’t regret it, I learned a lot and met a lot of people.
As someone who lived with parents on more than one occasion as an adult, I know this is a cliche and I'm sure you've heard it many times but stay strong and keep trying (to date). It may be difficult and having people turn you down because you live with parents hurts, just keep trying. Eventually you'll find someone who doesn't care that you live with your parents and that person will want to date you. And eventually when you get your own place and move out, and when you start dating, don't discriminate against those who live with parents.
Not great. I work as QA Mgr at a food processing facility and for the last two days we're in the middle of an investigation that will determine whether we will initiate a product recall. The main issue is we have very little information about the scope of the issue. Does not feel good.
I'm in a fucking bad mood.
A recap for those who haven't been following my situation: I'm in the process of purchasing a flat and had my offer accepted back in October, but it now looks like this is going to fall through. I was made redundant a few weeks ago because my previous employer are a bunch of greedy fucks who have responded to a decline in sales with mass layoffs, my mortgage offer expires very soon, and this whole process has been dragged out because the property is in negative equity due to owed ground rent, council bills and some care costs (prev leaseholder passed away.)
The job search is going dreadfully. I've had a grand total of five interviews since being laid off. Three rejections, one company closing the position without the decency of even giving me any interview feedback, and another dragging their heels with delaying the second stage interview. Whereas three years ago I was constantly being pigeonholed into shitty purchase ledger jobs now, I'm now in a market that wants nothing to do with me.
Woken up this morning with feedback from an interview I had yesterday, and the criticism I received was rather harsh, basically they had reservations about my communication skills and how I handled an hour long competency based interview. Gotta love having Asperger's. I mean I didn't disclose it nor asked for any reasonable adjustments because I think that would have felt like cheating, but it still makes me feel mentally handicapped.
don't feel like it's cheating! or if you have to feel like it's cheating, be ok with that lol, cheat the fuck out of those interviewers. they love someone who has persevered. the whole system is crap, use every tool you got, show them every angle of you possible.
It was very bad at first. But I saw my psychiatrist and I got 12 hour long stimulants and I've slowly been getting better. Being able to get up.. Kind of.
My mood is slowly getting better. I think.
But now I'm suffering from dry mouth. My gums are bleeding and my tongue is also sort of not great.
Time to see the doc again.
Shew, sounds like the stims may be too strong. Do you feel that way? I think at a 12 hour length, I'd want something on the subtler side.
Or maybe I should try a different one? I'm still having a hard time focusing or getting up.
Really recommend Vyvanse if you haven't given it a go. I think it's much more mild but still effective.
I've been struggling a ton.
I'm in the US, and I hate being so informed all the time of all the ways life is going to be shit in new and interesting ways. And I was not at all ready for the... everything. Spent all my savings getting to an area that's safer for me, so I have no padding if I lose my job. Don't have a robust support system. Also, I hate my job and I feel like it's killing me, to the point I'm trying to leave tech altogether. It's just all too much to deal with right now.
But, I started practicing piano more consistently, and I'm taking my medication on time. I'm slowly picking up the pieces, slowly feeling better about myself. So it's a struggle, but I'm getting through it I think. For now.
Life is not great, but yesterday I've been sober and smoke-free for fifteen years, so at least that's been working out.
Adapting to my recently and late-diagnosed autism is kicking my ass.
I'm glad to have (finally, it seems) found the missing puzzle piece that explains why my life has generally been mostly a series of missteps and tragedies.
I was never built for this conformist world.
I've barely been in public spaces for 2 months apart from cycling on public trails Ever time I have been in an indoor public space, I'm confronted by painful noises, distracting visuals, and early warning signs of implosive meltdowns.
I recently visited the in-laws for my father-in-law's heart surgery. I got to experience a number of allistic invalidations and judgement of my experience. It was as though my dignity and pain just didn't matter.
Of course, they have no idea how hard it has been to succeed in this society for 49 years, while suffering constantly for no clear reason (until now) and still presenting as a mildly mental person or as a person insisting on doing the morally/ethically right thing even when inconvenient for me or for more employer—and why I'm so burnt out that I haven't worked in 2 years.
FiL bluntly asking if I've considered going on Social Security Disability (which, by the way, is an utterly humiliating and frustrating process, from prior experience with my late Huntington's Diseased wife). SisterIL initiated an interrogation about how I'm dealing with my autism, leading up to her saying, "Well, everyone has their own pain". Neither of them meant to do harm yet their remarks were so absurdly lacking empathy.
I finally snapped and told her that she has no idea how much that hurt, that I'm tired of casual denigration—particularly from family, and to either lean in or just don't ask about my experience.
The worst part of a late autism diagnosis is the emotional labor that almost every allistic implicitly expects me to do for them. Masking just leads to more anxiety while showing up authentically isn't necessarily better. I don't have the spoons to teach them about autism so my take, after two months, has slowly moved toward asking and just starting to advocate for my needs and that if people expect me to educate them that they should "do your own research of fuck off."
I'm so sorry, so many people are diagnosed late - and to then have this utter lack of empathy must be exhausting when you're still in the process of processing this, and mourning the past that you didn't have due to the late diagnosis.
I don't think I have autism but I do have narcolepsy and I really felt these words:
It's a positive feedback loop. Masking -> anxiety -> exhaustion -> my effect on others -> masking (repeat) which continues to sap away energy. This made life incredibly difficult. It wasn't until I removed myself from the environments where masking felt necessary that I could begin to recover. I hope you find something that works for you too.
This was and still is hard for me at times, but this helped me a lot, too. I'm cheering for you.
I apologize in advance if this question is too personal or presumptuous, but I wasn't aware narcolepsy entailed masking. Would you be comfortable sharing some of your experiences with it? I'm not super familiar with narcolepsy and I wager others here might also not be.
I appreciate your curiosity :3
Narcolepsy is a REM sleep disorder which means we don't get much rest when we're asleep. It appears different for each person but the main symptom is we're all fuckin tired anywhere between sometimes to all the time. By tired, I mean if you've ever been up for days and felt the chest pressure where each breath felt heavy, or you wanted to move or talk but nothing comes out, the eyes are tired and dry, it's like that and more.
It's a common theme among ppl with narcolepsy where we've been called lazy/undisciplined because we sleep in, fall asleep at our desk/meetings, or are forgetful, disorganized and unreliable. So when my medical insurance is dependent on my job (I worked in big tech), being authentic was a risky option. I felt it imperative I appeared competent and dependable. Which meant masking convincingly. Which made me more tired. So I masked harder. This was unsustainable.
There are meds to help, but most only deal with symptoms and not the cause, e.g., stimulants to stay awake, but it doesn't cover the feeling of exhaustion, it just helps push through it. It gives me more energy to mask and pretend I'm not tired, which means acting interested and alert, fake smiling/facial expressions/body language. Forcing myself to speak when I don't want to and stay awake through sheer will (not always successful). It's very exhausting and feels fake no matter how much I actually want to be present.
Thank you <3 what a service you've done here, to explain this to us!
This was a very insightbringing read, like I could maybe have guessed but having it like this is such a great resource.
Thank you for saying so! I always feel a little weird talking about narcolepsy because I so easily end up venting instead of writing with intent, but I'm glad it was successful to spread awareness. Maybe I will write about it more often.
I should learn how to not put unrealistic, absurdly high, perfectionist-level standards for myself in every single thing that matters to me, which obviously results in repeatedly ending up disappointed and hateful of myself for not reaching them.
Being a practically lifeless "model offspring" for decades has fucked me up way more than I'd like to admit.
Got the news from the rheumatologist a week or so ago that I've still got unacceptably high disease activity and continuing joint erosion, so it's time for biologics. I'm having some back and forth with insurance, since the retail cost of the recommended medication is $8,000/month.
Even after two hip replacements, I still struggle with delusory thinking about my illness. I feel mostly okay between autoimmune flare-ups, and that lets me engage in denial. Despite an intellectual understanding that I risk catastrophic disability up to and including life-shortening major organ damage if I don't take all the available treatments (and the long-term prognosis is good if I do), I don't want to think of myself as limited and dependent in this way. I don't want the lifestyle modifications, the side effects, the perennial worries about insurance and expenses... I can engage in fantastical nostalgia about Life Before, or buckle down and accept reality. Even Vipassana meditation isn't really helping enough right now.
I know I'm being emotionally juvenile regarding something that millions of others have adapted to, that I might have encountered through normal senescence anyway. A friend with a related autoimmune condition went from being wheelchair-bound and totally dependent on care to well enough to walk and work again with the right treatment, so I've got a very concrete reason for hope. At the same time, getting fatigued and depressed about all this is usually a major warning symptom of another oncoming flare.
Not really looking for advice, just needed to vent.
Epilogue:
Apparently, UnitedHealthCare has bent over backwards to stop auto-denying claims since the unfortunate event. The hideously overpriced drug was approved without fuss. My out-of-pocket cost is $0, though I've got worries about who's really paying for this, and whether my employer will be incentivized to shed me from their self-insurance pool. [Not legal, but the last round of layoffs in our office included the two older cancer survivors and the two low-seniority Black people on my team...]
Started the medication this past weekend. Joints in my hands that were so swollen they were nearly unusable are down almost to normal. I've got energy (and optimism!) again. Now I'm blaming myself for waiting to use the biologics. :-/
April mood chart
Some good days here and there, most of them bad to awful, a couple of them worse than in a very long time. Had a one two punch of two separate conflicts with two friends over easter that made me think it would all fall, and by extension my life being ruined because these few friends is one of the only good things in my life. Some of this stuff was legitimate to be upset about, but most of it was just mental illness.. triggers everywhere, mind seeing things that weren't there, perceiving abandonment that wasn't happening, distorting facts.. as a result I've just been feeling like a bad person for weeks now, more so than I usually do. Still the tiniest things make me spiral. 1 word in 1 sentence out of 100 is enough to somehow make me believe that that 1 thing is the truth and not the 99 other things. Just grabbing that and holding on to it and not hearing the rest.
I try to distract myself to cope but I'm losing my balance and feel like I'm going to fall apart the next time anything remotely major happens. Fighting against thought of self harm and worse is also harder than it has been in many months. I have still refrained though for 219 days. I've been able to feel proud about it before but nowadays it doesn't feel like a win at all. Feels like since I got my tattoo over most of the scars on my arm, cutting wouldn't just be an unhealthy coping method, but a thing that would cause me to break even further because this art is a symbol of trying to get better. So relapsing would be so much worse than in the past, it seems.
So yeah.. just hanging in there.
Friend sent me this and it resonated a lot.
I'm quite depressed, or more like I'm overloaded and overwhelmed so I turn passive and get depressed over failing at life again.
Yesterday I couldn't fall asleep because I was sore from laying down in my sofa almost all day.
I have difficult things to do, but still, I hate when this happens.
I still have a lot of crying to do after finding out my mother was actually proud of me, my parenting and my life. It is soul crushing (and I don't even believe in a soul!) for both of us - or I mean she is dead, but just thinking about her not being able to tell me that even once for 50 years kills me. I'm having difficulty setting up crying for myself, I ran out of sappy TV, and I don't dare ask my friends for more crying time.
I'm trying to be gentle and kind with myself, but it's not easy, although someone said something to me a few years back that really stuck with me
It might look stupid or like a bot-generated pointless "deep" platitude, but it gives me breathing room.
I think that I might have to break up with my girlfriend (well, we are adults, but I don't know any other appropriate word with similar weight), but I don't really want to. Or maybe I do, I'm not sure. Decisions!!
I feel like I can't give her what she wants, and although we speak of this I fear that I should take more responsibility over it because she is infatuated with me while I "just" like her a lot a lot. (It might have to do with how strongly we feel things, it might not).
Mid April I got reminded that I had a hunch that something was wrong with my queueing for a neurodivergent assessment. I was right, two different psykiatrists had failed to put me in the queue. Good thing I called. The person in charge of administering the queue put my in line according to when I should have been put there. That's a relief but also so tiresome... It is hard to do these things!
I went to see a doctor today (yes on a Saturday) about an unrelated matter. It was super depressing. The clinic felt like a factory, the nurses talked very little, quickly and kind of harshly. The doctor saw me for 5 minutes and just wanted to get out of there. I got help, not the way I hoped, but the way there is. Seems I'm one if the lucky few that just react badly to my own skin fauna!
Often I write my tildes posts in a separate editor because the box here is to small but this post feels as scattered as my brain and the small box fits my mood.
I've mentioned before in these threads dealing with postpartum depression, trying to get help and being endlessly directed and referred elsewhere.
None of that has changed all that much. 6 weeks after referring myself to the NHS therapy offering I had an assessment call in mid-April where I laid out why CBT doesn't work for me, 2 weeks later I had a follow-up where I was told the options are "higher-level CBT with less focus on cognitive restructuring" but no explanation of what that would actually entail (I asked, she didn't know) or IPT. I opted for IPT, so they'll get back to me in 5-6 weeks - it would be 30-40 weeks, but they prioritise new mothers...
In the mean time, because baby is getting older and sleeping longer at night I'm actually having more good days, and have once again come to the conclusion that my problem probably isn't so much depression or anxiety, but neurodivergence. Though one of the avenues of help I've been in contact with offered a referral to a course for neurodivergent parents, so that might actually turn out to be something.
The new concern is how on earth I'll manage returning to work with a baby that is now refusing attempts at bottle feeding, be it of formula or pumped milk. I can work from home, but how possible will that be with a 6-month old who knows mum is in the house but won't come out and play?
Life is pretty fucking hard nowadays, but this past weekend was a good one. My girlfriend came down to my house Saturday to help me go through bookshelves of my parent's (they are both gone, and this is something I've been putting off for years), and Sunday I went up to hers to help with her late spring gardening. We enjoyed each other's company, and even managed to build some furniture together and have a good time.
We both deal with high-stress, high anxiety jobs and lives. That we were both in good mental places on mutual days off is a lot rarer than we'd like, but it is a breath of fresh air when it happens. For this, I am grateful.
Job is still taking its toll on me, doing more highway driving and less closed course vehicle testing. I'm trying to minimize my time driving work vehicles, but a close call or two in my personal vehicle has me rattled, and I'm still passing the resume around. My boss is trying to work on a pivot for more of an engineering position, and we'll see how that goes, but I'm making plans, and looking into finishing up school as well. We'll see how it goes.
Bit of rough day today (and night last night with it looping around in my head); had to have a very unpleasant conversation with my mother where I had to tell her some of the things she has been saying have crossed the line from "she old and set in her ways, let it go" to "this in unacceptable bigotry and you should know better".
We had been planning on hosting some gatherings in my garden over the summer, since they don't have a garden in their retirement place, that I wasn't comfortable doing that any more. And upset enough with her that don't want to see them at all right now.
Shes freaking out and expressing shock/surprise and I'm trying to avoid shouting that if they are surprised I'm upset then they have not been paying attention to what I'm saying for a long time.
I just wanted to come here and vent so apologies for resurfacing this thread for the casual reader. I'm still spiraling with emotion so apologies for any inappropriate language.
Since early March, I've been on a performance improvement plan at work. It was originally supposed to last for 4 weeks. Manager came back to me at the beginning of the 5th week and said it would be extended to 8 weeks. The 8th week concluded 1.5 weeks ago and my manager has just been ignoring the topic with me. I asked him today for an update and they just mentioned that HR will take until the end of the month to get back to me. He then got on a call with me and got angry with my current data signals and told me he's not confident if I will make it out of the plan. He mentioned that HR are still watching me and that this will be noted in their evaluation. This was in stark contrast to the last 8 weeks where my manager said he was happy with my data signals and said I could go for promotion. I don't get the sudden flip flop here.
Fuck this job. I used to enjoy it but these new performance evaluation policies are so stupid. I'd understand these policies if they translated to an increase in the stock price during my time here in the company but it hasn't. The stock price has remained stagnant for over five years. Leadership implemented these policies roughly 2 years ago to bring the company's quarterly growth YoY to a certain percentage and they've literally never gotten closer to that percentage. Every quarter, the company gets further away from this goal.
I'm going to start polishing up my resume as I have 0 faith that I'll be keeping this job for long. Two things that are scaring me is that this market has not been kind to junior and mid-level engineers and I'm currently trying to get promoted to mid-level. The other thing scaring me is the interview process itself. I'm terrible at leetcode interviews I only got my current job since they only had one Leetcode-style interview round. Oh well, its too late to worry. Need to clear my mind, lock in, and get ready.
Thank you, for letting us know! I wish I was brave and able enough to share something too, maybe you have inspired me... We shall see...
And please don't feel the need to apologise for having some kind of ~mental.health the 14th, we can not expect to notice our health of the mental kind only for the first few days of a month.
If people don't want to be reminded, they can filter it out, if I understand this space correctly you are using it as intended.
All the best for you and your ~mental.health <3
I'm a couple days late but wanted to say thank you for the support. I was spiraling out a bit but the comments from you and the others in this thread have been immensely helpful.
I feel you. I worked middle management for a publicly traded company whose share price crashed when it became apparent its business model was unsustainable and illegal in many parts - Medicaid overbilling, monopoly tactics, etc.
It's not your performance that's in any way to blame. I've seen this pattern before - get your resume in circulation ASAP so you can jump before you're pushed. Chances are you're an excellent IC whose compensation is a smidge higher than average, and thus a candidate for cheap, shitty outsourcing if they can make a firing look legally plausible to avoid unemployment payments. Corporate management is desperately flailing around doing anything they can think of (except genuine planned innovation) to juice short-term profitability and look good for the markets again.
I'm sorry you're in this situation, and wish you all the best in your search.
Thank you for the support and guidance on what to do next, I was planning on following that same plan. I took the rest of the week to sort of stabilize myself and I'm going to use this weekend to polish up the resume and start applying for jobs.
I'm sorry you're dealing with that kind of uncertainty - it's unfair to you that you get mixed signals like this. It screams 'bad leadership' to me, but even assuming that that's correct, there'd be little you can do about it in this position.
Good luck with your job search, I hope that you can manage it despite the current uncertainty involving, well, everything. A good work environment matters so much consider how much we spent our time there, and you deserve somewhere where you're not fed such mixed signals.
Thanks for the kind words and the support, it's been genuinely helpful. While I am a little worried about searching for a software engineer position in this modern climate, I know I'll be able to find something in the near future.
It's been a rough couple of weeks. I had this one group project and my classmate just kinda went crazy and exploded on me for a reason which I don't really see or understand.
And it took away all the excitement for the project. I was really looking forward to it but now all the motivation is just gone, and I am just procrastinating at this point.
I think in the last like 2–3 weeks, multiple people have said that I am just destroying everyone's good mood, and I am bringing everyone down. Which is a horrible thing to say, and it shouldn't affect me that much, but just since then, I have been really isolating myself. And I know, me isolating myself won't help, but am just trying to not hurt anyone. I simply want everyone to have a good time.
The project will end at the end of the month. So we'll see whether it comes out good or not.
~Luna
That sounds like a really alienating experience, man. :\
Humans are in the end social creatures. How we form our identities are even connected to each other. So you have all the right to be affected negatively in this manner.
I've isolated myself in the past a lot, and to an extend it's a bit terminal I suppose. You're right that it won't help you, and it can even be addicting at times. But I also recognise that it may be very difficult for you to fight your way out of that when this is all still raw.
I hope the project will go well, and you can at least get some kind of understanding of what's going on. Take care.
Disclaimer: I know what I'm gonna say here probably doesn't matter in the long run, but I feel the need to tell you this.
Speaking from the little bit I know you from the MC server and from our private chats over the past couple of months, that is absolutely FAR from reality. If anything, I've found you to be an amazing and really sweet person, and generally a little ball of sunshine for our entire community. You're an awesome person to have around and, hell, as I've mentioned a few times already, you've actively made my existence a little less miserable by being around, and I really appreciate you.
That's not to say that your feelings are invalid, in the slightest. Even knowing that what they said is a horrible and BS thing for them to say, everything you feel and experience is an absolutely valid thing to experience, and I get it. You've absolutely went through a lot of crap during the last few weeks, and it's absolutely normal that you need your time and space to recover from that, especially when it's comments you've incidentally internalised for one reason or another.
Missed you lots & glad to have you around again. 💜
I might be learning something about myself today...
I feel quite confrontational, irritable and nit-picky in a way I really, really recognise (and it has been going on for a bit, as seen in my post history and other places - I don't like spreading my crap around, my apologies!).
I noticed that I started raging against a podcast I was listening to, in a special, unreasonable way where I pick apart everything they said ignoring the bigger picture if what they where trying to say.
But today I realised that it very likely has to do with my sadness, I'm so, sooo, soooooo deeply sad.
I'm sad for many things, for "everything" I didn't manage to do, get through, start or realise was an opportunity or was actually happening.
I'm also sad that my mother never managed to tell me she loved me and was proud of me, for my sake but mostly for her sake. What an unfulfilled life!!
I'm also, also sad that I "had" to brake up with my partner-to-be because I just couldn't manage to take care of myself and be in a serious relationship at the same time and we where in that state where it is getting really serious. This is what triggered the current bout of sadness.
I have trouble crying on my own and I haven't managed to find a new tv-series to help me cry, so I'll just rewatch Gray's Anatomy!
I've managed to reach out to the mental health team of my primary care centre, so I'll get to see someone there within a few weeks. This is good and impressive, I'm quite proud of managing to do this so quickly!
I'm really struggling with my ADHD and I feel like I'm slow to get my blood pressure/heart rate under control, and by the time that happens I will have already lost my job.
I can't stay focused to save my life and at the same time can't seem to find anything that gives me pleasure, just distraction.