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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (April 2026)
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.
So exactly a month ago I posted on here that I was about to leave my job. And well, I did it. Was bittersweet at first. I had already been feeling super underappreciated at my position, which was a big part of why I was leaving, but it stung a little to essentially get told 'alright see ya'. Like the difference in how big a deal this was for me (huge life change, leaving my job of 7 years to move internationally) compared to the reactions I got (or lack thereof) was pretty humbling.
Anyways, that was a month ago. I'm happy to report that after the initial wave of 'oh shit what am I doing', I feel a lot better and more confident about my decision. It's not like I wasn't confident in the decision before, this has been planned for months after all, it's just a big leap of faith to take when going from a known job and life and living situation into the unknown. All the planning and research only gets you so far before you actually have to take the plunge.
Well just a few days after my last day of work, my wife and I went down to Brazil to look at apartments. We found some that we liked, put in an offer on one, it was accepted, and now we are waiting on some paperwork to get things moving more concretely.
There's still a lot of stress involved, like for example the rising cost of fuel means plane tickets have gotten way more expensive, so we are trying to shuffle around how many trips we end up doing so as to save a few grand. But little by little it's getting easier. Each box ticked is another step in the right direction and feels like a big relief.
So thank you to Tildes for having this recurring thread to allow people to vent or share what's going on in their lives, and thank you to anyone who has replied to me in this or previous threads with words of encouragement. Those seemingly small comments really helped me feel a sense of validity that I wasn't insane for feeling how I did and that my plans weren't completely unreasonable.
I'm doing alright. I think my biggest struggle right now is the anxiety-driven "omg everybody hates me and only tolerates me" feeling. I've been struggling to connect with people at work...jokes don't land...attempts to contribute to conversations don't pan out, etc. and I take it super personally when I shouldn't.
Additionally I've been playing D&D at a local store for a few months now and I've been making friends, but the "everybody hates me" noise is cranked to 11 because I'm actually socializing and putting myself out there. Heck, I've felt that way playing on the tildes minecraft server, which is insane because everyone's super nice and we all get along well enough.
Generally I know it's bullshit and I try my best to ignore it, but it leaves me feeling defeated, anti-social, and burned out sometimes.
And to be clear...at no point has any one ever been an asshole to me or given me a valid reason to feel that way. Which is makes it feel all the more stupid.
I have been struggling with the “everybody hates me” noise for a couple of years now, its absolutely a symptom of isolation. I cant figure out how it works but when I stopped seeing my long time friends as much thats when it started and it only goes away when I get enough social activity to become tired of other people for a bit.
So, theres hope, and you’re probably still not socializing enough even though you’re socializing more than before so it seems like a lot, I think it might be kinda like eating fiber most people just need more and you’ll know when its enough cause one day you’ll realize that noise is gone and you feel good. So just keep at it! More social!
Yeah could be! I've got some loose plans in the next few months to take on some extra fun and responsibilities that will result in more socializing, so hopefully that helps :)
Not super great, but I'm managing to make the basics happen to keep my job and do the minimum in terms of housekeeping.
I've had some realizations lately in therapy that will either end my relationship or make it better than it's ever been, and I'm not in charge at all anymore of which way that will go.
I've been having to try to figure out how to field multiple coinciding financial emergencies without access to credit or other resources, and I've been having to sell things I really, really liked having just to stay afloat. And one of those emergency expenditures is to replace something that makes some of my side hustles possible, so I'm having to replace it with lesser capacity to make money.
I'm having to wait a month to visit my doctor to address a persistent issue for which I have a strong case as to what the next treatment should be, but it'll be a month before it can even be addressed. So I have to figure out how to survive another month with low motivation, low energy, and other chronic negative health impacts.
I've lost the ability to envision a good future for myself or to experience hope or joy, partly based on how life is going now and has been for a while now, and partly because of general economic conditions that impact me more directly than they should.
I do everything right but nothing changes. And all the avenues that could change things remain inaccessible to me, or are too long-term to count on.
Despite all that I'm still somehow managing to keep my head above water and keep going.
Catabolizing your life to stay afloat is the most bleak thing about being broke. Our instinct as humans is to hoard away wealth for the future, and doing the opposite means bad times on the deepest of level.
I know it sounds really dumb and the opposite of what you want to do because you’re so tired, but when I was broke like that I actually managed to get in shape and building my body up like that was a free way to spend my time and burn out my anxiety and seeing my body progress helped me cope with the catabolization of everything else. Like, I had nothing, but at least I had muscles and at least I had stamina.
I know you probably wont do that, but thats my story. One day I just walked outside and started to run and I went as far as I could and I felt better after so I kept doing it. Eventually I was still broke asf but at least I looked hot
My problem is I oscillate between tasks done to make money and being tired from those tasks. Haha! But I have some health stuff to take care of to re-enable the ability to do exactly as you suggest. I agree that physical health is an essential component in maintaining the ability to work and to thrive.
Yeah my situation was a little bit different, I had burned out from a career in healthcare and had no job prospects.
I was working part time as a lifeguard cause I still had connections to a place I worked in high school.
My body was still on night shift from working nights for five years so a lot of the time I was just sitting around at 2am with not much to do.
Id go for a run as far as I could and then have a dinner of 10 chicken nuggets and a handful of steamed broccoli with salt and pepper. That was my life in that time and it was actually kinda glorious looking back down at it. I still have a playlist of the songs Id listen to while running and they’re all so triggering haha
Moving is extremely stressful. I'm also just naturally not particularly good at... let's call it "project management" for myself. This is not a good combination, as it leads to lots of me having an anxiety attack in bed all day. But I have the arrangements for the cats sorted out, at least, and their former foster mother has even offered to help me at the airport. My flight is on Monday, so we continue forward. The only way out is through
Ugh my roommate moved out today and continued the pattern of going back on her promises late enough that it's actually worse for me than if she'd never promised at all. I don't want to talk to her directly about it bc she did do so much to help me when she moved in with me and has been super flexible when it comes to me, but god I am so fucking frustrated right now. Sorry to Tildes for the rant but I need to get this off my chest somewhere.
She says she'll take some stuff I need to get rid of anyway like my printer and vacuum in lieu of her security deposit and I'm like, great, win-win for me, and then backs out the day she's leaving. Her husband tried to help me take down some shelves, which he'd offered to do days ago but hasn't been able to do because it would be too loud while she's working and too loud during quiet hours while she isn't working, and she stops him from doing it because she's anxious the moving van will come even though there's definitely enough time beforehand. She offered earlier ln to help me move some of my own trash while they have the moving van but that goes away too. And, like, my flight home is on Monday, and it's a holiday weekend so I have even less ability to do this shit myself over the coming days than I ordinarily would. I could've maybe made other plans for some of this stuff that it's now way too last minute to do. I'm so fucking sick of this shit but there's nothing to do about it now that she's moved out unless I want to start a fight that has no chance of being productive in any way. And now she's claiming her security deposit is higher than it was and when I ask her to find the transaction in her bank, she says she'll do it after work, but there never is a fucking after work for her, she's always still working until fucking midnight and barely talks to me, so idfk what I'm supposed to do about that.
Her husband is still helping me with moving one of my cats to the States, so I definitely don't want to engender more conflict with them anyway, but I'm also just fucking sad because we were way better friends before we were roommates and now she barely fucking talks to me and works 24/7. I thought at least I could rely on her for some stuff but I guess not even that, which makes me even more worried about things with my cat going well. And she knows how bad things are for me right now and how hard things have been for me so that makes it worse.
I have this issue with my partner, they’ll offer to help but my deadlines are not their deadlines so theres no time limit for them and they end up not helping
I just set a deadline and make a backup plan. I have other friends who can help me, if my partner hasn’t been able to and I’m at my deadline, backup plan goes into effect.
yeah, I just wish I'd realized that earlier.
Shelves are shelves, next time it could be something bigger!
I last moved back in 2024. It sucked. In the run-up, there were definitely days I just wanted to lay about. And sometimes I did. Easier to not face the tasks at hand and just play video games all day.
And you're right, it did feel like project management, which I'm terrible at. I actually ended up using Asana, which is like a project management tool/task list and created a project within it. Set up milestones and dates and kept track of what I had completed. That worked surprisingly well. I was still rushing on the last day in my apartment, finishing cleaning and all that. But in the end, the move was completed on time.
You got this.
at this point I've just given up on having the apartment empty and cleaned once I leave the country. I'll try to arrange something once I'm in the US but it's just not gonna be possible to get all that done before I'm out. And even with that I'm so exhausted and overwhelmed and I have no one on my side and I just want to go home.
So yeah, it sucks. I'll get through it one way or another but god I hate it.
doing surprisingly ok.
i posted a few days ago about trying to figure out where i’ll be moving next and even though i haven’t made up my mind completely i feel a lot more at peace with either outcome. there were a lot of really thoughtful replies that genuinely helped me in one way or another.
i keep starting different creative projects and not finishing them which normally felt bad, like i failed in some way, but haven’t lately.
i have fully dissociated at work to survive these last few months before my move and im not going to beat myself up about it anymore since there is a clear end in sight.
i’m going to see my longtime favorite band play one of my favorite records in may with an old friend i rarely get to see due to living in different states. it’s nice to have something to look forward to.
hopefully i can ride this for a while
I feel like I'm running on the fumes at the bottom of my gas tank, both mentally and physically. It's day 10 of the cold I caught while my relative was hospitalized, and past the point where an urgent care trip for a chest x-ray would be a good idea.
I don't have any appetite and keep forgetting to eat, can barely keep myself bathed and clothed, don't want to see or talk to anyone. I just don't have the spoons to care about much of anything right now. It's all classic neuroimmunological "sickness behavior" stuff, including the black depression, but it's hard to keep reminding myself that everything will get better quickly if I just rest, perform basic self-care, and get to a doctor.
I'm also tangled up in work and money anxieties. Catching up from the family time off is already a strain, so I feel like I shouldn't take any more time to recover from a "minor" case of the crud. I can still sit upright in front of a computer screen, right? There's a long weekend coming up, so hopefully that will give me the time I need.
You have all of these people around that you’re supporting why cant they use some of their spoons to get you a good meal?
If you go down they all go down they should be waiting on you hand and foot lmao
It's not lack of help, plenty of food available, I just don't feel like eating or much else. At the same time, I don't feel so physically bad that I'd hurry to medical care. I'm in that grey area of feeling run down and not seeing an end to it.
I don't post much, but I want to share something positive with you, since mental health threads tend to be a bit depressing. It's finally getting better. I got a good job that I'm surprisingly good at, have a nice apartment in a much more interesting city and the sun is finally back too. There is still quite a lot of debt and baggage from all those underwhelming years, but I'm finally excited again which helps me to not think about the parts of my life that I still have to work on. I've struggled with mental health problems all my life, especially ADHD and related issues, and I doubted my ability to live a 'normal' life, so this is a huge success for me.
I'm starting a temp job next week. Ironically with the company that laid me off over a year ago.
Those are the positives.
My parents switched internet service providers and I don't blame them. Virgin Media were ripping them off. EE on the other hand have offered us far better Internet but a terrible TV service.
It's been a nightmare especially because my dad has been basically a male Karen throughout all of this. He expected two set top boxes that could record programs. Only one could (hard coded EE limitation),
Their set top boxes have lost connection a lot. But also, my dad has been obsessed over a particular Freeview channel that isn't on their television's internet mode - Blaze, basically showing conspiracy theory shit including the whole Ancient Aliens stuff.
Had a conversation with my brother about Reddit. I don't want to get into specific drama but I kinda agree with him on the "delete my account" angle. It's so polarized.... I think if I purged myself from Reddit, my mental health would improve.
I go through bouts of Mr Tech Support for my aging parents. I don’t think it’s gonna stop. If anything, it may get more frequent as they get older. Had to help them troubleshoot some Apple TV and Netflix stuff this weekend after a major update reset some of their stuff. Easy enough in person, more annoying remotely and via FaceTime. I don’t have the heart to let them figure it out on their own though some days I wish I did.
Reddit though: since joining Tildes, I have been managing to stay mostly off Reddit. However, some days I fall back into old habits and keep checking it for a week or so. It is very clear that it affects my mindset negatively. Replace Reddit with Instagram or any other app where I can just keep scrolling, and same effect is clear. After the few days, and when I realize why I’ve been feeling shittier, I stop again and within a day or two lo and behold I’m feeling better!
I got banned from r/technology for acknowledging that that manosphere has a point. That means a lot.
I hate the red pill, incel, MGTOW and MRA communities and think that they push some very damaging viewpoints. But even acknowing their conclusion that there's a problem with the world of dating, is anathema to a lot of Reddit mods.
Fact that this earned me a ban shows how polarized Reddit is.
For me, if I avoid the big subreddits and stick to specific hobby-oriented ones it’s the best way to stay out of all the polarized stuff. If I can ignore the Popular section and go straight to my custom multi-Reddit that’s all about Magic the Gathering, it’s far less likely that it will upset me.
Same, only followed the hobby and the popcorn subs for a while and in 2024ish when all the popcorn subs were straight up AI every post I unsubbed from those too.
Like, I know that the popcorn subs were mostly fake and probably entirely AI before that, but the quality of the AI has really gone downhill. They literally don’t even try any more.
All my stress in the last year has revolved around my job. Which is weird, because I actually mostly like my job. It's fun, challenging in a good way, and I'm doing exactly what I want to do. It's just all the other bullshit of being a US federal employee in this era that's stressing me out.
My goal is stick with this job for at least three years. One, it gives me a good deal of experience. Two, it probably looks better on a resume to be at a place for three years versus less than two. Three, federal "tenure" is a thing with regards the pension benefits "clock" and the ability to apply for certain jobs, even if I'm no longer a federal employee at the time of applying. Rather than fully closing a door, I'll be able to keep it cracked a little, just in case.
But why? Am I just constraining myself? Plenty of people job hop after like a year or two. That's totally normal these days. And tenure? Why would I want to go back to the federal government? The floodgates of bullshit have been opened; they're not going to be closed completely ever again.
Then on the other other side...Am I just being a whiny baby? I have a job. I have income (technically speaking...still not getting paid). Plenty of people don't these days. It's tough out there. I should just put up and shut up. All things considered, I have it pretty good.
Idk. I hate being in these loops or cycles. One or two weeks I'm fine, then the next week, I question wtf I'm doing and why I'm doing this. Then once I get it out my system, I'm good or at least OK for a little bit. Then it happens again. It's tiring.
Last month I wrote that my mood was predictably poor at around that time of the month, and this month was no different... but it was definitely better. As in, maybe I'd have the same amount of ugly crying episodes, but they didn't last as long and I could recover faster from them. Work has been much better; I'm still not 100% there but I've got some projects, both work and personal, that I'm really excited to make slow progress on.
Unfortunately I write this at this moment because I just broke down over like, something completely unrelated to post-breakup woes! I've had a pull up bar stand for a few weeks in the lower height setting, and today I decided I wanted the higher setting and work on dead hangs. It was a struggle - I'm short, the bar is tall, and the way that the pieces of the stand are designed it just required a lot of struggling while also standing on a bench, etc. Sometime during this struggle I heard the downstairs neighbor banging against their ceiling / my floor. Okay, maybe my stuff is noisy down there? I took a break to re-evaluate how I was getting this damn thing assembled. This wasn't the first time I heard them bang against the ceiling - last time was about a month ago - but I did catch a quick convo since then with one of the residents where I asked if the furniture I was assembling was annoying them, and she said no, she hadn't heard anything.
Quick break and I got back into it, and finally got the pieces in a place where I just need to screw in the nuts and bolts! Exciting! But shortly after I hear more banging from downstairs and this time with some muffled yelling, where I can't really make out all the words but what I imagined was close enough to "stop what you're doing, stfu". And that just... took the wind out of my sails, I guess. Right back to the uggo crying because I didn't want to be here either y'all, but here I am. And I'm not saying that I'm without fault - it was 9:30 PM and I don't know how loud anything I do up here is down there - but I also found it just weirdly isolating that, combined with my previous interactions with the neighbors, they'd rather scream at the ceiling than come upstairs and tell me. Or leave a note. Heck, I'm still left here assuming that they're upset about specifically this noise.
For what it is worth I really am doing better. I've been taking the stance of, "I'll use this as motivation to work harder to live in a better place" for a lot of the little shortcomings I see with my current apartment and this experience falls into the same bucket. Maybe one day I'll be in a place where I can look back and confidently say, Yup, my anime backstory includes that one time some angry neighbor yelled at me through the floor.
So my psychiatrist took me off of Lexapro last week and put me on Pristiq and the change has been night and day for both my depression and ADHD. I worry about saying this, but I feel like my old self again.
Executive function has come easier, I've been able to stay on top of chores and cleaning, I'm not as foggy or depressed. I don't feel as burnt out either.
Even my coworkers have noticed a difference today.
Apparently Pristiq blocks norepinephrine’s reuptake in the frontal cortex which leads to an increase in dopamine neurotransmission in that same part of the brain. So it's been beneficial for a lot of people with ADHD as well, and I can definitely feel that.
Anyways I hope it keeps up this way. I haven't felt this effortlessly productive in what feels like years.