Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (June 2026)

Things haven't been good for the past few months and I've felt a mix of loneliness and frustration.

I'm now a contractor working with the same company that laid me off last year. Been brought in to clear a backlog left by the overseas firm they outsourced to replace much of the finance department three years ago. It's been a shitshow to say the least and the work they've done has been shockingly bad. Errors everywhere. High turnover. Workers not taking responsibility.

Since starting back, I've felt like an outsider. It's taken IT weeks to set up access for everything I need and even now I have certain things I need for my job closed off to me. Even the guy who is meant to be my line manager and approving my timesheets hasn't said a word to me since I returned and left me on read in the two times I've contacted him on Teams.

At least I'm being paid, I suppose.

Things at home haven't been great. Dad has been obnoxious lately and I don't particularly want to go into that topic. I just feel trapped...

After about 3 years of a pretty deep depression, a layoff followed by 6 months of unemployment, a relocation (and thus ripping my children from their friends, esp my youngest who just made their first), and finally a new job, things are finally looking up more than down.

Life is still hella stressful, but waning. I'm coming off the antidepressants (protip for the bipolars out there: If you (or a loved one) notice you going hypomanic while on antidepressants it's probably worth talking to your psychiatrist about a small does decrease), and fingers crossed enough Trumpers will have noticed the hole they shot in their own foot and the midterms will result in some degree of improvement.

Stay safe out their friends. Life is hard, probably only going to get harder. But don't let them win. In the words of Dungeon Crawler Carl:

"You’re not going to break me,” I said. “You might hurt me, or kill me, but you’re not going to break me."

Still hanging in there.

I got denied permanent welfare not too long ago and was told it would take years, nothing concrete, just a vague "we'll see" type of message. The system sucks. Mind you I do still have welfare but it's not enough to lead a dignified life and it's been this way for years already - I'm not even allowed to make savings beyond about €2000 in the bank account. I could do about €100-200 per month which isn't much, but being forced to spend what I do manage to save (invested in a new PC that should last me the better part of a decade) is a shitty feeling. At least I'm housed and not going hungry. But I can't afford to move back near family. So on the hierarchy of needs I think I'm only on the first step of the five.

Mental health is awful. Most days are a struggle and loneliness is crushing - I'm grateful for my online friends but it's just not the same as doing stuff in real life. I have developed bad agoraphobia the last few years and don't leave my (tiny studio) apartment most days. I barely even open the curtains because then it feels like having to allow the world in, which is also a struggle. There's a lot of noisy people in my building too so sometimes it feels unsafe - feels, not is.

At least I'm holding off on doing silly things to myself, almost 3 months this time around. Frankly it's mostly because it's summer and there's a couple of big events in the family where I can't/won't sit around overheating from being forced to cover up. Self harm is of course merely a symptom of my superduper great big fun cocktail of disorders, which are still largely untreated because I can't afford privatized care. We have socialized health care in my country but it's lacking so despite some intense treatments 2-3 years ago, they can no longer help me. I am getting some help from social workers from the municipality but it's not exactly a cure to anything. It's the best the system can do though.

So yeah days are spent mostly trying to pass the time and distract myself from whatever negative shit happens to be on my mind that day. It's usually the same things pressing though: financials, dysphoria, self-worth, loneliness, dark thoughts, no future, and so on. So I'll entire seasons of tv shows in a day, or 2-3 movies, or video games for hours. Because the only way that I can keep going is to stay distracted. If I'm not constantly distracting my mind, I just spiral and start having to fight especially self harm urges.

I don't really feel alive - the welfare system allows people to survive, not live - so I'm surviving I guess. A bland existence that I think would make anyone kind of a nihilist. But I'm still here, mostly because a few people would be sad if I wasn't, I guess.

Just started with tampering of anti-depressants. It'll be a slow process and I'm already on a low dosis, but it's still a bit scary. I've been on them for nearly 8 years and they've saved my life.

ADHD medication has also not been working as well. Fortunately I'm sure this isn't due to tampering off anti-depressants, but it sucks nonetheless. I don't want to increase my dosis, change medication or whatever right now either because I want to be sure that what effects I feel are due to me tampering off anti-depressants and not something else.

Aside from that I'm slowly working towards the future again. Still being with my parents has put me in some kind of emotional groundhog day which isn't nice. And ideally I'd even move countries. Working on that isn't easy especially when my stimulants aren't working well, but I'm taking it one step at a time.

Ehh...

Great Uncle passed, mentioned it in a previous thread edit, but with time to process, he had a cancer that only so much could be done for, and I've dealt with grandparents that have hung on medically while spiritually they've gone home and if I had to pick, I'd rather not have that sort of experience for me. Helped my Great Aunt with untangling her cable bill and moving over to OTA and Netflix, and we're in the loop for anything I can do to help.

Got some blood work done, a1c has crawled from high end of normal to low prediabetic range so I'm probably going to get an earful from the doctor and working at home being a lump has its own set of consequences. But it's still very much in the cards to turn things around, so I'm going to have put in a bit of effort and stock snacks a little smarter. Cholesterol is also elevated, but it was already and I'm well acquainted, and Vitamin D is low, so gonna need to touch grass a bit.

Honestly? Things could be going better. I'm happy, I'm hanging in there, but I have a lot of people I'm really worried about. A lot of my perspective is tied to my personal experiences as a trans woman, and the queer community, FYI. (Pseudonyms are being used for everyone. Also just assume everyone is transgender unless I say otherwise)

I'm doing ok. I'm a bit burnt out, but a lot of things should be pretty temporary, and I've gotten pretty good with coping skills. Being back on Medication (specifically Welbutrin) has been really good for me, and has given me more energy to be there for myself and other people.

Mostly, I'm just tired. Getting back on a stimulant hasn't been amazing for my sleep, and it's a lot easier to stay up way too late now that it's summer, and the sun doesn't go down until 9pm. Also, given the amount of complex mental health support I've had to provide people, it has started to wear on me. I supported 28 mental health breakdowns this month. I wrestled a knife away from my best friend on memorial day to keep them from hurting themself.

I wish more people in my life were more cognizant of their problems when they come to me. My girlfriend 'Jane' (I am polyamorous) decided she wants to get SRS (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and she's been bothering me with it a lot. I already told her I would help, and be there for her for getting all the complicated and obnoxious paperwork together, but she also keeps asking for reassurance, and it's not something I feel comfortable doing. My own experiences as a trans woman led me to conclude that there were so many far more important things than the my personal genitalia, and I don't intend to get SRS anytime soon, if ever. And so, I don't really want to talk to her about it, because I don't feel like I can help her with the emotions surrounding it all, since I simply just do not care. Sure, I can help with the paperwork, but I really don't want to talk about the emotions surrounding it. Her PTSD has been a bit better at least. Less flashbacks since April. She only had 2 mental breakdowns this month.

I'm currently supporting someone I'll call 'Ruth' with her mental health. She's absolutely been through a rough patch in life. She's a trans woman refugee, and it's a miracle she made it to a queer friendly place in as good of shape as she did. I supported her through 20 separate breakdowns over the course of the month, and I'm finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. She needs a new apartment, but because she's mentally ill and dysphoric, she's absolutely convinced the most important thing to do for herself right now is to apply to PHD programs and interrogate the physical aspects of herself that she thinks keeps her from passing. side note, if anyone is Transgender and/or a PHD student/Doctoral Candidate/Professor and is willing to help her figure out doctoral applications as a first generation college student, please PM me immediately.

I'm terrified I'm steering Ruth wrong. I grew up learning that you should really be careful taking care of people emotionally, that because you can start taking away agency and can hurt people if you say/do the wrong thing. However, having lived some of her exact experiences as a trans woman, as a young person in a new city, and as a woman in general, she really needs to dismantle some of her attitudes, and accept certain aspects of herself to have the life she wants. I'm hoping getting her into a new apartment will allow her to actually start figuring shit out, but there's never a guarantee with these things, and we're all so close to the edge right now.

I'm also afraid that Ruth will eventually cause so many issues with the other people in my life, that it will implode on me in some way shape or form. I'm trying my hardest for these people, and I know they're trying too, but it's so hard to have to play the diplomat for people all the time.

Another friend of mine 'Margot' ran out of money, and had to beg me for money for gas. I took care of that for her, and sent her off with dinner and a bag of groceries, but it terrifies me to see someone that close to the edge, especially someone who's older than me.

The news keeps getting weirder. The news updates I see is more sporadic or make less and less sense. It feels like something is looming on the horizon. Almost, like storm clouds you see in the distance before a great storm.

I've been journaling a lot recently. I've found it helps.

I planted my garden. I have squash saplings. I consume a large amount of marijuana to cope with my feelings, and I spend time with people I love all the time. My wife is doing pretty well. My cat is happy. And I am fed, have a roof over my head, and I am, ultimately, mostly stable.

So yeah, I'm fine, and other people are just... not. Call it the economy, call it the world we live in, the people around me are not ok, and it's been stressful trying to make them more ok. And deep down, I know it's a bit of an impossible task, but I feel a strong need to be there for people whether I want to or not.

I don't know... Here are some things that I'm thinking about a lot lately.

The other day a friend told me to not come and support them, as we had planned, but rather to stay home and rest from social exhaustion (I said that it was difficult getting started and that I felt like I had a hangover, without drinking)

This is a big thing for me, and our relationship, consciously letting them take care and support me.

It seems to me that I'm doing some kind of realignment within myself about myself.

For the last decade I've been working with a metaphor of falling down a hole from time to time and life being about clawing my way back up to the surface level and then falling back in... Repeat, again and again.

What I've been doing is trying to make the bottom of the hole more stable, and even trying to raise it so the climb back up isn't as hard and I don't have to also fear to fall deeper.

This has worked well.

What I haven't noticed is that I've also made the hole wider and comfier (in a good way, I think!) and I'm starting to really accept the idea that I can have friends over too.

It is not easy to value myself like it's reasonable to not struggle alone, like I've been pretty good with letting friends know I'm in the hole, but thanks to my friends excellent judgement call I see that I'll be able to invite friends over to just sit with me or help me climb back up.

There is also something going on around what I shall become when I grow up and how to live a life that is shifting, this comes mostly from another friend that is very good at articulating how ambition in many ways is pointless too and that in the end it doesn't really matter what you do with your life as long as you are somewhat content and pleased yourself.

The shift is that I not only can see the points and understand the reasoning, etc, but now I can imagine how it feels in the body having these things as integral parts of myself.

My NP-assessment is chugging along, today the psychologist is going to interview the friend I have that has known me the longest. I'm nervous, and worry that they will manage to screw up in some way. This is about my need of control not them. I make small scenarios and tell myself stories... The winning contribution is that my friend will start hitting on the psychologist!

Besides that there shouldn't be much more to do and I hope I get my report, or whatever, before the psychologist goes on vacation, that would be an enormous relief.

One thing that has come up lately and that is taking up a lot of space is how I see myself in my body and how I often am surprised by my actual bodies shape, size, colour, hairyness, feel to touch, length, capabilities, etc

It feels like it has something to do with a weak sense of self and that I'm very impressionable or like I see myself from the outside but what I see myself as has more to do with other things I've seen rather than my actual self. As an example when I'm swimming in a lake, feeling myself I dive down a bit and break the surface it feels like I'm a stunning woman with long hair because that's the dominant imagery I have of that.

Like I often don't recognise myself in the mirror, or today I felt like a snazzy show dancer when I was out walking, or I can completely misjudge how long I am so I bang my head into the wall instead of landing comfortably on the pillow, or reach for things that are well within my reach because that's how you do.

I don't know... If anyone has anything to say or relate about this I would be very grateful. I feel very weird and alone in this (not that I have really tried to talk about it with anyone!), maybe this is normal, or it happens to you to sometimes?

I'm planning to go on a small trip to look at a property I would potentially like to buy. It's exciting! I will most likely not buy this one, but I have to start looking if I ever want to buy myself a little bit of land and not only having a dream about it!

It seems like I'm in the mood for being intimate with someone again, it is not easy and I'm not very good at meeting new people and even worse at progressing it towards a physical relationship. We'll see. It is still nice to think about.

That's some of it!

In a bit of a weird place, but still positive I guess?

I wrote about this a bit in another thread but I got re-orged at work to this new AI org (along with thousands of others) and there is just so much uncertainty around it. Leadership have been extremely secretive about the work but some things have leaked out. We know the work is fairly monotonous, repetitive and just mind-numbing in general. There is no real path for progression, career growth, professional growth, or any upward mobility. Thankfully we're not forced to stay in the org but I can't transfer out until I hit my 1-year mark in October. While I'm glad to still have a job and look forward to my improved WLB (as the work apparently can be done within 1-2 hours/day), I'd prefer my job to actually stimulate me so I'm not sure what to do.

I've also just been thinking about my future and what to do. I've lived in the same metro area for the majority of my life and have now lived in the metro area's namesake city for a while. With my family now gone (they moved to another state), I've been thinking if I should also break out of my shell a little but and also try another city/state, particularly NYC. A chunk of my friends have moved to NYC over the last few years and rave about it. I've visited countless times now over the last few years and I love visiting every time. I think it'd be good for me to get out of my comfort zone and try something new. Combining my two points here, I've been thinking about switching jobs and moving at the same time, just to start a new chapter in my life and see where life takes me. I know the world is in a weird unstable-ish state at the moment but I don't want to keep making excuses for myself to remain stagnant and stuck where I am.