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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (October 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.
A teenage relative of mine was placed in a mental care facility last week.
Over the last year, they became more and more withdrawn, locking themselves in their room playing videogames, avoiding any socialization, doing drugs and talking about suicide more frequently. Texting their friends twice that they couldn't take it anymore (causing the friends to rush over) and then recently texting something similar to their counselor, which prompted this extreme measure.
There's no abuse going on that I can see, but they've been on antidepressants for roughly 2 years and they've lost 2 friends, 2 relatives & pets in the last year. Plus, the USA isn't exactly a positive place right now.
Everyone is sad and confused and frustrated that it's come to this, especially the parents and the teen who now refuses to see them during visiting hours.
I want to have something great to say or do, but I come up short.
So my questions for the community would be:
I'm not the parent, so I dont know everything and have no real legal standing to do anything.
With them gone this week, it feels like they died. I don’t want that to come true.
Hey, this is sort of my placeholder so I can come back and write more. But I usually look at texts to a counselor as a sign that they knew they needed help, more than their friends could give. So that's good. That's awareness and choosing to live, even in the face of everything they're feeling. So while everyone is, it seems, shocked by the revelation of their mental state, and feeling down themselves because of it. They didn't die, they chose to live. They're going through something just like someone who has cancer. And while there is, like cancer, a chance of frightening outcomes, like death, they're literally in a space where that cannot happen outside of some extreme outliers. Try to find a way to celebrate that they got help, even if they didn't want it (and it sounds to me like they did) they got it.
You are already doing more than half the battle by asking these questions and caring. You might, if you can, see if they'll let you be a visitor since they're not talking to parents. If they're a minor, they're in a middle ground age in regards to privacy and their parents in a way that will be state law specific. But if they're willing to talk to you, that might give the family insight on what's going on.. at the same time be careful of just putting yourself in the middle. If you can visit for your own reasons that is ideal.
I'll answer more deeply later, and please feel free to DM me.
/MH professional with a counseling Master's degree who works in a non-clinical setting with (often suicidal) college students. (Short version: Social work for student in college)
Thank you for your reply. Trying to celebrate them getting help is a way of looking at the situation I hadn't thought of.
They are a minor, so the visitor list is very short, but I've offered to be put on it if they still won't see the parents at the next visit.
Very much not a professional
I'm not afraid of the dark, I think that helps.
1
I was quite depressed for most of 2 decades from ~13-33 (where I thought constantly about suicide, no attempts though), then my sister committed suicide and I managed to decide that I wouldn't put my mom through having 2 kids and both killing themselves.
Suddenly when suicide was off the table I had to find ways to live and have that life be sustainable (since the suicide-out was off the table), from there I slowly realised I enjoyed living.
I slowly built up my economy, my home, my friend circle, etc. None of them are in great shape yet (another 2 decades later), but they are getting there (or rather I'm more and more accepting of how things are!).
When my mother died almost 2 years ago suicide got back on the table, that was hard and unexpected (because I somehow had forgot that promise about not committing suicide for her sake), I'm still not fully sure I will never kill myself but I'm fairly sure I enjoy living.
Mind you: I do have a child, which I got when I was still very much depressed. She is now a fantastic adult, but I have never have any doubts that she would be OK even without me (I have always made sure that she has had strong relationships with her mother, other adults and her friends). A big regret in my life is that I have leaned on her, a bit too much some times, to borrow her spark, curiosity and joy of life (at least I've also stocked up her therapy fund!).
Weirdly; I am also grateful for deciding to have a child and taking care of them, I think that saved me.
2
In my very strong opinion: never, ever, lay the adults well being in the teens hands!. This is hard for me to convey in writing, because it's not about what you say, not even about how you say it, but about the intention.
It's fine, even good, to let them know you worry, or are scared. It's fine to cry, possibly even scream. But only as a way to show how you feel and how much you love them and how scared you are of them dying. Not as a way to force them to do things or accept "facts" or whatever.
Let the person know you're not afraid of the dark, I think it helps to be able to joke about it and anything surrounding the situation. Maybe one of the parents is a terrible chef so the food at the ward was an improvement over that parents cooking anyway?
This teen has already thought about death and suicide and scary stuff for a long time, it's good for them to talk about it with adults who aren't afraid. It is super scary if everyone around them pretends suicide or depression or rage or hopelessness or other scary stuff (like oppression, bullying, climate change, death, fascism, heights, other people, etc) don't exist. But! Let them lead, you want to be a person to lean on, that they can bring their box of despair to and show you their stuff. Sometimes it is appropriate to show some of your stuff (and be honest about it, it is fine to say: I don't want to say more, because I don't want you to know about it).
I'm trying to say something like: just be a real person, but remember that they are still a child (so it is your job as an adult to set and hold the boundaries, etc).
3 & 4
A plant, or a pet (except dog, and someone must be willing to step in when the teen fails at taking care of it), or an elderly neighbour that needs help going to the store or reading a paper. Even a special interest online forum where they can help noobs find their way or a section of a wiki for a game that needs organising.
Just about anything that is about helping or sustaining anyone else (except closest family, because that is too much to deal with atm) will do. Be interested, but not too eager, about it.
This person clearly doesn't value their own life enough to live off. They might be able to do it later, but right now they don't.
So since the self preservation instinct is temporarily out of order you will have to take advantage of some other instinct and I think the social instinct is the easiest and most powerful (and very good to have exercised for the rest of their life as it is fairly accepted that the most meaningful lives are lives in service of others, taking care of the "tribe" so to speak).
I think you can just say this to them too, ask them if they would be willing to try something to trick their brain back from the dark place it has gotten itself into.
In time it is also good to get outside, move, eat well, etc, but that comes later and possibly from themselves.
Outro
I am not a professional, just a person who isn't afraid of the dark.
Thank you for telling me about your experiences and for persevering. Its reassuring to hear from someone who moved forward even though it must have been hard.
Getting them more social when they return is something we want to work on. I know how much they like animals, so maybe we can find a volunteer opportunity involving that.
I just want to make sure I got my point across about a detail, you obviously don't need to use it anyway.
(And there is a high possibility that you did in fact understand, but that I misunderstand you in your reply)
I think this is somewhat in reply to my:
And it's fine to just aim for general socialising, but what I wanted to convey was something more like @Knockout_Mouse wrote in another reply:
And that taking care of something or someone is an easy way to get that feeling (if you succeed... dead plants never helped!)
Not a doctor, but I'm in a 20+ year struggle with clinical depression. I was discharged from the military because of suicidal ideation, but I'm doing very well right now.
My best advice is to be a good listener. It sounds like they've been through a lot, and just having someone listen without judging helps immensely. Be a good friend.
For me, I always had good days and bad days. My happiest days are when I get to do something new and interesting. When I was a kid, it was a trip to the zoo or some random museum I'd never heard of. As an adult, it's pretty much the same thing. Experiences create joy. I still feel empty some days, but most days I'm glad I'm alive.
And now, on to some of the boring science. I'll try to keep it brief, but I'm a huge nerd for this stuff.
Depression is chemical. Even in mild sufferers, there are significant differences between a neurotypical brain and a neurodivergent brain. It frequently manifests as a deficiency of specific "reward" chemicals such as dopamine. With a depressed brain, you're simply not rewarded for doing a good job.
There is a clear correlation between isolation and depression symptoms. In short, if we feel alone, we're more likely to experience depression.
Drugs are a symptom, not the cause, of the problem. Don't treat the symptom (the drug use), treat the problem (the isolation, the uncertainty, and the chemical imbalance).
Parting thoughts - I'd say the most important thing I ever felt in my life was the feeling of being wanted. Make them feel that way.
I'm just going to plug Kate Borenstein's book, Hello, Cruel World
101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws before I share any of my personal experiences. It's the book I wish I had been able to read at that age.
link before I say anything else.
TW Suicide
(I have depression, anxiety, CPTSD, and PTSD stemming from an event at 11. My problems long term were caused by sustained emotional neglect in combination with dysphoria and the trauma.)
Ultimately, in hindsight, it was realizing that I was the only one who could take ownership of my life and what I wanted.
I did not come to this realization in a 'normal' way. Instead, I realized this in a very roundabout way, where I concluded that I was fundamentally incapable of committing suicide, and I had to just continue to be alive. That conclusion came after roughly 20ish suicide attempts.
People still don't believe me when I tell them I am unable to commit suicide. They assume it's some joke or rationalization or something. It's not. It's fundamentally isolating, but after 35ish attempts (last one was 10/10/2025), it seems an apt conclusion for me to have.
I concluded at around age ~16 that I was never going to be happy, and that I had to live with that. I became a workaholic, went to school, met an amazing woman, and transitioned at 24.
I moved forward because I had to. My reasoning is a very mechanical, logical conclusion that if I was going to hate being alive, I might as well have a decent life while hating being alive.
Time softened the rest of my outlook. I worked emotionally abrasive jobs, I've talked to weirdos and strangers about the human condition, and my outlook slowly shifted to a mostly comfortable peace with things. I still suffer from some form of anhedonia, and I've consumed cannabis daily for the last three years daily.
The rest of the change was gradual, after correcting my gender and gently unpacking my mental health, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that I am mentally ill, and it's something I need to accept about myself.
I think Taoist and Neo-Taoist ( Discordianism especially! ) understandings helped a lot. I did a lot of research into psychology, and why people are the way they are. I also worked in hotels for about 4 years, which gave me a lot of perspective on the human condition. Oh, and I'm medicated on 2 meds and HRT.
My mental health didn't just get better. I continued living, and I learned how to manage and respect it. That made my life better and easier, and the symptoms easier to endure. I still don't feel joy, fear, or happiness properly.... but I have an amazing life with wonderful people I love.
TW Bleak
In my experience, mental health issues usually have some amount of cause. Ex-Nihlo spontaneous mental health challenges can occur, but are rarer and usually have a genetic component.
From what little you've mentioned here, it seems the teen has had multiple people and animals in their life pass away. That's an isolating experience for anyone, and if I had to guess, it's absolutely a part of what's going on. If I read that correctly, this person in your life has had 4 people close to them die in under a year.
Grief does weird things to people, and our culture does not properly discuss or honour death. That can really mess with people! The strong emotions of grief and loss can directly be invalidated by the rest of the world just existing as itself.
This is my advice:
Do: Ask them what they want from you/others. Specifically, that means that your relative should be able to define what they want to discuss, or how they might want to define this experience. Additionally, give them the space to feel what they are feeling, and the respect for them to have those feelings. i.e. don't invalidate.
Don't: Trust that they know exactly what they're feeling or what will help them. Try not to react to anything, and focus on being constructive.
TW Bleak; Suicide
However, also there is a very real possibility that your relative won't make it home. Are y'all going to be ok if they don't come home? That's something that you and yours should perhaps consider.
Getting out of a psych hospital doesn't mean a person will get better. It only means they convinced the psych hospital to let them out. Not everyone makes it, and that is agonizing, but it's a real possibility, and I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention it.
TW: Bleak
The simple answer is, you can't. All you can do is offer to help them build that life, and hope that they want to build one.
The unfortunate truth is that they will need to want to move forward and to build a better life. If they are uncooperative, then you won't be able to do much other than to assure them that you will be there if they decide they need you.
Assuming they are cooperative, then I would suggest building in safety measures for them. Have regular check-ins, be active and understanding of what they're going through, and make a plan with them for what to do if their mental health takes a turn for the worse.
Outside of that? Consider involving them in projects! Help them build skills by doing and working as a team. Gardens or renovations are great for this, if those are within your family's means. The experience of involved practice is just inherently good for helping someone rebuild themselves.
TW: N/A
This is a good question for soliciting outside discussion/help, but the wrong question to be asking yourself if y'all are seeking to help them long term. It's not something
The reason this isn't a great question is that this framing sees what they're experiencing as a place that can and must be retreated from. That sees the symptom, not the cause. Recovering from mental illness requires understanding and overcoming the mental issues that lead to a person becoming the way in the first place.
The right questions are: 'why do we turn someone like this around?' and 'what does someone like this being turned around look like?'
The reason I am posing this very obvious question to you, is because to a mentally ill person with depression, this is not an obvious question.
When I am in the worst of my depressive states, or when I am experiencing a PTSD flashback, I cannot imagine anything other than the feelings I am experiencing in the moment. I cannot imagine a world where I am not depressed, or not paralyzed in terror. I'm going to have to get a bit poetic to describe the feeling.
Imagine you felt the entirety of existence collapse into a singularity of wrongness. In these states, depression is not pain, so much as it is a world devoid of anything but pain. Time fails, until there is only the current moment. Colour fades, voices mute, taste dulls - and I cease to even imagine that I could ever escape from this wrongness, or that there was ever even a life before the wrongness. Depression warps memory, poisoning my past, while snuffing out my hope for a future. In my worst moments, I have begged and prayed to Death herself to deliver me from this place. She refuses to take me.
In those states, I could not imagine being 'turned around.' Any vision of a future where I escape the feeling would feel more like a sick joke, or an impossible fantasy. I might even go as far as to lay out an explicit logic that damns me to not being 'turned around' and lash out at anyone who is trying to help me.
SO the reason we need to ask that question, is because we need understand that someone who is having these mental health reactions might not be able to imagine being turned around. The answer to why we help people turn around, is because human beings and life and fate are malleable and can and should and will be made more better, whether a person believes it in the moment or not.
I can't answer this one for you. I don't know the unique, individual life of your relative. Maybe their issue is gender, or sexuality, or the death around them, or coming to terms with what America has become, or bad habits slowly dragging a person down, or they got too deep into a bad ideology, or parents not listening, or etc. That's a conversation that would require the 'like this' to be defined.
The person in your life has people, at least, which is more than some people I see.
TW: Bleak
Abuse is rarely visible, but I think you're probably good to rule out abuse if you're not seeing anything. While there's a chance something happened behind closed doors, it's not best to go hunting for this as a cause unless you've seen something.
Additionally, studies have shown Neglect can cause of poor mental health outcomes similar / as bad as actual physical abuse.
Anti depressants are a whole range of medications targeting different areas, and anyone on meds will almost certainly need to try several different approaches at some point in their life.
Some medications also numb a person so much that they don't fully help a person with their recovery.
That's a lot of death in a short amount of time. That's hard.
Yep. And if they're a part of any group the US admin is targeting.... that's going to be a factor. The common take in the queer community currently is... less than optimistic.
That to me is a problem. Why are people confused about this? Why are people frustrated? Those are questions I hope y'all can unpack.
...that's especially not good, for a variety of 'parent-child' reasons.
How consensual was the institutionalization? To them, does it feel like they're being punished for seeking help?
Also, refusing visitors might be some of the only power they have currently. If that is some of the only control they have over their life at the moment, and they're angry about how they've been treated when they are falling apart mentally, it makes complete sense for them to deny visitors. Or they might be ashamed, or hurt, or their parents might factor into things somehow.
I hope I have answered with a sufficient amount of respect for your relative, and your family. When you've been in the thick of it as long as I have, you tend to get cold and develop some gallows humor. Most of my questions are rhetorical, and for you to answer for yourself. Sorry to respond to a weeks old post, but it was easier than talking about my mental health.
Thank you very much to everyone for responding.
I want to update this post and say that my teen relative has been released back home and is getting regular professional help and adjusted medications.
I kept my post kinda vague on details (because this is the Internet and they deserve anonymity), but your responses & recommendations have been very helpful by pointing out things that we adults need to know and asking good questions of us. Again, thank you.
I'm going to try and make this one short, because so much has happened this month I could write a novel.
The important, but not life changing stuff:
Now the elephant in the room...
Therapy
Honestly the best decision I've made in a long, long time. I'm very glad people here gave me some gentle encouragement.
It's been really difficult, I've been having to face some painful memories and feelings.
Uh, it's been a really huge deal. I've come to the realization I had completely disassociated from my childhood and I've built myself an actually impressively effective defence system against negative emotions. My conscious brain just deflects and ignores them.
I'm not sure I can even describe what the discovery has been like, but I'll try!
I've been trying to focus on, process and properly feel really old and strong negative emotions. As I've been trying to sit on the feeling I started to notice my inner monologue would interrupt and immediately try and derail me off to something mundane and "safe".
When I noticed it, I thought it was a one off. But then I started to realise I was doing it all the time when I felt anything negative. And it would make me feel "better" when I distracted myself, but it also meant I just never processed a lot of emotions. I never asked "why" or sat with the feeling and told myself it's OK. More like I told myself it was NOT OK and I needed to hide/ignore it.
Basically my whole childhood is under this same banner. I have volumes of negative memories as a kid. I'm realising how just... Sad my circumstances were when I look at it a bit more objectively as an adult.
I always told myself that it wasn't that bad, my trauma, my experience was nothing compared to others. I had nothing to be sad about, my life was and is good. More conscious sweeping under the rug. I think I essentially used toxic positivity on myself.
All of this is early for me. My thoughts here might change.
Though through all of this extremely heavy work, I can see the light more and more clearly.
I can see a life where I feel these emotions, I feel connected with myself and I learn to trust myself.
I don't know about you reader, but my life is directed by conscious throught. I think through my day, my inner monologue sets everything out like a day planner.
The only "feelings" which drive my decisions are hungry, horny and tired. I don't just "feel" like doing something, I do it because "hm I think my body needs some exercise, I should go for a walk or swim, I'll find an hour", "it's been 1 week, I should arrange to see friends"
Something about feeling more emotions and allowing them to help me drive my day makes me happy. I want to get there.
Well, baby steps! Let's see how we do next month! I expect this to take a while!
I wanted to say that your therapy section reads like what I could write about myself. I spent a huge part of my life feeling very little emotion and intellectualizing my sad childhood without actually every having processed it on an emotional or bodily level.
I've been on mental health leave from work for 6 months and in therapy, and I'm finally at a point where I've broken through many of the defenses I've built up against feeling my emotions. I also realized I struggle with alexithymia and usually experience a delay in emotional processing, so knowing that has helped me figure out some of what I need to do to actually access my feelings.
This has led to a lot of realizations and upheaval in my life, but I feel alive and hopeful about where I can go from here despite the stress and negative emotions that come with it. Honestly, even when I feel terrible, I'm also pretty proud of myself for being able to actually feel that way and cry or release emotion rather than immediately suppressing it.
Anyway, not sure if we're at quite the same place, but I wanted to say I see you, stranger! And I'm glad you're making progress.
Thank you so much for replying! It means a lot to hear from someone who's experiencing something similar.
It sounds to me like you're further ahead than me. What you are describing about feeling those emotions (good or bad) and living them has quickly become both a fantasy and a goal for me.
I hope you don't mind me asking (my PMs are open if you'd rather message there), what kind of treatment have you been through/are going through?
I'm very new to therapy as a whole, and I'm finding the actual process, treatments and what to expect quite overwhelming never mind my own issues!!
Also, I'm really glad to hear you are working through things, that sounds like some extremely positive progress on your part!
Hey! No I don't mind at all.
My therapist practices process-based behavioral therapy. From reading a bit online, it seems like he's fairly idiosyncratic about the approach. His philosophy is that most problems stem from a root issue or pattern we fall into. We spend time addressing the issues I'm thinking about in a given week and exploring how they relate to larger root beliefs I have such as "I'm weird" or "I'm a bad person". Exposing this helps challenge these kinds of negative self belief and break old patterns.
I will say though that for me probably the most helpful part of therapy has been exercises to connect with feelings and work I've done outside of sessions to do so. My first really big breakthrough came from allowing myself to sit with my therapist while going through a difficult conversation and focusing on the sensations in my body. Frequently I feel nothing during a hard conversation or jump right past emotions to thoughts, but after spending several months talking more intellectually, I was able to stay there with him and really cry for the first time in over a decade. And as someone who bottles things up and lives in their head, just being able to be that open with another human was probably more significant than the particular method he uses.
My most recent big change came from reading It's Not Always Depression, which is an explanation and exercises from AEDP therapy. I found the concept of the Change Triangle incredibly helpful as a concrete way to understand emotions and defense mechanisms, particularly as someone whose main emotional experience is usually anxiety. I don't know if you're also autistic, but the author's obsession with eye contact might be either off-putting or hilarious depending on your mindset going in. Otherwise I think it's super useful if you want to work on feeling big feelings. I cried A LOT though, and had to be in a place where I was able to cope with the bad parts of feeling better. But it led to me feeling increased access to positive feelings as well. I'm sure there are more layers and it's only been a couple weeks, but that's what made me feel like I've really turned a corner.
Thanks so much for sharing! Honestly it was nice to read and I do feel some common understanding there.
I'll check out the book for sure, it couldn't hurt! I'm not autistic, but I'm firmly neuro divergent. I've been diagnosed with ADHD at least.
And, like you, anxiety has been a huge part of my life until now.
To draw some other threads to what you posted. I have felt in a very large way this has been like a "taking of the blinkers" moment.
I've been working to try and talk about, and feel my emotions (particularly in the past during a massive memory) and I realized something was wrong when I felt like I was describing a lot of these memories like it was a different person. I felt no connection to my former self. Describing those traumatic events didn't bring up much or any real emotion, but consciously I thought "this is pretty sad".
When it clicked for me that something wasn't right, I noticed it a lot more day to day as well as with memories.
Working with my therapist (it's still early) is a process of talking about those emotions and memories, taking my time to allow myself to feel them or find them. Then experience them at least a little.
Last session I was on the verge of crying and I sorely wanted to, but I wasn't ready yet. But I am sure it will come.
Day to day I'm trying to tell myself it's OK to feel, well anything at all honestly. I'm still struggling with understanding what I'm feeling at any given moment to be honest. To some degree it feels like learning a language I've never been taught, but I know a couple of popular phrases.
So yeah, thank you again. I hope you continue on your journey, it sounds like you've made heaps of great progress already!
Thank you for sharing too! I've often had the same experience talking about my past. More feelings will come when you're ready, and it's worth it even when it's hard. Take care!
I can relate to this. I was relatively privileged as a child in the context I grew up in. Not anything crazy, but when you grow up in a communist country, even "middle class" feels like privilege. So I grew up with this internal monologue of "you had everything, and more than many of your friends, so what's the problem? stop whining and be grateful!"
Yeah I felt pretty much exactly the same!
It's been really challenging to rethink that whole mindset I've had for so long.
Any tips on how to work towards it? I think slow incremental progress is as good as it gets for me on this front.
I try to remind myself that I had no control over things when I was small. I was delay a certain hand in life and ahold make the most I can of it. Guilt, regret, doubt… outside my own head nobody cares about these things. I try to stay grounded in the present, but like you said, that mindset is indeed hard to change.
For me, I didn't work on this in particular at all. In my sessions I've been starting with talking about what's bothering me now and what I want to work on. Then slowly doing work backwards to ask "why" I have those thoughts and feelings now.
Step 1 for me was "Hu, it's kind of weird I'm struggling to remember my childhood, and it feels like I'm talking about someone else" and I said this to my therapist.
Between sessions I thought about it more and did a little googling and it became clear I was disassociating.
Step 2 was trying to bring those memories and feelings/emotions closer to me again. Which has been a lot of hard work. My therapist has been very patient and I've put in a lot of effort here.
I started to be able to remember my childhood more clearer, walk through the years in my head and feel more connected to myself. And it was then that I started to think look at it as a whole and tried to think about how my friends and adults looked at my situation, then more previously unexplained questions started to have answers. For example, I had friends who (to me) very suddenly stopped wanting to hang out with me. And my mother tried to protect me by giving me a reasonable excuse but I knew really I wasn't the whole reason. And I now realize that it was (at least partially) due to my living situation at the time. I have a strong suspicion that the other parents would have seen me as a bad influence on their kid (which wasn't true imo, but it's more obvious that's what the thought now).
So because of that, I feel like right now I have accepted at least parts of the weird/tramautic/unhealthy parts of growing up. But I've got a lot of work to do yet, so I'm maybe not the best person to ask about the actual healing process.
The last two weeks actually have been extremely difficult. I've never felt more emotionally high and low back to back before, and it's rough. I'm just hoping I can start to work on coping/healing soon lol.
I hope this helps. I have a hard goal I want (feel safe/confident with myself and improve my romantic relationships) and I'm putting in 100 percent effort to getting there, so that'd a huge part of why I'm getting so much done in therapy I think.
I've really been struggling this past week.
Up until last weekend, things had been going great. If been exercising more and eating better in an effort to improve heart health ahead of a checkup scheduled for a couple weeks from now, and those had been going well. I helped my wife with a house project as well on Sunday, just feeling great.
Went for a cardiologist visit Monday, got good news there, still feeling good. Has a great night Tuesday with friends. Worked Wednesday, no problem.
But when I got home Wednesday evening, I was super tired. Didn't feel like doing much, so I ate dinner and hung out on the couch like most nights with my wife, having a fine time. Slowly, I started feeling lightheaded and anxious, could feel my heart pounding through my whole body, felt feverish. Checked temperature, normal. Checked o2 level, normal. Blood pressure was high, but not technically dangerously so. Cold sweat, nausea for a second or three. This took place over about 3 or 4 hours.
I finally decided to lay down, fairly certain this was some kind of panic/anxiety thing. Slept just fine.
I never used to have this happen, and I don't have any new stressors that I can think of, but the older I get the closer I am to the age my dad suddenly died of heart stuff and I think that's getting to me. I've had an ER visit already once this year for similar symptoms, and all tests came back normal.
Anyway, the next day I went to work feeling ok, and while I was in front of class got a notification that I'd met a cardio goal on my smart watch. Turns out my heart rate was elevated. Then I started getting lightheaded again, and had to leave my class with an assistant while I went to sit down and talk to a coworker who has heart issues. He suggested that with the new lightheadedness I might ought to see a doctor asap. I ended up back at the ER, and once again all tests come back fine other than elevated blood pressure.
I'm just so overwhelmed and frustrated by this. It's so deeply stupid that the symptoms of anxiety, or just working out, or just being tired, all fit under the umbrella of "well it could be a heart attack and it's best to play it safe." I can't afford to be in the ER every night, and it feels like I'm having to choose between that or going to bed wondering if I'm having a heart attack every single night now. I'll just be relaxing, feeling great, then I'll hear my pulse in my ears, or feel a twinge in my chest, and next thing I know my blood pressure is up and I'm getting lightheaded again.
Is it acid reflux giving me mild chest pain, which then makes me spiral into an anxiety attack? Is it an impending stroke that I'm just barely holding at bay with breath exercises? Basic anxiety manifesting physically? No one seems to know! Yay!
I already had a bad relationship with sleep before, one I've been rehabilitating for the past couple of months. But now sleep time is so stressful. I fear I'll give myself a stroke/heart attack just from the stress of it, even if there's no physical underlying cause.
My poor wife has been dealing with anxiety our whole life together, and I'm just beginning to understand how terrible that must be. That itself is also making me feel like crap, like I've not been supportive enough, even when I've given more than I felt I had to spare.
I'm just exhausted and needed to vent. Hopefully I hear back from my doctor soon. Sorry for the negativity. Advice/encouragement are explicitly welcome.
I don’t have any advice, but wanted to stop by and commiserate with you for a short bit.
It’s awful going through physical things and not knowing if there’s something wrong or not and having to go back and forth to the ER and doctors especially when we can’t afford to do so. I sometimes think, regarding myself, that not knowing if I should go see someone or if I’m just experiencing anxiety gives me more anxiety which makes me feel worse!
I hope you find answers.
Thanks friend. The not knowing is definitely not helping. Deciding "I'm not going to the ER" can help if I believe it, but I've never been good at tricking myself into believing anything.
I'm not sure what stage of life you're in, age difference and other details, but I can share what worked for me in a big way in the last 2-3 years. At some point during the pandemic I finally got serious about exercise. It's been a lot of work to STAY consistent over more than a few months at a time, but when I did, I noticed a lot of things automatically improving. I know you said you do exercise, but not all exercise is the same. I found a program that worked best for me, left it and had to return to it because others failed to get the same results. This one is not just strength/weights, it's also mobility, flexibility, breathing, cardio. Kind of a true full body focus with an instructor that actually explains why you're doing certain things. Anyway, I found that some recurring pains in my body vanished once I stuck to this for a while. I also walk my dog almost every day for 2-5 km, which adds some mild exercise to the mix.
The second big change for me was diet. I had long avoided dairy, and more recently I also try to avoid meat. I am not 100% there, but when I do manage to avoid both consistently, I do feel much better overall. Digestive system definitely better, but also overall energy and sense of well-being - kind of like an overall lightness. Just sharing what worked for me, not trying to sell any ideas. The book that was a turning point for me on the diet front is The China Study (a huge study on nutrition across the world). It encourages a whole foods plant based diet.
Maybe you are already doing some of these things, and hey I'm no doctor. I'm in my early 40s and I intend to keep these good habits up as I think they will help me age better and be in much better shape when I'm old compared to my parents.
Hope you come across some helpful advice and feel better soon!
Would you mind sharing more information about that exercise program, it sounds really good.
Absolutely! It is called 645. They used to see this as a standalone download/DVD set, but now, sadly, it's only available via a Team BeachBody subscription (BODi app), unless you find some pirated version of it on torrent sites other less than legal sources.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are a mix of strength and body weight exercises. Wednesdays are mobility and flexibility. Saturdays are cardio.
https://shop-ca.bodi.com/products/645?localeChanged=true
Thank you for the response. I have been trying to eat less meat, more veggie-based stuff, and I've gone from walking a couple of days a week to walking/jogging about 3km 5-6x a week. I was trying to work up to a consistent 5km, but took a break when this stuff started.
I've been feeling mostly better the past couple of days, and just having decided that it'll take something new and worse to send me back to the ER has helped the anxiety a good bit. Hopefully my GP will have some more for me when I go see her in a week or so.
But yeah, I appreciate the advice, and I think i might have to look into that book. Thanks!
Glad to hear you've felt better the last couple of days!
Chiming in with happy status! It's been a challenging last six weeks. I had an eye problem caused by prednisone on top of the mental health stuff (hypomania, then pain and crushing depression during the dosage taper). My knees and other joints have definitely taken some long-term damage. Insurance finally came through with the authorization to resume my biologic drug at an increased dosage, and I'm now doing great.
It's amazing how much of a life improvement it is to have less pain and fatigue, free movement, and regular sleep. For me at least, depression is as much autoimmune as cognitive, and it feels like the sun has come out after the biologic drug kicked in again. It's very different from the twitchy, irritable, hyperstimulated feelings from high-dose prednisone, more like just being normal.
I've got a tremendous amount of yard and housework to catch up on, but I'm actually enthusiastic and energetic about it all. It's crazy season at work since everyone is trying to close out projects by year-end; I'm now coping well again, with more equanimity and mental sharpness. Spouse is delighted to have his partner "back".
I'm not happy with the few pounds gained from the prednisone and inactivity. I'm getting my lifts up to usual weights, walking more, and it's just so much easier than it's been.
My heart goes out to all of you fellow depression sufferers, and my wish is that there will one day be an equally straightforward (if not cheap) fix for everyone.
I hear you! Same here... I'm more on the process and finance side of projects and it's reporting time and budget time and this and that. Ugh! Can't wait to be over this bump and into the lull of the holiday season... before the new year and new budget starts the cycle all over again!
I'm in US healthcare IT and everyone is running like mad because change freezes start around Thanksgiving, when people take accumulated vacation days through the end of the year. I work on projects with many physical installation dependencies, and it's curious how work that begins in January always encounters obstacles that mean I can't start the majority of my work until September or October.
Right when the SAD and the other cold weather-related health stuff kicks off, too...
Hope your budget season goes smoothly and doesn't prove too taxing!
Funny enough I saw the change freeze advisory from IT at my end too, just earlier this week. Doesn’t have much to do with my work but I thought of your comment!
Reporting and budget is going as well as it could, considering neither was supposed to be my job but I’m too nice to say I won’t help. At least I’m not actually responsible for the numbers, just a middle man Excel pusher. I’m just missing a red stapler.
Things are getting really tough lately; I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I'm nearing the 3/4 point in my accelerated master's program in elementary education, but I have been falling behind with my assignments for the last few weeks. The workload is intense on its own, but it's on top of a full time job (long term sub but I was left few lesson plans). The job ends in 4 weeks, which is both a relief and nerveracking, because I have to keep applying for new openings. I managed to get sick 4 days ago, which made it so I haven't been able to sleep well (CPAP keeps choking me) and I just keep falling further and further behind. My shortest days are 10 hours long, and three of the days are 14 hours long, that's not including the homework I have to do, and lesson planning. On top of that the spouse and I are starting couples counseling, and I have individual therapy for myself.
I'm not well.
Sad, angry, sad, dissapointed, confused, sad, probably SAD, stunlocked, superextranonexecutive, sad and did mention sad.
This month I will pause and feel, not right now though since I'm meeting up with a friend(?). Just have enough time in transit to jot an anchor down here so I don't forget to elaborate as the month keeps creeping forward.
I read something very touching today, something like:
I had a follow up with a doctor today.
In my previous appointment I broke down crying. I had told him that I had already given up on a therapy because it kept me up at night, but he encouraged me to keep going because it was the only way to see how to get through with it. I had already seen two specialists about the issue. I've been dealing with this issue for years with no solutions. The thing about it is that if I'm not trying to deal with the problem, it doesn't actually bother me.
This follow up was two months later and he had congratulated me for keeping up with it in spite of the difficulties.
He offered no solutions for the difficulties I was going through. He said maybe I should ask my regular doctor, and offered another follow-up later. I politely declined, and after leaving promptly had another breakdown. Thankfully it was a video appointment so I could scream in my own home.
I've been in a depressed state for the rest of the day.
Almost done tapering off escitalopram (lexapro). I've been on it for 14 years or so? The taper started 4 months ago
Still think it's a good idea. I got an autism diagnosis last year and that plus exercise seems to work better for my anxiety.
I'm in a different place than I was in 2012 that's for sure. We'll see how I feel a couple months from now.
Would you mind elaborating on how your autism diagnosis has helped with anxiety?
I am recently diagnosed but I mostly feel left hanging (exactly when a high five isn't reciprocated) and I'm trying to understand myself in the light of the diagnosis. Maybe your story can help me?
Over the last month or so I have been listening to a lot of self-help materials (audio-books and podcasts). Last week I hit a bit of a wall where I kind of threw the keyboard at the screen. I think there is a line where too it all just becomes too much and information starts to either repeat or start conflicting or it all just turns into a mental to do list of "stuff I need to change about myself". All the sources are "good" in theory, but so many of them at once was becoming too much.
I had to remind myself to stick to a reasonable amount of self-help materials. It's an ongoing thing for me: I get excited about something and I go full speed, then crash out. I need to slow down, stick to one thing at a time, and pace myself.
I'll stick to two things (I know I jsut said ONE thing, but hey 2 is better than 5).
I think these are enough for my mental health efforts. The zen stuff is an ongoing reminder for mental calm, while NMMNG gives me enough "new" information to turn into small action items that help me improve some of the practical aspects in my life and relationships.