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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (December 2020)
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
The night terrors are gone. Not a single episode in the last 6 months. I must be careful with everything I watch and think before going to bed. I pray most nights too. Sometimes meditate shortly.
When I try focusing on something positive, or when something makes me feel alive, the embrace of cold death makes itself present. Like dread itself. There’s nothing my doctor can do. I should probably do some physical exercise, but it’s so hot outside. I know that’s no excuse.
I find most people histrionic but they’re probably just normal — why do they need to say things all the time? Experience tells I’m the abnormal one, but I cannot help but think this prolixity is a form of madness. There’s such calm and stability in being silent. I love it. I cherish it.
I must inflate the tires of my bicycle.
Normal is overrated. I prefer people who are weird, eccentric, and unique - people who push boundaries. After all, who stops and appreciates normality? Beauty is found at the edges; the flower which is brightly colored, the circus performer whose flexibility and strength seems unnatural, the building which looks like it's going to collapse but was carefully designed.
I agree with you my friend. When I use a term like “abnormal” I mean only “less frequent”, not inferior in any way. I really should have been more careful in my choice of words, sometimes I get lazy. Thank you for the clarification.
Mmmph.
I think I'm okay? A week ago the answer would have been very different; I was in complete burnout, and entering a pretty severe depression phase, but I think I pulled myself out of it just in time. I'm enjoying some of my work again; there's some new partnership prospects opening which are super interesting. And of course having a ton of fun with Beat Saber.
I realized during those few really bad days that I have nobody left I can really talk to about this, outside Tildes where I feel very comfortable sharing my personal life. I lost contact with a lot of people over the past few years, by virtue of not only changing countries and jobs regularly but now also changing occupation. When I moved to Brussels, my social circle which was previously primarily online became fairly reliant on the offline component and COVID has thrown that into the trash. I'm not even seeing my skating buddies right now (turns out, ice skating is a pretty social sport).
That aside… I had a long-distance date with a friend from south korea a few days ago. We met over a month ago for work and things kind of clicked, and turned it into an actual date; it went well and we will have a second one and see where things lead. She was very upfront about being open to it but also told me she is asexual. I'm cool with it, and we'll probably have to talk a bit more about it on our next date. I have a lot of unanswered questions we should probably cover before we end up meeting, and they're not even necessarily going to be answerable by another ace. (I don't know how she feels about kissing, for example) -- That said, I appreciate any input tilders may have into the subject. Anyway, early days.
Similar to what @Tygrak said, aces are a very diverse category themselves, so there's a lot of individual variation. Only she will be able to tell you what she's comfortable with, because there's no one set way someone experiences their own asexuality.
It might be worth looking into some ace resources as a primer, partially because it'll give you more background for any disclosure she chooses to share, and also because it'll likely enable you to ask better questions. I believe that AVEN is well-regarded, but if there are any aces here who want to speak to this, please let us know!
Definitely don't give her the impression that you researched her like a specimen (nobody wants to feel the impersonal invasiveness of being under a metaphorical microscope), but showing that you did some homework will likely go a long way. I had a long discussion with an ace friend semi-recently, and he talked about how nice it was to be seen, known, heard, and understood as ace. He talked about the feeling of invisibility and how he lived under it for so long. It's apparently a common experience for many aces, especially because we do not have widespread ace representation in media and life.
He actually texted me recently, completely ecstatic, because a character in a book series he's reading was confirmed in the text as being asexual. This is, sadly, very uncommon. That rarity means his opportunity to see himself in the world has been severely and unfairly limited, and, correspondingly, the rest of us have been deprived of understanding that people like him help make up our world and all of its wonderful human diversity and complexity. It's on us to change our understanding.
Approach her with a genuine and earnest curiosity, and greet her disclosure as a learning opportunity for you, and you likely can't go wrong. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything she discloses will be in line with what you may want from a relationship, but if that's the case, that's not a problem with her but simply a misalignment of goals and interests.
Also, try to avoid framing anything, even implicitly, through a lens that something is "missing" or "broken" for her. It's unfortunately common for aces to be pathologized in some pretty awful ways. They're also subject to the sort of paternalism that nearly every LGBT person faces, where others assume they know better and they're not really <identity> deep down inside. This can be particularly acutely felt for aces, as they go up against widespread cultural forces that push the idea that sexual attraction and sexual pleasure are universally felt and are also the "height" of human experience, which are common even in LGBT spaces (often even moreso).
Based on what I know of you here, I don't think you'll run into any issues. You're a positive, thoughtful, affirming person, and that's quite possibly why she was interested in a date with you in the first place! Whether or not there's a future relationship for you two remains to be seen, but that's something that the two of you will figure out in time as you share more of yourselves and evaluate your wants, needs, and goals in light of one another. There may be incompatibilities that inhibit a further relationship, but there also might be compatibilities that draw the two of you closer to one another.
I wish the two of you the best as you figure that out together.
Thank you and @Tygrak for the replies! ❤️
Yeah, my knowledge on aces extends exactly to BJH and that's it, and that's what I told her. I'm not doing terribly much research on asexuality either; I don't see why I should treat it any differently than a blanket "I want to be with you, but for reasons that concern me, I don't want to have sex".
One potential asterisk though is that she is asexual not entirely by preference (AFAIUI) but for medical reasons, due to health issues that inhibit her hormones. She hasn't explained much beyond that and once again, this context is something that only she can fill in for me (and it's a bit much for a second date): How did she feel about her sexuality before her health issues? Is this something that bothers her, or is she comfortable with it?
So I'm more doing soul-searching on myself. I'm not asexual, nor am I the kind who would take a chastity pledge. But I also don't believe I need sex to have a relationship with someone, and it's not what I'm looking for right now anyway. She told me she usually has open relationships because of this. I'd be fine with that as well.
I like her quite a bit either way, so right now I want to pursue this.
I don't know what pushes me into difficult relationships. As I talked about on Tildes, my ex before her had ADHD and mild autism, requiring a lot of patience. My ex-fiancée before her was muslim, from an extremely conservative family. And now I'm contemplating entering an asexual relationship with someone currently living 8 timezones away from me.
And it's not that the difficulty intimidates me. Not at all. I welcome it, if anything. I just sometimes worry I'm giving up on being "simply happy": That the option of meeting someone who lives close by, moving in together, having a simple relationship with them, is not open to me.
I had that option once, but that was nearly 10 years ago and I was an awful boyfriend at the time, so I wasted it, heh.
Update: Second date set for next Tuesday. Wish me luck! 😊
I hope I can get my sleep under control by then. It's been dreadful, spending several hours awake in bed a day either by misjudging how tired I am or falling asleep and waking up after 20 mins hyper rested and unable to sleep again for hours...
I am not ace, but I lurk quite a lot in ace communities, because I am demi. Kissing, cuddling, hugging, hand-holding and everything like that seems to vary between people. Some aces like these things, some aces don't. I am pretty sure most aces are ok with cuddling and hand holding, less aces will be ok with kissing. Some aces might even be ok with more. So you are right that it's not really answerable by other aces. You already said that you want to talk about it with her, which I think is definitely a good idea.
Losing your pets is such a hard and terrible experience. I lost two cats in my life and even though I was kind of young when it happened, it still sucked. They just disappeared one day, which might have lessened the pain. But having to see them weak, and getting weaker must be so much worse. I can't really imagine what you are going through now. Pets are amazing, losing your friends is terrible. Stay strong. I hope 2021 won't be as shit as 2020.
I can relate to your situation a little bit, although not to the same degree. Any time I come back home from school I’m reminded of why I wanted to leave so badly. I’ve always felt uncomfortable around my parents, so I admire your more accepting attitude of the situation you have with your mom.
I’m really sorry to hear about your pets as well. I know it’s not the biggest consolation, and you have probably heard this already, but you gave them the best lives you possibly could, and I know they love you for it. I can kind of relate here, as well; my dog looks so much older every time I get to see him. He’s got a good while to go, he’s just starting to turn grey and a bit lethargic, but it sucks to see him like that. I remember bringing him home when I was in elementary school. I’m gonna go give him some belly rubs. Thanks for sharing.
still acclimating to moving across the country in the middle of a pandemic, and reflecting on how much i left behind. with distance, it feels easier to see what it was i had. there are all these little things that were a part of my life that aren't anymore.
i'm amazed at just how many people i had met throughout my life. in hindsight, i was a part of all sorts of cliques and circles without even realizing it. those memories stand in stark relief to the present, where i talk to only two people with any regularity, and where meeting new people in person is no longer realistic. even the friendly acquaintances i had seem impressive to me now.
i'm proud of my past self for managing to form so many connections, despite weaving ideas of being poor at socializing into the fabric of my identity. i think (i hope?) i'm starting to let go of a part of myself that i've held as an unshakable truth for so long. whatever anxious feelings i had felt in moments of distress, it's comforting now to think that all that time i was surrounded by people who would have been willing to spend time with me, had i been in the right state of mind to propose.
i thought i would feel lonelier with all of this, and i do yearn for things that aren't possible right now, but i'm happy that i chose to move, and to work only a part-time job. it's given me the space to reflect, like hibernation in preparation for a post-covid life. though there's not much i can do right now besides sit in bed all day by myself, i think i'll be better prepared for a time when i can go out and explore. i feel very lucky, all things considered.
i think these might be the sort of feelings covered by sehnsucht, too, which is neat to me.
This is more like the void I've chosen to scream into for the moment than an actual advice request, so don't feel obligated to reply. (Replies are, of course, appreciated, however.) I have a hard time picking which details need to be included and which do not, so apologies if this ends up a bit long-winded and boring.
About a month and a half ago, I broke up with my girlfriend of three years. It's been hard, harder than I thought it would be, but things are getting better. I can feel myself being more independent and more "myself" in little ways. It's not like this was my first relationship, but it was the first where I was the one initiating the breakup. Our situation was always weird: we got together really suddenly in Germany, and starting shortly thereafter, we were long distance, seeing each other a handful of days out of the year. It was only this past summer that we were able to see each other with any sort of frequency in the States. The entire three years, there was this nagging feeling that something wasn't right, and I always brushed it off, but that feeling came to a head when she and I had a fight shortly before I went on a trip with my two best friends and a couple friends of theirs (this sounds irresponsible but nobody was put at risk, I won't bore you with the details). That trip was the first time that I felt genuine care and support in a very long time, maybe since I last had a group of friends I could steadily rely on back in high school. It took me feeling that way to understand that she didn't make me feel that way. I feel guilty for what I did to her, because I must admit - she loved me more than I loved her. I feel like I violated her trust and let her down like all of her previous relationship partners did... although I didn't cheat on her like most of them, so I guess I could still be worse. That isn't to say I didn't love her or think highly of her, but we have our own respective mental health issues that we need to figure out ourselves, instead of relying on each other to fix them for our respective selves. I'm upset that I lost a close friend, but I'm now friends with all of the formerly friends-of-friends that I went on the trip with, and I'm closer than ever with those two friends I mentioned. (I think I might be having feelings for one, but I'm worried it's just a rebound, and she deserves more respect than that, and I don't think it's fair to my last girlfriend especially if I'm not over her, but she's been so supportive of me with this situation the entire time we've known each other and I think I do see us being very compatible... it's a whole other can of worms.) I'm grateful to have all of them with me through this, and I really look forward to seeing them more next semester.
Speaking of semesters... being a student this semester is harder than it has ever been for me. I have no motivation whatsoever, and my professors keep piling on work as if anyone isn't too drained to learn anything from the assignments. It feels like there's an expectation that we can devote all of our time to our education, now that we're learning from home, but each day feels the same, with the same stress day in and day out of some project or test hanging over my head. We've had a lot of our breaks cancelled, to make it worse. I've cheated on most of my finals so far because I've retained almost nothing from this semester. I feel guilty about it, but it also feels like I didn't have a choice. I really did try as hard as I could, but it's been soul-sucking to live with the solitude and burnout of the past six months. You've probably heard things like this from every student this semester. Next semester looks like more of the same.
I'm finally ready to get some real help with my mental health. I want to make an appointment with a psychiatrist and get medicated, but I'm not sure where to start. I did some therapy at the start of this year, and it was helpful, but the short duration of and long time between the sessions didn't help, so perhaps a combination of medication and therapy. I'm not sure, but it took a long time for me to get to this step, and I'm proud of that. (Although... the help would of course be better than the pride.)
I’m somewhat over the moon lately. I don’t code any proper languages, but I was able to do six and a half days of Advent of Code with a spreadsheet — which is about six days longer than I expected to last.
When I finally wasn’t able to carry on, I was expecting a bit of a downer — but it’s been the complete opposite. I do miss the daily puzzle, though. It’s a nice routine.
I was wondering where your day 7 and 8 advent of code submissions were. Sad to see them come to an end, but it's genuinely impressive you got as far as you did using just google sheets!
ha. I did part 1 of day 7 and day 9 with a SHITLOAD of formulas!
For the second part of day 7 I half-assed it with some python tutorials, but my result was basically me following along.. it shouldn't count.
Check 'em out!
I tried to do day 8, but I just don't think Sheets can do it. I reached out to another spreadsheeter to see if they came up with anything, but I doubt they did it. With any luck I'll be able to do every other day from here on out. I wasn't hopeful and didn't even check today's puzzle until someone in a chat mentioned it wasn't using the INTputer.
I really wanted to do day 9 with fewer formulas, but its late... hopefully I'll get that sorted soon. :)
But yeah, like you, I'm also impressed with how well I did with the first six days. I can't believe I was able to crank them out with one or two formulas. Character for character, my formulas were shorter than a lot of the scripts. haha.
Oh, sweet. Given how you worded your previous comment, I thought you had given up. Looking forward to seeing what more you come up with for the rest. :)
oh yeah, I totally gave up. haha.. but I'm back!
I also found a dude who did day 8 in Excel and is porting it all over to Sheets --- so it seems like it is possible. It'll be ugly, but if I'm going to get cracking on that since I know its possible.
This whole thing is so much fun.
I've long suspected I have OCD. It's untreated and the best thing I had to make myself feel better was cardio. I recently moved to a much colder climate and am finding the temperature a surprisingly high barrier preventing me from exercising. I've also constructed some irrational mental barriers preventing me from exercising inside. Climate change's silver lining is that I have a few odd days where it's up to a tolerable temperature, so I do at least make use of those. I'm also going on many multi-layered walks attempting to force my body to get adjusted to the climate like I used to be years ago.
Not bad. With each new week, I put off restarting my exercise regimen again, but I don't seem to care anymore. The self-hatred resulting from poor body image has largely faded. I still feel melancholy now and then, but I think these antidepressants might have really kicked into high gear, because I'm studying more or less regularly for the first time since I can remember being in education. Maybe all my life I've simply not had the right medication. I suppose that's kind of a sad thought, looking back at all those low moments and lost years, but again, I don't feel as sad as I probably should.