Mental Health Support Thread (NOT for giving medical advice, or debating)

Hey, maybe the cat is a ravenous ferrovore. You don't know. It could be hiding it

 

We do suspect she has a mild form of pica. She eats paper, cardboard, plastic.... Oh yeah, and dryer sheets. That was a fun trip to the vet.

 

Does she actuallly swallow though?

 

Yes. lol Well, I've never seen her swallow plastic. I always hear her chewing on it and am able to take it away before she does. But everything else, yeah. And when she starts eating it, I go to grab her and she runs like mad around the house. That's how she got the dryer sheet. She swallowed it while running away from me. Stuck my fingers in her mouth but it was already gone. But it turned out alright. Came up in a hair ball a couple days later.

 

Appraisal was fine until I fell on my arse outside the pub and twisted my ankle.

I wouldn't mind but I only had a diet coke...

 

(Sends hug)

 

Owie. :[

<gives you a hug and Guinness>

 

Does work burnout count for this thread?

Before experiencing it (I'm not diagnosed, but I'm sure I'm there), I would have said pfft, no, that's just about people who don't take vacations. Work's boring, you do it, you go home, you pick up a book, what's the problem?

Now that I'm in burnout--yeah, I didn't get it. I can't...well, that's the right phrase: I can't. Can't do stuff. Can't get my brain to address it. I finally understand writer's block--I'm not having writer's block, but I'm understanding a normally voluntary activity suddenly not being under control any more. I never fully understood, before, that I need my brain's cooperation. I thought I was in charge.

And that's even though I'm (again, not diagnosed, but pretty sure) ADHD. I'm used to ADHD distractibility, focusing on something for a minute and then sliding off, and dragging myself back and focusing for another minute and sliding off. I got that handled. This is different.

This is different. My brain isn't saying, "Ok, I'll try, but look over there, that's so much cooler!" My brain is just saying, "No." No arguing, no discussion. My brain isn't even looking me in the eye. Just, "No." There are some things that it simply will. not. do. It's like the executive part is giving orders to the creative, analyzing, intellectual-work parts, and they're saying...well, I don't use that language.

I can still do SOME parts of my job, work enough hours to earn my paycheck, but this can't just go on indefinitely. I've had decades in this job, and I'm afraid that it may be over. A voting majority of my brain seems to have decided that it's done. And I can't even tell whether that's a bad thing or not.

 

How old are you? It could be a midlife crisis. And hang in there. Just. Make sure you try to deal with shit when it comes up. I always worry people will spiral and won't do anything about because there in such a negative place. I feel responsible. This thread isn't kind on my nerves.

 

I looked up causes for rise in anxiety (apparently a huge percentage of Americans now have it) and supposedly social isolation, constant bombardment of negative media, and mental coddling, such as "safe spaces," etc, are possible contributors. I would wager that eating junk food is probably involved somehow too.

 

Safe spaces are potentially good though. For example, there's a cafe I know that's a designated LGBT safe space and idea is that it makes you feel more welcome just to know that, and it tells patrons not to act discriminatory while there. It's nice. The problem is oversensitive stuff like that article on the college campuses thread where she was under consideration for reparations simply for raising her hand in a debate.

 

Oh, I'm right at midlife crisis age: Fifty. But I can also see a very clear increase in work frustrations and decrease (down to infinitesimal) of work rewards other than the paycheck. A brain trained by evolution to seek the rewards and turn away from the anti-rewards is perfectly right to look at my job and say, "No." I think that brain fails to link the work with the abstract, appears-in-the-bank-account, paycheck reward.

 

That human brain. He is a rascal him. (shakes fist)

 

You're damned right he is. <shakes fist at brain>

It's funny, though. Despite the meds and the three beers, there's still a voice in my head that tells me how worthless I am as a human being. How useless, how pathetic. How much I'm a burden on society. Despite all that's going for me, despite me knowing damned well that there's a future ahead of me. Despite me assuring myself that I'll keep going, as long as this body keeps going.

I hate my brain.

 

I'm really struggling at the moment. I just can't deal with anything--I want to run away from it all and have a break from life. I want my husband to stop being so grumpy, I want our own house so we don't have to pay some greedy landlord's mortgage, I want more disposable income, I want a shorter commute, I want more sleep, I want to stop feeling so tired all the time, I want to just be able to enjoy life. I feel like literally the only thing I have to look forward is my book being published, and that's probably 12-18 months away if it happens at all. And maybe I'll be promoted in November, but that won't come with a big salary boost.

It feels like I'm always climbing some kind of hill to get somewhere, and whenever I do there's another hill right in front of it. And there's something wonderful at the top but will I ever get there?

 

Saw this today and it made me think of you. Quotes like this always help me. So hopefully it works for you too!

 

https://p.gr-assets.com/540x540/fit/hostedimages/1380402982/783792.gif. Beautiful!

 

Suffering from a mild form of schizoaffective disorder and lots of anxiety. Some days I feel mostly confident, alright, and energetic. I like this period because I can get a lot of stuff done including my writing Only downside is that I can get a bit too jittery and it leads to bouts of clumsiness and rapid speech. Your usual case of mania. On other days I feel worthless, ugly, lethargic, and I don't feel like doing much. Then there's the voices here and there with the slight paranoia. It gets rough if I have a bad day or just really anxious.

I have more and I could literally write a novel on it all.

 

Maybe you should!

 

Having an MC who is suffering mental health issues rather than a side-character or serial killer is quite interesting and refreshing. Especially in a more realistic story. I would love something like that.

 

Been writing my non-fiction book about my personal experience with anxiety. It's tougher than I thought! How is this so tough!?

 

I had a job interview at Petco last week. It went really well, I thought. I've done the job before (worked there for a year when I lived in Illinois), so I already have the experience. The woman interviewing me seemed to imply I would be perfect for it. She told me they were going to start calling people this week to offer positions.

Well, it's now Friday, and I've yet to hear anything. I'm going to call them Monday if I haven't heard anything by then, but... It's depressing me a lot. I was sitting by the phone all day yesterday, expecting to hear something. And the more time went on without my phone ringing, the lower and lower my mood dropped. My husband even went for a walk with me to try to get me out of my funk. However, today, it's just getting worse.

I really wanted that job, for many reasons. Mostly, I want to feel useful again. I was good at my job when I worked there before. I knew a lot, I helped people, I was a hard worker. I was good at it. And it felt like more than just a retail job. I was taking care of animals. I was making a difference in people's lives. And now?

Now I'm back to being the stay-at-home wife who cleans up after people some days, sits on her ass most days, and talks to no one every day. It fucking sucks....

 

Trust me, I know the feeling of ‘I'm useless.’ I've been looking for a job for the past few years and it's only now that I've got a lot of opportunities cropping up.

Just keep looking. Remember, the economy's crap right now and some say it's going to get even worse. You may not get your dream job of working with pets from the getgo, but you'll get there.

Trust me, I know the feeling. :[

 

It can be tough to write about that have deeply and personally affected you in a direct non fiction way. People tell me I should write about some of the things I've been through but to write about it directly...it`s not a easy feat.

I have some form on social anxiety I know that and I've heard mention of GAD in regards to me but I don`t know. I go to a therapist, but we really never make much headway that`s probably my fault since I don`t really open up to her or talk to her about anything. I`ll go in there thinking that today I'll bring this and this up and once I'm there the signals just won`t send to talk about it. It`s not easy for me to talk about stuff like those though is the past i`ve found formats like this are easier, something to do with the anmonity and the abitly to distance from it I suppose.

Right now I feel like I`m drowning. I`ve allways had insecuirtys, and even if I know it`s trivel I just can`t stop worrying about it. Recently as my senoir year and collge ticks closer and closer i`ve been obssed with life after this and this overwhelming fear that I won`t be able to make it. I keep being told that everyone goes through this, and they probabbly do but that doesn`t make it any less anixty inducing in the moment. I have this constant fear that i`m just gonna fail, go out into teh real world and fall flat on my face. I get stressted out over a slipping grade to the point where I can`t focus on anything else and then I get to thinking that if this stresses me out so bad what will the rest of life do and that stresses me out even worse. I`ve had a lot of hurdle in my life from being in a bad car crash when I was young to dysprakia, dyscacula, adhd, anexity, growing up on the lower income specturm, and having a kind hearted mother who well a great person who i`m glad is my mother suffers from bipolar disorder. That wasn`t to easy to grow up the rapid shifts in her mood and persnotily. After the crash I was never supposed to walk but I walk find now and everybody tells me how resilent I am nad I should see these hurdles that i`ve gotten over as triumphs. I understand that I do but my mind just keeps focusing on the hurdles I have now and worrying and fixating on them. I try to stay on top of my schoolwork and I tycpilly do keep on top of it but like I mentoied somewhere in the above world wall I have adhd, it`s not as bad as it used to be but I can`t allways focuse and I get behind in one thing and I try to cacth that up and I get behind in other things and I strat freaking out. My mind is never content with just freaking out over the here and now it has to take the long veiw. If I can get this far behind in highschool do I have any bussiness going to collge? I try to get caught up and I have but i`m still behind in areas, and as deadlines inch closer the stress makes it harder to focus and just argh. I want to go somewhere where none of this matters, where I can just be away from everything.

Even my anixtey worries me if school makes me this stressed and nonfunctoil how do I expect to be in a job? I treid talking about this to my therpist, I started out iwth how I was getting behind in school, and she just started lecturig me on how I should get those up and everything else got stuck in my throat. Every world I had to desribe this sufacating stress just wouldn`t come out.

Well there`s everything I guess. Kinda rambled there but this was meant to be a get off my chest vent not some master peice essay. I just had been struggling with no one to talk to about this, and I just mabye this might help I don`t know. Hope I don`t come off a whiny, that`s not my attenoin though I know my problems aren`t that big compared to others and I feel like sometimes I just come off as whiny.

 

It seems I am the last person that I am living my life for and that if I want something for myself it is greedy and being self-centered. Some days I truly think that I was meant to be alone in life, to live by my self and die alone leaving no void in anyone's life. And that thought actually makes me happy.