The Not Happy Thread

Less of a "can't" and more of a "would be highly irresponsible to do so." Not that I'm advocating, but it's more like the a comma than a period.

 

Man, why do I bother reading news articles anymore.

"More than half of American adults are unmarried."

And so my depression has returned with that friendly reminder of my bleak future. Documenting this because my therapist is inevitably going to ask "what caused this current bout".

 

I'm lonely. I've been lonely for quite some time but for some reason I've been thinking about it a lot recently. I think it's not so much that I don't have any friends but I don't have any close friends. I don't have anyone I can talk to about things other than the societies I know them from or generic complaints about having work to do. I'm afraid no-one likes me, or no-one wants me as a friend. I just feel disconnected from everyone and I don't feel like there's anyone I can ask to spend time with me. I feel like I have to have a sort of persona for when I'm with people, which is kind of like me but not quite. My family are the only people I can be myself around, and I'm away from them for most of the year. (And I feel like there's a disconnect growing with my extended family because I've become a lot more gay since coming to uni and I don't feel comfortable talking about that with them.) I think part of it is that I need a hug. Which is a weird thing to be lonely over, I know, but there's no-one to really give me hugs here.

The nearest thing I had to a friend last year was a girl on the dance team who was in most of the same classes as me, and although we never saw each other outside of rehearsals, we used to chat during water breaks and I could talk quite freely to her. I didn't really realise how close we were until she started crying at the end-of-year show because she was graduating and we wouldn't see each other any more. I feel really bad because I'd been so focused on my crush leaving that I'd barely even thought of her departure. I only even realised how much I missed her when I realised that I didn't have anyone to talk to any more. The team seems to be comprised of committee and freshers, with only a couple of exceptions. I hardly know anyone. And the freshers have all banded together and none of them want to talk to me.

My crush is another thing. I miss her too. I read some advice to unfollow her on Facebook to help me get over her. But I don't have the heart to do it. I don't know if that'll take her off the chat lists too, because it's recently been taking all my will power not to message and ask how she's doing. I doubt she misses me. I'd like to meet someone else, but I don't think I'd be very good at being in a relationship. One of my problems is that I like staying in and I like my routine, so I can be a bit hesitant about going out. I don't have a clue where I'd meet anyone, much less how to gauge whether she likes me back, or isn't straight.

Maybe I've just had a bad day. For some reason, I am so unbelievably tired. I went to lie down for a couple of hours this morning and wound up sleeping all day, missing two lectures and doing no reading. There's hardly any food in the house because I don't have the energy to go shopping, so I keep eating out until I do, which is putting a strain on my already dwindling finances. I haven't cleaned my flat in days or done any washing up (so cooking isn't an option any more), and I'm weeks overdue changing my bedsheets and towels. I'm still somehow exhausted, and simultaneously hungry and overfull and too tired to eat. I hadn't eaten all day until I ordered takeaway, of which I barely managed a few bites. This can't continue tomorrow; I have a performance and I need to buy a raffle prize and bake a cake.

Sorry for this mangled composition. Vent over.

 

I'm sorry your locked in a depressive cycle. I get the feeling. I can tell when it starts by my load of laundry. It starts to overflow, and yet, I can't bring myself to do it. Homework becomes late, and dates I need to make get pushed back, sometimes with little intention of actually meeting them. It's a hard thing to break. Tomorrow will be another day, and maybe what you're looking for will find you. You've certainly got some time, so just buckle down on what needs to get done. In no time, you find that you've moved on to something, somewhere, and someone else, and this current state of mind will be a distant unhappy memory. And remember that there are some hear that will sit and listen to or read your venting and not judge, if need be.

Just don't try to drink it away like I did. That was a very long and terrible disaster for me.

 

Honey, if I could I would.
Shity days are inevitable and sometimes hard to get out of. I hope you'll feel better soon and more energetic. Bake this cake! I wanna see.

 

Something about baking a cake or cookies always perks you up. Must be a human nature thing. Go for it.

 

What do you do if you're caught in a seemingly neverending cycle of shitty days?

 

Let you not forget to wipe.

 

Hugs. Yeah, this can't continue on. Hope you find the strength to get what needs to be done tomorrow. You can do it.

 

@EstherMayRose I can't really give you any advice at the moment that you haven't already heard, either from others or from your own head.

Even so, I will at least remind you to take care of yourself. This semester I was on the verge of a mental breakdown several times, and then suddenly I'm seemingly fine for one week, two weeks, one month at a time. It's back and forth, back and forth.

You're lonely. I'm lonely. A lot of people are lonely. It's hard to imagine for different reasons, but it's a safe bet that many of those "freshers" or whoever else feel the same way.

I also don't think I'd be much good in a relationship, but for different reasons that I'm not going to go into, because if I did then this post would become about me, I'd forget about you, I'd feel guilty for doing so, and-- yeah.

In your post you have a shotgun blast of different issues, some big and others small. You mention you've been feeling tired lately. So, I would do what little you can with what little energy you have. Maybe one useful way to think of it (you're intelligent, so it's likely you already know this) is that it will cost way less energy in the long run if you get shopping done and don't have to eat out as much for a while, thereby saving a little money.

I also understand that in these times, the most important thing might just be to talk about what's happening, and have somebody listen. Somebody to level with. I hope I managed to provide a modicum of that. I have a tendency to immediately think "how are we going to fix this", but in my own life I have found that there are times where I already know what I need to do or ought to do, but I'm trapped in my head, or maybe I'm struggling but the solutions are beyond me. Perhaps you can relate in some way.

Hope you feel better! Get good sleep if you can. For just the near future, take it day by day. Eat. Get one chore done and out of the way with so it's not taking up RAM in your cranium's computer. If the end of the semester is approaching, that might be a ray of hope.

 

What’s wrong with people? Is it just me being over-sensitive? Have I lead too sheltered a life? Probably both of the last two, but I’m sat in the mess room with a couple of work colleagues sharing videos they’ve been sent. They’re both laughing, saying stuff like “Holy fuck!” And “Whoa!” Curiosity gets the better of me, “What are you watching?” I ask. One of the video showed a dispute in Asia somewhere, in which a man is suddenly doused in petrol and set alight, the other is a woman being flattened by a truck - squashed like a tomatoe I gather from what they tell me. I watched the first because they wouldn’t tell me what was going to happen. “Just watch it.” they kept saying. I refused to watch the other.

They seemed more surprised at my reaction than the videos.

I dunno.

 

The man was set alight in Hong Kong.

This is a debatable point. Are they ‘enlightened’ pursuing current affairs across the globe - while you remain ‘indifferent’ and clued to only your own sensibilities?

...or are they a couple of gross yobbos doused in pornography...

 

They’re not a bad pair of lads, generally speaking, but they do seem to delight in some very gross stuff. I could understand if they too were horrified by such footage. That’s called not burying your head in the sand, but reactions such as theirs (and countless other people) when witnessing such horrors is completely and utterly alien to me.

 

When I was a ‘builder’ for 6 months the youngster brought in so much distressing snuff porn/amputations...grim...though they were a brighter crowd than the farmers before them...goodness me...another story.

 

These people are common place in the military. If they keep doing it their minds start to get real warped and they start acting out. Didn't see it so much being in the air wing, but infantry dudes sometimes were a little off. You come to realize how numb they've become. Your work people there will find themselves down that odd road after a while. I personally hate that stuff.

 

People always ask me "What's the worst thing you've ever been to?"
What they mean is, what is the goriest, most horrific thing I've seen. But my idea of "worst" and their idea of "worst" is vastly different.

 

Could be desensitization. Could be that laughing is a coping mechanism. Laughing is a funny thing; one moment you're laughing at a clown, the next... Extreme schadenfreude?

With a glass half-full, I'd wager they wouldn't be laughing if they were watching that happen in the parking lot at work with their own eyes. I've got a friend who occasionally goes on sub-Reddits that post that kind of shit. He's a good friend, a good person. You don't have to be a psychopath to laugh at something like that, in much the same way you're not "over-sensitive" for not.

 

You withstand and plan your revenge.
Also listen to Queen. I want to break free, I want to b r eak Free!

 

I do hope you mean that the way round I’m hoping

 

Did he die?

 

My “worsts” are the things those people wouldn’t want to hear about. Like watching an old lady saying goodbye to her husband of 66 years as he died in front of her, or the old guy who fell and couldn’t get up and wasn’t found for days because nobody noticed he wasn’t around, or the teenage boy who found his dad hanging in the garage and was distraught because he wasn’t strong enough to cut him down, or the toddler who didn’t want me to put her down because she been starved of any affection for so long just being held was novelty to her, or the kids who’s mother set fire to their car with herself and them in it. They’re not the stories people want to know about, but they’re the ones I think of more often.

They want to hear about the gory injuries, the decapitations and amputations and mangled or degloved limbs, the one unders, the stabbings and the gunshot wounds. Well, they don’t really want to hear about it properly. They only want to hear the version they have in their head, which is generally different from the reality.

 

Gosh... those are really heartbreaking stories. Hugs to you for having to face them regularly, and bless your brave, kind soul.

 

Good Lord have mercy! The videos are horrible enough; the fact that the "nice" people at your work are enjoying them is creepy as hell.

Total depravity lives.

And no, you are not oversensitive. Your colleagues have become desensitized and inhumane.

 

Minor complaint to vent at myself--- minor, compared to those of others here:

It is, or was, a beautiful late fall Saturday, I have tons to do, but I didn't haul myself out of bed till 1:30 in the afternoon. And by 4:30 I was sleepy again. I'm trying to get today's word count in on the WIP, but all I want to do is go back to sleep.