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

Blasphemy!! New Hampshire is Un-American!! TRAITORS!!!!!



Just kidding.

 

Maple syrup. Don't forget the syrup.

 

See, now I feel better. lol Planning a pretend vacation is actually pretty soothing right now.

 

It's very out of character. We both have strong opinions (and are stubborn) so often disagree, but that's why we talked before and said if one of us wants to stop a discussion, the other stops with them--because it's stupid to fall out over a difference of opinion. I'm not sure why she chose to ignore that when I desperately needed support. But she also suffers from GAD and depression and copes even less well with it than me (she's unmedicated) so I'm not holding a grudge. I'm also not willing to hold out an olive branch, though, unless I know it'll be accepted.

It is!

Should we camp out under the stars during our vacation? With someone on guard for those bears, of course...

 

^ Sounds like a plan.

Well, my anxiety decided to skyrocket to catastrophic proportions. Had a dream last night where I was supposed to deliver a really important document to a person of high command, but I couldn't find him, no one was helpful, and the document was needed right at that very second!! It's stupid because my dreams think I'm basically Jar-Jar Binks, this incompetent lout that can't even walk five steps without tripping over himself.

I think one of my characters summed it up, "Dreams are just your brain's way of fucking with you. Punish it with alcohol!" Then the other character protests.

 

I'd love to have that dream.

 

Haha New Hampshire is awesome, I went to college there. I love the Whites (the mountains, not people ) although I have much more experience in the Green Mountains next door.

I have a love-hate relationship with New England to be honest. I grew up in Connecticut and that state sucks, especially southwestern Connecticut towards NYC where I lived. But New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine are the shit. I've lived in Colorado for nearly 3 years now and I definitely miss the super green eastern woodlands.

PS Did Maine legalize rec or just medical?

 

Personally, I'd just like to get the fuck OUT of South Carolina The people are mostly just rude, and everyone's a lawyer... also, I can name at least 6 downtown churches (all across the street/beside each other), and I live in a smaller town...

 

Aaaaanyways, getting back to the subject at hand, I saw a very poignant post on my Facebook feed that was about mental health. The gist of it goes like this:

"You can only be in control of yourself when you decide to not let what others say to you, or about you, control you."

 

Hi, my name is Meow, and I used to be an alcoh-...oh, wrong group...

I have learned a lot about mental health lately in the last year or so. I previously did not believe in therapy or psychiatry at all, but then after falling down in life and seeing a pattern of this behavior, I started listening to my fiance. After going to therapy a while, I was diagnosed with moderate depression and severe anxiety. After taking some extensive tests, I was then diagnosed with PTSD as the primary cause for these symptoms, and I've been seeing a psych for over six months now. Taking medicine has helped a lot, and I was fortunate enough to find a psychiatrist who would listen to me and prescribe what I needed, rather than just throwing pills at me like the first one did. I was self medicating before, and it certainly wasn't helping in the way that I was. Now I've been off cigarettes for two years, and haven't binged on alcohol for eight months or so. I can even have some drinks and not worry about going back to my old habits, apparently I wasn't really an alcoholic, just a drunk that was using the juice to cope.

Not that I recommend drinking much when taking meds though, that's why it's rare for me. I'm not on a lot of meds either, just enough to keep me from imploding, and since there is no cure for PTSD per say, then it's more about managing the symptoms anyway. Before I started seeing professionals, I was not able to leave the house or even perform tasks without having a mental breakdown. My life had sorta collapsed and I was removed from ownership in a business which I was making some pretty good money from, so after that I just had problems doing anything at all. That's when I started realizing maybe there was something actually wrong, and the anxiety was getting to the point where I couldn't function. Now I can work on stuff again, but this time I can do it much more productively instead of running around in a psychotic state trying to stay sane.

I got this condition from about twenty or so years of mental abuse from my family, primarily my older brother...who is a sociopath apparently. Growing up in a crazy house is not healthy it would seem, nor is it helpful to be taught indirectly that getting angry over everything is "okay". My parents would often preach one thing, then do another, and the actions are what stuck with me, not their words.

Anyway, thanks for listening, now my story is out there and everyone knows I'm crazy now. Haha, kidding, but seriously....

 

Ta for sharing. I can relate to most of what you've said, especially about alcohol. For years, I couldn't understand how people can go from having social drinks to becoming a full blown alcoholics. It's all too easy, even for someone like myself who isn't fond of the effects of it. I caught on just in the nick of time.

 

It's all too easy. There was a time a couple years ago that I would buy a 1.75 liter bottle of Captain Morgan and drink the entire thing sometimes in one night. I'd start a couple hours after lunch, then be done by about eleven or twelve. No glasses, just straight from the jug. Then a friend I had back then told me about the dangers of drinking that much, and I stopped not long after.

 

Three cheers for true friends who aren't scared to stick their oars in even if, at the time, we might resent them for it.

 

So my mental state was all pitch perfect and stable. Everything's going well...until I decide to check on the news to see what's up.

Result?

"We are so fucked," I'm thinking in this image.

LET THIS BE A MESSAGE: AVOID THE NEWS IF YOU SUFFER FROM EXTREME ANXIETY LIKE I DO! IT WILL DO NOTHING BUT CAUSE YOU STRESS AND BE FOOD FOR YOUR ANXIETY!! LEARN FROM MY FAIL!!!!

 

I don't give a shit about my governor. It was about Trump.

 

Well that's comforting...

I just hate to feel like I'm taking advantage of other people's suffering by saying, "Well, at least I'm not in Seoul, South Korea!"/"At least I'm not in Syria!"

It's... How do you do that? "Oh, it could be worse." Yeah, I could be in a death camp in North Korea. I could be starving to death in Yemen, or hiding in a ruined building in Syria. I could be a person of minority living in Flint, Michigan with lead-infested water.

That mentality... How do you do that without coming off as smug and superior? As making light of other people's suffering?

 

You make light of other people's suffering if you say to yourself "man, things could be worse, I better count my blessings"?