The Not Happy Thread

Well... Without getting too crude. There have been noticeable differences between the women I've been with over the years. Depending on their age.
Sort of like counting the rings on a tree.

 

Got my ruling from the judge regarding my disability. He says that the medical evidence doesn't support my inability to sit for longer than an hour. Of course, he had to individually address the statements of about five medical doctors all of whom say that I can't do sedentary work in order for him to reach that position. He basically said (and I paraphrase) for each of the five doctors, "Doctor X states that this person is not capable of sedentary work. As this doctor's report doesn't agree with the medical evidence, I'm ignoring it."

Further, he flat out ignored my general practitioner's statement of residual functional capacity because, he claims, the doctor's signature was illegible.

 

I'm far too tired to function today. I've had a nightmare every night for the last four nights straight.

The first one, while I can't remember the details, made me wake up to hallucinations of shadows on the wall and crows cawing in my ear. The next night included the body of the creepy girl from the Grudge with the face of the creepy guy from Sinister trying to kill me (had trouble falling back asleep after that one). The next night, I was kidnapped by Kevin Spacey and almost shot in the chest with a rifle. Then last night, I was attacked by a man who shoved thumb tacks in my mouth and chased me through a cornfield. I was able to hide, but he almost stepped on my head with a massive boot looking for me. And I still had to pull the thumb tacks out of my mouth, most of which had embedded in my tongue, turning it into a morbid kind of pin cushion.

I've finally started working on my writing again too. But I'm so tired and jumpy and distracted that I can't focus enough to finish my character profiles. I can't read. I can't watch tv. All I can do is keep checking social media because that's all I have the brain capacity for today.

Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight.

 

Hating myself.

After watching YouTube videos discussing scary urban myths, ghosts and the paranormal, and Victorian post-mortem photos, I'm considerably freaked out and hating myself for my stupid decision. Will I ever learn? No, no I will not because curiosity trumps my logic, and we know what they say about curiosity and that poor kitty.

So when I go to bed, I'm gonna hope I don't have nightmares about scary hitchhikers with hooked right hands, Elizabeth Short (the Black Daliah; and for God's sake, don't look her up! I saw things I should never have seen...) and dead Victorian children propped up on their parents laps...

 

Wish you well!

 

Too late! Looked it up!
I find the key to not having nightmares is not to think "I hope I don't have nightmares." Because then you think about what it is you're worried about and have nightmares. Think about something else, and don't come back to the thought. It has to be more than conscious. You have to be truly distracted. (Don't you wish you had ADHD now? )

 

I can so empathize with you. I was watching Deadly Possessions the other day. It's a new show about haunted items that ruin people's lives. Anyway, in the last episode, there was a doll brought in with a bag over her head. It was rumored that people who saw her face, either in person or on video, either die or suffer horribly by losing their jobs or their loved ones. They got to the part of the episode where they were going to take the bag off her face... Put a warning up on screen and everything..

Yeah, I turned it off. Ten minutes into an hour long show, I turned it off and deleted the recording without finishing it. My logical mind knew I was being crazy. Of course nothing is going to happen to me. It's a doll. It's not that serious. But my anxiety brain wouldn't accept that. Doll is gunna kill you. You're gunna see her face and have a heart attack immediately.

It was ridiculous, I know. But I couldn't help it. lol

 

Did you regret looking it up??

The way I'm comforting myself now is the following:

For the Victorian photos- Accept that it was just how they did it back then. Allow my historian side to take over and explain to myself why this was a big hit back in the 19th-century. It doesn't have to make sense to me, I just have to know why. And my historian side knows why. It was a way for the family to hold on to, and remember the deceased.

For Elizabeth Short- Dear God, I don't even know... If I were religious, I would say she was with Jesus now. If I were not, dear god how do Agnostics and Atheists handle this!? Hope that she never saw it coming? That she didn't feel anything?

For the urban myths- As with any horror story, treat it as it is: fiction. It's the modern equivalent of children crowded around a campfire, or huddled around a storyteller with a flashlight during a sleepover who tells of a dark, dark tale...

And no, I really don't want to have ADHD, thanks. My Generalized Anxiety Disorder is enough for me.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and NOPE!!!

I completely understand where you're coming from because that's how I function. I'm sorry, I can watch shows about deformed people, people with weird addictions, and maybe even a little true crime/urban myths, but this? NEIN!! Haunted dolls or demons masquerading as children? NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN!!!!

EDIT: Oh Christ, I'm looking at Google Image's results for Victorian Photographs and I'm seeing some photos that I'm convinced are photos of dead people.

What. In the FUCK was going on. In the Victorian period. To make people. Want to take pictures of people. WHO WERE FUCKING DEAD!?

 

@Link the Writer You should look up some vintage Halloween costumes from back in the day. The stuff is glorious.

 

No, those people are absolutely dead. The problem was that taking a picture was very expensive, so a picture of a child or an older man really couldn't be a yearly thing. The reasoning was that the best time to take a picture was when the person was not going to be around to photograph anymore.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dead_creepy_family_portraits_with_deceased_relatives

 

I feel you totally. When I had my nightmare the other day involving the girl with the face of the guy from Sinister (if you haven't seen it, don't look it up), I was too afraid to go back to sleep. I kept imagining her under my bed or behind me. I couldn't close my eyes because I was afraid I'd open them and she'd be there. I started playing Erin Brockovich in my head just to get the image of her creepy face out of my brain. It worked, and I fell asleep with no more nightmares. But yeah, I was freaked.

Sad thing is, I love haunted stuff. I love watching videos and tv shows and scary movies. It's only recently that my anxiety has prevented me from enjoying these things.

 

>:[

>:[

Well, should anyone die in my stories, know this: they will be buried pronto.

I mean, really, who in their right mind would think that's a good idea? Imagine if it were like this...

Emily: "Amos has died from the wasting disease. Poor thing. He's not even sixteen..."

Harold: "Let us then take photos with him positioned to be as life-like as possible!"

Emily: "But his eyes are rolled in his head, that's how they always were. He was blind from birth."

Harold: "Then we shall paint eyes over his eyelids to make it look natural!"

Emily: "Done! How soon can you do this? I will also get everyone in my family involved. Yes, down to the last toddler there who shall hold his hand in hers."

I think, for once in our lives, we should listen to our anxiety and avoid these.

 

Not being funny here or teasing.

I'm someone who has rarely had intense nightmares and such. I mean now that I say that it will probably start happening but if possible if you can overcome it or feel the need to release it while having them. I suggest perhaps trying to write horror of some kind?

It might help get some of it out.

Though I've always viewed horror as one of the most challenging things to write but you may have a knack for it.

 

They're raising our rent if we sign on to the lease again this August. My rent is already a bit higher than I'd like. Unnecessary stress added to my busy schedule. :/

 

I feel like a horrible person.

A month ago, a cute little finch family took up residence in my hanging fern. They built a tiny nest and laid five little bitty blue eggs. I tried to be such a good hostess -- I didn't get too close, I was quiet when I was near it, I left them little bread crumbs, I changed the length of the basket chain so it wouldn't sway so much during storms, I scared away a raven trying to eat the eggs (and stood guard for four days after that), I even stopped filling my automatic waterer so I wouldn't scare them changing it!

But today, I thought I could be slick. My fern is starting to die from lack of water, so I knew I had to try to change the automatic waterer. I could pull it out really quick, refill it, then remember exactly where I pulled it out so I could just slide it right back in place. I pulled it out just fine. But when I went to put it back in, I couldn't find the place I pulled it out of! I tried to be quick, yet slow as to not jostle the plant. But I couldn't get it in! I was just about to give up when...

...ALL THE BABIES FLEW OUT!!!!

I ran outside and looked everywhere. In the grass, in the bushes, in the trees even. But I didn't see any sign of them. So they're obviously old enough to fly now but... Mom and Dad keep coming back, sitting on my porch railing, chirping away, calling for their babies, wondering where they went....

And they still haven't come back. I tried to make sure they were taken care of, but now they're out there, alone, without Mom and Dad, and I have no idea what to do.

I feel so awful.

 

This is my second attempt at taking a sleeping pill (Sonata) and I've found that still can't sleep even when j take one. And now I'm about to start seeing weird shit again.

Help! What do I need to combat my insomnia?! I've tried: Ambien, Kava Root in pill form and in tea form, Melatonin (which also makes me see weird shit and gives me nightmares), and now this. Something has to help that doesn't turn the red light on my TV into the red-faced ruler of some dark world I want no part of, where shadow people bring him gifts of light. HALP!

 

I used to be dependent on melatonin until I decided I didn't want to be dependent. I stopped taking it and accepted that I would have a couple sleepless nights. After a few days it balanced out. But once or twice a week, I have some trouble getting to sleep. Reading or TV usually help, if breathing techniques or progressive muscle relaxation doesn't work. You also want to make sure you take a holistic look at the issue. If you don't exercise, that's a problem. If you eat tons of sugar and drink lots of caffeine, that's a problem. Taking a pill if you aren't making serious attempts at changing lifestyle is not going to help. In the long run you'll develop worse health issues, even if the pill "cures" the insomnia. Maybe you need a different bed, or to get more sunlight, etc etc. There are sleep specialists you can talk to.

 

I probably need a different bed but I can't afford one. Reading is counterproductive because I get too wrapped up in the story. I exercise, drink coffee only in the mornings, and don't consume much sugar. For me, it's mainly anxiety related, and I don't like to take sleeping pills, so I traditionally rely on herbal remedies. The problem is that my body metabolizes things so weirdly, so I never know how I'll react to something. Kava helped a lot, but you develop a tolerance to it so quickly that I stopped taking it when I realized 3 was no longer cutting it. Xanax would help, but I won't take it anymore.

 

Heh the stuff that I take that puts me right to sleep is not a sleeping pill, but a muscle relaxer called Zanaflex. As long as you don't take too many of them, you won't see stuff. Now if you do take too many of them, you see rainbows and all kinds of things, not to mention it makes you very wobbly and you can fall. they do put you right to sleep though.

 

Yeah for me it's anxiety related too. Sorry to be all advice-y. Good luck either way

 

I used to be on Zolpidem for my anxiety, was awesome because it mellowed me out so much. Unfortuately, when you live in a house full of students, when you're mellow and they go 'want to go out for a drink?' you say 'yes'. Half a pint of beer in, and I start hallucinating, seeing ONLY people's faces and big red and white stripes shooting out of the one I was looking at. Next morning, I read the advice sheet with it. It listed all of the side effects and such in small print except for DO NOT CONSUME WITH ALCOHOL in all caps, bold font.

After that I gave up. Instead I took apart my life piece at a time. I actually realised my family was my #1 stressor in life. So I did the only thing that made sense for me and my life, and that was to cut myself off from them. They're grown ups, they don't need me to be there all the time, worrying about their lives and not mine when I was already a mess. I realised that if I was to get better I had to focus on me and my concerns, and no one elses. For at least a time. A year and a half later, and my anxiety is gone. I'm healthy, I'm feeling good about myself. I don't regret my decision at all, because the alternative was addiction and ruination for myself.

 

Yeah, if you're bipolar, sleeping meds are going to do a grand total of fuck-all for you. You might try gabapentin, it's anti-anxiety but it's non-habit forming. It's actually an anti-seizure med, but guess what? Those work on you.

 

The Mom and Dad probably found most of them.

 

I was told by my pain doctor that Gabapentin is actually bad for people with bi-polar and they wouldn't prescribe it to me. I had to get my family doctor to do it. I don't think it affects me badly, but at the same time it no longer makes me sleepy nor does it ... really help with pain. It makes me want to eat everything in my fridge. I'm not sure why I still take it, though it does make me feel better. It's basically like one of the medicines that isn't great for one thing but helps with a lot. It is supposed to help with nerve pain, it is supposed to help with seizures, and it is also supposed to be a mood stabilizer. Around here in the state of Kentucky they are trying to put it on the narcotics list because so many people take it illegally because if you take enough of them it makes you feel drunk.