Mental Health Thread • Page 465

My sister and her boyfriend just hiked up Mt Washington today and I feel like I would have been vomiting a tenth of the way up

 

i love walking. i go on like 6 one mile walks throughout the day. it's my time to get out of the house and listen to podcasts.

 

i used to go on walks all the time, nearly daily, but pretty much stopped when my wife and i moved into together. our first apartment was on a street that wasn’t really ideal for walking. lots of traffic, not the safest area, pretty much nowhere to go. our new complex is way, way better but i just haven’t really thought about it since it’s been so long.

 

I was walking a ton this year but fell off the last month or so because it’s so damn hot.

 

I go for a 2-3 mile walk most every day. Especially like it right at sunset.

doesn’t really improve my moods tho tbh lol

 

used to walk daily when living with my gf and with my parents since me and my mom would go but it’s hard when I don’t have someone to go with. I get 15-20 thousand steps a day in at my job but I’d like to walk more on my days off and in the evening as a wind down

 

I also love a walk and try to go at least 2-3 times a week, but they're usually smaller, like two and a half miles max.

 

My ex girlfriend hung herself yesterday. Having a really rough time processing this and her new boyfriend got her on hard drugs and is refusing to give her dog to her family. Ive had a lot of friends and family members pass but this one's hitting me super hard.

 

Jesus. That's awful. I'm so sorry you're going through that. I can't imagine how you're feeling, but if you need anything, feel free to let us know.

 

Terrible I’m very sorry to hear that

 

i am 98% sure i have ocd. i’m undiagnosed, but every online screener i’ve ever done has pointed in that direction, plus what i know from researching and listening to people who have it.


one of the ways it manifests for me is in my relationship to music. obviously i love music—im on this site for a reason—but i have an almost toxic relationship to music and specifically musical discovery that’s been going on for a long, long time.


i get totally overwhelmed by how much music is out there that i haven’t heard and may never hear. i had a really strange and sparse musical upbringing (despite music being integral to my family) and have some major, major gaps because of it. or, at least that’s how i perceive it. there are so many classic albums i’ve never heard since my musical “awakening” happened with more modern artists and i just never bothered to work backwards. ap.net and chorus were monumental in expanding my horizons, but i still feel like i’ve barely scratched the surface, especially compared to other users here or even mutuals on twitter and whatnot.


how that manifests as ocd-like symptoms is that im constantly, and i mean CONSTANTLY, making lists on my phone or playlists on apple music of stuff to check out. it’s literally an almost daily process where i make a list, delete it, and make a new one the next day. at least now i actually am following through (kind of) with checking out more new/new to me stuff whereas before id spend like an hour making a list and then get rid of it without ever even crossing anything off. but it’s still not great, and i feel super sensitive about it. i know i have my whole life to love and experience music, but there’s a voice in my head saying i need to hear all of it right now when that’s obviously not realistic.


i’ve also been trying to work on making a definitive favorite albums and songs list as i want my son to be able to inherit music from me and grow up building connections to music in a way i wasn’t able to. which has been fun, but also exacerbating all this. it’s like self-assigned pressure for a self-assigned hobby and i feel dumb and silly about it, but i don’t know how to stop. it’s ingrained into my daily routine. i just wish it felt more productive and enjoyable rather than feeling like some pointless sisyphusian battle im fighting.

 

My mother never fails to make something my fault. Recently, I took my dad to Costco to buy a new mattress and they accidentally double charged for the mattress, which they quickly corrected. Upon looking at the receipt, my mom immediately said it was my fault for using the self-checkout lane. HOW IS THAT MY FAULT?

Anything I do, she'll find a way to say that I didn't do it right.

 

Moms can be so tough.

 

Apparently im coping with my uncle's impending death/my existential crisis by exercising a lot. Not an unhealthy amount or anything. But I did have a moment of like whoa, is this what a healthy coping mechanism is??

 

It’s what I do when I get super stressed or anxious.

 

I don't do this much for music, but I can relate for other hobbies like books / games / graphic novels. I get enamored in a new experience and then become obsessed with enjoying it, and plan out how to enjoy it and then I drop it off for the next thing. Not really helpful, but I 100% relate to the obsessive part of a hobby and that things I chose to enjoy become anxious and chore like at times. I struggle to just enjoy something casually and to experience things from the surface. Again, no advice except that since I can relate, it's not that weird and you're definitely not alone.

 

Man I wish my stress made me do things that are actually good for me haha

 

I've fully become a gym bro because every other thing I enjoy costs money which stresses me out more. I already pay for the gym so may as well hang out there and not spend any additional money. Tho I did stress buy a bunch of clothes but they're from Poshmark mostly which means they're cheaper and I'm not contributing as much to waste but also I def didn't need them so there's that

 

Rant/vent/need advice:

I feel like I am just caught in an revolving door of misery at this point in my life. Nearly 2 years ago, I had a huge run of bad luck. Plumbing in my apartment exploding, then a washer and dryer shit the bed, nearly 2k in car repairs, and soon, after all that, a relationship had ended. Said they didn't love me anymore after 3 years together. Took me a year of just feeling it out, healing and therapy at least to feel comfortable in my own skin and dating again. I had started seeing someone and we had taken things at a much easier pace. Then cue more plumbing issues, washer needing repairs and then expensive car repairs again. After all that got rectified (repairs, new car, etc) my partner ended things because they didn't feel the same anymore. It's been about 2 months since then and I am sitting here with new car troubles and repairs being needed, just flabbergasted as to why this is the pattern now. I don't know if I'll even want to go back out there and start dating after all that, feel like I'm at the lowest point in my life being 38 and always being dumped or rejected. I am numb and just at the end of my rope. Affirmations and thinking positive just aren't doing it anymore. I'm still going to therapy but I feel like I'm on constant panic or defense mode. Always tense and waking up, starting my day by asking "wonder what kind of awful thing will happen today?" Does anyone have any kind of advice or coping strategies? My therapist gave me some new ones and I have my drawing and painting to help keep me occupied but those distractions only help for so long.

 

I do not have OCD (my wife does, and it's extremely challenging), but I can somewhat relate to the neurodibergent hobby discussion. I have a watchlist a mile long with movies on all streaming services that I want to watch, that I then frequently move over to a second list where I try to pick 5-10 movies to knock out every weekend. And the primarily list never gets shorter, because I'm constantly adding to it. And then I feel the need to thoroughly review everything I watch on Letterboxd, which I love, but has definitely become a chore and a minor compulsion.

The latest neurodibergent activity for me has been picking a director or film franchise or artist and running through all their work and assigning them Pitchfork-esque numerical scores by averaging all of the reviews for themon Wikipedia. I am completely aware of.how insane that is, but it scratches my interest in statistics and ranking things and it makes my brain smooth and isn't hurting anyone.

Most people are probably not going to like this, and I don't even know how I feel giving this advice out, but I've had similar runs of luck and finally talking to my therapist about faith and spirituality has quietly helped me to re-orient myself and my worldview. I know that's not a solution for everyone and that's perfectly okay -- I'm not someone who tends to talk about it unless someone wants to -- but all I can is, I had severe doubts going in, and it's helped me quite a bit over the past few months. Happy to talk more if you'd like, but if not, just know that I empathize with you and I'm wishing you the best of luck!

 

appreciate both of you for saying this. i figured i wasn’t the only one who goes absolutely insane over a hobby, but it’s still nice to hear i’m not alone. i’ve thought about trying to get into reviews and music writing as a way to steer my obsessive tendencies into something halfway productive, but idk.

 

Been struggling a lot lately. It just is so hard when you feel like life has no meaning, you have no purpose, and there's no point to anything. I don't like my job. I have no social life. I have no friends or partner. My family besides my mom I honestly don't even feel like they really care about me. I keep trying to find groups to join but there are basically none in my area bc I don't live in a big city. I would have to drive an hour and that doesn't work with my work schedule. Idk what to do. Even things I used to enjoy doing now I don't even care about. The world is trash, my life is trash. What is the point? Part of me regrets buying my house bc this area is so fucking boring and it's so hard to meet people here. But then I look at rent elsewhere and I can't afford any of it. I just feel stuck and I never thought this was going to be my life.

 

Came to my wife in a vulnerable state and very gently/humbly admitted that I was not doing well and that it wasn't her fault, but that our current dynamic would need to change and that I would need her help. Was pretty much immediately met with resistance because "it feels like you're blaming me," which I reiterated several times I wasn't. I'm so afraid my marriage is going to dissolve now that we're having a baby. I'm beside myself. That child is the only thing keeping me from hurting myself, because I really do feel like everyone else including myself would be better off if I wasn't around.

 

have you and your wife ever done therapy together? Maybe that would be help. Either way we are here for you. These are intrusive thoughts that will pass.