Mental Health Thread • Page 471

The football thread makes me feel bad about myself and I hate this website has power over me

 

I know the feeling. Taking a break even if for just a day or two can really help.

 

I had to unsub from the Parenting thread for a bit because the divorce talk was a trigger. Nothing against the people talking about it, just needed to remove myself for a bit.

 

At a point where I'm feeling cornered, hopeless, and with nobody to talk to. For the past 9 weeks, I've cut down alcohol to one drink every couple weeks, and have been working out 5 days a week. I thought this would improve my mental health, but it seems to just get worse. I'm becoming more isolated, I talk less, and when I try to talk, I feel like I have nothing to say. Like there are no words I can put together. My partner-not-partner asks what they could do to help, but I don't know what to say. I know for sure that I really miss them, but I don't like saying that, because the last few times have just been through texts, and met with a sad-face emoji reaction.

Its not only that I miss them, I miss having friends that aren't through a screen. My social life has never recovered from the COVID lockdown, and its really bad. The only two that I had are on the other side of the country, and I'm here alone with my Mom. God Bless her, but we have very little in common. She has been trying to get me to meet the younger people in her friend group, but I do not trust her judgement of people. We live in Trump country, and although my Mom isn't one, I know she hangs around them, and I'm a queer transfemme. Not only would I have nothing in common with them, but it would be a potentially dangerous situation.

I'm supposed to be trying to get back on my feet while I'm here, and I just seem to be further regressing (aside for the one morning routine).

 

I’m feeling so isolated and alone right now. I have people but not in the city I live in and I’m just sick to my stomach over sitting alone in my apartment or alone at work day after day. It’s just all crushing down on me this morning and I’m not handling it well. I don’t even wanna go home from work, I just want to be somewhere else

 

Online dating has gone a lot better this time around but I’m worried I’ve started to get a bit obsessed with finding new people to talk to.

 

Also feeling very isolated right now. My excitement/fear about the baby is starting to horseshoe back to fear as it gets closer. My wife's OCD about our finances, which I really do contend are fine, is keeping me from being able to do things with people to get out of the house and take my mind off things. I'm worried I might not get to see my friends in Pittsburgh before the baby is here. I'm worried about what my marriage and social life will look like after the baby is here.

 

Dating has been so awful for me this year. All the usual nonsense aside. I actually made two really seemingly great connections in the last few months. And both times they had to take a step back due to medical related things. I believe them, I don’t think they lied about their situations, but like idk how to even approach dating right now. Between the situationships earlier in the year and now these false starts. It’s so defeating

 

I posted in here a few months ago about looking for therapy, and while I had given up at the time, I’m happy to report I have an appointment tomorrow. Certainly better than sitting and stewing in my own thoughts

 

(TW: deep, dark thoughts)

I cannot get out of my head lately. I take anxiety meds from my psychiatrist, I have a therapist and my life isn’t too hectic. Even though I'm on disability, I'm usually busy a few times a week but lately it’s been less than that because of schedule changes.

Although it was under control for a while, with the election coming up my anxiety is becoming really really bad. Sometimes I can’t think about anything else for hours and get so scared I start breathing heavily. I keep having ptsd to all the times that orange fuck tried to cut healthcare and disability. I would be up until midnight having to watch Twitter and praying one republican shithead would vote no.

it’s fucking so horrifying and stressful having to live like this. Having to depend on these assholes to cut a small check month to month and keep what healthcare I have. If I lose that, I’m essentially homeless and or dead. I would have nowhere to go to, other than my parent (who partially depends on me), I have no family left, no one will hire me, I think I would have to at least consider assisted….

It’s been really bad, I don’t even expect anyone to respond given how dark this is but it felt like something I had to say. It’s hard living in a country that wishes you were never born already but the big tangerine will definitely try to fucking do me in.

 

Tired of how easily I spiral over things. Right now I’ve been stressed and anxious over whether my cat has a dental issue. She just eats one of her meals weird and doesn’t seem interested in finishing it in one go and can be slightly messy. But does fine for her other meals.

I brush her teeth all the time. But she had some resorption issues earlier in the year that cost me a pretty penny.

I just can’t stop over analyzing everything she does or doesn’t do

 

I'm a 34 year old guy who's accomplished so much and there's so many things I'm proud of, including my amazing son and awesome wife.

I still can't set a boundary to save my life and I'm a chronic people pleaser. My brother texted me a pretty invasive question about my finances yesterday and it made me really uncomfortable, yet I can't respond with a boundary or a 'don't ask me' that type thing because I'm scared of his probably aggressive/mean response.

Is this inner child work I need to heal? I genuinely wish I was stronger, better at this and just didn't give a fuck.

 

That’s not me crying in the donut shop because they remembered my order even though I haven’t been in like a month. I’m doing fine, why do you ask?

But for real, it’s insane how such a small act of being seen/remembered affects me so much right now

 

TW for homophobia. I’m not going into major or graphic detail here, mostly just spoiler tagging it for privacy purposes.

2 years ago I was the victim of workplace homophobia and humiliation from members of the wardrobe department on a two day job. Head of wardrobe, an executive producer, and a creative producer all came down and spoke to me and to their credit made it right to the best of their ability while fuming that it happened in the first place. Very genuinely I felt (and still feel) that they did what was in their power to correct the situation but the damage was already done. I remember telling my parents, fiancée, and therapist that this was going to stick with me for a few months. I never expected that this would completely upend my life.

This basically ruined my life for 2.5 years. I went into a major depressive episode, almost completely stopped eating and somehow gained 60 pounds. Gaining weight isn’t an issue but anytime I’ve tried to bulk up, there’s a specific weight that my body would never let me go over. I’m now 45 pounds past that number. So it’s not so much the amount as much as it is that something happened to my body that previously was a no go. I’ve lost work, friends, opportunities, money, etc. This completely destroyed my sense of self and self esteem. I now struggle with intense dysphoria and body image issues.

My fiancée and I are still in a great place but we’ve both been talking recently about how I’m not the same anymore. And every time I start to feel like myself again, something happens in our lives that knocks me down again. I feel like I can’t get a grip on anything. And the amount of anger I feel has only grown and isn’t helped by the state of the world and the state of LGBTQ+ rights and safety and such.

Last week I was diagnosed with PTSD. It hasn’t quite hit me yet how big of a deal that is. When everything first happened, I didn’t go to the network’s HR because I felt it concluded with the best case scenario. Now I’m wondering if I should have. And I can’t sue because I would just get buried in legal fees. Plus risk being blacklisted.

I’m safe and have no intentions or ideation of harming myself in anyway but things are definitely not okay and I feel like I’m hanging by a thread. Taking care of myself is really difficult and I’m not handling any of my responsibilities. I have extreme anxiety about being out in public and even more anxiety about being anywhere outside of Los Angeles. Which feels silly because this happened in LA. I still identify as a ciswoman but present masculine of center. I’m terrified of public restrooms. I just want my life back. This is the first time since I was a teenager that I haven’t felt proud of being LGBTQ+ and wanted to hide. I just want my life back and it’s hard to know that I’ll never have any tangible “win” here outside of giving myself closure and learning to cope.

 

Finally scheduled a consultation with a psychiatrist for next week. Luckily they're within walking distance.

My PCP prob wouldn't be happy that despite sending me referrals and marking this as an urgent thing for me to do, i still took a month lol. a mixture of being busy during the weeks and procrastination.

 

Some days at work are so draining I don't even think I'd say stressful but just so daunting that it's like I can literally feel the pigment leaving my hair and turning gray

 

I feel this all the time. I remember thinking I looked old at 20/21. Saw a picture from then recently and I have sooooo many more greys in my hair and beard now. Still not even 30.

 

My anxiety is just running rampant rn. Spent last night just slightly trembling while trying to relax. Anything and everything can set me off. It’s not great

 

Yeah, I've been jittery lately (could be for a couple of reasons) and having to rely on my klonopin to relax, which isn't great. Feel like my heart rate elevates easily when I shouldn't. The becoming a parent stuff is really start to freak me out, which sucks because I was honestly feeling totally fine/great about it until a couple of weeks ago. I hope yours improves soon!

 

I think you’ll kick ass as a parent but cannot imagine that level of anxiety so I’m rooting for you

 

Honestly and I've always had older people tell me I'm too young for grays and I'm like ok well tell that to my hair!! I def notice looking older in those lines from my nose to my mouth. They just get deeper the older I get. I know aging is a totally normal thing and also a privilege, but it's always disconcerting to notice my appearance changing

 

A few times year, my anxiety gets incredibly fixated on feeling guilty for anything and everything, from doing things my spouse doesn't like to keeping secrets from people and even not being productive at work. It's like I start to take stock of all of the mistakes and bad choices I make and it starts to convince me I'm not deserving of the people and privileges in my life, let alone a child. I just really start to hate myself, and these episodes typically last weeks at a time. It's an awful feeling, and I can feel it starting up today.

 

Well, you deserve your family, your oncoming child, your happiness. Your brain is just working against you right now.

 

Thank you. Just feeling defined by those mistakes and decisions right now for whatever reason. Feel like they make me incompetent at best and a bad person at worst.