Mental Health Thread • Page 249

I think it’s lrobably the latter lmaooo but no rly thank you for the reminder. I feel like all I do is say the same things over and over and feel like it’s annoying and everyone’s rolling their eyes. But you right. Lots of us struggle with the same thing over and over again.

 

Been really low the past week. Habit is basically all that is keeping me functioning in some way right now and always.

Plenty of self-harm thoughts, too.

 

I keep deleting and editing posts because I don't really know what I want to say. I am seeing a new counselor in two weeks so hopefully that goes well. It's definitely a shorter wait than I expected. I have just been so anxious lately all the time I feel like I'm one instance away from like an anxiety attack at all times and that blah feeling that I have constantly makes it very difficult to be motivated and do what I need to do. Hopefully I can get it sorted soon. I'm also anxious awaiting my lab results. I feel like they're not going to really tell me anything and I'm just going to keep wondering what is up. It's probably stress and anxiety and depression all forming a cycle that's leading to me not taking care of myself. I feel like I know that but it's almost easier if it's like my thyroid or I don't know something that isn't necessarily my fault or involves my accountability

 

Hey I can relate! I definitely feel like an unlovable burden because of my bipolar disorder, and I'm also terrified of being rejected because of it, but it's important to remember that it's just the bipolar disorder talking. There are people who couldn't handle our moods just because of their own limitations (which is not a judgment of them, just a fact), but there are also people who will think we're worth it and love us despite the disorder we live with. You also could mostly be stable one day and not have to deal with the ups and downs yourself, that's always a possibility to be hopeful of. I know it's really hard though. PM me if you ever want to talk, I love talking to other bipolar people because it is really lonely having this thing that not a lot of other people understand.

 

Freaking out because due to another heated arguing with my dad, this time I ended up feeling like I was about to pass out. My body starts shaking, my vision becomes blurry, and I feel drained all of a sudden. Idk what it is, but at least I don't work for the rest of the week, and am crashing at a friend's place to relieve the stress tonight.

 

Why does euphoric mania have to feel so good? It's like I want to be stable but I also want to feel this way for fucking ever. I remember the first time I thought I felt it - I was 18, walking home and everything seemed beautiful and I felt so hopeful and happy in a way I'd never really felt before. Up until then the depressions were far more powerful and obvious. Ever since then, I have spent a lot of my life manic. It freaks me out that I don't really know who I am when I'm stable. I just want to put these feelings in a bottle I can come back to whenever, just for a little while, with none of the bad that comes with them. But I know I need to get stable, so I'm starting Depakote within the next week.

 

yea all that emotional stuff used to happen to me with my Dad, so you’re not alone. each blowout would fuck me up. what I came to realize is after initial childhood wounding life ends up putting us into situations to trigger our unresolved wounds so we can heal and evolve to our highest potential.

when this happens we can fall either into resistance and blame and self-attack or we can surrender and proactively anchor love. this isn’t some mechanism of avoidance where we’re like “I’m gonna love myself to make the “bad” stuff go away” but more like “I have been through hell and I deserve some tender care and attention and I will embrace the parts that got lost in the illusion they were bad in the first place”.

which means we love everything that arises: all our pain, shame, feelings of abandonment, anger, grief, contempt and blame for ourselves and others, all of it. all the stuff we resist, we choose to embrace in a hug of unconditional love, allowing it to fully express itself.

I believe us empathetic and energetically sensitive souls have incredible gifts to bring the world, the problem is we can take on the pain of others and internalize it. my early years I was crippled by the emotions of others — always codependent, reactive, self-hating. I think I remember you reading my post on The Glass Passenger so yea my younger years were a shit show to say the least.

when we’re met with abuse and abandonment from the limitations of our parents/peers I’ve found we internalize two fundamental untruths: “I am bad” and “I am not good enough”. we then spend our lives feeling unworthy and trying to “win” love from the narcissistic ego structures of others — ironically trying to get our needs met by the very people who are unable to.

this keeps happening until we are purified by the fires of pain. I don’t view this as some kind of punishment, but more our initiation into who we were always meant to be. it’s a way of looking at our journey from the perspective of “everything is here to help me, even the stuff I view as bad or inconvenient, because it’s life’s process for me to become the shimmering phoenix I’m destined to be”.

and like I said the way the cycle is broken is with love. when we’re emotionally triggered and yanked down the tunnel of pain with others, instead of defaulting to our usual method of avoidance and blame we choose to proactively anchor love for the parts that are hurting and “reaching out” by triggering the painful interpersonal situations. ask yourself what you need, and give yourself what others never could with all your heart.

as we heal we no longer need to prove we’re right or try to get approval from the ego structures of others. we’re just not really triggered anymore because the reactive charge within us has been resolved.

and eventually we can find love for each individual's own journey and where they’re currently at, even the people who hurt us and treat us unfairly because we realize they’re in their own process of healing and are trying to make us feel the way they were made to feel. they’re just people in pain.

you can’t be triggered if you have the intention to uplift and bring light to everyone. this means choosing the high road, letting them “win” and be right, and choose to meet their darkness with light — because the parts in them that are hurting are reaching out to be seen just like yours were. a lot of people might view this as weak hippie shit but choosing to give love to the very people who refuse to do the same is the strongest act in existence. it reverses the cycle/legacy of suffering in this place.

this doesn’t mean you don’t gtfo of abusive situations or have strong boundaries. in fact with this process you develop incredible boundaries and the strength to leave. you love yourself too much to subject yourself to that carnival of pain any longer. sometimes the most loving thing to do for yourself and others is to remove yourself from painful relationships to protect yourself and give the other person space to heal on their own separate journey.

and because the trauma within has been healed, there’s no more need to reenact these abusive situations, and you won’t be pulled into them by that reactive emotional charge anymore (side note: we most commonly reenact our childhood pain with romantic partners who resemble that narcissistic traits of our parents that we haven’t healed from).

true safety isn’t “I’m so loving I now have a protective shield around me so nothing can get to me” it’s “if something does get to me it’ll only make me better because I have an opportunity to become more unconditionally loving toward myself and others”.

but embodying all this is lifelong process (I’m definitely not there yet) and in the meantime we bring compassion to where we’re at.

we give ourselves and the world what we never got.

(I also recommend checking out Matt Kahn’s youtube channel for more, who’s a teacher who’s helped me a lot and maybe you'll vibe with him).

I believe I talked to you a while ago about healing, and I’ve seen your posts on here and have incredible respect for your journey. you are beautiful, and you are loved just for who you are.

much love my fellow warrior of the light

 

Today was a nice day for the most part. I got to go to the Christmas concert of a little girl who asked me to go who didn't have anyone else to watch her and she was so excited and happy someone was there and it was awesome. then when I went on a lunch break one of my co-workers decorated my cubicle with Christmas cheer. And when I went and got a coffee someone did that pay it forward thing to me. Then I got to wrap and bag presents for little kids in need. It was one of the few times I have felt happy in a very long time

 

Anybody use the Calm or Headspace apps? Going through some big life changes at the moment and was thinking of using these apps, so was just wondering if people prefer one or the other, or if using both is totally good too

 

I'm definitely going to read this a few more times, as I'm barely able to concentrate these last few days, and feel like I'm going to cry every hour. But I wanted to thank you. This isn't some hippie mumbo jumbo. This is eloquently written and makes me assess my current situation in a more optimistic way. I do remember your post on the aforementioned thread, I'm going to read it again. I'll have more thoughts about this one later, there are so many paragraphs I'd love to respond to but need a bit more time to do self-reflect and think about how to respond clearly, free of intrusive thoughts and self-harming impulses. Meanwhile, I'll just add that I'm not used, outside of this thread, to compliments, having someone actually listen to me and acknowledge my feelings, and most importantly, having someone believe me instead of victim blaming or ignoring my struggles, so this means a lot to me. Thanks again, and I wish you, and everyone in this thread as well, the best.

 

I got some good news today...it turns out I won't be stuck in my hometown for another 5 weeks. I can go back to school in the beginning of January. This will be great for my mental health, I feel like being home either gets me down or hinders my growth. I need to be somewhere else, and I can be. I just have to fill out a form that says I want to stay over break. ALSO, spending New Year's in Portland Maine sounds really nice, even if I can't find anyone to spend it with. I'm so excited. I needed this.

 

Thank you for the uplifting words! The same goes for you, please feel free to message me anytime! I'll do my best to keep up with alerts on here :) I would love to chat. About moods, patterns, anything if it helps.

 

This is great! I am happy for you. I'm glad you have this opportunity to continue to grow and fight mental illness with positive changes.

 

edit: Figuring stuff out, I don't want to end up in trouble later.

 

My dad died in a fire when I was 9 months old and my parents were 20. It’s always been an awkward subject, since I never really knew him and it’s taboo in my family. His only living relative on that side is a brother. He was in a motorcycle accident before my dad’s death and is now deaf and partially brain damaged. He lives far and I’ve seen him a few times in my life. He’ll give me pictures and items my dad used to have. I just got a framed picture of him and my dad with a note. I want to have a relationship with him, but I don’t know how.

 

In some sort of good news, I think switching from Lexapro to Wellbutrin is working pretty good. I will say I have been a little irritable but I've been kinda stressed and it feels like things bring me to like the brink of tears fairly easily but idk if that's what I gotta deal with then I think it's worth it, I think the second symptom has got better to some degree.

I've also been pretty introspective (I guess that's what you'd call it), I've been like coming to a lot of realizations. Mostly small things like the reason I haven't been talking/hearing from one of my close friends all that much is that a lot of times she'd send me music and it got to the point where I wouldn't even try and listen to what she sent me. So obviously she just stopped sending me them. Why wouldn't she? It's the least I could do. It's not hard. I have the time.

Probably only one or two "big" realizations, the main one being that I don't have to live my life the way I have been living it. I have grown deeply unhappy and deeply unsatisfied rotting in my room waiting for the world to come to me. I have to put myself out there. It will not always be so easy, this was made evident to me pretty quickly but I have to get up when I am down, or at least keep trying. No one else can do that for me except me.

I think this all sort of traces back to this friend I had maybe two years ago. We hung out idk maybe 2 or 3 times a week pretty often for maybe two years or so and we were really good friends. Then she found people she'd rather hang out with and just dropped off the face of the earth. She also would say shitty stuff to me sometimes but her just dropping me like that just absolutely shattered my already fragile self esteem. I thought I had put it to bed but it came up recently and I sort of didn't know how to deal with that feeling again. I haven't really made any friends to replace her, and that's what I'm going to do. I want my "revenge" very badly, and they say living well is the best revenge so that's what I'm going to do.

Also in case for some reason you read all this, I hope this doesn't come off as bootstrap-y or that I'm like giving advice or anything, this is 110% about me and only me.

 

I keep re-realizing this. actually changing things is another story lol

 

Just got the news that my mom has been transferred to another psych ward due to suicidal behaviors and I'm so scared and want to scream as loud as possible

 

I just wanna start by saying I’m sending lots of love and well wishes and good vibes to everyone here and it’s warming my heart that this space exists for people to air their feelings

I have lots of stuff going on with me but I wanna focus on something pretty specific

I grew up in a DIY scene where I was surrounded by friends making exciting music and getting noticed by the indie music industry’s hype machine. I tried to play the game for a bit, did really heavy scene networking, made music that was kind of guaranteed to stand out (wonky/atmospheric electronic production, unconventional instrumentation, uncomfortable/extreme vocal performances and lyrics - almost always playing shows with emo/indie pop bands and acoustic singer-songwriters). I had an internet label put out some of my work on cassette, got scattered praise and played shows with a bunch of people I admired (though never toured), and at one point even landed an interview with Pitchfork (for a feature on feminist DIY... that they ultimately ended up pulling before publication). looking back, I think my music was interesting but kind of awkwardly conceived and executed and far from realizing a lot of the potential that went into it. I was in many ways in a good position to stick with it and commit to improving. but I had a series of experiences - mostly related to multiple prominent scene figures I had felt close to being outed as sexual abusers - that led me to kind of abandon those social circles, and come close to giving up on making music generally

now, a couple years after this extended social butterfly networking phase drew to a close, I’m largely socially isolated, though the exceptions to that are notable. I have a small tight knit circle of friends in a DIY scene halfway across the country from where I grew up, in a city I moved to a few months ago. I’m fronting a newly formed band that’s making what feels like the best music I’ve ever made, honing and improving on the best parts of my old project... but I’m nervous about what it would mean to commit to being an indie musician again.

I’m afraid of the scene, I’m afraid of promo, I’m afraid of networking, I’m afraid of buzz, I’m afraid of the way artistry is commodified and of what ambition does to people in a capitalist society. I could probably get by to a big extent with my bandmates taking care of most of this stuff and do my best to keep a laser focus on the music. once again, I’m in a good position in many ways... but I have this tendency towards self-sabotage as a coping mechanism for trauma that won’t go away. I think being in a band is different, I have people supporting my work on a deeper level than I did the first time around as a solo artist. but the disenchantment is real, and it’s compounded by similar feelings permeating the rest of my life too.

I kind of just want to hide away from everyone and listen to soothing music until I fade into nothingness. a lot of why I got into music in the first place was because of a lot of really intense trauma in my childhood background, and now as an adolescent and young adult I’ve just ended up finding more ways to layer on all sorts of different and newly extreme traumas that it’s not sustainable to keep getting hit with in the absence of somewhere safe to land... and I feel like I’ve never really had that kind of safety in my life, and don’t even know what it would look like exactly, or if it’s something that really exists the way I picture it. no one has a completely stable life situation, or completely stable love from others and all that, but I’ve always been so radically unstable on both of those counts that as I age it’s just getting harder and harder for me to imagine a way to change that - a change that’s scary, too, cuz as soon as you convince yourself that something could be stable, it falling apart is all the more traumatic (a recent dramatic falling out with my ex best friend and lover testifies to this).

I’m telling myself that I’m just recharging for the next round of struggle in letting my will breathe as free as it can even in a world that’s bound to disturb that breath in tricky ways... but I really don’t know what’s going to happen, and I spend a lot of time feeling like the proverbial casualty of society from that Sum 41 song. lol

 

I'm getting really anxious over my MRI. Last time they did one they found a few lesions but they said they weren't a big deal. I'm worried they're going to find more and that it will be concerning this time, like MS or something. I'm just crossing my fingers that they don't find anything.

 

I hate the weird dips in my mood. Earlier today I'm thinking about how I wish my appointment with the new therapist was sooner and I don't even know if I can make it that long and just wanting to like crumble under anxiety and depression, and right now I'm like singing to myself feeling fine hopping around better mood and it's only been like an hour maybe since I was moody and weird. It's kind of exhausting to be on an emotional roller coaster like that

 

I get mood swings like this too, they’ve been recurring in that kind of extremity consistently since I was around 13. it’s really overwhelming and terrifying and can kind of feel like your body swinging you around without the kind of reciprocity with your mind that makes you feel capable of action and alive on a basic level... like my existence as a person can feel like it’s just melting into the extremity of my mood, up or down, and both ecstasy and agony eventually kind of converge into this weird place for me of like this immense invasive sensation that won’t stop and I can’t control and kind of feels like I’m pulled apart into little pieces from the inside.

literally the only way I can deal with this is by trying to identify, represent, and comprehend the patterns that are happening to me and conditioning it. I do a lot of creative writing (often paired with songwriting) because of this and also study and write about psychoanalytic theory. if I feel like I have a handle on some of the key processes that are moving me like this, in the form of some evocative structure that pieces together different parts of the pain like a puzzle, then it tends to keep redirecting me towards a hypomanic state.

the problems really come when I’m forced to deal with and do things that I struggle to find room for my own desire in - this can make me really depressive, shut down and socially withdraw, and right now I’m struggling with that, although through the methods I mentioned earlier I’m kind of maintaining an internal state orbiting semi-comfortably around hypomania in the midst of that withdrawal. it gets much worse if I’m dealing with a lot of pressure and I’m not able to withdraw to some extent or won’t let myself, that’s the kind of situation where I’ll get really terrifying panic attacks

 

it's good that you are trying to recognize the patterns and take control over it where you can. In my experience that's all that really helps talking myself through it. I haven't gone to counseling in a few months because I'm transitioning to a new one so I hope they can give me some suggestions when I start. I also just started some new meds and I think I'm kind of adjusting to that plus some vitamin deficiencies that are making me really tired and also throwing me off. Trying to sort through all of it and get my health back up but it is definitely a process and much harder when depression causes you to lack motivation. I hope you're doing well keep fighting the fight!

 

Speaking of health, I mentioned somewhere that I kind of fainted out of nowhere a few weeks ago and I've noticed since then that I am super anxious about it happening again. every time I get warm or a little nauseous I get really really anxious that I'm going to pass out again and I start to get nervous and anxious and sort of relive I guess the symptoms that I felt like the sweating, the shakiness, and unable to really respond. I mean the symptoms don't literally happen again I just start to remember what it felt like and that adds to my anxiety. The last thing I needed was something to add to my already ridiculous list of things that cause anxiety which sucks. Especially since I am out of town and alone for the week so if I did pass out I would be in a place without friends or family or anybody that I know to help me which makes me even more anxious. I am eating and drinking okay I think. I'm taking supplements. probably not drinking as much as I should be but I'm trying my best so I probably won't pass out but yeah I guess anxiety isn't super rational

 

my therapist definitely thinks i have PTSD from my drug abuse