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My disorganised nature is indirectly causing me to freak out a bit about finding a flat.

Apparently one of my best friends from secondary school got married this week. I didn't even know he was engaged. I can't even feel particularly happy for him since it's been nearly 10 years since we last saw each other. I seem to struggle keeping relationships with people going in general, and no-one else seems to mind. It's fine, I wouldn't want to be friends with me either.

On the same theme. I feel like everyone is getting into relationships, whilst I have none and never had any.
Of course if I wanted a relationship, I'd probably go out into town every night and ask every person out.

So the point is, I'm part of me is jealous of people in relationships with people they like.

I review my social contacts now and there is only one person who I'd want to spend the rest of my life with. Thing is, I don't want to think beyond that because I don't want to ruin in my mind what I already have with them; a very strong friendship. I don't want to corrupt that by fantasising about romance in an idealist Bioware world where everyone who has sex drive potentially will want to romance me, the lead protagonist.

So yes. I will work hard to use these feelings for good. Appreciate the deep friendship I have a resist falling into the trap of thinking up things which may not exist.

I'm depressed that I can't easily do things that are intuitive to other people. I sit and struggle with personal communication, while other people just do it and don't even think about it, or that it might even be possible that it's difficult for others. People breeze through and make personal connections with other people, and I sit here and be exhausted by the simple things, because I'm putting so much time and effort into getting them right. I just feel like a waste of resources and a waste of human skin for being so far behind everyone else in this and many other aspects.

You are special to all of us memo

So I began taking anti depressants as well as medication against anxiety a few weeks ago, after years and years of suffering from those two, and so far I feel less anxious, but more depressed. Every night I am tempted to take all the pills at once before I go to sleep with the hopes of dying in my sleep. I don't know what to do anymore.

Tell your doctor! Sometimes the medication isn't right or the mix isn't right, but that's why there are so many different kinds. I hope you can find the one that kicks your depression in the butt.

My housing and banking stuff still has not been sorted and I am starting to freak out.

Fayili wrote:Tell your doctor! Sometimes the medication isn't right or the mix isn't right, but that's why there are so many different kinds. I hope you can find the one that kicks your depression in the butt.

Please

Just want to throw in a quick word. I haven't been active for quite a while because I've been swamped with work, can't see an end to it until at least December. Will be working at least 13 hour days. Been lurking a bit on the forums to keep up and I use the stream replays to cool down by hearing some friendly people before I go to sleep.

What I wanted to communicate today was that my depression has been acting weird for the last while. No big dips as I'm used to but with a quicker pattern of lows and mids (highs are and have been really rare). I've been having a tough time lately trying to do my own work, which is too much as it is, but also cowering up for work that other people miss, or maybe just don't care to do. Also been having some stressful times with a person trying to undermine everything me and my students association are trying to work towards.

Yesterday and today I've been sick with a fever and a regular but intense cold but wasn't able to skip work related things, but I went home earlier than I "should" have and placed myself in bed with a cup of tea and decided to play a game I've been meaning o play for a long long long time. Journey. I've only heard a little bit about it but figured it was a short game I decided to just go through it all at once and I'm so glad I did. I will try not to spoil anything in the game but be warned that there might be some inferring or something. Coming towards the end of the game there are some bits where your character is struggling to make progress and my gaming session got joined by another player at that moment (didn't think anyone really played this anymore) and we started making progress, while trying to communicate in what little manner is possible. It got tougher and tougher but we both stayed close to each other, "warming" each other (at this time my fever acted up and I started freezing which felt appropriate), cheering each other on. And we got through it (I know it's designed for you to do, but there and then it felt like the last part of the trip to mount doom while we took turns to be Frodo and Sam. I felt so happy at the camaraderie which was shown by my friend, not being able to even speak to him/her. I finished it and felt a hope I haven't felt in a long time. Almost happy.

I don't think I wanted to say anything by this, just wanted to get it off my chest. Also I would like to thank LRR and the whole community for being so awesome, supportive, warm and friendly. The friendliness from my Journey experience made me think of you all, guess that's why I had to write.

And to all those suffering from depression. There is hope, there are good things, you are awesome and know that you're fantastic just being you!

Edit: Ignore me.

How so? Want to talk a bit?

I'm just now noticing from Alex Steacy's twitter that it's #WorldSuicidePreventionDay so I thought I'd paste some hashtag here.

I was feeling bad enough today already. I've been extra lonely recently and now my housemate is going away for two weeks and I'm likely to have little human contact outside of work. My anger and self-loathing is probably the worst it's been since I was in hospital. At the best of times I'm aloof, weird and difficult to interact with. I'm pretty good at putting my foot in it, or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or generally being irritating and/or confusing. At worst I'm stupid, arrogant, pompous, pushy and just all-round unpleasant to be near.

But hey, at least this complete lack of attachments to people and places around me mean I'm free to do whatever I want, I suppose. I could go anywhere and it wouldn't make the damnedest bit of difference to anyone's life. Someone had their last day at work today; he was put through the bubble wrap machine, put on a trolley and sent rolling down the road. Many laughs were had by all. When I had what I thought would be my last day there no-one even said goodbye. The day ended just as any other, life went on and this completely superfluous aspect of their working lives was no longer there.

Then I come home and apparently today is when I've received my annual student loan update. My yearly reminder of "Hey, remember when you borrowed all that money to go do a degree you hated, failed to realise any potential you had, ended up squandering everything and achieving nothing? In the years since you left university, you've paid back 0.2% of the total amount. Good job."

I'm glad to know that I'm both literally and figuratively worthless.

So. A few days ago, I picked up a large rubber mallet with a plastic handle to hit a target for a test your strengh side show game to win some tickes. And broke my finger.
Yesterday, realize not only can I not go to Melton to visit Amanda, who turns 21 in 2 hours and goes to Europe in a day. But I owe $500... I get $150 spending money per day.

Now, I go out, chill with some friends, come home, oh hey, my grandpa died this morning. Didn't get to visit him either because, ya know, poor. Being an adult sucks, life sucks.

I'm fine with him having died and all, he was a sweet old man, but very old and sick for a long time. I just wish I'd gotten to visit him, ya know?

Dang Bard, that sucks. Need someone to talk to?

I'm fine thanks man. Just thinking all dark and morbid right now, which means I'm busy looking at the world as "That shitty place where nothing good happens." right now. It'll pass, but still. A break, plzkthx

Just a quick, I guess, Public Service Announcement -- if you're ever in the need of someone to talk to and don't know who to reach out to, a good place to start might be 7 Cups of Tea. It's an IM service where you can talk to trained listeners about mental health, stress or just whatever's on your mind.

You may now get back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

My grandma is very sick. She's at the hospital (been there for about a week and a half probably). She was supposed to come home today but she got worse.
Part of me is worried she will come back home and part of me wants her to get better.
Being old sucks.

I am now sad that Jennifer Lein has apparently gone on a similar road that Kes did in "Fury"...

I pray that whatever demons are eating at her will be removed, be they mental health problems, drug issues, or whatever.

The more I struggle the further down I sink. My problems never end so I keep needing help but I feel that it's too complicated, that my mental health issues are too much to handle for me and for the healthcare system. They don't have the resources and I don't have the will. I feel like I'm sick beyond hope.

What is going on around me? First, I find out that my cousin has gotten caught up in a "9/11 truther" cult... Then, I find out a guy who I admired believes in chemtrails...

Why is the world going mad? Or is it me?

I've got a coworker who believes vaccines cause bla bla bla. I had one who wanted to vote for Trump... last time. She must be thrilled this time. I have a really good and smart friend who doesn't believe in water fluoridation.

The only thing you can do is patiently explain what you believe. It's harder with things like Trump, but I actually had a surprisingly effective conversation with a woman explaining to her about mercury and using a metaphor with salt (sodium and chlorine).

Ah, fuck it. This is happening.

First things first I guess- I suffer from depression. Over the last eighteen months, it has got steadily worst, to the point where nowadays I spend between 1 and 3 days a week in a 'bad state'. The severity of these episodes can vary widely- on a good day, I am merely grumpy, on worse days physically aggressive. Not infrequently, a phase results in me trying to drink myself into oblivion, and on two separate occasions I have given thought to suicide. For the last 20 months I have been taking antidepressants to try and fight back against it- when I forget them, the bad phases become worse and almost continuous, rather than intermittent. From all I have read, researched and experienced, I am going to suffer from depression for the rest of my life, and I doubt very much I well ever be able to stop taking medication to compensate for it.

The real bitch about attempting to fight depression is how utterly sneaky and subversive it is- it's like trying to fight smoke. It's all, fundamentally, in your head, and so is able to target the very emotions and processing centres that you attempt to fight it with. In the past, my depression targeted my sense of self-worth, telling me that I was shit at everything that mattered to me, that I was a worthless human being that the world didn't care about one iota, or else that I was something fundamentally subhuman. Other times, it just said I was lonely, that I didn't have any friends, that people only talked to me because of my brain, that I would never love or be loved by another human being- a particularly sore point for a single virgin teenager. Fact is, my social or romantic situation doesn't matter a bit- my brain was just looking for some insecurity it could pick at. I fought back against it, and I managed to make progress. So it came back stronger. And tried something different.

Nowadays, my depressive phases do not simply make me feel unhappy- they are able to make me believe that I never have been happy, and make me not want to be happy ever again. In a depressive phase, there is next to nothing that can, in and of itself, bring me joy, for it feels as though the only thing that keeps me doing my various hobbies and such is the idea that they represent. That I don't actually enjoy them, but that the idea of them gives me some kind of identity and respectability to hide behind. Rugby, re-enactment, gaming of all forms, it all feels as though I'm pretending to enjoy them purely to maintain the illusion. Now more than ever, I'm likely to back out of hobbies or other commitments because I feel so disinterested, as if they cannot cheer me up so why fuckin' bother? And utilising every power of analytical thought that I possess, it is impossible for me to tell whether it's just the depression talking or whether it is fundamentally true.

So I languish, feeling unable to be happy ever again, and watching as my mental state saps my very will to exist.

It is a powerfully hopeless feeling, to think that you can never be happy again- that the prospect is so utterly false that it is not even worth aiming for. With it, my ability to engage with the world, and my connection to it, becomes ever-more tenuous. In times past, one of the few things that could focus my attention away from my own unhappiness was to consider somebody else's- I actively sought people out who were suffering, so that I could talk to them, help them. It made me feel proud to have helped, it made me feel engaged with the world. Now, the prospect is... somehow disinteresting. It's like I'm suffering from a kind of perpetual compassion fatigue, like all my ability to care has been used up. It's why I don't post so often on this forum any more. My rational mind, my greatest weapon against the lies that the depression can spin around my brain, is powerless as it is deprived of the very will that keeps it going.

And without my medication, it's even worse.

There is, however, one thing that I will still reliably 'enjoy' after a fashion, or at least engage in. That's to get around a table with some drinks, a mate or two and a long evening ahead of us, and to have some 'real talk'. Talk about our problems, our feelings, our emotions, our experiences. Not because they're productive (I'm notoriously bad at vocalising my feelings) and not because I get answers from them, but because it gives me a chance to be selfish- to wallow a little in my own emotions and self-pity. Other people are willingly spending time to sit with me, share their emotions, enjoy my company in some peverse fashion... and to be the centre of attention like that, to matter that much to someone, is an empowering feeling like little else I have ever experienced.

I am blessed to be surrounded by a circle of unfailingly kind, considerate, wonderful people who I have the pleasure to call my friends, and they have been a lifeline to me in my depressive pits on more occasions than I can count. But, unfortunately, it's very, very difficult for them to penetrate the dense and complex wall that is my state of mind. Many of my friends have never struggled with this kind of mental disability, but even if they did they can hardly be expected to solve all my problems for me. Unfortunately, my depression is able to seize this too; resentful of the world around me, and of the people who just can't seem to help (or who have accidentally set me off following a throwaway phrase or other), it turns to anger. I won't deny that a portion of me goes along with this as a kind of attention-seeking thing, hoping that maybe this will get my state noticed, get me help. Sometimes, the anger is expressed verbally, other times through aberrant behaviour, and still others through physical violence. Sometimes inanimate objects are the victim, other times it's people. And to those people, I am truly sorry.

I believe strongly in talking through my problems, rather than hiding from them and letting them fester. And I want to muddle through this with my friends beside me, rather than on my own. My goal is not to 'beat' my depression (as previously stated, I'm stuck with this indefinitely), but to learn to manage it, to cope with it. So when I ask to talk, or just sit down over an evening, and this kinda shit comes up... I'm not looking for expert advice. I can get that from therapists. All I really want are my friends- a reminder that they are there, and that they care, and that I as a person matter to them in some capacity.

From there, we'll see where it goes.

I sit here and read Ix's post and I'm thinking to myself "... That's... not supposed to be normal? I thought that was normal. It's normal for me..."