Official Mental Health Thread

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Clinical depression, ptsd/c-ptsd. I'm sure there's probably several other things wrong with me as well, but I don't feel like I have the luxury to pursue it anymore than I feel like I have the luxury to be able to afford marriage and kids. So as such, I kind of treat the spectrum all the same for myself: I'll handle it when I can afford to handle it. (Which is most likely never).

Despite that, I actually get by pretty well. I've spent the last couple of years healing, and working on plans and fallback plans. I try to remain optimistic, despite my natural predisposition to be a pessimist...

I have rather underdeveloped social skills. Likely due to me being both introverted, and misanthropic. I also have social anxiety as such. And it is for these reasons, why I do not mingle more often with people. When you're an introverted artist, you get the extra option to be totally lost in your own conceptual, creative thought processes. So, I usually choose that option, because it doesn't launch me into social anxiety Hell.

I was also born with a meta-cognitive learning disability. I very rarely ever mention this anymore. It's also not legally recognized by colleges in my state. Though, there are several other reasons why I don't mention it. Namely because it made my childhood social life Hell. I've also been told that it doesn't really show. In fact, I typically seem rather eccentric to people. Probably because I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and due to my ptsd and whatnot I have a tendency to get lost in my own thoughts (with music theory, for example) and talk to myself a bit, playing with conceptual ideas in my head.

Whatever is wrong with me, I've become more comfortable with my thoughts than I am with my feelings. There are times where when depression hits me that it can seem like a blessing, that is, when I go from feeling ****ty to feeling nothing at all. Aandd there are also times where if triggered it seems like a sudden blackout after a night of heavy drinking. Only with an alcoholic blackout, you get to spend the next day trying to reconstruct the night before. With clinical depression, you get to spend about a week trying to reconstruct the last two months.

I've kind of 180-ed in the last decade. I used to be naive and really emotional. Now I'm more heavily guarded than the IRS, and no longer trust my emotional spectrum as a central stance for my judgment because I am cognitively aware of my own biases. Or to put that in plain English: I'm so guarded that I'm even guarded against myself...depending on how you look at that, it can be a good thing or a bad thing. It covers my ass a lot, yes, but at the cost of limiting my ability to connect and bond in the sense that it's not that I cannot connect or bond, but that the amount of connectivity and bonding that I will allow myself to do is rather, on a controlled limiter.

[OccultHawk]

Thanks for sharing Sam

Being crazy wears you out too

[Isbjørn]

**** i haven't slept much tonight because of my overthinking mind, so now I'm awake even though it's really early and I feel like ****... I think I might have a mild cold, and I don't know if the chills I'm having right now is because I'm sick or because of my anxiety and that's making me feel even more nervous... I really want to sleep, but I know that if I go back to bed now I'll just lie there worrying so I'm sitting alone in my living room instead, browsing YouTube and crying

[Key]

Originally Posted by Isbjørn

**** i haven't slept much tonight because of my overthinking mind, so now I'm awake even though it's really early and I feel like ****... I think I might have a mild cold, and I don't know if the chills I'm having right now is because I'm sick or because of my anxiety and that's making me feel even more nervous... I really want to sleep, but I know that if I go back to bed now I'll just lie there worrying so I'm sitting alone in my living room instead, browsing YouTube and crying

Dude ive been there. There are several nights where I just freak out and start crying. Seriously though, if the meds start to help, definitely use them. I don't use them because I have a weird thing with pills but I smoke weed and it helps. For right now, just try to keep your mind on other things. I usually have to get up out of bed and sit somewhere else to be in a different mindset. I've probably had more nights with freak outs than I can remember. Went through much the same as a kid too.

[Zhanteimi]

You might be in need of an exorcism.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Thanks for sharing Sam

Being crazy wears you out too

Ironically, I actually find insanity to be artistically inspiring. I equate Munch's The Scream and Van Gogh's Wheat Fields paintings, or even Beethoven's 9th Symphony to be the pinnacle of an artist at the creative spark. However, the crushing weight of depression can indeed make the most beautifully detailed dreams and thoughts into the most nightmarish, dull, blankness that there can possibly be and that indeed can, and often does, impede great a many people, myself included at times. That's honestly part of why I got into drone, is because drone emulates that in a way. And writing it through improv, in a way is therapeutic because it's never the same twice, and I know I hit with the sound of it when the sound that comes out of my speakers, scares even me as the person that created the sound. That's probably what I need to do for myself. I haven't played my bass in...like a month now...longer than I thought. Probably wouldn't have realized that if I wasn't writing this from a stream of consciousness.

[Isbjørn]

Originally Posted by Kiiii

Dude ive been there. There are several nights where I just freak out and start crying. Seriously though, if the meds start to help, definitely use them. I don't use them because I have a weird thing with pills but I smoke weed and it helps. For right now, just try to keep your mind on other things. I usually have to get up out of bed and sit somewhere else to be in a different mindset. I've probably had more nights with freak outs than I can remember. Went through much the same as a kid too.

Thanks, buddy. I just took a shower and an anxiolytic and I already feel much calmer. My doctor told me the first couple of weeks on SSRIs might be rough. I guess they're not for everyone.

[Key]

That's good to hear. Hopefully you can get some decent sleep too.

[Isbjørn]

I often figure it's better to just get up and do something until the sun gets up, hopefully I'll get some better sleep the next night. If I get really tired during the day I might take a short nap. Thanks for the support

[Oriphiel]

Originally Posted by Key

Seriously though, if the meds start to help, definitely use them. I don't use them because I have a weird thing with pills

Were you bullied by pills growing up?