My life wasn’t supposed to be like this

The BBQ Pit
41

Well, Wanderer, if you were able to pack up & move like that, you’re on the right track!

But–we’ve all advised you to seek professional help, because the depression you’re suffering from is something you can change. However, you have pretty well stated that you’re not going to do that. If you’re not going to change something that is absolutely within your power to change, and you quite obviously want it to change, that’s a whine, and that’s what people are going to tell you.

I have no problem with allowing anyone at all to say that they’re in pain, physical, mental, or emotional. I do my best to help whenever I can. Several of us have suggested ways that Wanderer can help himself to deal with his pain, but he has rejected the one suggestion that will, without a doubt, help him the most–professional help.

We here can only help him so far. Most of us are not professionals (but I’m mighty, mighty glad Brynda came out of lurk mode for this). We can give all the advice in the world, but if he’s not going to take it, well then, he’s whining.

I personally think that Wanderer would be greatly helped by an anti-depressant medication. But you can’t get drugs without seeing a psychiatrist. Most MD’s can get you started on an anti-depressant, by giving you samples that they usually have on hand, but if your insurance company is going to pay for a prescription, it has to be prescribed by a psychiatrist.

Reading the books suggested is a good way to help one’s own self. But, if Wanderer’s problems are as severe as he says they are (and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt him), he needs more than books.

This is where you and Wanderer differ, msrobyn. You whine, but as you said, “with a little help from a therapist and my Walgreen’s pharmacist,” you’re doing something about your problem. Everyone whines from time to time, and most people with compassion for their fellow humans tolerate it. Life can truly suck at times, and most people who whine do it with good reason. I absolutely will not begrudge Wanderer’s whining about his physical pain. From his description of his problem, it’s incredibly painful, and hell yes, he can whine all he wants to about that. It’s the rest of the stuff, the stuff that he can change but chooses not to that I dislike hearing him, or anyone whine about.

Wanderer, your life is yours, to do with as you see fit. You don’t have to take advice from anyone, least of all me. But there are people here with even more experience in dealing with this kind of thing than I have. Please give them a listen, okay?

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Persephone, not everyone puts the same weight on the validity of psychiatry/psychology and not being willing to trust the science does not equate to me failing to take steps to fix my life. I personally believe it not only won’t be a help, but could do harm. I am happy for anyone who has had good results, but between my bad result as a child and how poorly I saw my mother handled in the couple years before her death says to me it is an iffy science. You find the same kind of success/failure stories with chiropracty as well, people with great successes and people who found it totally ineffective, maybe even harmful. Doesn’t mean either has cornered the truth, just that it is an iffy science and someone choosing not to use it should have the right to do so.

Just because a half dozen people in this thread feel medication and counseling was right for them, doesn’t make it right for me. And just because I don’t agree doesn’t mean I am whining because I am not willing to try it. I tried it already, I have come to an opinion, I am not going to revisit the opinion.

I am pissed at god for allowing my life to come to what it has. That is why I started this thread and I believe it is my right. I gave the best years of my life to a woman and her children and she never said thank you and she didn’t try to make our marriage work. And now when I finally am at a point when I have to rebuild my life I am saddled with a body that is failing me and the kind of luck you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. It is a sad state of affairs when a squick-fuck-goat felcher rant is preferred to someone expressing their pain in modest words.

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Okay, if you’re pissed at your god, have you considered talking to a member of the clergy, to try & square things? They can be very helpful.

Don’t misunderstand–I’m not saying that you’ve sinned, and that god is mad at you, and you need to throw yourself at his mercy. What I mean is this–if you feel that your god is responsible for “allowing your life to come to what it has,” then you need to make your peace with your god. If that is something you cannot or do not wish to do on your own, talk to a clergyperson. They can be very good at helping a person to find peace of mind, at the very least. Or perhaps you might want to open up whatever Scripture you follow (I do not know what religion you practice), and try and gain some insight there.

As for the rant, well, this is the Pit. It’s the place for rants. Simple expressions of pain should probably be in MPSIMS. I know that what you’re experiencing is certainly not Mundane or Pointless, but the folks there are extraordinarily empathetic.

Wanderer, if I have offended you, please accept my apology. That was never my intent. I certainly do wish you all the best, and I hope that you can find some peace & happiness very soon.

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One more post, then I’m done. On the subject of “whining”. I’ve not seen any on this thread. Chronic illness/pain takes you to some odd levels that you’ve sometimes never been to before. More then once I have cried and complained about “Why me?” and “What did I do to deserve this?” and I’ve wallowed in self pity. Then I snap out of it- sometimes it’s cyclic. Sometimes it comes on when you least expect it. “Whining” is part of it.

Wanderer has not rejected therapy because he doesn’t feel like going, he has rejected it because he had terrible experiences with it. That’s his choice. In my opinion, you don’t kick someone for that, you try to help them in another way (which is why I posted links to some helpful webistes), or you just leave it alone. Depression and chronic pain are not scabs that should be picked at by other people. His posting here was not an invitation to do that. He seemed frustrated and needed a shoulder.

Wanderer, my above advice still stands. Start making positive changes, one at a time. Get out for one evening, then work on two. Try not to get too overwhelmed. I’ve tried for years to figure out why God or whoever took away my mobility to the point where I can’t even turn around fast some days. (and it happened when I was just 20)

I finally came to the conclusion that I got dealt a different hand then others, and it’s my job to work through it. Who knows? Maybe next year there will be a cure/fix. (this is MY personal opinion, not applicable to everyone else)

People, realize this (if nothing else). Chronic (to me this means constant and probobly permanent) pain or disease has many emotional stages, just like grief. One of them is “Why?, Why? Why?”. Your life feels fucked up. You feel like you can’t do anything. You lose the will to keep going, sometimes. Eventually (through help or on your own) you cycle up and get inspired enough to make some positive changes. Give Wanderer a break already. He came here to rant, and he did. He got some excellent advice. I, for one, am willing to hear him “rant” or “whine” or whatever until he’s able to make some changes.

If you don’t have chronic pain or disease and don’t understand this, I’m sorry. I’m not interested in debating this- I live it. Just please realize that everyone who doesn’t feel able to make the changes that you think they need isn’t a “whiner”. Some people are just temporarily stuck.

Zette

PS- Wanderer, in the future perhaps you’ll want to look up some online chronic pain or peripheral neuropathy boards. I think you’ll find them more receptive and understanding of your feelings then the Pit on this board. Just my 2 cents :slight_smile: Try to keep smiling!

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Well said, Zette. Thank you.

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Wow Zette, I didn’t know such a thing existed! I did a search and turned up Neuropathy Message Board - HealthBoards Message Boards. How cool is that? Is there some other general place to find these kinds of boards? Thanks again! This is WAY cool. :cool:

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Put “peripheral neuropathy” into Google, then Search within results using “thread”.

Also: I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Join something. Join a church. Join a club. Learn to play a musical instrument. Volunteer your time at the local nursing home–play pinochle, or the piano. Volunteer at the public library–they need people to help sort donated books. Some of those other people sorting books are female. Join a bowling league. Play bingo on Thursday nights, or poker, or contract bridge. Go in for stamp collecting, coin collecting, model railroads, anything that meets once a month in a church basement or storefront somewhere. Become a regular at local swap meets or flea markets.

The swim thing is a good idea. Guess what? The YMCA has actual people inside of it. What a concept.

Get out of the house and meet some people. Half the people you meet will be female. Half the females you meet will be available.

But you’ll never meet any of them if you’re sitting at the computer posting to a message board full of phantom pixel people. Why are you still here? G’wan, git! And good hunting! :wink:

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DDG, how come I am not surprised to see a post from my favorite Google user espousing … Google? :wink:

As far as your other suggestions, almost all of them get back to the points I made in my OP, or in subsequent posts, that my feet hurt so bad that I am pretty much homebound. Shoes hurt my feet like hell, standing hurts my feet like hell, walking is something I can do in only limited quantities. And then there is the fact that the medication I take for pain relief makes me woozy and affects me somewhat like I am drunk and therefore I can’t go out of the house once I take it. I go to work, run neccesary errands after work, then come home and take my medicine. Then I am in for the night.

The problem I have is not really that I am alone, if it wasn’t for my physical incapacitation I could take active steps to correct that situation. It is that I am alone and I am very limited in the steps I can take to remedy the situation and none that I have tried so far have done any good.

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Okay, one more sermon and then I’ll climb down off the podium and let somebody else have a turn.

So we’ve narrowed it down to “the reason I don’t have any friends is because my feet hurt”? Well, then, I’m no rocket scientist, but 'pears to me like, “if you fix the feet, then you’ll have some friends”? Is that a fair analysis? Or are the feet just an excuse?

Speaking of chronic physical conditions that slow a person down, I’ve got a thing called Crohn’s disease that basically means I have to go to the bathroom every 90 minutes. This presents a real challenge when organizing shopping, vacations, even church on Sunday morning. We have a running gag in our family that I’m the only one who knows where every restroom is in all the malls within a 100 mile radius (even the secret bathrooms–did you know that most large anchor stores have their own bathrooms, that aren’t exactly “employees only” but aren’t exactly “public”?)

My family is just used to the fact that at intervals I’m going to excuse myself and disappear for a while. Even when my kids were little and we were at the grocery store or something, they got real good about waiting patiently in the Kroger restroom while Mommy went potty.

Anyway, the point is, I don’t sit home and say, “Oh, I can’t go to Woodfield Mall because I’ll just have to spend all my time hiking back and forth to the restrooms.” No. I find a way to work around it, because I can’t spend my life cooped up in the house, doing nothing but surfing the Web.

So, okay, I know it’s not chronic, crippling pain, but the point is, that I think if you really want to, you can find a way to work around it. Change of medication? Try acupuncture? Massage? Even magnets? Don’t laugh, they work for some people, I don’t care what Cecil and the FDA say. Positive thinking? Meditation? Yoga?

If you won a date with Jennifer Lopez, would you tell her, “Sorry, honey, I can’t make it–my feet hurt?”

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DDG, my best friend’s son had Crohn’s diease. I watched what she went through for years. I admire you for continuing on with your life and not letting it hold you back.

Sorry for the hijack.

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Wanderer–

I only read your OP and haven’t read anyone’s responses. But I felt I must respond to your post, though it may contain sentiments already voiced by others.

First of all, EVERYONE eventually loses the physical strength of their youth: for you it’s your foot disorder, for someone else it may be arthritis, or just age. Your case is not unique, except insofar as it happens to everyone in his or her own time.

Second, to suggest (as you seem to be implying) that your life has an externally imposed purpose in extremely counterproductive. It’s up to you to supply the purpose, not just to sit around and try to puzzle out what the purpose is.

Do you see the common thread here? Forgive my bluntness, but there’s a certain narcissistic paradigm taught by Christianity that apparently you’re still prey to.

Even more bluntly: It’s not about you.

For you to take it personally; to assume that the forces of the Universe are arrayed against you; to make the extremely presumptuous presumption that you must have done something to deserve this–to believe, in other words, that there’s a supernatural agent that is consciously A) taking time out of his busy schedule to B) make sure that you get what you deserve is, from my perspective at least, nothing short of silly.

Forgive me if I seem to be dismissive of your situation. I’m not; I’m prey to exactly the same thoughts; victim of the same ingrained paradigm.

I’m ridiculing your view of the universe in order to try to put it into perspective. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” your view of the universe is saying, “I am the Great and Powerful Oz!”

Whatever happens to you–short of birth and death–is just the next thing that happens to you. It’s not the beginning of anything, it’s not the end of anything: it’s just the next thing. Something will happen after it, and after that, and after that.

If it’s a major diversion in your perceived rhythm, and sets you off your autopilot, then you’re on an adventure! You’ve strayed off your map’s path! So learn the new map; it certainly won’t be the last time this happens to you.

Good luck. And wish me luck, too.

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I have seen you refer to your husband as your better half. I had never heard a woman call her husband that before, usually it is the other way around. But if you could be on vacation for 2 weeks with the car having to pull over every 90 minutes for pitstops and hubby didn’t blow a gasket then he is quite the saint.

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Wanderer,
There are likely loads of similar boards out there- most health sites have their own message boards and peripheral neuropathy is a reletively common occurance (due to diabetes and other problems). Drop me an e-mail if you want more links! You’ll feel better sharing your problems with people with the same disease, and you may get some great advice! Glad I got you to smile. Keep it up- it’s a great first step.

Zette