Ms. Pumpkin, I can understand that.
{{{{{{olivesmarch}}}}}}
{{{{{{Antigen}}}}}}
{{{{{{Everyone}}}}}}
Progress. Besides “head” appt. next week we now have one with the banker, too.
It’s a good thing but I got an occular migrane as soon as we set the time. Not that much difference tho. Since the stroke it’s like I’m looking thru water anyway. I wipe the kitchen counters a lot because to me it looks like there’s standing water on them. (Like, who missed while filling the coffeepot?)
It sounds like everyone is having a rough week. I wish I could help make it better.
It is odd. I was starting to see some light at the end of my tunnel. I started back-sliding about a week ago. I haven’t been here in several days so I know I’m not feeding off of everyone else. I don’t seem to have any external triggers right now so this is very frustrating. I’m no longer employed so that pressure is gone. My ex is recovering from her suicide attempt nicely and making much better decisions now. I’m still on short-term disability so money is not critical right now. I should be happy. Fuck.
I’ve been hiding under my particular rock for years so don’t feel bad. Fortunately I just happen to never feel the need to dig any deeper. 
In the very least, you will have clean countertops! (Seriously, that sounds… distressing.)
I’m definitely better off now than I was at the beginning of the week, but I’m not great. One tiny piece of good news is Sr. Olives almost certainly has a job offer, which means I’ll have a geographical location to start looking for my own work. And if we move further north, as we will need to do for this job, we can move somewhere more nature-y where the parks and reservations are. It’s not the internship he needs to graduate, but it will allow us hopefully some breathing room this year as we wait for next year’s internship process.
I’ve found solace in nature, lately. I’ve been a lot more healthy and decided to take up hiking. I have two hikes planned for this weekend, and I ordered new hiking shoes and a Camelbak. I think it could really help with my depression as well.
To any of you who are considering suicide, please think about the following.
My father killed himself many years ago. I still miss him.
But what makes me sadest is knowing that my father has missed out on so many things that would have given him pleasure. The world is full of beautiful things, interesting discoveries, and wonderful people.
The news is full of unhappy things, but those things get on the news because they are the unusual events of the day. The happy stuff isn’t reported because it isn’t exceptional. It happens every day.
Robert
To any of you who are considering suicide, please think about the following.
My father killed himself many years ago. I still miss him.
But what makes me sadest is knowing that my father has missed out on so many things that would have given him pleasure. The world is full of beautiful things, interesting discoveries, and wonderful people.
The news is full of unhappy things, but those things get on the news because they are the unusual events of the day. The happy stuff isn’t reported because it isn’t exceptional. It happens every day.
Robert
I’m so sorry to hear about your father, Robert. My 30-year-old uncle killed himself five years ago and while it can’t possibly compare to what you must be feeling, I understand that feeling of frustration.
When people are that severely depressed, they are not rational. For many of us, it is the thoughts of our loved ones that kept us hanging on (my last real suicidal ideation was about a year ago, and when I saw how badly it was messing up my husband, I decided to live and try to make the best of it.) But one thing that it’s important to understand is that when people are depressed, happy things do not make them happy. They are unable to get pleasure out of things that would normally be enjoyable. It’s absolutely true that there is a lot of good in the world, but part of the disease of depression is not being able to experience it.
Quoted For Truth.
When you are depressed, these dark things aren’t crazy at all; they seem the most rational choice. From the depressed mindset, it’s the best way out of a bad situation.
“You are worthless, and no-one wants you; the world is uncaring, and life is full of pain. Why not end things, end the pain? Why not remove an unworthy person from the world so that everyone else, the blessed ones, can get on with their lives with one fewer speedbump in their way?”
That is the way depression thinks. It is literally impossible for the depressed person to think otherwise. I remember the year I flamed out of university. I was depressed, and I missed spring. I literally didn’t see an entire season. And then somehow it changed, as it always does, and I could see the world again. I applied to electronics school, and went on with my life.
I quit the job training program yesterday. I simply wasn’t measuring up to the requirements and responsibility the job needed.
I had an appointment with my therapist today, which I canceled. He says we need to talk about what I want out of therapy. I don’t want anything from therapy, it has nothing to offer me any more. I’m only doing it because everyone wants me to do it.
I just want to disappear, as if I had never been.
By who’s standards? Did your trainer/boss tell you you weren’t cutting the mustard, or did you decide on your own that you couldn’t do it? No, thats not the right question… Did your depresion decide you couldn’t handle it? Don’t let that pain in the ass tell you what you can or can’t do!
If your boss did tell you your performance wasn’t up to par, don’t take it personally. You just need to find a job that is a good fit for your skills.
Everyone wants you to feel better and be happy. Therapy can be helpful with that. I can’t really speak with any experience, as I haven’t gotten myself there yet… but that is the point… I’m going to go when I am ready, not when someone else says so. You go when YOU are ready.
I think he posses a really good question, though. What do you want? Not just what you want from therapy, but from life. Be selfish, how do you want to feel? Don’t let the depression answer that question for you. You answer it for yourself. Maybe your therapist can help you get what you want. He is there for You, not the other way around. Use him to help you, don’t just go because someone else tells you to.
Its OK to feel that. Give that feeling its moment, but then take back control. Every one of us has felt like this, some of us even worse, and some of us many times. If you have to, call that number on page one. There is no shame in it. Its hard to see the light from deep in the pit of depression, but you have to trust us that it is bright and sunny up here. You have to trust us, because one day, we may be asking you for help. we have to stick together in here, and we are not going to let you slip.
{{{ Foggy}}}
My apologies for the double post earlier. I logged off right after I posted, so I didn’t realize what I had done.
olivesmarch4th and Sunspace, I suppose you are both correct. Rational arguments may not be the right weapons for this battle, but they are the only ones I have.
Robert
It makes me nervous when this thread drops off the first page! I guess it’s just comforting to know it’s there?
Anyway, how is everyone doing?
I have no idea if I’m still employed, woot! :rolleyes: I think I am. I faxed in paperwork telling them I will be out past my original estimated date, I just haven’t heard back from anyone (shocking).
Boston is our closest big city, and I’ve been glued to the media coverage of the events of the last week. It’s an awful thing to admit, but it’s kept me interested in the world around me, in a way. I know there’s a thread about people who “get off” on tragedy, but that’s not what I mean. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been sort of pulled out of my own head, and reminded that there is a whole lot more to life than myself and my own problems. Also, seeing the stories of people helping others, and of the support and solidarity people are showing each other reminds me that even in the worst times, there is still plenty of good in the world, and if that applies to public disasters, it must apply to personal ones as well.
I’m trying to get my sleep and medication schedules back on track, which is easier said than done, when all I want to do is hide in bed. I have things I need to be up for, though. Therapy and dentist tomorrow, and plans to hang out with my best friend on Wednesday, yay! A little worried about the therapy. I tend to hold in and try to mask my emotions around others, and she’s onto me! I think she wants to see me cry, or something. :dubious:
Some good news, maybe- Due to both being poor, and my lack of desire to leave my house to go to the store, I have only smoked one cigarette in the last two days. I should mention (in case anyone thinks I was buying cigs while bitching about having no money), I was rationing them from a carton I bought before I ever left work. I did not use any of the money given to me by members of this board, to purchase cigarettes. Just wanted to make that clear before someone decides to pit me! Anyway, I’m gonna buy one of those electronic cigarettes to puff on for awhile, and try to quit completely. Wish me luck!
P.S. Whoever anonymously paid for my SDMB subscription, thanks! That was a cool thing to do, and I appreciate it.
One of my nephews was baptized yesterday. My dad came. My other sister and her family came. No one called me, no one emailed me, no one Facebook messaged me.
I know I don’t call people a lot. I have to be on the phone at work all the time, so I don’t like being on the phone at home. But I will respond to text-based communication, like text messaging or the aforesaid emails and Facebook messages. I don’t get those from my family.
Thanks, sisters. Thanks for confirming my isolation from the rest of you. Ever since my mom died, it’s like I don’t exist except at holidays. This is also why I haven’t called my dad like I should. He’s phone-avoidant like I am so I know he won’t call, but since my sisters shut me out I feel like he does to. He doesn’t, but you see where I’m coming from?
Goddammit, this is my own family doing this to me. No wonder I’m all alone.
Don’t post the snarky comment.
It could be that your sisters are grappling with their own troubles - grief for your mom, overwhelming life stuff, their own version of the black beast - and just haven’t been able to get their heads together long enough to say “didn’t you call SpazCat?” “No, I thought you called SpazCat.”
I run into the same thing with my own older brother. He is so introverted, it’s practically a social phobia. The only way to get ahold of him is by phone, and that’s a painful conversation of long periods of silence punctuated by monosyllabic answers. Texting or emailing him is like throwing paper airplanes into the Challenger Deep.
Seriously, SpazCat, if you want to be included, you have to reach out, even if it’s just “I miss you, and I’m thinking about you.” You can’t lay it all on your sisters.
I’ve been wondering how the new jobs/newly postponed jobs were going. News of how other people are making it gets me out of my head, too. Helps me see the bigger picture.
I’m sort of in a buddhist frame of mind this morning. Either that or I’m just going numb. In a few days we’re going to find out how the rest of our lives is going to go shelter-wise, either keep the roof over our heads or downsize (30 yrs worth of stuff!) and adjust to apartment living. (Surely we won’t end up out on the street.) I just wish they’d stop asking for info it’s driving me crazy to try to find.
I remind myself: Some things in life are too important to take seriously. And: If they can’t take a joke, fuck it.
When this is over I’m going to make some changes in my life if it harelips hell. Too many things I need in order to feel like myself have been pushed down so far I can hardly dredge them up. My “authentic self” is what I’m going to try to find, which can happen no matter where my butt ends up sitting.
When this over. And I’m on medication again. And I’m addressing both mental and physical priorities.
I may have to go off my medication. You see, I feel better. More like myself. Enjoying things. Brain operating at full capacity.
And now that I can see through the fog of depression, that I actually DO hate my life. I dislike almost everything in it.
Even without the depression, I may have to start over.
You’re on medication, and you feel better, so you think you should go off medication?
Mmmmm. Be cautious, please. I’ve rebounded right back into a bout when I decided I was fine, so I could quite the pills.