Zago, I agree that my teacher did care, and the classmates’ thoughts of me might not be that bad. I’m just wary because I feel like I have taken up enough concern. It’s selfish to expect people to always have to put extra effort in helping me. Depression seems to have robbed me of my ability to be self-reliant.
I’m still worried. My major is emphasizing networking. I made a really bad first impression on people who could someday be my employers or colleagues. The other students are developing portfolios and juggling as many as four classes with a full time, managerial job and raising families. I’m just trying to get through my day without doing anything stupid and then slinking home to watch DVDs. The others are living their lives and I’m just waiting until I’ve proven I’m good enough to enter the professional environment.
I’m glad to see that the other entries are in a hopeful frame of mind. Zago, you seem to have made tremendous progress. A week after I left the hospital for my ED, I was too afraid to even sit at my computer, let alone open up with virtual strangers and offer support to other people in need. It takes strength to do that.
I wish for all of you a road of fewer, more manageable bumps.
I’ve been keeping up with the thread but not posting, though I feel like I’m interacting with friends. I’m trying to maintain this Zen/numbness I’ve been feeling instead of going off the anxiety cliff with this stuff about the house. We find out this week whether or not we can keep it.
I know we’ll end up somewhere and who’s to say a move might not be better in the long run? I sure don’t know. What I’m trying to concentrate on are the things in my life that I know aren’t working for me; where I’m at inside more than where outside. It’s really hard to face some of these areas that I need to do something about. Inertia is…safe, you know?
Hugs to all who need it and let’s keep on keeping on.
I’m checking in here once or twice a day, obviously mixed news. I had an okay day today, read a lot, watched some tv, played some video games and only talked to one friend on the phone.
I did psych myself up enough to call the ambulance company, who is charging me $1250. for my ride to the hospital, and figured out what they need in terms of info from my insurance company. Then I called my insurance company, Aetna - what a piece of shit. I’ve already paid thousands of dollars to them this year and I expect I’ll end up owing most of the ambulance bill.
I’m not working, still waiting on a decision on my short term disability claim (I tried to kill myself, think I have a legitimate claim?) so finances are a huge concern. I did try to go back to work once I’d completed ECT, it was a total disaster, after 4 days I had to admit that I couldn’t hack it.
I just kind of want to check in and say I’ve been reading along and I’m pulling for you guys. It seems like bad form to argue with people that their irrational feelings are irrational when, you know, that’s kind of the nature of the beast whose lair I walked into here. But I’m out here reading and relating, for the record, so keep telling. And anyone who wants a 25,000 word treatise on how good a job they seem like they’re doing and how incredibly exactly it matches my experience except for the part where I think they’re doing a good job, careful what you wish for but email’s in the profile.
I always found it one of many super-perverse ironies of being depressed, but the inability to relate and identify, the feeling that you’re such a total alien and completely other from everyone else who seems to at least have something going, if you could only have what they’ve got if you weren’t so uniquely broken and unrelatable… there are a lot of people who can relate to that. We’re all out there inside-out in our own heads thinking about how all the rest of us have it all figured out. It’s crazy how many of the things I’d like to say I could direct equally to four or five different posters. Feeling like you’re just the worst: the universal language.
Hi there. I know what I just said about not telling people stop that, but stop that!
I think I’ve probably posted exactly this excerpt to this message board at least once, but here it is again; it’s David Foster Wallace. I find this piece to be very difficult to read in its entirety but I think it captures the spirit of the thing fucking exactly and is really special:
It’s almost comical when somebody else is describing it, right? It’s like “hey, you’re being hard on yourself.” “I know, I know, what a dick!”. But it’s even got the part about everyone else’s super-fulfilling life in there. If that seems profoundly identical to what’s in your head, and maybe I’m going way out on a limb there, but if it does then consider that there’s a reason for that.
Either way, for what it’s worth, you’re being really, really hard on yourself, in ways that obviously are recognizable to a lot of other people, myself included; ways which, eventually, the odds are that you’ll realize were totally unfair and unwarranted. There’s nothing pathetic about that. It’s really, really hard. But the odds are that outwardly, you’re doing fine and are going to do fine, and the things you “know,” you don’t. There’s nothing you can say that will convince me that you hate your classroom performance more than I hated mine, for instance, but everyone who found out how I felt about my performance thought I was a weirdo for feeling that way.
Jimmy Chitwood,
I’m not going to quote your whole message but I see that you know what you’re talking about. But trying to use reason/logic with depressed people is impossible. I can appreciate what you’re saying intellectually, Hell, I know you’re right! It’s just that deep down, emotionally, I can’t internalize it. No matter how much I realize how hard I am on myself, and try to counter the negative thoughts, I still end up feeling shameful about myself. I do however, recognize a*** few ***redeeming qualities in myself.
Knowing how hard it is to convince one’s brain and emotions that one’s anquish is irrational, or at least inappropriately excessive, I offer this. It’s a TED talk on how one’s body can influence one’s mind and emotions, and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the majority of us adopt self-defeating postures a lot of the time. I know I do. But we can affect our emotions by changing how we hold our bodies. I first learned of this idea reading a book called “The Science of Happiness” (which I really need to finish reading someday).
The subject of the Duchenne Smile was raised, the type of smile that involves your eyes as well as your mouth and cheeks. If you smile like this, even for no reason, it triggers happiness chemicals in your brain. You can MAKE yourself feel happy by acting as if you were already happy. Laughter does the same thing. Just going through the motions of laughter, even if it’s not being triggered by actual amusement, will make your brain feel happier. If it is triggered by amusement, say by watching an episode of QI or something, even better.
This video deals more with body posture and its affect on our attitude towards ourselves, saying that when we hunch over in defensive postures we increase our feelings of helplessness and sadness, but if we stand up in a victory pose or a strong hands-on-hips pose or some other “power” pose, we feel stronger and more capable. Just standing this way for a few minutes raises our testosterone and lowers our cortisol, a stress hormone that has damaging effects on the body if it stays elevated for long periods. It’s worth a try, especially if we can’t convince our brains to shut up about the negative stuff in other ways. We can trick them into feeling like we’re stronger, better and gosh darn it, more likeable.
In other news, I just found out that one of my best friends in the entire universe has died, and I’m absolutely shattered. Stayed up too late crying and commiserating with mutual friends all over the world, and my eyes hurt and my head hurts and my heart especially hurts. I just can’t believe he’s gone, that I’ll never again receive his insight and wisdom and most important, his love and friendship. The boss let me take the day off work, and I’m probably going to go ahead and take my regular day off tomorrow as well, and make up today some other time, maybe by going in one day during my holiday next month to make sure things don’t pile up too much in my absence.
Yesterday I was feeling down, both mentally and physically (I’ve caught a cold.) I went into a store and the radio played a song that I like, so it cheered me up a little, briefly.
It’s still bothering me; my breakdown in front of the class. I keep thinking about the impression I left on my classmates.
Say you were in class and there was this girl in it who didn’t follow along with the professor’s instructions, who didn’t socialize with the other students, who didn’t seem to enjoy being there, and who falls apart whenever things don’t go her way. What would you think of her?
While the people in this thread might be more charitable, many people would wonder why this girl was wasting everyone’s time if she wasn’t going to make an effort to do well in class, and they would be disgusted that the girl excused her bad behavior by claiming she was mentally ill.
I hear you. It sounds super hard, especially since it must have been impossible not to put a lot of pressure on yourself for the first day. Anybody would feel bad when it didn’t go the way they’d hoped. I’m not so sure about the part about being charitable, though. How do you know the people in this thread aren’t the people in your classroom? To answer your questions, my sense is that if I were in your class I’d 1. not notice anything about you not enjoying yourself because I was too wrapped up in not enjoying myself and trying to prevent other people from noticing/judging me; 2. to the extent I noticed someone struggling and saying it was a result of mental illness, want to be nice to him or her. The end.
I guess what I think I’ve learned, and what I’m sort of musing on, is that it’s the feeling bad that’s the problem – it isn’t the case that because we feel bad, that’s how bad a job we actually did. I think it’s a good bet that yours is the worst of all possible interpretations of the day’s events. Being depressed makes you “know” that your subjective impressions of how you’re doing are accurate when they’re actually completely unfair. It’s really hard to feel like a classmate is disgusted by you or is thinking “look at this basket case,” but it’s not hard because since you feel like that, they must really be thinking it. It’s hard because either way, it is excruciating to feel like they are. I think only extremely terrible people would ever feel disgust in a situation like that; it’s just that depression is shouting that you’re objectively disgusting into your ear all the time that you can’t help but feel that other people must hear it. Doesn’t mean you don’t feel bad, and isn’t really actionable or whatever because so often how you feel is a runaway train, but it’s important and true anyway, I think.
Once, in school, I had to do this sort of mock argument in front of a local attorney who was sitting in as a pretend judge, and also in front of a lecture hall full of other students. I have a, like, Dali-vivid memory of myself standing up there sweating and saying, right in the middle “oh fuck, I don’t know” and then standing there for a literal minute mumbling nonsense in response to some challenge or another. My friends who were there get angry at me when I talk about it, because they just do not believe anything like that happened. I know it happened. I am experiencing it in the pit of my stomach right now typing it. But nobody else noticed.
What I mean is, I’m sorry it was really tough, and I’m sorry you’re struggling with it. I think you’ll get through it, and I think that the good news is that you’re not failing just because you feel like a failure.
And so what, Renifer? So what if people think this?
For years people have tried to comfort me by telling me how much everyone likes me, how no one thinks I’m as stupid/weird/crazy as I think I am, and how most people are too busy with their own problems to think anything about me, good or bad.
They mean well, but I think this is the wrong way to confront the problem because it presumes the best about people, even when experience says that people can be downright mean. I hear the way people talk about each other. If someone does the most minor faux pas in public, there’s always going to be a peanut gallery somewhere talking shit about it. And even the nicest people can have uncharitable thoughts. I have uncharitable thoughts. So I find it impossible to psych myself into believing that no one is ever thinking bad things about me. If I have to believe this before I can achieve great things, then I guess I should just say home and watch TV all day.
What I have found empowering is to twist it around. I assume the worse is true and try to keep going forward anyway.
Am I trying my best?
Am I doing what I think is right?
Have I done things that are worthy of respect and appreciation?
Can I compensate for my shortcomings?
If you can say “yes” to all of these questions, then you don’t have anything to be ashamed about.
I think your point is well-taken, but I’d argue that the above is not true. I just said something very similar to what you’re talking about, but I don’t think I’m presuming the “best.” I think I’m presuming what is, in general, accurate instead of presuming the worst. Some people are downright mean. That’s still a far cry, and is far less oppressive, in my experience, than “everyone is against me all the time.” And I don’t think anyone is so strong that they can’t do with an occasional reflection on the fact that not everyone is against him or her.
Point taken (and I didn’t mean to imply that you were one of those people…I posted right after you did and didn’t see what you’d written).
But it’s not really thinking “everyone is against me”. That’s a little too…paranoid and self-absorbed?
It’s really just confronting the depression by meeting it at a halfway point. When I’m depressed, I can’t be optimistic. I can’t accept anyone’s assurances. Either I tell myself they’re all lies or that the person giving them just doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
This is what it sounds like Renifer is going through. She knows we are going to say the “right” thing. Just like her friends and family probably always do. Her delusion is stronger, though.
I didn’t read what** monstro** or Jimmy Chitwood said but you want to know what I would think of her? Nothing. I probably wouldn’t spend more than 5-10 seconds thinking about her at all. I’m going to give you a hint that I need to be reminded of myself sometimes. It’s not all about you. Your classmates probably barely even (if at all) noticed that you were off kilter. Their lives revolve around them, not you. So let it go and know that you’re not the center of anyone’s universe but your own.
Thank you. I’ll try to keep those questions in mind.
*But it’s not really thinking “everyone is against me”. That’s a little too…paranoid and self-absorbed? *
Right. I don’t think of those thoughts as “people are being mean to me”. I think of it as “I am pissing a lot of people off.”
Self centered? Yes, but I don’t believe everyone’s conspiring against me. Rather I think people think bad things about me because I really am as bad as they supposedly think, and I deserve to be ridiculed and ostracized. If I wanted people to like me, I should work harder at making myself to be a likeable person.
To the extent that these sorts of thoughts torment you, consider the possibility of comorbidity with something like OCD. I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to make things worse, but often having a correct and complete diagnosis can make all of the difference in the world.
One of my OCD fetishes was to torture and berate myself for things I’d done and said, often for years. I’d completely forget about something, it could even be objectively innocuous, but then out of nowhere it would insert itself into my consciousness and it was like it was happening all over again.
And I can’t emphasize enough how insignificant these events were, as a general rule. On some level I even recognized this, but it didn’t matter. That is one of the hallmarks of OCD - realizing that what you are doing is completely irrational but feeling compelled to do it anyway.
Renifer I kind of went through this once. I had to withdraw twice from college because I just stopped coming to class. The anxiety was too much, and people expected me to… you know, function when I was feeling so horrible. I had panic attacks in class and would have to flee the room. When I returned after a year hiatus, it was especially hard because I was studying Spanish and was rusty from not speaking for over a year. So I was 23, married, didn’t know anyone since my class had already graduated, very depressed and really behind the curve on my schoolwork.
I wish I could give you some platitude on how I made it easy, but it wasn’t easy, it was quite difficult, and it sucked. I made myself sit there in class through the whole thing, because ultimately it came down to, ‘‘I have to get this degree.’’ Maybe people will think I’m a freak, maybe the teacher will hate me, but I have to finish school. (And I did - ended my undergrad career with a 4.0 for the semester. Triumph!)
And that’s more or less what my life is about now that I am better able to function. I have a thing to do, because I have an important goal, or whatever. And I just decide to do it no matter how terrible the experience is. I’ve learned to accept that anxiety and depression are a part of my life, probably always will be, but I have all this shit to do anyway, because it matters.
There are limits to this grand philosophy, but it helps.
So, my fitness coach didn’t give me any rest days this month and I asked him about it. He said he’d noticed I usually plunge into depression 48 hours after a rest day, so he’d been giving me lighter days instead to keep my mood stable. I felt I really needed a rest day yesterday, but dammit, he’s right. I can feel it coming on.
Mostly it’s about all the shit I avoid doing. I’m meeting expectations at work, but I could be doing so much better if I weren’t constantly distracted. I’ve tried so many things to keep myself on task. I’ve read a million productivity books. I started using RescueTime to track my productivity.
Hey, all. I’ve had an up and down week and I wanted to check in.
From my low point on Saturday, it has been up. I think everyone can understand when I say up from a low point still isn’t great, but it’s better than the low point. My friend who was supposed to help me with gardening is still flaking on me, and I have worked through a few ways to talk to her about my disappointment with that, but haven’t worked up to talking to her about it. She has some pretty serious anxiety issues, so dealing with her can sometimes be rather exhausting. I use up a lot of my “empathy” energy at work (I am a supervisor in a call center, so I spend a lot of time coaching my folks on empathy, which takes a LOT of empathy energy yourself).
I did get to meet up with my friend who… she’s just that friend who always makes you feel better. I had a good long talk with her.
I also made an appointment with my councilor to discuss how I’m feeling. Sometimes it takes a lot just to make the appointment.
Thank you all for being in this thread, and listening.
I was doing well and then I got a call from my psychiatrist today. It’s been over two months since I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt and yet the disability insurance company is still ‘investigating’ the claim - they want my medical records from my visits to my shrink from March 8 to the present! My shrink responded with a summary (whether or not asking for records is technically illegal is open to dispute). I was feeling better. But between getting medical bills for over $2000.00 and the disability company stonewalling me, I’m backsliding big-time. Still, I took all the steps I needed to today - talked to the disability insurance company (twice), my shrink (three times) and my Human Resources rep - hopefully, by tomorrow this claim will be approved.
