# What would "giving up" look like for you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 27, 2007, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693 "2007-09-27T14:47:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/121 "2007-10-01T14:41:05Z")
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th] After reading this thread, I just don’t feel alone anymore. [/QUOTE] Hear hear! I ran across this thread at exactly the right time. It’s been six months since my first Great Shock of 2007 and this thread gave me an additional kick in the pants to not give up again and become the person I want to be. I’m actually making plans for my future and believing in them. Hell, I’m starting to get my Teaching Confidence back (granted, that may be because I’ve found what I want to teach as well). What’s that? A light? Indicating the end of a tunnel? :eek: How can that be? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/122 "2007-10-01T15:05:38Z")
[QUOTE=SpazCat] What’s that? A light? Indicating the end of a tunnel? :eek: How can that be? [/QUOTE] It might be a train… an electric train, travelling in the direction you want to go. Hop on! 🙂 **SpazCat** , I have to remember your advice about reacing out to my family. It doesn’t come naturally; I really have to push myself to do it. And I think they’ve gotten used the idea that I’ve walled myself off from them. So, another thing to do. But I don’t mind. It’s just pushing out of the pattern that requires effort. But then I remember that that pattern is sucking the life out of my father. **olivesmarch4th** , thanks. You’re one of the posters I admire on these boards. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > And then I started paying attention to the way I treat myself. It’s easy to blame your unhappiness on another person or situation–for me, the easiest scapegoat is my childhood… :: nods :: > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > …but when I really sat down and thought about it, my past had nothing to do with my current unhappiness–it was the way I treated myself. Nobody I have ever known in the history of my life has ever treated me as badly as I treated myself. > > I still find myself doing it sometimes, and it’s appalling the messages I send my own heart. Something as minor as my computer freezing up becomes this barrage of insults and predictions that I am destined to be a failure and I can never do anything right. It amazes me that all along I have been doing this to myself without even realizing it–I would never treat another person that way, so why would I treat myself that way? I’m just saying, the ‘‘negative self-talk’’ element of this thread is one I definitely relate to. I have had to learn to argue with that part of myself that just seems to have it out for me. Tell me about it. That little voice almost drove me to suicide. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > But the healthy part of me must have triumphed overall, because here I am. I never thought of it that way before. I always knew I was on the knife edge between deciding to live and deciding to die–and that goes back to my birth, when I barely survived being 3 months premature… in 1963… but there’s a hidden core of stubbornness in me that pushes me forward. Sometimes it takes a lot to uncover it, but it’s there. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > I’m not only alive, I’m moving forward and doing things I’ve always wanted to do with my life, but was too afraid I’d fail before. :: nods :: > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > But I finally sat down and said to myself, ‘‘Listen. This is what you want. This job will help you reach your long-term educational and career goals. It’s not for YOU to decide whether you can or cannot do this job, it is for your boss to decide. So just go in and do the best you can, because you will never know if you can do it until you try.’’ > > I’m still nervous as hell, but I feel better now that I’ve decided not to give up. Substiture “client” for “boss”, and you have me. I just booked a train ticket to go see someone who wants me–_me!_–to design them a solar-powered house. I’m oscillating between jubilation and absolute terror at the thought. _Can I do it?_ Can I take these peoples’ money and actually deliver plans that will get approved and then, when built, yield a functioning house? This is the biggest risk I’ve taken in many years, compared to which social situations such as small talk and asking a woman out are trivial (even if social situations are more immediately scary). But my counselor gave me a way to handle social situations: think about what the other person wants or is doing, rather than what you want, feel, or are doing. Ask them questions, and try to learn a bit of their story. I’ve been testing this at Dopefests and elsewhere, and it’s working quite well. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/123 "2007-10-01T15:07:19Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Interesting thing about how you treat yourself. Somewhere in my journeys I read something I can paraphrase… [/QUOTE] Oh man. I have got to remember that or put it on a T-shirt or something. Another **tdn** jewel. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/124 "2007-10-01T15:21:33Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Oh man. I have got to remember that or put it on a T-shirt or something. Another **tdn** jewel. [/QUOTE] You’ve posted a few yourself. We need to mine this thread for great quotes and get some cocktail napkins printed up. Here’s another favorite: Shoot for the stars and hit the mud. Shoot for the mud and make it. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/125 "2007-10-01T16:12:26Z")
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th] And then I started paying attention to the way I treat myself. It’s easy to blame your unhappiness on another person or situation–for me, the easiest scapegoat is my childhood–but when I really sat down and thought about it, my past had nothing to do with my current unhappiness–it was the way I treated myself. Nobody I have ever known in the history of my life has ever treated me as badly as I treated myself. I still find myself doing it sometimes, and it’s _appalling_ the messages I send my own heart. [/QUOTE] :eek: Whoa. Whoa. Too stunned with self-awareness to talk. :eek: \<– my eyes have been opened wide like this ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/126 "2007-10-01T16:19:37Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] :eek: \<– my eyes have been opened wide like this [/QUOTE] That’s beautiful! ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/127 "2007-10-01T16:46:31Z")
[QUOTE=Obligate Carnivore] Well I’ve given up more than once unfortunately. I’m fighting doing it again now. When I give up, you really don’t want to be around me. I’m lucky if I shower more than once a week, and I only do that because I need to go out for some reason and the bandanna on my head can’t do the job anymore. I don’t clean, my kitchen gets overrun with trash and dirty dishes, I don’t take out the trash. I sit around literally from waking (at 10-11p) till sleeping (1-2am), doing nothing but using the computer. I get up to use the restroom and to scrounge up something to eat. I often eat a lot of fast food and cry a lot when I think about how bad things have gotten. I don’t even pay bills because money is limited because I’ve more than likely quit my job. Often severe stress/anxiety at my job precedes all this. The only thing that keeps me from completely giving up are my pets. I have to get up and feed them, give them love. Luckily my family finds out about these ruts relatively soon and they always help pull me out. [/QUOTE] **OC** , I know from your other thread that you are now pregnant, and that you intend to keep the baby and raise him or her alone. (Alone, in the sense that the father is unlikely to be there.) **Please** seek help, professional as well as from your family - newborns are stressful under the _best_ of circumstances, and postpartum depression is far worse among those who are already depressed. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/128 "2007-10-01T16:46:56Z")
This has been a great thread for me to read. I have a long, long history of depression and PTSD, but have been doing pretty well for a number of years. Well enough that people who know me now would never in a million years guess what my “prior life” had been like—all the hospitalizations, a few suicide attempts, etc. Lately, though, I haven’t been feeling that terrific. I started in therapy again, and the dpression is better, but the panic attacks are back. I realize that it wouldn’t take much for this whole house of cards to fall down. I have 2 kids and a husband, and if something ever happened to one of them, I’d have to hold it together for the rest of them…and I’m pretty sure I just couldn’t do it. My worst fear is that my husband contracts an illness (I generally imagine lung cancer because he’s a smoker, and that’s a wretched and lingering one, so it lends more trauma to my mental scenario) and dies. So, I’m left as a single mother and I cope so poorly that I ruin my kids’ lives, too. Anyhow, I’m working on things, I really am. But there are certainly days when I want to call in sick and hide in my bed and all that. Just reading some of this stuff here has helped a lot. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/129 "2007-10-01T17:12:28Z")
Wow, **lorene** , I never would have guessed. You seem so together. About your husband dying of lung cancer – It hasn’t happened yet. You’re stressing about the future, and you can’t control the future. But you can hedge your bets by convincing your husband to make a healthy decision. That’s going to be hard, but here’s some advice – NEVER nag a smoker. It always backfires. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/130 "2007-10-01T18:23:45Z")
Yeah, as a former smoker, I know how effective nagging can be. 😉 Thanks for the kind words. There are days when I feel very together, and days when I don’t. From everything I’ve read **olives** and I have had a lot of similarities in our lives and a lot of what she wrote sounded familiar. I think the day when I can truly say I was no longer giving up was the day that I decided that I had to change from trying to make my past _not true_ (never a realistic treatment goal, by the way) and make my future livable. Some days, I’m just tired, you know? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/131 "2007-10-01T18:24:11Z")
[QUOTE=lorene] Lately, though, I haven’t been feeling that terrific. I started in therapy again, and the dpression is better, but the panic attacks are back. I realize that it wouldn’t take much for this whole house of cards to fall down. I have 2 kids and a husband, and if something ever happened to one of them, I’d have to hold it together for the rest of them…and I’m pretty sure I just couldn’t do it. My worst fear is that my husband contracts an illness (I generally imagine lung cancer because he’s a smoker, and that’s a wretched and lingering one, so it lends more trauma to my mental scenario) and dies. So, I’m left as a single mother and I cope so poorly that I ruin my kids’ lives, too. Anyhow, I’m working on things, I really am. But there are certainly days when I want to call in sick and hide in my bed and all that. Just reading some of this stuff here has helped a lot. [/QUOTE] I know the feeling. Those panic attacks can get you spiralling into all kinds of “bad thoughts”, can’t they? But I bet you have made it through a lot of things you thought would kill you. And you can do the best you can now and know that even if the worst happened, **you honestly don’t know how you would be then**. Yes, maybe your worst fears would be true and things would fall apart. But there’s always a chance they won’t. Hopefully you’ll never have to learn, but your strength will be greater than you imagine. OR you will know how to ask for help. ---
**Author:** ![Cattitude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Cattitude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cattitude)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/132 "2007-10-01T19:26:57Z")
I am jumping into this thread quite late but just read through many of the responses. It’s amazing what we go through , how it affects us, and how we come out on the other side. For myself, giving up would be the return to drugs. I say that without thinking twice. At the age of 35 (several years ago), I started abusing my prescription pain meds and eventually began using stronger stuff that I had access to at work(nurse). It’s the health field’s dirty little secret, Nurses, Doctors, pharmacists,etc being addicts. Anyway, my addiction and lies led me to a world of trouble and despair. I damn near killed myself several times with the amount of drugs I was using, and mixing it with booze as well. I also gained 100 pounds in the process leading up to this between being depressed, having marital problems, then separating. My life sucked, no one knew what I was doing and I felt so alone in my misery. For the next couple of years I stopped the hard stuff and used “only” the pills and booze infrequently until finally I got some help. It took a lot of honesty and commitment for me to get the help I needed but I am grateful that I did. My life is 1000% better now. I am clean and I lost the weight too. I never, ever want to go back to that dark, lonely, horrid place in my life. Addiction robs you of your soul, your entire being, your moral fiber. It’s so much better to be me again. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/133 "2007-10-01T23:46:31Z")
I have a week and a half off school just now, thanks to Sukkos (sp?), and having the time to rest, connect with friends, and just _be_ has been wonderful. The last three years have been really, really hard. I moved out here from California, because I decided that I wanted to live somewhere I could some day afford to buy a house, somewhere I might actually be able to date a little bit, and somewhere I had a network of family and friends. Once I got out here, I went through a year of unemployment, six months working for one of the worst school districts in the country (Dallas Independent School District), a year working in a pleasant but dead job, and six months working that job and another part-time job so I could get back into teaching and pay the bills. Then there was the colposcopy, the lay off, my Dad’s stroke, and in August, the principal at the part-time job wrote me a bad paycheck, which set me back financially a good two months. _sigh_ Well, hell, no wonder I was so miserable. I hope (fingers crossed) that I’m not jinxing myself in saying that I’m in a good place now - a good job, a good state of mind, a good place with my friends, and I’m getting out of that financial pit. It’s helped a lot to write about it here, and it helped, oh, about a hundred gazillion thousand majillion bobillion degrees to read everyone else’s stories and their responses. **tdn** , I can’t say how glad I am to read that you’ve found a good place in your head, especially with your completely understandable anger and discouragement over dating and relationships. **Litoris** , **gigi** , and **olivesmarch4th** , I wish I could take you for a Girls’ Night Out and share your stories, your pain, your triumphs. **Lorene** , I know where you’re coming from. It’s not forever. Get the help and support you need. Take good care of yourself. “You,” as my minister likes to say at the end of the service, “are a _good_ gift.” Thank you, all of you, for the gifts you have bestowed on me. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/134 "2007-10-03T16:07:32Z")
Giving up seems to look a lot like moping around your house in your underwear, letting yourself get fat and out of shape and cutting off all ties to the outside world. I like bumming around the house as much as the next guy, but it gets lonely and depressing if you do it for too long. Go to the gym or go for a bike ride or run. Explore around your neighborhood. Find a new trendy bar or lounge to hang out at. Go to a new restuarant. Don’t just sit around waiting for people to call. If people do call you to do something, try and show up at least for a little bit. The problem, especially once move away from familiar surroundings, is that it’s easy to get caught in a depressing spiral of “I don’t have anyone to do anything with” -\> “I don’t have anything to do.” -\> “I’m not doing anything so I’m not meeting anyone.” It also helps to try turning off the TV and computer for a few days. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/135 "2007-10-03T19:03:56Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Giving up seems to look a lot like moping around your house in your underwear, letting yourself get fat and out of shape and cutting off all ties to the outside world. [/QUOTE] Whew, I’m OK then. I wear tee shirt and PJ pants over my underwear. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/136 "2007-10-03T19:07:10Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] If people do call you to do something, try and show up at least for a little bit. [/QUOTE] I read a good piece of advice about this, to someone who was deliberating about whether to go out to an event. “You already know how the evening will be if you stay home, whereas if you go out it might be something new and different.” Sometimes I believe it, and sometimes the safety of knowing exactly what the evening will be like wins out. What I realized too if I have the choice whether to go AND the choice whether to stay at the event. Knowing that I can up and leave if I feel like it is comforting, and then I don’t feel any sort of trap in being “stuck” at an event I am uncomfortable with. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/137 "2007-10-03T20:43:30Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] Whew, I’m OK then. I wear tee shirt and PJ pants over my underwear. [/QUOTE] What, are you throwing a party or something? Sometimes I can be bothered to put on underwear. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/138 "2007-10-03T22:54:04Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] What I realized too if I have the choice whether to go AND the choice whether to stay at the event. Knowing that I can up and leave if I feel like it is comforting, and then I don’t feel any sort of trap in being “stuck” at an event I am uncomfortable with. [/QUOTE] Unless you go on a 3 hour harbor cruise like I did. Then you’re stuck for the duration. I went on one as part of a school alumni function and had a really terrible time. I went again the following year and ended up hanging out with these girls all night and even went on a few dates with one afterwards. So you never know even when you know something will suck. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/139 "2007-10-03T22:57:28Z")
I should point out I’m posting in my boxers. I started to get changed for the gym and kind of stalled out a bit. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693/140 "2007-10-04T16:58:31Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] What, are you throwing a party or something? [/QUOTE] 😉 To be fair, I don’t check to make sure the shirt and pants don’t clash horribly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-giving-up-look-like-for-you/420693.md?page=8)