Sorry. I thought that maybe it was a typo for BF and you were looking for an SO, which is why I mentioned what I did.
Hmm. Maybe you’re just tired. 
tdn, I glanced at your linked page and a lot of it seems familiar. But then I’ve paid many times that over the years for similar advice (plus a lot else).
Nah, I’ve given up on the SO thing. Which sounds really bad but even the thought of dating right now seems like so much work and entirely unappealing. I had a date last weekend and I tried really hard to be positive about it but it was another nice “meh” guy who clearly felt about the same. I think I’m missing something that enables me to connect deeply with other people. And, of course, now this all sounds like I in the throes of a major depression or something but, seriously, I’m not. I’m just lazy, unmotivated, and I sleep too much.
It’s so much easier just to meet people through sharing activities. When I did meet and had the greatest chance at finding an SO (and found one), it was through shared activities: school, volunteering, etc. I’ve even sometimes pondered going back to circle (Neo-Pagan church) to meet someone, but that seems so crass. You don’t go to church to hook up; you go to church because you believe in it…
How you doin’? Wowzer.
Really? Based on my observations in this area, I thought one went to church to feel superior to those around one… :dubious:
For me, giving up would mean moving in with my parents at 35 and not even going through the motions of looking for a job. That was my biggest concern when I lost my job a few years back - that I would run out of money before I found a new one and get stuck living at home.
My college roomate kind of “gave up” for awhile (wish he gave up permenantly…fucking jerk). Basically he slept like all day long. He would sleep through classes. Sleep through dinner. Wake up around 8:00pm all whining because we ate dinner without him. He would stay up until about 11:00pm and then back to bed.
I think in life, you need to do what you love. Or, if you can’t find something that you love, you should actively look to find something you love. Or at worst, just go out and try as many different things as you can.
I’m a consultant. Mostly I almost never commit to either.
No.
I mean, yes!
I mean, sort of.
I’d love to explain it to you fully, because it’s fascinating stuff, but I don’t have that much time. It could take me hours to type it all out.
In short, though, it’s all about your boundry. Your boundry is basically what defines you, what makes you you. It’s your likes and dislikes.
Picture it as a circle. Go ahead, draw it.
Inside the circle is your gold, your good stuff. Among other things, it’s your emotional energy. If there is some aspect of your life that you’re wishy washy on, you have a hole in your boundry. And someone can just reach in and take your shit. Ever known an emotional vampire that just sucks the life out of you? They’ve found a hole in your boundry. Or someone that knows how to push all your buttons? They found a hole.
Some people have lots of holes. They’re like swiss cheese. These people are complete doormats. Picture the circle as being made of a broken line.
I suspect that someone who has given up has a circle made up almost entirely of holes. If you were to draw that circle, it would just look like a couple of dots. There’s no shape, no structure, and all of their gold has long since been taken away.
You need to have a strong boundry, with as few holes as possible. Now, some people have been so beat up by life that all of their holes are covered in scar tissue. These people are emotionally dead and they basically die of emotional malnutrition.
What you need on your boundry is doors. And (here’s the important thing) the doorknob needs to be on the inside. You can pull the door shut, but others can’t pull it open.
There’s a lot of symbolism and mixed metaphors in there, but I think it describes things nicely.
Do you want this nice check for a million dollars? Yes. Door opens.
Can I get all up in your shit and be an abusive jerk? No. Door shuts.
A lot of people don’t have the brains to know when to open the doors. A lot of people don’t have the courage to shut them. A lot of us open and close them at exactly the wrong times.
Actually, that pretty much sums it up. And answers your question with a resounding yes.
For me, “giving up” would look like a corpse with a bullet hole in its head. The thought has intruded in my brain when I’ve gone the last couple of rounds with depression. I understand that the images and thoughts that produce that horrific idea are the result of a serotonin imbalance in my brain and that treatment with the right SSRI (Prozac, for me), puts a quick stop to that.
When my brain is healthy, I can deal with the bad things in life: discouragement, loneliness, uselessness, and such. When I am under too much stress, I start to lose my grip on the daily tasks of life.
The gym, if I’ve been going, is the first to disappear. I know other people say going to the gym gives them energy. It does to me to, but the mental energy and conviction it takes for me to get to the gym is far greater.
Next to go is hope and purpose. If nothing is ever going to change (and it won’t, says the depression), then why even try? I get behind on mundane tasks. Even the smallest challenge (checking my bank balance so I don’t overspend) becomes insurmountable.
Then faith leaves. Faith in my value as a human being, faith that others care for me and that I matter to them, faith that what and who I am matter at all.
Most of the time, I clue in somewhere along the downward slope, go see my doc, and start taking care of myself again, but those first couple of weeks, the effort is unbearable. When the meds kick in and my effort is rewarded, the change is indescribable. During the Salem Witch Hunt, one particular man was sentenced to be pressed to death by stones. Basically, they piled rocks on him until he expired. His last words were, “more weight”. I’ve always thought that if instead of putting one more rock on him, they started taking them off, the relief would be similar to what I’ve experienced when my brain comes back into balance.
So far, most of my adult life has been spent making some progress, then losing much of it in my next bout of depression. However, in the last year, I’ve been handed some serious keys to understanding the challenges I face, me and my flaw riddled brain together. My last bout of depression was May - July of this year. I managed to keep myself together far better than previous bouts. There was a lot less damage to undo when I fought my way through it. From here, I have hope and faith that it will get better.
So, no, I’m not looking to give up any time soon.
phouka, can you sense it coming on? Can you head it off at the pass?
One more thing about boundries and No that I forgot to explain. If you have a good boundry, not only can you say no, you can hear no.
“Want to go see a movie?”
“No.”
“I’m cool with that. You have not taken my shit.”
I’ll say tdn that the whole idea of “yes” is not a real philosophy. It was taken on by a guy with no self-esteem issues with a very magnetic personality, etc. But it is a good example of where “yes” can get you when you actually let it.
Just like your doors thing though, it’s important to not be completely bad about it. It’s for people who have some self-confidence already but are simply in a funk. It’s not for others who have no boundary. It’s for those that are too boarded up yet still okay with themselves. It’s just a good way to mix up your regular funk. A lot of people can get discouraged with situations and a lot of that can be changed by being open more.
On the other hand, you surely don’t want to say yes if your boundaries are weak. If your boyfriend is abusive or something like that, you should never do that, and take care of yourself.
It just really resonated with me because it really taught me that I needed to get out there and do stuff. Or mainly that I need to be positive and not let negativity influence my thoughts.
Oh, ouch. Well, I’m not doing that anymore.
Giving up for me, right now, would mean just packing in the whole idea of ever, ever getting to be a mom. Unfortunately, I feel perilously close to that pretty often.
That makes total sense to me.
At my worst, I had my doors in total reverse. They were totally closed when it came to trying new things, so I never really got out of the house. On the few occasions when I did, and someone got close to me, boom, all the doors would open. Or rather the holes were exposed. I’d let that person reach right in and push all my buttons. I wouldn’t just let them, I’d encourage them.
I’m getting it right these days. Having a representational model with which to look at it is a great thing.
That was in response to Merkwurdigliebe, by the way.
Giving up?
Stop attending grad school. Then work the finances until the well runs dry, which would be a short time frame (6 months MAX). Then I’d be on the streets unless I repented my ways and returned to the family. Luckily, I have a family support structure in place, otherwise I could be street-bound in as little as six months.
**Sunspace’s ** post gave me chills. That’s what I consider giving up.
I mean, there are worse ways to go…like **Lunar Saltlick’s ** post…but that one just wholly epitomizes what it is to me.
I almost gave up this summer. My fiance broke it off and I found out he had been cheating on me…in Canada. He moved up there and left me here. I spent a good month or so in shock over that one.
Right when I started recovering from that, I got a 5 a.m. phone call. My mom had finally died of Alzheimers. Spent another month in shock, but I re-established some connections with my family after three years of being out of touch.
Spent the rest of July and August curled up in a little ball. At least mentally and spiritually. Then I started to uncurl. I realized that I was in the same place that I was in after my last boyfriend broke up with me and I couldn’t find a teaching job. Only then I was unemployed, living with my parents, had no direction in my life, and was watching my mom deteriorate. I did NOT want to end up like that again.
For a while, the only thing that was keeping me from giving up again was the desire to get started on my thesis so I could make my mom proud of me from beyond the grave. From there I’ve started reconnecting with acquaintances, making friends of acquaintances, mending broken relationships (the recent ex and I are on decent terms again), and basically making the effort to actually talk to people and go out.
I have given up on dating…for the most part. It’s hard when almost all of your recently single friends started dating someone soon after their breakup. That’s not the way I do things, though. God knows I wouldn’t mind some sex now and then, but I just don’t have the time or the energy to maintain a relationship right now. It’ll come when it comes. It always seems to work out that way. In the meantime I’ll just keep on being social to keep from falling into that dark pit of “given up and living in dad’s attic again.”
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.
Wow. Not to make this a thread about bragging about suckiness, but wow.
I’m living in a space where I have some strength. Take some of mine, I have some to spare. Not all of it, mind you, but take what I have to offer. You’ll get through it.
For me, giving up would mean checking in at the local psychiatric hospital where I could get three square meals a day, a bed, and a roof over my head. I probably would need to attend a group therapy session to stay in the good books, though. The only problem with this is that the place would be full of crazy people- some might even be screamers; don’t think I could handle that.
Some days I just want the world to stop and simply let me off. There are days when the thought of being locked in solitary confinement is actually appealing. 
My Mother seemed so well-rested after a few months at the psychiatric hospital, so perhaps from my perspective growing up in a home where mental illness reigned supreme, a stint at a state institution seems quite appealing. Surely there are good medications, people who care, etc. 
Truly my humour is self-deprecating; mental illness is nothing to take lightly, but my family seriously put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional and sometimes humour is what has preserved my sanity, although most days I am very close to the edge. Very close.
In case I am admitted, please tell them I wear a size medium. 
Not so far. I have, however, gotten much better at spotting it when I’m in it, as opposed to three months later.
This past time, it happened when I was driving somewhere, and my head was filled with bleak, cold, grim thoughts. I hated it. I couldn’t disengage from it, and I finally started asking myself, “Jeez, why am I so angry? Why can’t I get any sleep? Why can’t I just enjoy the day? Why can’t I deal with the mundane crap I normally can?..oh. Hmmm. Looks like it’s time to see the doc.”
Of course, this was after the cumulative avalanche effect of a) a painful medical procedure, b) being laid off my full time job nearly a month before they’d originally told me, and c) my father suffering a stroke on the second day of my visit to my parents. All this took place within about six weeks. I should have realized I was toast, but I was too busy surviving minute to minute.
So, it only took me about a month to realize what was going on, which is actually fairly good for my record.
Sunspace - Are you … me? That post describes my life to a “t” from 2001-2003. Judging by my income taxes, I took 12-13 weeks off (unpaid leave after my PTO ran out) for those two years. I just couldn’t get out of bed. My program manager and I had had a long, positive working relationship beforehand, which I think is why they didn’t just fire my ass. (He doesn’t seem aware of the fact that I consider myself in debt to him for the rest of eternity).