Mental Health Awareness

[inactivo (nq era)]

Dec 1, 2018 17:19:07 GMT 1 inactivo (nq era) said:

Thanks for making this thread

also a reminder that mental illness are also illness, not all illness are physically touching

[Deleted]

Dec 1, 2018 17:19:51 GMT 1 inactivo (nq era) said:

Dec 1, 2018 17:19:07 GMT 1 inactivo (nq era) said:

Thanks for making this thread

also a reminder that mental illness are also illness, not all illness are physically touching

Well, that's why there is this thread, to make everyone aware.

Depression, for example, isn't something you can "get over" by enforcing impatience to another. All of these issues alter the brain, the reward centres, how we are wired is disturbed (which is why medication is so special, it gives us the things we lack). A mental illness is truly also a physical one, the brain is part of our bodies after all.

[Ｂ３ＳＴＢＥＡＴＳ]

What doesn't kill you make you stronger.

[Wysteria]

I wanted to write this whole day but decided now

@garameaning

I applaud you for having courage to open up about this topic
I am personally not so strong to be able to hold such a traumatic thing and I think you are a fighter.
I wish you to remain so strong and do not let your demons take over. Cutting ties with your family and helping yourself was the best thing you could've done.
I hope you will remain heading towards the light and become a very strong person who can help people with similar situation. People usually don't get how depression and reliving traumatic experiences are serious and that makes me mad sometimes. I wish you all the best

In general everyone should believe in a possibility of finding a way to be happy

[Callum]

I've waited until a quiet and relatively inactive time of night to post this because I really don't want to make any fuss. I'll end up deleting this post sooner or later because my mental health is something I really don't like talking about openly, which is a real shame since I really do want to talk about it - it's just that stigma unfortunately still exists in this place, albeit silently and even from the people you care the most about. Also, I think I've made one too many heartfelt posts this year already, whoops!

Regardless, I would like to thank @garameaning for such an important thread, a wonderful safe space for people to discuss mental health and even to vent in a way. It's about time something like this was made - this thread's mere existence shows that nobody is alone and that there is always a given opportunity to just spill your heart out and - more importantly - have it heard. I also share the thought that life is so worth living.

---

On to me now. Since 2016, and some of you may remember, I've been diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD), and more recently I have had a review which led to an updated diagnosis of depression and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) on top of that. I also have Asperger's, although I choose to embrace that since it makes me who I am, in a way. I'm currently on just one medication for my mental health - sertraline - although I'm on another pill for my fibromyalgia (and that works a charm!). I used to be on a couple of other pills as well for my AvPD in the past, but understandably due to risks to my physical health I was able to stop taking them in August this year. Those medications are the primary reason I didn't drink until I was almost 18, and also why I don't drink often at all. Instead, I relied on sugar rushes as a replacement so I could at least try to fit in with the others, although they don't last very long and make you feel really nauseous by the end of them.

Although I've always had my fair share of problems in my childhood, things really came to a head in 2014 for reasons I won't talk about. It left me without anyone to speak to, I lost all my friends (for a while) and I lost all sense of trust. I felt everyone hated me and was out to tear me apart, and eventually it led to me believing that I myself was the reason I was so hated, even though I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Things improved a lot since 2014, and by the end of 2016 I felt as though I was able to fully control my fears and doubts, even if I was still extremely anxious in general. The worst has passed.

However, I still feel a huge sense of mistrust, I doubt everyone's intentions and I still have a sense that I am hated by literally everyone for whatever reason. As a result, I have become extremely self-critical, I generally wait for people to come to me rather than me going to them, and I think about everything I do or say. Even something as simple as asking someone for a favour is a genuinely hard task. What if I'm too needy? What if I'm just leeching from them? Am I really being a friend in that case?

It's also present on the forums and its community as well. I fear talking to people first. I fear caucusing or siding with friendship groups because I want to please everyone, but I know that's impossible. "Do you want to talk?" is a question I haven't asked for months now because I'm afraid of getting this as a response:

"No sorry I'm kinda tired" or no response

which I will ALWAYS interpret as:

"Fuck off, you're a boring person, a brick wall, and talking to you is tedious and I have better things and better people to be talking to - and you aren't that. I'm just going to make an excuse that I'm tired so I try my best not to hurt your feelings because I know how much of an emotional asswipe you can be. Now, I'll go and talk to more interesting people instead, people you wish you can be but you'll never come close to being."

And similarly, in what seems like a paradox, I'm afraid of responding as well. As I said before, I analyse everything I do and say, and often it leads to me just not saying anything at all or deliberately trying to derail the conversation because I'm afraid of not being able to stop myself. I actively try my best not to trust anyone because when a friendship of any magnitude falls apart, I'll feel as though a whole part of me has been ripped out, and I'd rather not have that again. Ironically, it is my inaction that has ruined potential strong friendships to the point of no return.

I'll find a way to blame myself as well for everything, even for things I know are 100% not my fault. For example, if someone were to go and bitch about me behind my back, I would say "I deserved it and this is why..." instead of "It's their problem, not mine." I am a people pleaser after all: I'll use my own flaws to make other people happy even in the most screwed up ways.

All of the above put together, I would say, led to my recent clinical diagnosis of depression. Despite the small bursts of happiness I've had in 2018, I find it really difficult to be happy and enjoy life. This year has been such a watershed. I've had some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my life just months apart from each other. August 7th to the 11th, when I found out I was going to my dream university and my solo trip to England, are the happiest days of my life. I felt invincible. But by the next month, I nearly lost everything I had built up for reasons I still can't understand. Last month, I had a massive mental breakdown which led to me just aimlessly running outside as night fell, not wanting to be found.

This year has proven that I need to put myself first, once and for all. What other people think, and what I think other people perceive of me, cannot dictate my life any longer. Next year I'm going to make sure I have the right people in my life, the right balance between work and socialising, and I will become a person who doesn't depend on the perceptions of others to function. I will try my absolute best to overcome all the fears I have, especially in trusting people.

Despite all the troubles I have, I do find solace in music and writing. On my desktop, I have a set of 14 poems (and counting!) in a collection that I've titled Demesne, all related to personal experiences and what I've learned from them. I compose some small instrumentals and keep them to myself. I also have a document in which I compile lyrics from songs I love and analyse my own interpretation of them. Sounds quite sad really, but it's what keeps me sane. I try to channel my analysis on healthier things like music and literature, rather than on people. I also go on long walks quite often. Some days I've walked like 30 kilometres out of boredom. It's quite refreshing.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk! I'm really sorry for the massive thesis here, but I hope that by sharing my own experiences, you may find some encouragement to have a moment to yourself, or even to share your own experiences.

[ROBERT 💙]

I know I've posted things already, but I wanted to write about something that regards a factor of my mental health, which happened to me today.

---

Today, I had what Doctor's would call an off day. Meaning, that when I woke up this morning at 8:30am, I started with just lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling and I didn't want to get out of bed. I was just staring at the ceiling for a good amount of time with a gathering of tears in my eyes. It was when I eventually had tears going down my face that I knew everything about today was going to be negative.

I lay there for at least an hour and made an attempt to get out of bed at about 9:35am. But I didn't do that. I just lay telling myself "I don't want to get up, because what's the point? I have no purpose or need to be anywhere or do anything. So, I'll stay here".

I attempted to get out of bed after that, roughly 9 times. Eventually at around 9:50am, I put one foot on the floor, then at 10:00am, I actually got up and said to myself "Don't think, just go. Don't think, just go..." repeatedly.

I went downstairs and took all my medications, vitamin supplements and had my breakfast. I saw my mum who knew immediately that today was an off day, so she suggested, why don't I do something to try and take my mind off things. Something which I do in that case is to leave the house and go to the city centre, go to a café and do language studying. So I went back upstairs, took a shower, got ready and left the house.

But I still had these awful feelings in my mind. Especially since I've yet to receive any treatment for my mental health as my psychiatrist is on maternity leave, so I'm back on the waiting list.

I got on the bus and was listening to music, but for some inconsistent reason, which I don't know why, on days that I feel negative or I have these thoughts in my mind, I play music that I assume to match the exact way I'm feeling, example - my chemical romance - but I would make it a private session so that my cousins who have me on Spotify can't see me. Weird, I know. But I don't why I do that.

So on the bus, I was sitting and started to feel really strange, because I started having dark, negative thoughts which only come on days like today. These things that happen in my mind are like me talking to myself in my head, like today - "why am I such a useless, pathetic, waste of time for my parents? I don't deserve to even breathe or be awake. I really don't understand why I was the one to be spared by God, but he killed my sister instead. It should have been me."

When I do the languages, it's like something that suddenly blocks these thoughts and I start thinking about just what I'm doing, what I'm learning etc. So it kind of acts as a shield, but my attention to it is completely there, because I block the surrounding out of me, almost as if I make this protective bubble around myself, even though I'm in the public. So when people ask me things like "can I take this chair?", I just nod and say nothing.

Of course, all of that studying time had to end at one point, so as soon as I packed my bag, I was back to thinking the dark thoughts. I went on my way to the bus stop, it was raining and although I was wearing a raincoat, I didn't put my hood up. I just stood in the queue and was staring directly to the road, looking down and basically not moving.

I would only ever so slightly move my eyesight to the right, to see if the bus was coming. Other than that, I was staring at the ground.

When the bus came, I got on and sat down, put my bag on my lap and put my head down. I closed my eyes and like what happened in the morning, I started to get tears in my eyes. The bus left the stop and I was starting down again.

As you can expect, 5:00pm out of a city centre would be busy in traffic, so the bus got stuck in a traffic jam. The thoughts came to me, as they've done a lot, where I start thinking "would it be fast, jumping off a bridge?"  - this was when the bus was going over a bridge, but I said that in my head, I shut my eyes tightly and started to concentrate on lyrics of whatever song was playing.

Eventually I got off the bus and started to make my way home. Unsurprisingly, as I also do on days like this one, as I was going home, I was telling myself "You can make it home. Just go home. Go. Now. Just go."

I made it home and my dinner was made already by my mum, so I sat and ate and we talked. I was trying my best to let go of what I'd been thinking all day and to just concentrate on what I was doing.

But, something happened which also puts a massive effect on how I mentally think and how I feel about my life. That of course being related to my epilepsy. I started to have what's called an aura - in epilepsy - when you start to get a feeling as if you're going to have a seizure.

The past few days, I've had seizures and it makes me so upset and pissed off, because I'm sick of being epileptic because all I see it as, is something that's ruined my life or what I could do. I get so angry at myself for having a seizure, I get angry at medication for not working, I get angry that it exists and like today, it can gel with my depression, because being epileptic is one of the reasons I get depressed.

So I've had an aura four times now between 6:30pm and now. I've tried my best all night to just stay calm and gather my thoughts correctly.

Which is why I'm now able to share/speak of this day, because yes - it happens, but also - it goes. Right now, I don't have as much of a negative feeling, but I know that at the moment, I don't feel happy yet. But I'm working on pushing myself mentally towards the opposite of today. I've been doing things like playing my piano, reading, watching random videos on YouTube, watching TV and now sharing this experience.

[Ｂ３ＳＴＢＥＡＴＳ]

Listening on Spotify Alistair Griffin's songs meanwhile I read this real life stories. And, I finally every story trying to answer the imposible question: What is life?

I currently have two classmates behind me. I consider them my angels because they can take me out of shyness and cure me of Asperger. In exchange for that, I defend them from the rest of the men (they are not men, they are gorillas who shout and cheat other girls, I do not like them). With it I gain not only the respect of them, but of the majority of the feminine sector.

By this I mean that we all have an angel that takes care of us, that protects us against evils. I may be one of these angels.

I want to thank @garameaning for opening this thread because ... My God, I have been able to meet users with almost the same difficulties as me. I am a very sentimental person, I hate to screw up(I had a scandal that I prefer not to share). It hurts that there are people who post things forbiden and no friendly in this forum.

I am a angel that cares about people who are suffering. I am not a doctor, but a good person to find a solution or advice.

Callum , if you want to delete the post, you can. I would prefer that you leave it up because more users are in solidarity for us, souls who feel that the world is dark negative.

I will always be here if you need it.

Let's keep fighting.ROBERT 💙

[Hyunzales]

Congratulations for all of you for getting over such hard times

I've been thinking that well I don't think it comes necessarily as a mental illness that my self hate is so much that sometimes I get suicidal thoughts, depressed and etc...these come out in me pretty rarely, but they are here...of course it is not that harmful as I don't injure myself (physically)
I am not sure if that is also the case, but I really want to be loved, I always feel like an outcast. Being the only gay in my primary and secondary studies might have made me feel unwanted. There came the self hate first in my pre teens - early teens. I knew that back when I was like 12, because I am (most probably) gay I will be hated and outcasted, I was also the one who got bullied in primary school, because they thought I am gay. I don't really talk about this as my self protective mechanism tries to force my brain to forget the bad things...
Then I tried to fake a new identity showing myself to be less vulnerable in High school, thus ending up hating myself more and more.
Lately sometimes I feel like I don't wanna live anymore, I feel lonely and also feel like "if I died..nobody would care..." yes I think I am selfish and greedy because I desperately want to be loved but then...I end up hurting myself mentally.
I think I went a bit out of topic here...
Sorry...
I have never been this vulnerable on this forum since I joined ages ago...

[Argüello]

I decided to post this, to see if someone feels the same and maybe tell me what they do to feel better or different
Idk lately I have been feeling like sad, let down idk why,like in general things are alright, but I just feel like empty inside, it's weird
If someone knows how to cheer up or know what's going on inside of yourselves I'd like to hear any advice
Anyway it's just like a feeling, I'm normally a very positive and happy person, so idk it's feels like something is off

[ROBERT 💙]

So, I thought I'd post a little recent update:

KEY:

BOLD - Me in the past

BLUE - me now.

So, I bought this book which someone close to me suggested to read, as the concept of the book was for those with depression and issues in the norms of society. So I began to read that book and small things, piece by piece, were starting to make sense to me, to the point where I made a realisation that a lot of the things that I've been very anxious about since I was about the age of 12, are not actually something that I  should carry inside and keep on my mind.

The first one was - music. I have, for many years, been worried about people making their passive judgement on what type of person I am because they'd seen one song that I was listening to. But most recently, I've actually stopped giving a s**t about the situation of music and myself, so I actually will listen to who I want, when I want, without feeling as if who I am listening to is going to cause some cause of persecution from someone. Perfect example in this concept is, some people (I won't name who) were judging me because I like to listen to the music by Gabbie Hanna - who actually has a new song out today - but if you look on my last.fm you'd see that I've been listening to her new song a lot today because I don't give a crap if someone thinks I shouldn't listen to a certain person because of their opinion.

Plus, I've always been openly eclectic with music I listen to. Like, in the same day I could listen to bring me the horizon, Dolly Parton, the Spice Girls and Florence and the Machine all in the space of an hour.

Second one and a huge turning point for me - confidence.

 I've sadly had this fixed idea in my head from the experience of being bullied at high school a hell load for being overweight, that people in public are judging me because I'm 'too fat' and that because I'm the 'fat one' they'll be saying things about me being fat and unhealthy, which of course because of my thoughts being that way, I have never had any self-confidence when out in public or the ability to feel good about my myself, because I've always thought I'm ugly.

Thus, because I've always thought I'm ugly, I've never had the interest in having a relationship with someone - because I would tell myself all the time "why would someone want to be with an ugly person?".

Also, because I've always had this fixed idea about people passing judgement, making comments and basically saying in my head "that person just looked at me, so they're obviously talking about me and they're probably talking about how I look really badly dressed, I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm fat af" - that kept me always to have so belief in myself and I always thought I was worthless.

But only very recently, I've actually stopped caring what people around me out in public places are doing and came to a conclusion that if someone wanted to say vocally something about me, they can say it to my face and I will tell that person to piss off, because I'm not bothered. Today, out meeting a best-friend of mine, who realised herself that in comparison to the past where I would be very nervous and walk looking down to the ground, I actually today was a lot louder, a lot more of a confidence was showing from me, I was really upbeat and just such a change in me.

Most of that stems from the fact that in the last 6 months, I've lost 36kg in weight and dropped 10in on my waist, so today I was able to buy clothes from a shop in the city centre - which I've never been able to do during my adulthood, because I was always too big, so I had to buy clothes from the internet.

---

I think all-in-all, a lot of me has changed over the most recent weeks and a lot of my personality is changing because I'm growing a lot more self-confidence back, which I've lacked too much for the vast part of my life. I definitely have dropped the whole "judging me' thing in my head and now I'm a lot more comfortable with just doing my own thing in public and neither feeling arsed by if people are looking at me, but if I do hear something, then I'm not afraid to voice my opinion or something back. 

Perfect example from today, my friend and I were in a shop, we were chatting away and looking at face-masks and lip cream etc and this scally, she mouthed up nice and loud "oh he is surely a puff like" (my city's dialect for gay) and straight away I just turned around and said back "aye, I am. But is it of any concern to you? No. So, on your bike" (on your bike is a term used in my city when you basically are telling someone to fuck off)

She then threw back to me saying "woah! fucking get all defensive" and I straight away threw it back to her saying "no... your just a nosy bitch, so fuck off?"