Let's have a party!!!

[gingerschnapps]

It's the time of year when moods are crashing.  The days are short, the weather is miserable, Wintermas looms on the horizon with all its stresses, frustrations, and problems.  At the suggestion of the lovelystaranise , it's time to have a [mental health] Downswing Party!!!

By which I mean, come on over and:

• complain. go ahead. let it all out. anon comments are screened if you'd prefer other people don't read it (tho if you want me to know who YOU are, signing is good) I won't tell, I won't think you're pathetic, I won't think at you "other people have real problems and you don't". Promise. Also, I will only unscreen YOUR comment if you tell me it's cool. Otherwise, your secret is safe with me.
   
• yell at your mood disorder of choice - MDD, Bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, whatever - anything that's currently fucking you up. The world, maybe. Or your meds! While there is a community for that, it can be fun to do it some more.
   
• post funny cartoons, macros and pictures of cute kittens, great stories you found, instances of people not sucking, hilarious gifs and other things (if it's nsfw, put it behind a link and note it and follow charitable warning systems - we're not here to make people feel WORSE after all).
   
• talk about things that make you happy, no matter how much you swear other people don't care about them.
   
• ask other people who might be reading about other stuff.
  
  There's metaphorical tea, although I cannot recommend highly enough making yourself a cup of tea/coffee/tisane/hot chocolate/hot milk/whatever as a calming, soothing exercise. I'd turn on some music, except I do not know how to make a playlist show up in your computer. ANYWAY.
  
  The only rules are EVERYONE PLAY NICE. If you DEFINITELY don't want any unsolicited internet advice, just stick "NO ADVICE" in your subject line. Even if someone doesn't have that, please offer advice politely, as a suggestion, and with the assumption that the person you are talking to is an intelligent human being. I would like to reemphasize this. Don't phrase it "you should look into X". Phrase it as "have you looked into X?"
  
  Ready? GO.

(points shamelessly borrowed fromrecessional )

Comments

Your hostess

[gingerschnapps]

With the help of my therapist I have gradually been accepting that "I'm having a better fall than usual"...doesn't really mean that much, considering my past few falls. Being in a more stable place mentally has meant that we have been spending a lot of time unpacking all my traumas from the past five or six years of my life and I'm realizing that a lot of my coping strategies were not so very healthy. It's HARD rewriting my entire brain and my way of dealing with challenges and setting boundaries and...just about everything. I do not like it and I spend a lot of time wanting to run away.

Plus I hate my job so much. My boss hired me to do tasks that he won't actually allow me to do, or lets me complete and then redoes after I am finished because he's changed his mind about what he wanted. It's driving me BATSHIT CRAZY but I can't quit because I'm leaving the country in less than a year and I really need to save money, plus I would have a real hard time finding another job that had such congenial hours and flexiblity. So ARGH, that is really not helping matters.

PLUS I AM MOVING TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD IN LESS THAN A YEAR AND VISA STUFF IS REALLY STRESSFUL AND SCARY. *hides*

Re: Your hostess

[quartzpebble]

First, thanks so much for hosting!

And wow, that's a lot of hard things. Reworking coping strategies is hard and feels pretty thankless for awhile. Kudos for doing the work. And moving dear god why is it so terrible, I am moving RIGHT NOW (same country! same coast, even!) and it still sucks so hard. Good luck.

Re: Your hostess

[staranise]

Your job sounds awful. And I should know.

(Coping mechanisms may have been unhealthy, except they were much healthier than DEATH so there's that to say for them.)

Re: Your hostess

[lilalanor]

VISA STUFF IS HORRIBLE :( *:all the commiseration: :offers tea: (see also reworking coping mechanisms sympathies)

*Mine was a US Student Visa. It was a process.

Re: Your hostess

[kafj]

Thank you for hosting - this is exactly what I needed.

And sympathies. That sounds like a huge amount of stuff to deal with.

[staranise]

like right now all i can say is JESUS FUCKING GODDAMN CHRIST I HATE MY BRAIN SO FUCKING MUCH.

[gingerschnapps]

*tea* Wanna come hang out on my couch sometime? I'm working much less insane hours and Merlin continues to grow in size and fluffiness.

[quartzpebble]

Good timing! My stock of parentheses, my tl;dr, and I would like to file some complaints.

I am stressed, my mood is intermittently low, and I am melting down at small stuff. I can tell there are reasons!

In the last month I have:
* been fully off my last antidepressant and started a new one that appears to be doing not-very-much
* started a new contract for a job in a new field that's mostly remote work (hard!)
* been dealing with feeling like I don't know what to do for it and a feeling of aversion to getting the work done, because I might feel like I don't know things
* been through the daylight savings change and now the sun sets at 4-fucking-30 in the afternoon
* spent a full day teaching code-related things the week after a charismatic and polished lecturer gave the first lecture
* looked at the feedback that was beginning to come in for that and decided it was not a good time for looking at any more of that
* packed up all my fucking stuff and paid people to put it in a pod for me, and WHY WAS THERE STILL SO MUCH MORE STUFF AFTER THAT WAS DONE
* packed the rest of it into my car (and it is full, and why do I have so much stuff again?)
* started worrying about getting jobs etc. because this is a short, part-time contract (also: my first job as a software developer and it feels like it doesn't count, argh)
* started worrying about finding a place to live in the Bay Area
* kept poking at trauma in hard but mostly-useful ways
* met up with former labmate to retrieve my stuff from That Lab
* said goodbye to my ex-partner
* mostly tried to eat
* not exercised much because that sounds hard
* existed in winter
* worried about social networks and wondered wtf mine actually looks like and worried about who I can ask for what
* resigned myself to losing a chunk of security deposit
* probably more stuff that I can't remember right now

I'm moving. My stuff is in my car, I am driving south tomorrow, and the days will not get any shorter for me this year. I wish that I could be happy and excited about this, because new chapter in my life and changes that are good for me and I will probably land on my feet and I have a lot of people rooting for me, etc., but I am scared of/for so many things right now and sad and worried and so, so tired.

I've just quartered the remaining pills I had of the previous AD and have taken the first one tonight, and will try to remember to keep it up while traveling. Hopefully something between placebo and actual effects will kick in soon, and hopefully being where there's more sun will help as well. I hate that I can tell that my depression is making everything look and feel worse, but that identifying the cause and effect doesn't stop it.

[gingerschnapps]

Dear god, that is a lot of stuff. I am in awe of you.

Moving is the fucking worst, it seriously is. On its own its already one of the most stressful things a human being can undertake (packing all the things! New space! New jobs!) but coupled with a mood disorder.....jeebus. I take my hat off to you, and send you aaaallll the sympathy. All of it. Seriously.

I'm sorry to hear about meds roulette too. I play this game frequently and am well versed in how much it sucks. Hopefully you find something that works soon, and it keeps working for a long, long time.

ICE CREAM! excuse me, frozen dairy dessert. wtf Breyers I TRUSTED YOU.

[alexseanchai]

I am epic excited over translucent_zine. There is nothing there yet, but what it is going to be is an Internet magazine showcasing the art of QUILTBAG artists: fiction, poetry, essays, drawings, photos, spoken word, songs, crochet patterns, etc etc any artistic medium that can be digitized is welcome. I'm still working out logistics and haven't gotten to details, but so much of my access list is excited and I have people saying they'd love to contribute once I get details like submission deadline straightened out and generally I am just !!!!! over it all.

(and I'm terrified I'm going to bomb it. I have fucked up major things in the past because my brain refused to play. like, I've since retaken four of the five classes I failed summer of 2012 (out of five taken summer of 2012), which wiped those four Fs off my transcript. but summer of 2012 still happened. and that's the second time I got all Fs in a semester. and I'm so scared it's going to happen again and take down Translucent and my college career in one fell swoop.)

*

Hey, gingerschnapps, re playlists? Hit up 8tracks.com. Find a playlist you like or make your own—it is fairly intuitive—and then there is a way to get HTML code to embed the playlist in your post.

Re: ICE CREAM! excuse me, frozen dairy dessert. wtf Breyers I TRUSTED YOU.

[gingerschnapps]

I had not considered 8tracks, thank you!

That internet magazine sounds fantastic, and you are right to be excited. Don't let the brainweasels win.

[thatyourefuse]

I really probably don't even belong here, because I don't think I'm having a downswing.

What I'm having is a nice long cold-blooded look at my brain in the grim light of Relatively Not A Downswing, and it is making me go "fffuuuuu..."

And between my insurance and my executive function, therapy is not looking excessively likely right now.

Also I think I managed to give myself a minor electrolyte imbalance last week through injudicious use of vitamin D supplements. (I PROMISE I FIXED IT.)

[staranise]

You can party with us anyway!

[tw: family being fuckheads]

[lireavue]

Thank you for hosting.

My brain is a piece of shit that decides OH HEY, instead of attempting that getting better thing we keep thinking about because there's, like, time and space and safety enough for it? How's about we decide NOPE AVOIDANCE TIME and traipse off to fling more stressors into the mix? THAT WON'T BE A PROBLEM AT ALL.

The annoying part is I can and do totally frame this as reclaiming a thing that I lost years and years and YEARS ago (cf, being a veterinarian/having that drive toward science helping people/animals) by way of going and learning how to do Worthwhile Science Work in a lab setting where I don't have to deal with people. As much. (Or horrible pet owner tricks, which is frankly what drove me out of the field as a preteen in the first place.) It's just that going back to school would be stressful under any circumstance, let alone one where I'm also moving (within the city, but still) and potentially finding a damn therapist.

Which doesn't even TOUCH on the fact that it's the holidays and my mother is, as a result, stepping up contact. I have been... a year and a half now? With no contact in place on my end of things, and a clearly stated desire for her not to initiate, not that that's done shit for the emails. I am honestly wondering how long before she steps up to calling/showing up unannounced/attempting to get other people to participate in this bullshit, since ... well, let me quote y'all the BEST part of this pseudo-apology: "I'm sorry for whatever boundaries you feel I have crossed."

Iiiii could keep ranting but we'll just leave it there for now because that's what I can deal with tonight.

Re: [tw: family being fuckheads]

[gingerschnapps]

Boundary-crossing family sucks so fucking hard. *fistbump of solidarity* "but it's the holdiays! Don't you caaaaaare???" Yeah, no, fuck that noise. So sorry you have to go through that.

Kudos on reclaiming a part of yourself. I know it's hard as hell, but it takes so much strength to even begin, and I have tremendous respect for you.

[TW eating disorders and suicide/depression mentions]

[lilalanor]

I HATE MY BRAIN AND I DO NOT HAVE WORDS FOR IT. (Also sometimes I realise how much ballet f'd up my feet and it's like '....oh that's why people look at my feet in horror). Except kind of bullet points.

*Wanting to lose weight while having anorexia (I'm not currently engaged in anorexic behaviours but honestly, I'm not recovering) and being on the only meds that keep me alive that cause weight gain is Horrid. See also exercise when one's eating disorder plays out around exercise.

*I only just recently realised that maybe, the chronic suicidality and depression is actually just an MDD thing not a moral failing on my part. SERIOUSLY. (I mean I have many other failings and fuckups but whatever).

*It is my birthday v.soon and I'm profoundly upset because [redacted about being here at all] and OH MY GOSH I AM UNGRATEFUL AS HELL. This is like 'people like me? WHY. WHY THE FUCK. WHY. I UNDERSTAND IT NOT'


*C-PTSD. Oh boy. I need to find myself resources that don't make me want to cry. (See also overseas travel with such. Which I feel guilty about wanting. Again).

(On other hand I totally daydreamed a romantic movie plot starring Natalie Dormer and Nicole Beharie as respectively a Starbucks barista at the CIA starbucks and a dorky brilliant CIA analyst so there's that).

Re: [TW eating disorders and suicide/depression mentions]

[gingerschnapps]

I'm sorry that you have to go through all of this. If it helps any, I think that plot sounds fabulous and I would read the crap out of it.

[delight]

consider this my "thank you kind stranger for hosting" and placeholder comment, because I am mostly asleep right now, but if I didn't leave a comment now I never would. ♥ my venting and my endless parade of dog gifs will appear tomorrow

[staranise]

Oh good. I hope some of them are corgis. :)

[fyreharper]

Hello you are wonderful thank you for hosting this :) (here via staranise who is ALSO wonderful yes)

Soooo. Basically my plan for the rest of the year (and then we'll see) is to not be having a good week, because that is the only option I can see at this point. Because work is made of stupid, and everything has been coming out of the coding-pipeline late-and-broken, so of course it's our job to get everything back on schedule, right? (Oh wait you wanted to take any time off in the entire last quarter including during the holidays? too bad!)

Into which I have really no idea how to insert the trip-to-see-extended-family for which my dad already bought plane tickets and my boss already rejected my PTO request... plus jury summons for mid-month... plus the umpteen-billion appointments I need to make for me/cat/car. Because, yknow, of course I will be more productive when stressed about how the end of the year is going to go and how much trouble I'm going to be in for it. That is of course how it works. Yes.

Which, of course, only thing I need on top of that is more axes of what-am-I-doing-with-my-life, right? Because the SO is a lovely human, and I would very much like to keep them, except they live halfway across the world (and they would like to move to a DIFFERENT halfway across the world, that I am possibly if anything even less thrilled with) and I am pretty dang attached to my family born-and-chosen here (and they do not really want to move back), and there are A Couple Things that I don't actually know if I can live with... and so the logical thing would be call it a loss and move on but I don't wanna? But also distance SUCKS especially with so much time difference, and thanks to previous Internet Relationship they're twitchy about Scheduling Computer Time >.< Also, having well-meaning friends (friend, mostly) telling me this all sounds like a bad idea is tiring. I know it doesn't logic. Really the question is whether the adventure would be worth it. And that is really hard to tell ahead of time... (also MOVING ACROSS THE WORLD I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO THE THING)

Also, gatekeepers of medicalthings, ARGH. Dealing with workerscomp at this point has just about gotten dull... at some point will likely do what they want and give up on Having The Things Not Hurt... but in the meantime it is in the pleasant state of not being something I am having to make phonecalls about for at LEAST a few more weeks. But, so, winter is hard, and looking back at the last few, okay, there are always reasons but at the same time the winters are harder. And I had an additional person suggest checking vitD levels at me, so... okay, let's see about that... So there is supposed to be this handy feature by which I can email my doctor. But it is not a useful handy feature if the answer is "come in and talk to me and we'll see", basically. YES I HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD I WOULD LOVE TO. (I mean, to be fair, they have not met my face yet, but that means fitting in an office visit AND labwork not to mention I hate scheduling appointments. Therefore argh.)

Also my kitchen is gross and apparently I am the one less-able to let it just be that way at the moment.

...buuuuuut at least I am having fun experimenting with things in hot chocolate? That part is a happy thing. So is shoulder only hurting a lot of the time instead of all the time. Would really like Not Ever, or even Hardly Ever... not sure if I get to have those eventually or not (not while I'm working this job, I suspect).

[fyreharper]

Ahaha and then I wordsed everywhere HELLO I HAVE THIS FINE SELECTION OF RANTS, CAN I INTEREST YOU IN A DISAFFECTED WORDSFLAIL? >_>

[cxcvi]

Last week was pretty fucking horrible, and I suspect it might only be getting worse.

Talked to my therapist on Monday about everything that this time of year (not so much November as December, and all of the usual Decemberness) does to me mentally and emotionally. What came out is a lot of hatred and distrust for my parents, because of the things that they have done in the past, and are still doing now. It's left me feeling very raw and rather broken, and I'm worried that I won't get through to the end of the year without either breaking completely or doing something extremely unsafe.

There have been some highlights... such as being there to witness the transgender flag being raised in Bristol, although that came with some painful emotions of never even thinking that such a thing would happen, let alone me being alive to see it...

And I won my first game of Mahjong on Tuesday. Although I was definitely feeling the emotional meltdown that was still happening from my therapy appointment, and also trying to not have a panic attack. I avoided that, at least...

[gingerschnapps]

The holidays are in some ways the absolute worst time of year. I'm glad you have a therapist to help you but so unspeakably sorry that you have to go through all this.

(Seriously, right now I wish we could go out for tea, Internet person I have never spoken to before, so that we could commiserate about how much our families suck. I have a lot of opinions on this matter.)

[abyssinia]

Seven months ago I moved across an ocean to take a post-doc position that was supposed to be awesome and full of good science and chances for me to expand my horizons and jump start my career. And what seemed at first to be amazing has turned into a miserable hellhole with a capricious, micro-managing, emotionally abusive supervisor who terrorizes her lab group in a place where the scientific reputation is significantly better than the quality of the actual science. And even as I formulate an escape plan (with help from an awesome support network back home) I'm still paralyzed in indecision of what staying/leaving choice will fuck me over the least.

And people keep telling me over and over to not take it personally (when my supervisor yells at me or implies I'm stupid or lazy or makes it clear over and over and over she has no interest in fulfilling any part of her job as mentor) because she treats everyone this way and it's not just me. But...that doesn't make it okay. And 8 years ago I barely survived an incredibly toxic work environment and I'm just barely holding myself together with willpower and spit and bailing wax and every trick my therapist taught me. I don't know how to not take it personally. Sometimes I think I can stick this out until my escape plan activates and some days I look at how miserable I am and look at how my contract claims I need to give 3 month's notice and I get so scared this place is going to make me suicidal.

But in two weeks I get to go home for a month and see lots of friends and family and, most importantly, not be here. I can make it two weeks.

[gingerschnapps]

Oh oh oh, that is just the WORST. Especially having moved so far for the opportunity, and then have it turn out to be crap. Your supervisor sounds like a hag and deserves to be set on fire. And nobody should be telling you to just eat it because she treats everyone that way, that's bullshit.

Hopefully your month away can restore some balance. <3

[kafj]

Hello! I was pointed here by princessofgeeks, and I have come to join the party.

I'm quite disappointed in this autumn, because last year I was fine (well, I spent a lot of November crying over people, but that was in a mindful way, whereas this year it's just down to fail and woe) and, while I can point to several differences that are responsible for this, there's not much I can do about most of them.

I have been lying on the sitting room floor, with a daylight lamp above me, and consuming raw emotion in the form of grand opera.

[gingerschnapps]

Oh dear. One of those years. I am so sorry. Hopefully the grand opera is helping? I want to make you tea right now, honestly, Internet person. I spent so much time sobbing last fall that it is impossible for my heart not to feel for you. :(

[recessional]

Anhedonia and significantly increased suicidality: it's what's for dinner.

It's rather difficult to convince oneself to do necessary things when absolutely none of them will make you feel good and your brain's answer to "if we don't do this our life will fall apart soon" is "well we could just drown ourselves then."

I mean I'm doing them anyway, but it's fucking miserable, and I hate everyone. So, you know.

[gingerschnapps]

I am so sorry you're still having to deal with this level of suck. It's been a long slog for you. I wish I knew how to make things better.

[boosette]

I really, really want to be not a giant ball of anxiety even though I'm theoretically doing everything right for the first major travel of the last three years and yet I am STILL a giant ball of anxiety (what if I miss my flight what if I crash the rental car I'll be driving on probably no sleep and following ten almost eight hours travelling what if what if what if) and I just want a pleasant, not-terrible week at home.

[gingerschnapps]

Travel is horrifically stressful. At least there's hopefully something good at the end of it?

[megpie71]

Okay, so newbie here (waves nervously at everyone), hopefully I won't tread on toes or anything. (Here via staranise as well.)

If I lived in the Northern Hemisphere, I'd be able to blame the way my brain basically goes into full-on "fuck it, fuck it all!" mode every November and stays there until at least mid-January on seasonal factors. Not as easy to do when I'm living in Australia. So instead I have to fall back on "it's complicated". The therapist and I are working through this at present, trying to get as much done as possible before she goes on her Christmas holiday.

Doesn't help that I'm in the middle of re-jiggering routines (particularly my morning routine) to deal with a couple of major alterations. The first of these is my partner has got himself a job (a nice job, a job which is appropriately challenging for him, a job which I am very happy for him to have) which requires him to catch the train into the city at about half-seven to eight in the morning. This means I have to drop him off at the train station in our car (about a 20 minute round trip), which means I have to be dressed and ready for public viewing at that time. Which means I have to have showered. This, in turn, means I have had to shift my morning shower from after 8.30am to 5.30am each morning on a weekday.

The early waking I can cope with. But there's a whole heap of things I used to do before I had my shower which have now needed to be shifted to different areas of the day, and which are, as a result, not being done. I need to re-jigger everything to ensure they are Done, but at present I don't quite see how it's going to happen.

The other big change involves my medication. I'm not on psych meds at the moment. I am on thyroxine. I recently got a new batch of the stuff, and either they've discovered some new contra-indications or the formula has altered in the lab or something, but it now comes with a nice little sticker saying "do not consume dairy products, or take antacids, calcium supplements, or iron supplements within 2 hours of taking this medication".

Problem: I used to take my thyroxine in the mornings, around the point my stomach first started muttering things about "feed me breakfast". I still tend to take it at that point. But these days, it means I take the thyroxine, set a two hour timer on my computer, and spend two flippin' hours wanting to eat but unable to eat most of the things I would like to eat ("breakfast foods" as a category being high in dairy products). So I'm effectively starting my day with a two hours grump, which I don't feel helps the situation very much.

On top of this, there's all the ordinary day-to-day annoyances which at the moment are pretty much justifiable grounds for homicide (or at the very least Aggravated Ranting), according to my brain. I'm currently doing the best I can for self-care, starting with cutting a lot of stuff out of my online "diet" at present - I've dropped Tumblr for the duration; I'm marking the two "news" feeds in my RSS ticker as read without looking at them (and still needing to put money into the SIWOTI fund whenever I see some of the headlines); I'm quitting out of whichever fanfic I'm reading as soon as I see a poor word choice. Plus I've been dropping the "housework" bundle rather solidly (so the house looks a mess).

(Oh yes, and there's the dreaded Annual "What Are We Doing For Christmas?" Phone Call which I will have to either make or take at some point in the next couple of weeks.)

I'm pretty sure I'm going to figure my way through all of it eventually, but really... at the moment I just want to hide in a corner and tell the world to Go The Fazzacking Heck Away!

[gingerschnapps]

Tea. Lots of tea. Because Jesus Christ that sounds like a total nightmare.

Sort of better than last year?

[untonuggan]

So for context, last Xmas I was fresh out of the hospital for brainz, my grandmother was visiting from across the ocean, and I was trying SUPER DUPER HARD to not go back into the hospital while my grandmother was visiting. However, my mental health generally requires a fairly specific routine (especially when in brain weasel land) in order to keep an even keel. Any visitors, but particularly a month and a half long visit from the Family Matriarch is wont to disrupt that routine and I ended up spending about half of her visit holed up on the computer, etc. Oh, and also right around then both my BFF dog and my aunt died. (Also, I got to be the one to arrange for my dog's euthanasia and sign all the papers and advocate for it being time, and then once he died everyone was all, "Oh we should have done this sooner!" And that was also so not fun. Oh, and then I got horrible food poisoning requiring 4 ER visits for IV fluids. Basically: last holidays were horrible.)

So we are coming up on Sad Anniversary times, *and* my grandmother is coming back in January which yay but also omg I need to prepare a mental fortress for my own devices and not help caretaking for a 95 year old for a month. Some help, yes. Help all the time, no.

On the plus side, I am generally doing way better mental health wise than last year. I have an emotional support cat. I am on Hormones For Mental Health, which I was skeptical of at one point but OMG HUGE DIFFERENCE. I have always always had horrible PMS which had evolved into basically debating whether or not I needed to go to the ER once a month. After two weeks of PMS-fueled Bipolar mood swings. With the wonderful addition of Progesterone, I now have what I would call "normal" PMS. Like, I would like chocolate! I get a migraine/bloating/cramps, which sucks. However, I do not start searching for all the terminal exits on a montly basis, only to have these issues magically resolve once I have ruined yet another pair of underwear.

The other thing that has helped improve things is a double-edged sword. I was having all these weird memory problems on top of all these other weird health problems. And then I basically started recognizing all the toxic/abusive stuff that goes down in my family which is completely normalized in my family structure, and magically pain and memory issues started to recede. So on the one hand, I have all this healing from Trauma(s) to do and am also pissed with health care providers who were all, "Clearly this is a Conversion Disorder!" who were somewhat right but also provided no help in figuring shit out. Or you know, mental health care providers who just shuttled things back to physical health people. I am also still *living* with certain toxic family members, and even though I am working on partner and cat and I moving out as soon as possible...it is still super stressful and not easy mentally to be here. Like, "Oh hai, we are going to have a screaming in someone's face fest over something inconsequential instead of Using Our Words? Great."

But, um, yay naming the Trauma helping me feel better? Oh! It's also way way way helped with my intuition, I'd guess you'd call it. It can be for bigger things, or also small things like, "I should totally wear my sneakers today," and other brain will go, "Why, we are just going for a quick drive," but then trip will involve mud or walking or something. So that's also kind of cool.

Re: Sort of better than last year?

[gingerschnapps]

Yay mental health cat!! So much love. Sorry about the incoming family stress, though. It doesn't sound like you have the kind of family situation where you can just say "cannot deal right now, need me time" and take that. Maybe try setting aside a portion of each day (an hour, two hours, whatever works) and making that sacrosanct and yours? Tell everyone else you're taking a nap or walking the dog or writing super-important letters or something equally introverted.

Also, my deepest sympathies for the realization of Traumas. That one....really hurts. All the chocolate in the world to you.

No Advice. But okay to unscreen.

[splodgenoodles]

I wanted to lower my Lexapro dose because you know, I'd like to have an orgasm once in a while. And a fortnight ago I was feeling so cheerful I thought I could, although my shrink suggested we leave it until this week.

And now I'm feeling woeful. Absolutely gah. Everything is bleak. It won't be this week, probably not even this year.

Oh and unfixable pain is not my friend.

[kore]

THANK YOU, heard about this from the marvelous rydra_wong and it's awesome because --

I used to just say "every February my life falls apart" which is true, but I have now realized that is probably because of SAD. It's weird because I like overcast days and rainy weather (I live in the PNW and love it), but I've really noticed my mood slipping the past few weeks (which also happened because I had my birthday, which I hate because it reminds me of all the stuff I haven't done, and I drowned my laptop with coffee and it totally died). I also get migraines from bright lights, so everyone's advice is "Use a lightbox!" and I'm not sure if it would work at all....but mainly I've just been depressed since realizing yeah, this is hard, and not likely to let up until March. Augh. I'm on a combination of antidepressants/mood stabilizers/other drugs that help keep me nice and stable during the whole rest of the year, and I'm terrified to mess with it just because of SAD.

I'm also dreading the holidays because I'm estranged from my family, and this is the time of year when they send nastygrams about how that estrangement is all my fault, and I know it sounds awful but I'm dreading reading friends' posts about fun travel and time with family and cooking and general holiday happiness. I've been broke/unemployed most of my adult life during the holidays (my husband has a job right now, but we're trying to be supertight and save money). But I hate being a killjoy for other people, so I try not to say anything about it (which just makes me feel more depressed. Lovely).

(You know what this rant needs more of? ((Parentheses)) )

[gingerschnapps]

SAD sucks so very hard. For me it was "my life falls apart every October" but cause and effect were virtually identical. Stressful holidays are probably not helping the already-downward trend. One thing I found that helped me when my family was sending nastygrams was letting my partner read them first. That way he could filter out anything I really needed to know and I was saved the passive-aggressive shittiness. I don't know if that's something that would work for you/is even applicable?

[aella_irene]

I have been vaguely suicidal for the last few weeks, and when I mention it people get Worried. And I have now wangled an appointment with a consultant psychiatrist, because as per the 8th or so GP I've been to in my surgery, I am now officially Too Hard to treat for someone who is not a specialist. Because the most commonly prescribed anti depressants give me bizarre side effects, or make me want to kill myself.

And having resigned from my job in August for the official reason of 'I would like to concentrate on my studies', I am now coming up hard on needing to submit the essays for my first term, and...I can't do it. I read it, and nothing comes in, and my lecturer makes helpful suggestions and my brain won't. One of my lecturers is being lovely and suggesting that I file a mitigating circumstances claim, but I'm not sure 'Sorry, I'm shit' will be accepted by the committee. And I have finally realised that, given how very shit I am at this, I should probably not go on and do an M.A. Which I have been dreaming of for years.

[gingerschnapps]

First, intense sympathies on dealing with school stuff while juggling mental health stuff, especially with the difficulties surrounding medications. That is so hard. :(

"I have depression/[insert appropriate term]" is absolutely a valid reason to file for mitigating circumstances, and it does not mean you are shit. I had to do it more than once in my last year of undergrad. Your brain is not functioning properly right now, and that is completely not your fault or something you deserve punishment for.

[inoru_no_hoshi]

Here via alexseanchai, and off the bat am thinking my woes are Not Worthy, are dumb, clearly my own fault, etc., etc. So there's some brain weasels for the brain weasel farm. >_>

So, complaints:
*I'm tired of being poor, and either having no practical experience, no mental forebearance, and/or a lack of the lack of anxiety to fix it.

*I don't want to be living here; it's far from transit, it's crowded, my parents are poor too (which is relevant mostly in that we can't afford to move as a whole any more than I can afford to move myself), and I often feel like my presence, though not unwelcome, is certainly an inconvenience. I'd rather be in Seattle. Or Hawaii. Or honestly closer to transit.

*I'd really like to learn how to drive, but my options are Nope or Ask Grandparents For Help (and that's also really a Nope for reasons of brain weasels and also pretty sure they judge me a failure as-is...)

*My computer is over 7.5 years old and is dying a slow death because it doesn't have enough memory to keep up with modern internet browsing (even when I try to limit myself to <10 tabs and largely text-only, I've had memory-related BSoDs; I try not to dual-run much of anything but browser and Gtalk), and at this point it's far enough past Tech Prime that it'd probably be cheaper to get a whole new computer than to try and upgrade the hardware of this one, but see first bullet point.

*I wish I had places to go and things to do! For an introvert, I am really happier when I'm out Doing Things - or can look forward to Doing A Thing at least once a week... :(

*This is petty compared to the other stuff but I'm almost out of chain and want more pretty beads and feathers and for the love of anything holy clasps that aren't Painfully Cheap Omg What Was I Thinking Buying These. .... And I want some chips. Chiiiiiiips. And a new blanket for my blanket collection. (Nooo none of these things are on my Amazon wishlist why do you ask? >_____>)

*The thing where if I wasn't either A) a coward and/or B) unprettiful, I'd go for a live-in position Elsewhere, or maybe try modelling, but I can never talk my brain around itself (or the fact that modeling tends to require smiling and that means showing teath and my teeth are not fit for such things).

*Depression and anxiety suck balls. Especially when you have no way to get them diagnosed. (I self-treat with fanfic, gaming, and avoidance of ... lots of things.)

*The idea that maybe I could sell some of this jewelry I'm making as my NaNoWriMo effort is both exciting and scary and I bounce between pondering potential prices and "Eh, it's all crap anyway, who'd want it?" \o/ /o\

*flops* So there you have it, most of the stuff bothering me chronically. I feel like this is unnecessarily long and anyway nothing to be done, so I'm gonna go finish this anklet I'm making now, and leave a few happy-making things:

I found my creativity! It's all coming out in jewelry-making, but that's okay, I'm mostly satisfied with the results and that's what counts.

And this YT vid of foxes being super duper cute (Japanese audio with English subtitles). Relatedly, @emergency_fox. <3

Skyrim DLCs! And how my stockpile of nearly 700 iron ingot is finally good for something. (I was saving it up for when I decide to legendary my smithing, but really, this is a Much Shinier Use, and also iron is the easiest ore to find EVER).

[elizabeth]

I'm late but I was doing pretty fucking good until this morning. So. Have some fresh tea-or-cocoa on me, everyone.

I don't want to talk about specifics, but let's just say that my life, in the abstract, is going pretty well. And then -- I hate that the good things in my life, like being saner and braver than I was, lead me to try to do things that I'm not good at (yet) and I screw up because I am doing new unfamiliar things and then I am back in the same old pattern of feeling destroyed by not being perfect. This is a pattern at work and at home right now; less of a problem at work right this second, but it's been enough of an issue in the past that I don't doubt it's a pattern I'm going to need to cope with in the future (and I'm currently not happy about my coworkers and my boss, the latter of whom I am beginning to suspect plays favorites and the former of whom I think harbors sexist opinions about me). At home, it's social anxiety and introversion combining with usual roommate stuff to make me actively not want to be in my apartment ever, and I just renewed my sublet lease, and I feel like I have no space or power, all I can do is cower and apologize and be smaller and take up less room and be more invisible.

[quartzpebble]

/me waves, takes the cocoa

Not-quite-changed patterns are so hard and frustrating to deal with.