Depression

Oblio said:

Oh, and don't beat yourself up for a bad choice or a set back. In the moment we make excuses and justify our actions, whether it is skipping a walk or having a midnight snack or starting the day with an unhealthy meal. Don't say well this day is fucked, I might as well lean in and order a deep dish. Forgive yourself and make the rest of the day great. Also, give yourself something to look forward to. Allow yourself some ice cream or whatever once a week or every other week. make it an event. Using ice cream as the example instead of buying a carton because it is more economic (and you will end up eating the hole thing), spend a similar amount and go to like a cold stone with the hubby. Make it a cheap date and go for walk at the park or walk around a mall.

We are human and the people that are "perfect" all the time are miserable in their own way. Everyone thinks they are being judged all the time by everyone else. Everyone is self conscious, the truth is no one is paying attention to you, they are consumed with their own bullshit.

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Also another good post. I want to highlight the importance of what Oblio is saying about beating yourself up. What he’s saying kind of ties into the idea of learned optimism which I would encourage you to read more about if you find yourself to be more of a naturally pessimistic person (note: being naturally pessimistic is ok and even has benefits! Like anything it’s about balance.. The world would crash and burn if everyone was an eternal optimist.)

If that’s something that peaks your interest I’d pick up the book Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman.

Id also recommend learning about mindfulness which kind of ties into what I’ll say next.

Koushirou I know you said the state of the world is stressing you out. That’s completely understandable. My advice would be to take a break from the Pol subforum. At the end of the day it’s important to know what you can and can’t control. A lot of stuff in this world you can’t control. Some people may say this is “burying your head in the sand”. I’d argue otherwise, if you know your values and what you can and can’t change then what value is added putting information in your head about the latest outrage that you can’t control?

It’s not worth it. Everyone in media, mainstream or even that small time podcaster is vying for your attention. Stop and think “do they deserve my attention? How will this benefit my own wellbeing?”.

These are things I’ve found helpful and maybe they can help you.

I think I'm the only person on the planet who's happier the less sleep they get.

I was getting up at 430, going to bed at 11 or midnight for years. Wednesday or Thursday I might need a nap, and I might "sleep in" and get 6 hours on the weekends. That's a huge upgrade from the 3-4 hours a day I got for years while my kids were little and I worked overnights to keep them outta daycare while my ex worked days.

Then I took this second shift gig and everything kinda went to shit. I went into it thinking "the only thing that's wrong with my life now is I don't get enough sleep, so now I can."

Wrong. Now I sleep 7-8 hours a day, I'm fuckin tired all the time, and I don't have enough time to get everything I wanna get done. The worst part is that it's such an unnatural thing - your entire life, you're conditioned to wake up and go somewhere. No one gets up at 3am to go to school at 8. You get up at 645 and run out the door. But now I'm getting up at 7 or 8 and not leaving for work until 1130. Some days I don't have time to workout (depending on what's going on), I haven't touched any of my projects in 2 months, just sucks.

Was way the fuck happier getting 5 hours of sleep and being productive than I am getting 8 and being unproductive. I dunno if this is really helpful to the discussion or anything, but I do find that my mental health improves when I feel like I'm productive, and I think for me, that involves less sleep, more producing things.

Cutlery said:

Was way the fuck happier getting 5 hours of sleep and being productive than I am getting 8 and being unproductive. I dunno if this is really helpful to the discussion or anything, but I do find that my mental health improves when I feel like I'm productive, and I think for me, that involves less sleep, more producing things.

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100% true for men. Self worth (happiness) is derived from accomplishment. If you feel accomplished, you dont even feel tired, you can live on 3-4 hours sleep per day.

Koushirou said:

Had a complete meltdown the other day. I’ve always been shit at managing stress, but it’s been so much worse lately. Health issues, finances, the state of the country, work, etc. have all been pissing me off and making me an anxiety-ridden mess for a while. I get it, that’s just life and it happens, but for whatever reason I just can’t handle it anymore. Every time bullshit happens, I bitch and then suck it up and just deal with it. I’m in pain all the time, shit in the house is breaking when its still fairly new and costing money, I can’t sleep worth a damn (I get maybe 2-4 hours of sleep and then end up having to nap and just wasting most days tossing around in bed for 6 hours), everything that can go wrong has been going wrong at work and I’m behind, etc. I try to just grin and bear it for the sake of my husband not having to deal with an angry bitch all the time, but I am absolutely miserable constantly and I’m at capacity for eating shit.

Every ping on Slack from work for some dumb little thing sends me into a cursing fit. I don’t make dinner perfectly and I just feel completely worthless as a wife. I had to pull a little money out of savings to cover some unexpected bullshit expenses (the whole reason the savings are there) and I feel like we’re one step away from financial ruin. One of my cats got worms somehow, and I just fucking lost it. Every tiny thing that goes wrong sends me off the deep end. I barely have energy for any hobbies anymore (if they don’t already just make me mad these days like MtG). I’m stressing my poor husband out. I’m scaring my cats during outbursts. I’ve been on a waitlist for a therapist for over 6 months and no luck yet.

I don’t want to die, but I do want to just shut down. I’m tired and I don’t know what to do.

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Well, you've decided to do a helpful thing and express your frustration in a healthy way by posting about it here. Good job! And honestly your outbursts seem more like an explosion of the bottled up emotions, rather than you "being a bad person". If there's a lot going on inside of us, and we're at 100% capacity, anything else that gets added to the top falls off on everyone around us.

Honestly, a lot of what you described sounds like fear. Fear of health issues, fear of finances, fear of the state of the country, fear of work, fear of cats getting sick, fear of making your husband not like you... It's a lot of fear!

Fear cycles are a real thing. What is a fear cycle? A fear cycle is:

1. What you feel: alone, betrayed, controlled, defective, inadequate, judged, misunderstood, etc...

2. How you respond: act out, anger, rage, arrogance, broadcast, complain, control, criticize, demand, denial, etc...

3. What you want: acceptance, affection, appreciation, care, comfort, connection, grace, hope, intimacy, joy, passion, power, peace, etc...

The problem is that a lof of us are completely unaware of what we feel and only aware of the response. And we get stuck in the guilt and shame of our response so that its impossible to move towards what we want. There can be a lot of disconnection in these places. And it can be scary to try and "feel" those feelings because we've believed the lie that they're scary and want to hurt us, when the reality is that feelings are great indicators of where we are mentally and emotionally.

I would encourage you to either use FOH as a journal to talk about how you're feeling or start a journal. That way you can atleast start getting a grip on the "how you feel" part of the cycle. I even have a guide I could send you to help you walk through all three steps. I spent about three months doing them on a daily basis before my mind was able to do it on it's own.

The beauty about starting to understand your own fear cycle is that eventually you start focusing on "what you want" instead of getting stuck in the response to your feelings. It's an incredibly powerful reality when you're closer to your wants than your fears. When that happens it becomes a much easier and real choice to go and get what we want.

So, ultimately, I think you're in a good place. Thanks for sharing! You are not stuck and there's a better life in front of you. Consider this the turning point.

Thanks for all the advice, folks. I really appreciate it. Venting definitely seemed to help and my husband also suggested the journal route. Seems a little middle school girlish, but I will give it a try.

I’ve tried meditation/breathing a little bit, but never with any consistency. Will try to make myself set aside some time for that or try to get into the habit of just taking a breathing session when I realize I’m having a moment.

That break from the Pol forum is probably a good idea, too, heh. Things going on have definitely just made me feel sad, angry, impotent since I can’t really do anything about it. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m ignorant of things, but I’ve definitely lost a lot of hope seeing how things are constantly.

Araysar said:

100% true for men. Self worth (happiness) is derived from accomplishment. If you feel accomplished, you dont even feel tired, you can live on 3-4 hours sleep per day.

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I agree about accomplishment/contribution being a large part of self worth/happiness or that it helps with energy/drive but the amount of sleep you need varies from person to person.
If I’m maintaining diet/exercise I can do 6 hours for a week or two, but I’ll feel less and less good the longer I go. Temper shortens, decision quality declines, etc. 7+ is where I need to be.

My dad was always the 4-5hr type with a bit of a nap in the afternoon every few days.

Koushirou said:

Thanks for all the advice, folks. I really appreciate it. Venting definitely seemed to help and my husband also suggested the journal route. Seems a little middle school girlish, but I will give it a try.

I’ve tried meditation/breathing a little bit, but never with any consistency. Will try to make myself set aside some time for that or try to get into the habit of just taking a breathing session when I realize I’m having a moment.

That break from the Pol forum is probably a good idea, too, heh. Things going on have definitely just made me feel sad, angry, impotent since I can’t really do anything about it. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m ignorant of things, but I’ve definitely lost a lot of hope seeing how things are constantly.

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Just buy some guns and pick up shooting.

Whenever I feel shitty, I just head to the range and throw some lead down. Does 2 things - 1) good stress relief, and 2) prepares me for the inevitable!

Gurgeh said:

The problem for a woman to ask about fixes for depression in here is that what fix most men might not work as well for women. I suspect feeling better from weight loss and exercice is partly due to testosterone level increase. There are obviously other benefit, but the overall effect is going to be lesser.

Same, while a man will get satisfaction from gardening or building whatever, I'm not sure women’s brain is wired the same way.

I guess the benefits from diet, sun exposure, proper sleep hold though.

That being said, I fear that on a women’s forum it’d be about shopping and pills.

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I will say that fulfillment at work is a big thing for me and that's been sorely lacking lately, as well. Been stuck with a bunch of mundane bullshit tasks instead of getting to use my actual skillset for a while now and I don't really get to build anything that I can enjoy seeing the result of. I also need to actually make time for my model building hobby. That's something I'm definitely lazy on, since I don't have a dedicated workspace yet, so the whole setup and tear down process just to get out my tools, my spray booth and vent setup, etc. puts me off of it most of the time. My landscaping is full of weeds at this point, but it's been hot and there's a million wasps around (I'm legitimately terrified of wasps).

Essentially, even if I'm in a good mood, I'm lazy and full of excuses and I really just need to beat my ass to get past that.

Koushirou I think the common thread for people suggesting activities is finding the method to vent that works for you.

Your husband seems to think journaling works. That was also my experience. Someone might go to the gun range, or the gym, but I think the idea is to have some fun trying out different things to see what works for you.

Koushirou said:

Essentially, even if I'm in a good mood, I'm lazy and full of excuses and I really just need to beat my ass to get past that.

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I think maybe the problem is that you already spend a lot of time "beating your own ass" instead of getting really well acquainted with the things you want out of life.

Just a thought.

Gurgeh said:

The problem for a woman to ask about fixes for depression in here is that what fix most men might not work as well for women. I suspect feeling better from weight loss and exercice is partly due to testosterone level increase. There are obviously other benefit, but the overall effect is going to be lesser.

Same, while a man will get satisfaction from gardening or building whatever, I'm not sure women’s brain is wired the same way.

I guess the benefits from diet, sun exposure, proper sleep hold though.

That being said, I fear that on a women’s forum it’d be about shopping and pills.

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Yes, my advice was for men only. Women don't get that same satisfaction from getting stuff done and they rarely derive their self worth from being productive

Falstaff said:

For the therapy waitlist are you just trying to see someone specific or want to do in person therapy only? Otherwise have you considered something online like Cerebral?

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Just waiting for anyone in person through my local health system. Only online one I knew of was BetterHelp which always seemed like a massive scam based on things I've read about it. Wasn't sure if there were actual reputable ones.