Apologies if this veered too much off topic. I’ve been kicking this around for a week or two, and felt the need to add recent events and post.
It’s 5am, I haven’t eaten in 12 hours, had anything substantial to drink in about 8, have been sitting on the toilet for over an hour, and instead of doing something about any of those things I’m editing a comment to fix a typo.
Hey friend. All you can do is get medicated as best you can and learn to say the right words to get what you want out of therapy and make them take you seriously. But make your continued existence your rebellion.
Edit: and granola bars, nutrient drinks, some fruit, few nuts. Learn what your body wants/needs day to day and eating can become a relatively easy chore when you don’t have the spoons for food prep. But remember starving fucks with your head.
But make your continued existence your rebellion.
I know I’ve been fucked in the head literally forever because I remember at 12 years old I gave the sky the finger saying “I know something wants me to just kill myself but you can go fuck yourself.”
That’s changed now lol I’m tired of being a rebel, but at least I have a family that cares about me so I won’t be doing anything final to myself.
Getting a dog has helped me in ways I never expected. I just figured “cute, cuddle, good for brain chemicals”. But they HAVE to be walked at a certain time. They HAVE to be fed at a certain time. Regardless of any of your internal issues, you love them and you have to provide for their needs.
So when you are in the kitchen filling their bowl, you make yourself some toast or grab a banana. When you are taking them for a walk, maybe you go a little farther because they like it and it’s good for you. If you struggle to get up in the morning, they look to you pleading to be taken out to pee and you get yourself up and dressed. They need training and that requires being consistent, so you do it for them. It’s so much easier to do it for them than for yourself.
This worked for me, still dealing with a lot of issues but there is atleast a hint of schedule. And one of of my two dogs is extremely finicky about time. She has to be out the door even if there no poop to be shat.
To add: they’re extremely good at noticing when you’re feeling down and will try to help.
To quote Aesop Rock:
Fifteen years taking prescriptions then a shrink’s like “I dunno, maybe get a kitten?”
when I am feeling that bad I hear this in my head and somehow feel worse
Good news, during wartime and periods of intense crisis, some people experience a temporary paradoxical increase in mental health. So, I’ve got that going for me.
this is a PTSD thing right?
Waiting for one of the various global crises to change in such a way as to become individually actionable, so that the famed ADHD crisis mode superpowers can finally kick in:
Disco Elysium but with ADHD
self diagnosed adhd undiagnosed scitzophrenia memes
yeah.
that’s all i’ve got to say, but i have a strong urge to say it.
…yeah.
yeah :(
yeah
Agree
Yeah!
My general mental state can be described as that one picture of the horse on the beach that says MAN
They do tell their anxiety patients to just not worry about it. And people wonder why marijuana is so popular…
You’re seeing the wrong therapist. Look for one that practices cognitive behavioral therapy, it’s really helped me personally.
To be fair, there are a lot of garbage-tier therapists out there. And the vast majority of us can barely afford the short list of those that happen to take the insurance our employers chose. It’s freaking hard, man.
Can confirm. When I got diagnosed with GAD, SzPD and rediagnosed with ADHD, my therapist asked me why I was so anxious all the time. After giving them the rundown of everything going on around me, they told me to not think about it.
Like, I get it. Would be cool. But, it’s around me. Would be easier to avoid the ground beneath my feet. They did end up helping me fine-tune my routine to unfuck myself when spiraling into a panic attack though.
Spot on with the “I’d really like to get the depression under control before I let you function at your job.”
Because fixing the unfixable is somehow more important than making sure I keep my job so I can like…eat. And live indoors. And afford the healthcare that is paying them.
Also, the Adderall does wonders for my depression in addition to unlocking my superpowers
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Oh sweet! What super powers did you get?
All I got was the ability to mostly choose what to focus my attention on.
Why do that though? It’s not like not having the mental bandwidth to do basic things or your job would cause you to have less mental bandwidth to do stuff overall.
Lol, like I have ever had mental bandwidth. Childhood trauma represent!
As someone else said upthread (and I’ve told a lot of people myself) if you’re depressed but know you can focus and accomplish things, the first thing you accomplish might be suicide.
This is one of the few places where I agree with standard practice. Depression first, then ADHD.
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My friend your first steps that you should do right now are: Get up from the toiltet Grab a glass and drink it Then make yourself a sandwich Then continue from there
Maybe wash your hands first.
I drank that glass of toilet water and I still have depression, what now?
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Ugh, why aren’t you depressed? Hey God? Will you give 474D Yurgenst’s depression? He needs to learn empathy or when to be silent. please n thanks
I do deal with depression and although it’s a struggle that won’t end, healthy habits such as eating well and staying hydrated do help, which is what the original comment stated just to be ridiculed. Depression may not be our fault, but it is ours to deal with.
If you have depression then i am ashamed that you don’t have the common sense and empathy for someone else who is struggling with it. Now please do yourself a favor and fix that lil problem. Here’s a hint: You fix it by going away. This easy to follow instruction will improve both our lives. Try it now!
Buddy, empathy doesn’t mean “allow someone to continue with plainly disordered thinking because it’s what they know”. I’m not the person you’re upset with, but the first step in getting over any problem is to force yourself to take that first step.
You’re welcome to hate it, to not want to. It will absolutely be hard, often to the point of feeling actually impossible. It is going to suck, potentially forever.
But you still need to try if you want any hope of getting out of it. Progress is almost imperceptibly slow, but you will make progress if you keep trying.
Expecting the planets to align and for yourself to suddenly not have this battle to fight with yourself through no action of your own is like expecting to win the lottery when you haven’t even bought a ticket.
This is the difference between telling someone what they want to hear so they don’t feel worse in the moment, and pointing them towards a solution that might lead to betterness longer term.
I am formally diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. I was informally diagnosed with an autism spectrum “condition” (not sure the term at the moment) by a retired spectrum diagnostician I lived with for a few months. Don’t try to tell me I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about here. I’ve lived it.
Hmm. I read your thing, but I’m not sure how to respond. On one hand, you make a good point. On the other hand, you seem like youre looking for a fight. Why? Why defend someone who, if they had spoken half as eloquently as you, would not have to have their comment moderated? I just don’t get the whole point of your comment, no offense, and certainly not your anger. Who/what is it you are actually mad at here?
It was a joke my guy. I didn’t really expect that toilet water would cure depression lol. Also “just figure it out” has to be the worst advice for depression ever. If it was easy to figure out alone then no one would have depression.
Why dont you go tell [the] paralyzed to just get up and pick something up off the shelf. Its so easy, isnt it? They just made their mind up to be dead weight and have people take care of them.
Just because you dont suffer from something or cant physically see it doesnt mean its not real, and just because you are capable of something doesnt mean everyone is, even if they WANT to be capable of it.
It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
Even tasks that are extremely complicated are made up of many small, individual tasks.
And each of those small tasks is a boulder that needs to go up and over the mountain. And there’s no satisfaction for handling boulder #1, because boulder #2 has been looming the whole time. And so on. And when all of the boulders have finally been moved, the next mountain is right there. It’s different than the first mountain, and all of the boulders are different. Each boulder and mountain takes more and more energy. There’s no end. No reward for finishing. Just boulders all the way down. Or up, in this case.
I’m tired, man.
Moving a little rock is easier than moving a boulder. That is the point. Smaller individual task -> less anxiety.
But then you look at a gravel field and get overwhelmed to stay with your metaphorical picture. Yes, that is part of what happens with ADHD and detailed lists.
I know it’s a grating saying, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It’s true.
You don’t have to succeed, you don’t have to enjoy it, it won’t be easy, but you do have to keep trying. Try to do whatever single action you can get yourself to do in the given moment that gets you closer to your goal. Then do it again. And again. Again. Etc etc etc. You’ll at least be closer, and that’s something.
When I told my last PCP that I was having enormous trouble at work she said, “Maybe you don’t have ADD, maybe this just isn’t the job for you.”
This right here is why so many people with ADHD end up changing jobs so frequently.
I wish this had been me. Instead I stayed at one cushy but low paying job for a decade, then a progressively more and more toxic and stressful one for another decade before I limped away. AuDHD/anxiety/depression is a bitch of a bear trap.
Also why I am currently searching for a new PCP
When people say “touch grass” it usually means that the internet shouldn’t influence your mental health. Unless any of the states decisions directly impact you, you can think about what you can do to influence it, but if you find yourself spiraling about it, its time to log off. Maybe start knitting idk
Yeah the ‘idk’ part is the important one because as a generation we’ve been so dependent on devices for everything from entertainment to productivity that we have no fucking clue what to do AFK. This has been a bitter struggle for me lately. I feel my life slipping away from me click by click but whenever I try to go offline my dopamine system SCREAMS at me to dig up the tablet I buried in my car’s trunk.
Yup, I’m guessing that’ll do it all right. Knit a few pairs of socks, and just normalize the world away!
This is why we are doomed. People take a look at the dumpster fire that’s life now and say, “Have you tried knotting socks and not being sad?”
Myself, I reply with what I hope is understanding and compassion, and say, “Yes indeed, things look bleak. You, unknown internet person, are not alone in feeling this way”
That’s why I say do what you can, but if you spiral you’re not gonna help anyone anyway.
Good call. I like that.
Yep, this has absolutely been what I’ve had to do.
No single one of us is the protagonist in some story where we’ll be the ones to tip the scales in what’s wrong with the world. Do what you can, where you can, and focus on the world around you. What directly effects you and those you care about.
There is not enough energy in any single person to be able to care about everything, and you’ll just burn yourself out for trying. This is true even in neurotypicals. It’s why people aren’t running around screaming constantly about the shit situations going on. It’s why people don’t seem to care, they can’t possibly care about absolutely everything.
So you, like them, have to at least try to exert some control over what you spend your time and mental energy on. It’s sure as fuck not easy and it doesn’t help improve shit in the grander world, but spiraling isn’t easy on you either and it also doesn’t help. It just makes you feel worse about everything.
I know this sounds just like someone telling you to “just focus more”, “just don’t be sad”, “just don’t worry”. But that’s not it. It’s not that simple. Never will be.
Even though it will likely be astronomically harder for you, you can exert some will and effort against the roiling storm of your own internal state. Anyone saying that it is literally impossible is letting the bad inside them win. Sometimes it is truly too much amd you have to, but you shouldn’t live in that space forever, and you need to remind yourself that it isn’t impossible whenever other people who are in a bad place are letting it win.
That internal bad is the bad you most need to try and fight, not the bad effecting the whole world.
The bad inside you may win. It may win most of the time, sometimes you might have to let it win because it’s too mich at the moment, but you need to try to fight it as much as you are able to. You don’t have to win, you just have to keep trying, as much and as often as you can.
Like if you haven’t eaten in 8 hours, and there’s food in your house, just eat some of it. Doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s appealing (is it ever when you feel like this?), if you don’t think it will help (do you ever think it will before you eat when you feel like this?), if you don’t want to (again, do you ever want to do anything when you’re spiraling like this?) Go shove some fucking slop into your goblin mouth. Something’s better than nothing. Hold onto whatever tiny bits of progress you can grasp by the edge of your fingertips and try to keep moving forward.
The secret is that you can do this. It sucks. It’s not easy. It may take years and external help. But it is possible. And it has been the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done in my life to just keep trying.
Just wanted to say thank you for this reply. Trying to un-knot and maybe get something accomplished today so I need the in-depth reply spoons elsewhere. But it’s appreciated.
That tumblr screenshot on the top hits so close, it’s really dejecting
I can’t remember who said it, but the quote “it is no sign of mental health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick world” was being thrown around when I was a kid in the nineties, and it’s not like things have improved much since then.
I remember that, and I have to say that this attitude contributed to me not thinking there was any point in pursuing help for my MDD.
Don’t let the world being shit demoralize you into not trying to improve your lot, ladies, gentlemen and citizens.
iirc there’s something called ‘depressive realism’ where depressed or otherwise overly pessimistic people tend to be more accurate at predicting outcomes. The implication being that to function as human beings we have to be at least slightly deluded at all times.
That “slightly” there is putting in a ton of work.
I looked that one up a bit ago. The source is Jiddu Krishnamurti, but it doesn’t look like the common quote is accurate:
It sure is more concise, though.
