Depression, Anxiety, or other Mental Health Conditions

I dont think thats particularly true. You can dress however or look however you want with no worries.

Spend less time concerning yourself about how you might think some subset of people will perceive you and more time developing yourself and pursuing your own interests. You'll end up a lot happier that way.

Falsey wrote:I dont think thats particularly true. You can dress however or look however you want with no worries.

Spend less time concerning yourself about how you might think some subset of people will perceive you and more time developing yourself and pursuing your own interests. You'll end up a lot happier that way.

Really? Because last time I checked it's socially acceptable for women to wear men's clothing, but not the other way around.

The amount of women that come into my work dressed like men, with male haircuts, and who nobody even bats an eyelid at is huge. There's one guy that comes in that's a cross dresser and people mock him every time he's there. Not that I'd want to cross dress, but I'd certainly enjoy a bit more freedom.

I do get what you're saying but you've just got to wear and do what you want. Short of cross dressing I can't actually think of many things you can't do that would get you slagged off. You have any examples?

Behave as feminely as you like, this afternoon alone I was praising how hot Justin Timberlake is and discussing the merits of Love Actually in a large group of randoms and no one batted an eyelid.

Although I remember wearing a tight white top with some minging sunglasses looped on them - it was probably a slightly stereotypical homosexual look - and some bellend calling me a ****** in a train station. I was actually a couple of minutes on when I realised he'd said it to me as I was hungover as hell and he sort of whispered it when passing one another and thinking back there was no one else immediately next to us. strawberry floating prick, was livid when when I realised.

Rocsteady wrote:I do get what you're saying but you've just got to wear and do what you want. Short of cross dressing I can't actually think of many things you can't do that would get you slagged off. You have any examples?

Behave as feminely as you like, this afternoon alone I was praising how hot Justin Timberlake is and discussing the merits of Love Actually in a large group of randoms and no one batted an eyelid.

I can't think of any that would 100% get you slagged off by strangers, although your story gives a perfect example.

Work clothing for men is pretty much one outfit in different colours, while women can wear mostly whatever they want. It's also far more acceptable for women to have piercings/tattoos/dyed hair.

So you want to wear a dress and get tattoo'd and pierced? I can promise there are plenty of communities where you'll be right at home.

No matter what you do you're going to get grief from someone, so just own it and live your life.

Great audiobook on self-esteem

https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Self-Deve ... B002V59R9C

I've listened to it several times now and the tasks it sets you are really helping me to see into my subconscious logically.

God, I swear I'm so damn knackered all the time nowadays. Like, even getting out of bed is getting to be a struggle yet I've got a load of work coming up in the next months that I'm going to have be at the top of my game for; even after 12 hour sleeps I struggle to gather myself to actually do anything yet feel terrible because I'm doing so little. I think a lot of it's down to since I found my life expectancy's a joke, always piled through the exhaustion that crohn's, clots, heart defects and a liver disease gave me yet now it's almost like there's an end game coming and there's not as much point in working as hard as I could. For all the strawberry float about posts I do on here I do generally actually apply myself totally when working and could probably have a great career lined up including some work at the European Parliament coming up but not sure I can gather the strength to work above full time as required in the coming months. I always thought I'd manage to just knuckle down and manage it no matter how mentally and physically shattered I am yet when the likelihood is that you're not living long enough to reach the top of your profession or old age then what's the point in spending the little time you have progressing up to a certain point in the career ladder? Yet strawberry floating about in shitter jobs isn't for me either. I feel like life would be so much easier if I could accept the norm of working a 9-5 job paying the average UK wage, that I could probably hit without too much bother in a few years - have parents help me get a deposit down and just live the typical life, yet it's just something I don't think I'll ever manage to do. For all it's nice to be amongst friends again too it's the sort of thing that I feel like doesn't really help when I talk about it. Had a long conversation with my best female friend before she left the country last night and I don't think it's like typical depression where chatting about it really helps. Like, obviously she sympathised but when you every day honestly feels like a battle to do anything, and it's a battle that never really gets easier, only harder as you force yourself to do everything perfectly healthy folk would do, it doesn't really make a difference.

Just felt like venting.

Really sounds like you've been dealt a Beadle* with your health, sounds like it's enough to drag anyone down. If anything it sounds like the 9-5 is something that would make your life feel pretty gooseberry fool for you so stick at your aspirations. People with health problems and all the odds against them seem to be capable of incredible things.

* a gooseberry fool hand

Cheers ad, feel better today. Back in the gym which helps, think I overcompensate physically to make myself feel better, generally works though. Don't ever talk about irl since it doesn't really help and no-one likes a constant moany bastard, but is helpful to go off on a rant occasionally.

I guess this is the best place to put this as it relates to stuff I've talked about here before. I think I had a minor panic attack this morning. I've posted about this earlier in the year, that I feel trapped by the necessities of my degree(living at home, very little money etc), and to compound that have also been struggling a bit with feelings of being left behind by the people around me recently; two good mates have moved out of Glasgow completely(one to China) and a lot of others have moved into the city - in my town there are only three or four of us left now where there were fifteen or more. Other friends I'm losing contact with as we have less in common.

This is normal, but it's been hard to make new friends to replace the old ones because of my situation - when people go out, I'm working. If I'm not working, I'm writing draft thesis chapters. If I'm not doing that, I should be. I don't play video games anymore, or watch wrestling; most of my hobbies are falling by the wayside and if it's possible I'm becoming even more boring and antisocial than I used to be.

Not only that but almost everyone I know is moving on in their lives professionally and socially while I necessarily am in the same place I have been for nearly 8 years at the end of September, since my eighteenth birthday. I find it particularly tough to make friends within the academic sphere because I feel intimidated by the intelligence of the people I talk to - everyone is very friendly but focused on their work, and to hear them talk about their projects makes me panic and feel like I'm not working hard enough(if you could see my working patterns you would agree). So now I either avoid the graduate school completely or speak to no-one when I am there, which has left me totally isolated.

I'll be taking tutorials from the end of the month and the times and dates will be finalised most likely today. They give training and mentoring but I'm woefully unprepared for this kind of responsibility; as unsociable as I am, how do I take a class of 18-19 year olds and engage them in a subject as dry as Modern European History? I had to turn down a job that would have allowed me to finally move away from home within six months to do this. To feel like this.

So all of this must have been going through my head in the early hours - I haven't been sleeping for more than two or three hours at a time since Friday I guess because of flying home from California and jet lag and stuff - and I woke up sweating, heart beating like a drum, struggling to breathe a little bit and with tears in my eyes. I almost cried again typing the first few paragraphs of this post, something I simply don't do - compared to the social and family problems I had as a teenager, these issues are no big deal and nothing I can't work through, and I know that. I'm still mildly shaky an hour later, and I feel sick.

I've been dealing with my issues much better recently, and haven't felt this low since March/April time, when I made the decision to stay and grind out the rest of the degree come hell or high water. Things have been much, much better lately, so I'm not sure whether to attribute this lapse to lack of sleep, the movement of the past few weeks, the holiday come down, nervousness about the teaching or a combination of these.

I'll go to the gym or something. Try and make the afternoon productive before I go back to work tonight, maybe make myself feel a little bit better.

Tl;dr I've started something I'm having trouble finishing, and now I need to moan about it.

EDIT; good that you feel better Ian mate. I know what you mean about not talking to people about issues IRL; it's just not something you feel like you can do with mates and family members would worry too much. A good rant in here is usually helpful.

Seldom venture into this thread (bit serious for me), but I have question - do you think certain people are pre-disposed to be succeptible to depression or are we all equally vulnerable to it?

Reason I ask is that at the beginning of the year my parents split up after 35 years together and I was really worried that I'd experience proper depression for the first time in my life. Turns out I didn't and I'm actually quite a cheery person with a positive outlook on life in general. Now that might have been helped by the birth of my daughter but I think the deep rooted pain of my parent's split is still there, but I'm just not depressed about it. Like I'm dealing with it and have learnt to just get on with life and not let it bother me. Kinda hard to verbalise that so hope you understand what I mean.

So yeah, thoughts? Am I a robot or just not pre-disposed to depression?

There's a vast difference between depression and sadness, Preezy. It hurts when parents split up, and there's no doubt that you'll feel the pain of that somewhere for quite a while; of course you will, it's a massive change to your status quo even when you're set up with a family of your own. Some people might lapse into depression, others will simply deal with the pain and move on.

There's definitely a predisposition to it genetically. I'd imagine Karl or one of those science type folks will be able to back me up on this, but I've read that if you have a parent who's suffered from it, you're more likely to end up the same way. With that said, it doesn't mean you definitely will or definitely won't endure a period of depression during your life. There's a brief summary page on Stanford University's website that explains it:

http://depressiongenetics.stanford.edu/mddandgenes.html

Sounds like you're quite fortunate in that you have a good outlook on life, which equips you with a lot of the tools you need to fight off depression before it hits. You're happy in your own life by the sounds of it and have got a lot of things to look forward to with your daughter growing up as well. Good luck dude!

Hard to say really, my parents broke up when I was 11 and I wasn't that upset by it, more so the conflict between my parents. I don't think your parents splitting up when you're an adult is really enough to make you depressed, especially if you're not living with them. But that's just my opinion.

@Cora: I noticed a few things about your post.

1. You mention you struggle to speak to people in your department. I understand this - graduate students can be very work-focused, particularly when they're (ahem) at work. However, sometimes project chat can give way to genuine friendship, and unless you work with super-intelligent extraterrestrials I doubt anyone will be thinking "This guy is slow, let's judge & avoid him!", so I'd suggest maybe pushing through with a few people that seem nice and seeing where that takes you. I was also wondering if you'd joined any societies, clubs, or whether you hang out with flatmates or people in the same building. These can be nice ways to meet people if hanging out with other Ph.D. students isn't for you. You mention that you feel guilty about not working, but your productivity will improve if you schedule in some time to indulge in socialisation or hobbies, even if it's only an hour or so a week.
2. Don't worry about taking tutorials. Even if you are the worst Ph.D. student in the entire world (and I'm sure you aren't!) you are still well-qualified to chat to undergraduates. The important thing is that you present yourself as considerate & approachable - students will appreciate that much more than you being some kind of history ultra-genius.
3. Get some quality sleep. It's hard for me to communicate the sheer scale of moodiness, over-emotionality and irritability I feel when I haven't slept enough, particularly for several days. If you struggle to sleep by the end of the week, go to a doctor and get a short course of sleeping pills to get you back into the swing of things.

I hope that helps, mate.

I'm not sure how I'm going to hold out until my italk appointment, I feel strawberry floating horrendous. I just want to sleep and not wake up for months.

Apparently my brother is depressed. He sat my mum down about a week ago. Said he needed to speak to her. My mum initially thought he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, but he basically burst into tears and said he can't carry on with his life the way it is. Something to that effect, I'm sure it was more in-depth than that. I'm hearing this second hand from her on the phone.

His flatmate thinks he's suicidal. I'm gonna try and get home and see him this weekend, but I wouldn't have a clue what to say. We're the kind of brothers that could go a year without speaking and then, when we finally do see each other again, will exchange a 'How's it going? Yeah not bad, been up to much? No? Cool'. We get on, we just don't talk.

I don't really have a point or a question here. He won't talk to me about his feelings, so I don't know if I should even bring it up.

I'd let him know you're up for listening if he needs to vent - he'll probably appreciate the thought - but equally don't force the issue. You can make yourself available but you can't make him open up if he's not ready.

Karl wrote:@Cora: I noticed a few things about your post.

1. You mention you struggle to speak to people in your department. I understand this - graduate students can be very work-focused, particularly when they're (ahem) at work. However, sometimes project chat can give way to genuine friendship, and unless you work with super-intelligent extraterrestrials I doubt anyone will be thinking "This guy is slow, let's judge & avoid him!", so I'd suggest maybe pushing through with a few people that seem nice and seeing where that takes you. I was also wondering if you'd joined any societies, clubs, or whether you hang out with flatmates or people in the same building. These can be nice ways to meet people if hanging out with other Ph.D. students isn't for you. You mention that you feel guilty about not working, but your productivity will improve if you schedule in some time to indulge in socialisation or hobbies, even if it's only an hour or so a week.
2. Don't worry about taking tutorials. Even if you are the worst Ph.D. student in the entire world (and I'm sure you aren't!) you are still well-qualified to chat to undergraduates. The important thing is that you present yourself as considerate & approachable - students will appreciate that much more than you being some kind of history ultra-genius.
3. Get some quality sleep. It's hard for me to communicate the sheer scale of moodiness, over-emotionality and irritability I feel when I haven't slept enough, particularly for several days. If you struggle to sleep by the end of the week, go to a doctor and get a short course of sleeping pills to get you back into the swing of things.

I hope that helps, mate.

Cheers for this, by the way. I feel a hell of a lot better now that my sleep pattern has largely returned to normal. If anything I'm oversleeping now, it'll level off in the next few days. Last Wednesday-Saturday were just awful, was only picking up an hour or two of sleep at night and could feel myself getting really over-emotional about unimportant things. "We have no milk... "

That said, last Wednesday has reminded me that there are underlying issues that still need to be worked on. I don't really have any avenues to join societies at uni, we don't have too many although I used to be in the flag football team(we're not allowed a kitted team thanks to a spot of fraud that went down about ten years ago), so I may rejoin when the semester starts - it's a bit unnerving being miles older than everyone else there but sometimes it's got to be done. Working at night stops me from going to practice a lot, too.

The biggest issue I had - that I'm almost 26 years old and still live at home with my mum/brother and no prospect of going anywhere in the near future - might not be such a problem from next week. Could be a time of great upheaval.

The most important thing now is getting a rhythm going before the semester starts. Up, gym, uni, work and so on.

idk man

just in general as far as everything goes idk

this is my brain from the moment I wake up until the moment I sleep



the most annoying thing is I can feel myself going off the deep end in a big way here but everything Im doing is perpetuating it and I cant really escape

Im a baby

Tried going back to the docs man? Might also mitigate your employment woes if you can get some kind of note or something.