Depression, Anxiety, or other Mental Health Conditions

On the clap night people were shouting when it started to die down "why don't we clap for Boris he is doing a wonderful job, he deserves it". A few others shouted similar pro things but there was no second clap ....

I have a lot of experience with both sides of mental health, I was a mentor for a child's mental health charity and for a bullied kids charity but I've also been in therapy for having PTSD as the result of being held hostage and having my head smashed in.

I wanted to vent my anger as I think ventings healthy, also I think more people feel weepy than angry so maybe by sharing my anger other people who feel anger might feel less alone in it , if that makes sense.

In fact, just delete the past couple of pages. I've been a dickhead, and projected my own anger and insecurities on others. Kerr9000, I'm truly sorry. I've made you into a scapegoat for my own frustrations for what's currently going on, and that isn't helpful to either of us.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:In fact, just delete the past couple of pages. I've been a dickhead, and projected my own anger and insecurities on others. Kerr9000, I'm truly sorry. I've made you into a scapegoat for my own frustrations for what's currently going on, and that isn't helpful to either of us.

No worries at all, nothing but love chap.

We are both dealing with PTSD so I just hope you manage to keep on top of yours and live the best life you can.

kerr9000 wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:In fact, just delete the past couple of pages. I've been a dickhead, and projected my own anger and insecurities on others. Kerr9000, I'm truly sorry. I've made you into a scapegoat for my own frustrations for what's currently going on, and that isn't helpful to either of us.

No worries at all, nothing but love chap.

We are both dealing with PTSD so I just hope you manage to keep on top of yours and live the best life you can.

I don't deserve your forgiveness, but it is very much appreciated. Thank you.

I agree that being introspective and reflective and taking ownership of your own mental wellbeing is generally necessary in order to "improve", but you can't really beat that out of someone with logic right off the bat. We all know that logic has very little to nothing to do with emotions.

The trouble comes when trying to "rationalise out" other's feelings too quickly. Sadness, anger, guilt are all pretty core "negative" emotions but they are all tied together. Scathing somebody for feeling strung out or angry or desperate (because, for example, people are celebrating while you're personally more concerned about people dying) by virtue of deconstructing how rational their thoughts are, aren't or ought to be is frankly too simplistic. It might work more if you're not currently feeling the same way but please try to remember that people are going to be in very different mind spaces every time they come into this thread.

Kerr has PTSD as well. My mother does and I live with some traumas but the effectss aren't as recurrent (say every day) that it would be classed PTSD. Only yesterday with my newest counsellor did they acknowledge I suffered from neglect when I was a child. Thinking of my mother, criticising people with PTSD right off the bad before first taking the time to consider their concerns goes very bad very quickly because that person just defaults right back into a self-loathing, flight or fight response sort of situation, that can show up as constantly apologising or getting super upset about being criticised at all. So if you want to know what a trained therapist does, no, it's not all about telling them "you are 100% right and the world is 100% wrong" because the world is not that simple, of course it isn't. It's a great deal to do with simply acknowledging those feelings and experiences without deciding if they are right or wrong because so often nobody has ever taken the time to speak about them to even themselves, or anybody else, for fear of exactly that. Myself, I was told to shut up all the time, and my parents never listened or even recognised any of the severe symptoms of depression I had growing up. It was "shape up or ship out" or "shut up / stop crying" or "you're getting yourself into a state"; there was no simple, "I hear what you're saying and it's OK to have bad thoughts". Because so much of my experience of mental illness is about how we perceive ourselves in that state, rather than the state itself. That makes it much more complicated than, "you have no reason to be depressed" for example.

But it is supportive to help people validate their emotions, especially when there isn't any negative impact on other people doing that. Kerr isn't going to go out and murder all the people, or abuse them on the internet because somebody told them he is justified feeling the way he does, because he's not feeling murderous rage, he's feeling distress. It's OK to feel gooseberry fool. You mention mindfulness, but one of the principle ideas of mindfulness is to accept that thoughts and feelings happen, and to not try and erase them. By giving them the space they need and allowing them to exist albeit with a gentler approach to assessing those feelings in an internal dialogue, they start to lose importance in how they weight against our mind, or soul, or whatever.

If someone is bothered enough about certain feelings or thoughts/experiences bringing up these feelings to write about it in this tread, they have probably already determined those are not rational thoughts, but are still feeling bad about them. That's why you post or say stuff in a group therapy situation. The moment somebody gets bogged down with the idea that having those feelings at all is bad it's going to create a new layer of even shitter feelings to do with self loathing and that's why anxiety develops into depression, and why anxiety is generally treated before depression is.

I guess what I'm saying is that listening and empathy are simply more effective forms of help than telling someone they are factually incorrect or a killjoy or whatever. That's ignoring their needs and focusing on the needs of strawberry floating nobody whatsoever, who aren't even in the room, who we'll never meet. Unless you're referring to yourself, in which case, fine, just admit that, but it's probably a bad idea in this particular thread because of what I just said. It'll probably make that person feel crappier for having feelings you don't agree with which is.. Pointless.

Green Gecko wrote:I agree that being introspective and reflective and taking ownership of your own mental wellbeing is generally necessary in order to "improve", but you can't really beat that out of someone with logic right off the bat. We all know that logic has very little to nothing to do with emotions.

The trouble comes when trying to "rationalise out" other's feelings too quickly. Sadness, anger, guilt are all pretty core "negative" emotions but they are all tied together. Scathing somebody for feeling strung out or angry or desperate (because, for example, people are celebrating while you're personally more concerned about people dying) by virtue of deconstructing how rational their thoughts are, aren't or ought to be is frankly too simplistic. It might work more if you're not currently feeling the same way but please try to remember that people are going to be in very different mind spaces every time they come into this thread.

Kerr has PTSD as well. My mother does and I live with some traumas but the effectss aren't as recurrent (say every day) that it would be classed PTSD. Only yesterday with my newest counsellor did they acknowledge I suffered from neglect when I was a child. Criticising people with PTSD right off the bad before first taking the time to consider their concerns goes very bad very quickly because that person just defaults right back into a self-loathing, flight or fight response sort of information. So if you want to know what a trained therapist does, no, it's not all about telling them "you are 100% right and the world is 100% wrong" because the world is not that simple, of course it isn't.

But it is supportive to help people validate their emotions, especially when there isn't any negative impact on other people doing that. Kerr isn't going to go out and murder all the people, or abuse them on the internet because somebody told them he is justified feeling the way he does, because he's not feeling murderous rage, he's feeling distress. It's OK to feel gooseberry fool. You mention mindfulness, but one of the principle ideas of mindfulness is to accept that thoughts and feelings happen, and to not try and erase them. By giving them the space they need and allowing them to exist albeit with a gentler approach to assessing those feelings in an internal dialogue, they start to lose importance in how they weight against our mind, or soul, or whatever.

If someone is bothered enough about certain feelings or thoughts/experiences bringing up these feelings to write about it in this tread, they have probably already determined those are not rational thoughts, but are still feeling bad about them. That's why you post or say stuff in a group therapy situation. The moment somebody gets bogged down with the idea that having those feelings at all is bad it's going to create a new layer of even shitter feelings to do with self loathing and that's why anxiety develops into depression, and why anxiety is generally treated before depression is.

I guess what I'm saying is that listening and empathy are simply more effective forms of help than telling someone they are factually incorrect or a killjoy or whatever. That's ignoring their needs and focusing on the needs of strawberry floating nobody whatsoever, who aren't even in the room, who we'll never meet. Unless you're referring to yourself, in which case, fine, just admit that, but it's probably a bad idea in this particular thread because of what I'be just said. It'll probably make that person feel crappier for having feelings you don't agree with which is.. Pointless.

You're absolutely right. I've been a complete dick tonight, and I apologise from the bottom of my heart to anyone affected by the gooseberry fool I've been spouting tonight.

While I have more or less managed to deal with my own trauma over the past 11 years, and I took the mental health first aid training as a step towards that, my trauma does not equal other people's trauma. My own alcohol consumption also does not exempt me from being called out on my own drunken ramblings.

I've strawberry floated up. I am strawberry floated up. I'm truly sorry.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:I agree that being introspective and reflective and taking ownership of your own mental wellbeing is generally necessary in order to "improve", but you can't really beat that out of someone with logic right off the bat. We all know that logic has very little to nothing to do with emotions.

The trouble comes when trying to "rationalise out" other's feelings too quickly. Sadness, anger, guilt are all pretty core "negative" emotions but they are all tied together. Scathing somebody for feeling strung out or angry or desperate (because, for example, people are celebrating while you're personally more concerned about people dying) by virtue of deconstructing how rational their thoughts are, aren't or ought to be is frankly too simplistic. It might work more if you're not currently feeling the same way but please try to remember that people are going to be in very different mind spaces every time they come into this thread.

Kerr has PTSD as well. My mother does and I live with some traumas but the effectss aren't as recurrent (say every day) that it would be classed PTSD. Only yesterday with my newest counsellor did they acknowledge I suffered from neglect when I was a child. Criticising people with PTSD right off the bad before first taking the time to consider their concerns goes very bad very quickly because that person just defaults right back into a self-loathing, flight or fight response sort of information. So if you want to know what a trained therapist does, no, it's not all about telling them "you are 100% right and the world is 100% wrong" because the world is not that simple, of course it isn't.

But it is supportive to help people validate their emotions, especially when there isn't any negative impact on other people doing that. Kerr isn't going to go out and murder all the people, or abuse them on the internet because somebody told them he is justified feeling the way he does, because he's not feeling murderous rage, he's feeling distress. It's OK to feel gooseberry fool. You mention mindfulness, but one of the principle ideas of mindfulness is to accept that thoughts and feelings happen, and to not try and erase them. By giving them the space they need and allowing them to exist albeit with a gentler approach to assessing those feelings in an internal dialogue, they start to lose importance in how they weight against our mind, or soul, or whatever.

If someone is bothered enough about certain feelings or thoughts/experiences bringing up these feelings to write about it in this tread, they have probably already determined those are not rational thoughts, but are still feeling bad about them. That's why you post or say stuff in a group therapy situation. The moment somebody gets bogged down with the idea that having those feelings at all is bad it's going to create a new layer of even shitter feelings to do with self loathing and that's why anxiety develops into depression, and why anxiety is generally treated before depression is.

I guess what I'm saying is that listening and empathy are simply more effective forms of help than telling someone they are factually incorrect or a killjoy or whatever. That's ignoring their needs and focusing on the needs of strawberry floating nobody whatsoever, who aren't even in the room, who we'll never meet. Unless you're referring to yourself, in which case, fine, just admit that, but it's probably a bad idea in this particular thread because of what I'be just said. It'll probably make that person feel crappier for having feelings you don't agree with which is.. Pointless.

You're absolutely right. I've been a complete dick tonight, and I apologise from the bottom of my heart to anyone affected by the gooseberry fool I've been spouting tonight.

While I have more or less managed to deal with my own trauma over the past 11 years, and I took the mental health first aid training as a step towards that, my trauma does not equal other people's trauma. My own alcohol consumption also does not exempt me from being called out on my own drunken ramblings.

I've strawberry floated up. I am strawberry floated up. I'm truly sorry.

We all mess up now and then, messing up doesn't mean your messed up. We all have our crosses to bare. Keep your chin up.

kerr9000 wrote:We all mess up now and then, messing up doesn't mean your messed up. We all have our crosses to bare. Keep your chin up.

You're a good person, and don't let anyone or anything tell you otherwise.

It's fine man.

What you say about one person's trauma not being another person's trauma is interesting. I've been told by a mental health nurse before,"it can't be PTSD as there's no trauma", but we had never discussed in detail what almost certainly was trauma (domestic violence, bullying, verbal/physical abuse, neglect etc). It was weird. They really couldn't make that kind of assumption.

Some people think of PTSD and think stuff like, war, painful injuries, rape. It can be far more subtle than that. People's brains are wired differently and process experiences as trauma from very different set of stimuli, experiences that are brief or that occur over a long span of time. For example, I would say my experience of trauma is one sustained over a period of about 11 years, at a minimum. It's the trauma developed from sheer sadness the entire time I was growing up without a functioning family or a loving parent who was present.

fwiw, I've struggled with The Thursday clappening quite a bit, but I've managed to shrug it off. It really hit me hard though today, the current situation, that I started to feel dizzy just going for a brief walk. Just how much this government has strawberry floated up, how endangered vulnerable people liked my 91 year old gran are because of that, and how maybe the only thing I really can do is rise up with the means of production etc and make face visors. It's really hard to even think of celebrating a victory ~70 years ago that's constantly being equated in the media and Conservative party spokespeople to the coronavirus pandemic, if for whatever reason you're contemplating the loss at the moment, effect on business or jobs for example. I can absolutely understand that.

Another thing I've been contemplating recently that I read somewhere maybe here, is that it's possible for something to not be wrong, but still feel bad. Celebrating VE Day isn't wrong, but it might make me feel bad because I personally don't consider that as important as acknowledging the failures of the British government, for letting vulnerable people die unnecessarily, yet again, in order to protect the economy / reduce public spending (and in this case, cut ties with Euope). A lot of that stuff makes me feel angry.

So coming back to why I'm pushing blocks around in this thread, I suppose I am doing that from the perspective that I can sympathise with feeling shitty on VE Day, because it's perhaps the same day I realised just how bad the current situation in the country in terms of public health is. I.e. It might be my birthday, but if that same day a bunch of people died in front of me, I probably wouldn't feel too great.

Anyway, in terms of drugs, my tranquillisers starting kicking in a while ago and my eyes are weeping, so I should probably go to bed. I cancelled a business call I stupidly booked on a bank holiday because I keep forgetting those exist.

I can appreciate why Stool Bloke is out with his fuckign VW barbecue and people are doing parties , because it's getting really tiresome with nothing to do outside the house besides walk around. We found some frogs in a stream which was cool.

If I don't sign off GRcade I will probably pass out on the sofa so bye bye

strawberry float the VE Day bellends

strawberry float the clappers

strawberry float bojo and his fuckhead cronies

strawberry float the whole kettle of fake wankers

False wrote:strawberry float the VE Day bellends

strawberry float the clappers

strawberry float bojo and his fuckhead cronies

strawberry float the whole kettle of fake wankers

Just remember you can't be real if you're dead yeah

No wait, but death IS real, no, forget I... I'll just stop talking.

Hope you are feeling better than the other day. It's super easy to feel like, "world is ending, yup bye" at the moment or just let all the shitty feels flow through you. My exercise helped, a beer in the garden helped, worst thing was discovering a bird shat on my cap and I didn't even notice.

Speaking of dreams, I had some really messed up dreams where I kept prodding my mother's face, like in the eyes, pretty sure I was trying to say, "look at this, look how shitty and painful this was". Haven't spoken in weeks since a "we're OK" type text. I'm processing too much shite at the moment and trying to come to terms with myself when I Was About 10/11/12 which is pretty hardcore retrospection. Just hope it doesn't mean I get stuck in a creative rut, pursuing experiences that have long since faded from relevance. Or maybe that's exactly what I need to do, because I've never really addressed specifics in my art before. Maybe a few songs or overal "this is depression" type paintings but nothing really detailed and brutal. Hmm

I've been having really weird dreams lately.

I don't think I've thought about killing myself since late August though, which I think is the longest I've managed since I was about 13.

Been so lucky in that my weekly therapy sessions are really changing the way I think about myself.

Rocsteady wrote:I've been having really weird dreams lately.

I don't think I've thought about killing myself since late August though, which I think is the longest I've managed since I was about 13.

Been so lucky in that my weekly therapy sessions are really changing the way I think about myself.

Good to hear mate. We're always here if you need to vent as well.

yeah I basically spent the entirety of the last week and a bit just constantly thinking about blasting myself, and then when I slept I dreamt about it

its not because Im sad and thinking boy Im so sad I should top myself, its just like being so physically and mentally exhausted with the thought loop that its like, dude I dont think I can spend my life fighting this gooseberry fool - I know Im not but it just feels like someone terminal ready to finally call it quits

I doubled up my dose a couple of days ago and it seems to be lifting for now, until the next cycle

The disturbances yesterday has certainly affected me, for the first time in a couple of weeks the tremor in my right hand has returned (something which only happens when my mental health is in a bad way).

Today I dreamt of my mother steaming food on a pyre of human bodies covered with leaves without telling anyone during a big celebration, when I uncovered the food to find the bodies she just shrugged it off as if it was nothing strange, or she had done it to spite me. I had assured everyone beforehand that, "this will be the best food, and I guarantee you'll never taste anything like it again."

I have no idea whether this is currently to do with processing neglect from both my parents (and not only my dad) in the past, but strawberry float me that is strange. Apparently my gf was woken up by me slapping her by accident while shouting about there being too many frogs everywhere. It was a tropical setting.

There's no cure for this gooseberry fool

Green Gecko wrote:Today I dreamt of my mother steaming food on a pyre of human bodies covered with leaves without telling anyone during a big celebration, when I uncovered the food to find the bodies she just shrugged it off as if it was nothing strange, or she had done it to spite me. I had assured everyone beforehand that, "this will be the best food, and I guarantee you'll never taste anything like it again."

I have no idea whether this is currently to do with processing neglect from both my parents (and not only my dad) in the past, but strawberry float me that is strange. Apparently my gf was woken up by me slapping her by accident while shouting about there being too many frogs everywhere. It was a tropical setting.

There's no cure for this gooseberry fool

The waking up your girlfriend thing reminds me of the time my other half woke me up, we had watched Gerald's game a film about a woman being handcuffed to a bed screaming help in the day late that night early the next morning she woke me up by screaming help I shot up to ask her what was wrong and she said nothing and went back to sleep lol

Definitely struggling with anxiety today because of everything going on since BoJo's address last night. Just trying to stay grounded and need to avoid imagining nightmare scenarios.

Sorry Zilnad mate, it’s no fun for any of us at the moment, especially with the shite obfuscated messages were getting. I was sorry to read about your work situation as well, hope it works itself out.

On a completely different note to a Corona issues, I had a bit of a moment earlier. I’ve mentioned in other threads my old mate who died last year - they dredged him out of the canal on my wedding day last year with head injuries. We’d fallen out of touch a while back, it was just one of those things and I had to make peace with the fact that I’d always wanted to get back in touch but never actually done it before he died.

Anyway, was messing about on my Instagram and went on to the page we have set up for Loki from my private account. It shows followers you have in common, and long story short I didn’t realise that said dead mate not only had an insta account but had been following both me and Loki until he died. It was a nasty little jolt. I feel shitty, and wish I’d known to use the platform and reach out to him before he died. It makes me wonder if he’d tried to use that to keep in touch or to reach out.

I dunno if that makes sense? It’s just a bit grim seeing a dead man’s name unexpectedly on social media I guess.

And on another different note, knocked back for three grant applications in one day. I’m only qualified to do one thing and I can’t catch a strawberry floating break. I have no idea what to do or how to find a job that isn’t basically minimum wage in a call centre, and it’s been almost two years since I graduated. I am thoroughly on a downer today.