YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

[First of all, please don't take the title or content of this thread/post as hostility of any sort from my end. I'm just trying to be honest, that's all.]

I started listening to the podcast years ago...wrote a guest blog for Paul way back when. I'll be honest; I haven't listened in a while, but mostly because I don't think it'd be good for my state of mind.

Also, it represents a larger theme for me that's gone along with my recent spiral toward the bottom that always seems to keep falling out from under me. I've gotten so vulnerable to vacillating between (A) sympathetic, feeling more grateful than ever for what I do have because I realize how easily things can be lost now, and feeling motivated and (B) feeling totally bitter and pissed off for how much I truly realize, now, how much people take for granted, how selfish they are, and becoming angry from seeing people who would've viewed me as a contemporary a few months ago now treat me like scum just because I have less money and *things*. There's so much more than that, though...suffice to say my mood never feels stable lately; it's always vacillating between extremes. And I don't think that's really an unreasonable reaction to what's been going on--it's quite normal. But that doesn't change how it feels. And it doesn't do anything else but make you feel even more helpless when things don't get better.
That's why I mention feeling delusional. Why the fuck am I posting this? What good is going to come of it? Is pity going to pay the bills, put food in my stomach? Is it going to make me feel better? Or is it just my brain coordinating all of my systems together to type this out and get the thoughts out of my brain so that it can be purged (relatively) clean, at least enough to not totally give up?

Let's see if I can make more sense to the outside reader. I lost my job a few months ago. A good...no, great job. I was on top of the world, with a blindingly bright future in my field, and it all came crashing down in a moment. I'm not exaggerating...I worked at places people only dream of working at. But not anymore. I've been stuck since then.
I can't find a job...I don't know why. It's never been like this.
I'm so behind on rent that I can't tell if the lack of letters threatening eviction on my door this week are a result of pity because of the holiday season, or because they've finally filed an eviction notice with the courts and are waiting for me to be served with court papers. I've been anxious and paranoid because of the possibility of the latter...I want to protect my dog (literally the only thing I'm living for right now) and stay at home with her, but I'm afraid to stay home because it feels like "they" can find me here.
I forgot I had a ticket from mid-summer that went unpaid as a result of the chaos of losing my job, and now my license got suspended. I don't know how I'm going to get it back, and I've no friends or family where I live, so my ability to travel determines my ability to get a job. I just found out it was suspended the other day...got pulled over, thank god the cop took pity and didn't take me to jail. Now I have that on my record.
Fuck...I can't even afford toilet paper! I've had to hold it and walk to the gas station a mile away randomly to try and seem like an anonymous traveler needing to use the restroom.
Yep, it's even a surprise to me that in the worst of times, the idea of stealing from others (even something as dumb as TP) feels even more sickening than ever before. I think it's because you realize how precious every little thing is in life--you really understand how much every stupid little thing you ever paid money for means when you can't afford to have it any more and have to live without it. I don't know...maybe that just make me really stupid when it comes to surviving. I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

I don't have any friends around here. My family is hundreds of miles away and they basically disowned me years ago anyway. The only reason I haven't given into the many thoughts I've had about how easy it would be to kill myself is because my dog (a barely year-old pup--and don't worry, every penny I get goes to feeding her and keeping her in good health first...and please don't suggest I give her up unless you'd also suggest someone give away their kids) looks at me, still, like I can do no wrong. The few times I've left her in the care of others, they've universally reported that she basically can't handle it when I'm gone. I mean...she can, she functions, but she needs me. That's the only thing on earth that I'm completely sure of any more. So despite everything else, even if it would fix my maladies, I couldn't do anything to myself because that would be doing the same to her.

The only thing that's become clear to me recently is that the idea of a "bottom" from where "things can only go up" is all nonsense--things can always get worse. What's more, everyone else will always feel entitled to wax philosophical about others' problems and the causes for them, while claiming some entitlement to do so via a feeling like talking about the problems of many is the same as helping to fix the problems of many. But at the end of the day, when it comes down to needing to do more than talking, everyone will run away. No one will actually help.

I just feel like... a year from now, how do I want my perspective to feel? Obviously I want to look back and feel triumphant and like I'm back on top. But how the fuck do I do that? Wait for luck? Some poetic turn of events that would only occur because someone else is trying to cover their ass and look like a good person? Because I've been doing everything I know to do, and everything keeps getting worse.

tbh, you don't sound delusional.

How is your dog holding up?

Is there public transport where you live? Save up for a pass. Start job hunting once you have that.

Find things that cost zero money to make you happy. I would hope you live somewhere that if you take a walk it feels relaxing, but that's not always the case. So weird suggestion here: urban exploration. Take your puppy to somewhere abandoned (a dilapidated building, basically) and keep safe. Yes, it's technically illegal, but I doubt you'd get jailed or fined if you promised to just get away from the premises.

You have internet. There is SO MUCH you can do with your computer, besides looking for good places to get outside and play. Find a cost-effective hobby.

I'm giving you practical advice not on the idea that you should or will follow it: just that the point of this post is clear. You have money issues and it SUCKS. Thing is, this is the internet. I know so many people getting by on the skin of their teeth and while they may not enjoy life to the fullest or spend their money well--there ARE ways to live this way.

You one of a billion/zillion people living on a spinning rock around the sun, lucky enough to even have the experience of being alive while all other planets in our solar system are dead. You have the beauty and the burden of consciousness, rationality, and cognition. Though you're only one, it's YOUR LIFE. That alone is worth something: YOUR EXPERIENCE is UNIQUE, even if there are people out there with similar stories--they will never be exactly like YOUR story.'
'
Also not sure if you're male or female, or live in any place that has relative wooded areas around you... but if you do have wooded areas, take care of your bathroom problem that way. If you're female, designate a nasty rag to wipe yourself--if you're male, designate a shit rag. Seriously, who else is judging you as harshly as yourself at this point? BUT if you don't have any woody areas around you, yeah... still use the rag ideas and go to the bathroom in your own house or something. TP is a luxury, not a biological requirement. Not saying I don't understand the indignity of that, but this is sort of what humility teaches you--"Who cares?" You do, the most, in the end.

I think as soon as you find any kind of income it will get better. I think if you get kicked out by your landlords and end up on the street with your puppy, you can be smart enough to seek out the resources that can help. Survival is IN US; it's taught, but it can also just kick in when we're in that type of situation. If you end up homeless it WILL feel like the end of the world, I know--but with resilience you can get through it.

I guess I say this because you said "nobody can help." Depending on your talents and demeanor, people will want to help you, even if you don't expect or think they will. You don't even need to beg for it--you could probably tell your story to 100 different people and 1 of them will do something that truly HELPS, and I'd bet even more would do so.

So basically I'll end on this: do not give up on yourself but give in to humility, as hard as it is. Do not give up on humanity because as social creatures we WANT to help each other. Fight against your problems to the best of your ability and don't blame yourself if you don't, or you do and things go wrong, because life is fucking hard. When I read all of this I read your resilience--you have the mind to know this situation is fucked and don't want any part of it, and that's a lot to start with.

Sorry if this all comes off as pedantic or obvious... it's just that I feel every human being is valuable, but everyone has to value themselves in order for the rest of the world to realize it.

Hey, I'm so glad you have your dog. There are many days that my two are the only thing tethering me to this ground. I'm sorry about your job--I was fired once, but it was from a hell job. It still felt bad. Losing your dream job sucks.

Please try to hold yourself as gently as you hold your dog, for you deserve the same loving care that you give him.

Once again, I’m not quite sure why I’m posting this, that is, I don’t expect it something to jump out of the screen and fix my problem(s). I guess I’m just posting this to get it out of my head.

I was feeling really good until this past week. And, actually, I didn’t feel like I was anywhere near on the verge of a breakdown until Friday evening.

I got a pretty hefty cold on Monday evening and just now am getting over it. So the most of this week I laid in bed, the logical part of my brain wanting to take me on a guilt trip for acting like a baby about a cold, the rest of my brain feeling like that was all the energy I could muster. Throughout the week I still applied to approximately 20 jobs and had a couple phone interviews, one of which instantly turned into an in-person interview. I also received my 2nd invitation to interview for a PhD program in Clinical Psychology. This is also the 2nd invitation I earned of my own merit, as opposed to the many schools who would be able to invite me based upon their history with inviting students from the Master’s program I was in, or because of mutual relationships with my mentors. So not only am I the first with a college degree in my family, I’m the first with a Master’s, I was good enough that my work merited my clinical research internship turning into a paid position at 2014’s “Best Hospital in America” according to US News, and this is the 2nd time I’ve earned at least 2 interviews to high-ranking schools based upon nothing but my own merit—like I said, these schools have no connection to my connections and they’ve never taken anyone from my own school.
ANYWAY…suffice to say things were going really good for a while. I felt like things were finally turning around. Then on Friday…really, nothing new happened, but it feels like everything good disappeared and I started freaking out about the whole driver’s license thing I mentioned in my first post.

Over a month ago I got pulled over because the cop was playing BINGO with cars that passed by (I know because I know I wasn’t speeding or doing anything else wrong, because he mentioned no other problems when he pulled me other, and because that’s the only offense listed on the citation) and when he ran my plates he saw my license was suspended. I had no idea it was suspended, and I told him that. He didn’t even take me out of my car, when he could’ve taken me to jail and had my car towed. Instead he let me park it and just wrote me a ticket. He said my license was suspended because of an unpaid ticket, so when he gave me the new citation he said “What you need to do is pay the fines associated with your unpaid ticket, get your license reinstated, and then come to traffic court on the date listed on this citation.” I didn’t realize it then, but he didn’t even mention that, technically, I could just pay the $285 fine and never have to go to court. I suspect he didn’t because if I were to do that, my license would be suspended for even longer, and if I were to get it reinstated then it’d get re-suspended anyway.
I literally paid everything off and had my license reinstated less than 7 days later. All of this happened a month and a half ago. In the interim, the clerk of the court told me “Don’t pay the fine! If your license is valid now that’ll just make you lose it again. Bring all the proof that your license is valid to court on the date listed and they’ll be able to work it out with you so you can deal with the citation without losing your license again.”
All of this seems to make sense, but on Friday I started freaking out because when I was reading online it said the maximum potential sentence in my state is up to 90 days in jail! I keep having this idiotic fear that I’m going to go to traffic court on Monday and they’re going to cart me off to jail even though my license has been valid basically since a few days after I got pulled over and I haven’t had any problems in the interim. My record is (literally) nothing worse than speeding tickets, and even then the last one I got was over a year ago. I’m at a point where I just keep thinking I’m going to get up there, say “not guilty” (because the law indicates that I would’ve had to know that my license was suspended in order to be fully guilty) and they’ll impose jail on me when in reality I could’ve just paid $285 and never even gone to court in the first place (sure, I’d have lost my license, but at least then I wouldn’t be in jail!).
Then, in the midst of all of this, I notice something huge on the ticket. The vehicle information is 100% incorrect. I mean, it’s not even CLOSE to the car I own. The tags, license plate, make, model, color, EVERYTHING (it doesn’t list a VIN) is 100% wrong. Almost like it’s more likely the cop wrote wrong information on purpose because otherwise he’d had to have had one hell of a brain fart to mix up that much important information (especially when the citation alleges something that requires driving a vehicle registered to me—otherwise, with no other offenses listed, how would he have been able to pull me over?). So now people are telling me to say not guilty because of the fucked up ticket and just rely on that. All I want someone to tell me is what I have to do to not go to jail!

I wake up worrying about this and I can’t get it out of my mind. Even though I rationally know that if this were something I’d be likely to end up in jail for, I’d already be there and they wouldn’t have allowed me to just have a ticket (thereby allowing me to potentially avoid a court date altogether by making it what the state calls a “payable-by-ticket” offense), I can’t stop worrying about it.

I feel like my mind and life is falling apart all of a sudden because I can’t stop worrying all of a sudden. In reality, all these great things were happening, and I can’t even let them register because of my fear of what’s going to happen in traffic court.

Then I get out of bed to go to the bathroom or something and I’m even more depressed because I see my apartment acting as a perfect representation of how much my life HAS fallen apart over the past few months to a year. I’ve literally never fully unpacked from when I move in, so my house is ridiculously messy. The best way to describe it is almost like as messy as if a hoarder lived here, minus the ridiculous amount of stuff. And I try to get motivated and start cleaning, but between having lived in it for almost 7 months and getting discouraged so quickly, I just have no idea where to start and then get depressed about it all. The most I can do is clear off the coffee table by putting it all into a box and cleaning off the top of the coffee table, pretending like that’s “progress.” But now the mess is in the box.

I just don’t even know where to begin to piece my life back together. I want to so badly, but all of a sudden I’m crippled by fear. And then guilt sets in because I feel so horrible for how I’m letting my dog and everyone who’s supported me during this time (from people who wrote letters of recommendation for grad school to my parents) down and it’s like they don’t even know it. Then I feel hopeless for all of those reasons, and even for stupid little reasons like the fact that I still haven’t bought a new box spring and am still just a loser with a mattress on the floor.

I still feel like there’s so much crap in my brain I need to let out but now it’s like I’m just confused and still paranoid. If someone would let me, I’d just hide away and hopefully eventually disappear.

Please take care, pocketsand. You are not a loser. You are a valuable human. All the best.