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

Hi everyone. I'm going to give this a go. Paul's show (awesome, by the way) and this community are emboldening me to do what it seems that I've been incapable of doing since I was a kid: be honest. Sweeping this stuff under the rug has *not* been going awesome.

I've been in treatment for a few years now, I'm 25, and have been diagnosed by a few different doctors with: dysthymia, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, nothing, and clinical depression. These days, I'm less concerned with labels (at least I know that the anxiety is pretty serious) and more concerned with trying to get a handle on everything. The good news is that I'm medicated (Seroquel, you sweet beautiful lady) and am doing better than I ever have, but I know I'm not really out of the woods, nor will I ever be.

I'm incredibly fearful of other people and tend to spend a lot of time mentally and emotionally withdrawn from others. For instance, I have not had not had a conversation longer than five minutes with anyone in my office in the nearly three years I've been working here (and one of my bosses is a family friend who I've known since I was born). Most days, I can't even spare a "Good morning" to my co-workers. This is due to a pretty toxic fear of humiliation coupled with an irrational spite I have for them for not "making the effort" to get to know me. Anyway, I don't blame them, because my apparent disposition seems to be "pissed off" or "impossibly nervous."

My family situation growing up was stable, but my brothers and I were in constant competition and I felt like I had to be constantly on. For me, it meant "being good." My homework always got done, I never picked a fight with my parents, and I was always pretty upbeat. I'm pretty incapable of answering questions like, "How are you?" with anything but "Good. Just fine." So, I'm never truly honest, because I always feel like I have to be doing just fine.

The truth, of course, is that I'm never usually feeling very good. Since I never express negative emotions with anyone (even close friends and family), I tend to bottle it up until it comes out in really unhealthy ways (e.g. a suicide attempt, abrupt break-ups with friends and in romantic relationships, etc.). Even now, I've been in a fairly unhealthy co-dependent relationship for a couple of years, and I don't really see an end in sight.

I can see some hope, and I feel like things can get better. I'm excited to participate in the community, and also wonder if it would be out of line to suggest a mental-illness softball league.

Hello #occupymyanxiety , welcome to the forum.

#occupymyanxiety wrote:This is due to a pretty toxic fear of humiliation coupled with an irrational spite I have for them for not "making the effort" to get to know me. Anyway, I don't blame them, because my apparent disposition seems to be "pissed off" or "impossibly nervous."

Wow, this sounds familiar to me in college.

I have a lot of (bad) advice from my own autobiography, but I will refrain because only I enjoy me yammering on and on. Let me just say that I read your whole post, and I am so happy you are taking steps to improve your situation.

Please take care, all the best, cheers!

#occupymyanxiety wrote:Hi everyone. I'm going to give this a go.

Welcome and thank you for your courage. I think finding a healthy way to tell your story--your whole story--is one of the antidotes to shame. In my life, shame is what ultimately has made it so difficult to connect to people sometimes. I once heard someone define shame as the fear that if anyone knew "the real me" they wouldn't like me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

These days, I'm less concerned with labels and more concerned with trying to get a handle on everything.

Sounds good to me. If a diagnosis gives your treatment a clear direction or if it gets your insurance company off your doctor's back then fine, but other than that I think it's very healthy that you're deliberately turning your focus toward solutions. What have you come up with so far? I could tell you what I'm doing (and I will if you want), but I'd like to hear your ideas too.

Hello #occupy!!

I'd like to lay out some thoughts raised from reading your intro, but firstly welcome to this place where the deer and the antelope play.

Lots of reading references are to be found here and I took to a few. Look for that in the passages and see what grabs you. In my own reading of these subjects, there is a major consistency citing the grasp of "truth" or "reality" in the pursuit of mental health. Albert Ellis favored the word "rational" and for me this all speaks the same approach. I bring this up 'cuz you declare a fresh commitment to honesty in your very first paragraph and I wanted to applaud you for it.

It's interesting to see how people, including ME, can exaggerate and embrace screwball assumptions among other irrational thinking. People suffer CONSTANTLY by getting all rev'd up over bent expectations and false bias with little regard for what is simply factual. M. Scott Peck, I think, in "The Road Less Traveled" makes the case for committing to reality/truth and how instead, humans so very often trust nonsense, and trusting nonsense is surely the cause of much mental distress. Ya.

Paragraph #4.....when you answer when asked, "How are you?" with, "Good. Just fine." I take (carefully assume!) that you feel this answer is dishonest because it's always the same answer whether you are "Good. Just fine." or not.....then you imply a PRESSURE that this is how you MUST always feel.

Albert Ellis has a cute word, "MUSTurbation" that might fit here.

Modern "shrinks" are re-thinking the "self-esteem" concept as over-emphasized because they argue that self-esteem has evolved into a mindset that unless one is doing STELLAR, you're chopped liver. Albert Ellis was a BIG critic of the self-esteem model because his therapy teaches to accept yourself no matter what and that includes after failing miserably.......

How hard it must be for show-biz people to digest THAT! Particularly the spotlight performers......

Acceptance of ourselves, other people and the world AS IT REALLY ALL IS.......is the objective in the hard work (and it's HARD work) of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Albert Ellis)........and the payoff promises a reduction in mental distress.

I've always had a school kid curiosity about social greetings and salutations. When someone in passing asks "how are you?"....I'd imagine an answer as a long drawn out explanation about my dentist and my wife and whatever else because after all I was asked, "how are you?" and I wanted to be honest and accommodating to my fellow human being. I played that scenario out in my head countless times until I realized that NO ONE, at least in passing, cares two shits for an accurate answer and moreover, to ASK THE VERY SAME QUESTION BACK is perhaps the most common answer given. And this little social ritual is all there is to it.

So #occupy.......I don't think you owe anyone more than one of the age-old utterance-answers in this most common social exchange and done without involving your honesty pillar whatsoever. Get up a FEW answer nuggets and deal them out like peanuts as the days go by! We're social creatures and we do strange things by tradition, like our duty to present ourselves to others in certain ways.

In those cases where genuine interest in your recent affairs is expressed and you are RATIONALLY obliged to respond, consider the concept of personal "boundaries" to govern the depth and length of your answer. Think it over in moments of privacy and develop your own thoughtful limits for when needed, bearing in mind "self-compassion" because you are responsible for your own happiness/well-being/minimized distress.

I've used many key words from my own self-efforts in this posting. Can you tell?

I love that you were diagnosed with, "nothing" as one of the many labels! Did the fuck CHARGE YOU for that visit? HAW!!

There is no humor in paragraph #5.

There is humor in your last paragraph. Excellent.

Welcome!

I have to tell you that this line made me laugh:

also wonder if it would be out of line to suggest a mental-illness softball league.

My oldest daughter has been playing little league baseball (with the boys, not softball with the girls) for 6 years, and let me tell you I think all those leagues could qualify as mental illness leagues.

Actually your idea is a great one - often when a parent is getting their knickers in a twist over batting order or something I say, "Wow, if you think what goes on in a little league game is a problem, then you have a really good life." It can give you good perspective on what really matters. Unfortunately in my experience there are quite a few parents and coaches (and the occasional kid) who completely lose perspective when it comes to sports. My daughter and I think there should be a reality show about little league coaches. We have seen some crazy shit.

On a more serious note I can relate to your problems with expressing negative feelings and how that can lead to anxiety and depression. I tend to be someone who, under the guise of picking my battles, walks away from a lot of confrontation. That works to a point. At some point though you have to stand up for yourself. I find that very hard to do sometimes.

Thanks, everyone, for the warm welcome.

Algernon, thanks for the advice. I'm getting more comfortable with the meaningless social rituals. It would be kind of funny (albeit in a selfish kind of way) to answer a co-worker's "How are you?" as they're walking by, with "My fucking DAD!" I'm the type of person who feels like I need to be as open with possible with all the close people in my life, but can't do that. Discovering those boundaries, as you say, is something I'm looking forward to (maybe "looking forward to" is not the expression I want to be using here.).

Next year,

I used to play little league as a kid, and, my god! People get so nuts over it. My team happened to win a local championship game, and my coach got on his knees, started pumping his fist and yelling "YEAH!." I guess people need some kind of sense of tangible victory. Anyway, the snacks brought that day were unreal (king-sized Reece's pieces. We felt like winners.).

There's a not-so-fine line between civility and getting walked all over. Not rocking the boat is a specialty of mine. Here's to navigation (and to all of you)!

also wonder if it would be out of line to suggest a mental-illness softball league.

I call shortstop! But seriously, sports have a knack for bringing out either the best or the worst in people. Lately, I've been trying to use sports--as both a fan and a participant--to practice life skills in a setting that has almost no significance in the grand scheme of the universe. To be passionate about something and not lose perspective...to desire something and accept that it's not totally under my control...to perform despite self-consciousness...to see mistakes and failures as opportunities for growth...to learn to regulate strong emotions like the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat...to function as part of a team even though people are complicated and flawed. All of these seem like big-time life skills to me and they are really the main reason to be involved with sports. In the grand scheme of things, the outcome of a game is pretty insignificant. So if I do it right, sports can be a really low-risk, high-yield thing for me.

Algernon and others make an important point. Most of the time when people say, "How are you?" it's not much more than a social ritual. For me, it can serve as a painful reminder that I often don't feel the way I want to feel (yet.) And it used to make me very bitter to have to say "I'm good" or "I'm fine" because I desparately needed to tell someone how awful I felt and I was struggling to find a healthy way to do so. I resented people for even asking me how I was feeling, I guess, because I knew damn well that I couldn't spill my guts to an acquaintance in a passing conversation. I was angry because I was stuck and I didn't know what to do about it, and it felt like someone should be helping me, but I wasn't really reaching out to the right people, and when I did I wasn't really surrendering to the process....Oy!

Anyway, the snacks brought that day were unreal (king-sized Reece's pieces. We felt like winners.).

Love that story. When my younger daughters played little league in 3rd grade, I had to explain to their coaches that the kids really could care less about their standings. For them it was all about chewing bubble gum and eating sunflower seeds in the dugout, and snacks after the game. 5 minutes after any given game they would forget if they had won or lost and would be ripping around the diamond.

Occupy,

Welcome to the forum! Both you and your sweet lady Seraquil. Is it true that if you don't have her home by midnight she turns into methadone?

Seriously though, thanks for opening up and I hope you find this to be a place where your anxiety is okay to talk about.

Paul