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

hello everyone

I just recently started to listening to podcasts regarding any topics, and this show is wonderful!!! Paul, you are such an inspiration. I have been battling with some kind of disorder my entire life and never really knew what was wrong. I remember the first time I ever heard the phrase 'social anxiety' and how things started to make sense to me. This wasn't just me, I wasn't alone and I think so many people just don't realize what weight is lifted from a person when they don't feel alone. This was many years ago, 16 or so. I just finished listening to the episode about Aspergers. I cried while it was playing. It's sooo much more than just feeling nervous or anxious like I assumed was the only issue for 16 years. I have the biggest feeling of relief right now. I don't even know how to properly express this feeling the way it deserves. It's like I've just had a realization for the first time in my entire life. I feel like this is something now that maybe I can just accept about myself and find ways to deal with. And not think that I need some kind of pill to regulate anything in my brain. (I took Paxil 15 years ago, didn't like it BECAUSE people said they actually noticed a change in me, they noticed me being more social and just not the same wallflower i was, and I HATED THAT!, I didn't feel like myself, sure other people seemed to like me better, but I didn't feel normal, so I've not been on any meds since then, but going on thirty now, I started to reexamine the idea of them because hey, it's weird to be 30 and not have ANY friends) Just to have the power to be able to explain to people why I am the way that I am without it sounding like I'm weak and scared and shy and just unsure and uncertain of myself and my feelings, NO, it's not always that, sometimes some of those things do present themselves, but maybe it's something more. It's weird, I would always say that I thought I was mildly autistic and I never meant for it to sound offensive at all, I really believed there was something different about how my brain functioned, and then to learn that Aspergers is on the autism spectrum made me conclude that perhaps I'm not crazy and paranoid and I don't make things up in my head. THANK YOU SO MUCH for this show!! I hope to be active on this forum, hopefully I'll make some acquaintances on here, and get a lot of insight and feedback on things I just didn't think anyone understood.

Welcome. I hope that you will find some support here. I'm new too, as you know. Keep writing; I'll be looking for your posts

hangin with the raisin girls will only stifle you. dont bet your life, you are beautiful, u are unquestionably flawed,you lie to often and put on airs that are unbecoming, and youre not nearly as happy as you pretend to be....but you are a good person, you are kind, and when you leave this world you will leave behing much more good than bad, and u are more capable than you let yourself beleive and, this is the most important, you are worthy of many things you deny yourself, your worthy of a world more, ur just on the wrong side of beauty, so u cant see it yet, i hope u do.....p.s. fyi i'm not a perv, not intrested in getting to know you or any wierd creepy shit, but i thought u should know, bc i get the feeling yer not told enough....

p.s. asbergers is an autisim spectrum disorder that didnt even exist till the 70s my 11 year old son, now in 8th grade has many of the characteristics, but as they say, the science is still out. If i could change anything about him, his brattyness, his precociousness, his inability to be respectful at times or the way he sometimes react to things i dont understand, his awkward social quirks, his food quirks, his inabillity to let go of a topic untill he knows everyhing about it, and any other things about him i find annoying or hard to deal with, or rather hard to help him deal with, I fucking wouldnt, and you'd have to kill me before i let anyone try to fix him, or tell him he "aint right" or "touched" because he's not. FUCK YES he is diffrent. but why the fuck would i want him to be normal? normal is boring, and, if i'm to read into your contextual clues, i think you'll agree normal can oft be synonymous with mean...i cant assume how much of this blather applies to you, but personally, i think the world would be a better place if there was a bit more weird in it. you are a good person. deeply flawed, but at the same time nothin is "wrong" with you