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

...there's nowhere to go and there's no end in sight. (And then a micro-economy develops, and the locals take advantage of the captives and then people start bathing in the street and some children are probably conceived in a truck bed and then one day it's over.)

I'm having trouble waking up and taking inventory of where I'm headed and finding anything in it I find of any particular value or that brings any kind of pleasure. I wake up every day and think about how I don't think I can do this every day. I can't live this joyless life, trudging to work and back and experiencing only nominal pleasure on almost solely on weekends for the rest of my life. I mean, I struggle to get through every day. I hate so many parts of my day, and those parts are widening and joining together and I think a lot about escaping it. And my hatred for myself is just exploding and expanding and just invading my every thought, and it gets worse every year. And I know there are supposedly activities one can do to get out of it, but I don't really believe it. You gotta believe to commit, right? And you gotta commit to get better. Sometimes i think happy people are just liars. Most of all, I am tired. I mean, is it just me or is life really empty? (neither,kim. yes, ok.)

(The stupid part is, I've seen things work. It's funny how once you're out of a certain place in your life, it's like you can't connect to it at all. I've learned lessons I might as well have just heard about other people learning for how much I really believe them. )

Sometimes I like to blame American culture for my sense of emptiness. If we weren't all capitalists, maybe I wouldn't think about dying so much. ( Because that makes complete sense. But on some level, it does.) If we feel like we can buy anything, a lingering unhappiness seems to be the fault of we, the consumer. You can get that stain of sadness out with this new spray, stupid. How can we ever grow to accept anything if we always think there's a way out of it? Depressives are a big enough market, where's our answer already?

The thing in depression, where you feel like a fraud because you're acting all of the time just as a survival tactic is illustrated beautifully in Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. Von Trier is a depressive himself. He wrote both that one and Antichrist while dealing with it. (When (if) you google him and it says he's a Nazi don't believe it. He's a guy with a crazy sense of humor and probably a self destructive streak.)

Disclaimer: This post took a stream of consciousness turn, and I do apologize. I did edit out a tangent about the "stupid American" being a myth. (not to say I think it's not a myth, it totally is).

I like the way you write. Your words paint a very clear picture of what you're feeling. And, sadly, those are definitely feelings I can relate to. I'm not even that far removed from feeling that way right now.

cyanidebreathmint wrote:You gotta believe to commit, right? And you gotta commit to get better.

I think that was probably a rhetorical question. I hesitate to offer advice because the last thing I want to do is invalidate the poignant emotion in your post. However, when I read that line I was reminded of something from one of the podcasts. I think it might have been #32, with Alycia Schlesinger. If I'm remembering it correctly, her point was that all you really need is a tiny "kernel of hope." I took that to mean that I don't have to be 100% convinced that any particular treatment approach is going to work for me. (Frankly, I'm way short of 100%.) All I need to do is identify that tiny bit of hope and then nurture that hope whenever I have the energy to do so. It's still maddening though when I go backwards.

Dan

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." ~Lin Yutang

I like the way you write. Your words paint a very clear picture of what you're feeling. And, sadly, those are definitely feelings I can relate to. I'm not even that far removed from feeling that way right now.

cyanidebreathmint wrote:
You gotta believe to commit, right? And you gotta commit to get better.

I think that was probably a rhetorical question. I hesitate to offer advice because the last thing I want to do is invalidate the poignant emotion in your post. However, when I read that line I was reminded of something from one of the podcasts. I think it might have been #32, with Alycia Schlesinger. If I'm remembering it correctly, her point was that all you really need is a tiny "kernel of hope." I took that to mean that I don't have to be 100% convinced that any particular treatment approach is going to work for me. (Frankly, I'm way short of 100%.) All I need to do is identify that tiny bit of hope and then nurture that hope whenever I have the energy to do so. It's still maddening though when I go backwards.

Dan

Thanks for the response.

I dunno, Dan. I dunno what I believe, but something appeals to me about getting to be skeptical and still commit to something on the off chance (or kernel of hope) that it'll work.

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." ~Lin Yutang

I'm not sure I understand that quote, but it's a cool image.

cyanidebreathmint wrote:...something appeals to me about getting to be skeptical and still commit to something on the off chance (or kernel of hope) that it'll work.

Yeah, I'm the same way. The trick for me is to not let my skepticism (for me it's more like pessimism, or fear of uncertainty, or fear of failure) hold me back from something that just might help me. It's a lot to overcome. Now that I think about all the things that have held me back, I'm not surprised that the process has taken so long. It's no wonder that setbacks have been so devastating for me. Anyway, best wishes to you. I know how hard it can be.

Dan

I dunno, I mean, in certain ways optimism is willful ignoring of the horrible aspects of the world, and even in a sense it's disrespectful. Like, I really am offended by ideas like the 'law of attraction' and 'the secret' and things for that reason. (Sorry, don't wanna tread on anyone's toes. I still love people who love it. My dad was into it and I didn't push him out of a moving car or anything) I think willfully ignoring horrible things is bad because a. it means it's less likely there will be the human intervention necessary in some instances to improve things b. conversely, it makes bad things the fault of the individual when sometimes it's just natural fact etc. Pessimism is probably equally bad. Skepticism is good! I don't think that should be a four letter word, because it can lead to realism and protects us from falsehoods which limit us. Yay isms! Yay semantics. Yay bundle of assumptions I've just made.

More seriously, thanks for the well wishes. I extend the same to you.

I got a few referrals a few days ago. Now to call them, I guess. In a bit of a 'whatever' mood. It's the holidays, anyway.

Happy Chanukah, btw, people.

Okay, I think I see your point now. I was talking about my "skepticism" (which for me was really more than just skepticism) and how it relates to keeping me from trying to get professional help, or at least to generally take steps to help myself get better.

When it comes to understanding all the trouble and suffering in the world, you're right, it would be wrong to pretend it doesn't exist. I will say this though: my mind plays a really nasty trick on me when I'm very depressed. Some people call it a "mental filter." When I'm very depressed, all I can see are the bad parts of life and the world. It's like I lose track of the fact that there are tons of people doing tons of good things all around me. The change is so dramatic and so convincing it's scary.

cyanidebreathmint wrote:I dunno, I mean, in certain ways optimism is willful ignoring of the horrible aspects of the world, and even in a sense it's disrespectful.

I tend to agree, and sometimes the realistic view is the pessimistic view. The only problem is that humans are not wired logically, and pessimism leads to inaction leads to learned helplessness. Staying a capable human being is important to me, and being optimistic or pessimistic or realistic or crazy-go-nuts is just a means to an end - being a capable human being is the key.

I will say this though: my mind plays a really nasty trick on me when I'm very depressed. Some people call it a "mental filter." When I'm very depressed, all I can see are the bad parts of life and the world. It's like I lose track of the fact that there are tons of people doing tons of good things all around me. The change is so dramatic and so convincing it's scary.

Yeah, me too.

Although, for me, its hard to see it while it's happening. It just seems right. And it's hard for me to remember what that frame of mind feels like once I'm experiencing a reprieve. Similarly, it's hard for me to imagine being in an optimistic and cheery state when I'm not, and the time between them gets greater over time. I wish I could go beyond a mere intellectual understanding of what happens there. But intellectually, the difference can be jarring.

There's this story I used to like as a kid called the Snow Queen, where demons drop this magic glass and it falls to earth and breaks into a million pieces. The thing about the glass is it only reflects bad, sad and terrible things, and it magnifies them. When the glass falls, it breaks and the little fragments scatter all over the earth and lodge in people's eyes and hearts making them cold, and only able to see the ugly in the world. This was my favorite story as a kid. lol. I think in the end love fixes it. Anyway your line about the mental filter reminded me of it.