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

Well, I don't really think angels exist, but I did see that movie where that angel gave up his angel-hood to pursue 90's human Meg Ryan. (Rawr!)

If the trope is that angels come and lecture people, I am sick of it. They should just stay in heaven, since they don't understand how hard it is to be human.

I think any angel to earn his wings (I just remembered that I like the angel in Its a Wonderful Life, but he was actually helpful), should have to live as a human for five years before they can go around telling people what to do and how things are. They don't understand. They're so smug.

They should also have one of the following problems: poverty, dental issues, unemployment, anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness. These are all things I've struggled with.

Also, and I can't remember if this was part of that movie, but they can't remember how awesome heaven is. They have to feel lonely.

Actually, I really don't care about angels.

Sometimes I just like to remind myself that life is really hard. That if I can brush my teeth, keep my rent paid, and not run out of gas on the side of the highway, then I am doing really well.

I am a success today if I don't drink today.

I don't really believe that, but I want to believe that. So I tell myself that, because it is all I've got.

You are a success, Oak, by any _humane_ definition of success. Phooey on the other definitions of success that make you feel less-than.

You are a success because you are a self-actualized man laboring under great challenges.

I remember the TV show Touched By An Angel. Every episode the angels would try to help and fail. At the end of the episode they would give up and just start glowing and say God Loves You and everybody would live happily ever after. It never made sense to me. Why go through all this drama if they can just glow and make everything better?

Awww, thank you Manuel Moe. I appreciate your encouragement. It is 99% of the encouragement I've received this week/month.

I think you are really getting at it, Brownblob:

Angel, you can fix this situation!

Okay, thanks for the lecture that God loves me. I'm not any better off before you showed up, angel!

I guess the only thing that comforts me is knowing that I am better at my job than angels are at their job. Frankly my boss would fire me I rarely showed up, and was ineffectual, like our angel friends are purported to do.

And to any angels who are reading this and disagree, please prove me wrong by coming to help me! I can list three things, really simple things, that could help me.

Life is really exhausting and lonely, and one of the main comforts of religion is to be scolded by some being that doesn't understand??

That being said, I really don't believe in angels, so I think I'll go some breathing exercises and a little tai chi. I need to calm down.

Angels, being perfect and all loving and stuff, will never know hurt or longing or regret. Losing love, or unrequited love.

Part of me feels sorry for them: they'll never understand (perhaps the finest piece of culture from our time) this performance of Adele at NPR:

https://youtu.be/XfzpYcwiUrA

I must seem crazy to them: experiencing pleasure by seeing another person demonstrate genuine anguish at a love lost. How can we feel good by choosing to remember something painful? They'll never know, and it is their loss.

I know I just posted this most recent post a moment ago, but here is something closer to the truth:

I long for heaven (the one I say I don't believe in) because I've never felt at home.

Even in my current home, a warm apartment with a shower and plenty of food, the one I have a signed lease and canceled rent check for.

I am never not lonely. Or maybe I wasn't lonely, when I was with a woman I was in love with, for a total of about ten minutes in 2012.

I'm 43 and if I've been myself for ten minutes.

Hello Oak,

I feel for ya man..
We are all so alone in this world, even *with* other people.

I know you'e been trying, and I hope you can make a friend or two. (That's all you really need).

Be well...

SD

I have a partner but often times I feel very alone in this world.

Hi Oak,

Just wanted to say that you're not alone in feeling alone or not at home. I think it's already been a couple of decades since the book "Bowling Alone" was published, and recently I keep seeing references to a "loneliness epidemic" in the developed world.

Also wanted to say that I don't really believe that you're invisible to women, but even if that were the case, you're not invisible here. You're seen and appreciated.

rg

Me again ... I'm afraid what I wrote sounds dismissive of your pain, Oak. I think you know that I struggle with loneliness a lot too, and have missed being in a relationship for quite some time. I understand that sometimes knowing others experience the same thing, or knowing that people on a forum acknowledge & see you is not enough to make that pain better. I'm wishing you some more moments of connection this week.

rg