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

When you have mental illness, you exist only inside your own head..constantly trying to figure out what it all means. Analyzing every thought and feeling to the fucking bare bones. There is this constant dialogue in my head and quite often its all just swirling around in there like a fucking tornado with fleeting moments of clarity and epiphanies that inevitably go down the drain as the other chaos drowns it out and flushes it down. Fucking seriously, how can I be so brilliant and have such clear intuition and not have accomplished anything yet? I consider accomplishments to be what society has defined them to be. If I can't finish a bachelors degree, then shouldn't I at least be one of those talented fuckers that paints or plays guitar or something? I am a vortex of wasted talent because I can't follow through with anything. I wanted to be everything. I wanted to be a stand up comic and a filmmaker and a writer and a singer and I have always given up on everything because my mind gets so cluttered and confused that I get frustrated and give up. One minute its all so clear and I think "if I could just get this down on paper, I would have a bestseller".. Call it ADD or bipolar disorder or whatever you want, but I call it wasted time.

When I talk with people I forget to ask them how they feel about what they are telling me. I inevitably turn it around and make it about me somehow. Or at the very least I'm judging them in my head and thinking "suck it up".. I see the answers to life so clearly when it comes to other people but I can't practice what I preach. That's what we do when we are mentally ill...we judge..we act like we know whats best, but in the end its just a way to not deal with our own bullshit. I feel like a fraud and this tough love bullshit doesn't work, not with me, and not with other people.

When I take a walk or drive to work, I can't simply stop to appreciate the clouds in the sky, or the sound of cicada's in late summer, or the smell of tomatoes in my garden, or the gifts that nature gives us. Remember when you were a kid and you would do something as simple as watch a butterfly and be so completely swept up in just THAT moment, pondering how it flies or where it is going or why it seems to erratically fly around with no obvious destination? I CANT do that anymore. It breaks my heart. Inevitably I just turn inward to something that happened yesterday or something that is going to happen tomorrow. It's a tragedy that we lose the ability to live in the moment and think about something besides ourselves. I hate it and I can't stop. I CAN NOT ESCAPE MY OWN THOUGHTS. I'm sick of faking it. I'm sick of being an adult, whatever that means. I think being an adult is just modern day slavery. Our innocence has been crushed and its all bullshit. Capitalism...the rat race.. the self absorption...the TV..the war and murder and lies and politics.

I have no choice but to reject feeling guilty about being self absorbed because what I am truly thinking when I talk to other people is "how do you NOT get it?" "Gossip doesn't matter" "politics don't matter" " NO. I didn't hear about whats her face and the affair she was having with whats his nuts and I don't care" "NO I did NOT see dancing with the stars or worlds biggest fatass or white trash dirtbag divas or whatever fucking reality show you want to talk about!

We think that we are narcissistic for feeling the way we do and we classify this as mental illness because someone has told us these thoughts are not normal. I think its bullshit. I think the rise in mental illness is because we all know something is wrong. Humanity is headed in the WRONG direction and we all know it.


'It Is No Measure of Health To Be Well Adjusted to a Profoundly Sick Society'............ Krishnamurti

This was a very interesting read.

I would rather like to see what goes on in your head.

True or false:

I find myself pacing around the house for hours at a time trapped in a thought pattern about things that have not happened yet, and may never happen

I find myself bored almost all day every day

I pace no more value on human life, than a rock. They are both equal.

It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find things that i find interesting

I learn at a remarkable rate and become bored of something once i understand it

You are being way to hard on yourself though I know when you are in the midst of obsessive or other types of thinking. I have experienced every thought and feeling you describe. Right now I am going through a long period of not being able to meditate and I lead a meditation group! One thing I know from yrs of meditation practice most thoughts do not come from you----they are passing phenomena that you have no control over---just like sneezing. It is rare that we think our own thoughts unless we are doing something like taxes. So all this means your thoughts are not you. I hear a lot of thoughts of you getting down on yourself.

Now I can't see your post so I hope I have things right. You said you can't finish school even though you have the ability and that you prefer the arts. Can you reframe that you are not finishing school bc there is some important things you should imagine, that some part of you knows there is something brewing under the surface. Don't know how old you are but you sure sound more drawn to the arts. Take a couple yrs off and give the arts a try?

I am a college prof so I have been around a lot of students. I often see students take a few yrs off and come back really wanting to be there. This is usually that there explorations have led them to a career area and they now see how college can help them achieve what is their true path. They are usually the best students

Hope I have gotten everything right. I wish you heartfelt "luck, karma...on your journey.

A couple of helpful books:
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodren
Full Catastrophe Living by by Jon Kabot-Zinn
If you are interested there is a book by Mark Epstein about working with depression
All these books come from people with a Buddhist life but you do not have to be interested in becoming a Buddhist or something. They are all really accessible, even if you know nothing of Buddhism. If you are having trouble staying on task, I recommend the first book--chapters very short.

Also, you're right, gossip and reality shows ARE bullshit.