Troebia's Diary

[troebia]

Just checking in, hope you're able to wean yourself from the meds without more trouble.

Hi SD, a medication update:

I now feel completely free from the vortioxetine after more than five weeks. The vertigos have subsided and so have the cold brain zaps. Still having the occasional sleep apnea but the episodes seem less severe, it's more like waking up abruptly than "omg I'm dying".

There are some other lasting changes after the medication and the therapy, for example I don't get anxious or riled up easily. Wife got wound up on the last day of the trip about something I said about the Spanish compared to the Italians and said she "didn't want to live with a person like me". Probably mother-in-law was lurking too, dialling in remotely from more than 1500 kilometres away. I was just, oh well, when maybe before I'd become upset. Then I got the silent treatment for the rest of the day, but it's as if I can let the aggression flow past me now. Even the crammed flight home with screaming teenagers kicking my seat and severe turbulence wasn't able to shake me, when I'd normally would have had to take a double Xanax.

[Mental Fairy]

Oh hun that’s a mixed bag of things going on, especially with the wife. Have things improved now?

[troebia]

Spinning further on Mental Fairy's "what if" question, here comes Fantasy Life II. This one is inspired by an article I read the other day about a man who spent six years on a luxury cruise ship and travelled around the world several times, while also skipping around in private planes to places like high mountain peaks and deserts. He later sold his two multi-million $ apartments on the cruise ship because he said he had "seen it all". I probably wouldn't like to live like that myself, but I was fascinated by the idea of unlimited indecent wealth enabling one to do anything imaginable.

In this particular imaginary life, I'd be sponsoring a travelling circus show but wouldn't be the boss of anything. With the help of a think tank we'd devise provocative happenings in the cities we passed through. A film crew would make short videos of each happening that would be published on an online video site (somewhat like MrBeast on Youtube). Some of these happenings would be absurdly complicated and expensive and involve lots of people, while others would be made with a simple handheld camera and just one or two "actors". The attention-grabbing element in each show would always be primary: happiness, sadness, power balance, violence, sex, food...and always taken to the very extreme. I would never take part in the performances. We would always be mentioned in the local news but we'd never give interviews. There would be an element of surprise and unpredictability: on one site, there may be a pop-up exhibition of b/w photographs documenting the happening while on another, maybe a parade with animals and mermaids to close off before we moved on. Keyword is "crazy". This would go on for eight months each year, and during the remaining four I'd live in a retreat in the mountains somewhere in Italy. Artisans would be invited to teach classes in traditional crafts such as pottery, carpentry, basket weaving, quilting... The retreat would have a farm supervised by experienced local people and we would all collaborate. We would cook fantastic Italian food, eat, drink, sleep and have sex...

[troebia]

Have things improved now?

Same as it ever was

[manuel_moe_g]

He later sold his two multi-million $ apartments on the cruise ship because he said he had "seen it all".

this gentleman is an ass. if i woke up one morning with such thoughts, after living such a life, i would slit my throat as i favor to the world. terrible

[troebia]

Hello all, I'm re-reading my latest posts and while this diary thread may serve as a temporary(?) journal of personal thoughts, I'm becoming aware that my posts may not be appropriate for this forum. Not in an explicit sense, but because I'm drifting away from the topic of mental health issues into just riffing with my imagination. I wish I had more interesting "real" events to relate, and that could of course be a good sign just as a bad one.

So I'm thinking of restraining myself a bit here. Lately I've been playing around on Discord and Reddit: there are groups there that are completely unhinged and where my little musings are completely vanilla compared to the others', and I find it exciting.

I also wish there was a larger community of regulars here...right now there are what, four of us? We may get along well but am I the only one wishing for more "noise", like in a full, busy bar?

[manuel_moe_g]

Howdy Troebia!

This little community is what we make of it. Please feel free to riff away. Go where your imagination leads you.

I think the reason why this community is so small is that listeners to the podcast come here, see that Paul is not an active contributor, and then turn around and leave. Nothing against Paul G and how he chooses to spend his time, just plainly stating what I think is going on.

That said, this forum is still a very important place on the Internet. Discord or Facebook may be more popular, and may have a lower bar to entry, but we would have to suffer corporate censorship in both those places, and we would suffer badly, because the primary theme of this forum is mental health.

I am going to talk to Paul G about making me an webmaster/administrator here with full rights to manage this forum. The current webmaster/administrator is a good guy, but we are at least two versions behind on the phpBB software, and that is not wise in this world of hungry hackers.

(I am also the administrator of the Discord server for the members of the Zoom support group made up of people who donate at the Patreon $20 a month and above levels. For reasons I don’t understand, that Discord server has more activity than this very fine free forum, maybe because Paul G is very slightly more active on that Discord server, but he is hardly active there at all really)

[troebia]

For reasons I don’t understand, that Discord server has more activity than this very fine free forum, maybe because Paul G is very slightly more active on that Discord server, but he is hardly active there at all really)

There you have it. Paul promotes the Discord Patreon access with perks in every podcast episode, and I suppose that especially new listeners will lean in that direction instead of to this forum.

I haven't seen a lot of censorship by Discord as a corporation, at least for now. What I've noticed is that some admins are rather heavy-handed, but that's their choice. Discord is better than Facebook in that you only see the content you've subscribed to...no cats or family... Reddit is also good but can get too crazy since it's hard to stay on topic. The only thing I'd be worried about on Discord is if advertising becomes too intrusive or if they start charging subscription fees for managing a basic server.

There are over 3000 search results for "mental health" servers in Discord and I'm trying to find a few that interest me. I would very much like to continue interacting with this little community either on a Discord that already exists, or on a new one.

[Mental Fairy]

This is all way over my head as far as internet jargon goes. I’m just pleased to be here, having no social media at all this space is so incredibly important to me…..as is the people on it. You all mean something to me individually.

[snoringdog]

Hello Troebia,

Something maybe interesting on Reddit -

How Chat-GPT characterizes the different platforms.
(I don't see Discord, so maybe this should be updated)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1az1rv2/i_asked_chatgpt_to_describe_popular_social_media/