write your depressed thoughts here

let us shed the light of knowlege on your darkest dreams

my haircut is a little uneven and i feel like it is the end of the world

my kid has a cold - surely this will lead to respiratoy failure and death

Okay, CBT your way out of this:

I let debilitating social phobia completely destroy the last 15 years of my life, and despite the minor improvements I've been able to make to regain some tiny bit of self-confidence I still can't get over the fact that no matter how fast I fix things it's too late to have the life I actually wanted, and my "peer group" (whoever/wherever the fuck they are) have long since moved on.

And I still have no friends, social phobia is still present in full force, I've just developed a few strategies for dealing with it beyond the previous "no human engagement with anyone, ever," and I think I might be developing an Ativan problem.

Xpost OK, I obviously did not correctl gauge the tone of this thread. Fuck it, posting anyway. Do be careful, floor is slippery when wet (with bile)

am sick and bedbound...being sick in a more normal flu/cold always makes me depressed cos of chronic illness, don't know why. also stress about calling in sick to work and losing money by doing so cos i'm freelance. and knowing it'll be a miracle if i'm okay tomorrow. AND i want some food but am too fucked to get up and go to shops...

muus lääv - can you describe the life you wanted?

I basically wait until I have an actual reason to talk to someone, take a deep breath, and then say whatever I came up with. If someone doesn't feel like talking to me, then I either let it go, or test to see if maybe I just came in at the wrong angle.

That works about as well with lifelong friends as it does random people at a bar/restaurant, it's just that you're more likely to have an easier opening.

In other words, you posted here, so you've already made a step, and we're responding. Success!

Telephone, i have dealt a LOT with social phobia, and i have been exposed to ativan as well. if u need someone to talk to please feel free to message me. i have developed some good coping mechanisms on the subject.

Life-affirming things that have crossed my mind of late:

If life throws a constant string of obstacles your way, that might be life telling you something. Like maybe that the whole concept of being a survivor isn't quite as heroic as we've been brought up to believe but is, in fact, foolish and possibly in opposition to the universe's plans.

There may in fact be a grand design to the universe, but humankind is too self-involved to acknowledge that our respective roles in that grand design might be little more than to fertilize cemetery flora.

And then lots of random things about how I may be too old a dog to ever really learn how to be a functioning adult, how I may have just had one too many serious relationship collapse under me to ever feel comfortable settling into another, the daily struggle to make myself get out of bed when I know I face a yawning chasm of nothing at the end of a road that'll end at a point that I neither know nor can fully prepare for (and how a whole lot of people I care for are likely to reach the end of that road before I do), etc etc etc.

Trying to get out of the miserable fucker rut. It ain't eeeezaaaayay.

My warpy thoughts:

* what's the point of painting/making music just for the sake of it?
* if you criticise me, you hate me
* arguments/disagreements must be avoided at all costs
* i don't have enough skills/i'm over-qualified

So, yeah, I guess I'm way too much with the external validation and being seen as good/nice.

i often think that i would like to be dead, or that someone should just kill me in order to improve the world we all share, but i fear death terribly and lack any desire to do myself harm. also, when i have such thoughts, i'm aware that i'll probably feel better tomorrow (or whenever i'm not so entirely destitute/hung over). so i just keep truckin on.

the most depressing thought is that i will die childless and without having published anything substantial. i'm saving that despair for my old age.

xxpost

Well, I'll help you out on the first count, jel. Seems to me that creative endeavor undertaken for its own sake is the only thing humankind can claim as an unambiguously positive contribution to the world-at-large (that isn't a direct response/attempt to rectify a previous negative human action). Outside of that, we're pretty much just either complying with our biological imperatives or acting in direct opposition to our well being and/or that of every other living thing on the planet.

And on your last count, I identify completely. I'm too smart and well-educated to have much of an excuse, but too much of a dilettante and a scatterbrain to get my shit together and figure out what I should be doing with myself.

contenderizer, I don't think about my death per se, but there are lots of times when I feel like just, y'know, not existing would be a boon for me and of little notice to most other people.

The other day, I was thinking that I would totally trade bodies with Stephen Hawking. It seems so unfair for someone with such an amazing mind to be saddled with such a shit body, whereas I'm not doing much with either, so...

I let debilitating social phobia completely destroy the last 15 years of my life, and despite the minor improvements I've been able to make to regain some tiny bit of self-confidence I still can't get over the fact that no matter how fast I fix things it's too late to have the life I actually wanted, and my "peer group" (whoever/wherever the fuck they are) have long since moved on.

― muus lääv? :D muus dut :( (Telephone thing), Wednesday, June 15, 2011 12:59 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

hey, can i ask how old you are, Tt? i ask cuz i would have said something similar in my mid-late 20s, but that things improved remarkably in my 30s - partly due to antidepressant drugs, partly due to a real effort on my part to break the established patterns of my life.

(I should note that three sudden deaths, a major breakup, and quitting a horrible job without a backup plan within the span of a year have played a significant role in the formation of my rosy, rosy outlook.)

we are doomed. weather will get worse. colder in the winter, warmer in the summer. oil consumption will rise and rise to meet the increased demand for air conditioning and heating. thus making the winters and summers even worse. people will be sick all the time. low-level colds and fevers and flus and viruses. because of the weather. lots more air-borne/insect-related illnesses and deaths. every year will be worse than the year before. people will at first shrug off the amount of storms and tornados and floods and the need for more and more summer cooling stations and antibiotics and summer flu shots, but in the next ten years things will get harder to shrug off. we will be inside all the time. towns and cities will be regularly quarantined.

If anything, self-acceptance of some of my aspects as personal preferences, not limitations, has been really helpful. Not everyone is cut out for every social situation, every relationship, every friendship, or every job. Being honest with myself about how I'm feeling, and expressing my preferences to others and acting on some of my instincts has been the most rewarding thing I've done.

(oddly , like Deric I had a lot of traumatic stuff too: I had a major breakup, a shakeup of my living situation, legal problems, bought a house, adopted a cat, and broke both wrists all in the stretch of eighteen months or so)

Yeah, I forgot about the shakeup of my living situation precipitated by the death of my roommate and subsequent eviction by his mother. That happened, too. Wheeee.

we are doomed. weather will get worse. colder in the winter, warmer in the summer. oil consumption will rise and cetera...

since it's predicated on the patently ridiculous notion that i'm not the main character, none of that really gets me down

dang, deric, i'd say you're doing damn well, all things considered

I lost a few close family members including one immediate. Of course this is depressing, rest of family isn't too supportive but what else is new. I guess they have a different way of coping. I suffer from panic disorder and I keep switching doctors because they keep throwing depression in with that. I'm not depressed, other than situationally.

Thanks, contenderizer. It actually does help a little whenever someone validates the absurd level of hardship I've dealt with in the past year. Like, it makes me feel like I should go a little easier on myself for not having my shit all the way together just yet.

And I'm trying to maintain some perspective through all of this. Several people have mentioned to me that there's probably a book in this, so that's something, maybe. I'm kinda just waiting until there's some discernible happy "ending" so that it doesn't wind up being a book that induces mass suicide, y'know?

Sympathies, u s steel. I lost my grandma (my dad's mom) last year. My dad was diagnosed with throat cancer a week later and died five weeks after that from the chemo. We had a difficult relationship, and the last time we spoke, I had an impatient tone toward his calling and hemming and hawing and seeming to have nothing to say before he broke the news to me. And then I got to literally watch him die a few weeks later. Soooo that's all maybe weighing on me pretty heavily, I guess.

Thanks for your response Deric, very helpful...really, yeah, you have every reason to go easier on yourself!

I will try to help people feel better by exposing the irrationality of their depressed thoughts but I will fail and they will just get sadder and so will I and it will all sprial down and I will be a heroin addict

Ha ha. See, that's kind of the problem though, Latham, is that I feel like a good number of my depressed thoughts of late are some of the more incisively logical thoughts I've ever had. I've managed to hack away at a lot of the comfortable lies people tell themselves to get themselves through most days without falling apart, and there's really no percentage in it. I've come to realize the extent to which wisdom without utility is pretty much a recipe for crazy.

...I feel like a good number of my depressed thoughts of late are some of the more incisively logical thoughts I've ever had. I've managed to hack away at a lot of the comfortable lies people tell themselves to get themselves through most days without falling apart, and there's really no percentage in it.

truth bomb for the ages

You know how people say when something bad happens that you will learn a lot from it? I decided that's a lie, there are few lessons to be learned from most of the bad things (that have happened to me, anyway). Deciding this actually granted me a lot of relief.

I agree with everyone that you have lots of reason to be easy on yourself, Deric!
One thing that has helped me is to move the goalposts on "fully functioning adult" to wherever I goddamn feel like.

The only lesson I learned from larger bad things is that the smaller bad things aren't so difficult to overcome after all.

xpost

I wish I was comfortable moving the goalposts within the range of what I seem to be capable of maintaining. But as I've expressed to others before (and as I'm sure has been expressed about me by others), I basically function not much differently than a moderately intelligent and responsible 12-year-old might if left to his own devices (and assuming he had the ability to get an adult job). Meaning, yeah, I pay my rent and haven't yet died from starvation, but achieving much more than that with any regularity requires gargantuan effort. I can and often have been able to function at a higher level, but not with any consistency. And even if I were willing to just accept that about myself, I have my doubts that many other people would be willing to deal with me if I did. And so I'm constantly exhausted and stressed from trying to reach some semi-acceptable baseline (which I barely do) so that other human beings won't reject me en masse.

But thanks for your support, also, Abbott! Ha ha.

Deric, by your writing alone I'm guessing your baseline is probably a lot higher than you give yourself credit for

I basically function not much differently than a moderately intelligent and responsible 12-year-old might if left to his own devices

so relate to this. my baseline level has improved since taking antidepressants, but it's nowhere near so-called "normal" yet. tasks of any complexity agitate me and take me 20x longer to do than my peers. i was really really hard on myself about it all through college and the horrible mid-twenties; now i'm just like "my friends who can do more than me have their own set of problems; i'll do my best and try to be okay with what i know are my strengths and weaknesses." then again i'm lol single, so.

You write really elegantly, Deric! I have to say I have been happy to see you back lately. Sorry things have been apparently incredibly shitty!
Pay rent/feed self is a big fucking deal when a person is in mental pain. I hope that doesn't sound condescending; it's fucking true, imo. That is shit you earn.
mh otm! Respect to you!

Just read something about ADD/ADHD in adults and how damaging it is to people -- I think it was online, and maybe everyone else read it too? Because it's seen as a kid's condition and so if people aren't diagnosed when young, after a certain age the doctors don't think of it anymore. It sounded awful: people unable to pay bills, concentrate on anything they knew they needed to do, have relationships, hold jobs. And sufferers described having occasionally "lucid" days when their brain chemistry was cooperative, and trying to smash weeks of work into that day because they never knew when it would be *just right* again. It sounds horrible, and I guess often leads to depression and stuff too because you just can't get ahead at all. Just uh I don't know throwing that out there.

I have a friend who finally got decent treatment for ADD as a 29 year old, and he's doing great!

Oh, yeah. I'm in that boat, Laurel. Late diagnosis adult ADD, medicated and all that. It definitely helps when I'm mostly up & on otherwise, but it doesn't do a lot of good when I'm gettin' the wind knocked out of me by other stuff. But I also think that late diagnosis basically stunted my development in a lot of ways that weren't staggeringly apparent until I got to college, and then a whole lot moreso by the time I'd finished.

And to clarify: when I say I function at the level of a 12-year-old (and, yeah, lately that's true mostly due to stress & depression effing up the efficacy of my meds), I'm really only referring to basic life skills that a lot of adults take for granted. In other words, stuff I have to do for myself (and that I have to motivate myself to do) to push past that baseline of mere survival. But, yeah, I thrive in almost any environment where something/someone else is motivating me. A friend agreed the other day with my assertion that I have a really good brain that functions incredibly inefficiently. Like a Porche engine that someone poured a two liter of Coke into.

But thanks again, folks. It's good to read nice and supportive words. They unfortunately haven't been as forthcoming from the corners from which I would've expected to receive them, and I'm not the type to go seeking them out even when I could really use it.

wait a minute, tihs thread was supposed to help people feel better!
"Ha ha. See, that's kind of the problem though, Latham, is that I feel like a good number of my depressed thoughts of late are some of the more incisively logical thoughts I've ever had. I've managed to hack away at a lot of the comfortable lies people tell themselves to get themselves through most days without falling apart, and there's really no percentage in it. I've come to realize the extent to which wisdom without utility is pretty much a recipe for crazy."
so on some days you fall apart and then when you're done crying you put yoruself back together
anyways logical thoughts don't necessarily bring sorrow unless they are really emotionally colored thoughts

I basically function not much differently than a moderately intelligent and responsible 12-year-old might if left to his own devices (and assuming he had the ability to get an adult job). Meaning, yeah, I pay my rent and haven't yet died from starvation, but achieving much more than that with any regularity requires gargantuan effort.

Yeah, paying rent and feeding yourself is nothing to sneeze at . . . it took me years and years to get to this point. What more are you interested in achieving?

I can and often have been able to function at a higher level, but not with any consistency. And even if I were willing to just accept that about myself, I have my doubts that many other people would be willing to deal with me if I did.

Not sure what the exact issues are here, but you can only do what you can do, not what you think others expect from you. Maybe you could take a brief mental holiday from being hard on yourself? What sort of things do you think people are doing who are not at this presumed 12-year-old stage?

And Jel, you are one of the sweetest people I've ever met . . . sending good thoughts your way from across the Atlantic.

Sorry, I have no depressing thoughts to impart; I burned them all off at yoga last night.

going to shit my pants

be careful 5$! mack daddy's dont shitpant!

That's why he's depressed, you see.

"Nobody on ILX likes me."

my coworkers think I am a dud and not classic.

maybe you should have a beer with them

that would just be giving in to the depressive thoughts

what if they're the duds and I'm the classic!!

there was actually just an outing last night but my whole family is sick so I had a great excuse to avoid the fun

ENBB hates me

In re: meaningless existance. Nihilism reminds me of the old pastime that is constantly rediscovered by 8 year olds of retorting "why" ad infinitum, no matter what answer they are given, except that the nihilist forgets to take it all as a jolly joek.

the older I get, the more my depressed thoughts have to do with how quickly time is passing, and how little I've really done in life. too many years spent surfing interwebs, drinking beers, and playing the vidya. I've been more active in the past year, getting married, probably going to have a kid... but I can't shake the feeling that I'm starting it all way too late.

One of my patrons just randomly recommended "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie to me. He said it will teach you how to take any problem you have and make it disappear. He then recommended "You've Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish" by James Lerner; I'm not sure if those books are so supposed to be complemetary or not.

There is no "too late." As a society, we're always interested in people who accomplish great things at a young age, or people that accomplish single notable tasks. Really, the majority of people accomplish a great many small things over their entire lifetimes.

The idea of anything being "meaningless" is kind of ridiculous. I came to work today, is that meaningless? By a lot of definitions, maybe. Going to work every day for a year? Accomplishing goals at work for a year? There's a level of meaning, but at the granular level it's hard to see.

certianly anal discomfort can make life meaningless

true, that

burdensome =/= meaningless

asshell~meaningless

I can't speak english properly. I'm trying but I cant write my depressive thoughts, and that is depressing me even more.

i can't speak it very well either, tat's why I am using a tilda to represent anal existentialism

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/stinkylulu/2007/TS-TildaSwinton-headshot.png

http://www.seeklogo.com/images/T/Tilde-logo-58F77C4949-seeklogo.com.gif

The idea of anything being "meaningless" is kind of ridiculous. I came to work today, is that meaningless? By a lot of definitions, maybe. Going to work every day for a year? Accomplishing goals at work for a year? There's a level of meaning, but at the granular level it's hard to see.

to me the idea of anything having meaning is ridiculous. Trying to think about things from a cosmic perspective, I don't see human life or our society as being any more meaningful than moss growing on a rock in some forest. My life has meaning to me and those who know me. In 30 or 40 years I'll die. 60 years after that, the small handful of people who knew me will all be dead. A few hundred after that the society I lived in might be largely unknown to anyone but people who study it. A few thousand and human life might be extinct. A few hundred million after that the sun might burn out. Nothing I do is of any consequence in the long run, which is something I usually find more comforting than depressing. About life I feel like I get one to live and hope I don't have too many regrets down the road about how I lived it.

meaning is assigned by the observer no?

basically

'It's all meaningless waahhh!!' is just you not wanting to admit you believe in God.

If you insist that meaning only can exist at a cosmic level, then of course you are correct within that context. Meaning is a construction of the mind. Lack of meaning is, too.

Good point. ps I like the Zen direction this is all going in!

xp Adam, seriously, it isn't.

I mean, the "believe in God" thing.

unless you're ascribing the loose concept of "meaning" to the word "God" of course

God is a moth

So was Mothra.

rockapads, that is exactly why meaning is relative and why I should do whatever I want as long as it doesn't break what works in my life. Because the sun, it doesn't give a fuck.

It's not the idea of meaninglessness itself that is horrifying and overwhelming, AFAIC. It's the idea of meaning as something that is wholly ascribed by oneself unto one's life and, given that as a starting point, trying to scrabble something meaningful together when nothing in one's life feels worth ascribing meaning to.

So, given my failure at making that work for me just now, I'm trying to shift my paradigm such that the value I've ascribed to certain things (which, I'm trying to convince myself, is just as arbitrary and self-generated as meaning itself) is a little rosier. Like, instead of feeling crippled and deeply saddened by the fact of impermanence, I'm trying to just accept it as a value-neutral fact of life rather than something that induces dread and inertia. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm convinced that I will convince myself eventually.

The idea of permanence is just a metaphor, derived from long-lasting things like the sun, and suggested by the innate process of the mind to couple things in opposite pairs. You're right to think you ought not get hung up on it.

For related thoughts, see also: Eternity: Classic or Dud

Thinking it and believing it are two entirely different things, unfortunately.

That is where meditation comes in handy for me. I can internalize this sort of shit through focussed attention.

amor fati, you slags, again & again & again

Boy I almost forgot I was embracing ugliness, but thank you for reminding me, ogmor!

ha, the concept of ugliness is kind of anathema to the nietzschean spirit, if yr going to get on the program, you'll have to ditch it

How can eternity be classic. There is no point of reference

Getting depressed made me lose sight of lots of things, and react in totally the wrong way - or maybe I'm using 'depression' as an excuse for my failings? How to get over the feelings of depression that arise from my feelings of failure/defeat? How to say "I'm depressed" without it feeling like a manipulation on my part? Or maybe that is my subtext "I'm depressed, feel sorry for me, treat me differently"? Or maybe that's just part of the course of getting through it, to be able to say "I'm depressed, but I don't want to be". Okay, just pondering things...

oh, I just need a hug sometimes, I guess.

((((JEL)))))

Ditto that.

(((((KI(( JEL))) M ))))))))

Group hug!

I have worked an additional 25% over my required work hours for the past 12 months straight, and will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I expect to receive an additional 7% in compensation for this amount of work.

F. M. MF. L.

"instead of feeling crippled and deeply saddened by the fact of impermanence"
in this age of regretful emails and tattoos, isn't the relative permanence of things what teeth ought to be gnashed over?

There is no such thing as permanence, unless you believe in God or some other kind of mystic/abstract conception of eternal reality. Even on a cosmic scale there is only impermanence; it is the nature of material reality.

Even the internet, which paradoxically makes things more extract and seem more permanent than ever, could be wiped out forever with some kind of magnetic storm or polar shift. Or take a look at the data on hard drive from the early 80s and see how much of it is salvageable. Even the pyramids will eventually turn to dust.

But the vibrations of all thoughts are stored eternally in the existence mind

(shakes fist angrily) Damn you, existence mind!

it recorded that

http://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/collective-unconscious.jpg

the existence mind is in a constant of flux imo

Haha never heard the term existence mind before. Awesome.

"Even the internet, which paradoxically makes things more extract and seem more permanent than ever, could be wiped out forever with some kind of magnetic storm or polar shift."

don't get my hopes up!

Gregory Peck is angry again