Oh, I checked with my doctor immediately, she put me on a splint and anti-inflammatory medicine for a month, after which she'll check if more drastic measures are needed. My grip is weak to the point that I have to hold many things with my whole arm, but that's fine. Not being able to play still makes me incredibly anxious, but having a date for my followup helps a lot.
Yeah pretty much everyone on my dad's side of the family has issues with vitamin D deficiency. I take a small dose supplement with a multivitamin during the darker months and it helps.
Does anybody have good advice on how to get rid of restless-legs-syndrome? I'd describe it as a light but very uncomfortable burning sensation in my legs that I have when I try to sleep, but also often during the day. Classic for RLS would be a desire to move around and the symptoms getting better from moving around. However I feel neither.
@ Scott: Is your grip strength equally weak in both hands or do you think something is wrong?
@ La Petit Mort: What you describe sounds to me like neither symptoms nor treatment point to carpal tunnel. Did the doctor actually say it was carpal tunnel syndrome? That's good though, because an inflammation should be a lot easier and quicker to treat.
Does anybody have good advice on how to get rid of restless-legs-syndrome? I'd describe it as a light but very uncomfortable burning sensation in my legs that I have when I try to sleep, but also often during the day. Classic for RLS would be a desire to move around and the symptoms getting better from moving around. However I feel neither.
@ Scott: Is your grip strength equally weak in both hands or do you think something is wrong?
@ La Petit Mort: What you describe sounds to me like neither symptoms nor treatment point to carpal tunnel. Did the doctor actually say it was carpal tunnel syndrome? That's good though, because an inflammation should be a lot easier and quicker to treat.
Anxiety attacks/disorders/agoraphobia runs in my family. So I thought I had a good idea of what people go through. I had my first anxiety attack a few weeks ago and was taken to a minor emergency room. I now realize I wasn't even close to understanding just how much terror a person can feel.
It was a horrible experience, but I feel closer to my brothers now. I always tried to understand their illness but nothing compares to experiencing it yourself i guess.
Does anybody have good advice on how to get rid of restless-legs-syndrome? I'd describe it as a light but very uncomfortable burning sensation in my legs that I have when I try to sleep, but also often during the day. Classic for RLS would be a desire to move around and the symptoms getting better from moving around. However I feel neither.
Its a sad fact that Karl Pilkington of all people got me on to this. I stretched the fuck out of my body before bed and made sure that I was really relaxed.
Sorry for the gigantic wall of text and thanks if you actually read it. Seems like I have to split it up into several posts.
I've struggled with depression pretty much my whole life and looking for a cure I've wandered far down what feels like an endless dark rabbit hole. I'm starting to grasp for straws since I have tried so many things already. I'll share my experiences and who knows, maybe something useful comes from it for someone else or even myself.
The official diagnosis I've got is "Dysthymia", which is less severe than other cases of depression often seem to be, but it is long lasting and seemingly harder to treat. I clearly remember that even as a child I saw no point in life and sympathized with being dead. The only reason I didn't kill myself yet and don't plan on doing so, as long as my friends and family are alive, is that I have seen the devastating impact a suicide of one person has on everyone close to them. One of my relatives and someone I went to school with opted out of life and I can totally understand why. I often wonder how I would react if I was diagnosed with terminal cancer because I can very well imagine it coming as a relief. I've had 2 situations in my life where I felt like I nearly died and that didn't scare me nearly as much as I'd imagine it would normally do. I'm in my thirties and I remember not even being able to imagine that I make it this far in life.
I've had a few years of therapy in my last highschool years that didn't do anything for me. At that time I was scared of taking antidepressants and being dependent on something. A few years later in my mid twenties I still struggled very hard with my depression and had talked to a friend that also knew a great deal about mental illnesses from personal experiences. I learned a lot about myself and my depression over the years and I finally gave in to the repeated suggestion of trying the medical treatments. So I went to a doctor, started off with an SSRI and that made me maybe a tiny bit apathetic. It didn't make me happy and it killed my ability to orgasm pretty quickly. Quitting those from one day to the other is a really bad idea. The doctor was clueless about the withdrawl symptoms. I pretty much went insane for a day and started crying uncontrollably, wasn't sure if I was actually awake at one point and got really paranoid. In a way, although it was a horrible experience, it was quite enlightening. PSA: If you stop taking an SSRI you have to lower the dosage very slowly and gradually!
I then tried an NDRI (Wellbutrin) which at first worked great, except for about 3 months of mild nausea and problems with getting sleep as long as I took it. For 2-3 months I felt more focused, more interested, creative, motivated, able to deal with stuff and all around better. Wellbutrin kicks in pretty fast and when I switched medication the day that started with nightmarish withdrawal symptoms ended with a calm and tingly, relaxed feeling in my brain that I years later found out is the same feeling you can get from ASMR videos. Sadly the positive effects decreased over time, until I felt pretty much as depressed as I did before taking the medication. We upped the dose to the maximum allowed daily dose and at first that worked fine again. Then 1-2 months later it was back to feeling bad again.
So I went back to the doctor who had never heard of this medication stopping to work after a few months (in spite of countless reports that I read online, but whatever). Around that time (don't remember the exact point) I had to switch doctors. Mirtazapine was added to my daily dose of pills. I had a girlfriend and then ex-girlfriend at the time that in hindsight I'd have to call a toxic borderliner. She caused a lot of emotional unrest for me and the Mirtazapine did a good job at making me chill out a bit. I was single and the drug desensitized me extremely to sexual stimuli. I could still masturbate, but I wasn't really craving intimacy or a relationship. Seeing a hot girl on the street didn't phase me at all. It was surreal. It made dealing with being single again a whole lot easier and I'd choose the somewhat apathetic zombie mode I was in over the anxiety I got from the trouble with my ex-girlfriend any day. I could only describe that feeling as a cold hand in my chest squeezing my heart. I wasn't happy at all on the meds but at least somewhat stable again. However I learned from the pharmacist that the combination of Mirtazapine and Wellbutrin should not have been prescribed to me in the first place as it can cause cramps. And indeed, I did have the occasional feeling that my face "exploded" when I was falling asleep. It was somewhat like an electric shock without pain. I believe that is what usually gets referred to as "brain zaps", right? Also I gained more weight than I liked, was always hungry and felt cold almost all the time. After a long time of taking it I also started to lose the ability to orgasm again, which I wasn't happy with at all. Seems like I get that sort of side effect from everything that touches the serotonin system. This among other things leads me to believe that serotonin really isn't the source of the problem in my head.
So I switched meds again and was put on Lithium. Since the baseline of my mood wasn't entirely flat and there were better and worse phases (although not alternating between good and bad but between bad and worse) the doctor was betting that I might be bi-polar and Lithium seems to be the right med for that. He warned me that this really needed time to do its magic but after 2 months where I didn't see any improvement at all but had the highest concentration of terrible nightmares in my entire life I gave up on that. The first week I woke up screaming every single night. It was crazy! The intensity and frequency of the nightmares decreased with time and after 2 months it wasn't thaaat bad, but I still felt this was going nowhere. Plus Lithium is tricky to handle and you need regular blood checks. Not a fan of that either...
I went back to Wellbutrin and having regular non-nightmare sleeping problems (one of the side effects). I almost never slept a whole night without waking up in the middle. I had trouble sleeping almost my entire life and it had gotten to the point that I was really confused when I woke up the maybe 5 times a year where I sleept through the whole night without waking up. I simply was used to waking up 2 or 3 times each night, drinking a bit of water, looking on the clock and going back to sleep. As a result I'm pretty much always tired and got addicted to caffeine.
After a while I had found a new girlfriend that I thought was a perfect match for me. For the first time in years I was actually happy for a significant amount of time and I quit my medication. I was prepared for the worst but to be honest it worked quite well for a few months even without the meds. I was at a point in my life where I (maybe for the first time ever) thought I'd be okay with things staying the way they are. But since I'm here you already know this won't last. My girlfriend at the time dumped me out of nowhere and I was shattered. Among the reasons she mentioned was that I was always being so negative and in a rather bad mood. She was right in the sense that it had declined pretty much over the months but I still was far from the worst I've been. I was shattered and unable to work at all for a while. I started taking antidepressants again (not even sure which one from my "collection", probably Wellbutrin, Mirtazapine or both. I felt really miserable and dreaded being alone again, so I jumped back into dating quicker than any sane person probably would recommend.
To my relief this ended up in a stable relationship with my current girlfriend who is totally awesome. I'm still pretty fucking depressed though. I think I can safely say that I have eliminated external stressors as much as is realistically possible without being filthy rich. I know that others would kill for the life and freedom that I have, but I just feel dead and empty. I have a really hard time enjoying anything except for time with my girlfriend and online gaming with friends. When I hear friends talk enthusiastically about a game or movie I often wonder if we have seen the same thing or why I just can't get excited about it. Being interested or excited to learn something new is a rare glimpse into another world that I rarely get to see these days. This week I have pretty much spent every day staring on the screen and scrolling through forums and time-waster-websites, occasionally killing some time with games or netflix. I have gotten maybe 2 hours of work done and didn't enjoy the slacking off at all. I just feel guilty because I don't get anything done, I don't contribute, I feel worthless and shitty. I know I define myself way too much through my accomplishments and have ridiculously high expectations of what I should be achieving. It's not that I don't know, it's that I don't know how to stop that.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I have switched from the NDRI to a MAOI about 2-3 months ago. At first I felt great with the new meds. I was more focused, interested in things again, got shit done and was getting an "almost too good to be true" feeling. Sadly that turned out to be correct and a short while after I told someone that I think I finally found the right medication, it all went downhill again.
Based on my symptoms and how different meds affect me I get the feeling that something in my dopaminergic system is screwed up, but the antidepressants that work on that neurotransmitter don't work long-term for me as far as I have tried them. I really would love to test Ritalin too, but I can't get a prescription for that without an ADD diagnosis. I tried to get one because from what I read a lot of the symptoms actually do match up, but so far I didn't succeed. I might be one of the edge cases that fall just outside of the spectrum that gets the diagnosis. A friend of mine that suffers in a somewhat similar way to me gets Ritalin but it's not the perfect solution either.
I only see my girlfriend on the weekend and when we do spend time together I usually feel a lot better. I can relax better and my thoughts are calmer. At the end of the weekend even when she is gone I often feel pretty good and I also often have that tingly brain feel that you can get from the ASMR videos. On Mondays I feel shitty, pretty much always. I also know that relying on another person to make your life bearable is a recipe for disaster... So I still hope to find a way to handle and enjoy life on my own instead of putting all my hopes on moving in together and possibly being disappointed when that solves nothing as it likely will happen.
Today I was wondering if there might be any connections between ASMR and possible treatment methods for depression. Did anyone here experiment with or research this? I'm not yet done with either. Although I have known about the concept for a while and watched a few videos I never seriously tried to provoke that sensation in a reliable manner on a regular basis. I'm not even sure if that is possible or if you get desensitized quickly.
I'm also interested in research on connections between a possible oxytocin deficit and depression.
I've left out a bunch of things I tried and/or that might be interesting for further discussion, but the post is already more than long enough already, so I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks for your time. I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts. If you have questions about any of the meds, ask away. I hope I can help some people around here too.
For most of 2015, my bipolar disorder has been increasingly unmanageable. I had it in control without med or therapy for so long, but it is getting difficult to function. Social interaction is stressful and creates anxiety, shame, self-loathing, worsening insomnia, etc. I've isolated myself, but that exacerbates depression and lethargy. I have to find a new therapist, as mine no longer takes my insurance, but that will take time. Though I know that my feelings are irrational, I can't mitigate the cycles with behavioral modification. I'm floundering and in pain. What is worse, is I feel that I've alienated those that might care to help me with my anxiety, irrational/inappropriate behavior, and distancing.
Its overwhelming, but I've been able to hide it reasonably well, which ultimately makes it all worse. I can distract myself with fiction, but again, that ultimately makes it worse.
Its overwhelming, but I've been able to hide it reasonably well, which ultimately makes it all worse. I can distract myself with fiction, but again, that ultimately makes it worse.
You hid it too well. ;^)
Should we come up to Albany and un-isolate you? I'm pretty invested in the cabin idea.
Last week was probably the hardest car ride I've ever had to go on.
My mother and I had to take an uncle back to assisted living facility. He was fine months ago, getting his life back together and putting him on social security. But this time, he was so out of his mind...like he had a stroke. He kept mumbling suicidal tendencies over and over, saying "I can't function" and "I need to pay for all the bad things I did." It got worse the closer we went to the facility; one point he tried to escape by taking off his seat-belt and leaving the car. He's been a recovering alcoholic for years now, medicated on tons of anti-depressants and medicine for hepatitis.
We did get him back home, but it made me think a lot about myself. I'm a lot more sympathetic to his situation since he can't recover. He had the chance to earn money from a settlement to cover for his bills, but didn't take it because of guilt. Not sure how he's doing now, but he's likely getting a heavy psychological evaluation. My involvement with this got my brother angry, as he saw it as another way of our mother being inconsiderate and getting me involved with something dangerous. (Where I just wanted to keep my mom safe because this could have gone bad)
Lately I've come to the realization that my brother thoroughly abused me. He still does it to this day emotionally. Never in significant ways, but very controlling, manipulative ways that he believes were justified. After my dad had a stroke and my mom became a full time worker, he viewed himself more and more as a new father-figure for me. Him being 4 Years Older, he did that, but became a lot more serious in our teens. He would keep me from watching TV shows, would shame me for liking certain things or doing certain activities, and he would punish me in ways beyond my parents. I remember when I was 14, I drank 1 Shot of Blue Curacao...which resulted in my brother beating me up in the car after I came out of seeing Spiderman. My parents never brought up the issue, but my dad did noticed the smell.
I still live in fear to my brother to a degree. I hate having him around, I hate being near him because his anger and casual passive-aggressive attitude, he insults our mom (Who he works for) and members of the family, and he has this ever prevalent need to change my life by having me lose weight or stop watching TV or stop being on the Internet so much. He belittles me at every opportunity because I don't have a job and I have trouble talking or explain certain things despite having a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Community
What's haunting is that overtime, he's developed into a nastier person. He's Pro-GG, Pro-MRA, he started juicing thanks to Mike Cernovich and he believed I should take writing advice from him. He's become a full on Libertarian taking ideas from Ron Paul and has really bitter attitudes towards "my generation" and third-wave feminism. I honestly fear for women who might end up with him and I don't want to have children because of the potential mental illnesses within my family.
Within the same hour on Saturday, he called me a cranky drunk and he threatened to slap me for interrupting some cell phone repair he was doing. He never believes he does anything wrong or takes blame for any of his mistakes.
When I tell him "Hey, I don't need to go to the movies because I've already seen Mad Max and Avengers," he turns it into: "Scott didn't want to see anything. I view movies as a social experience." (Because he can never go out into public alone)
The times I tried to reach out to him and confront him about his nature...he justifies in saying "he did the right thing." "It was to make you stronger/tougher." When I asked him about why he was so angry to me or how he can scare me, he reactions saying "Oh, you THINK I'm being mean to you right now? You honestly think that? Well fuck me, I thought I could call you my brother."
What keeps me from moving is that I have no idea how he'll react with him gone. I've been an anchor in this bizarre way to the family, keeping my mom happy. My brother can be mellow and happy at times, but it takes no time at all or a single argument to kill the mood. Is something terrible going to happen between the two of them without me in the middle? He never grew out of this rebellious state when he was a teenager, being the sober, well-to-do kid with a group of ne'er-do-wells who drank and did drugs all the time. (That he still hangs out with. Some of those guys became better, great even...but he won't leave his group)
I'm trying to figure out the best way to recover from this realization. I want to better myself. I need to take chances. I can't stay within the comfortable walls of my grandparent's house forever. (I stay in their old house) But my Anxiety/ADHD/Depression always brings up a new setbacks. I'm so drained these days and dealing with some noticeable heavy back/limb pain. I need someone to listen and closure to the path of recovery.
If you can manage it (and if you haven't already), talk to a therapist. Not only can they lend you an ear, but also suggest things you can do to take care of yourself against the shitstorm.
You may find the "raisedbynarcissists" subreddit to be therapeutic. It helped me. While your brother isn't your parent, he very much tried to fill that role.
If you can manage it (and if you haven't already), talk to a therapist. Not only can they lend you an ear, but also suggest things you can do to take care of yourself against the shitstorm.
You may find the "raisedbynarcissists" subreddit to be therapeutic. It helped me. While your brother isn't your parent, he very much tried to fill that role.
I do see therapist. I haven't seen mine in four month since he thought I got over my major humps, but I'll be seeing him again next week. That should help since I dealt with a lot in those four months.
I've been in such shitty condition for so long, it took me months to realize I'm still not well. Because I got a handle on my cognition and don't have dangerous thoughts/impulses anymore I thought I was okay, but tide after tide of overwhelming emotion keeps me from doing what I need to do. It (and bureaucracy) delayed my online school stuff so much that I won't be able to finish for June graduation, and will have to shoot for August.
My doctor put me on Lithium. Didn't warn me about its affects when mixed with caffeine (which are oddly poorly documented). Apparently it augments it, so yesterday and this morning I was super spacey and super twitchy. Once I've cut down on coffee, I think I'll be able to actually get stuff thing'd.
Has anyone been on lithium? If so, were the side effects terrible?
I have another bipolar friend who was. I can ask, but I vaguely remember that the side effects were not pleasant. It also didn't work for him for whatever reason, but no medication he took did.
So, lithium has been kickass for me. No noticeable side effects (besides the already mentioned caffeine augmentation), and it keeps my emotions within the "window of tolerance" as my therapist is fond of saying. I'm finally able to do both what I want to do and what I need to do. Things may have fallen apart in school, but it looks like we've cleaned them up enough that they won't effect the rest of my life.
That being said, I still feel I have, at this time, more anguish, despair, fury, and misery than any song I've ever heard, any book I've ever read, or any movie I've ever seen. My future beyond next month is unclear. I have long term goals, but how to reach them from where I am now is a daunting and mysterious. I continue to do what I can, but it is frightening when you're working towards a goal that you don't know all the steps to.
No one I know (and have talked to about this) has been through or is going through what I'm going through. Most of my friends are going to college, earning their degrees in what they find interesting (or floundering to figure out why they're in college, but that's a rant for another day) -- which would clearly be a bad path for me. The only person I know who is not on that path is my friend David, who dropped out of high school three (four?) years ago (right around the same time it would've made sense for me to have done so). He can relate to much of my situation, but he doesn't know what he wants to do with life -- which is fine, you don't have to at nineteen, but it creates a divide between our experiences. He's looking for (or, rather, already has) work, while I'm looking for a career.
Furthermore, I feel certain areas of my development have been retarded due to my social skills evolving later than most. Sometimes I feel like Tsuwabuki in the movie theater watching the reel of kisses (Utena, episode 18). I have a deep sensation of insufficiency. I understand that in many ways I've experienced more than most people my age, but those experiences are by no means communal, so they lack that basic way in which humans connect.
TL;DR -- I'm just a scared and lonely rider and I gotta find out how it feels. I gotta know if life is wild, babe, I gotta know if love is real.
Thanks... It'll take about 3-4 weeks to hear back... On the "this is kinda neat" side of it, part of the evaluation is an IQ test, so I'll learn what my IQ is (let's not get into how accurate IQ testing is -- I just think it's something neat to know).
IQ tests are fun. I took a kids' test when I was diagnosed with ADHD and it's kinda cool to look back at what parts I did well/poorly in. Also, thanks to the administrator's comment, it is a matter of scientific record that I was an adorable child.
So I got the results of my psych evaluation today. Turns out I have Asperger's. *shrugs*
Well, it's a spectrum, and you are definitely on the "cool as shit" side of that spectrum. You've always been good company, so I'd suggest not letting that revelation change your outward behavior. ^_~
So I got the results of my psych evaluation today. Turns out I have Asperger's. *shrugs*
Well, it's a spectrum, and you are definitely on the "cool as shit" side of that spectrum. You've always been good company, so I'd suggest not letting that revelation change your outward behavior. ^_~
I ADHD for sure, and I think a little Asperger's too. I feel like I have to put a lot of effort into understanding social cues. Maybe that's normal though, I've never been inside anyone else's head.
Comments
After months of suffering, a few days of vitamin D brought me back to 'normal'.
(Not a placebo effect)
@ Scott: Is your grip strength equally weak in both hands or do you think something is wrong?
@ La Petit Mort: What you describe sounds to me like neither symptoms nor treatment point to carpal tunnel. Did the doctor actually say it was carpal tunnel syndrome? That's good though, because an inflammation should be a lot easier and quicker to treat.
It was a horrible experience, but I feel closer to my brothers now. I always tried to understand their illness but nothing compares to experiencing it yourself i guess.
I've struggled with depression pretty much my whole life and looking for a cure I've wandered far down what feels like an endless dark rabbit hole. I'm starting to grasp for straws since I have tried so many things already. I'll share my experiences and who knows, maybe something useful comes from it for someone else or even myself.
The official diagnosis I've got is "Dysthymia", which is less severe than other cases of depression often seem to be, but it is long lasting and seemingly harder to treat. I clearly remember that even as a child I saw no point in life and sympathized with being dead. The only reason I didn't kill myself yet and don't plan on doing so, as long as my friends and family are alive, is that I have seen the devastating impact a suicide of one person has on everyone close to them. One of my relatives and someone I went to school with opted out of life and I can totally understand why. I often wonder how I would react if I was diagnosed with terminal cancer because I can very well imagine it coming as a relief. I've had 2 situations in my life where I felt like I nearly died and that didn't scare me nearly as much as I'd imagine it would normally do. I'm in my thirties and I remember not even being able to imagine that I make it this far in life.
I've had a few years of therapy in my last highschool years that didn't do anything for me. At that time I was scared of taking antidepressants and being dependent on something. A few years later in my mid twenties I still struggled very hard with my depression and had talked to a friend that also knew a great deal about mental illnesses from personal experiences. I learned a lot about myself and my depression over the years and I finally gave in to the repeated suggestion of trying the medical treatments. So I went to a doctor, started off with an SSRI and that made me maybe a tiny bit apathetic. It didn't make me happy and it killed my ability to orgasm pretty quickly. Quitting those from one day to the other is a really bad idea. The doctor was clueless about the withdrawl symptoms. I pretty much went insane for a day and started crying uncontrollably, wasn't sure if I was actually awake at one point and got really paranoid. In a way, although it was a horrible experience, it was quite enlightening.
PSA: If you stop taking an SSRI you have to lower the dosage very slowly and gradually!
I then tried an NDRI (Wellbutrin) which at first worked great, except for about 3 months of mild nausea and problems with getting sleep as long as I took it. For 2-3 months I felt more focused, more interested, creative, motivated, able to deal with stuff and all around better. Wellbutrin kicks in pretty fast and when I switched medication the day that started with nightmarish withdrawal symptoms ended with a calm and tingly, relaxed feeling in my brain that I years later found out is the same feeling you can get from ASMR videos.
Sadly the positive effects decreased over time, until I felt pretty much as depressed as I did before taking the medication. We upped the dose to the maximum allowed daily dose and at first that worked fine again. Then 1-2 months later it was back to feeling bad again.
However I learned from the pharmacist that the combination of Mirtazapine and Wellbutrin should not have been prescribed to me in the first place as it can cause cramps. And indeed, I did have the occasional feeling that my face "exploded" when I was falling asleep. It was somewhat like an electric shock without pain. I believe that is what usually gets referred to as "brain zaps", right? Also I gained more weight than I liked, was always hungry and felt cold almost all the time. After a long time of taking it I also started to lose the ability to orgasm again, which I wasn't happy with at all. Seems like I get that sort of side effect from everything that touches the serotonin system. This among other things leads me to believe that serotonin really isn't the source of the problem in my head.
So I switched meds again and was put on Lithium. Since the baseline of my mood wasn't entirely flat and there were better and worse phases (although not alternating between good and bad but between bad and worse) the doctor was betting that I might be bi-polar and Lithium seems to be the right med for that. He warned me that this really needed time to do its magic but after 2 months where I didn't see any improvement at all but had the highest concentration of terrible nightmares in my entire life I gave up on that. The first week I woke up screaming every single night. It was crazy! The intensity and frequency of the nightmares decreased with time and after 2 months it wasn't thaaat bad, but I still felt this was going nowhere. Plus Lithium is tricky to handle and you need regular blood checks. Not a fan of that either...
I went back to Wellbutrin and having regular non-nightmare sleeping problems (one of the side effects). I almost never slept a whole night without waking up in the middle. I had trouble sleeping almost my entire life and it had gotten to the point that I was really confused when I woke up the maybe 5 times a year where I sleept through the whole night without waking up. I simply was used to waking up 2 or 3 times each night, drinking a bit of water, looking on the clock and going back to sleep. As a result I'm pretty much always tired and got addicted to caffeine.
After a while I had found a new girlfriend that I thought was a perfect match for me. For the first time in years I was actually happy for a significant amount of time and I quit my medication. I was prepared for the worst but to be honest it worked quite well for a few months even without the meds. I was at a point in my life where I (maybe for the first time ever) thought I'd be okay with things staying the way they are. But since I'm here you already know this won't last. My girlfriend at the time dumped me out of nowhere and I was shattered. Among the reasons she mentioned was that I was always being so negative and in a rather bad mood. She was right in the sense that it had declined pretty much over the months but I still was far from the worst I've been. I was shattered and unable to work at all for a while. I started taking antidepressants again (not even sure which one from my "collection", probably Wellbutrin, Mirtazapine or both. I felt really miserable and dreaded being alone again, so I jumped back into dating quicker than any sane person probably would recommend.
To my relief this ended up in a stable relationship with my current girlfriend who is totally awesome. I'm still pretty fucking depressed though. I think I can safely say that I have eliminated external stressors as much as is realistically possible without being filthy rich. I know that others would kill for the life and freedom that I have, but I just feel dead and empty. I have a really hard time enjoying anything except for time with my girlfriend and online gaming with friends. When I hear friends talk enthusiastically about a game or movie I often wonder if we have seen the same thing or why I just can't get excited about it. Being interested or excited to learn something new is a rare glimpse into another world that I rarely get to see these days. This week I have pretty much spent every day staring on the screen and scrolling through forums and time-waster-websites, occasionally killing some time with games or netflix. I have gotten maybe 2 hours of work done and didn't enjoy the slacking off at all. I just feel guilty because I don't get anything done, I don't contribute, I feel worthless and shitty. I know I define myself way too much through my accomplishments and have ridiculously high expectations of what I should be achieving. It's not that I don't know, it's that I don't know how to stop that.
Based on my symptoms and how different meds affect me I get the feeling that something in my dopaminergic system is screwed up, but the antidepressants that work on that neurotransmitter don't work long-term for me as far as I have tried them. I really would love to test Ritalin too, but I can't get a prescription for that without an ADD diagnosis. I tried to get one because from what I read a lot of the symptoms actually do match up, but so far I didn't succeed. I might be one of the edge cases that fall just outside of the spectrum that gets the diagnosis. A friend of mine that suffers in a somewhat similar way to me gets Ritalin but it's not the perfect solution either.
I only see my girlfriend on the weekend and when we do spend time together I usually feel a lot better. I can relax better and my thoughts are calmer. At the end of the weekend even when she is gone I often feel pretty good and I also often have that tingly brain feel that you can get from the ASMR videos. On Mondays I feel shitty, pretty much always.
I also know that relying on another person to make your life bearable is a recipe for disaster... So I still hope to find a way to handle and enjoy life on my own instead of putting all my hopes on moving in together and possibly being disappointed when that solves nothing as it likely will happen.
Today I was wondering if there might be any connections between ASMR and possible treatment methods for depression. Did anyone here experiment with or research this? I'm not yet done with either. Although I have known about the concept for a while and watched a few videos I never seriously tried to provoke that sensation in a reliable manner on a regular basis. I'm not even sure if that is possible or if you get desensitized quickly.
I'm also interested in research on connections between a possible oxytocin deficit and depression.
I've left out a bunch of things I tried and/or that might be interesting for further discussion, but the post is already more than long enough already, so I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks for your time. I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts. If you have questions about any of the meds, ask away. I hope I can help some people around here too.
Its overwhelming, but I've been able to hide it reasonably well, which ultimately makes it all worse. I can distract myself with fiction, but again, that ultimately makes it worse.
Should we come up to Albany and un-isolate you? I'm pretty invested in the cabin idea.
My mother and I had to take an uncle back to assisted living facility. He was fine months ago, getting his life back together and putting him on social security. But this time, he was so out of his mind...like he had a stroke. He kept mumbling suicidal tendencies over and over, saying "I can't function" and "I need to pay for all the bad things I did." It got worse the closer we went to the facility; one point he tried to escape by taking off his seat-belt and leaving the car. He's been a recovering alcoholic for years now, medicated on tons of anti-depressants and medicine for hepatitis.
We did get him back home, but it made me think a lot about myself. I'm a lot more sympathetic to his situation since he can't recover. He had the chance to earn money from a settlement to cover for his bills, but didn't take it because of guilt. Not sure how he's doing now, but he's likely getting a heavy psychological evaluation. My involvement with this got my brother angry, as he saw it as another way of our mother being inconsiderate and getting me involved with something dangerous. (Where I just wanted to keep my mom safe because this could have gone bad)
Lately I've come to the realization that my brother thoroughly abused me. He still does it to this day emotionally. Never in significant ways, but very controlling, manipulative ways that he believes were justified. After my dad had a stroke and my mom became a full time worker, he viewed himself more and more as a new father-figure for me. Him being 4 Years Older, he did that, but became a lot more serious in our teens. He would keep me from watching TV shows, would shame me for liking certain things or doing certain activities, and he would punish me in ways beyond my parents. I remember when I was 14, I drank 1 Shot of Blue Curacao...which resulted in my brother beating me up in the car after I came out of seeing Spiderman. My parents never brought up the issue, but my dad did noticed the smell.
I still live in fear to my brother to a degree. I hate having him around, I hate being near him because his anger and casual passive-aggressive attitude, he insults our mom (Who he works for) and members of the family, and he has this ever prevalent need to change my life by having me lose weight or stop watching TV or stop being on the Internet so much. He belittles me at every opportunity because I don't have a job and I have trouble talking or explain certain things despite having a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Community
What's haunting is that overtime, he's developed into a nastier person. He's Pro-GG, Pro-MRA, he started juicing thanks to Mike Cernovich and he believed I should take writing advice from him. He's become a full on Libertarian taking ideas from Ron Paul and has really bitter attitudes towards "my generation" and third-wave feminism. I honestly fear for women who might end up with him and I don't want to have children because of the potential mental illnesses within my family.
Within the same hour on Saturday, he called me a cranky drunk and he threatened to slap me for interrupting some cell phone repair he was doing. He never believes he does anything wrong or takes blame for any of his mistakes.
When I tell him "Hey, I don't need to go to the movies because I've already seen Mad Max and Avengers," he turns it into: "Scott didn't want to see anything. I view movies as a social experience." (Because he can never go out into public alone)
The times I tried to reach out to him and confront him about his nature...he justifies in saying "he did the right thing." "It was to make you stronger/tougher." When I asked him about why he was so angry to me or how he can scare me, he reactions saying "Oh, you THINK I'm being mean to you right now? You honestly think that? Well fuck me, I thought I could call you my brother."
What keeps me from moving is that I have no idea how he'll react with him gone. I've been an anchor in this bizarre way to the family, keeping my mom happy. My brother can be mellow and happy at times, but it takes no time at all or a single argument to kill the mood. Is something terrible going to happen between the two of them without me in the middle? He never grew out of this rebellious state when he was a teenager, being the sober, well-to-do kid with a group of ne'er-do-wells who drank and did drugs all the time. (That he still hangs out with. Some of those guys became better, great even...but he won't leave his group)
I'm trying to figure out the best way to recover from this realization. I want to better myself. I need to take chances. I can't stay within the comfortable walls of my grandparent's house forever. (I stay in their old house) But my Anxiety/ADHD/Depression always brings up a new setbacks. I'm so drained these days and dealing with some noticeable heavy back/limb pain. I need someone to listen and closure to the path of recovery.
You may find the "raisedbynarcissists" subreddit to be therapeutic. It helped me. While your brother isn't your parent, he very much tried to fill that role.
My doctor put me on Lithium. Didn't warn me about its affects when mixed with caffeine (which are oddly poorly documented). Apparently it augments it, so yesterday and this morning I was super spacey and super twitchy. Once I've cut down on coffee, I think I'll be able to actually get stuff thing'd.
That being said, I still feel I have, at this time, more anguish, despair, fury, and misery than any song I've ever heard, any book I've ever read, or any movie I've ever seen. My future beyond next month is unclear. I have long term goals, but how to reach them from where I am now is a daunting and mysterious. I continue to do what I can, but it is frightening when you're working towards a goal that you don't know all the steps to.
No one I know (and have talked to about this) has been through or is going through what I'm going through. Most of my friends are going to college, earning their degrees in what they find interesting (or floundering to figure out why they're in college, but that's a rant for another day) -- which would clearly be a bad path for me. The only person I know who is not on that path is my friend David, who dropped out of high school three (four?) years ago (right around the same time it would've made sense for me to have done so). He can relate to much of my situation, but he doesn't know what he wants to do with life -- which is fine, you don't have to at nineteen, but it creates a divide between our experiences. He's looking for (or, rather, already has) work, while I'm looking for a career.
Furthermore, I feel certain areas of my development have been retarded due to my social skills evolving later than most. Sometimes I feel like Tsuwabuki in the movie theater watching the reel of kisses (Utena, episode 18). I have a deep sensation of insufficiency. I understand that in many ways I've experienced more than most people my age, but those experiences are by no means communal, so they lack that basic way in which humans connect.
TL;DR -- I'm just a scared and lonely rider and I gotta find out how it feels. I gotta know if life is wild, babe, I gotta know if love is real.