I came out to my grandma somewhat recently and later expressed some self-loathing kind of feelings. She tried to comfort me by saying I only have to put up with it for the rest of this life, and that in heaven it wouldn't be that way. I know she was trying to help but that's not much comfort to an atheist with suicidal ideation (I talk to other people about this) and severe existential dread. I didn't have the heart to tell her any more.
Civil Air Patrol, if you like planes. I think you only need to be 16 for that one. :P
I was in Civil Air Patrol too. It was good for meeting a few friends, and being called out in the middle of the night to find an ELT going off made me feel like I had a sense of purpose, even if it was 100% of the time a pilot who bounced a bit and didn't check the thing before they put their plane away. The adults were the reason I quit. Had a few good people, a few parents, an asshole or two, and one who was rejected by the marines and told lies about his time as a sniper.
They didn't like me and thought I had a "problem with authority." That might be true. I saw it more as an ability to recognize sad jerks abusing the minuscule power they have over a bunch of kids. I'm sure each branch/squadron is different. I don't regret doing it, but not all my memories are fond ones.
I never got to fly. I got to sit in aircraft, but not fly. Considering how abnormal the adults I knew that were involved were... I'm not surprised someone else had issues with that.
Oh, shitty! I got to do everything but land. I loved it, but my stomach can't take flying. Especially not in a Cessna in the summer. I did have the pleasure of vomiting in one of the jerk adult's coats while I was in the plane.
I never got to fly. I got to sit in aircraft, but not fly. Considering how abnormal the adults I knew that were involved were... I'm not surprised someone else had issues with that.
If you have $150 to burn, look up a local flight school. You can get an hour's lesson, including plane rental, for about that much (sometimes a little less, depending on the school/airport).
Oh, shitty! I got to do everything but land. I loved it, but my stomach can't take flying. Especially not in a Cessna in the summer. I did have the pleasure of vomiting in one of the jerk adult's coats while I was in the plane.
Sucks that you had such jerks in your particular CAP chapter. The one CAP person I've ever met was my wife's uncle and he's about the nicest grandfatherly chap you can find anywhere. Of course, CAP members are humans, and there are all kinds of humans.
I admit, I do love flying, even though I've only had 3 lessons so far... I loved every minute of every one. My stomach could use a bit more work though -- especially during stalls.
Flying is the best... probably worth it for everyone to try. If you take the time to feel the controls, look around, find landmarks you know... it gives you, literally, new perspective on the world.
ahaha! There's a bot whose handle I can't remember somewhere on twitter that generates Molyneuxesque game descriptions. And also this parody account: https://twitter.com/PeterMolydeux
So I've spent the last...month or so building up the courage to write an article for the newsletter. I had to talk to people for interviews, do research, and compile data together. ...most of the time I was half-assing it and being completely lazy. But today, I finally shipped off what will be the potentially only contribution that I make to that magazine.
And it was a 230 word article.
...I feel so useless. How did I feel so composed or afraid or feared that I would break some kind of code because I didn't follow the exact instructions of my freelance work? Why did it make me so fearful? And why did it take me hours to even get started on building up something that ended up being so short?
I guess this is how anxiety works. Is that you dredd something for days upon end and around the time you do it, you feel remorse and pain again for not doing something so easy sooner. I fear what my life in the real job world will be.
I've had several breakdowns in the past few months due to having the most unluckiest time in Chicago ever. But I didn't self harm. And I got help. And talked to people. So, a slow win I guess.
Developed a plan to kill myself. Checked myself into a resi program at McLean's. Still in there, actually, but I'm allowed to go home during the day on the weekend. Getting discharged on Tuesday. I probably should've gone somewhere that could've taken me faster, but I made it, so whatever. They doubled my Abilify, but that resulted in an extremely unpleasant physical side effect, so we brought it back down. Trying to up the Prozac now. No one there seems to quite know what to do with me. I've already got most of the skills down, I just needed a safe place to stay while the meds adjusted.
It's also been a pretty positive experience to have other people around that aren't my parents. Meeting some quality people in there. Introduced one kid to Your Heart Breaks, and he actually liked it (which is a first). Hopefully I'll be able to stay in touch with them when I/they get onto the other side.
So, I had a nervous breakdown this past school semester. There's a variety of reasons why, but it all ties back to my depression and anxiety. I stopped functioning and going to classes and I wanted to kill myself. Thankfully, I never developed a plan, but I didn't inform anyone of this until the very end of the semester, because I was too scared. My mom has done an okay job of dealing with this, and agreed that I need medicine. I have an appointment with an adult doctor in a few weeks, gonna ask them for Lexapro or something similar. This hasn't worked for me before, but we'll see.
Also contacted school. My adviser said that we can work through this, but I'm waiting on my professor's responses to figure out how we can get me graduated by the end of this year, since all F's in my classes would likely get rid of my scholarship and ability to afford college.
Things are not good, and I'm still very depressed with more people I need to tell about what happened. But, I'm hopefully on the road to getting treated. Every doctor I've tried to get to treat me before has redirected me away from medication, and the problem has just compounded. Hopefully this doctor respects me enough to at least get me on something. Worst case is they do what the last one did: Recommend me to a psychiatrist who doesn't take my family's insurance.
He wanted me to try nutrient supplements first, in case meds were too dangerous. I dunno.
The next one didn't care and was just filling out a glorified survey basically. Hopefully this next one is actually willing to like, talk to me and give medication, instead of giving me generic surveys.
What is today's date? Who is the President? How great a danger do you pose, on a scale of one to ten? What does "people who live in glass houses" mean? Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false? Should each individual snowflake be held accountable for the avalanche? Name five rivers. What do you see yourself doing in ten minutes? How about some lovely soft Thorazine music? If you could have half an hour with your father, what would you say to him? What should you do if I fall asleep? Are you still following in his mastodon footsteps? What is the moral of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"? What about his Everest shadow? Would you compare your education to a disease so rare no one else has ever had it, or the deliberate extermination of indigenous populations? Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence? Should an odd number be sacrificed to the gods of the sky, and an even to those of the underworld, or vice versa? Would you visit a country where nobody talks? What would you have done differently? Why are you here?
So I kind of hit a wall today. Considering going back to therapy for the first time in many, many years. I'm not sure if my depression is changing or just the circumstances under which I experience it. I don't know. Right, for some background, I've been medicated and/or in therapy for more than half of my life. I'm fairly accustomed to my depression, which is why I'm being thrown for a bit of a loop because I'm not coping so well these days.
My boss constantly berates and insults me for the (admittedly numerous) mistakes I make on the job. I haven't been able to express to him that the kind of pressure he puts on me makes things worse for everyone because it causes my mood to tank and my to thoughts race. Now he just treats me like I'm stupid. I'm exhausted, confused, and discouraged. All of my close friends are gone, and I'm too emotionally fucked to make new ones. I haven't felt like such a helpless victim of myself in years.
All is not lost, though. tonight I'm going to force myself to go the weekly drum circle in town and play until my hands don't work right.
I got lost in the woods in the rain, now I'm going into town. I think sometimes I forget that life can be full of nature, beer, rhythm and food and that's why I get sad.
All my friends are celebrating how great this academic year has been, and how great it is that they're all moving on in life and I'm stuck here with the only thing to celebrate being that I didn't kill myself.
After much deliberation and thought, I decided that I'm going to get a full physical and psychological evaluation to see what's up with me.
For the past few months apathy is really overtaking me. It's making me not want to do things or enjoy people who I like hang around with. I can't sleep consistently at all. I can't focus on anything for a concentrated period of time. Other than cooking, I have not been creative or productive when it comes to writing or finding a job. There are more and more annoying outside circumstances that keep getting in the way or keep me from being really happy, but this is something I need to tackle because I'm so racked not knowing what's exactly wrong.
Whenever I did research to see what's my issue, it usually has to do with physical activity. Now, I'm a huge guy, 340...but that's never hindered me. I'm slow and I like to take things easy, but I'm flexible and accommodating and don't mind my weight from an appearance/hindrance type of way. But when I think about it...I've been that way for most of my life. And only since the past 2 years has the apathy and depressive thoughts really got to me. I want to get active by doing more walking and getting yoga, but I think it's much harder to diet than to do the physical work. So I'm trying to find a balance with that.
I also had to discover that both sides of my family has some dark secrets. My mother's younger brother is addicted to pot, to where he would smoke it all the time and it definitely keeps him from doing his job (as a lawyer) and raising his daughter competently. He also was addicted to gambling and prostitutes at one point.
My dad's side of the family is even worse. I discovered my uncle was called "the angriest little alcoholic" and he spiraled into depression when his son died. Understandable, but it reached a point to when his mother died that he checked himself into a ward and refused to sign any paperwork that would share and split her big inheritance with everyone, solving everyone's problems. I'm thinking that's from depression/guilt as well.
His youngest brother has recently been brought up on charges of possessing oxycontin. It's assumed that he might have burned down his original house by cooking meth. And he is so incompetent to fix his life with the inheritance money that he doesn't even have a driver's license or place of residence.
I won't be these people. Whether it's chemical dependance or some form of mental illness...I can't let the unknown scare me or put it off any longer. I need to get checked and I'm hoping that when I meet with the doctors or medical professionals, that things will go better.
Good: Getting screened, feel pretty accomplished getting this far. We'll see what I have, but ADHD/Depression is a pretty strong possibility.
Bad: I'm starting to notice how much more irritable I am, especially when it comes to things falling down, bashing into things, forgetting things really frustrates me more than it used to.
Also, trying to figure out if a Mental/Behavioral Health Screening can be covered under my medical insurance is like pulling teeth. It's going to be out-of-network, but god, it's so hard to get a yes or no answer when talking to people over the phone or researching it online.
Comments
They didn't like me and thought I had a "problem with authority." That might be true. I saw it more as an ability to recognize sad jerks abusing the minuscule power they have over a bunch of kids. I'm sure each branch/squadron is different. I don't regret doing it, but not all my memories are fond ones.
Flying was pretty amazing though.
I admit, I do love flying, even though I've only had 3 lessons so far... I loved every minute of every one. My stomach could use a bit more work though -- especially during stalls.
And it was a 230 word article.
...I feel so useless. How did I feel so composed or afraid or feared that I would break some kind of code because I didn't follow the exact instructions of my freelance work? Why did it make me so fearful? And why did it take me hours to even get started on building up something that ended up being so short?
I guess this is how anxiety works. Is that you dredd something for days upon end and around the time you do it, you feel remorse and pain again for not doing something so easy sooner. I fear what my life in the real job world will be.
It's also been a pretty positive experience to have other people around that aren't my parents. Meeting some quality people in there. Introduced one kid to Your Heart Breaks, and he actually liked it (which is a first). Hopefully I'll be able to stay in touch with them when I/they get onto the other side.
My mom has done an okay job of dealing with this, and agreed that I need medicine. I have an appointment with an adult doctor in a few weeks, gonna ask them for Lexapro or something similar. This hasn't worked for me before, but we'll see.
Also contacted school. My adviser said that we can work through this, but I'm waiting on my professor's responses to figure out how we can get me graduated by the end of this year, since all F's in my classes would likely get rid of my scholarship and ability to afford college.
Things are not good, and I'm still very depressed with more people I need to tell about what happened. But, I'm hopefully on the road to getting treated. Every doctor I've tried to get to treat me before has redirected me away from medication, and the problem has just compounded. Hopefully this doctor respects me enough to at least get me on something. Worst case is they do what the last one did: Recommend me to a psychiatrist who doesn't take my family's insurance.
The next one didn't care and was just filling out a glorified survey basically. Hopefully this next one is actually willing to like, talk to me and give medication, instead of giving me generic surveys.
Right, for some background, I've been medicated and/or in therapy for more than half of my life. I'm fairly accustomed to my depression, which is why I'm being thrown for a bit of a loop because I'm not coping so well these days.
All is not lost, though. tonight I'm going to force myself to go the weekly drum circle in town and play until my hands don't work right.
For the past few months apathy is really overtaking me. It's making me not want to do things or enjoy people who I like hang around with. I can't sleep consistently at all. I can't focus on anything for a concentrated period of time. Other than cooking, I have not been creative or productive when it comes to writing or finding a job. There are more and more annoying outside circumstances that keep getting in the way or keep me from being really happy, but this is something I need to tackle because I'm so racked not knowing what's exactly wrong.
Whenever I did research to see what's my issue, it usually has to do with physical activity. Now, I'm a huge guy, 340...but that's never hindered me. I'm slow and I like to take things easy, but I'm flexible and accommodating and don't mind my weight from an appearance/hindrance type of way. But when I think about it...I've been that way for most of my life. And only since the past 2 years has the apathy and depressive thoughts really got to me. I want to get active by doing more walking and getting yoga, but I think it's much harder to diet than to do the physical work. So I'm trying to find a balance with that.
I also had to discover that both sides of my family has some dark secrets. My mother's younger brother is addicted to pot, to where he would smoke it all the time and it definitely keeps him from doing his job (as a lawyer) and raising his daughter competently. He also was addicted to gambling and prostitutes at one point.
My dad's side of the family is even worse. I discovered my uncle was called "the angriest little alcoholic" and he spiraled into depression when his son died. Understandable, but it reached a point to when his mother died that he checked himself into a ward and refused to sign any paperwork that would share and split her big inheritance with everyone, solving everyone's problems. I'm thinking that's from depression/guilt as well.
His youngest brother has recently been brought up on charges of possessing oxycontin. It's assumed that he might have burned down his original house by cooking meth. And he is so incompetent to fix his life with the inheritance money that he doesn't even have a driver's license or place of residence.
I won't be these people. Whether it's chemical dependance or some form of mental illness...I can't let the unknown scare me or put it off any longer. I need to get checked and I'm hoping that when I meet with the doctors or medical professionals, that things will go better.
Good: Getting screened, feel pretty accomplished getting this far. We'll see what I have, but ADHD/Depression is a pretty strong possibility.
Bad: I'm starting to notice how much more irritable I am, especially when it comes to things falling down, bashing into things, forgetting things really frustrates me more than it used to.
Also, trying to figure out if a Mental/Behavioral Health Screening can be covered under my medical insurance is like pulling teeth. It's going to be out-of-network, but god, it's so hard to get a yes or no answer when talking to people over the phone or researching it online.
I chose make them hate me.