163 replies to this topic

[Stephanie]

I want to say that you have us, and you do. But I know internet friends can be a sore substitute for irl friends. I don't want to pry, but I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Just know, this is the thread for venting. So always feel free.

[Kayla Kaon]

yea they were mostly internet, but I met them at one point. They're just gone now. I'll never hear from them again.

Edited by Kayla Kaon, 28 February 2019 - 10:27 PM.

[wonko the sane?]

Alright then: Since the incident with my sister, I have been losing sleep. Not greatly, mind you. Three or so hours a night. Enough to hug me up, but not enough to stop me. I've been sick basically non stop since this year began: a wicked cold, followed by a gastro, followed by a wicked cold. This brings us to wednesday of this week. I actually sleep the entire night. Not in one shot, I kept waking up, but I always able to get back to sleep.

 

This morning, at around 1 am, I was woken up a lancing pain in my jaw. I figured out how to sleep around it, but it was bad sleep. I gave up trying a few minutes ago. On my way to work this morning, I'm going to get a bottle of oragel to see if that helps the pain, and when I get BACK from work, I'm going to call my dentist and schedule an emergency for tomorrow. I swear to god, I hope it's something stupid and not my wisdom tooth, I really don't need hugging surgery right now.

 

I am ready for this year to be over now... I really don't care if 2020 could be worse, I just want this one to end cause I really don't know how much more I can take...

 

Edit: Okay, so it doesn't hurt more when I eat or drink, but it does when I blow my nose or cough. I think my wisdom tooth is hugged up.

 

Edit²: Okay, I'm scrambling to re arrainge my work, but I got an emergency appointment at my dentist for 11. I dunno if it's because the sun is up, or that I had the chance to talk to my parents about it, but I'm more hopeful that it's nothing overtly serious, and can be dealt with quickly and smoothly. I won't say "easy" cause this hugging year has been anything BUT easy so far.

Edited by wonko the sane?, 01 March 2019 - 08:21 AM.

[wonko the sane?]

Doctor: She needs to follow a 21 day, supervised treatement regimen.

 

Judge: She's not sick enough. As long as she takes her meds (and she hugging WONT!) she can go home.

 

So HEY! I came back from my emergency dental appointment to this. So today went from being just hugging miserable to another day destined to end in tears and cop cars.

[Stephanie]

So, I had a long talk with my mother last night. We talked about some things that happened when I was in school, about other things within the family. I also came out to her about being bi. She didn't react anything like I expected. It didn't seem like she reacted at all. She said that she wasn't surprised, like, she was't sure why she wasn't surprised, but she wasn't surprised. She wasn't even angry. We talked about our religion and how to reconcile the two parts of myself and...we just talked. The only time she got angry the whole night was when I told her how the principle put me in isolation for a week for defending a kid.

It feels like so much has been lifted off my shoulders I can't even began to say.

I still haven't told my father. She even told me that if I'm not comfortable, that there's no reason I should. It may be a while before I work up to that. But just that I was able to tell her...I mean, holy crap, I can't say how long I've been holding some of this stuff in, not just about being bi, but about so much of what we talked about last night.

[HellCat]

Had my session with the mental health expert on Friday. She was sympathetic to most things like my childhood, family situation and work situation.

 

When I brought up Brexit she was more dismissive and tried to imply I was basically an already low person getting worried because I'd seen scare stories in the papers.

 

She says therapy wouldn't work for me, I need counselling. The problem there being the NHS don't offer it so I'd have to pay for it myself. She also wants me to commit to a 6 month course of basic anti depressants....I'm hesitant.

 

I have a follow up appointment with her on Tuesday where she wants to hear about my progress and almost certainly wants me to commit to medication. I also have a meeting with two of my managers tomorrow morning just to go over what's happening, what that means for my employee availability and what they can do to help.

 

 

And on top of all this, we have a bit of family drama.

 

My sister is pregnant. She and her boyfriend tried to have a baby over a year ago and she did not respond well to pregnancy. She became violently ill and in the end the baby had to be terminated. She's likewise not doing well with this one but has resolved to tough it out, with the baby due in September.

 

Now this throws up various issues. For one, there are indicators both her and her boyfriend are doing this under the belief a baby can save their troubled relationship. My sister is desperate to keep hold of him and his family are keen on having kids (all his siblings do). However he is not a nice guy and when he got drunk a few months back admitted he only started going out with her as a bet of some of their work colleagues made with him...yeah.

 

Personally, I don't think she's mature enough to have a child. I'd love to be a father myself someday but I recognise for a variety of reasons it would be a bad idea unless various things improved and for the life I've had I wouldn't want to put anyone else through that pain. My sister doesn't share that stance and has a bad habit of doing things when emotion takes her and then trying to palm them off on others when she gets bored or regrets it.

 

Because I've been signed off for over a month now, mum has decided I'm not really depressed and am just having a nice extended holiday. Because apparently if you aren't throwing a noose around your neck the minute you're unsupervised you can't possibly be depressed. The thing with my sister is making this worse as mum is quite taken with the idea of having a grandkid and so sympathy for me is gone. I get it, I'm a single idiot who still lives at home and works in a supermarket. I'm under no delusion of how pitiful I am. But the depression I'm going through is caused by various factors and I don't care for the idea I'm just not worth the time.

 

One of the complaints I've had for years now is that as the youngest I'm expected to move at the pace of everyone else and the stages they're at in their life. They're bored of something I haven't even got to experience yet? Then it's not for me! Right now I really can't be doing with my family in any sense. I'm not right in my own head and I need to prioritise sorting that, if I even can. I can't do with being dragged around by other's life choices whilst mine are never respected.

[Destron D-69]

the worst part about life is we aren't the boss of it - beyond the borders of our own mind and body - and even then we've agreed to be a society that lets the group even impose limits on those things we -by all rights- should have free domain over.

 

What your sister is doing, at some point you have to leave it on her shoulders. I've got one myself, and she's been no end of consternation over the years. But you can only offer advice and a shoulder to cry on when things go wrong. 
 

 

not that it helps the stress any. it's just something you have to ride out 

[CEEFAX]

It feels like so much has been lifted off my shoulders I can't even began to say.

 

I'm so, so glad. My mother suffered in silence with her postpartum depression and it killed her. 32 years on, my dad still drinks himself to sleep every night because of it. Please, please, please all - don't suffer alone. Just talking can make such a difference.

 

 I'm under no delusion of how pitiful I am.

 

You aren't pitiful. No one in this thread is. Even if you don't believe it. I wouldn't want to tell anyone what to to do but one practice that's been really helpful to me is to think of something each day you can be proud of, and if you can't think of something, try to do something small that you can be proud of - it really doesn't matter what that thing is, it's a brick to start rebuilding your self esteem with.

 

Hellcat, you've talked about giving your unwanted TFs to charity rather than selling them. I'd say that's a fantastic thing to be very proud of. You've spoken about having very little growing up - think of the difference you've potentially already made to multiple children from struggling families. You're already making positive changes in the world whether you realise it or not - and you have the potential to make many more.

[Stephanie]

I truly do think that whenever someone starts to think "I'm pitiful" "I'm not worth it" or anything like that, it's the devil messing with you.

Of the two suicides I had to deal with in my life, one was a fantastic artist who could sketch better than I could ever draw. He had talent and could make some really beautiful things. The other was a really good friend that everyone loved talking too and even when she was feeling like shit, made sure she was trying to be a good friend to everyone else. I'm on an emotional high right now, but I've also been dealing with a lot of self hatred. But looking at my life objectively...well, you tell me.

I don't think anyone is worthless. And I have yet to see a suicide where those left behind aren't hurt deeply by it. I've seen a lot of pain on these past few pages, and not a single bit of it has come from anyone I don't value as an important part of this community.

[Kayla Kaon]

Been going through a lot. Trying to cut a toxic person out of my life. It's hard letting that person go though. They were the ones I was talking about in my last post... I just didn't really feel comfortable getting in to details. Still don't really.

They always find a way back in to my life and I can't seem to really get them out. They say terrible things to me to make me feel like I need them when in reality, I don't.

I get tired of them jerking me around like a fucking ragdoll. One day they say they will never speak to me again and the next day they will be texting me.

I wish I had the heart to tell them to fuck off, but I can't.

They have made me feel like I need them in order to live at times. They keep fucking with my head and I just don't know how to cut them off completely without feeling guilty.

[Glenn]

Feeling guilty fades quicker than you’d imagine. Especially when it is overshadowed by the new found peace not having the toxicity in your daily life will cause.

[Stephanie]

You should never feel bad about cutting out the toxicity in your life. You're under no obligation to allow someone who treats you like shit to continue treating you like shit. You're a great person, Kayla. I don't want to say too much because it was in a PM, but there was a certain banned member that at the time I was kinda bummed about but you helped me to understand it...and whether you knew it or not, helped me identify this person when he started stalking me elsewhere on the net.

That's just off the top of my head how you helped me. You're a major, major part of this board. And I've seen your strength. You don't need these people that bring you down. And you should never feel guilty about cutting toxicity from your life. After a point, it becomes downright necessary.

[The Doctor Who]

Eight years ago, I moved out of my mother's house. I had stayed with her after graduating high school because it seemed like we were better off sharing expenses and I had genuinely good childhood memories. I didn't have a significant other in my life and no particular employment futures and it just seemed like that was the best idea. She needed help and I needed help and we had gotten along just fine for the most part. We didn't have any saved money and I had already been working to help pay the bills since middle school, after she and my stepfather divorced and it just felt natural to continue that while I tried to figure out what I needed to do with my life.

 

It took more than a decade after graduation to realize how bad she actually was for me. I got older, grew up and started learning about more of the world and having to deal with more real life situations and it slowly grew on me that my mother, for as much as she had done for me as a child, was never going to accept that I wasn't a child anymore and that I did not belong to her exclusively. I also began to realize how much her choices had cost us opportunities and all her nobel moralizing about the evils of wealth and material goods was merely a cover for her unwillingness to take on the responsibilities of a 'adult' life. She was an adult child who was unwilling to grow up and both expecting me to be, in turn, her child and yet also take on the responsibilities she would not. I needed to be stable, responsible, reliable, knowledgeable and proactive so she could just blunder her way through life without any concern for the future. She never made friends - I was her friend. She never learned to adult - I was her adult.

 

The change was painful and didn't happen all at once. In 2010 I began to feel things had to change and by 2012, I moved out, but it took several more years for our relationship to finally break. At least in part because I still didn't really understand the full extent of why I had to leave and because I couldn't move far... just to another apartment in the same complex - it was all I could afford, but it was something, a beginning. Once outside of her direct influence, things accelerated. She didn't want to change habits, kept trying to act like we were still living together, kept expecting me to be at her beck and call, like a roommate. It wasn't until I started dating my girlfriend, three years ago that things finally broke. I had more important things in my life, someone I actively wanted to spend the bulk of my time with - and it wasn't her.

 

Even at that, it took a year or more for it to finally come to a head in a massive argument over her interfering in my personal life without my input.

 

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but it's not. We're a close-knit family and avoiding her entirely isn't possible. I still see her when getting together with family, during the holidays, etc. And she still seems to refuse to believe that I won't just come back to her, as if the argument could just go away and I would just get over it. As if my choice was just some flimsy thing that would change with the tide.

 

The point of all this is that, yes, breaking a toxic relationship is always hard, painful and trying.  It hurts like hell to do and is rarely clean or clear and sometimes comes with pitfalls, because even a toxic person can still be helpful and a source of positive feelings, even if they are overall damaging to your long-term life.

 

But it must be done and it will get better. It's been harder living on my own and I do still miss some aspects of living with my mother, but overall, I have a better, freer and happier life and things have been slowly improving beyond what I would have ever been with my mother. It's been rough, but it's absolutely worth it.

Edited by The Doctor Who, 11 March 2019 - 06:08 PM.

[Ryougabot]

How do you guys keep up the spirits?  It makes sense to remove toxicity from your life, but what if you are facing a no win battle that you KNOW you have no hope of winning, have no idea what it will do to you when it wins, or even when the battle will take place?  It is like being on a train that you know where the track is going, you can feel the speed of the train, but you can't slow the train, can't get off the train, and there are fewer passengers with you each year.  Medication makes it a more pleasant ride, but I can not leave the train.  It is getting heavy on me...and Family, TF's, 80's music, 90's toys, and Youtube can only let me escape so much.

[The Doctor Who]

I don't know what your situation is like, so it's impossible to say just how 'no win' it really is.

 

A sensation of helplessness goes hand-in-glove with depression.  It generally is depression.  So, like, for me, it's important to try and realize that the feeling of hopelessness is not 'real'. It's a state my brain puts me in because it's defective and I have to try and remind myself, even when I am in the middle of a depressive episode, that it will pass.  It's like the weather, my mood is rainy today, but tomorrow might be sunny, or, at least, only partly cloudy.

 

But, like, how do I keep myself happy? Well... the sad answers is that I don't. I go through depressive episodes where I only really manage to keep going just enough to go to work, pay the bills and feed myself and most everything else suffers. As good as I might feel at times, it's inevitable that I will have another depressive episode eventually and find myself struggling to keep up.

 

That said, I still keep going because, like I said above, I have come to recognize these periods for what they are: Depression. I know it's happening and I can't really stop it, but I also know it will go away in time and if I just keep getting out of bed, going to work, paying the bills, feeding myself, etc, it will get better.

 

For me there is only one kind of failure, and as long as I live and breathe, then I haven't failed yet.

 

And, I guess, that kind of thinking can be applied to trying to cope with a toxic situation that you can't escape yet. You're still alive, you're still kicking and still keeping on. As long as you're alive, there's always a chance for things to get better, even if you don't feel like that's true. It's going to hurt and you can't really make yourself be happy. But you can convince yourself to just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, looking for that opportunity to finally break out of whatever it is that's hurting you.

[Ryougabot]

I don't know what your situation is like, so it's impossible to say just how 'no win' it really is.

 

 

Chronic, debilitating and Incurable...

[The Doctor Who]

 

I don't know what your situation is like, so it's impossible to say just how 'no win' it really is.

 

 

Chronic, debilitating and Incurable...

Well, I mean, I won't lie and say there's an easy answer or that I even have one.

 

Hell, I'm still trying to really work out how to make my life work with the problems I have, some of which are equally never going to really go away.

 

But, like, life isn't a simple win/lose. It's a journey, an ongoing process and it only makes sense to me to keep the process going until it won't go anymore. So, like, I can't tell you how to always be happy, because I don't honestly think that's possible. But I can tell you that the only way to be happy at all, is to keep living and keep existing. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and live for the good days and put the bad ones behind you as much as possible.

[HellCat]

Had a meeting on Friday 8th with 2 managers. My sick pay has almost run out and since I can't afford to go without pay, I have to go back to work tomorrow. The plan is I'll be doing reduced hours for the next fortnight, my remaining sickpay apparently covering the hours I don't do.

 

The meeting was awkward. Really didn't get how bad I was feeling, as proven when they started talking about someone they know with a brain tumour...yeah.

 

Doctor's have prescribed me something called citalopram. Stronger than what they wanted to give me but I can't take pills and they refuse to give me liquid as my suicidal leaning means they fear I'll overdose. Really worried about taking these. They're for anxiety..and then looking up the side effects say they CAUSE anxiety, nausea, runs, sweating, urinating, erectile dysfunction....Jesus. Aside from all that I'm worried about how they could mess up my intuition. When it counts, my intuition is a strength of mine and these could mess it up either temporarily or permanently. That's a huge risk when I have so little currently.

[Maruten]

Ugh, running out of sick leave sucks. Good that you can ease back in on reduced hours though.

I know Citalopram isn't the ideal path forward for you, but hopefully it's worth giving it a few weeks and seeing if it helps. Fingers crossed.

[Stephanie]

Prozac also has a nice little list of side affects. Heck, I think just about any prescription meds are going to have side affects. But how my doctor explained it to me is basically a cost/reward comparison.

I've had some of the side effects from the Prozac, but not the entire list. It's a matter of seeing, hey, the side effects I'm getting are this, this and this. The benefits I'm getting are this, this and this.

After a month I see the doctor again and say, yeah I'm having these side effects, but the benefits I'm getting are worth it. Or maybe, yeah, I'm getting these benefits but these side effects I'm getting just aren't worth it. Is there something else we can try?

It's a process. A nerve wracking process I'm sure. But it's still good that you're taking these steps.

Hang in there. You'll get there.