Good evening comrades and welcome to your weekly mental health thread. This is the last week of the year, how is everyone doing? How was your year? How was your Christmas?
I still do have some problems with American slang terms, even after all those years. And at least, you something for christmas lmao.
I was having a pretty bad day and your post made me happy. Congratulations on your success comrade
You’re fine. Nobody came out of the womb with a fully developed egalitarian personal philosophy. Libs are fucking privileged liars, and haven’t confronted their own issues in earnest. You have.
Personally I'm proud of any comrade no matter how they came to leftism. Everyone has their own path and I'm especially impressed by anyone who got here after spending time on the right, given how the system is designed to crank out and maintain reactionary thought.
That's awesome, congratulations on your success comrade! You mentioned having intrusive thoughts in the last post, any improvement since then? Keep us updated, I'm looking forward to your next check-in! :unity:
I don't know.
I had a close friend pass away last week (from a long fight with cancer, not covid), and I don't know what it's going to do to me long term. She was one of the friends that stuck with me when I fell deep into depression and burnout, and I could always talk to her. I had conversations with her I haven't ever had with anyone else. And after she passed, I heard from mutual friends that she was always concerned about me, and always trying to get me to love myself more.
I didn't really notice it when she was alive. Now that she's gone, I realize what I've lost. I did get to say goodbye to her, and I did tell her how much I'd miss her, but I wish I could have said more to her, and that covid hadn't come and made her last months so lonely.
I'm trying to tell myself that she would want me to be happy, and make more connections with other people, and be less miserable. And I'm going to try to do that. I'm worried I'll fall back into my old patterns and habits once the holidays are over and I have to go back to work, though.
Well got turned down by my friend (see my post last week). Which means the entire future I had in mind collapsed. I have at least 30 years in front of me which will consist of work, gaming and reading, an hour of discord and then giong to sleep repeat ad infinitum. According to a former therapist I'm propably on the verge of the autism spectrum. Like I can function in my job as a teacher, but I really only know how to explain stuff or discuss a topic. Making new contacts is super difficult for me since I don't get small talk and am bad at keeping things like posture and body language in mind. I'm also terrible in sports (and hate them) and have no cool leftist orgs around where I live. I'm in an online biweekly theory group which is cool though. This has become a drunken rant (thanks for the whiskey mom). But I just don't see a future anymore that isn't more of the same.
Idk how I feel about this once an addict always an addict rhetoric. I can see how something is harmful to me and choosing not to engage in it, but if I start using I’ll be addicted again, doesn’t sit right with me. Thoughts?
Yeah, this is what my counselor tells me. But I smoked weed again a week ago and guess what. I haven’t used since. Before that it had been two months. I don’t want to be an addict anymore, but I also don’t want to feel all this guilt and shame if I ever choose to smoke again. I’m told that’s the addict mind. Idk
Your point isn't harmful, but I don't agree with it for myself. I used to be addicted to opiods and I absolutely agree with this "once an addict, always an addict" thought because if was prescribed or given those again I would act very differently with them/use them differently then someone who has never used them before or how I would before I ever got into that. Also the hypothetical pipeline between me being prescribed something for a legitimate injury and then turning to hitting up a dealer when I run out is much shorter than before I started and it always will be. I have a similar experience with binge drinking and have seen the cycle of quitting, to "only sometimes" to "back to my old habits" and how quick that goes.
Kudos for OP though, they seem to have a support system and if they feel it doesn't apply to them that's okay, I don't think it does for everyone but it's a good short hand to describe how easy it is to fall back into old habits. It also helps me handle the occasional "slip up" where I fall off the wagon; I fight addiction every day in my eyes and losing the battle on one day shouldn't lead me to feel like I tossed out years of winning.
Now, most of the time I hear that phrase it's from a place of distrust, maybe money went missing and someone points a finger or someone is applying for a job, and that is absolutely puritanical. And you are right, there is a loaded amount of shame that gets tied to drug use and that phrase, so most of the time I hear it outside of anon groups or therapy I tense up.
But anyway, I find it useful because it helped identify patterns for myself and actually address them.
Yeah I listened to that podcast. Even suggested it in this comm. it’s helped me.
I don't like that phrase either. I've read quite a bit on addiction, and I think a lot of mainstream rhetoric on it is moralistic and not grounded in evidence. If you're open to literature recommendations, two books that have shaped my opinions on this are Chasing the Scream and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.
Yes I very much am. Thank you I will check them out.
E:Just listened to RevLeft’s podcast on Billie Holiday a couple weeks ago. Then reading the opening of Chasing the Scream. Her life sounds horrific. I really feel for her.
Phasing out anti depressants, increasing weed and psychedelic consumption. Things are going good so far
You ever have like... rebound depression after talking with friends/family? Like you're feeling kinda sad, and then you go hang out/talk on the phone with/video call with some people that are important to you and it's great, you're just happy to see them and talk to them, and then it ends and like... as soon as it ends, as soon as you hang up or walk away or whatever, the world just falls down on top of you like a building falling down on your head?
Yeah haha me neither.
A bad depression episode threw me off track with my sleep schedule and exercise, and I haven’t had the energy to get back on it, which is a huge bummer.
I’ve managed two days in a row with zero suicidal thoughts, which is cool. Just wish my “good days” were consistent enough for me to accomplish anything, though.
All of my days where I’m not suicidal, I’m still recovering from the depressive episode I just went through. It’s extremely discouraging and this fact makes me feel like I’ll never break out of this cycle or have it at a manageable level. That might not be true, but I can’t help but feel that way.
This is exactly where I've been for years. As you saw, I'm just starting to experiment with antidepressant medications and have yet to find one that works for me. You're not alone in going through this.
I find that therapy helps a lot, not to fix or eliminate those thoughts, but at least to cope with them. And getting outside.
