so, my boss has a horrible habit of making all of his text messages sound super serious
like "We need to talk" which means "Hey, we need to adjust how we spend money on supplies, and how we use them. I'm thinking a staff meeting is probably in order to get everyone organized..." etc. etc.
in my sleep deprived brain, it was incredibly anxiety inducing fffffffffffffffffffffffffk
Two weeks ago I got, "Blake need to talk to you for a second " from my boss.
Go into the meeting room. The big boss is there also. Hmmmmm my brain goes, this doesn't seem great.
"we need to talk about the problem" oh shit my brain goes "with <another guy in the office >"
Aaaaaand relax again.
And from that discussion in now on the other side of the country.
I'm mainly afraid that my anxiety is preventing me from producing any work or being a healthy person in general...and that in turn, I'm not going to be making art often enough to get better, and exhibit my full potential...and I'll just live my life in mediocrity as people get better around me and I just continue to stagnate
I really wish I was naturally inclined to be prolific, but...holy crap I am not that person. Life can be...exhausting. Art can be fun but it can also be...awful. Maddening. Extremely difficult and ego-destroying. "Hey I can't draw a face today I guess I'm awful and pretty much the worst"
I'm not sure how to not hold myself to such high standards, because I'm afraid if I don't, I'll stagnate even worse
and then I won't have a portfolio and won't have a good job and won't ever really truly "make it"
Apparently this is a hella common fear for artists though, so....eh
I'm afraid I'll never own a dog because I'm too busy, my job stability is too low, and I'm afraid that being forced to give away my dog when I was 14 irreparably destroyed me from feeling like I can take that risk again
brain probs
I'm calling docs this week though and seeing if I can get on something to see if it will help. I used to be clinically depressed but thankfully I don't have episodes that long anymore, or that often at all. I went on meds a few times for depression, but now it's almost all anxiety, which is new and different and weird and finally just got to be something that was too much for me to handle, so now I'm calling docs. It's a pain in the ass process, but I'm forcing myself through it because I know it'll likely improve my life a lot to do it.
All sent in quick succession, I'd call thinking something bad happened
"Oh can you give me a ride on Tuesday?"
Ugh, my Mom does shit like that
not with texting, she never does those, even I don't really get into that stuff
she just has a habit of making really pedantic things sound super serious at times
also sometimes making things way more complicated than they need to be
one time, years ago, she was trying to page me over the phone for some reason, but my phone doesn't respond for some reason, so she just kinda randomly shows up at my door, all "SO YOU AREN"T ANSWERING THE PHONE, BECAUSE..." (She loves phrasing questions in the most annoying way when she gets frustrated)
"Uh, my phone didn't ring"
"What do you mean it didn't ring?"
"I mean it didn't ring..."
"Ugh, whatever."
She goes back to the living room and a moment later the phone rings.
"Yes?"
"Can you come in here, please?"
"...."
So I go to the living room and ask what the problem is.
And she gestures to the dripping sink in the kitchen.
Goatmon on
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
I used to be pretty unhappy, and I'd get down on myself for being that way because I had a pretty good life. I'd actually fantasize about bad shit happening to me so I'd have a reason to be unhappy.
Eventually bad shit happened, and I was even more unhappy for awhile. I would obsess over the future, and money, and "what if X happens?" scenarios.
And I can't even really put my finger on when or how it happened, but I don't do that anymore. I find myself using AA language on myself, even though I've never been. One Day At A Time, the Serenity Prayer, etc.
So I feel like I'm finally in a pretty good place, mentally speaking.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Also, I used to worry that I wasn't actually as much of a special snowflake as I thought I was.
Once it was confirmed, boy was that a load off my mind.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
i noticed that while i am actively driving away friends by trying my best to tell the truth and be myself, maybe 5 people i consider friends have initiated conversation with me. this year. that, if anything, is an overshot. So i'm considering just not talking to anyone for a while unless they talk to me first, except i know for a fact all this will accomplish is the loss of more friends. I don't know what to do in this situation.
How old are you? I'm 25 and have maybe three friends I talk to on a semi regular basis, only one of them I see in person. I talk to and spend almost all my time with my girlfriend, if I didn't have that I'd probably go crazy or finally just say fuck it and move out to Washington.
Everyone is different but in my experience, friends are fickle. Even ones I thought were really great friends dropped off the face of the earth once they got into a relationship. Maybe that's what happened to me too, though I always remember making an effort to keep up friendships I enjoyed.
All sent in quick succession, I'd call thinking something bad happened
"Oh can you give me a ride on Tuesday?"
My mother was very huffy when I sat her down to have a talk that constantly texting me and calling me over the span of three hours to just "call her" was not okay unless there was an emergency.
I was at work and in a meeting. My phone was going nuts and it was just because she was bored and wanted to chat.
I worry that sometimes there is no normal. That the life experiences that caused me to hate myself and try to appear normal, that made it difficult for me to act like myself or even know what that is, were all unconnected with any reality. That the "normal" I've been pushed to by others doesn't exist. And instead I'm left with my own self loathing, unable to cope with who I am or who I want to be forever.
I also worry that sometimes there isn't anything after this. That I'll live a meaningless tortured existence, leave nothing behind, and at the natural end of my life I'll go into nothing. I don't want to become nothing, I don't want reprieve from being me, I want to have time and ability and resources to do and think and feel however I want, but I know that I was born without many of those luxuries, so I may never experience that.
I'm pretty sure I've had ADD since I was a kid. My parents never took me to see a doctor to find out because the whole "it's just kids being kids not a medical thing" now that im an adult I still haven't gone to see a doctor about it because reasons? Like maybe because I don't want add to be a cop out as to why I'm not where I want to be at 25. If that makes any sense.
As somebody who also grew up with a learning difference, it makes perfect sense. I got my diagnosis as a kid and had accommodations and Special Ed classes. I spent a good part of my school career being told I didn't "deserve" my accommodations, and that I was smart enough that I should have just worked/tried harder, and taken the Bs and Cs I'd have gotten without the extra time and scantron sheets. Kids told me "well, I'd get A's on that if you gave me time and a half." They made me feel like I was cheating.
But I wasn't cheating, and you wouldn't be either if you got checked out for ADD. Recognizing your brain works a certain way isn't a cop out. It's an acknowledgement of specific needs you have to function at your best. And that's a totally OK, normal thing to do. You wouldn't tell somebody they were just making excuses if they finally got their life-long mild peanut allergy diagnosed and stopped eating snickers bars, would you?
Nikolai, that's a bunch of horseshit and you know its horseshit because it makes you feel bad when you say those things. How do I know it makes you feel bad? Because you think its a metric for judging yourself and viewing yourself unfavorably.
If you suspect you might have a problem you might be recognizing a reality. In the case of ADD it is also a reality you are incapable of escaping because it is inside you.
As Creagan said, do not let your back catalog prevent you from at least seeing a proper doctor to verify your attempts at a diagnosis. Without their professional opinions you won't have a chance of knowing whether you or your parents' attitudes were right.
And you know what? Even if they were right?
Fuck 'em.
Being right fifteen years in posterity doesn't mean that it was okay that you have lived said years in a state of limbo wondering whether or not its you. You have every right to verify it isn't ADD.
Also, the whole thing about being 25? Holy shit, you graduated highschool right into the recession. Eye of the fucking storm.
And I may sound like I'm high horsing here, but I'm right with you. My alcoholism is going to kill me and its not stopping me because when I'm drunk I'm invincible or some other bullshit I tell myself. Every "Life After (insert example)" is infinitely terrifying to confront because the menace of the unknown has a pesky ability to seem insurmountably huge. If you don't know it, it is impossible to know that it isn't as big or as terrifying as you thought it would be.
What I am trying to say here, clumsily, is that in a way you are giving your ADD a power over you even if your ADD isn't actually real.
Which should be a pretty damn big motivation to find out whether its real.
My introspection is that my awareness of being a self-absorbed prick prevents me from sharing any thoughts in conversations like these in fear of alienating myself from my peers even further.
Also my English appears to be falling apart, so that doesn't help either.
I start group therapy on tuesday and I want to barf every where
I also want to quit my job but right now its the only thing that gets me to leave the house
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I Win Swordfightsall the traits of greatnessstarlight at my feetRegistered Userregular
remember krumping?
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
I was diagnosed with ADD at the beginning of this year and have been on meds for nearly 6 months and its been goddamn incredible. Probably the biggest revelation for me was how my priority system was just completely fucked, I could know and want to do one thing, like schoolwork, but no matter how hard I tried I would just play video games or read the forums ect. instead. Over time I just began to think of myself as lazy and that even after being on meds and being the polar opposite of my old self I didn't realize until like 3 weeks ago that no, I am not lazy and that it was just a product of my rationalization of my actions that was caused by the ADD.
I know this was days ago, but thank you for this.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
my biggest realization these days is that i can't trust myself in interactions with others, especially those nigh-universal ones that would yield some sort of positive feeling for me
and it's not that anything bad has happened in the past or is likely to happen in the future. it's just i have such a large appreciation these days for the harm i can do. better to not chase that butterfly if i have to trample someone in the process, unknowingly. it's not worth it.
anyway, that leaves me two paths to fulfillment: 1) working to effect a lot of positive change in the world - real, concrete things i can point to and say 'i helped make that happen' (main driving force these days) and 2) doing things that make me feel good that don't have the potential to hurt other people.
a lot of times my urge to do the first leaves me no time to do the second so i wind up fulfilled but neglecting my usual hobbies. they don't seem that important in comparison.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Over the last year and a half I had a series of horrible things happen that basically left me an anxiety ridden wreck for the 2013-2014 school year. Now I'm taking a couple graduate classes at the university I did my BA at, and I think I feel almost completely normal again.
But for me, "normal" is not being social with people from my classes, and not even thinking about dating. And three years ago that was fine- I lived in a dorm with my friends and had such a huge course load I could barely hang out with my friends, so even if I had wanted to date somebody I wouldn't have had time. Things are very, very different today. None of my friends live in Chicago anymore, and I'm only taking two classes.
I know I need to make some more friends, and the place to do that would be the university, probably in my classes. But if I get good enough grades, I'm only going to take the classes I'm in now and each class only meets once a week. So I'm going to see these people maybe ten more times, and I'm not really that keen on hanging out with people from my university anyway. (I really miss my friends from high school, but we lost touch two years ago.)
Then the idea of dating is a whole other can of worms. Generally, I keep the whole "romance" part of my brain completely shut off because it gets in the way of doing things like school work. Also, it's really, really scary. Dating is like the ultimate test of social skills. And thanks to some really shitty stuff that happened in high school, I have very little confidence in my ability to socialize in general. (Basically a member of the school faculty got mad at me, and convinced the entire social work department I didn't have friends, so they forced me into an "intensive social skills" class for people with autism and spent a year telling me I was incapable of socializing "normally" & thanking people for talking to me.) Plus, there's the risk that either I'll wind up in a horrible, quasi abusive marriage like almost every other woman in my family, or worse, I'll wind up being the toxic spouse because I'm too much like my dad.
And on top of that, I'm under such tremendous pressure to start dating that I'm not even sure if I WANT to date. (Seriously, if I even express even the slightest interest in the opposite sex, that's all my family can talk about for the rest of the fucking day.) What if I've convinced myself I may be mildly interested in dating because my mom keeps asking me about guys and telling me to bring one home? Do I even want to make all the changes I'd have to do to seem available? (I allegedly need to change the way I dress and do my hair to appear older, and attempt to come across as "less physically cold." Those are pretty freaking big changes for me.)
Or in other words, I am completely over thinking everything. But that's something normal for me, and it's not getting in the way of me doing things like school work and my fun personal side projects. So it's not really a bad thing. I'm just fussing over something stupid.
I have, like, the opposite problem when it comes to pressure to date. It's pretty much internal. Most of my friends aren't married. My parents were 5 years older than me when they got married (I'm 29) so no pressure from that angle, either. (Also, I don't share my social life with my parents anyway. I don't think they even know the names of any of my friends out here.)
Yet, I feel pretty much constantly inadequate because I've never dated anyone. (Inadequate to whom, you might ask. I'm not sure. Myself?) I know it's dumb, but I also don't seem particularly willing to do anything about it.
I seem to actively avoid the prospect of dating. If for some reasons my mental block on noticing guys fails, I am compelled to act as apsolutely consistent with my normal behavior as possible. So nobody knows I may be interested in the guy and I don't have to deal with that.
I don't really feel inadequet because I've never dated.... It's more like, I think want to eventually have a family. And I'm a little worried I won't get one. But I'm also worried that I will get one, and ruin it. My parents and ancestors have a terrible track record when it comes to marrige and kids
I've spent way longer than I feel comfortable disclosing trying to find a long term job, and so far I haven't received any indication that's likely to change anytime soon.
I've been out of school for a year-and-a-half, I'm starting to feel like a drain on the people around me, and I'm stressing out because it feels like money is flying out of my bank account faster than I can put it back in.
The worst part is that I've received little-to-no notice from the places I have applied at, so I have no idea whether this is just them trying to save costs, or if I'm doing something wrong and I'm not aware of it.
I really hope it's not the second one, because I have no idea how I'd go about fixing that.
[IMG][/img]
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Over the last year and a half I had a series of horrible things happen that basically left me an anxiety ridden wreck for the 2013-2014 school year. Now I'm taking a couple graduate classes at the university I did my BA at, and I think I feel almost completely normal again.
But for me, "normal" is not being social with people from my classes, and not even thinking about dating. And three years ago that was fine- I lived in a dorm with my friends and had such a huge course load I could barely hang out with my friends, so even if I had wanted to date somebody I wouldn't have had time. Things are very, very different today. None of my friends live in Chicago anymore, and I'm only taking two classes.
I know I need to make some more friends, and the place to do that would be the university, probably in my classes. But if I get good enough grades, I'm only going to take the classes I'm in now and each class only meets once a week. So I'm going to see these people maybe ten more times, and I'm not really that keen on hanging out with people from my university anyway. (I really miss my friends from high school, but we lost touch two years ago.)
Then the idea of dating is a whole other can of worms. Generally, I keep the whole "romance" part of my brain completely shut off because it gets in the way of doing things like school work. Also, it's really, really scary. Dating is like the ultimate test of social skills. And thanks to some really shitty stuff that happened in high school, I have very little confidence in my ability to socialize in general. (Basically a member of the school faculty got mad at me, and convinced the entire social work department I didn't have friends, so they forced me into an "intensive social skills" class for people with autism and spent a year telling me I was incapable of socializing "normally" & thanking people for talking to me.) Plus, there's the risk that either I'll wind up in a horrible, quasi abusive marriage like almost every other woman in my family, or worse, I'll wind up being the toxic spouse because I'm too much like my dad.
And on top of that, I'm under such tremendous pressure to start dating that I'm not even sure if I WANT to date. (Seriously, if I even express even the slightest interest in the opposite sex, that's all my family can talk about for the rest of the fucking day.) What if I've convinced myself I may be mildly interested in dating because my mom keeps asking me about guys and telling me to bring one home? Do I even want to make all the changes I'd have to do to seem available? (I allegedly need to change the way I dress and do my hair to appear older, and attempt to come across as "less physically cold." Those are pretty freaking big changes for me.)
Or in other words, I am completely over thinking everything. But that's something normal for me, and it's not getting in the way of me doing things like school work and my fun personal side projects. So it's not really a bad thing. I'm just fussing over something stupid.
Just let it happen. Think of that episode of Fiona and Cake. You'll know what you want if and when it comes along. In the mean time, live your life and have fun. You're really young, and your family sounds goddamn crazy about this for some reason, so it might be best to tune them out and get through your degree, which is substantially more important. Don't shut down the part of you that thinks about dating, but recognize that means you don't have to date someone because there are [insert gender here] around. If you're going to, don't think about dating, think about dating the person you like if that person comes along.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
I'm worried about the consequences of introspection. I'm very critical of myself and I've learned how to use that for introspection by asking why I do certain things. However I intentionally avoid a few subjects. I don't question why I like things I like because I'm worried about the consequences that come from that.
Am I using video games as a method of entertainment or an escapism and opiate to cover over things in my life I find unpleasant and am unwilling to confront directly? Do I simply play games because it occupies my brain and prevents me from introspection while delivering a chemical boost to the brain or is it actually something I enjoy? Did it begin as one and turn into another? If I question this will I ever find joy in gaming?
Do I make things because they make me happy or because I enjoy admiration? Am I really just seeking attention in a skeezy way by sharing the things I make or talking about them? Do use the ability or knowledge of how to make certain things as a social lever to get a small chance to lord over people?
This is about as far as I intend to go with that line of introspection.
Does anybody else feel like they're getting dumber?
I used to have so many thoughts that were so clear to me at any given moment but now it all seems kind of hazy and cloudy. Sometimes I just have real trouble seeing further ahead than wherever I am at any given moment. It didn't used to be this way.
Is that aging? Or maybe I have just lacked a creative outlet for too long, I don't know.
yes me this
like you
me
agree
also I think maybe it's not a good thing that my go-to consolation when shit feels like it's going pear-shaped is to think "well one day I and everyone I've ever known will be dead anyway"
there's a war raging in my head between fatalism and existentialism
I feel like I only get smarter. But then I am sad because of how stupid I had been.
Mostly I've always just been knowledgeable, which really covers up stupid. People think you are smart if you know lots of facts. No, that just means you can jam them in there. I have good associative memory. Doesn't mean I'm really intelligent though.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Over the last year and a half I had a series of horrible things happen that basically left me an anxiety ridden wreck for the 2013-2014 school year. Now I'm taking a couple graduate classes at the university I did my BA at, and I think I feel almost completely normal again.
But for me, "normal" is not being social with people from my classes, and not even thinking about dating. And three years ago that was fine- I lived in a dorm with my friends and had such a huge course load I could barely hang out with my friends, so even if I had wanted to date somebody I wouldn't have had time. Things are very, very different today. None of my friends live in Chicago anymore, and I'm only taking two classes.
I know I need to make some more friends, and the place to do that would be the university, probably in my classes. But if I get good enough grades, I'm only going to take the classes I'm in now and each class only meets once a week. So I'm going to see these people maybe ten more times, and I'm not really that keen on hanging out with people from my university anyway. (I really miss my friends from high school, but we lost touch two years ago.)
Then the idea of dating is a whole other can of worms. Generally, I keep the whole "romance" part of my brain completely shut off because it gets in the way of doing things like school work. Also, it's really, really scary. Dating is like the ultimate test of social skills. And thanks to some really shitty stuff that happened in high school, I have very little confidence in my ability to socialize in general. (Basically a member of the school faculty got mad at me, and convinced the entire social work department I didn't have friends, so they forced me into an "intensive social skills" class for people with autism and spent a year telling me I was incapable of socializing "normally" & thanking people for talking to me.) Plus, there's the risk that either I'll wind up in a horrible, quasi abusive marriage like almost every other woman in my family, or worse, I'll wind up being the toxic spouse because I'm too much like my dad.
And on top of that, I'm under such tremendous pressure to start dating that I'm not even sure if I WANT to date. (Seriously, if I even express even the slightest interest in the opposite sex, that's all my family can talk about for the rest of the fucking day.) What if I've convinced myself I may be mildly interested in dating because my mom keeps asking me about guys and telling me to bring one home? Do I even want to make all the changes I'd have to do to seem available? (I allegedly need to change the way I dress and do my hair to appear older, and attempt to come across as "less physically cold." Those are pretty freaking big changes for me.)
Or in other words, I am completely over thinking everything. But that's something normal for me, and it's not getting in the way of me doing things like school work and my fun personal side projects. So it's not really a bad thing. I'm just fussing over something stupid.
Just let it happen. Think of that episode of Fiona and Cake. You'll know what you want if and when it comes along. In the mean time, live your life and have fun. You're really young, and your family sounds goddamn crazy about this for some reason, so it might be best to tune them out and get through your degree, which is substantially more important. Don't shut down the part of you that thinks about dating, but recognize that means you don't have to date someone because there are [insert gender here] around. If you're going to, don't think about dating, think about dating the person you like if that person comes along.
I've spent way longer than I feel comfortable disclosing trying to find a long term job, and so far I haven't received any indication that's likely to change anytime soon.
I've been out of school for a year-and-a-half, I'm starting to feel like a drain on the people around me, and I'm stressing out because it feels like money is flying out of my bank account faster than I can put it back in.
The worst part is that I've received little-to-no notice from the places I have applied at, so I have no idea whether this is just them trying to save costs, or if I'm doing something wrong and I'm not aware of it.
I really hope it's not the second one, because I have no idea how I'd go about fixing that.
Job hunting is a shitty experience and I'm sorry you've been stuck at it for so long. I know how much it can wear you down.
Not hearing anything back is extremely common. Is in an infuriating dickish thing that companies do but be assured it happens constantly to everybody looking for jobs. It's not personal.
There was a span in this last month where I felt more alone than I ever have. I had to cut the toxic relationship with my parents out of my life, and at the same time my wife was backsliding on her borderline personality disorder really bad, and my best friend just up and decided to be an ass to everyone around him for some reason.
Now my wife is doing better; is in DBT and everything, and I managed to get a few sessions with my therapist as well. There are a lot of things coming up that I'm terrified of, and I really need to get out there and find a new job, but for once there's a part of me that's thinking that things are somehow going to work out okay-ish.
Nikolai, that's a bunch of horseshit and you know its horseshit because it makes you feel bad when you say those things. How do I know it makes you feel bad? Because you think its a metric for judging yourself and viewing yourself unfavorably.
If you suspect you might have a problem you might be recognizing a reality. In the case of ADD it is also a reality you are incapable of escaping because it is inside you.
As Creagan said, do not let your back catalog prevent you from at least seeing a proper doctor to verify your attempts at a diagnosis. Without their professional opinions you won't have a chance of knowing whether you or your parents' attitudes were right.
And you know what? Even if they were right?
Fuck 'em.
Being right fifteen years in posterity doesn't mean that it was okay that you have lived said years in a state of limbo wondering whether or not its you. You have every right to verify it isn't ADD.
Also, the whole thing about being 25? Holy shit, you graduated highschool right into the recession. Eye of the fucking storm.
And I may sound like I'm high horsing here, but I'm right with you. My alcoholism is going to kill me and its not stopping me because when I'm drunk I'm invincible or some other bullshit I tell myself. Every "Life After (insert example)" is infinitely terrifying to confront because the menace of the unknown has a pesky ability to seem insurmountably huge. If you don't know it, it is impossible to know that it isn't as big or as terrifying as you thought it would be.
What I am trying to say here, clumsily, is that in a way you are giving your ADD a power over you even if your ADD isn't actually real.
Which should be a pretty damn big motivation to find out whether its real.
I've brought it up a couple times in the past to my parents and they just kinda scoffed at me. What really made me take a hard look at it was my aunt just got diagnosed with ADHD and she's pushing 40. But what you've said makes perfect sense. I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else. I don't know why I have this irrational "fear" I guess of actually going to find out. Considering I have crohns disease and I'm not apprehensive about doctors and stuff I guess it's just this stupid image I have in my mind of my parents being dissapointed in me for having ADD, as stupid as that sounds, like there's no real basis for me to think they would feel that way but for some reason I do.
I'm worried about the consequences of introspection. I'm very critical of myself and I've learned how to use that for introspection by asking why I do certain things. However I intentionally avoid a few subjects. I don't question why I like things I like because I'm worried about the consequences that come from that.
Am I using video games as a method of entertainment or an escapism and opiate to cover over things in my life I find unpleasant and am unwilling to confront directly? Do I simply play games because it occupies my brain and prevents me from introspection while delivering a chemical boost to the brain or is it actually something I enjoy? Did it begin as one and turn into another? If I question this will I ever find joy in gaming?
Do I make things because they make me happy or because I enjoy admiration? Am I really just seeking attention in a skeezy way by sharing the things I make or talking about them? Do use the ability or knowledge of how to make certain things as a social lever to get a small chance to lord over people?
This is about as far as I intend to go with that line of introspection.
doing things can have multiple reasons and impacts, it doesn't have to be 1 or the other. maintaining a balance between those reasons can be important, though. you can play videogames to destress, to feel powerful, to escape for a time, to enjoy the story....all at the same time. and though some reasons may have more 'moral heft' than others, it doesn't make those others less important to your overall well-being.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Posts
Two weeks ago I got, "Blake need to talk to you for a second " from my boss.
Go into the meeting room. The big boss is there also. Hmmmmm my brain goes, this doesn't seem great.
"we need to talk about the problem" oh shit my brain goes "with <another guy in the office >"
Aaaaaand relax again.
And from that discussion in now on the other side of the country.
Satans..... hints.....
I'm mainly afraid that my anxiety is preventing me from producing any work or being a healthy person in general...and that in turn, I'm not going to be making art often enough to get better, and exhibit my full potential...and I'll just live my life in mediocrity as people get better around me and I just continue to stagnate
I really wish I was naturally inclined to be prolific, but...holy crap I am not that person. Life can be...exhausting. Art can be fun but it can also be...awful. Maddening. Extremely difficult and ego-destroying. "Hey I can't draw a face today I guess I'm awful and pretty much the worst"
I'm not sure how to not hold myself to such high standards, because I'm afraid if I don't, I'll stagnate even worse
and then I won't have a portfolio and won't have a good job and won't ever really truly "make it"
Apparently this is a hella common fear for artists though, so....eh
I'm afraid I'll never own a dog because I'm too busy, my job stability is too low, and I'm afraid that being forced to give away my dog when I was 14 irreparably destroyed me from feeling like I can take that risk again
brain probs
I'm calling docs this week though and seeing if I can get on something to see if it will help. I used to be clinically depressed but thankfully I don't have episodes that long anymore, or that often at all. I went on meds a few times for depression, but now it's almost all anxiety, which is new and different and weird and finally just got to be something that was too much for me to handle, so now I'm calling docs. It's a pain in the ass process, but I'm forcing myself through it because I know it'll likely improve my life a lot to do it.
Ugh, my Mom does shit like that
not with texting, she never does those, even I don't really get into that stuff
she just has a habit of making really pedantic things sound super serious at times
also sometimes making things way more complicated than they need to be
one time, years ago, she was trying to page me over the phone for some reason, but my phone doesn't respond for some reason, so she just kinda randomly shows up at my door, all "SO YOU AREN"T ANSWERING THE PHONE, BECAUSE..." (She loves phrasing questions in the most annoying way when she gets frustrated)
"Uh, my phone didn't ring"
"What do you mean it didn't ring?"
"I mean it didn't ring..."
"Ugh, whatever."
She goes back to the living room and a moment later the phone rings.
"Yes?"
"Can you come in here, please?"
"...."
So I go to the living room and ask what the problem is.
And she gestures to the dripping sink in the kitchen.
Eventually bad shit happened, and I was even more unhappy for awhile. I would obsess over the future, and money, and "what if X happens?" scenarios.
And I can't even really put my finger on when or how it happened, but I don't do that anymore. I find myself using AA language on myself, even though I've never been. One Day At A Time, the Serenity Prayer, etc.
So I feel like I'm finally in a pretty good place, mentally speaking.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Once it was confirmed, boy was that a load off my mind.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I got a new pair of glasses today and they don't really fit super well but I'm gonna keep em anyways cause they're dead sexy
The prisms in them are thicker than ever, so much so that I can't fold the earpieces all the way.
I definitely see distances way better, but seeing my computer screen is a little more difficult.
Also, as a side effect of the prisms, bright light highlights everything with rainbows now.
So now, whenever I go outside, everything has a Last Dragon aura. That took a while to get used to.
I will kind of miss them as a relic of reliability, but I deffo needed something more feminine that hadn't been around since the Bush administration
How old are you? I'm 25 and have maybe three friends I talk to on a semi regular basis, only one of them I see in person. I talk to and spend almost all my time with my girlfriend, if I didn't have that I'd probably go crazy or finally just say fuck it and move out to Washington.
Everyone is different but in my experience, friends are fickle. Even ones I thought were really great friends dropped off the face of the earth once they got into a relationship. Maybe that's what happened to me too, though I always remember making an effort to keep up friendships I enjoyed.
Same, but sometimes I break and do it anyway, which sucks.
My mother was very huffy when I sat her down to have a talk that constantly texting me and calling me over the span of three hours to just "call her" was not okay unless there was an emergency.
I was at work and in a meeting. My phone was going nuts and it was just because she was bored and wanted to chat.
Once she texted me 'The car is broken'
and then did not respond to texts or calls for the next 2 hours
Turns out the shifter button popped out
I also worry that sometimes there isn't anything after this. That I'll live a meaningless tortured existence, leave nothing behind, and at the natural end of my life I'll go into nothing. I don't want to become nothing, I don't want reprieve from being me, I want to have time and ability and resources to do and think and feel however I want, but I know that I was born without many of those luxuries, so I may never experience that.
Sorry, that's a downer. Have a kitten.
But I wasn't cheating, and you wouldn't be either if you got checked out for ADD. Recognizing your brain works a certain way isn't a cop out. It's an acknowledgement of specific needs you have to function at your best. And that's a totally OK, normal thing to do. You wouldn't tell somebody they were just making excuses if they finally got their life-long mild peanut allergy diagnosed and stopped eating snickers bars, would you?
If you suspect you might have a problem you might be recognizing a reality. In the case of ADD it is also a reality you are incapable of escaping because it is inside you.
As Creagan said, do not let your back catalog prevent you from at least seeing a proper doctor to verify your attempts at a diagnosis. Without their professional opinions you won't have a chance of knowing whether you or your parents' attitudes were right.
And you know what? Even if they were right?
Fuck 'em.
Being right fifteen years in posterity doesn't mean that it was okay that you have lived said years in a state of limbo wondering whether or not its you. You have every right to verify it isn't ADD.
Also, the whole thing about being 25? Holy shit, you graduated highschool right into the recession. Eye of the fucking storm.
And I may sound like I'm high horsing here, but I'm right with you. My alcoholism is going to kill me and its not stopping me because when I'm drunk I'm invincible or some other bullshit I tell myself. Every "Life After (insert example)" is infinitely terrifying to confront because the menace of the unknown has a pesky ability to seem insurmountably huge. If you don't know it, it is impossible to know that it isn't as big or as terrifying as you thought it would be.
What I am trying to say here, clumsily, is that in a way you are giving your ADD a power over you even if your ADD isn't actually real.
Which should be a pretty damn big motivation to find out whether its real.
Also my English appears to be falling apart, so that doesn't help either.
I also want to quit my job but right now its the only thing that gets me to leave the house
I know this was days ago, but thank you for this.
and it's not that anything bad has happened in the past or is likely to happen in the future. it's just i have such a large appreciation these days for the harm i can do. better to not chase that butterfly if i have to trample someone in the process, unknowingly. it's not worth it.
anyway, that leaves me two paths to fulfillment: 1) working to effect a lot of positive change in the world - real, concrete things i can point to and say 'i helped make that happen' (main driving force these days) and 2) doing things that make me feel good that don't have the potential to hurt other people.
a lot of times my urge to do the first leaves me no time to do the second so i wind up fulfilled but neglecting my usual hobbies. they don't seem that important in comparison.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
But for me, "normal" is not being social with people from my classes, and not even thinking about dating. And three years ago that was fine- I lived in a dorm with my friends and had such a huge course load I could barely hang out with my friends, so even if I had wanted to date somebody I wouldn't have had time. Things are very, very different today. None of my friends live in Chicago anymore, and I'm only taking two classes.
I know I need to make some more friends, and the place to do that would be the university, probably in my classes. But if I get good enough grades, I'm only going to take the classes I'm in now and each class only meets once a week. So I'm going to see these people maybe ten more times, and I'm not really that keen on hanging out with people from my university anyway. (I really miss my friends from high school, but we lost touch two years ago.)
Then the idea of dating is a whole other can of worms. Generally, I keep the whole "romance" part of my brain completely shut off because it gets in the way of doing things like school work. Also, it's really, really scary. Dating is like the ultimate test of social skills. And thanks to some really shitty stuff that happened in high school, I have very little confidence in my ability to socialize in general. (Basically a member of the school faculty got mad at me, and convinced the entire social work department I didn't have friends, so they forced me into an "intensive social skills" class for people with autism and spent a year telling me I was incapable of socializing "normally" & thanking people for talking to me.) Plus, there's the risk that either I'll wind up in a horrible, quasi abusive marriage like almost every other woman in my family, or worse, I'll wind up being the toxic spouse because I'm too much like my dad.
And on top of that, I'm under such tremendous pressure to start dating that I'm not even sure if I WANT to date. (Seriously, if I even express even the slightest interest in the opposite sex, that's all my family can talk about for the rest of the fucking day.) What if I've convinced myself I may be mildly interested in dating because my mom keeps asking me about guys and telling me to bring one home? Do I even want to make all the changes I'd have to do to seem available? (I allegedly need to change the way I dress and do my hair to appear older, and attempt to come across as "less physically cold." Those are pretty freaking big changes for me.)
Or in other words, I am completely over thinking everything. But that's something normal for me, and it's not getting in the way of me doing things like school work and my fun personal side projects. So it's not really a bad thing. I'm just fussing over something stupid.
Yet, I feel pretty much constantly inadequate because I've never dated anyone. (Inadequate to whom, you might ask. I'm not sure. Myself?) I know it's dumb, but I also don't seem particularly willing to do anything about it.
Edit: this is one hell of a 15,000th post.
I don't really feel inadequet because I've never dated.... It's more like, I think want to eventually have a family. And I'm a little worried I won't get one. But I'm also worried that I will get one, and ruin it. My parents and ancestors have a terrible track record when it comes to marrige and kids
I've been out of school for a year-and-a-half, I'm starting to feel like a drain on the people around me, and I'm stressing out because it feels like money is flying out of my bank account faster than I can put it back in.
The worst part is that I've received little-to-no notice from the places I have applied at, so I have no idea whether this is just them trying to save costs, or if I'm doing something wrong and I'm not aware of it.
I really hope it's not the second one, because I have no idea how I'd go about fixing that.
Just let it happen. Think of that episode of Fiona and Cake. You'll know what you want if and when it comes along. In the mean time, live your life and have fun. You're really young, and your family sounds goddamn crazy about this for some reason, so it might be best to tune them out and get through your degree, which is substantially more important. Don't shut down the part of you that thinks about dating, but recognize that means you don't have to date someone because there are [insert gender here] around. If you're going to, don't think about dating, think about dating the person you like if that person comes along.
Am I using video games as a method of entertainment or an escapism and opiate to cover over things in my life I find unpleasant and am unwilling to confront directly? Do I simply play games because it occupies my brain and prevents me from introspection while delivering a chemical boost to the brain or is it actually something I enjoy? Did it begin as one and turn into another? If I question this will I ever find joy in gaming?
Do I make things because they make me happy or because I enjoy admiration? Am I really just seeking attention in a skeezy way by sharing the things I make or talking about them? Do use the ability or knowledge of how to make certain things as a social lever to get a small chance to lord over people?
This is about as far as I intend to go with that line of introspection.
I feel like I only get smarter. But then I am sad because of how stupid I had been.
Mostly I've always just been knowledgeable, which really covers up stupid. People think you are smart if you know lots of facts. No, that just means you can jam them in there. I have good associative memory. Doesn't mean I'm really intelligent though.
but they're listening to every word I say
There was a good piece on nihilism on npr the other day.
Check it out.
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/staring-abyss/
but they're listening to every word I say
Thank you for this, Ceres. You're awesome.
Job hunting is a shitty experience and I'm sorry you've been stuck at it for so long. I know how much it can wear you down.
Not hearing anything back is extremely common. Is in an infuriating dickish thing that companies do but be assured it happens constantly to everybody looking for jobs. It's not personal.
Now my wife is doing better; is in DBT and everything, and I managed to get a few sessions with my therapist as well. There are a lot of things coming up that I'm terrified of, and I really need to get out there and find a new job, but for once there's a part of me that's thinking that things are somehow going to work out okay-ish.
doing things can have multiple reasons and impacts, it doesn't have to be 1 or the other. maintaining a balance between those reasons can be important, though. you can play videogames to destress, to feel powerful, to escape for a time, to enjoy the story....all at the same time. and though some reasons may have more 'moral heft' than others, it doesn't make those others less important to your overall well-being.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy