I'm sad

Damn. I just did a triple-take: "Morbius is sad? Morbius is sad?"

Sadness is anger turned inward, so I hope Morbius never experiences that!

We'll see how not getting a raise because I started my job "just after" the employee-review process began last year manifests itself.

Best wishes to all those sad here. I've done time on pills and in talking therapy. They worked for the lowest ebbs and the talking seems to have instilled a structure through which I can talk myself out of new low ebbs so would always recommend that therapy. But sadness is a chemical-behavioural thing for me. Something I have to be aware of daily, work at if necessary, but unavoidably me. Like a mental limp.

http://i.imgur.com/8SMvJ.gif

ur... I mean
http://i.imgur.com/Uj0kr.png

xp lj: It's as absurd to be wary of psych meds as it is to be wary of meds for anything else. These aren't happy pills given out to keep potential troublemakers pacified, these are meant to put your body chemistry back into balance. Major depression is 60% chemical and bipolar disorder is somewhere around 80% chemical.

xp I just got a thyroid test as part of my lithium therapy (lithium can cause hypothyroidism) and I should get the results back soon.

i'm closing in on my one-year anniversary of starting antidepressants, and i can say without hesitation that it's been the best year of my adult life. not much else about my situation has changed; i'm still stuck in a part-time job with no room for advancement and i have hardly any social life. but i just feel better, generally. it's easier to talk to people, easier to go out and get things done, and i no longer feel like everything is pointless. now i know that only SOME things are pointless, specifically pampered chef parties.

Yes, I'm sad. I was smoking a cigarette earlier and thinking of how completely alone I am. My ex of four years ago then called because he needs to give me some drugs but to come pick it up soon because he had to leave with his friends for some party. I said no. I wish I could cry.

Just interrupting to cosign reddening's post.

The mister has taken me down and I've given my registration forms to the doctor. Have to wait a couple of days for them to do paperwork before I can get an appointment, though. I really hope that there is something medical here, because I feel like I'm in the middle of a slow motion implosion.

now i know that only SOME things are pointless, specifically pampered chef parties

so true, so true

It's 4:30 a.m. I could just be tired, but I feel sad to the bone. My skin feels sad, my hair feels sad, the bruises at the back of my eyes, sad. Wallow, wallow, wallow.

Feel so sick and empty. Still haven't made an appointment. Hate this all so much.

I'm sorry, em <3

Hi emil.y. Making the appointment won't make anything worse. I had to be dragged to mine by my partner, and after it happened it was a huge relief. Take care.

Go read up on myxedema comas and thyroid storms and see if that doesn't give you a little more encouragement to make that appointment.

I am sorry that you are going through this, and I hope you feel better soon.

my brother's been admitted to the psych hospital yet again. having so many feelings today. long story. i wish things didn't have to be so hard for him. jesus christ have mercy.

If it would help to tell your long story, I'll listen. Best of luck to your brother. I hope it's a reasonably humane psych hospital where he will feel (and be) safe. Hugs to you.

Zora otm -- let ILX be your swedish steam bath. Pour it on if you feel the need.

^^^^

I need advice for a close friend of mine...I am sad for her, and she is very, very, very sad.

How do you help someone who is addicted to 'fixing' people?

My friend is going through some terrible family traumas right now: her brother committed suicide off a hiking trail a year ago and they just found his body; her nephew committed suicide a month ago; and now her sister in-law, the wife of the brother who committed suicide, well her father died just days ago...and they're having the brother's funeral this weekend so it's just death upon death upon death.

She's been hanging in there so hard, she went to therapy to work through some of her family issues (her brother's suicide brought up a lot of stuff from her childhood that she had forgotten)...I don't think she's doing therapy any more, I think that was only a few months for the trauma after her brother's suicide.

But in talking to her these last days, she's just so depressed because she can't fix anyone's problems. All of these people in her life are either dying or losing people they love and all she wants to do is fix it...and I'm worried now that she's going to spiral because she can't find an outlet for her need to 'fix'.

She's a great mother and a good friend but she definitely has an obsessive need to 'fix'. And I keep talking her through it all, trying to gently remind her that she should fix actual material things, and house projects and stuff like that, and give more than her usual amount of attention to herself, because in this case it's not selfish...this is something she needs for herself, she needs to turn that desire to fix in on itself and use it to help her see her way through this, so she can support the people she loves without wanting to make their problems go away.

I guess there's not a lot more I can do here, aside from what I am trying to do...but I just feel so sad FOR her. It's so hard to watch, because she works SO hard to appear positive to everyone that watching her crack behind the smile is just heartbreaking. And i'm afraid if she pushes that facade too hard she'll just collapse.

this may be totally off-base but it sounds familiar -- and from what i know of people close to me who have similar and overwhelming caretaking / 'fixing' reflexes -- it could be that she is feeling the residual effects of being a 'parentified' child. if she was called on as a child to serve the functional, material or emotional needs of her parent(s) or other siblings, it's going to seriously effect her ability to prioritize her own needs, especially now. the things i could think of to express to her are: she does not need to assume that responsibility; she is just as affected by these tragedies as those around her; she deserves and needs to take care of herself.

again, this is largely informed by my own experience so it may not necessarily apply. but my sympathies go out to your friend and to you as well.

Thank you elmo --- you're actually spot on, she had a pretty messed up childhood and was sort of the surrogate Mom to her siblings at an early age, and I hadn't put that together with all of this now...makes total sense. I'll definitely hone in on trying to reinforce those points you've made, that seems 100% the right approach here.

Thanks for the clarity!!

In conclusion, boundaries boundaries boundaries, boundaries. Boundaries boundaries. Boundaries...boundaries. And boundaries.

oh i'm glad i could be of some small help, VG. parentification, aside from being an extremely awkward word, is a really tough thing to endure in terms of a person's emotional development. if she's willing to go back into therapy it's something she may want to look at. good luck to you both!

thanks again, elmo. check's in the mail :D

torn between reviving this or i'm drunk
both apply
finally got a referral to go to see someone who will give me pills, but i've been afraid to call him to set up an appointment
was it spinoza that thought if there was a god, it wouldn't have any sort of sympathy to humans because it would be so infinitely superior? i always think of god-games like civilization, and the times when i have lorded over these civs, and how easily i just deleted their savefiles, and how similar that might be to a hypothetical god who would be very interested in the problems of earth's people until she or he got bored and floated away

do you think your savefiles are waiting for you to un-delete them?

possibly! but really, they'll never be open again with reinterest. alexander, saladin and einstein v 1.0 were cool, but alexander, saladin and einstein v.2.0 are more interesting

be open again

druuuuuunk, i'm saad

which one do you feel most akin to?

marble madness

would you wear a t-shirt for a brand of detergent?

http://www.idgonemad.net/ugh-hole!.JPGhttp://www.idgonemad.net/ugh-hole!.JPG
FUCK

http://i56.tinypic.com/15himmr.jpg

do you think she uses Gain?

I know it is scary to make the call (esp after your last completely mindmeltingly WTF dr) but this is something I know you can do:
http://library.thinkquest.org/J001709/thinkquest_values/make_call/make_call1.gif

Being sad sucks & is draining but at least it lends an aesthetic standard to things sometimes? "This is the best song because it is sad."

calling doctor-y people is the WORST when you are depressed/anxious. when i had to make a dentist appointment after years of not going, i ended up programming the number in my cell, driving around town doing errands and psyching myself up, and then making the call from a sears parking lot. that way, when it was done, i felt like i could just "drive away" from it, like any other errand.

but if you have someone in your life you trust, there's nothing wrong with asking them to make the call for you. then it's just a matter of going on the day and time they tell you. i wouldn't have gone to talk therapy in my early twenties if my parents hadn't intervened that way.

ZS, what is the reason you're so afraid of seeing the doctor?

Feel like I'm disintegrating.

Think of
my glory and be
heAled

He, Aled? Like, Aled Jones? I'm not sure that's going to help me right now.

I've been in this constant flux of disintegration and reintegration for months, so I feel you. It's exhausting. I haven't had face-to-face contact with anyone who wasn't selling me food for almost two weeks now. Which feels sorta necessary but which I also know is just making the problem worse. I'm just trying to figure out how to pull it all together after a year that kicked my ass in almost every conceivable way a year can kick one's ass.

At any rate: I feel you, emil.y. Sometimes it helps at least a little to know you aren't the only one, y'know?

It helps sometimes, yeah. Not always, mind you. But I definitely get where you're coming from with not seeing anyone - it doesn't help that I'm a postgrad so I can just stay at home to work whenever I want. And when I'm feeling bad, that's literally all the time. I've been over two weeks without leaving the house before. For all my dissatisfaction with CBT, I think that practical thing of 'just train yourself to go outside once a day' is actually useful.

I haven't had face-to-face contact with anyone who wasn't selling me food

haha yes. the only words i've spoken aloud today were 'that's okay, i don't need the bread'

oh man, i remember those days. I think I'd have fake conversations with myself just to "practice"

cried for like 10 mins tuesday. no idea why. kinda gettin there again, maybe.