Depression and what it's really like

you're gonna be ok karl! i emailed you.

KM, I don't know what the situation is like now, but when I first moved to Chicago a decade ago and was unemployed for a long stretch of time I utilized the city's mental health services. I believe it was sliding scale and it couldn't have cost me more than $15-25/visit. Medication was even cheaper (for me, anyway). It's worth looking into, maybe?

Anyway, you're a quality dude and it sucks that you're having such a rough time. Believe me when I say that I empathize hardcore and can say from experience that things can always improve even when you're feeling like all hope is gone. We should hang sometime, if you want!

anybody else have days with persistent but not intense suicide thoughts, like, I'm not gonna do it, but I keep thinking about it

pretty much every day tbh

it gets followed by a quick blast of "what a horrible thing to think you selfish brute"

Yeah that or what do I have to upset about other people have it much worse than you or think what it would do to your family. It's pretty horrible, some days are worse than others obviously. I mentioned it to my therapist I started seeing a few weeks ago, he said it's probably just a form of escapism, but I really hate it, like I feel on some level like eventually I might do it (just to be clear, absolutely no plans to do that, I don't want to worry anyone, this is like an arbitrary way I might end up dying if cancer or heart attack doesn't get me first) and it scares me to think about.

with me on a day like today it's as much a distracting mantra as anything

My partner is going through excruciating pain with Occidental .. something - a condition that often blights people with MS. And she keeps repeatedly telling me she wants to die. And she did try and OD a few months back. but what can I say... got to keep trying. Fuck knows why sometimes.

I don't think I'd dare top myself tbh. I always think I'd get it wrong and end up dependent on dialysis. Just purely selfish thoughts based on my extreme fear of hospitals.

calzino - is it occipital neuralgia she’s suffering from?

Best wishes calzino <3

Just an update to thank you all for support regarding my friend. She has been talking to me about going for a hike this summer and pushing herself out of this. I'm keeping a safe distance but being supportive

that's good to hear

yep VG, thats the one.

with all the usual caveats about the use of advice and recommendations given how different people are, I think a long walk sounds like a great idea, and if you've got the time, going for a few days can get you into a really good rhythm where you just focus on the day itself (when do we eat, when do we stop), and the really big picture stuff; all that mid-level dreck of life stresses and considerations is removed completely. plus there's the practice of walking itself: the meditative quality, the exercise, being out in the world, seeing the changing landscape, paradoxically both getting outside of yourself and feeling more comfortable within yourself. can be difficult to organise of course but there are good reasons people get hooked

ogmor otm. i have been walking on different stretches of the st james's way for two to three weeks in every summer since 2007 and it has changed me. one thing i succeeded in while being on the path was stopping smoking in 2008. these days i am addicted to walking, in berlin i easily do 10,000 steps per day, i walk a stretch to and from work every week day. i feel more alive than only taking the underground, there is so much to see and i think the light -
now in winter only in the morning - has a positive effect on my mood.

i deleted everything that i could, and i'm seeing a therapist soon. my wife helped me find one that i could afford, and i'd have an appointment right now except they're closed for the weekend. she's also more than a little freaked out at my mass deletion. i've been on the computer so much the last 15+ years that it has become part of my identity, even to my wife. that's sad. i backed out of the LPC thing earlier today, and after an exhibition in a couple months that i can't easily get out of, that'll be that for that period of my life. already it all seems very unreal, but i often thought that with enough time all of my creative work would have disappeared anyway, since it all lived online. computers change, web standards change, OS' come and go out of favor. online-based work breaks and is difficult to put back together again. it's all gone now, and yet nothing has changed. it's all very ephemeral. it's hard to think of anything else that you can pour yourself into for a decade, and then just delete it. it was never real in the first place.

i will still post on ilx, but i'm taking a breather from it for a while. thank you all for your support, now and throughout the years.

<3

(stay on il baseball imo!)

take care Karl

take care all of you

Karl shoot me an ilxmail

karl see you tomorrow :)

anybody else have days with persistent but not intense suicide thoughts, like, I'm not gonna do it, but I keep thinking about it

and yes, karl, good luck. always really enjoy your presence on ilx and elsewhere so v much rooting for you.

i had this loads. just thinking about it. made it difficult to fill out sheets that said “have u made plans to kill yourself” which i wanted to answer “not plans exactly but i’m not sure this constant contemplation is gr8”
― Fizzles

yeah, it's why there's this differentiation between "suicidal ideation" and "suicidal intent", right?

good luck karl <3

Take care all, I admire the tough people in this thread.

hey everyone, sorry for being all dramatic yesterday. i kind of lost my shit there for a while, more than i ever have. i feel kind of pathetic about how strange i feel now that all my online shit is gone. social media started as a fun diversion but gradually worked its way into a lot of my life, especially after i tried to follow the bullshit "do what you love" career advice that people who are very lucky love to give out. now that it's all deleted, i realize how much space it was taking up. it's frightening tbh. i keep automatically moving my mouse over to the part of the bookmarks bar that held all the social media links. and on my phone, i keep swiping over to where they were, just muscle memory. none of that can be a good thing.

i wish i could go see a therapist right now and start whatever the process is, but i have to wait until tomorrow to try to get an appointment. in the meantime i am downloading dark souls 3 so that i can take out my frustrations on lots of dark video game souls.

start whatever the process is

going outdoors and exposing yourself to unfiltered reality in the form of weather, sky, earth and air is a great place to start. too bad January is not a good month for just sitting on a park bench and staring into space.

yeah - speaking of, i do really enjoy hiking and i think i'm going to treat myself to my first ever multi-day solo hike when it gets a bit warmer. i grew up in the country and used to climb the neighbor's fence and wander around their wooded property for hours at a time (at least until that one time when someone fired a "gtfo my property" warning shotgun blast). by this "process" though, i just mean the process of talking to a therapist and getting drugs. i am ready for that now, for whatever it is.

i admire your mass deletion, KM. the other day I forgot my iPhone when i went out for a day trip and i'm glad i realized it when it was too far to turn around. it was the best day trip i had in awhile. it's really evil how social media gets its hooks into you, considering how it actively bums people out, how you start to feel disconnected from people if you aren't on social media anymore (and how when you are, you start to forget about the friends of yours who aren't on social media if you don't regularly see them!) it feels like these dead hands clawing at you from out of the past sometimes, these people you forgot existed and by all rights were right to forget (nothing personal, they were just in the past), and suddenly there they are, front and center again. and the people you should cherish who aren't on your feed are the ones you neglect. this is how it sometimes *feels*, at least. i try not to do that. not always successful.

And i mean online life tends to make me more anxious. i think it's the nastiness. comments sections just make me depressed, even the odd unpleasant comment aimed at me on ILX will set me back a bit. or reading unpleasant comments aimed at others in any forum--facebook, twitter, here, wherever--which seem to exist just to make people feel better about themselves. it all seems extremely pointless. sometimes they're so ridiculous as to be comedic, sometimes they cut too close.

Walking is the only thing that keeps me same. It's a wonderful act of thought processing and letting go

*sane

Karl, I recommend a walk - preferably with dog.

last two days have been an episode. nothing big, but good to keep reminding myself it's there, i'm ok, and that doing things i like that make me feel better about myself can't hurt.

good attitude map

good decision, karl

i have wrestled with that decision myself, so far haven't made the plunge

i'm not trying to complicate things, but would anyone else support the idea of de-indexing this thread? or starting a new one on 77? or just reviving an existing thread on 77 and using it from now on?

Yeah, deindex at least

was managing depression really well the last month, but met a girl recently and despite it feeling like the most natural chemistry in the world, things kinda went south the other night and it's done. now i'm reminded how much worse depression can be when you feel heartbroken, and also reminded why i avoid relationships.

Because it burns being broke and it hurts to be heartbroken but always being both must be a drag

I would support a 77 thread. I’m in a really bad place and have been trying to post here for weeks and weeks but keep deleting. Things have reached crisis point in the last two weeks.

Would def support that, too. This is too much out in the open.

If we could make a singular depression/anxiety thread too, that would be great

would it be tasteless to ask to join 77 to follow this though?

nah

not at all imo. i followed this thread for a while before posting on it, and it helped me through various things.

Boxedjoy you’ve been round long enough - join 77

sorry you're struggling just1n3

^yeah, same. and ross, too. don't know why i was waiting until the start of a new thread regime on 77 to say that.

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=106971#unread

Yeah guys, thinking of you and knowing you dont deserve to be going through this shit.