Depression and Anxiety Thread

[scumdevils86]

I don't mind the raspberry spindrift

[azgreg]

[Phylek]

Tried a white claw last night.

That won't happen again. Ever.

[dovecanyoncat]

I'd rather drink my own urine than White Claw.

Say that in any European accent of your choice.

[azgreg]

[ASUHATER!]

psh. I drink white claw and I drink real beer (which isn't American macro pilsner...that's less related to beer than seltzer is).

[TucsonClip]

Ok that's fucking hilarious.

[dovecanyoncat]

Ok that's fucking hilarious.

azThePostmanGreg

[UAEebs86]

I'd rather drink my own urine than White Claw.

Was Percy/Olson Court your sock at TOS?

[azgreg]

I'd rather drink my own urine than White Claw.

Was Percy/Olson Court your sock at TOS?

i don't wear socks.

[Phylek]

I'm really struggling, right now.

I took someone in to help them out and it turned out to be a huge mistake. After a couple months I kicked him out, but the damage has been done.

I feel so betrayed. I was kind and it was taken advantage of.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[dovecanyoncat]

I really need to get passed this year.

[Chicat]

I'm really struggling, right now.

I took someone in to help them out and it turned out to be a huge mistake. After a couple months I kicked him out, but the damage has been done.

I feel so betrayed. I was kind and it was taken advantage of.

No good deed goes unpunished.

God, that’s awful. I’d say something about karma but I don’t really believe in that shit so I guess I’ll just offer up a hope that you can put this instance aside and keep doing what you do. Don’t give up on people Phy. Your faith in them is what makes you the best amongst us.

[Alieberman]

Every bit of news feels like a punch in the gut

I'm in a fog.

I feel like Trump is going to get re-elected somehow

Smiling is difficult

[Merkin]

Phy will certainly get his reward in heaven.

I was able to finally not drink during the week, for the first time since March, so that's good news for me. Just keep it to weekends like before.

[dovecanyoncat]

The single good thing about Corona world right now is we've chosen to drink one day out of every four. Seems to be enough: one hangover every four days. Losing weight too.

[84Cat]

This was a pretty cool discussion

[dovecanyoncat]

I gotta ask: aside from Scum getting his house, is fucking anything good happening lately?

[OriginalAZ]

I gotta ask: aside from Scum getting his house, is fucking anything good happening lately?

I just got a brand new house and already had a water leak. F U 2020

[Chicat]

I gotta ask: aside from Scum getting his house, is fucking anything good happening lately?

Got my 50th rejection email from potential employers and our swing set collapsed, slightly injuring my neighbor’s kid.

2020 is a cocksucking shitshow.

[Phylek]

I'm really struggling, right now.

I took someone in to help them out and it turned out to be a huge mistake. After a couple months I kicked him out, but the damage has been done.

I feel so betrayed. I was kind and it was taken advantage of.

No good deed goes unpunished.

A couple weeks after posting this I was really down mentally. While working I cut my hand with the table saw. A moment of inattention was nearly disastrous.

Went to the emergency center and by the grace of God got patched up, had surgery, and was on my way home 6 hours later. I had a month in a cast and who knows how much PT to look forward to. I didn't know what would happen with the business, my family's source of income.

At a terribly low point in life a terrible injury would be the conduit for God lifting me up. In the last month and a half my business has been the busiest it's ever been. Work had coming pouribg in. Friends and family came together to volunteer to help me, and my one non-dominant hand, keep it going and meet the demands of the business in a timely manner.

It was just the message I needed to remind me how much I'm blessed and surrounded by people that love me. It's so easy to focus on the hurt and lose sight of the many blessings we have.

It only seemed right to follow up the post with this note of encouragement.

As an additional benefit, I am now nearly equally skilled with both hands.

[Chicat]

Damn Phy, sorry to hear about your troubles but happy to hear you’ve come out the other side and into the light.

[dovecanyoncat]

As the election approaches I feel as if I'm in a Christopher Nolan film time distortion. The emergent gravity of the event is warping my inward psycho-emotional scale. My dreams are bizarre and chaotic. During waking walks and exercise I run through loops of reminiscence trying to ground myself in a less entropic psychic state. I don't know if I'm in Memento, Interstellar, or Inception, but I don't want to be here.

[CalStateTempe]

As the election approaches I feel as if I'm in a Christopher Nolan film time distortion. The emergent gravity of the event is warping my inward psycho-emotional scale. My dreams are bizarre and chaotic. During waking walks and exercise I run through loops of reminiscence trying to ground myself in a less entropic psychic state. I don't know if I'm in Memento, Interstellar, or Inception, but I don't want to be here.

Same here. I’m generally good with compartmentalization but this election coming to a head Tuesday and beyond has me all kinds of fucked up.

[ASUHATER!]

I feel like I've been having a low level panic attack for like two weeks now bubbling beneath the surface. Occasionally feel short of breath and like I'm going to hyperventilate thinking about just how bad the world is currently.

[dovecanyoncat]

As the election approaches I feel as if I'm in a Christopher Nolan film time distortion. The emergent gravity of the event is warping my inward psycho-emotional scale. My dreams are bizarre and chaotic. During waking walks and exercise I run through loops of reminiscence trying to ground myself in a less entropic psychic state. I don't know if I'm in Memento, Interstellar, or Inception, but I don't want to be here.

Same here. I’m generally good with compartmentalization but this election coming to a head Tuesday and beyond has me all kinds of fucked up.

It's times like this I wish I hadn't retired. There's great stability and foundation in the mission of work and production no matter how repetitive or banal. It's a compartmentalization option I no longer have.

[dovecanyoncat]

I feel like I've been having a low level panic attack for like two weeks now bubbling beneath the surface. Occasionally feel short of breath and like I'm going to hyperventilate thinking about just how bad the world is currently.

The dread I feel that would reflect a nation which gave its approval to a disease like Trump is hard to describe. Its anticipation doesn't manifest in any acute physical symptom, but rather in an all encompassing despair. That we as a nation, as an aggregate voice, embraced madness .... how does an individual reconcile that?

[CalStateTempe]

I feel like I've been having a low level panic attack for like two weeks now bubbling beneath the surface. Occasionally feel short of breath and like I'm going to hyperventilate thinking about just how bad the world is currently.

The dread I feel that would reflect a nation which gave its approval to a disease like Trump is hard to describe. Its anticipation doesn't manifest in any acute physical symptom, but rather in an all encompassing despair. That we as a nation, as an aggregate voice, embraced madness .... how does an individual reconcile that?

Again dove speaks my inner pathos.

[CatsbyAZ]

Tried a white claw last night.

That won't happen again. Ever.

Get ready for the holidays:

[azgreg]

[ASUHATER!]

White claw is delicious, and I say this as a person who hates seltzer water and things like La Croix. The citrus flavored white claws like the lime and tangerine are perfect for the pool

[azgreg]

I'd rather jack off a Polar Bear with a fistful of tacks than drink a White Claw.

[Merkin]

I generally avoid anything Bud related, but a couple of those look interesting.

This is a good fall drink for me, reminds me of making hard cider in the the midwest during fall.

[Carcassdragger]

Damn. Misery loves company, but somehow finding this thread let me know that I'm not alone in this pathos I'm suffering. Thanks.

[Chicat]

We’re all just skipping on rainbows down here.

[dovecanyoncat]

As the days shorten and winter weather threatens the opportunity to get outdoor endorphins I'm gonna spend more energy on a stationary bike I just bought and assembled. This winter is gonna suck. The holidays are gonna suck. I'm gonna try to keep to my every-third-day-is-wine day routine. I'll probably just flap my arms and fly to the moon.

[Alieberman]

I just drank a bottle of wine..... everything is fine.

[CalStateTempe]

My two lessons for 2020.

NFG: no fucks given. Life’s too short for me to worry about your insecurities and ignorance.

And

We all have decisions to make. You’ll make yours and I’ll make mine and there may be consequences but we all have agency and choice. And I will decided in my and my immediate family’s best interests.

[Chicat]

As men, we more often have buds and acquaintances and guys you bullshit around with, rather than true friends. People you can tell that you’re hurting or that things are rough or even that you’re just having doubts.

The fact that I have a couple of true friends... guys I can be real with whether I’m truly happy or really struggling... has meant all the difference in the world to me.

I know most of us have been conditioned to believe that sharing our feelings with other men is a sign of weakness, but get yourself a friend or two you can be your true self with. It will change both your worlds immeasurably.

[CalStateTempe]

I don’t know if it’s depression or anxiety but 2020 has been a real paradigm shift for me is so many ways.

I remember Bourdain mentioning about his first trip to Vietnam, “once seen cannot unseen” and it totally changed how he saw to world upon return to the Us.

2020 certainly isn’t a trip to an bucketlist location, but I do agree with the once seen cannot unsee, and how I feel myself and my thinking changing about so many aspects of my life occurring is ways I can acknowledge and feel changing is other ways that I cannot describe but know it’s occurring.

I’d like think these changes I am sensing are a net positive even if I really don’t know what that outcome state will be...

[CalStateTempe]

I’ve certainly become a hell of a lot more judgmental this year especially to the freedumb.

[Carcassdragger]

Seems like some great insight here. Chi, I especially agree with what you wrote about the value of good friends that you can share your feelings with. One of those that I thought I had, has recently broke off our friendship simply because he knows I loathe Trump. I'm mourning the loss because I really don't have that many really true friends. Makes me think that as much as I've gone nuts about what has happened in the last four years, many Trumpies have gone just as mad or madder. Thank God for my wife.

[CatsbyAZ]

After getting through this year, and now looking back, one aspect exacerbating depression is its difficulty to articulate when you’re going through it.

During my annual checkup my physician always ends our appointment by asking about my mental health. My honest answer to him is that I can almost always keep my head above depression and anxiety as long as I stay busy, which, of course, was tested this year.

Despite my employer sidelining us for two months due to a work stoppage, I managed to keep my job thanks to understanding work was issuing me the following ultimatum when they *asked* whether I was willing start working out of state: Either lose your job or we send you to more economically open states where we can award contracts (not California).

So while the increased pressures of my work, driven by the pandemic, contributed to increased anxiety and stress (to the point I’d daydream about hitting the road and living off my savings), I kept myself from circulating these sentiments among those I knew because of how much worse my Dad, brother, and a number of friends were who either lost jobs, businesses, or fell into worse financial uncertainties. In private, facing my own situation could get pretty depressing, but publically there just wasn’t much to comparably share with people who financially and mentally were treated worse by this past year. Hard year, and felt worse for others.

[Lando05]

As men, we more often have buds and acquaintances and guys you bullshit around with, rather than true friends. People you can tell that you’re hurting or that things are rough or even that you’re just having doubts.

The fact that I have a couple of true friends... guys I can be real with whether I’m truly happy or really struggling... has meant all the difference in the world to me.

I know most of us have been conditioned to believe that sharing our feelings with other men is a sign of weakness, but get yourself a friend or two you can be your true self with. It will change both your worlds immeasurably.

This is the realist shit. Don't be afraid to have a couple guy friends you can be vulnerable with. It's so healthy and makes life much better.

[CatsbyAZ]

2021 is somehow going worse for me than 2020. Depression turning to downright grief when I face one or two prolonged personal crisis that won't resolve. What's helped is finding this article on how to grieve disappointment:

Many of us seem to have ideas about where and who we would be by certain ages – particularly those watershed ages like 25, 30, 35, and 40.

Prior imagined lives where, perhaps, we were partnered to the person of our dreams, surrounded by loving community, thriving at work, maybe even achieving a level of fame or notoriety, and certainly financially abundant.

We all have our own version of what we thought life was going to look like for us.

A picture in our minds that, when we do arrive at that age and experience a disconnect (be it big or small) from that painted picture, can cause us to feel sad, frustrated, or even resentful of life and ourselves for not taking the path that we believe would have gotten us there.

I’ve come to think of these thoughts and the time we dwell on them almost like a reckoning.

It’s a time where, for many of us, we take stock and often perceive ourselves and our lives lacking.

So what’s to be done?

I don’t think there’s much to “do” when we arrive at this place, but rather we can allow – we allow ourselves to feel whatever comes up for us around this.

Still not married and struggling to even find a relatively functional person on Tinder?

Feel your sorrow and anger about that.

Deep in student loan debt and nowhere near where the experts say you “should” be in terms of saving for retirement because the cost of living is so high in your city?

You’re allowed to feel your fear and frustration about that.

Watching your college friends achieve massive professional success by launching venture-backed companies, being promoted to partner, even getting their 2nd or 3rd book published?

You’re allowed to feel jealous about that.

No matter what, we must allow ourselves to feel the spectrum of emotions we have about not being where we thought we would be at such and such age.

The more we tell ourselves, “It’s wrong to feel this way”, or “It’s petty of me to feel this way,” we layer on more judgment and shame on top of already-painful feeling states.

So please try not to do that. Allow your feelings to be whatever they are.

And if we need to grieve where we are, we do that, too.

It may seem “extreme” to use the word grieve in talking about life disappointments but I think that as the years progress and we move away from the years of invincible, wide-open options (such a common emotional state for teenagers and college-aged somethings), and as we plod forward into adulthood, we accumulate losses that need to be grieved.

https://www.anniewright.com/so-youre-no ... the-blank/

[scumdevils86]

That's a good post, thank you.

[CatsbyAZ]

College buddy of mine is having a pretty bad mental breakdown right now. Ambushing me and two fellow college buddies of ours with bizarre texts and emails. He's 32 and reaching that point in life where inevitable disillusionment confronts your expectations of the life we all hoped to grow into. And with that comes a general disappointment that a number of us might not handle well at all. Kinda makes you realize a lot of us are not that far away from a breakdown of sorts. I think we'll see more of this in general as our population becomes more financially stressed, medicated, less healthy, and becomes increasingly unable to overcome past hurts and regrets.

[EastCoastCat]

College buddy of mine is having a pretty bad mental breakdown right now. Ambushing me and two fellow college buddies of ours with bizarre texts and emails. He's 32 and reaching that point in life where inevitable disillusionment confronts your expectations of the life we all hoped to grow into. And with that comes a general disappointment that a number of us might not handle well at all. Kinda makes you realize a lot of us are not that far away from a breakdown of sorts. I think we'll see more of this in general as our population becomes more financially stressed, medicated, less healthy, and becomes increasingly unable to overcome past hurts and regrets.

Cats - hopefully you and your buddies can provide some help and guidance. Coming from a family who had to go through a suicide (my brother) there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the warning signs and the fact I should have done more. Good luck and hopefully your friend will come to terms that we all go through ups and downs in life and he's not alone with those type of feelings.

I always think of the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I".

[Carcassdragger]

For me, social media seems to be draining my life out of me. I joined to keep up with friends and for the amusement and communication of life's accomplishments it brings.

More and more though, it just seems like I'm witnessing a collective madness. The amount of stupidity, reposting of disinformation, and pointless disagreement, is just making me depressed.

I deactivated my FB account but reactivated a week later and it's not better.

I want to keep up with certain interest groups and have old friends able to find me. I think I'm just going to defriend ALL my friends and keep my group memberships.

I'm sure some will say I just couldn't stand the heat from all these idiotic Trump supporters, but I think maybe I just don't care anymore. This shit doesn't make me feel good.

[UAEebs86]

For me, social media seems to be draining my life out of me. I joined to keep up with friends and for the amusement and communication of life's accomplishments it brings.

More and more though, it just seems like I'm witnessing a collective madness. The amount of stupidity, reposting of disinformation, and pointless disagreement, is just making me depressed.

I deactivated my FB account but reactivated a week later and it's not better.

I want to keep up with certain interest groups and have old friends able to find me. I think I'm just going to defriend ALL my friends and keep my group memberships.

I'm sure some will say I just couldn't stand the heat from all these idiotic Trump supporters, but I think maybe I just don't care anymore. This shit doesn't make me feel good.

I deleted my FB and Instagram accounts almost 2 years ago and it's been refreshing. I should probably stay off Twitter as well but use it to keep up with news (along with BDW!). All the Trumpers, a guy fact checking my fact check with Gateway Pundit was the final straw (COVID would have just made it worse). Just wanted to see pics of old friends and see how they are doing but just couldn't take it anymore. If I ever go back, I will have a super small friends group and turn on the option that nobody can send me friend requests out of the blue.


Heard from a friend that is still on FB that our HS valedictorian passed away over the weekend. Went to Stanford, but appeared to be lost in life since he lost his husband. Seemed to have anxiety and other issues. Don't know cause of death but wondering if it was a suicide.