**The Mental Health Thread**

From my experience, if you're having those thoughts when drunk/hungover it isn't just the alcohol. It's bringing up darker thoughts that you've tried to bottle (pardon the pun) away and need to be dealt with. It is a depressant but it should never cause you to have those thoughts unless you're really hammering it.

The social isolation won't be helping, despite what people say about preferring to be left alone. There are very few people who can live happily without strong social bonds. Chatting at work with some colleagues is unlikely to fulfil that.
 
The drink makes me feel brilliant, that's the trouble, every music video is 50x better, the hangover is not physical as such more that mood plummet, its like a mood credit card, I pay for the high with a low with added interest
Only talking 2 bottles of red a week but last weekend did 4 in 3 nights....
Edit but yes, underlying cause needs dealing with, its a very long term thing,and probebly almost definitely relationships are the problem and how I communicate with people

Edit put t in the
 
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Man it feels like a bit of a heavy time at the moment. I really never go into much detail here about all my **** but I have always been one of those high high, low lows type of people. My range varies so wildly in my emotions and I really do set myself micro goals or mini wins to try and keep myself "up". However, the mini wins are normally focused around work or project based goals to keep me high and this really is a distraction a lot of the time to how I am in myself and right now I'm at a real low.
I had a bit of a breakdown this morning with my wife. Now things are great with us anyway, and I'm not sure if this contributes to that or if my lows are contributing to that...? Either way, I am where I am and I don't know why. I left the house on Sunday with my keys and had to force myself not to get in the car tbh. I just didn't trust myself in the frame of mind I'm in. Instead I just walked and kept walking. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up.

It's really hard to say these things for me. I don't really feel like I've got any right to feel like this.

Either way, I've been meaning to talk to someone for a while and even sent them an email, but this morning I reached out for some help. I don't know what the purpose of posting here is really, don't really know what the answer is, but I suppose trying to talk to someone might help either way.
 
randomshenans said:
Man it feels like a bit of a heavy time at the moment. I really never go into much detail here about all my **** but I have always been one of those high high, low lows type of people. My range varies so wildly in my emotions and I really do set myself micro goals or mini wins to try and keep myself "up". However, the mini wins are normally focused around work or project based goals to keep me high and this really is a distraction a lot of the time to how I am in myself and right now I'm at a real low.
I had a bit of a breakdown this morning with my wife. Now things are great with us anyway, and I'm not sure if this contributes to that or if my lows are contributing to that...? Either way, I am where I am and I don't know why. I left the house on Sunday with my keys and had to force myself not to get in the car tbh. I just didn't trust myself in the frame of mind I'm in. Instead I just walked and kept walking. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up.

It's really hard to say these things for me. I don't really feel like I've got any right to feel like this.

Either way, I've been meaning to talk to someone for a while and even sent them an email, but this morning I reached out for some help. I don't know what the purpose of posting here is really, don't really know what the answer is, but I suppose trying to talk to someone might help either way.
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That's a big and important step. Reaching out is the hardest. I can complain all day long or vent to my girlfriend, but getting me to actually take an action to talk to someone and get help, is almost impossible. Even just getting me to talk to friends, it's too easy to just go "yeah I'm fine. Can't complain".

You can complain. It's ok to feel **** because your emotions take you up and down - mine do. It's also ok to feel **** because you have actual problems weighing you down.

Coming here can be good for support, or for accountability, even if it's not for specific advice or ideas. It's also useful to have a barometer - remember to check in from time to time and see how you're feeling, sort of thing.

Last week was the worst I've been for a long time. Not just feeling really low but a high stress, explosive level of anxiety and sadness. I got as far as Friday and lost the entire work day to it. I was sitting there thinking, "I cannot cope with this. I need help. I need to reach out and ask for that help. I do not know who I can ask. Not my partner. Not my friends. Not empathetic acquaintances. Not doctors or emergency services."

I just felt like... I couldn't help myself but couldn't imagine who could help that I could reach out to. Desperate but paralysed. Wasn't fun. I've bounced back a bit, largely because I've been occupying myself until late in the night with some PC maintenance. When that runs out, I dunno how I'll feel.
 
LuckyBenski said:
I was sitting there thinking, "I cannot cope with this. I need help. I need to reach out and ask for that help. I do not know who I can ask. Not my partner. Not my friends. Not empathetic acquaintances. Not doctors or emergency services."
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Always call your GP. It sounds SO basic and boring and that they won't be able to understand but I've always found it works. I call them and they go through things with me and then they take me in the right direction.

I had an issue a few weeks ago, called my GP and they talked to me about it for some time, then they referred me to a specialist service. Think of your GP as a hub, they will refer you to the service that is right for you. But you have to go to the hub first.
 
LuckyBenski said:
I just felt like... I couldn't help myself but couldn't imagine who could help that I could reach out to. Desperate but paralysed. Wasn't fun. I've bounced back a bit, largely because I've been occupying myself until late in the night with some PC maintenance. When that runs out, I dunno how I'll feel.
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Mate, same way I tend to cope. Get stuck into a project or something and it keeps me busy.
Thanks for your words though, I really do appreciate them.

I was given the contact details of someone to speak to, who runs online sessions (who doesn't now days), so she's the one I've contacted to see if I can set something up. I get the whole thing you say about not knowing who to talk to, because I feel the same. I genuinely feel I have no right to feel like this and so feel guilty about the way I feel.
 
Been doing ok lately but today I’m feeling pretty damn awful. Not felt like this for a while. Have a few medical issues at the moment which is causing me to overthink and I think it’s all just come together today.

I hate the way Anxiety zaps you when your not expecting it. Bloody awful illness wish it would just do one..

Hope everyone else is not doing too bad.
 
Ayahuasca said:
Feeling guilty about it is perfectly normal, in fact, it's probably more common than not for those whose lives aren't a mess outside of the mental health issue.
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Well put. I was trying to find the right way to say what you have. Just because someone may have it all together 'on paper' doesn't make them any less entitled to feel the way they do, nor to any help that they may need. We're all different, there's no formula for feeling good and what's great about our differences is there will always be someone who's right to talk to.

Not sure why I clicked on this thread today, never had before but maybe I selfishly wanted to feel like I could help someone. The last year or so I've been thinking I really need to actively be nice to people. Not that I wasn't nice before but I've had this feeling that when you have those thoughts that you don't say out loud they could be the thing that person needs to hear that day. My downfall is that I then over think everything and start to go down the route of what if what I say comes off as condescending or sarcastic. Internal thoughts are a minefield aren't they.
 
Just had my support worker visit again today and she helped with filling in the form that another adult had to fill in for me (I answered it and she signed it), and then it for me to post.

I discussed to her that I previously had 2 opinions only from 'mental health nurses', one back in early 2018, and one last year that the mental health nurses both said after many assessments and appointments that I 100% had higher functioning autism, but each time the lead psychiatrist dismissed that by saying things like:

1) 'How can you autism if you are talking to me fine right now and have a degree?'
2) 'Were not saying it isnt Autism, but you were hit as a child so its more likely PTSD and Personality Disorder. This is too difficult for us to diagnose because the symptoms overlap

Both these are written in fancier words on the documents in my medical history.

The support worker, like the two mental health nurses in the past straight up said 'I can tell every time I visit and talk to you that you have autism', and she's not the first person to say as such (people I have personally known in the past would simply say far more mean things about my behaviour, which yes I accept is my fault fully).

The first time I had the opinion back in 2018, I didn't even realise it wasn't a diagnosis due to it only being a 'mental health nurse'. The psychiatrists that then over ride those decisions had only ever spoken to me for 10 minutes at a time (first one), or never spoken to me and were assessing everything on the nurse's notes (second one).

So my medical history is basically full of 'Depression, GAD, PTSD, Personality Disorder etc etc etc', mostly misdiagnostics because they refuse to accept it can be autism on the basis that I have a degree and was hit as a child. I have never been offered any further help for any of these things such as therapy / counselling / Austism skills / employment stuff for over a decade while previously having relied on my family to everything for me on a day to day basis and now mostly doing nothing at all while living alone.

I'm expecting 'you can order your own food and feed yourself so 0 points' at some point in the near future.
 
Anyone else feel like they’ve wasted the “free” time they’ve had during this pandemic lockdown.

I look back and think why didn’t I get xyz done by end of last year, now I’m here stressing.

Well not stressing my attitude is literally meh at everything currently

My life right now is a constant revolving door and not sure how I’m gonna get out of it soon.

Started back in the gym had a good session last night
 
Mr_Cool said:
Anyone else feel like they’ve wasted the “free” time they’ve had during this pandemic lockdown
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The strangest thing was that I was concerned about how I was going to afford fieldwork for my degree [some factors changed], then a pandemic came along which solved the entire financial issue and I wasn't able to do much virtual fieldwork either because my mental health was so low.

Rather ironic.
 
This is a big thing. "You've had over a year of less expenditure and more time, why haven't you progressed yourself and your projects?"

Because the entire world went into upheaval, the future became uncertain, I was locked inside 4 tiny walls with the same person everyday. Plus every other human on the planet was going through the same **** so we're all struggling to behave normally to each other as well as ourselves. Why would you expect this to magically create progress?

Go easy on yourself. In my case I've been basically holiding my breath for 14 months waiting for the world to pan out. It hasn't been good, I'm pretty sure I've gone from joking about being agoraphobic to actually being it.
 
Lysander said:
The strangest thing was that I was concerned about how I was going to afford fieldwork for my degree [some factors changed], then a pandemic came along which solved the entire financial issue and I wasn't able to do much virtual fieldwork either because my mental health was so low.

Rather ironic.
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Yeah I’m working on outstanding work from my degree after taking a step back during the pandemic.
Just feel like I’m in the same place as last year no real progress still procrastinating telling myself I’m gonna start tomorrow etc.

Was hoping to actually be able to enjoy summer this year, and not have the guilt of knowing I need to get xyz done.

It’s not even that I’ve not had time I’ve truthfully had plenty but the drive and discipline has been on 0.

Think I’m just so over this degree at this point it doesn’t feel like a priority when jt should.

I have issues asking for help I feel like I’m wasting people’s time, as they’ll point me in the right direction and I still fail to follow through completely. Then because I feel guilty I’ll just downplay how crap my situation is and try salvage if it I can.
 
For a lot of us it would have been nice to be in that position of too much time but we basically had to keep the country running, and did more not less work while others watched netflix, who saw the crescent, who saw the whole of the moon
BTW its all sour grapes, I'm just jealous ;)
 
I’ve been back to the office about 10 times now since mid april. 2 sometimes 3 days a week. i’d say about 4 times i have had an awful nights
Sleep 2-4 hrs total i reckon. I somehow soldier on and do my 1 hr 20 min commute into London each way and get through the day but when i get home feel awful and just need to be alone for a good hour or so. I guess i’m really struggling with the transition after a 5 months working from home.

When i worked in the office 5 days a week i was getting up a the same time every day and slept well because i was wearing myself out physically, walking in total about 2 miles a day. Now when its a wfh day i’m getting up 60-90 mins later so maybe my body is struggling with the inconsistency. I will sleep great tonight because I'm exhausted but yeah this is a bad habit i have fallen into.
 
I had my ADHD assessment a couple of weeks ago, it turns out I do have ADHD.
Honestly, the news didn't really affect me much, I felt like I already knew and it doesn't really change anything, if I could have been diagnosed and started on medication sooner in life who knows where I could be now but I'm just looking forward to starting meds and improving things in ways that don't need a DeLorean! Any changes no matter how small will be better than the last 12-18 months! So here's to a life of stimulants haha!
 
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