Panic attacks and blood pressure scores where they would want to hospitalize you are interesting times. Havn’t had that in a long time, but when that was going on it was something…
I also didn’t have health insurance. fun fun
Yeah I ended up in an ER a few times and eventually they referred me to a cardiologist (I didn’t realize that the trigger was psychological at this point). After an echo and 30 days with probes hooked up to my chest it turned out I was all good.
For my entire life I relied on the rush of procrastination to get me through tasks. In uni I would start assignments at 11:00 PM and then upload them a minute before the midnight deadline. It gave me some anxiety constantly thinking about everything that had to be done while I instead played videogames, but things were generally okay.
I graduated and got a cushy government job. But after settling in, I lost the drive to do the monotonous or tedious stuff, and once again relied on procrastination to give me that adrenaline rush. There wasn’t a curriculum I could look at that outlined what I had to do like there was in uni. I’d constantly worry “did I forget something?” and sometimes the answer was yes, but I could handle the anxiety. At least at home I could relax and enjoy my time off.
This year, I set out to improve myself. Still, I struggled to be productive. It was a humongous struggle to do the minimum expected of me. I focused on time management skills, discipline, lifehacks, anything to help. I ended up with a warning at work. I kept returning to videogames in my spare time, feeling guilty about my inability to enjoy other hobbies. I could never meet my own expectations. I stopped drinking tea, the caffeine could send my mind in a tizzy for hours.
I went to a psychiatrist and confirmed what I thought: ADHD. And just like that, my life struggles were solved by taking amphetamines. My boss joked that I was trying to beat the record for most work done in the team. For the first time ever, my life goals were no longer something I’d take with me to the grave.
Well, it’s not quite that rosy. The anxiety didn’t go away. A life time of coping for my forgetfulness by worrying about it has caught up to me. I have some bad habits to unlearn if I want to tackle this.
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Sorry I just now saw this thread and am replying way late. Unfortunately Lexapro didn’t agree with me at all. I would sleep 12+ hours a day but constantly felt like I had pulled an all nighter, and had severe mood swings, and it worsened my depression a bit. The good news was I didn’t have as severe of withdrawal symptoms coming off of it (probably because I was already experiencing those same side effects while on it), and within a week or two of coming off of it, was more or less back to my pre-Lexapro self.
That being said, I know of at least one friend who took it for anxiety, and it did wonders for her. She said the first month or so was a bit rocky though.
I feel like I’ve incorporated a lie into the very premise of my existence and I don’t know how to purge it. I’m not a girl. No matter how hard I want to be a girl and no matter how hard I try to be a girl there’s nothing I can do that makes it feel true. I pray that hormones and surgeries will alleviate that but there’s also the distinct possibility that they’ll just make the lie more bold and drive me to suicide. At first people calling me “she” was exciting cause it was like “yes, you can be a woman” but now whenever I hear it I just wonder “am I?”
Every day I feel like I’m punished for my existence with my existence. To quote Stanhope “I didn’t ask to be born.”
I was but it was such a disaster I don’t want to ever again. My non-specialist therapist was able to grasp concepts around my identity immediately that the specialist never did. Everyone in the trans community I’ve tried to talk to who didn’t know me before I came out has invalidated my experience and talked to me like I’m an archetype instead of a human being with an individual experience.
I don’t want help from people who know about gender. I want help from people who know about me.
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I might drop out of school again. I’m definitely withdrawing from one of my classes and I want to withdraw from the other. I’m sick of fighting my disability. I don’t want to be successful anymore, I just want to be happy.
A long time ago there was a great thread on here in which someone had become upset because someone else had been criticising Disney movies, which the first person loved and took personally. There were some very well written posts, Scott on point, and the whole thing concluded with “don’t tie your identity to other stuff in that manner!”.
Last night my wife told me she’d watched a recording of the new X-Files but she’d left it on there for me to watch if I wanted. I said no thanks and went on to explain that I would have done if they’d made it accessible to new viewers but instead they were catering to the hardcore viewer who knew all the lore. But I felt wrong saying that, like I was accusing my wife of being too into it when she’s not in that way. So then I tried to say why it was a good thing generally although specifically bad for me as I went into it thinking it was monster of the week like I remember from when I was young.
Anyway the point is I have no strong feelings about the show but acted like a total asshole by assuming she’s personally invested to the degree where I had to tip toe and toady around when really I don’t.
I’m not saying this is depression but I’m frustrated that I keep doing things like this without even seeing and learning from them. She’s fed up with it too and tells me not to do it. Every time I think I’m doing well I go and do some niggly thing like that which undermines everything else. That is such a simple conversation that I should be able to have without going all judgmental prick.
GUYS. This is from 2012-2013, but I only just saw it & feel so vindicated. I had to insist to my therapist to prescribe brand Wellbutrin for several years before these articles, because of unreliable response.
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Since my anxiety is under control these days, my doctor and I have decided to try ritalin for my ADHD. It’s been almost 2 decades since I really used the medication, and it certainly works. Hopefully it’ll help me be more productive.
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I’m feeling stuck. Like I can’t focus and am having trouble getting my thoughts in order. I’m wondering if this is just a seasonal swing of my depression back up into gear, feeling imposter syndrome something major, or something worse.
I’ve been fighting my own head trying to get a handle on rewriting one of my novels, but I keep having trouble putting my thoughts right way around and getting started. And wondering if I should even bother. Do I let the sunk cost of time go and try and work on something new? I feel like I probably should.
I’m losing interest in everything. I don’t want to be a historian. I don’t want to be a musician. I don’t want to expand my social circles even tho they’re shrinking, I don’t want to live independently, I just don’t want. I feel so much better than I did two months ago it might be a problem.
I was sat up on the top floor of a construction site that I was visiting to do a survey but I was just sitting there. There were four storeys down to the bottom of the main lobby. If I made it look like a construction accident the insurance would pay my wife the remainder of the mortgage. It was probably time to call the Samaritans or someone. But if I did that someone would find out and the insurance probably wouldn’t pay.
At that moment my wife text me. She was telling me she knew I could do better and that she’d found a free chicken to replace the one of the ones we’d lost last night. I should have closed the coop door last night, I was sure I had done it but when I thought back, I hadn’t, I’d only watered the grass and left it open. Why am I so incompetent?
The loss of the chickens hurt my wife just as much as me but then I put her through all the bullshit of me breaking down, just saying sorry sorry over and over and trying to run away to get to work on time when she told me off. I wanted to take responsibility but all I did was make excuses, wept like a madman and spewed defensive apology after defensive apology. If I was to go out driving like that I’d only put others at risk. And that’s the real problem, if I was just able to react to things normally and not go into the state of a blubbering child I’d be virtually there. I’m such a burden on her that she’d be better off without me. Especially if I could get the mortgage paid off.
I text her back to tell her to hang in there. I thought about asking her to say something nice about me when I’m gone but that’d give the game away.
She told me she’d hang in there I did. She said she was disturbed that I always want to give in so easily, there were things to fight for and that she said it with love.
I came down from the top floor. I’ll keep on fighting.
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Hang in there Guy, you got this.
I know exactly what it’s like to be the guy that embarrassingly breaks down in a tough situation. I can get to a point pretty easily where my brain won’t process shit anymore, especially if it’s related to my own stupid mistake. It’s never as bad as it feels, though, and that thought has kept me functional lately. We gotta treat our fucked up heads with as much compassion and patience as we can my dude. Love will win out!
Since getting off Remeron I’ve been able to be awake for a normal amount of the day (still getting down the timing of that, current routine is to wake up at 2-4pm and stay up till 4-5am), but my anxiety’s through the roof, which I can mostly tell because I’ve been drinking more to cope with it. I’m still not going back on Remeron because of the side effects, but maybe another tetracyclic antidepressant would work? I don’t see my psychiatrist for another three weeks. It’s gonna be a long haul.
Sleep problems I can definitely talk about. A solution I had personally was opiods (klonopin) before bed in that it did exactly what it said it would and made anxiety go away enough to sleep, but obviously that’s not a long term solution. I also used over-the-counter medicines and the most common one you build up a tolerance to. I eventually took enough to notice delayed reaction times, but I was lucky enough to just be 100% home for that time so it was just an “experience.” Best actual solution is probably to tire yourself out physically, the body will fall into a routine if you force it. Long walks, jogs, bike rides, whatever you’re comfortable with are good at forcing myself into a schedule.
Actually Klonopin is a benzodiazapine, which I have a bad history with. I don’t think I need chemical help getting my sleep schedule down anyway. Just gotta stay up all night and all day once and start falling asleep at 8 or 9 again. Tried to do that two nights ago but I forgot to take my meds the next morning which kept me up at night.
My anxiety is at it worst when I try to fall asleep. It doesn’t usually keep me awake, but it sucks hard core.