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submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Trans-Resources aims to help transgender, non-binary, and other gender non-conforming people find resources where they live. Our goal is to be a directory of advocacy organizations, legal resources, support & social groups, and other resources that service the trans community.

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submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Hey folks. It's me, VubDapple. I'm a (not so active but still present) mod for this community and also a mental health professional. Recently there was some upset at this young community's rule about posts concerning suicide. I thought I'd offer a few thoughts about suicide and where things seem to stand right now. Sorry for the delay in my response; things have been rather busy in my life.

Suicide is a super frightening topic for many people - with good reason. As such, it is difficult to figure out how to manage discussion of suicide in a public and anonymous volunteer forum so that everyone's needs are best met. A few issues come to mind that have to do with such balancing of needs:

  1. How to balance the needs of people who want to discuss their suicidal thoughts against the needs of other people who would be triggered by reading it and would really like to avoid it? Suicidal ideation is really common within groups of people who self-identify as having mental health issues, so on the one hand it is reasonable to discuss it. On the other hand, the very nature of the topic feels dangerous to many, sometimes because it might trigger one's own suicidal thoughts and at other times because there is concern that if not handled properly any discussion could make the issue worse rather than better.

  2. How to know what the risk is that someone who is suicidal might actually attempt suicide? Many people who are suicidal are not in imminent danger, but some really are. Because this judgement is difficult to make, and because no one here including moderators is able to take on an actual care-giving clinical role, it is reasonable for us to treat all suicidal discussion as potentially dangerous.

  3. How to best care for a suicidal person? This community is simply not able to provide any actual suicide prevention service! There is nothing like /r/suicidewatch here at this time! The community is not staffed to care for an acutely suicidal person.

The recent rule adjustment (Rule #4) has been made to try to strike a balance between the competing needs of community members. Basically, it's okay to acknowledge the existence of suicidal thoughts or thoughts relating to self-harm but we want to discourage extended discussion of such topics, precisely because no one here is able to take on an extended care-giving role in the manner a professional caregiver would and because there is a reasonable chance or at least reasonable concern that extended discussion might make things worse than they already are. The best advice that can be given at this time would be to seek professional mental health care.

I can shed some light on how to know when suicidal thoughts are considered acutely and immediately dangerous and when they are not by providing the following psycho-educational information.

Mental health professionals divided the universe of suicidal thoughts into "active" and "passive" categories. I like to offer the metaphor of a "poison flower" to help people recognize how these categories work.

Suicidal thoughts are a developmental process that starts small and grows to become a threat. Think of a flower seedling - it is very small at first - just a shoot coming out of the soil. As it grows it develops tiny leaves and the stem gets larger, the leaves get larger, etc. in a developmental process. Eventually a bud forms, that bud opens and then we have a flower. The universe of passive suicidal ideation is just like this flower during its developmental phase eg., before the flower blooms. The universe of active suicidal ideation is like the flower after it has bloomed. Active suicidality is much more dangerous than passive suicidal ideation.

Passive ideation usually starts with a feeling of overwhelm; a sense that a person simply does not have what it will take to manage the situation they find themselves in. As it grows, the passively suicidal person becomes aware of the thought that they might be better off dead. Often this thought is frightening at first; the people who experience it do not want it there and see it as a sign that they aren't well. A further development of the suicidal process but still passive suicidality occurs when a person finds themselves fantasizing about how they might end their life. The thoughts may still be unwanted and at this phase of the developmental process there can be a sense of a growing struggle between the thoughts of dying and the desire to push those thoughts away. An even further development might occur when a person starts taking seriously the idea that they might actually kill themselves. At this late stage of passive suicidal ideation there may still not be what we call intent, but nevertheless the suicidal person may start researching how they would end their life.

The turning point between passive and active suicidality comes when three criteria are met: 1) there is intent to harm one's self, 2) there is a plan for how the person will harm themselves, and 3) the person has access to the means to harm themselves. The term intent means that the person has come to regard the idea of suicide as something they will carry out. The term plan means only that the person has picked a method for how they will die. You don't need to have a "good" plan (eg., one likely to be lethal) in order for it to count that you have a plan; any plan will do. Finally having access to the means for committing suicide means having access to the tools and materials that the person would use to end their life. When all three of these criteria are met, we mental health professionals consider the person to be actively suicidal. When the criteria are not all met then we consider people to be more passively suicidal.

Suicidal ideation is not a one-way process. People can move from not-suicidal to passively suicidal and then later to actively suicidal, but it is also true that actively suicidal people can exit their active suicidal status back usually to passively suicidal status, and then even later become not suicidal again. It's important to keep this in mind because of what some call the "suicidal trance" eg., the tendency, as a person becomes more and more actively suicidal, to believe that suicide is the only reasonable response to what appears to that person at the moment to be an endless and entirely hopeless set of life problems from which suicide is the only escape. Most of the time it isn't true that the person's life problems are actually endlessly hopeless, but it does tend to feel that way when you're in it.

There is no hard and fast rule for assessing danger here, but the general idea is that passive suicidality is less acutely dangerous than active suicidality; mostly because with active suicidality by definition there is intent to die and the person's energies are marshaled in the direction of finding a way to make that happen in a manner that is simply not the case when a person is more passively suicidal. Passive suicidality is dangerous in that it may become active later on, but most of the time when someone is passively suicidal they are not going to go home and kill themselves any time soon. Active suicidality is a crisis. The actively suicidal person needs help and they need it as quickly as it can be found. A good way to gain that help if there is no other resource around would be to go to a hospital emergency room and tell the staff there that you are actively suicidal. Such action might help best in the short term because at least in the USA (where I am located) the healthcare system is broken and there easily might not be follow up care provided which would be needed, but it might be better than nothing.

What sort of care does a suicidal person benefit from? If you know of someone who is suicidal and the right solution is not immediate hospitalization to contain a crisis that will unfold very very shortly if urgent measures are not taken, then what is the right solution? It used to be the case that mental health professionals were trained to ask suicidal people to "sign a no-suicide contract" whether actually or metaphorically. It turns out that this doesn't help much. These days, in addition to whatever therapy they may provide mental health professionals are trained to help passively suicidal clients by helping them complete a Suicide Safety Plan.

The Suicide Safety Plan is simply a list of resources that the suicidal person can think about when they are tempted by the possibility of harming themselves. It is designed to help a suicidal person to maintain perspective about their larger situation even as the "suicidal trance" beckons them to die, and to remind the suicidal person of the techniques they can use or the resources they can call upon if they are feeling especially tempted.

Anyone can make a Suicide Safety Plan by answering the following questions:

  1. What are the warning signs in your behavior that signal that you are becoming increasingly suicidal?

  2. What are the ways you have available to calm or sooth yourself that might lessen your need to suicide?

  3. What can you do to make the environment safer for you (like getting rid of the means of harming yourself)?

  4. What are reasons for living? Often this one boils down to "Who would be harmed if you were to die?"

  5. Who in your personal life can you talk to about how bad things are?

  6. Who are the healthcare professionals you can call on if things get really bad?

I know what you might be thinking! A lot of people looking at these questions have told me that they can't see it coming, they don't know how to sooth themselves, there are no valid reasons for living, they have no friends or people who care about them and that they can't access healthcare because it is too expensive (which is often true in the profit-obsessed USA unfortunately). Even so, it is worth trying to engage with these questions so as to write out methods and names and resources as well as you can. Even a little bit of hope and a little bit of planning in advance can become critical in a crisis, making the difference between life and death.

A final word about reasons for living. Many times suicidal people have told me that even though they have children or loved ones, that their children will be better off without them alive. Such is the warping influence of the suicidal trance which commonly argues that the suicidal person is and can only be a burden and that children or loved ones will be better off without them. This simply isn't true. Children get FUCKED UP when their parents commit suicide. Loved ones get FUCKED UP when their loved ones commit suicide. Particularly for children who lose their parents to suicide, the effect is to traumatize them rather permanently for the rest of their lives. I have seen it up close and personal. Nothing I might say can make the influence of the suicidal trance less strong, but at least hear me in that this part of what that trance says is a lie. Nothing good comes of suicide except maybe that your own personal pain is discharged. The others around you will suffer. If you don't want to contribute to the suffering of others, please consider looking for another way. That other way might be very hard to find or very expensive to access, but when it is life or death, it's a good investment to make.

General Suicide Information

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/index.html

Suicide Helplines In the USA: call or text 988

https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp

https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/

Suicide Safety Planning:

https://www.verywellmind.com/suicide-safety-plan-1067524

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-recovery-coach/202306/how-to-develop-a-safety-plan-to-manage-a-suicidal-crisis

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submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Hello, so I am someone who meets facet 2&3 of the psychopathic spectrum and my psychiatrist at least agreed I’m ether a psychopath or have heavy ASPD. Though we were never able to get far due to insurance issues though I have done extensive research with college professors and learning from specialized psychiatrist. Now please before you keep on reading understand this will get rather gruesome so if you wish to click away. I’d do so now.

So the first signs I remember as a child that should’ve thrown red flags across the board for my parents was I would step and kill birds to watch their life drain from their eyes. This includes the sound of death and blood would sexually arouse me at 4 years old. Moving onto 6th grade. My English teacher was afraid of me, as I would constantly talk about fire arms and killing. Moving up to recently, I seriously didn’t mean to kill the squirrel as I was just wondering what may happen. Though I microwaved a squirrel and it exploded. I told this story in my 12th grade English class.

See by that time I really stopped harming animals but I got a really psychotic moment and had that thought. I do deeply regret doing it but I still have random psychotic ideas. Like I recently found a roadkill beaver that was well preserved and decided to skin it. Then when walking back into my house with the skinning knife I had a very horrible idea to capture a bird and slit its throat just to watch its blood leak. I do have an understanding of laws and morals I taught myself/learned off a show character who honestly raised me a bit as my father was never around.

The thing is though I do feel emotion, normally I can’t at all feel happiness or very distant. Though I feel a void normally calm but when I get stressed or sad. It’s like an overwhelming sense of dread. Though the only true happiness I feel in this life is loving and caring for others or trying to protect the innocent.

Though I don’t know how to fit in, how to seem a bit more normal and I believe it’s affecting my life in general. Please any advice helps.

Addition to this: I have DID with 6 alternate personalities. One an aging younger version while the others are adults. I don’t have nearly any memory of my childhood besides psychotic things I did. I also have hallucinations when someone makes me mad of bad things happening to them which I’ve never had the intent of following them as normally they disturb me and I don’t want those things to happen. For example seeing my brother and mother’s face peal off. I also don’t feel empathy 60% of the time unless I’m romantically attracted or they’re really good people.

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

This information is purposefully condensed. It's my goal to get my ideas out in the most clear, concise way possible.

...I'm still working on it, lol. Think of it as a list of "Bullet Paragraphs."

That being said; Please try to take it at face value and let me know if it resonates with you.

Would love to hear from anyone who disagrees, too!


tl;dr

Ask Why. Often. If you need to, start with answers you know. Be willing to admit when you get it wrong, Be willing to learn from it. Work on staying rational when emotions rise, While also giving them the space they deserve.

Why is very helpful in relationships, too, Just be mindful of boundaries.


Why isn't a question, it's a path. It can be overgrown and hard to see sometimes, but as long as you remember to come back and check now and then, you'll always find it again. And whenever it feels like you've reached the end, there's probably a little more still ahead.

Sometimes, you'll come to an answer that feels right, and later find out you're wrong. If you're able to admit it, you'll still learn from it. Be willing to update your worldview, or maybe just your place in it.

If you don't know where where to start or what to ask, just start with going through the Why that you already know. Journaling is a huge help with this part, but just mentally working through it is great, too.

You might ask something like "Why do I get sad so quickly?" or "Why do I feel lonely?" Keep going until it feels like time to stop, or when you get stuck. Set it down for now, so you can come back later.

If you are able to rationalize and accept why things happened while accepting and feeling the emotional pain when it rises, you can work to heal wounds while staying more emotionally regulated.

The trick here is learning to give the pain the space it deserves, while leaving your rational mind in control to "sort the baggage." It may be difficult at first, but it comes with practice.

Why is amazing when aimed inward, but it can be just as helpful aimed outward: When those close to you are struggling, trying to really understand Why can be a great help to them and may strengthen the relationship as long as boundaries are respected.

This can be applied to many other mental health related situations, too, not just trauma.

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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I feel like everyone eventually gets annoyed with me, and I just always end up alone. I loose all my friends, and Ive never really had a healthy loving partnership. I just feel hopeless

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Meridia 15mg capsules are a medication used to treat obesity. It works by suppressing appetite and causing increased feelings of fullness. It is important to only take Meridia as directed by a healthcare professional, as it can have serious side effects. Common side effects include dizziness, dry mouth, and increased heart rate. It is also important to discuss all medications with a healthcare provider before taking them, as they may interact with other medications.

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Buy Meridia Online for use to treat obesity. It works by blocking the breakdown of certain neurotransmitters in the brain that make you feel full. It is available for sale over the counter at some pharmacies and online. However, it's important to note that purchasing certain medications online, including weight loss medicines, can be risky. It is always best to consult with a healthcare professional before taking any new medication for weight loss.

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I'm looking for online resources to help manage myself. I suffer from schizoaffective disorder (depressive type). I was diagnosed in the past 3 or so years after having been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder over 7 years ago.

In the time since my original diagnosis, I have lost my fiancee, lost friends, lost employment, and lost hope. I beat myself into the dirt daily. I have little to no respect for myself, I hate myself more than I care to admit, I talk down to myself constantly, I feel like there's nothing more worthless than me, and I hate existence with all my being.

I'm in my mid 30's and from the southeastern US. I cannot afford real therapy as I have no job, no income, and the state government here hates helping people. I have applied for SSI, Medicaid, and Medicare. I have been turned down every time. I have Crohn's disease and am obese, on top of the mental illness(es). I am at my wits end.

I'm supposed to be moving in with a friend further away who owns a business and will be employing me sometime this year, but I honestly don't know if that's going to work out or I'll live long enough to see if it does or not. The past few months have been pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I've even thought about walking to the creek behind where I live and drowning myself when the water's high.

I absolutely refuse to take medication at this point because the SSRI's and Antipsychotics I've been on made me feel nothing and that triggered a different type of suicidal ideation. I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I need help, but there's no way for me to get it at the moment.

If anyone has any resources they've found online that have helped, please share them here. I never wanted this life and I certainly never wanted it to be this way. I hate this.

Also, to answer any questions about how I've gotten medical diagnoses, I lucked out after a suicide attempt and got put into a charity program that no longer exists that covered most medical expenses.

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

;tldr

Find something you enjoy and try and capture it in a way that you can look at it and appreciate what you do, I mean you might not appreciate it but it can be something that gets all that built thoughts out into the open so it is easy to see with one's own eyes.

I know and understand it will not work for everyone but I still hope it can be a positive contribution from my own experiences and I can only hope it can be useful for someone

End tldr;

So I have posted a lot and it felt a bit selfish always using the service but not really contributing.

I don't know how long I can keep it up, but over the past 2 weeks I have been trying to blog a video game article every day on my personal blog. I mean I should space things out so that I don't burn out of course, but so far just doing the writing has helped me not be overwhelmed with thought.

Perhaps it is a distraction, but I do feel less social anxiety as I am branching out more on Lemmy and try to engage with people more and I think for that is good thing.

I don't know if it is good advice or not, but for me it feels being able to express something one really enjoys in what ever way that one is most comfortable with and then being able to reflect on it - in my case writing and then going over it and then being able to say I completed something when I publish it - has created to me a, I can only assume, a postive feedback loop.

I write this as I am someone that enjoys being social but is incredibly socially insular, and in writing the video games blogs it is making me feel more comfortable trying to branch out as I "empty my head" so to speak.

I made contact with the friends I felt ashamed of being a detriment to the group and explained my situation, stating I would communicate every now then via posting but be unable to communicate via voice

I even made a Mastodon account, and although I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to write and learn about correct # usage while stil building up the courage to use because I have never been big on social media before, I finally got around to post to share my blog online and I built that courage by myself, which I however small is an achievement to me considering I have always felt I cannot do things without someone else's help.

The help I did get from going to a blogging group is to just not care what other people say and write for myself, create something I want and over time I can make it better and refine. Just so long as I am doing something that is a good thing. If nothing else writing can be for its own benefit and that has a reassuring comfort for someone like me that is incredibly harsh on myself as well.

There is probably a name for this, but I guess in absence of other choices, this is almost like therapy for me in a sense. I still do strongly recommend that those that can should seek professional help though

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Tldr:

Seeing lemmy posts about Disco Elysium reminded me of something that resonanted with me and its been bubbling wanting to get out and the other topic feeling lonely and isolated from friends due to hardware failure and a growing sense of low self worth and loneliness with some introspection.

: End tldr

First off I want to preface that I am going to be using a game and I guess how it emotionally resonated with me when I tried empathasing with the main character.

The game in question being Disco Elysium.

Although I myself cannot directly place myself in the shoes of the protaganist the game did catch me in a lot of moments where I am in a situation and just think "damn, that sounds like me" at times.

From the commentary of being a "Sorry Cop", that I have tried to move past in my life ( being someone that used to say "sorry" a lot)

To the many different examples of falling into a line of thought or idealogy and being exposed to the idea that maybe I might be inclined to ideas because I have been hurt and in that hurt I have lashed out mentally clawed onto these ideas less from thinking clearly to maybe it just makes me feel better to identify with something to try forget about the pain.

A part in particullar resonanted with me in the first run through the game where the protaganist talks to their ex-wife, it resonated with me from a moment in my life where I mentally fell blindly in love, was rejected and come to the realisation I was being used.

It isn't an exact situation from any stretch but the emotion of wanting someone and wanting to get an answer and seeing that he felt he was not good enough, really hit home in a different way from how I usually have ruminated - mainly because I expressed but never had anyone to empathise with being felt betrayed and abandoned.

In a weird way, I could empathise with the longing the character had and how painful it coukd feel, at the anger I have carried in me and how I could feel that anger in the character. It was like "I know this, and I know how you feel" and the game explores this with the destructive( and the potentially destructive) behaviour the character goes through in the game.

When I played it a second time I really went pretty hard into the worst emotions I felt during those times and it was I guess eye-opening to see the self-destructive behaviour from the outside where the character was a philosophical mess embracing many different philosophies falling in with facists and communists, the uncomfortableness of almost making a little girl cry, catching that in myself in that moment and really feeling bad exposing a child to the ugliness of the world when they express a world view with their child-like innocence.

And what really sealed the deal in making take a step back and think on things is when the protagonist has genuine heart to heart with other broken people and then just hitting right through to a root cause that

"Hey, that person really messed you up didn't they. It's okay and maybe your life is a mess because you cannot forgive yourself and you doing all these wild things, believing all these ideologies because you feel hurt and you do all these things to try replace that pain with something, anything that can make you feel better"

It just hit differently feeling personally called out but not in the way that they reprimand and ridicule you but just in a way that says "hey the world is fucked up, people will do fucked up things, things will not always work out and we all carry baggage."

Isolating yourself and trying to carry the weight of the perceived world on your shoulders can lead to self destruction and ruin, but when people genuinely listen and, even though their situation can be similar or worse, listen with sympathy and understanding that one can start to take steps to heal oneself.

I guess seeing news of Disco Elysium around Lemmy sparked the memory, but yeah even though things are not great for me and I feel myself falling back into my isolation as events that was planned to improve fell through and my personal situation not getting better with things I also planned to use breaking down as well.

In regards to the breaking down of things was my computer which one could argue was the thing that was keeping my sanity in check somewhat probably in the same vein I suppose an addict uses substances to deal with issues if I try be honest with myself.

On the other hand it was a lot easier to communicate with people but when it died, I tried communicating with the mobile device and unfortunately the earpieces are kind of trash with it having degraded audio or static while communicating also on top of the charger cable breaking and having to playing round robin in the household with a single working charger.

With the events just piling on in a negative momentum, I think I feel incredibly lonely and low value because that is how I feel around my peers when I cannot engage with them when I feel I bring nothing to the table and feel like I actually make the experience worse

When the pc was working I attempted to make videos, however every time I tried I would be bitterly disappointed with my own voice and it would demotivate me from further editing and attempting to create.

I suppose with the forceful break from it I guess deep down I really just wanted to make videos to be recognised and acknowledged, however I hated the content I was trying to make because it felt lifeless and phoned in. I guess I was so focussed on trying to be "perfect" that I just made myself more unhappy when I couldn't do something I really do enjoy doing but feel incompetent in trying to get that across.

This was all very loaded again, but it has been building up inside of me for awhile and I really needed to just write something otherwise I feel I would stubble down into the "madness" pit.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

To all who previously replied thank you - your encouragement and letting me know I'm not alone meant a lot.

I would also like to mention one individual offered to send a few dollars my way, and that's more than I could've ever hoped for. It helped me get some groceries and gas, so THANK YOU.

In reference to applying at 2000+ jobs and not being employed, I didn't mean to indicate I had NO response. I had many false starts, jobs where I went through multiple interview rounds, or jobs that just weren't feasible (i.e 100+ miles away on-site). Particularly, I keep finding situations where I'm contacted by a company, asked to do a phone interview, then when I reply (usually within a few hours if not immediately) to schedule a time they just ghost me.

I did take up the offers to look over my resume via DM, but no one replied funny enough.

On to mental health - I'm better than I was. I still feel utterly hopeless, but maybe a bit less so ya know? My thoughts are... Difficult at times, but I keep moving forward as best I can.

All this to say thank you. I got more response than I ever expected, and I appreciated every one and I read them all. I hope you all have a good day, and keep pushing forward.

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submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I have been taking Cymbalta 60mg and I have noticed its benefits wearing off both physically and mentally. It used to be that when I missed a dose, I would feel "fuzzy," almost like lightheadedness but without the headache, more like a rush of blood that makes me feel that way. Now even when I take the proper dosage, I feel this way. Is there a better term for this symptom than "fuzzy?" In more detail, I will have this kind of rushing heaviness for only a second; it goes through my whole body, mostly my head down through my torso. I will have times when I experience microscopic blackouts, where I will very briefly not remember what happened merely a couple of minutes ago. Thank you for cooperating with this very vague description.

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Hey Everybody. I am using capital letters For Titles In case you want to skip something.

A LITTLE INTRODUCTION OF ME:

I started feeling depressed 13 years ago, I was underaged with [difficult] parents so I didn't receive any help. Now I am an adult and for the last year and a half I am going to therapy. I tried lots of different therapists until I found the one I work with carently, she is really good and has helped me a lot plus I found the strength to leave everyone behind and start over (actually I live with my brother and I still have contact with my best friend, but my brother has changed a lot and my best friend was always an angel).

I can't say that I am not depressed anymore. I know better than that. BUT I can say that I am dramatically better and that I have large periods of time between my episodes.

I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU SOME THINGS I HAVE REALIZED IN MY JOURNEY:

Things seemed to start to get better when my environment got better. But I still was deep in my depression.

Things seemed to start to really get better when I felt that my environment was safe and supportive.

I had a terrible childhood so I needed to feel safe so I could start thinking straight.

Things fell in place when I started rebuilding from the start. I realized nothing I ever had done was for me. I never had the chance to think what I liked. All my childhood I was hearing that my dreams are stupid and not sustainable so at some time I stopped dreaming, thinking and feeling all at once. So when I started searching what I wanted, life just clicked, okey I admit that's a little dramatic, let me explain it better.

At first I couldn't understand the meaning of the phrase "what you want" and why my answers was wrong. When I finally understood, I started to wonder what "I wanted" (I haven't found out yet, but I am learning a lot of things in the process).

Now I can understand that when I understood what "I Want" meant there was a huge step for my mental health, from then and going forwards I am making lots of progress. It took me about a year to understand what "I Want" means and in the next 6 months I have worked on at least 8 different things.

I read a lot of stories from others with depression and I am starting to feel like they may not know what "wanting something" really means. I hope the knowledge I got from my experience help someone get through this easier and faster.

For whoever needs it! HOW I UNDERSTOOD WHAT THE PHRASE "WHAT I WANT" MEANS:

  1. I asked as many people as I could what they thought it meant.

  2. I processed the answers (did they make sense to me?)

The answers that kind of made sense for me was:

My best friend told me "It's something you think of regularly and makes you feel good"

Someone else said "It's something you do without thinking of the outcome, for example you want to paint cause you like the process not because you want to have a painting to hang on your wall"

My brother told me "do you want chocolate? Why?"

  1. I made my own definition

Which is " Wanting something means to constantly think of it with a positive feeling that doesn't involve the expectation of an outcome" (I am not sure it makes lots of sense in English)

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submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Let me preface this with, yes, I probably am depressive, I have been diagnosed with depression when I was very young and while things have been okay since then, it's probably important to recognize that. I consider myself in a very good state of mind in my life at this moment.

So what do I mean? Well, I don't feel like I'm depressed, not the way that I understand depression. I do however have these very intense moments of ennui; dissatisfaction from lack of interest. This is basically I find life very unfulfilling because I don't see much point in anything, things don't seem fun. This isn't my normal state, but certain triggers will intensely put me in this state of mind for an hour or more.

I also have episodes where I feel very melancholic for a certain vibe, there's a certain type of music where if I listen to it, I get very very sad because I imagine a life I used to want to live but never was able, even though I'm only 29. My girlfriend says I should stop listening to this music but it's a very bittersweet feeling for me and I get enjoyment out of this specific flavor of sadness.

Sometimes these states are influenced by stress, other times by boredom. They almost always only last an hour and cause me no real concern. I don't really know what to think of them, I think the only reason I'm mentioning it is I feel introspective. What do you guys think?

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submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

haventgotten answers from doctors or any ever, but i cry to like any inconvenience, nearly any small insult, being even moderately spooked, sm1 not liking me; even if i just slightly feel like one dislikes me a little. i did try medication.. but it made me feel like a zombie and i didn't like it :c didn't feel right. like, even if im extremely happy and all, i may suddenly just start to cry about someeven if i feel long-term happiness during it.

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Let me start. I previously resided in a north eastern US state, I had a good job, a good partner, a nice place to live. I thought I'd made it.

I started having medical problems, discovered I carry certain genes and such. Was having trouble getting them diagnosed, but such is life.

Then my good partner left me, I lost my job of a year and a half, and I thought a fresh start near family would be good. I decided to move cross country. Which I regret, I want to leave but now I don't have the resources so here I am.

I just can't seem to get a job, I've applied at over 2000 jobs in the last 6 months. My previous job was managing the entire technology infrastructure for an IT company. The one before that was the IT Manager for a small company. I have the experience, but I can't get a job.

Last night I swerved to avoid deer in the road, got stuck in the mud and had to get towed out. I'm flat broke, I can't get a job, I have nothing. I lost everything. And I don't see myself ever recovering it. I have the experience and skill to do at least mid and some high level IT work.

I desperately want a remote job because my car is not reliable, my partner got the good car sadly. I've certainly made mistakes, I've certainly failed. But I don't think I deserve this much pain and suffering. I have nothing, I've lost it all. I can't find a job. I don't dare look for a partner while I'm a dead broke loser, so I have no one to share with.

Anyways, I apologize for whining and crying, I know we're all going through things. But I have nowhere to vent and it just keeps getting worse and I honestly don't think I'll ever get out.

Love you all. Thanks for reading. Please think of me when you get a chance and send good vibes my way.

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submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Mental health is a crisis for learners globally, and digital support is increasingly seen as a critical resource. Concurrently, Intelligent Social Agents receive exponentially more engagement than other conversational systems, but their use in digital therapy provision is nascent. A survey of 1006 student users of the Intelligent Social Agent, Replika, investigated participants’ loneliness, perceived social support, use patterns, and beliefs about Replika. We found participants were more lonely than typical student populations but still perceived high social support. Many used Replika in multiple, overlapping ways—as a friend, a therapist, and an intellectual mirror. Many also held overlapping and often conflicting beliefs about Replika—calling it a machine, an intelligence, and a human. Critically, 3% reported that Replika halted their suicidal ideation. A comparative analysis of this group with the wider participant population is provided.

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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I looked at this blog post and it mentions a UN report which seems to be quite critical of modern psychiatry.

The doctor who made the report seems to be saying that drugging people is not a great approach, and really we should recognise that poor mental health is a result of social and psychological pressures:

Public policies continue to neglect the importance of the preconditions of poor mental health, such as violence, disempowerment, social exclusion and isolation and the breakdown of communities, systemic socioeconomic disadvantage and harmful conditions at work and in schools... Reductive biomedical approaches to treatment that do not adequately address contexts and relationships can no longer be considered compliant with the right to health.

Thoughts on this? Is the medical model of psychiatry just created by money-hungry pharma companies? Of course some people think they cannot function without their meds, and I sympathise with that view. But perhaps this belief is reinforced by strong withdrawal effects of these drugs, which are well-known. So somebody who has been on the drug for a while tries coming off, they have strong withdrawal symptoms, and they think "I can't cope without this drug, I must go back on it". Perhaps this is where tapering can help, because it helps people come off drugs (if they choose to do so) while reducing withdrawal effects.

Edit: The report was from 2017 but I still find it interesting. More info about it can be seen here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc3521-report-special-rapporteur-right-everyone-enjoyment-highest

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submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I found this article interesting.

The website is known for its critical view of psychiatry, which I think is good. Any field with as much power as psychiatry (being allowed to lock people up and drug them) should be approached from a critical perspective.

Psychiatrists would argue that their methods are well-intentioned, but are their methods helpful? The author of the article thinks some of the methods are not helpful.

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submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I haven’t watched the other videos in the series, but I found this one pretty interesting about anxiety and trauma / adverse experiences can lead to “only seeing the bad things.”

Let me know what you all think of it.

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I am done. (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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