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Whatever, Let's Have A Goddamn Blog Thread, But Try And Keep It Reasonable
KvP:
--- Quote from: tania on 23 Nov 2008, 22:23 ---deep down i have a feeling what i have is some kind of major depression but i haven't seen a professional either on account i am terrified of medication and/or an official diagnosis, so mostly i just deny it and tell myself to try harder. i was in therapy for a couple of years when i was a lot younger due to being crazy and self-destructive and kind of suicidal and the thing with that whole ordeal being terrible might have something to do with my avoidance of professional help as well. the irony is that i currently volunteer as a counselor to other students! so they come in all distressed and i listen to their problems and tell them how to manage their depression and anxiety and give them advice on how to keep their lives together. it is so absurd that sometimes i really can't do anything except laugh. i am probably the worst candidate ever for this.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps I'm overstepping my (quite limited, as I don't know you at all) bounds here, but are you sure that professional help is exactly what you need? I suffer from some pretty heavy depression as well but I've seen a therapist every 2 weeks for 14 years now (that's 728 sessions, if my count is correct, which is 546 hours) and I'd probably say that the benefit I've gotten from my medication and from the visits themselves has frankly been rather marginal. I'm sure that you'll probably have better results than I did, as seeing the same therapist from 8 to 22 can make your therapist sort of intimidating and hard to talk to, but... do you have people that you can talk to who aren't professionals, just people who will listen? I was at about the lowest I'd ever been a few months back and what brought me back from the brink wasn't an emergency call to the good Doctor so much as the care and comfort of my best friends.
If your depression is like mine, a sort of "slipping" into a pattern of negative thoughts and feelings, then there are some things that helped me that I think might help you. For one, I took it upon myself to undergo a sort of simple cognitive therapy. I wrote out some things during a brighter period that I knew I was not thinking of during my darker periods. Just simple things, like "you are a good person", "you have worth", etc. etc. It's touchy-feely language that I find sort of juvenile but then the depressive thoughts I have are often equally as banal. I kept a list of these statements in my phone and I would read them whenever I felt bad, and it helped, somewhat. Another thing that helped was reminding myself that my feelings were transient. Often the worst part of depression for me was the terror in imagining that I would feel the way I did forever, or at least for a sufficiently long time that it would become unbearable. It was never the case, the feelings often didn't persist for more than a night and never more than a few days. As depression for me is very physical in the way it feels, pain in my chest and stomach, I came to treat it as a physical ailment to be endured more than constantly feared, and it made it more manageable as a result. Finally, if you're like me than your depression is often displaced, in that there will be something, an impending deadline for an assignment, usually, that will trigger anxiety i and cause a slip into depression. If you can bring yourself to identify the source of the problem and correct it, complete the assignment or whatever, it helps tremendously. In the absence of such a trigger, I've found that something constructive and time-consuming really helps. I make shitty acid house music, for example, and I love it.
Again, I can't claim to know you or the circumstances in which you find yourself, and you made your post without soliciting any sort of reaction or advice, but I wouldn't wish the way that I felt on anyone, and I hope that you feel better.
Emaline:
RE Photo-ing: I don't ever really take pictures when I am out and about, and if I do bring my camera, there are 60 pictures of random things, and maybe 5 of my friends. And then my friends badger me to no end to post pictures from our glorious night out, and I finally do after getting 50 texts a day from everyone involved in the night, and some who aren't, and then they are all disappointed that there aren't really any pictures of them and the few that are of them are terrible shots because I like to take pictures of expressions, and I don't like to wait around for people to be pretty. I'd rather be a photographer than the paparazzi.
And all my friends complain that we need more shots of us going out. Why? I know we went out, you know we went out. We didn't do anything particularly note worthy. 90% of the time we are going to the city museum, or some party that isn't some big major event. No one really likes to plan anything fancy. Parties are mostly "I am bored. Wanna come over?" "Ok. I'll call soandso and see if they want to come over." and eventually they is enough drunk people standing around in a room talking to call it a party. I mean it's not like a big planned event. Why do we need pictures of it? Bragging rights to our underaged drinking on facebook? I don't see why it is important to document the fact that we are all 20 year old alcoholics, and potheads. I mean, yes I enjoy those times, but I don't see why I need pictures of them. Chances are no picture of me being drunk/high is going to express how I felt or what I was thinking at that point in time, and that's what I'd rather remember.
Dear Blog thread,
A friend of mine originally asked me to get him two games for Christmas. When he found out it would cost me $80, he told me not to get them. When I asked what he wanted a second time, he told me not to get him anything. After a bit of badgering, he asked me to get him a book. He wants the paperback edition, because "I dislike keeping track of hardcover books." Looking online, there were three different versions of the book printed. The paperback edition is roughly $10. There is a hardcover version of the book, that is signed by the author, available in a limited edition press, that is all super fancy and awesome, for $250. It is really awesome. I'd buy it for myself if I cared about these sort of things(truth is that I do, but there are only a few books I'd want all fancy like this). I'm only buying gifts for three people this year(aside from a family I am buying for, and maybe a few other people), but really only these people are getting these gifts. He happened to be one of them. I want to get them all something really special that they will really like. On top of that, I kinda get the feeling he didn't want me to buy him the games, or the hardcover version of this book(not the $250, because I doubt he knows about it) because he thinks that it is to expensive and too much money for me to spend on him. He once refused to let me pay for dinner for the both of us at a place once I told him it cost $50 for a friend and I to go there. But really, money is not a problem, and I'd much rather spend money buying something really awesome for someone than buying something for myself. I love making people really happy. The book is still available. So should I spend the $250, and buy him the super fancy awesome edition of this book? Or should I just do exactly as he asked and by the paperback edition?
TL;DR
Should I buy my friend, who I care about a lot, and who hates having lots of money spent on him, a $250 edition of a book that he wants for Christmas, or should I just buy him exactly what he asked for, the $10 paperback edition of the book?
jmrz:
Emaline, I still haven't figured that situation out. My boy is the same and refuses to let me spend crazy amounts of money on him at Christmas time because it is our first Christmas together and he is just excited to wake up next to me and spend the day with me. What I wanted to buy him would have cost me $300AU for the present and shipping and he said not to get it. So now I have to figure out something as equally as awesome because he knows what it is now.
I have to get him SOMETHING but he hasn't asked for anything and refuses to let me spend heaps of money on him (which I'll probably end up doing anyway).
RedLion:
--- Quote from: KvP on 24 Nov 2008, 00:22 ---
--- Quote from: tania on 23 Nov 2008, 22:23 ---deep down i have a feeling what i have is some kind of major depression but i haven't seen a professional either on account i am terrified of medication and/or an official diagnosis, so mostly i just deny it and tell myself to try harder. i was in therapy for a couple of years when i was a lot younger due to being crazy and self-destructive and kind of suicidal and the thing with that whole ordeal being terrible might have something to do with my avoidance of professional help as well. the irony is that i currently volunteer as a counselor to other students! so they come in all distressed and i listen to their problems and tell them how to manage their depression and anxiety and give them advice on how to keep their lives together. it is so absurd that sometimes i really can't do anything except laugh. i am probably the worst candidate ever for this.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps I'm overstepping my (quite limited, as I don't know you at all) bounds here, but are you sure that professional help is exactly what you need? I suffer from some pretty heavy depression as well but I've seen a therapist every 2 weeks for 14 years now (that's 728 sessions, if my count is correct, which is 546 hours) and I'd probably say that the benefit I've gotten from my medication and from the visits themselves has frankly been rather marginal. I'm sure that you'll probably have better results than I did, as seeing the same therapist from 8 to 22 can make your therapist sort of intimidating and hard to talk to, but... do you have people that you can talk to who aren't professionals, just people who will listen? I was at about the lowest I'd ever been a few months back and what brought me back from the brink wasn't an emergency call to the good Doctor so much as the care and comfort of my best friends.
--- End quote ---
Dude, I realize you're trying to help, but this is not advice that you should ever give to anyone. "Don't seek help from professionals" is just never, never the right thing to say. If it didn't work for you, okay, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But if a person can get a good therapist, they can make all the difference in the world. Of course a person needs loving friends just as much, and probably more, than any therapist/doctor, but the support of your friends can only take you so far--they can't really help you work out and solve whatever the root problems and causes of your anxiety/depression are. Medication is a different matter; it shouldn't be automatically prescribed to everyone with depression/anxiety, and it doesn't do anything to solve the underlying problems. It can, however, serve as a tourniquet to aid in the healing process.
Sorry if that came off harsh, but it's exactly because so many people with depression and anxiety choose not to seek out professional help that a large number of suicides happen (not suggesting that tania is at risk for that, of course.) So, on the contrary, people should be encouraged to see a therapist. And if it doesn't work out, then at least you have tried. But to discourage a person is kind of irresponsible, in all honesty.
Emaline:
--- Quote from: jmrz on 24 Nov 2008, 00:47 ---Emaline, I still haven't figured that situation out. My boy is the same and refuses to let me spend crazy amounts of money on him at Christmas time because it is our first Christmas together and he is just excited to wake up next to me and spend the day with me. What I wanted to buy him would have cost me $300AU for the present and shipping and he said not to get it. So now I have to figure out something as equally as awesome because he knows what it is now.
I have to get him SOMETHING but he hasn't asked for anything and refuses to let me spend heaps of money on him (which I'll probably end up doing anyway).
--- End quote ---
Whenever I ask him why he doesn't want me to spend money on him, he says "I AM A MISERLY JEW!" Which I guess is true..? I don't know. He is Jewish, though he isn't very serious about it at all, and the second time we hung out he had to tell me how he fits into all the Jewish stereotypes perfectly.
Its such a lame excuse. You're miserly-ness does not mean that I cannot spend money on you! Complaining about me spending money on you makes me feel like you expect that I expect for you to spend money on me, which, fuck, by this point in time he should really know that I do not expect that at all. I pay for dinner whenever we go out more than half the time. In fact, the only time I think that he has ever paid was when we ate at this little place at the art museum, and I think it was like $12 total. I'm not complaining. It's really not a big deal. He is one of the few people that I do not mind spending money on.
Also, based on my very vague knowledge of your situations, I say buy him the $300, since he is your boyfriend and all. My guy is just my friend, so I don't know. In my head, that means I shouldn't be as willing to buy him fancy gifts...I guess...I don't know.
Or don't buy it for him! Because maybe he'll be all upset and it'll ruin his day, or make him think you are bad with money, or something!
Sigh. Why can't people just be happy when people want to spend money on them? This is too difficult.
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