Mental Illness Thread

[Afinepickle]

I have Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and Schizotypal Personality Disorder.

Honestly, I've struggled with these issues my whole life and they're a constant looming specter. Just recently, as a direct result of an episode, I crashed my car, lost my job and spent a month in the psych ward after a period of visual and audio hallucinations brought on both by my disorders and not sleeping for a week. By the time I went to the hospital I was convinced there were ghosts living in my head telling me to kill myself. Not fun. In the past as a result of episodes I've flunked classes in college, gotten into fights and trouble with the law and have spent months, sometimes close to a year, simply hauled up in my room. Honestly, if it weren't for my supportive and loving family I wouldn't be nearly as together as I am.

I'm stable now, been out since early February, taking every day as it comes and trying to ease myself back into life. Also trying to get over the fear I have of having another episode because it's honestly holding me back from doing what I want to do with life but with each little step I've been getting better and better about it.

 

[klystron]

I'm stable now, been out since early February, taking every day as it comes and trying to ease myself back into life. Also trying to get over the fear I have of having another episode because it's honestly holding me back from doing what I want to do with life but with each little step I've been getting better and better about it.

Is it possible for you to pursue what you want in life in a way that there's some kind of mitigation should you have another episode? You only live once man you gotta go for it.

 

[Afinepickle]

Is it possible for you to pursue what you want in life in a way that there's some kind of mitigation should you have another episode?

That's part of what I've been trying to work out and put together for the past couple of months, setting up some kind of safety-net that I can fall back on in the event of another big episode so I can get myself back out there.

 

[Waifu]

It's nice that we have this thread. I've been keeping this to myself so maybe typing about it will help; I'm not sure.
I have really bad PTSD and because of that, severe gripping anxiety/panic that sometimes results in fainting. Depression and ADHD as well, but the PTSD has been giving me the hardest time. I haven't been doing so well lately with all of it, especially having flashbacks to the things that have happened to me. A lot of things trigger memories and really bad urges to do something very unhealthy that I used to. I haven't done it in a year and a half now, and I'm hoping I can keep clean of it. I've also developed some strange phobias as a result of the anxiety. I am medicated, but the medicine makes me very tired, uninspired, weak, nauseous, etc. I've tried a mess of other medications but nothing seems to work. I'm just really not in a place that I want to be right now, mentally. :^( I try to keep my head up and be my best for other people but I'm just so tired.

 

[SparksterSanjulo]

I admit, I'm scared of sharing my mental diagnoses on here, but I would kind of like to talk about it just because I have no one else to talk to about it right now.

I have borderline personality disorder, major depression with severe psychotic tendencies, PTSD, and a mild case of Aspergers. Right now I should be taking four different meds but because I had to quit my job, I no longer have health insurance to pay for my meds. I've only been on Zyprexa and I'm going crazy. I'm starting to have a lot of mental breakdowns, becoming increasingly angry about my friend's roommate making snide comments about me (saying I'm fucked up, I'm "not really gay" because I haven't found any woman I want to date, I'm just trying to seek attention, etc.), shaking, and panicking over things I wouldn't be panicking over if I were stable on my meds. I know what I need to do to get back on these meds, I've just been increasingly depressed and have lost my motivation to do basically anything.

I'm real glad a thread like this exists though because I have basically no support from people in my life aside from my med provider and one friend, and trying to get therapy has been an absolute bitch. I keep checking in to try and get a therapist and everyone keeps giving me the runaround.

I am medicated, but the medicine makes me very tired, uninspired, weak, nauseous, etc. I've tried a mess of other medications but nothing seems to work. I'm just really not in a place that I want to be right now, mentally. :^( I try to keep my head up and be my best for other people but I'm just so tired.

Keep working with your med provider to get that perfect mix of meds. While it's good the meds you're on now are working, it's not good at all to have them make you as tired as you are. I had to try several different meds before the ones I got put on worked.

 

[Waifu]

I admit, I'm scared of sharing my mental diagnoses on here, but I would kind of like to talk about it just because I have no one else to talk to about it right now.

If you need a friendly ear or two, you can always message me. I'll be happy to listen and offer what encouragement I can!

 

[Surtur]

If you need a friendly ear or two, you can always message me. I'll be happy to listen and offer what encouragement I can!

I think this goes for a lot of us. Psychology is kind of my thing, so if someone needs to vent or some shit, my beard is here to help.

 

[SparksterSanjulo]

If you need a friendly ear or two, you can always message me. I'll be happy to listen and offer what encouragement I can!

I think this goes for a lot of us. Psychology is kind of my thing, so if someone needs to vent or some shit, my beard is here to help.

You guys are awesome. Thank you!

 

[SparksterSanjulo]

So, good news: I was able to talk with my med provider on Thursday and I was able to get back on all of my meds, sans my anti-anxiety meds (which costs money, which I don't have to spare right now). It feels so good not being manic and wanting to crawl back into bed or having intense road rage/anxiety when I'm driving. I hope everyone else has been well...?

 

[DenseDeerFather]

Necroing this thread. Recently, I got diagnosed with a hybrid personality disorder. A really bad case of Avoidant Personality Disorder with some Emotional Instability Disorder sprinkled over it. On top of that, I got some ADD and OCD as well.

Spoiler: Ramblings about my life in a rather long post

To make a long and shitty story short, it's been affecting me my entire life. I have always struggled with feeling out of place and disconnected from people. I've struggled with standing up for myself and speaking my mind, getting close to others, and just being, well, normal. A common sign of AvPD is extremely low self-esteem which I've struggled with for as long as I can remember but it also drew me to try and carry on as if I was as mentally well as everyone around me.

Without a proper support structure throughout my life, I sat with that feeling of something being wrong with me and everyone else telling me that there was something wrong with me but never helping me out through my youth and just expecting me to handle my issues myself. Idk about you but you can't expect a 15-year-old to fix a personality disorder.

So being left on my own, it was allowed to grow and fester while I continued to barely make it through high school and university. It all came to a head last year when I spent two months in a psych ward after a mental breakdown and a necking attempt that left some uggo scars.

Got issues with self-harming too due to the emotional instability and it sort of became an evil circle because my guardians had no idea of how to handle it, so they'd levy threats and hurl verbal abuse while I felt even shittier and sliced some more. It's only after I moved out that I managed to do it less often and I've been a year clean so far.

Having AvPD is kinda like being a bottle of cola where all the shit that goes on in your head and your mind builds up over time but because it's like social anxiety on crack (psychologist's word) and you feel as worthy as forgotten dog shit on the sidewalk, you're basically crippled without an outlet due to fear of abandonment and rejection so you don't even bother. And then the bottle blows up because someone dropped mentos into the coke.

In worse cases, you isolate yourself because the world became the bully in your head. Added to being an emotional wreck, it makes daily life a struggle. Heck, it's fucking my ability to work though the ADD also fucks me there too.

Right now I'm stable-ish but minor things, changes, and interactions that I always turn negative can fuck me up for a few days at best and a few weeks at worst. I'm not on any medication or in therapy currently though I'd like to get things going because right now, I'm just existing, feeling as if my life is going me by, though I'm not even that old.

It should be mentioned that apparently there's no medication for Avoidant so therapy is what I really need. The ADD on the other hand...

I live in a country with intensive healthcare and welfare systems but the wait times are brutal because of neo-lib shit so all I can do is wait for a slot to open up for therapy.

I apologize for the possibly unhinged sperging of this post. As is obvious, I got a lot on my chest which I never let out until now at least.

Edit: grammar

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

Necroing this thread. Recently, I got diagnosed with a hybrid personality disorder. A really bad case of Avoidant Personality Disorder with some Emotional Instability Disorder sprinkled over it. On top of that, I got some ADD and OCD as well.

Spoiler: Ramblings about my life in a rather long post

To make a long and shitty story short, it's been affecting me my entire life. I have always struggled with feeling out of place and disconnected from people. I've struggled with standing up for myself and speaking my mind, getting close to others, and just being, well, normal. A common sign of AvPD is extremely low self-esteem which I've struggled with for as long as I can remember but it also drew me to try and carry on as if I was as mentally well as everyone around me.

Without a proper support structure throughout my life, I sat with that feeling of something being wrong with me and everyone else telling me that there was something wrong with me but never helping me out through my youth and just expecting me to handle my issues myself. Idk about you but you can't expect a 15-year-old to fix a personality disorder.

So being left on my own, it was allowed to grow and fester while I continued to barely make it through high school and university. It all came to a head last year when I spent two months in a psych ward after a mental breakdown and a necking attempt that left some uggo scars.

Got issues with self-harming too due to the emotional instability and it sort of became an evil circle because my guardians had no idea of how to handle it, so they'd levy threats and hurl verbal abuse while I felt even shittier and sliced some more. It's only after I moved out that I managed to do it less often and I've been a year clean so far.

Having AvPD is kinda like being a bottle of cola where all the shit that goes on in your head and your mind builds up over time but because it's like social anxiety on crack (psychologist's word) and you feel as worthy as forgotten dog shit on the sidewalk, you're basically crippled without an outlet due to fear of abandonment and rejection so you don't even bother. And then the bottle blows up because someone dropped mentos into the coke.

In worse cases, you isolate yourself because the world became the bully in your head. Added to being an emotional wreck, it makes daily life a struggle. Heck, it's fucking my ability to work though the ADD also fucks me there too.

Right now I'm stable-ish but minor things, changes, and interactions that I always turn negative can fuck me up for a few days at best and a few weeks at worst. I'm not on any medication or in therapy currently though I'd like to get things going because right now, I'm just existing, feeling as if my life is going me by, though I'm not even that old.

It should be mentioned that apparently there's no medication for Avoidant so therapy is what I really need. The ADD on the other hand...

I live in a country with intensive healthcare and welfare systems but the wait times are brutal because of neo-lib shit so all I can do is wait for a slot to open up for therapy.

I apologize for the possibly unhinged sperging of this post. As is obvious, I got a lot on my chest which I never let out until now at least.

Edit: grammar

Have you already gotten on waiting lists for therapy? Is it completely centralized/do you have options as to whom you see? Either way, if you haven't done what you need to to get in queue, do it today.

[N.B.:The stuff below is basically in reverse order of what I'd recommend to you rn, having re-read your post after I wrote my response.]

In the meantime, you could keep reading up on the things you've had identified - but also, to the extent there's trauma or childhood stuff that might be contributing, then if you feel safe following that thread on your own, you could do some reading and research on finding some of your root causes/emotional wounds. If those exist, they can be enormously negatively impacting in ways you don't even realize until you start digging them up.

That said - I make that rec only if you are safe from self-harm and are okay to look at some early pain to start to process through it in ways that can relieve some of the burden and weight. DON'T GO THERE if you haven't really done any work yet, not alone.

BUT - once you're in a less fragile place, looking inward may help you be able to get the top off that soda bottle without it exploding. And nobody roll your eyes, but if those things are a part of your psychological mix, inner child work can be useful. It's hard and takes a long time, but good. Might not be the place to start (it can be draining), but keep it in mind. I do think that sorting through some emotional origins of things and figuring out how they've twisted and ingrained in you over time will help with being able to make efforts to modify/ manage the avoidant reactivity and bring a greater awareness to why you're feeling or why/how you're reacting to things.

On self esteem things, I rec Nathaniel Branden's The Six Pillars of Self Esteem. Also rec reading it 30 minutes or so a day, taking notes, and doing the exercises - approach it more like a textbook than a beach read. Again, may be useful or, or maybe later, but he has a very rational* and nuanced breakdown of what we generally lump into the term "Self-Esteem."

*he was an associate (and lover) of Ayn Rand decades ago. The book is 90s, maybe 80s, but it's solid and pretty timeless imo.

Last, and again it might sound trite or skepticism-worthy, but small, passive things like listening to affirmations (you don't have to say them or reflect, but it's good to do sometimes, when you get there - there's no timer) can be a good place to start with little required or difficult thinking - if they're good/you like the person's approach and voice, they just wash through you and can start to make sense over time.

Insight Timer is a great app with all kinds of material - meditations, affirmations, courses, music, live events, etc. (like 70,000 of them) and most are free. My favorite for affirmations and meditation (plus stuff to fall asleep by) is Kenneth Soares, who is a young* Norwegian dude. He has a great voice and has a bunch of material on IT, as well as on most streaming music services and youtube. PL discovering and starting to listen to Soares a few years ago helped start to bring me back to life from a very bleak place. He and studying Buddhism resurrected me. Clichéd but true. But there are thousands of options/people even just on IT, the app functions well, and you don't have to pay for great content, so I always recommend it in general.

*older than you, younger than your parents/30s I'd say

 

[Cats]

I don't have any mental illnesses.

 

[Arianne Chan]

Is this thread revived? Well i suffer from ADHD and Oppositional defiant disorder, it is always a pain in the ass to live having these two things

At least my symptoms have improved and i have recovered a lot since my childhood

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

Aspergers and ADHD. There are possibly some other issues I have that have been left undiagnosed.

 

[Cats]

i take these pills sometimes, for symptoms

 

[Monkey Shoulder]

Nothing officially diagnosed, but there's some stuff in my family. If I were to see a shrink I would probably get diagnosed with two things, maybe three.
I've refused to go see someone for 16 years, and at this point I probably never will. Not as long as it's up to me.

I've got no interest in being on medication, and I don't want to be the guy with the conditions.

 

[DenseDeerFather]

Necroing this thread.

Okay so I've been doing better since now. Am on the ADD pills and my brain functions better. Am currently in psychotherapy plus education on the basics of mentalization which is the basis of my therapy.

The education part is a little iffy because it's four people including me and two of them are highly disruptive BPDs.

Got some tests done in the meantime and it turns out I'm bit of a beta sperg. Specifically a "highly sensitive person". It's hard to explain but it's bit of a weird blend of autism and Asperger's but in a milder form.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

I thought this might be a good place to share what I wrote on my profile a while ago, because I didn't know where to put it.

Also for clarity I don't have OCD or even suspect it in myself, it's just an example and what was on my mind.

---

Spoiler: bliblblblbl has real problems

I don't know how divisive this opinion is, if everyone is like "no shit" or if I'll be burnt at the stake.
I was reading about the broader spectrum of obsessive compulsive disorders and one of the common definitions was "being stressed by negative mental content" i.e. having worrying thoughts or feelings or compulsions. And I just thought, well no one diagnoses a burn victim with a mental disorder for thinking about how painful his skin is all the time. Or a grieving person for thinking about their dead spouse.

t's not JUST about being stressed. It's that, to be blunt and rude and clinically judgy, they shouldn't be stressed, they have no actual basis for worry or the extent of their worry. Their problems aren't real or that big. The OCD is real: but "the noise is coming from inside the house." So to speak.

No shit, that's why it's a mental disorder huh?
But the revelation to me was that I think I just have actual problems. For many years I've tried to figure out what was wrong with me or click with some diagnoses so that I could find treatment- never happened.

I think I just have an actual shitty life situation and the stressful reactions I've had weren't signs of abnormal mental weakness, I was just validly stressed. The type of thing you need a vacation to fix- NOT therapy.

I've been trying to change from seeing myself as some unrecoverable broken person, some sick fuck who needs mental help, to just a guy with a bad past. I really never found the modern medical system to encourage this at all, and rather it highly encouraged pathological thinking: you must have some condition, some label, some discrete entity has developed in you.

When I was younger I was also more free with details, but now I really don't want to be known as "the guy that went through xy and z." In my new job, no one knows much about my past, although people ask stuff since I'm physically disfigured. I just politely decline, and wonderfully I've realized that this turns me into that 'mysterious' sort of guy that women like. Everyone told me growing up that sharing and disclosing stuff would help, but the only community it ever gained me was with absolute trashy weirdos and lowlifes who seemed kinda predatory in wanting to "bond over trauma." It made me look like a broken person and be seen that way. The more I realize this, the worse it seems and the worse those people seem.

Talking about it never fucking helped my case- deciding to refuse to talk about it literally makes me attractive.
If you're a massive fuckup reading all this, realize that if you recover, you don't have to feel ashamed of having been lowly. You can spin it into something that's a plus. Everyone loves an underdog. I used to be really afraid of turning into that "recently recovered addict" type of stereotype, the guy that everyone can tell used to be down bad, but it turns out to be pretty avoidable: just stfu about your past and live your life.

---

Another big issue I had for many years was the idea that any sort of strength can come out of abuse. I mean, if you grow stronger due to an abuse, doesn't that imply the abuse was good for you? It seemed logical that a victim should only become worse in every regard- anything else is admitting that you benefited.

No one was able to explain this to me until I read the Letters to a Stoic: Letter 67 answers this exactly. (Below is just a portion of the letter)

3. You ask me whether every good is desirable. You say: "If it is a good to be brave under torture, to go to the stake with a stout heart, to endure illness with resignation, it follows that these things are desirable. But I do not see that any of them is worth praying for. At any rate I have as yet known of no man who has paid a vow by reason of having been cut to pieces by the rod, or twisted out of shape by the gout, or made taller by the rack."
4. My dear Lucilius, you must distinguish between these cases; you will then comprehend that there is something in them that is to be desired. I should prefer to be free from torture; but if the time comes when it must be endured, I shall desire that I may conduct myself therein with bravery, honour, and courage. Of course I prefer that war should not occur; but if war does occur, I shall desire that I may nobly endure the wounds, the starvation, and all that the exigency of war brings. Nor am I so mad as to crave illness; but if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships.

5. Certain of our school,[4] think that, of all such qualities, a stout endurance is not desirable, – though not to be deprecated either – because we ought to seek by prayer only the good which is unalloyed, peaceful, and beyond the reach of trouble. Personally, I do not agree with them. And why? First, because it is impossible for anything to be good without being also desirable. Because, again, if virtue is desirable, and if nothing that is good lacks virtue, then everything good is desirable. And, lastly, because a brave endurance even under torture is desirable. 6. At this point I ask you: Is not bravery desirable? And yet bravery despises and challenges danger. The most beautiful and most admirable part of bravery is that it does not shrink from the stake, advances to meet wounds, and sometimes does not even avoid the spear, but meets it with opposing breast. If bravery is desirable, so is patient endurance of torture; for this is a part of bravery. Only sift these things, as I have suggested; then there will be nothing which can lead you astray. For it is not mere endurance of torture, but brave endurance, that is desirable. I therefore desire that "brave" endurance; and this is virtue.

7. "But," you say, "who ever desired such a thing for himself?" Some prayers are open and outspoken, when the requests are offered specifically; other prayers are indirectly expressed, when they include many requests under one title. For example, I desire a life of honour. Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato's own hand, or the exile of Rutilius,[5] or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven. Accordingly, in praying for a life of honour, I have prayed also for those things without which, on some occasions, life cannot be honourable.

Why should I not regard this as desirable – not because the fire, burns me, but because it does not overcome me?

---

Another thing that helped me a lot was going to a military conference (BIG DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT IN THE MILITARY, I was just invited by the military pastor due to my situation) and attending a very solemn panel about dealing with the fact that you've done bad things or seen good people do bad things, i.e. kill in war. PTSD isn't automatic and not everyone who goes through shit gets PTSD, and not everyone who has "issues with what they saw" automatically develops a mental disorder. 9/11 was pretty horrible and left lasting scars on the population. Lots of people developed mental conditions, sure, but do you really think the ENTIRE city did? Every single last person? No.

My cycle pretty much went like this:

As an adult, now I've learned to be like this:

Spoiler: therapists getting personally invested

I really don't know how common or rare this is, but it was a real issue for me at several points: counselor-types would become "fascinated" with me due to the rarity and "once in a lifetime" circumstances of my situation. More than once, more than 3 times actually, I was in a situation where I saw this person DAILY. Different people, same situation. Now that I'm older I recognize that this was a pretty unhealthy thing for a social worker/psychologist/therapist to do, but explicitly they wanted to do it because "after this school year I'll never see you again, and your case is just so interesting, I want to talk to you as much as possible." And similar.

It was just nonstop discussion about my uncommon situation. And nothing fucking changed for me. Do you know how shitty it actually is when people "want to write a paper" on you? Oh, so you mean you're totally incompetent and can't help me? Once a psych tried to tempt me by saying, "If you're part of something, you might go down in history/can get media attention." I said, this is literally a joke, it's a joke people tell that "Good news, you'll have the disease named after you."

If anyone wants to talk in DMs this is the invite that I'm open to it, although I'm not saying I'm really good to talk to at all about all this. And if you have some dx that people in the average office or workplace actually know about and has billboards and advocacy campaigns, I am almost certainly not the guy to take any advice from.