I won at therapy a few months ago. My doctor threw up his hands and went “I don’t know how to tell you. Your situation is so fucked up that I can’t even offer advice. Just keep on keeping on, I guess.” And that actually made me feel better.
Look at that ! It kinda makes me feel a little better, too !
Get a hobby, get outside. Doesn’t have to cost much either.
Sometimes in the summer I go to the beach before work and cook my breakfast there on a camping stove burning driftwood as fuel.
“lmao”
This has been what I do with mine. Most of it is pretty fucking “well duh” type stuff, however working with people to hold you, and you hold yourself, accountable for making progress in these ways. The part of having someone to hold you to account, this is often where a therapist is the most useful. However, in this situation, this isn’t an option, so you need to reach out to others.
Take your meds. If you need meds, but can not currently access them due to finance issues, there are sources out there that may be able to help. This is not often easy to navigate, but it may be something that saves you.
Try any method you can find, that is from a reputable source, to keep your sleep on a schedule, and get at least 6 hours per night. This is way more important than many wish, but generally everyone knows it is vital to health, including mental health.
Make yourself accountable to someone for daily improvement progress - eg find a friend, family member, online gaming buddy, whatever, that you report to, on a routine basis, to report the regularity of maintaining these routines. This means whatever you need to do to keep your living space clean, and in order, routine exercise, adherence to a healthy diet, maintaining the framework to keep yourself on track, like keeping your phone calendar up date, keeping lists of chores/errands you need to do, working on maintaining a hierarchy of needs (most immediate things to do, and most important), etc. This is the big one though, this person is allowed to criticize you in your failings on this, and you need to take that criticism, and use it as a call to focus on these areas. You may need more than one person willing to help. If you are isolated, there are online groups for these things. No this isn’t a great alternative, but it is better than nothing, and living in despair.
You need to audit your behavior. You need to make a record of the things you do that are mentally taxing, and thus can harm your mental health. Do you spend all day, every day, at work, or stressing about work? You need to find a place you can vent this stress, and look for advice on how to disengage with work enough stop burn out, but still do what is expected. If what is expected is just too much, you need to recognize it, and work on finding a lower stress income. Do you doom scroll? Well look into apps that help you regulate the time you spend online. Also, audit your experience with the platforms you engage with. If you find one is mostly something that adds to your stress, depression, despair, etc. work on just cutting that out completely. Look at your personal relationships, and really try to assess whether or not your relationships are healthy, if not, how can they become healthy? If there is not foreseeable way to make it healthy, go low-contact, pilot no contact. If your daily life has any improvement because you no longer maintain contact, then it is time to drop them.
Social activity. This will depend greatly on how much socializing, and what kinds, you can handle, etc. This one is much more tricky, especially since anxiety, anhedonia, and other negative aspects of your mental health really affect how hard this is. However, you need to work on getting some sort of in person social contact. It needs to be regular, and I don’t mean like all the time, but that there is a routine set-up for it. Local hobby groups, activities at the local library, publicly held events you may attend, try to work out a specific time period where you, and at least one friend/family member, can spend that time together doing an agreed upon activity.
Do things that allow you to put your thoughts into more of an order than they may currently be. This could be a journal, personal blog, etc. Just something where you can dump your brain, look at what came out, and apply some structure to it.
Spend time outside. Be it with people, or alone, just force yourself to spend time outside, especially in places you can see nature, see green, etc. If you just sit there observing it, it will help to maintain wellness. This is subtle, and takes a while, however it does have a real impact.
There is more, and I can ask my therapist, when I see her this week, for resources for all this, and I can update with what she says, if she is willing, which I do not see why she wouldn’t be.
I went in saying that work feels boring and repetitive. Feel stuck in the same job for the rest of my life, even though i hate it.
She said we all feel that way.
That’ll be 200 bucks please
Your life is the way it is because you’ve decided that it’s more comfortable to leave it that way than to change it.
Srsly years and years of therapy this was the only thing that did anything for me
Amen. I said screw it, saved money and moved to Korea. Happiest 3 years of my life.
(It was uncomfortable as crap and I missed a lot of things back home - funerals, weddings, friends growing older and moving away… But no regret. Gotta live life)
“Here, take this quick test”.
Ok.
"Huh. I’ve never seen results like this. "
…
“Welp, our time’s up.”
You clearly find it easy to stop doing things that are bad for you (drinking, drugs, eating meat), but you struggle to start doing things that are good for you (exercise, cooking, eating enough/well).
She was right. I still don’t do the bad stuff and started doing the good stuff and now my life is so much better. Ironically it was quitting the last bad thing (weed) which allowed me to start taking care of myself. It’s not enough to not hurt yourself, you have to be good to yourself too.
Headspace app, omega 3 supplements, amphetamine, CPAP machine
Just cheer up.
but doctor, i am pagliacci
I put together a website a while back:
I’d make more of an effort to distribute it if I was happier with it. in particular I think it needs simpler language.
They always tell me “sorry, you’re too complex, go somewhere else”
(…) just take your meds
I will share and highly recommend this resource: Western Australia’s Centre for Clinical Interventions’s Self Help Resources. Of course, these are applicable to anyone, not just Australians. There are various pages for different types of conditions (anxiety, assertiveness, procrastinating, eating disorders, etc.), and most of them take you to self-directed workbooks you can fill out yourself. They’re not only informative, but they also guide you through your thinking about these issues and how to deal with them and grow from them.
It seems like you escape your inner conflicts by being industrious.
Not professional advice but instead of going, you could halt posting for a moment and focus on your breathing. It will assure you that you are safe, and you can let the conflicts become a bit more aware without feeling overwhelmed by the terror. Do this for some time and you create the space to transform your conflicts.
