Tag Archives: depression

Helping Friends Through Depression and Burnout While Having a Mental Illness Myself

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Other than my parents I haven’t been socializing much lately.  Seems that many of my friends are more depressed and anxious than usual.  Normally I would be annoyed and irritated by people just being in rude and obnoxious moods while I would be sympathetic to those who were depressed and anxious.  I try to connect with these friends but I can’t tell that I’m getting through to them.  Sometimes I feel as though I’m wasting my breath and that my friends really don’t want my company.

Hopefully this is just the illness part of my mind speaking.  But it does concern me that so many of my friends are having issues with depression and burnout.  It didn’t use to be this way.  It use to be that I was the one with the depression and burnout and my friends were the ones doing alright.  Now the tables are turned.  I can tell my friends and family who were probably annoyed with my depression and hangups in my younger years that I appreciate your efforts to keep me in the loop.  I especially appreciate you inviting me to functions that I probably wouldn’t just show up to on my own.  I may secretly begrudge social activities at first but once things get started I’m glad I participated.  But your efforts to include me and encourage me did not go unnoticed or unappreciated.  I may not say it often enough, but I do appreciate my family and friends.  I may not keep in contact as much as I would like.  In some cases, I imagine my friends may be annoyed by how much I try to stay in contact.  But I don’t have many options for decent socializing.

I appreciate my friends and family.   I hurt for them when they are suffering and struggling.  Such is the price of being naturally empathic in a time and place that doesn’t value empathy and connection.  But it is kind of strange helping my friends out with their depression and stress issues now.  I imagine that since many of my friends are in their late 30s and early 40s, this is prime years for the mid life crisis.  I guess I had my major crisis in my teens and twenties while my peers were getting started in their careers and still dating and thinking about marriage.  It’s now my turn to be the support system to those who need it.  I want to believe that my empathy and support of my friends in their struggles is appreciated.  I want to believe that the fears that say my friends would rather I go away are just my illness creeping back in, and I do think that it is.  But there are the moments of weakness still.

Dealing with Angry and Rude People is Depressing

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Another month is all but over as summer fades into autumn.  The weather is turning cooler and the nights are now longer than the days.  I get outside some everyday to enjoy the cooler weather but I still don’t socialize much, at least not in person.  It just seems that everyone I come into contact with anymore is in such a foul and angry mood all the time.  I hope it’s just the paranoia of my illness talking.  But it seems I can’t have any kind of conversation without the other person going off on someone or something or just being irritable.  I hate it.  It makes me so glad I live alone and just hole up for days if need be.  I have enough problems of my own.  But I try not to dwell on them.  I won’t have anyone else trying to drag me down when I feel decent.  I have even resorted to not talking to even close friends sometimes because even they are in foul moods.  It’s getting old and I don’t want to put up with it anymore.

Socializing With Rude People While Mentally Ill

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Been trying my hand at being more social in person and online the last couple weeks.  Turns out it’s causing me more frustrations than anything.  I try to talk to people in my complex, all they want to do is complain.  I try to talk to my friends and family online, all the want to do is complain about anything and everything.  And I’m burned out on socializing after only a couple weeks.  I’m going back to hiding out with my books and computers.  At this point I don’t want visitors in my apartment at all.  I don’t want to socialize in person anymore, at least until normal people stop complaining about anything and everything.  Socializing is supposed to be fun, remember?  Does anyone just take a night off from their troubles and have a few laughs?  Certainly doesn’t seem like from my friends and family and friends of friends anymore.  I have better conversations with several of the members of my science and futurism groups than I do with most people I’ve known my entire life anymore.  And I’m never going to meet any of these people in person.  It’s quite sad, at least I think it is.  I’m not delusional enough to believe if I moved to a larger city that my social prospects would ever change.  It’s not that I fear stupid and rude people in themselves.  I am scared that eventually I will become stupid, rude, and jaded myself.  I don’t want that to happen.  I don’t want my heart and soul to die because most people around me allowed theirs to die long ago.  If isolating from other people is going to keep me humane, than so be it.  It has been said that men go insane in herds and only come to their senses one at a time.  True, too painfully true.  Too bad pessimism is the spirit of our age, at least it is for most people I deal with on a regular basis.

Last Days of Summer

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Spent some time outdoors enjoying one of the last few days of summer.  Also doing some cleaning in my apartment and rearranging furniture.  It’s now a little easier to maneuver around, especially in the living room.  Previously I had my computer desk in the middle of the room so I could watch ballgames and work on my computers at the same time.  I now have a better setup as I won’t be tripping over power cords and wires as much now that I’ve moved my desk to a corner.  I have my computers set up so I can watch them like a television from my recliner.  I moved my couch so I watch tv from the couch.  Previously I had used my recliner for everything.  I use my regular tv mainly for play station games and live ballgames.  Playoff baseball starts in a couple weeks and my Rockies have a shot of making the playoffs again this fall.  We lost out in the first round last year.

After three months of changed eating patterns I think I’m seeing some positive differences.  I am actually wanting to be active now rather than just spend entire days reading online articles or books.  I socialize more often.  I make it a point to now chat with other tenants at least three times a week.  I rarely stay awake all night anymore.  I am not as paranoid and anxious about my neighbors as I was this spring.  I have fewer aches and pains.  I still get winded sometimes when moving heavy furniture but I recover faster now.  I still sometimes get stiff after sleeping, but it usually takes only a couple minutes of sitting up to be back to normal.  And my clothing fits better.

Previously, from spring 2014 to summer 2015 I had lost slightly over 70 pounds in that time.  I stagnated for a few months and then I had my car accident in fall 2015.  After that I gained it all back.  Oddly it took over two years to gain it all back, so it took longer to gain it than it did to lose it in the first place.  I don’t really have any set goals as of right now.

I still sleep more than I would like.  But so far it has helped me from having relapses.  This has been a more pleasant than usual summer.  Now the leaves are beginning to change and the weather will start cooling off any day.  In Nebraska we usually get our first frost in mid October, so in three to four weeks if the averages hold out.  I really don’t want to change much of my routine as it seems to be working.  Sure I would like to travel more, but I’ll leave that for another time.

Burned Out on Stupid and Rude People

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Haven’t written much because I really haven’t been up to it the last few days.  Between seeing the family, my having major maintenance being done on my apartment, dealing with the hot weather, and now entering my traditionally tough time of year, I haven’t been motivated to do much of anything.  I’m burned out already and summer has barely started.  I’ve been having maintenance come and go out of my apartment for the last few weeks.  And to tell you the truth, it’s thrown a monkey wrench in my routines.  I’ll be so, so glad once everything is taken care of and I don’t have maintenance and management dropping in on my place at a moment’s notice.  I have to be out of my apartment all day Monday.  Still have no idea what I’m doing for the whole day.  I really don’t want to go to my parents’ place.  I don’t want to hang out in the part as it’s supposed to be yet another hot day.  I really don’t have any close friends in my complex that I could just spend the day at.  All my old friends in my hometown have moved out of state a long time ago.  I really have no clue as to what I’m doing all day out of my apartment.

Since I’ve developed a fear of leaving my apartment, this is probably going to be tougher than it would normally be.  I’m burned out.  I’m tired of always having to jump to other’s schedules at a second’s notice.  That’s why I don’t go anywhere for any length of time anymore.  If I do I’ll miss some request from family, friends, management, maintenance, etc and then I’m in trouble with said people.  I’m paranoid enough as is.  I just want to be left alone.

Of course no one wants to hear my problems.  My parents were busy with their grandkids the last entire week.  I had to fake like I was in a good mood for my birthday bash.  My friends won’t return my calls or messages on facebook.  I don’t know what is wrong with everyone all at once.  And I’m tired of trying to figure people out.  After months of dealing with nonsense from pretty much everyone in my life, I’m about to crack.  Too bad I couldn’t just break down and sob to express my real emotions.  I think I’ve cried only twice in the last twenty years.  I didn’t cry at any of the funerals I’ve ever been to.  But, then, it’s not manly to have emotions besides anger and lust.

In short, I just want to be left alone for a very long time.  I’m tired of dealing with stupid and rude people I can’t please.  I don’t need therapy.  I don’t need company.  I don’t need a medication adjustment.  I just need people to leave me alone if they are going to be stupid and rude.

Living With Very Few Regrets While Mentally Ill

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I have my birthday coming up in a few days.  My birthday doesn’t mean as much to me anymore as it did when I was in my youth and early adulthood.  I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’m not going to get younger or stronger as I age.  I accept that things on my body are going to start wearing out.  I’ve even accepted that I may become forgetful and not have as rapid mental recall as I did in my younger years.  But this mental illness has become easier to manage than it was even five years ago.  Even my current problems aren’t overbearing like they were years ago.  Now they are irritable occurences that I just deal with until they pass by.  I really think my mental illness is easier to deal with now in my late 30s than it was when I was in the prime of my health.

I don’t worry about getting older.  I actually welcome it.  I’m not really that nostalgic about the past and I really don’t have that many regrets about my past.  I avoided all the major mistakes and learned from the minor ones.  I’m not tied down as much as many people I know.  I know people from my classes in high school and college who have gone through divorces, stuck in dead end jobs, paying off massive debts, in unhappy marriages, have addiction problems, and generally not having a very good time in their thirties.  My only true problem is I can stand to lose about 100 pounds.  I’ve already lost at least 25 pounds since New Year’s.  All I really did was give up fast food, give up most sugar, give up most bread, and drink only water and coffee.  Even my chronic back pain is gone.  I do occasionally allow myself thin crust pizza, but I go heavy on vegetable toppings when I do.

As cool as my college years were, in spite of the schizophrenia, in some ways my late 30s are even more amazing.  I stay in contact with my college friends via facebook and instagram.  I have all the music I spent a small fortune on in my teens and twenties for free on youtube and spotify.  And I even listen to some of the newer material that comes out too, not just what I grew up with.  When I was a teenager I promised myself that regardless of how my life or career turned out, I would never allow myself to become a bitter old man.  That’s why I don’t complain about the “lousy kids” or pine for the “good old days.”  I do have a few regrets, but the big one (not having much of a relationship with my brother), even that can be reversed once he and I start to put the effort into it.  We may not talk much, but that isn’t because we hate each other.  We just have totally different lives and day to day experiences.

I may not have dated many women, but I did have some roller coaster ride romances I don’t regret.  I asked out all the women I had crushes on in my life, got turned down by most of them, but I’m not wondering ‘what if’ about the one I let get away.  Just because I asked was a victory in some regards.  I’m glad for the dates I had, even the really lousy ones.  I don’t regret being stood up by women, or being rejected, or watching one woman I liked date one of my close friends.  And I don’t regret being unmarried at this point in my life.  I definately don’t regret not paying alimony or child support.  If, at some point down the road, I do meet my forever instead of my usual until whenever types, I’ll consider it an added bonus.  But I am not worried about being an old man and alone. By the time I get to be an old man, I may have a robotic assistant that does everything that a professional care giver would anyway.  I’ve lived 38 years at this point and experienced some cool things.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

May 19, 2018

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I’m currently at my parents’ house for the next couple days.  There was some maintenance work that needed to be done at my apartment.  But as long as I have my computer and even average internet service, I can get everything I need done.

Been sleeping more than I would like again.  Not sure what to make of that.  I’ve also been more frustrated and short tempered and depressed than usual for the last couple weeks.  Normally spring is my favorite time of year.  So I’m not sure what’s going on.  Still getting more active and being more careful about what I eat.  Since I am at my parents’ house, I’ve been doing more socializing in person than my usual.

Being back in a small town for the first time in months, I had forgotten how quiet things could be.  I had gotten used to hearing people in my hallways and knocking on doors for most of the day.  I was also hearing ambulance and fire sirens a few times a day too as I lived on a busy street.  And I forgot how dark it gets at night in rural areas.  It’s almost eerily dark.  Yet it was something I had taken for granted while growing up.

I plan on spending another couple days here.  I really hadn’t had much peace and quiet in my life for the last few weeks.  I’m ready for things to settle down again.  Dare I say, I actually miss winter now.  I don’t miss the cold and snow, but I do miss the quiet days and down time.  I usually do pretty good writing in the winter months.

My back still flares up from time to time.  The worst part is that I can’t stand for more than ten minutes without real bad back pain.  I’m afraid I may have to go back to a chiropractor.  I’ve already had a couple rounds of treatments since my car accident.  But I’m getting more and more afraid that this back pain might be chronic even as I lose weight.  It’s really sad as I used to walk thirty minutes a day, five days per week before my car accident.  I know now that wreck messed me up more than I cared to admit.  Hopefully as I lose more weight, the back pain can subside.

As it is, I’m taking it easy for the next couple days as things are getting straightened out back home.  And I am enjoying the first true downtime in the last few weeks.

Rant on “Quit Whining and Man Up” and observations about socializing

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Been kind of depressed and irritable for the last several days.  Haven’t been sleeping well either.  About the only thing going really well for me is my renewed diet.  I am eating less than I normally do and getting more activity.  I get my activity in the afternoons even though I’m in the habit of sleeping until noon again.

I also no longer want to socialize.  And this time I don’t feel guilty for it.  I am tired of people who are in foul and angry moods trying to drag me down into their own mindlessness and petty vendettas.  Unfortunately, anymore, if it weren’t for negativity and fighting, there would be few conversations and certainly no social media.  I hate how I just can’t have a civilized conversation with even people I partly agree with anymore.  And good luck trying to talk to anyone who doesn’t view the world the same way you do.  I’m beginning to think that many people have mental health problems just because of the way we treat each other and the stress of modern living.  Granted, a person doesn’t have to be chronic like those of us on disability to have problems.  I have had a mental illness for almost twenty years now.  And only recently are people starting to talk about the effects of stress, anxiety, and chronic mental illnesses.  For the first several years of my diagnosis I didn’t talk about my mental health to anybody.  And I think I lost several good friendships because my friends didn’t understand that my depression and anger were nothing personal, they were manifestations of the sickness.

For the first several years of my illness I just didn’t talk about it, not even to friends or employers.  Back in those days mental illness was shrouded in more mystery and ridicule than even now.  I have no idea how many times I was told to ‘suck it up’ or ‘man up’ in those early years.  ‘Man up’. Now there is a stupid phrase I can’t figure out.  What does it even mean?  Is there really only one type of manliness?  And why is it the only type of virtues in a man we appreciate are those that involve the John Wayne frontier mentality that violence is the only way to solve all problems?  I think this is stupid, very stupid.  A mentality like that will make our species extinct.  And quite honestly, I enjoy living too much to sit idle while this type of barbarian behavior is honored and encouraged.  I would rather not go back to the Stone Age.  I hated all the ‘Mad Max’ movies and I definately don’t want to experience them in real life.

Another thing, we don’t females to ‘woman up’ and we don’t tell senior citizens to ‘young down’ nor do we tell terminally ill people to ‘hurry up and die.’  It’s little things that normal people just take for granted that I don’t understand and that I often see the dumbness and hypocracy in.  But most people seem pretty cool with dumb things and hypocracy anyway, at least when it comes from sources they like.  Unfortunately I never understood this line of thinking.  It’s probably why I have problems socializing with the public at large.  And of course having a chronic mental illness that people are still ignorant about doesn’t help either.

In closing, as a thought experiment, I was wondering what would happen if someone (or a group of individuals) just went about their daily lives being as rude and condescending to physical people as we are to people in our online interactions.  I would love to see some psychiatrist conduct this experiment.  I think the results would be either very interesting or very disturbing.

Paranoia Returning

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I haven’t been doing as well the last few days as I have been in previous months.  I’m feeling excessively paranoid and just wanting to be alone all the time anymore.  I don’t even enjoy talking on the phone.  Other than a couple friends and a couple futurist groups, I have given up on socializing on facebook.  Just seems to me that everyone wants to be irritable and riled up all the time anymore.  And it makes me sick.  Makes me wonder why bother being an optimist or trying to stay in a good mood.  Everyone else it seems is in always in a lousy and angry mood, why should I be any different?  I just don’t see any happiness or genuine joy in the world anymore.  I’m just scared all the time anymore.  I’m scared of my neighbors, I’m scared of my landlords, I’m scared of my family, and I’m scared of even friends and acquiantances anymore.  It’s like empathy doesn’t exist anymore.  I just want to stay home and sleep all the time anymore.  And even in my dreams I am tormented.  But at least my dreams aren’t real.  My paranoias might not be reality either, but they just as well be as that is how powerful the human mind is.  I’m just too tired and burned out to stay angry all the time anymore.  That anger has given way to genuine fear and anxiety.  I am tired of being full of fear all the time.  I used to believe the future would be really cool if we could get past our short term issues.  I no longer believe that.  I think the dystopians were right and the future will be worse than even now.  I’ve observed people in my own life since I was a child and rarely do people change for the better over the years.  Most actually get more angry, greedy, irritable, and hateful as they age.  At least, that’s the impression that I have gotten over the years.  I’m tired of always being sad and depressed.  I’m tired of seeing nothing but hate and anger in everyone I meet anymore.  People like that just as well be back in the Stone Age.  And maybe that’s where we are heading.  I hope not.  I guess I’m writing just to get things I’ve kept bottled up for weeks now.  I’m scared if I had the traditional psych breakdown where I vent for a couple hours that I’ll get the cops called on me and I will definately then be evicted.  I’ve always had the fear of being evicted from my apartment too.  Had that for years.  I doubt it would be any better if I owned my own property.  I’m just paranoid to a disabling degree.  But such is the nature of schizophrenia.  And I still have no understanding of people who don’t believe that mental illness exists.  But some people are just ignorant and lack any kind of empathy.  If you have no empathy, than I won’t deal with you.  The world needs empathy, compassion, and a willingness to forgive and let a few things slide more than ever.  And I just don’t see this happening, at least not where I live.

Spring Cleaning and Mental Illness

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Currently in the middle of my spring cleaning.  It’s not going as fast as I would like it to though.  My lower back flares up after being on my feet for awhile so I have to go slower than I used to.  I am beginning to fear that lower back pain is something I’ll be fighting for the rest of my life.  One of the reasons this is turning into a bigger than usual job is that I wasn’t keeping up on the cleaning and maintenance this winter like I had in years past.  I didn’t keep up on it because of the back pain and occasional bouts of depression to where I didn’t want to do anything but read and watch youtube videos.  I went through a lot of that last fall and this past winter.  I don’t know if it was the weather that had me depressed or if the illness was flaring up in different ways than previously.  I did go through bad bouts of paranoia when I would sometimes go two to three days in a row without leaving my apartment.  I don’t get the paranoia nearly as bad anymore.  I don’t know if the weather turning warmer or just the natural cycles of my schizophrenia is causing these changes.

It’s not that I was lazy about my upkeep just because I was lazy.  I have lived on my own more or less for fourteen years and I always made a point to keep my place picked up and better looking than most bachelor pads.  I think the mental illness was effecting me more this last fall and winter than I would have cared to admit.  Looking back on some of my winter writings I was really paranoid and too often had delusional feelings of persecution that, in reality, were alive only in my stressed and diseased mind.  I have to admit as my paranoia can flare up worse than in years past and with my physical health not as robust as it once was, I have to bring in outside help.  I am convinced I’ll need to reconfigure my budget and hire a regular cleaning service.  Sometimes I’d be depressed about the apartment looking shabby and the apartment looked shabby because I was too depressed and paranoid to do anything about it.  I know I can get back on top of my current issues.  Living on my own for fourteen years I have proven to myself and others that I can even if it takes me a little longer than many average people.  It’s just a matter of doing so.

I know that sometimes in my blog I probably appear over optimistic about having schizophrenia and being an adult in general.  Sometimes that is be encouraging to the readers, sometimes I write things I need myself to hear.  I imagine I have been overly optimistic when I wasn’t in the grips of paranoia and delusion this winter.

In other news, I think I’m starting to lose weight again.  I can tell my clothes are fitting looser and my back pain isn’t as intense.  As far as my diet goes, I have cut out pasta, rice, and bread.  I eat mostly grilled lean meats and vegetables anymore.  And I think I’m starting to see some results.  I want to get back on top of everything that slid during my fall and winter bouts of depression, paranoia, delusions, and anxiety.  At least I no longer feel anxious when I hear footsteps in the hallway.  So that’s a start.