Tag Archives: sadness

Discouragement

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I spent several days at my parents’ place last week.  I was needing the peace and quiet and a little encouragement.  Unfortunately the encouragement left as soon as I got home. I have been convinced for years that the environment a person lives in and the type of people they are forced to associate with on a day to day business can greatly effect a person’s happiness and overall well being.  Most people have thought I was full of it for believing this as the majority of people I know believe you can will yourself out of depression, mental illness, and a bad situation.  You can’t will yourself out of mental illness anymore than an amputee can will his leg back.  In this day and age of advanced medicine and science, the people that think such things think them mainly because they choose to remain ignorant about science, technology, and illness.

I don’t get encouragement from being around my neighbors.  Haven’t for a long time.  I certainly don’t find encouragement when I try to contact even close friends and family online anymore.  Even family and close friends too often act like barbarians online, and don’t even get me started on random strangers and friends of friends.  About the only real intelligent and rational conversation and interactions I have anymore on my tech enthusiasts groups and my parents.  And my parents are both advanced in age and not in great health, so they will probably be dying within twenty years.  When they go, I’ll lose the vast majority of my social outlets and supports.  Tell me again why I want to live to old age?

I’m not sorry for being discouraged and sounding off about it.  Why should I?  Everybody else feels free to gripe and complain and generally drag anyone within ear shot into the cesspool that is socializing.  Even Superman has his kryptonite.  And lately I have been exposed to near lethal doses of it.  I’m tired from fighting and not seeing any results.  I’m tired of trying to encourage people with good news that doesn’t make the press only to be told I am a liar and that I’m a peddler of fake news.  I’m tired of always having to keep my head down in the dirt when we as a species were meant to reach for the stars.  Normal people are discouraging, you really are.

Dealing With Paranoia and Shame

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Even though I have been feeling quite stable overall, I have very little desire to leave my apartment complex except when necessary.  I am still a little paranoid about people I meet in public.  And I am somewhat that way about people within my own complex.  It’s sad to say, but I think I have developed a phobia of people in general.  I really don’t interact with anyone in person unless necessary.  Anymore I prefer to communicate by phone or social media rather than in person.  I didn’t used to be like this.  But anymore I am paranoid and scared to venture out in public, sometimes leading me to neglecting to run errands unless absolutely vital.  Anymore when I do leave my apartment complex, it’s usually at night so I don’t have to deal with crowds or strangers.  I’m even starting to become afraid of the people in my complex.  I am scared that many people in my complex don’t like me.  I suspect some of the elderly residents don’t like younger people on disability living in here.  But I hope that’s my paranoia being in high gear and nothing more.

My illness has changed over the course of the years.  I can more easily deal with the delusional thoughts, hallucinations, and anger.  But dealing with the paranoia and problems socializing have gotten slightly worse.  Anymore I desire to be alone most of the time.  Most people I don’t want to socialize with.  And it’s often because I am afraid of them. My fear stems from not being able to read unspoken cues and body language.  I also have no concept of how to deal with office politics and the nonsense social games that many normals seem to fair well under.  I don’t understand office politics. And it has cost me several jobs over the years.  I have no desire to “man up” and go back to a regular job mainly because of office politics.  Personally, I hope that automation takes a lot of these jobs and people will have to find other ways to define themselves besides job titles and money.  I had to once it became painfully obvious that my hopes of a career were killed by my mental illness.  Adaptation is the best strategy in living rather than holding on to a past that isn’t coming back.  I’m not going to regain my ability to work a forty hour a week job and I have accepted that.  And I no longer feel shame when anyone tells me I’m making my problems up or that I’m not worthy of living because I don’t have some remedial and repetitive job that will probably be taken over by machines in not too many years.  I know what I have been thorough and have dealt with.  No one else has.  So these people can condemn all they want, but their condemnations mean nothing to me.

Burned Out On Angry People

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Other than a few bad days and one really bad day, I have been doing quite well for months.  I imagine part of this has to do with avoiding angry and rude people.  Sure I may not have much of a social life, but at this point in my life I no longer want to deal with rude and irritable people.  I suppose I have hit my limit and don’t want to deal with it anymore.  This kind of scares me as I am fearful that limiting my socializing will make me jaded and mean spirited as I age.  I have known irritable and mean older people my entire life.  I promised myself a very long time ago I would not turn out to be an angry and bitter old man.  Maybe the only way I can do this is to severely limit who I socialize with anymore.  I don’t post anything to Facebook or twitter anymore besides these blog posts.  I finally became burned out on all the negativity, drama, etc.  I have enough problems in my mentally ill mind that I don’t need my friends and family adding to them.  I don’t see many of my friends online anymore either.  I suppose they became burned out too.  I hope that all this negativity and anger isn’t a new normal.

I really don’t enjoy socializing with most people anymore.  I don’t want to socialize with negative and rude people anymore.  Yet that is what all I seem to see anymore, online and in my own community.  I try to tell my friends and family about what is actually going right, but I get mostly dead silence from these people.  The few that do respond usually tell me I’m a liar.  Seems to me normal people love to be immersed in anger and negativity.  I don’t understand people.  Then again I never have.  I suppose I never will.  I’m just tired of all the anger and negativity.  From now on I’ll keep my optimism to myself.

 

September 23, 2017

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After several rougher than usual days, I’m starting back on the mend.  Feeling depressed, anxious, and paranoid really drains me.  I still don’t socialize much other than phone calls and blogging.  I have recently gone entire days without leaving my apartment.  And it saddens me.  I am afraid to travel, so I don’t get to see many friends or family.  I don’t even like driving across town to buy groceries and house supplies anymore.  I’m just so afraid and paranoid much of the time anymore.

Maybe the problems I traditionally have in late summer finally caught up to me.  I just usually want to just curl up under a heavy blanket and try to sleep much of the time.  It’s usually hunger that causes me to get out of bed.

In spite my recent issues I attempt to stay optimistic.  Granted I haven’t been real successful at this lately.  I attempt to avoid angry and irritable people as much as possible.  It would be better for me and everyone involved if I just wasn’t as sensitive to these kinds of things as I am.  Yet, for better and worse, it is how I am wired mentally.  Losing my sensitivity, compassion, and empathy would involve destroying who I am mentally.  It would mean being someone I have never been.  I just can’t do it.  I now understand why I never succeeded in a workplace environment.  I just have too much compassion and empathy.

Being Delusional About Not Being Delusional

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I am now throughly convinced I have been delusional about how not delusional I have been for the last several months.  I admit to isolating most of the time and rarely leaving my apartment.  I admit to rarely socializing with other people and tenants in my complex.  I admit to occasionally going days without showering.  But I don’t think I realized how delusional I was being about my problems.

I talked to my landlord this afternoon.  She told me that there were several tenants worried about little I was socializing and how unkempt I have been for a long time.  I have pretty much isolated and kept to myself since last summer.  I just got to where I saw no point in socializing.  In my delusion diseased mind, I was thinking most people are violent idiots who would rather curse you out and physically harm you than say hello to you.  Fortunately most of these thoughts are symptoms of my mental illness flaring up and not being treated effectively.  My fellow tenants and landlord aren’t angry at me nor do they want to see me thrown out on the street.  They are actually very worried about me.  I just didn’t realize how far I had fallen in the last year because of the delusion blinders I had due to my illness.

I have gotten to where I was scared to leave my apartment.  I have gotten to where I was scared to go to the laundry room and wash clothes.  So I have been doing most of my laundry in my bathtub for the last few months.  Let’s face it, it just doesn’t do the job like a regular wash machine.  I have gotten to where I am scared to socialize in person with anyone.  I don’t go outside to talk with  people because in my delusion wracked mind, most people were just bitter and angry all the time.  I have gotten to where I’m just scared and depressed all the time.  And I hate it.  I see my psych doctor tomorrow afternoon and I am demanding he put me on something else.  My current routine isn’t working at all.

Socializing, Family, and Facebook

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The Memorial Day weekend has come and gone and now the weather will definitely start getting hot soon.  I’ve been feeling stable but on and off depressed for months, especially since the middle of winter.  I think some of this depression comes from just being so lonely all the time.  There are only so many books I can read before I’m burned out.  Fortunately I was able to see a couple cousins and their families for the afternoon over the long weekend.  I hadn’t seen either cousin in a long time.  It was fun catching up with them.  First prolonged intelligent conversations I had in months.

I gets bouts and depression and loneliness more frequently than I used to.  It doesn’t help that I don’t really have any friends in my apartment complex anymore.  It also hurts that I had major falling outs with a few old friends that I had known for several years.  One of these friend couldn’t respect the fact that I’m not working a regular job and spending most of my time alone.  This person also thought I’m wasting my time with this blog.  Well, I sent that friend packing.  If a person can’t respect my decisions about work and how I spend my time, then we can’t be friends.

Another friend and I had a falling out over politics.  I’m sure I’m not the only person who can claim that these days.  But I just can’t stand how divisive and hateful modern politics has become.  It didn’t used to be this way.  Besides, political fan boys on all sides seem to be too blind to realize that modern politicians don’t care about the voters unless said voters are lobbyists or big money donors.  The way some of my friends and family post on Facebook, you’d think they were getting paid for every post about politics they put on their sites.  Besides, does anyone change their thinking because of these posts.  It’s like watching monkeys at the zoo fling manure at each other but not nearly as entertaining and far less civilized.  I’d quit Facebook and twitter if they weren’t the only means I had to keep in contact with most of my friends and my key promotional materials for this blog.  Mark Zuckerberg really has a business monopoly that would do any 19th century robber baron proud.

The biggest reason I don’t post about my particular beliefs is that, well, no one group reflects what I value.  When it comes to social issues, it depends on the issue.  When it comes to having a good military, I’m in line with some Reagan era Republicans even if I’m not as interventionist.  When it comes to curbing the abuses and excesses of Wall Street and big business, I’m almost as militant as any Occupy Wall Street guy.  And I definitely won’t support any politician of any stripe that wants to cut science funding.  Science funding is quite small compared to military or social programs.  I don’t have a political home because there isn’t any party that reflects what I value.  And I think many people in the under 40 crowd feel the same way.  And I know it may irritate some of my elders to write this, but I think the last thing our world needs is a senior citizen politician who isn’t familiar with science and modern technology.  My parents generation has been in charge for almost thirty years.  Retire and play with your grandkids already, you earned it 🙂

I guess the biggest reason I have been fighting depression for awhile is that my primary means of socializing and communicating, social media sites, have become so toxic and nasty even among friends and family.  And I think it sucks.  Some days I doubt I really am making any positive difference.  Heck, some days I wonder if people even want positivity and happiness in their lives.

Loneliness and Depression

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Haven’t been out that much the last few days besides getting a little sunshine everyday, at least on days the sun is shining.  We’ve been getting rain everyday it seems for almost two weeks.  So I’ve been living off my food reserves and rarely leaving the apartment the last few days.

Not that I really mind.  Sometimes it’s therapeutic just being alone with my thoughts for hours on end.  It takes me a long time to fall asleep anymore, but I spend most of the time trying to fall asleep allowing my mind to wander.  I am sometimes my own best company.

In the past I’ve tried day programs designed for mentally ill people.  But much of what went on seemed quite remedial to me, almost like a rehash of grade school.  I found such programs quite boring and didn’t make any friends there.

I’m finding it harder to make friends the older I get.  Most people my age have careers and families.  I really can’t relate to either one.  And some people don’t want to friend me because I don’t have a family or a career.  And it’s really tough making friends in my apartment complex anymore.  Half of the people in my complex are senior citizens, and some of them seem resentful that I live in low income housing with them.  The other half are people with chronic illnesses and developmental disabilities.  It can get lonely in here at times.  I know that spending most of my life alone isn’t healthy.  But many people I just can’t relate to because I’m terrible at small talk.  Too bad there aren’t communes for eccentric people like me with a variety of interests.  Kind of like dormitory living for adults.  I know, not going to happen.

The depression occasionally crops up.  Fortunately the delusions and paranoia hasn’t followed.  I have lost interest in many things I once found enjoyable.  I no longer like travel.  I no longer like fishing.  I don’t even read as much as I used to.  Maybe I’m entering a new phase of my illness.  In a lot of ways, the illness itself is much easier to cope with than ten to fifteen years ago.  But I still do get kind of sad when I look at my friends and people I went to school with and I get to see what they’ve accomplished and their families.  I definitely feel like I’m missing out.  At least I can still write about these issues.  It’s the closest thing to a career I’ll ever have.

Needing To Vent

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Been raining for almost a week straight in my town.  Not that I mind because it gives me an excuse to sleep in and stay home.  I’ve always been a natural night person and I don’t see that changing soon.  Unfortunately my landlord’s office hours are always in the morning so I never get to see her.  I’ve given up on ever getting my walls painted and carpet replaced.  I’ve been hearing that it was coming for over a year.  They can build skyscrapers in less than a year in China it seems.  Yet I can’t get approval for my walls to be painted and carpet replaced.  Go figure.  And people wonder why I don’t trust authority figures.

Somedays I really wonder if I am making any difference with being mentally ill or even making progress with this illness.  I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I’ll never get cured of schizophrenia, which would be a dream come true for me.  I’ve fought this illness for over twenty years and I’m tired of it.  I’m tired of always feeling paranoid.  I’m tired of being depressed all the time.  I’m tired of not being able to work.  I’m tired of people thinking I’m just making my problems up.  I’m angry that I’m never going to live up to my potential through no fault of my own.  It would be one thing if I fried my brains through drug abuse.  I would probably get more empathy if this illness was self inflicted. The public’s lack of understanding about mental illness and anything having to do with science is sickening.  I mean this is 2017 people, we’re supposed to be an advanced civilization.  Not advanced enough for me that’s for sure.

I can’t even really socialize anymore.  Most people seem to be in foul moods all the time or just want to talk about stupid things that have been rehashed a thousand times before.  Do people really get dumber the older they get?  I was always under the impression that older people were supposed to be wise and full of good advice.  Not so from what I’ve seen.  Most days I just don’t want to leave my apartment anymore.  I’m just tired of dealing with stupid and rude people all day.  I’m so glad I no longer work in retail customer service.  Those people take an incredible amount of abuse for no more then they are paid.

I don’t know if there is a point to this post.  I’m sure some are thinking I should “man up” and “quit whining.”  But, even I have moments of weakness at times.  I can’t be everyone’s Mr. Sunshine all the time.  And I shouldn’t have to be.  Years ago, someone with my diagnosis would be long term hospitalized and never heard from again.  Out of sight out of mind.  One of the reasons we’re seeing more and more mentally ill people in public is because of deinstitutionalization.  It’s not that the younger generations are weaker and morally inferior to previous generations.  It’s not that at all.  Modern times are not crazier than the past, they are just better documented.  I’m just tired that’s all.  I just need to vent.  And if a mentally ill person isn’t allowed to vent, then no one should.

Spring Routines

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I’m glad that spring is finally back.  I’ve been getting outside a little more often, I’m keeping my place a little cleaner, I’m watching baseball most nights, and I’m even eating less too.  I’m still not as physically active as I would like but I think it’s starting to come back.  After my car accident in October 2015 I gained back most of the weight I had lost in the previous two years.  I think I’m finally back on the right track.  Since I still don’t have a great deal of stamina yet, I’m cutting back on calories as much as I can.  This means I’m giving up most sugar and eating meat only once a day.  I am also doing my best to avoid fried foods.  After several weeks of eating less than usual, I think I’m in a new routine.  I can’t even eat as much as I could last summer.  One of my problems was, after my accident, I got depressed and lost much of my confidence.  From there I just got lazy and ate a lot.  I have made efforts over the last several weeks to break out of this vicious cycle.  And I think I’m starting to see results.

I’ve also noticed my habits are getting better too.  During the winter I had gotten kind of lazy about shaving and cleaning up as there were entire days I didn’t leave my apartment complex.  I’m back into good habits like these again.  I would hate to think I let my personal appearance slide just because I was depressed by lousy weather.  But mental illness can do odd things to a person.

I’m starting to socialize some again.  Not so much with my neighbors as I am family and old friends.  I still don’t enjoy the fact that many of my neighbors are grumpy and irritable most of the time.  I have been around that kind of negativity for years and I don’t want it dragging me down.  I spent enough of my life being depressed, irritable, and a pessimist.  I just don’t want that anymore.

Loneliness

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I visited with my nephews and niece a few days ago.  I got to see my parents too for the first time since Christmas.  I had a good time with the kids.  They are ages 12, 10, 8, and 5.  They are old enough they don’t get into a lot of trouble and can be quite entertaining.  Seeing those kids grow up and develop interests and personalities of their own is bittersweet.  I am happy that my brother and his wife were able to have several kids, are able to take care of them, and raise them to be respectable and well behaved kids.  But it does make me realize some of what I have lost and will never be able to experience on my own because of my schizophrenia.

I have written a lot in the past about alternating between being sad, angry, and depressed about the career and life opportunities I lost in the name of mental illness.  I have written much less about being sad and depressed about never being able to marry or have kids.  Outside of my best female friend, I really have little experience with dating.  I was turned down every time I ever asked a girl out on a date in high school and most of the time when I was in college.  By the time I was halfway through college I gave up on the idea of ever marrying because it just seemed like a lost cause and wasted effort.  I never could figure out why I did so poorly with women.  But I haven’t really cared for years as I know that ship set sail a real long time ago and that I just as well make the best of being single and lonely for life.

For many years I was making the best of it.  After seeing some of my classmates go through rough divorces or slog through unhappy marriages, I was grateful I never did marry.  But after seeing my brother’s kids mature through the years and come into their own, I am beginning to realize that if children are raised well, they can be the greatest things that ever happened to you.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized just how lonely I am most of the time.  I really don’t talk to that many people in person any more.  I almost never socialize outside of close family and friends.  I still sleep ten to twelve hours a day.  I think that is a subconscious way of dealing with the loneliness.  I really am lonely most of the time.  Have been for the last couple years since three of my older friends in my apartment complex died within six months of each other.

As much as I hated the office politics of a job, at least I was able to find a few moments of joyful interactions everyday with other people.  As much as I didn’t like the social aspects of high school, I still had my friends and some friendly acquaintances.  I don’t have any of that anymore.  I can understand how some people, men especially, lose a lot of joy in their lives and much of their identity when they retire or get laid off from a job.  I would consider going back to work except that mentally I’m too unstable and too discouraged to work a traditional job.  Besides much of what I could do in a traditional job will probably get automated within the next several years anyway.  Perhaps that is why I devote so much time to this blog.  It gives me identity and it could be my legacy since I’ll never be able to get married or have kids.  Things have often been lonely and discouraging the last couple years.  Being mentally ill is a death sentence to anyone’s social life.