>>385255
You are a good soul.

>>385259
I often just call my mom or dad to tell them I still love them, but don't want to talk. It's a 30 second conversation, but it helps them not feel estranged and keeps them off my back about things.

Also, I like listening, so if you have a skype or anything, let me know. I learned to stop bearing the burdens of the world awhile ago.

>>385263
Be frustrated, yell a little, cry a lot, and then look for something else. Most likely, anyway.

>>385267
>Be frustrated, yell a little, cry a lot, and then look for something else. Most likely, anyway.
Thanks. I plan to do most of these things.
This is something I need, though. I've been putting it off for years, trying and exhausting other treatment options including ECT, throwing myself into work and volunteering, etc.

>>385269
Best luck.

>>385271
Thank you good sir.
And I didn't mean to brush off your advice--I always try to keep an eye out for other options, but it's about time.

Helping my mother take care of my father diagnosed with dementia for over a year has definitely taken a toll on me. I never had a great relationship with my father, but his dementia has driven us further apart with his violent outbreaks and constant cursing towards me and my family. My father wasn't exactly a noble man either, so his terrible actions are bringing back painful memories of the ugly way he use to act when I was young.

Recently, my mom admitted him to a hospital, because his anger was getting too hard to control and couldn't walk or use the restroom as before. He has no infection nor suffered from a second stroke. It's looking like he will finally go to the nursing home, but the decision hasn't been finalized yet. I feel bad for wishing my father would be admitted to a nursing home, but there's nothing more me or my family can do for him. His condition has gotten worse and we can't be there for him all the time to take care of his every needs--especially when we risk being bitten or bloody up. It's all just an emotionally draining experience.

I'm not the kind of guy that likes to talk openly about my personal business, but I just needed to get this out.

>>385298

Hey, I feel you, man. Granny's been in a similar state since last January. My parents have been trying to care for at home, and it's draining. Dementia is a bitch for everyone involved.

Don't feel too bad about him being in a home. If it's a good one, he'll be getting at least as good care as he currently is, without you and your mom losing your sanity daily, and with the benefit of him being surrounded by medical professionals if something happens.

Hang in there, Jumpman.

>>385372
Thanks

WHO NEET HERE

Wow.

I've been somewhat positive since Sunday, for absolutely no reason in particular. In fact, some things that should have made me depressed and lethargic did not. I don't know what caused it, but tonight I went to dinner with my mom who is in town on business and my mood took a complete nosedive.

I love my mom, she's a kind person and good mom, I just get 0 pleasure being in her company. Then she starts asking if I'm coming home for Christmas, and that she'll buy me a ticket. I immediately say "you are not buying me a ticket", as she has money problems of her own, and she says that I'm right, she has a shit-ton of frequent flier miles and can use those to buy me a ticket.

But I get absolutely 0 pleasure from being home. In fact, it's a negative experience, because I don't have my usual distractions at hand. Again, I love both of my parents, but I have absolutely nothing in common with my folks and have no interest in being with them. It doesn't help that I still have the desire to be invisible and unknown to everyone. But I know that my mom would be sad that I don't want to go home at all or be with her at all, so I don't want to outright tell her, but it's going to happen one way or another because as much as I don't want to hurt her, I don't want to go home more.

And they live in a town in the middle of nowhere; if I fly I won't have a vehicle to drive somewhere. My only IRL friend lives about an hour from there and I could possibly see him, but it honestly isn't worth the trip and awkwardness of being home. Being around people just depresses me.

And I was hoping to use that positive attitude to get some stuff done tomorrow. Fuck it, TF2 for 18 hours, see my mom again to make her happy, and then hopefully the positive mood will come back Sunday...

is constant self-sabotage a form of self harm

>>385746
i wouldn't say it's the same but it's certainly another way to control your suffering by being the primary cause of it. :|

yeah... it's hard to stop. even more benign seeming activities like procrastination feeds into that whole thing.

I lost my grandma last week. Buried her this weekend. It's funny how much it hurts, and how it hurts. At times I'm completely ok, other's I'm number, and other times it hits me like a truck of sad. And, over the weekend, with all the family there, and lots of food and booze, those things helped just as unpredictably. At times I wanted to be with my family, all of them, even the ones I didn't know, just to absorb the most I could of them, or to comfort them, or cry with them. Other times I wanted far away from all of them, and everything-the laughing, the, the crying, their being drunk, their being sober, their being busy, their just sitting there-made me inexplicably annoyed.

She was a remarkable person, and part of my life constantly. I know I'm lucky to have known my grandma for a quarter of a century, and to have known her healthy and lucid for most of it. I'm sure that if there is a heaven she's there, and that heaven or no, she's no longer suffering. I just still can't believe that someone who I've known forever is gone from my life, and I can't imagine how I can now go a quarter, or half, or three quarters of a century more living without her.

I'm also full of regret for not spending more time with her. "Why didn't I sit down and get her life's story out of her? Why didn't I record her old stand-by stories on tape so I could learn them verbatim for my own kids? Why did I argue with her about topics I knew she'd never change her mind on, knowing I'd only make her worry about the fate of my soul if I voiced disagreement with her and the Church? Why did I let how painful it was to be around her after the stroke keep me from being there for her more often?"

And now I'm waiting for death's next big blow. Who will it be? The uncle with the brain tumor? The aunt with cancer? My fiancee with cancer? One of the physically healthy ones from suicide, stress, or freak accident? I just feel like I'm living on an emotional fault line, and the Big Ones keep coming.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dFgQzaaUwqQ
This video has words that helped me not feel like butts. Maybe it will help other people not feel like butts as well.

>>385894
Sorry for your loss.

>>385894
I'm sorry, TD.
I can't really say much else. I don't know what it's like and I'm very bad at speaking about death. But I feel for you, and hope you overcome the grief soon.

>>386142

Thanks, Slowpoke and Anon. I'm doing better.

So Colorado is shoring up its various laws/taxes for the sale of recreational marijuana. An online friend of mine (for quite some time, though we're not nearly as close now as we once were) suggested that I could try some as a potential for sloughing off some depression.

While it wouldn't be anytime soon, could a pot brownie be something worth trying? I don't think my workplace even has a drug policy, and certainly I've never heard of anyone being tested, so I'm not worried in that regard. I've never smoked anything before, plus I don't own my own place, so I figure food would be the best way to try some. Way I figure, at worst I'm out the price of whatever I buy and maybe a Saturday.

>>386298
smoke it

>>386298
Smoke with friends, it can be pretty lame until you get into the swing of things.

>>386302
>>386308
No. Again, I've smoked nothing in my life, so I'd look a fool. I don't own my place and can't smoke it here and I don't know if I'd be able to smoke it where I purchase it (and the idea doesn't sit well with me for multiple reasons.) And the worse-than-average allergies I have make it hard to breathe at times already up here, so extra smoke won't help.

>with friends
Ahahahahahaha

>>386309
Stop. Toke. Be clams.

>>386298
Pot brownies are not a bad way to go if you can't or don't want to smoke for whatever reason. Forewarning that somehow a lot of people don't get, it takes a while longer to hit you if you eat an edible than if you smoke it. So yeah, don't go and eat a bunch thinking it's not working and turn into the ultimate space cadet.

Unless you want to. Which I will respect.

>>386359
>make pot cookies
>get stoned
>get munchies
>have to resist urge to eat all of the cookies so you don't go to the fucking moon
I don't have anything to do with drugs/alcohol for personal reasons but my stoner buddy has said that this is a very real struggle.

>>386361
Yes, that's been a real consideration. Since it would be a test in any case, the plan would involve purchasing only a single brownie or three cookies or whatever to get a "dose", and also buy a dozen donuts and chips and stuff for if/when those hit.

>read current discussion
>realize how long its been since I took a trip
>realize I don't have any real connections these days, and lack a social circle capable of hooking me up
>be sad

>>386364
you should definitely try to smoke it. you can smoke a discreet joint in a park or outside the city no problem. eating is a heavier, body high, and smoking usually leads to a more mental high, esp if you get a sativa. i mean, if you want it for depression.

also, do you live with roommates or other people who would be anti-drugs? in my experience smoking weed in an apartment won't cause smoke damage and make you lose your deposit or even set off a smoke alarm.

>>386446
I'm currently renting a guy's spare bedroom in his house. I don't know that he or the other roommate are necessarily anti-drug, but I reaaaaaaaally don't want to risk being kicked out for just suggesting it. I can't afford to live anywhere else and, aside from not being able to have animals, what I have going right now is pretty good.

>>386453
it's anxiety like this is why you should smoke it in the first place

>>386459
Thanks for making it a catch-22.

Have had a bit of a depression sitting on me for about a week culminating from current unemployment and just loneliness since college. Though it has caused me to reflect on things and maybe figure some method to cope and move past it.

>staff party coming soon
>lots of sexual tension between everyone
>coworkers think I have an amazing body and especially ass
>be introverted with crippling social anxiety who's uncomfortable around the idea of sex
>also everyone has to do karaoke
I'm a guy btw
Kill me.

>>386560
Just get drunk and belt out something

>>386562
Works in Japan. I think "She's a Lady." is a good choice but that is just me.

>>386560
Automatic by The Pointer Sisters.

>>386560
Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits

Methinks its Post College Depression wrecking my head at the moment. Bit late setting in but according to the lists it feels about right.

>>386655
stop using lists to give yourself permission to be sad.

>>386655
worry lists are useful so you can turn worries into actionable things
what lists are you talking about? this is new to me.

are there any otc or herbal remedies for depression?

>>389568
it was listing the common feelings linked to such an event.

"College was worthless"
"My life is going nowhere"
"Nothing I'm doing matters"

that kinda junk.

that and certain feels about self that I can't talk out with anyone isn't helping things. But for the moment I'm away from the hole and doing my fucking damnedest to stay as far from it as possible, but days like this make it really hard. I"m bearing down my writing and I think I can maintain some momentum if I can just stick with it.

>>389570
Haha, I wish. If anything was actually proven then commercials for it would be as prevalent as Cialis commercials.

Some people have reported an improved mood with St. John's Wort and it's been recommended to me on multiple occasions. I had a reaction as though my allergies were flaring up and it did nothing for my mood.

If it does do anything, it's probably only useful for those with very minor depression, more or less a case of the blues. For people like myself and, I assume, you, it is just an annoyance adding into our heavy depression.

exercise helps with most forms of depression.
but yeah... depending on the kind... different therapies, drugs, and/or treatments are needed so i have a hard time recommending anything to anyone.

as per the rules i'm not going to indulge in or deny it. which is a lot of what i personally do when i would get in a bad way... at least at first.

I have to ask, what's wrong with feeling selfish? You know, 'people who kill themselves do it because they want attention, and that's selfish.'

I'm not saying I would do it, (I'll get to that in a second) but when people go they just want attention when talking about those that do it, are they really so wrong to want to be noticed? Maybe it's not really the correct perception of the situation, but if you feel like the world is ignoring you, if you feel stuck in a position where you've grown outside of the focus of others, a focus that made you feel comfortable with, why is it wrong to want to be focused on?

It's not that being hated or being liked is at stake here, it's the desire to be something to a lot of people. A desire to play a role as an individual, even if that role is monster or villain or broken. We're a species of interactions, of communities and experiences, and stuck in a position, where you've ended up in a place where even you're questioning the role you have in this whole mess, whether you matter to the group or everyone would just go on without you, is scary. Would the internet care, would people remember you if you're gone? Sure, your family might, but couple that with some degree of feeling the wrong sort of attention from them, maybe you wouldn't find comfort in them.

Dad's too micromanaging, Mom's too smothering, and the only cool people in your family are thousands of miles away and have their own lives, so you just feel like, since you aren't worth it to the society around you, it wouldn't be worth bothering them with your problems. Remember, you don't even feel like your problems matter to others, or at least when you say them out loud they sound petty.

And in the end you're back to square one,
-You feel like the connections you have are tiring or taxing or even hurt to keep up
-You feel too stuck in place to make new ones, and when you try it never feels the same.
-You don't know how to get a proxy to place these feelings of uselessness and lack of care for the people around you.

So wanting to be focused on feels like a release. Look how much they wonder about people for a while, what caused it, what can we learn, what can we do to find out how to fix it in the future? Your impact is you make it better for everyone before you, OR people pay enough attention to you that you get everything you wanted, to feel like your absence matters to people. But that's hollow because you don't get to experience it, so gathering attention that way seems fruitless but you still want to be noticed and matter so much.

Everything you're sure would get you that would take you from experiencing it.
Everything you think might work is cast with a level of self-doubt and facts about the averages so great you feel like it won't even matter anyway.
And every level of interaction you think does give you that, gives it to you the wrong way, or a way you don't feel happy with, yet can't escape without great loss.

It's a big tar pit in my head, and I guess there's the argument about it being selfish, but again, what's wrong with that? I think so much about what others think about I want to indulge some more time to myself. And then they say 'well don't think about others' I have to wonder what the fuck everyone DOES with their brains when they're not talking about things. Do they just find a thought to dance around in their heads, think about a song, think about a word again and again? How can you just not think about the world around you when everything you do affects it? How can you NOT be thinking about others and the relations of other things? If you aren't doing that, then that seems pretty fucking selfish to me, so why are YOU allowed to be selfish when the rest of us aren't?

>>389856
There's "debate" over keeping people from suicide being the selfish ones. Honestly, the kinds of people that try to pin selfishness or other moral qualities on others typically don't do much to address the issues at all, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Depression is a side effect of consumerist society.

>>389570

Yes.

Valerian, woodruff, camomile, and green tea are all effective. Use valerian sparingly though, or you'll build tolerance quickly.

regards, herbalistfrogs

>Got a software job that requires me to move from Illinois to Bismarck North Dakota, then to Chelsea Massachusetts in the span of one year
>It was easily one of the best jobs I'll ever have. Paid $100,000+ with free healthcare and unlimited overtime to me, a kid fresh out of college. They seriously rented out the Harry Potter world at Universal Studios for the company meeting.
>Get fired Monday due to one part office politics, one part incompetence, and one part inability to seperate work and my own personal drama with my fiance
>The date of being fired was my exact one year anniversery with the company
>Go home in tears to my partner, my first love, to tell him about my termination
>We've had a rough past year, we've both cheated on each other, then cheated on each other again as revenge for the other person cheating. It was pretty rough, but I thought we would both survive.
>He immediately tells me hes leaving me, and that he was "only in it for the money and free health insurance at this point" despite me supporting him for a year while he tried to better himself
>No money left, ex-fiance blames me for wasting his inheritance in the various moves and is claiming that I owe him $40,000
>Still love my fiance, so will have to work my ass off for the next 4-6 years to try and pay him back because I want to see him well off with health insurance in a house to call his own
>He's leaving early soon, so I'm stuck in a big empty house for a month with no money and a few scraps of food to wait for the movers to show up
>Fiance is also incredibly depressed, and I'm hoping he doesn't kill himself at some point
>Can't afford to live in Massachusetts anymore so have to call my mother and ask her if I can stay with her
>Mom agrees, but still feel bad for being a burden at 23
>Have to now get a reasonably high paying job if I am to support myself, pay off my fiance in a reasonable time, and have health insurance
>Outside of Chicago there's absolutely no software jobs, and I'm too broke to live in Chicago
>Feeling like an utter failure in every way
>Will have to basically be an indentured servent until I'm 30
>Still madly in love with my fiance and want to at least text him occassionally in the future so I can be part of his life, but he's denying all contact and acting like our two years together never happened.
>Not eating anymore, smell like shit because too depressed to shower, can't even get utterly wasted because of no beer left and I can't get high because I have to stay clean for any prospective new jobs (old company was based in Colorado and didn't give a fuck about drug testing, shit was awesome)
>Working on resume now and no idea how to explain termination so I'll have to call my project manager and beg for a neutral reference for my year of work
>Call up parents to see if I can use the inheritance my grandmother left me for college as something to support myself/stave off fiance
>They just divorced, so all that money went to paying off the lawyers, or in their words "That well is dry son".
>Teeth keeping aching but no money or insurance to check them out. Deeply afraid of them rotting and ending up looking like a Walmart Cashier
>Still utterly depressed about how I treated my fiance and how he treated me during the height of our drama, many words were said that shouldn't have been said by both sides
Life's going too fast and I can't keep up. I'd kill myself, but there's too many people counting on me/who would be depressed by my death to actually do it.

>>391771
Forgot something:
>Still have to call landlord who doesn't like us and beg for him to forgive this month's rent of $3000 since fiance and I have about $300 left between us and most of that is for pieces of bread to eat/gas back to Illinois
>Have to beg the same of utilities company here shortly
This shit's getting hopeless. I feel like I'm going to be working the rest of my life to repay everyone for just one year of life.

>>391771
>>391772
Well damn. You probably should leave your "debt" with your fiancé for last, gotta be alive to pay it. Specially after supporting him for a year.

>>391773
Probably, I need to make it back to Illinois before I can pay him. Further developments:

>Found out my car is in dire need of an oil change/general repairs
>My insurance didn't go through for my last therapy session, so the Doc has taken the liberty of alerting a collection agency about me
It keeps happening

I don't think I've ever been clinically depressed, but chronic disappointment, sure. I get extra sad when "good ole ma" decides she needs to burn off some frustration by verbally and financially kicking me into a corner and trying to make herself feel powerful by reminding me just how thoroughly she's destroyed my social life, my finances, my future and my mind. About a year ago she got up on her Napoleon complex and grew exasperated that despite this stalemate, I still refuse to be her slave just for the impression I could get out of it by working. I couldn't, because the fine print is still, "give mother 100% of the income that doesn't go to meeting YOUR responsibilities for gassing and maintaining the FAMILY car, of which you are the chauffeur. Or leave and be homeless. But stop living here and not making me money"

She came out and started screaming something that punched me right in the memories, but I admit surprise that it just kind of hit my heart and rebounded like a dull saw against knotted wood.

>I HATE YOU. I'VE ALWAYS HATED YOU. I NEVER WANTED YOU. I'M SORRY I HAD YOU!

All I could say was "I think we've both known this for a very, very long time." She started crying and drove off for a while to cool down. After that I realized in her moments of weakness, she's always said those words when she's been defeated. The first time she said them, I must have been no older than 2 or 3. I remember it distinctly, because it came unprovoked, with no witnesses, during some sort of emotional breakdown of hers.

When I got cognoscente and other adults started listening to what I had to say, she got a lot outwardly nicer and more subtle in her psychological abuse and deprivation.