(Thread IKs:
Josherino)
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My depression was bizarrely (or maybe not so bizarrely) "cured" by opiate addiction, or at least some of the experiences resulting from it. The addiction started because of the depression, and after many years and various events, I ended up heavily addicted to this hell substance called tianeptine for 2.5 years (my initial addiction was to other opioids). It was hell to an extent words cannot describe. I really can't overstate this. Every waking moment, without respite, I felt terrible. Woke up every morning with the absolute knowledge that the day would be just as devoid of the smallest amount of pleasure as every other day, and that's not getting into the stress from other aspects of the addiction. In October 2017 I managed to get back on Suboxone, which I was on prior to the tianeptine. The only reason it took so long for me to return to the suboxone was that it was virtually impossible to transition without precipitated withdrawals. I finally ended up biting the bullet and dealing with it. Since then, simply being able to sleep a full 8 hours, exist without physical suffering, and enjoy things like movies or games...it is impossible to describe the relief. It has been about 15-16 months now and I still feel relieved every day. I feel just perpetually "satisfied," for lack of a better word. I remember the constant anxiety and inability to enjoy things from when I was depressed prior to and during the addiction, and it's just gone now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to come off the suboxone; it's very difficult for a ~10 year addiction like mine. But at least I can enjoy things and be healthy. Many people don't even get that much. Part of me is waiting for the other boot to drop. Every time I receive my suboxone prescription I know I'm guaranteed another month of normal life. And rationally I know that even if something happened to my doctor, I would be able to find someone else. But it's still scary knowing my well being is tied to the prescription.
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Feb 11, 2019 09:51
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thehandtruck posted:Definitely. An addiction is anything that distances you from your feelings. Had a great day? Time for a drink! Had a lousy day? Time for a drink! Often people engage in addictions even when things are too good too stable or too safe. Those positive feelings are uncomfortable so they engage in the addiction to bring them back down, to feel awful again. Using the drug or action to regulate yourself, which someone can totally do by internetting It isn't always an emotional thing like this, though it probably is in most cases. When I first started using (opiates), it was just because it felt nice. I was heavily into lifting weights at the time, and opiates made me feel the same way that exercizing did. The way I would describe my personal experience of opiates is "the feeling you get right after you've had a great work-out and refreshing shower." In contrast, I've always disliked most other drugs, specifically because I dislike the feeling of dissociation. I liked opiates specifically because they gave purely physical comfort. Even before the addiction, I had to exercise just to stave off feeling physically lovely all the time. For most of the the duration of the addiction (so basically 23/24 until the present at 36, though the last 4-5 years - and indefinite future - have been suboxone maintenance) my motivation has been 100% fear of physical suffering and simply using to avoid it. On the rare occasions where I've completed acute withdrawal, the thing that lead to me using again was the severe insomnia and complete inability to physically rest caused by PAWS. This is definitely not the most common thing, though. I've met a couple other people like myself, but most other addicts I've met at meetings and what have you used to avoid/cope with some emotional/psychological trauma.
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Sep 27, 2022 04:09
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America Inc. posted:Somehow I haven't had a relationship with anyone in 9 years, almost a decade. I have spent my entirety of my twenties single. I've gone to meetups, been active and involved in the community, tried dating apps, and yet nothing has ever stuck. How often are you attracted to people? Like if you're in any given social group of people of the gender(s) you're attracted to, how many would you be willing to date? I feel like this is often the cause of "I'm generally normal acting/looking but can't get into a relationship" situations. If (for example) someone is attracted to 50% of women in their area and age range, they're obviously going to have a far easier time than someone attracted to only 5%. Knowing this (if it's the case) won't necessary fix your situation, but it helps to at least start with an accurate understanding of what the problem is. It can also help if you're feeling a bunch of self-pity - sure, most of your peers might be in relationships, but how many of them are in relationships with people you find attractive? Realizing the answer to this question was "very few of them" for myself made things a lot easier.
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Apr 11, 2023 00:47
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Tulip posted:(difficulty processing spoken word without an accompanying mechanical hearing difficulty was a big one) This is an ADD thing? I've always had this issue (I always turn on subtitles whenever it's an option for media, because it can be hard to follow otherwise). I probably won't ever look into it again, though, because I'm on suboxone and that basically means no one would prescribe me medication (and it's also just stressful worrying about people thinking you're some kind of drug seeker). I did bring it up once with my current psychiatrist, but they blew it off on the basis that I did well in school and manage to hold a job (even though the latter is mainly due to being extremely lucky and having a very relaxed job).
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Apr 24, 2023 22:52
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Trauts posted:Try smoothies, or hell even a box of those ensure drinks would be a better idea than a few leaves of lettuce. Seconding this. I'd just keep some meal replacement drinks (like Ensure or Slimfast) and try and drink from them whenever you think to. Pre-made drinks like that will also be easier than preparing smoothies. (This is also a good way to lose weight if you get the higher-protein drinks)
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May 30, 2023 17:28
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Re: running, one thing you keep in mind is that, if you're like me and have terrible allergies and/or asthma, you might need to use a treadmill or elliptical instead of running outside. Basically the thing to check for is whether you're limited by your legs/heart rate (normal) or whether you find yourself having trouble breathing (or coughing up phlegm, etc). I feel like some people might try running, encounter the latter, and wrongly attribute it to being out of shape (which might also be the case, but isn't the limiting factor). Even when I was able to run 10 miles on the treadmill, I couldn't do more than like 0.25m outside (because I simply couldn't breath, even with an inhaler and allergy meds). This results in you just feeling like poo poo without even getting a good workout, and I think some people get turned off of cardio for reasons like this.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:56
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Tinnitus really sounds terrible, and I'm grateful I don't have it because I feel like I'm the sort of person who would tolerate it the poorest. Going to ramble about some stuff related to this that I just never really talk about because there isn't a reason to, but this made me think about it. I've always had the hardest time with "distracting/uncomfortable" sensations, with the worst being these eye problems I've had my entire life since I was 10 y/o that I'm pretty sure are "minor levels of eyelid irritation/blepharitis that just make me completely miserable because of some problem with my brain." It's not fully psychological, since doctors have been able to clearly see the inflammation if I visit when they're bothering me the most, but there's no clear underlying cause justifying the level of discomfort I experience. I think what happens is that things like certain forms of uncomfortable stimulation (like certain strong scents or sensations like humidity) make me feel uncomfortable, which then causes my eyes to become inflamed. Before COVID hit, I was actually getting close to a breaking point at work, because my eyes were making me miserable every day. Something about the air in the office hosed them up, and nothing I tried (like air filters or humidifiers) helped. The pandemic - which lead to working from home indefinitely - luckily addressed that. Another example of this sort of thing is that I absolutely can't tolerate not washing my hair every day. I couldn't function without showering in the morning without being completely miserable. Imagining it is almost like imagining nails on a chalkboard. In college we took a class trip to Hong Kong, and because of the time zone change we had to walk around most of the day after arriving until we could check-in at the hotel. I was completely miserable during this time and couldn't think about anything other than how desperately I wanted to take a shower. I strongly suspect that this oversensitivity to sensations might be some sort of mild autism thing, but I have zero interest in seeking out a diagnosis for that because it doesn't exactly provide any solutions. It's been an issue for like ~28 years, so I doubt it'll ever be resolved.
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Jun 3, 2023 01:14
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God drat, it's loud enough to wake you up (even if you attempt to drown it out)? That's loving awful. The most soul-crushing types of suffering are the types that prevent you from sleeping IMO; it just wears down your mental fortitude. Hopefully the ENT can do something about it.
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Jun 3, 2023 02:01
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Tulip posted:Anyway to not sound like a sociology professor for a second, my older brother lived in my parents basement while literally being a stock broker on wall street. If he can do that without shame, so can you. Yeah, I also have a full time job that pays enough that I could live on my own, but it just doesn't make sense for me to do so. The only good reason to do so would be dating, but I don't plan on doing that (for a variety of reasons). While my dad can be extremely obnoxious, I generally get along well with my parents. Seems dumb to pay a lot of extra money just to be lonely. It also gives me some peace of mind just to save up a lot of money while I still have the chance. I can't count on having a decent job in the future, and I've been watching my friend experience the worst case scenario over the past year or so (lost his job, can't find a new one, and is almost done burning through all his savings, and he has a house to maintain). I was paycheck to paycheck (in the sense of zero savings + debt) up until around 5-6 years ago, so I want to build up as much security as I can now while I still have the chance. I also find that having a decent job staves off the ennui that I think plagues most people living with their parents. In many cases it's probably not the "living at home" part that bothers people as much as "the circumstances that caused them to live at home." My job at least gives some sense of structure to my life, since it involves learning new things.
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Jun 8, 2023 00:45
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I liked stimulants back when I was prescribed them, because I never felt any desire to take them late enough for it to cause sleep problems. I wish I hadn't stopped getting them prescribed. Unfortunately I've never seriously sought them out again because I'm on suboxone and the idea of being perceived as a drug-seeker is extremely stressful for me. Also, I think suboxone somehow interferes with stimulants. Some years back my cousin gave me some of his 60mg (IIRC) extended release Ritalins and they did almost nothing, despite being *too* strong back before I was on suboxone. I think it has something to do with everything related to dopamine in my brain just being profoundly hosed up. It's like my brain just doesn't even have the capacity for it anymore, and even taking a stimulant like Ritalin is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Can't inhibit the reuptake of dopamine if there isn't much there to begin with!
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Jun 15, 2023 09:34
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AceOfFlames posted:Yesterday i had a colleague take me aside to privately tell me I "talk too much". Today i have someone gently tell me i took too many desserts from a buffet. I can't help but wonder if these are just extremely polite Scandinavian ways of telling me I am a rude motherfucker who ruins everything. This is a tough one to figure out without knowing your exact circumstances and behavior. The buffet thing is weird and probably doesn't matter, but the thing about you talking too much *might* point to an actual issue. You probably shouldn't be too concerned unless other people start bringing it up as well, though. When I was younger, I would sort of flip between being talkative (almost like a very minor sort of mania) and suddenly becoming depressed/withdrawn upon realizing that the situation was one-sided and others didn't really care to listen to me much. In distant hindsight, I think I was both right and wrong. I think my concerns about annoying other people were exaggerated and irrational (I don't think anyone ever disliked having me around), but I think I was actually correct in my understanding that other people were ambivalent towards my presence. This stuff can be difficult, because you have to figure out what constitutes "a warped perspective" vs "what's really happening." People will often tell you that you're being irrational when you worry about other people not liking you, but sometimes it's actually true and you only make things worse by staying in denial about it. It's impossible to know without actually seeing the behavior and people in question. All you can really do is try to look at the situation - and your own behavior - clearly.
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Jun 17, 2023 00:16
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While most of this is about your parents, I noticed the bit where you seem pretty resentful towards your fiance(?) over the move. Have you explicitly told her how you feel about all this? You mention her chiding you for being negative, which is kind of a messed up thing for her to do.
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Jun 20, 2023 20:22
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MLK Ultra posted:Man, I get that dad's language of love was "Hey don't worry about it, I'll do it" - but man does that make for some wtf codependency issues when one of em dies. Like some "I don't know how to use DoorDash no like I just don't understand it... listen never mind I'll just eat crackers." This is something I've worried about as my parents get older (they're in their mid-70s now). It'll be bad if my mom passes before my dad, because my mom is basically the emotionally stable responsible one who does all the finances-related stuff. She keeps dad from going too crazy. The idea of having to handle dad without her there is a nightmare, so I deeply sympathize with what you're going through right now.
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Jun 21, 2023 01:11
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Ice Phisherman posted:She then asked me how to text, which is weird but that's my mom, she's weird. Now for anyone else I'd be fine with teaching them how to text so long as it took less than five minutes. Not my mom. I will never, ever do tech support for my mom again. She does a -1000/10 job at learning anything new that has to do with technology. Doing tech support for her is an anxiety inducing nightmare. I don't think I've ever actually succeeded in teaching her anything despite dozens of hours of trying. Even with written instructions or probably even video instructions, it will take her days or weeks to learn anything tech related, no matter how simple. I direct her to look up youtube tutorials because teaching her is Sisyphean nightmare and wash my hands of it. My dad is like this, except maybe worse in some ways since it goes beyond just technology. If I had to explain it, it's like he's just extremely intellectually and emotionally lazy on a fundamental level. He just tells himself that it's impossible to understand this stuff and instantly gets angry and gives up at the slightest problem or resistance. I can't think of a single time in my entire life that I've seen him make a mistake and calmly think through how to address it, and it's only getting worse with old age. The same applies to any sort of criticism - I can't remember a single time where I've ever been able to criticize him without him either getting angry or falling into self-pity. The only way it's remotely possible is if you couch the criticism in a bunch of positive language, which defeats the entire purpose. My mom isn't even really "better with electronics" - it's just that she's capable of remaining calm and attempting to reason through things. I guess the upside to this is that I at least have a single stable and reliable parent, which is more than many people have.
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Jun 21, 2023 20:48
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Ronwayne posted:If anyone harvests this thread for lolz is a good indication they need to be removed from the forum for good. This isn't 2006 and harvesting misery of people with mental health issues for cruelty laughs isn't acceptable. I'd prefer the thread stayed stickied. Yeah, how the gently caress is this even happening without serious comsequences?
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Jun 29, 2023 05:10
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Pajser posted:I am thinking of enrolling in an online course for a Cybersecurity Specialist. While I'm not familiar with this specific career, the way you're talking about it is giving me similar vibes to the way my (unemployed) friend talks about this roofing sales commission job he's trying to do. I've been really uncertain how to navigate his situation, because on one hand I want to be supportive, but on the other there is absolutely no way this is going to turn out well. I would look carefully into what employment opportunities exist for the field in question with just the online course on your resume (unless you have other related experience, which would change the situation). A cursory google seems to indicate that cybersecurity jobs usually require a bachelor's degree in a related field like computer science, information technology, etc. I would avoid putting much (if any) stock in what you hear from either the course's ads or stuff like YouTube videos. I'm sorry if this sounds sorta condescending, since that's not my intention at all. I'm just a bit on guard about this sort of thing due to my friend's situation. The reason I mentioned YouTube videos is that I'm about 95% sure that my friend has been watching YouTube videos that have sold him on a specific dream related to roofing sales jobs (gaining a big enough customer base that you can get referrals and not need to go door to door as much for sales), and it seems like there's a lot of stuff like that out there (I guess taking advantage of how desperate people are for a decent job in our lovely country). It's been uncomfortable to watch and I don't think there's much I can say to change it. It doesn't help that there simply isn't really any good advice beyond what I've already told him (his previous job was in a geology lab - I recommended he expand his search to other lab work, but he's completely unwilling to work in medical labs, despite that being where most related jobs are). When he quit his previous job, I don't even think it was a wrong decision since they had him working 60+ hour weeks in a job where he has to stand up most of the time; it paid well, but he burned out. I do think he kinda hosed up by quitting the job *before* that, though. Instead of making a demand better wages (in a situation where he actually had leverage), he just quit without another job lined up. Your situation is actually riskier than his, because (from what I understand) you're currently employed (and thus have more to lose from any drastic career change decisions). At the very least, I definitely wouldn't quit until you have another job offer (unless you're definitely comfortable enough with your savings).
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Jul 10, 2023 23:07
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Pajser posted:It's Certificate course on Google Coursera. The only reason I'm thinking about it, is because I use to do a little of what it describes (phyton, using linux) about 12 years ago. The fact that you have some programming experience significantly changes the situation and makes it at least worth considering (I'm probably a bit oversensitive to this sort of thing due to the situation with my friend). I'd maybe ask around somewhere like the SA subforum for stuff like that (either the programming one or the business one). Some programming related job, whether it's cybersecurity or something else, could very possibly be a nicer career path if you have some basic aptitude with it.
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Jul 11, 2023 00:44
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Goobish posted:My mom might be dying and no one knows why yet or what to do. She's been to the ER multiple times this month, not being able to breathe. She also has to use a walker suddenly, but she can hardly do anything but sit in her chair with oxygen and rescue inhalers. She sees some specialist Thursday, but she's so bad she can't even sleep without choking. So my stepdad is worried about her even making it until then. Covid was ruled out so far. We feel helpless about it. She can't even talk to me without going into an intense coughing fit. I lost my dad relatively young, so I feel extra worried about this. That's a complete nightmare. I really hope the specialist manages to diagnose it as something treatable. I'm guessing there's no reasonable way to get her into some sort of medical supervision before the appointment?
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Jul 12, 2023 23:12
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StashAugustine posted:how do people deal with anhedonia? I feel like overall I'm doing all right, don't have major crises going on and I'm starting to get more of a grasp on myself before spiraling off, but I also feel like most of the time I'm not really feeling proud or accomplished about things I really want to be, and while being our with friends (probably not enough tbh) helps, it seems like the good feeling dissipates as soon as I'm done. If you feel good when doing things that are fun, and don't when not doing fun things, isn't that kind of normal? Unless you literally can't enjoy anything otherwise. I find that the best way to handle times when you're not enjoying anything is often just to take a nap. Way back in college I learned to just nip bad moods in the bud by going to bed whenever they started.
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Jul 20, 2023 10:35
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Jorge Bell posted:To be clear I am not posting news just light heartedly ribbing Ytlaya's good advice Yeah, I would actually completely unironically recommend sleeping in response to a serious tragedy (not sleeping through your actual responsibilities or anything, but stuff like "go to bed earlier if you're just feeling super depressed"). Basically at one point I had an epiphany that, when I'm feeling like poo poo, trying to do things is usually a waste of time and I only end up feeling worse and getting frustrated. But if you go to bed you'll usually feel at least somewhat better when you wake up. Probably something to do with dopamine. (This advice is unfortunately dependent on being the sort of person who can easily take a nap - I genuinely feel terrible for people who can't, because easy sleep has always been a major thing I use to help cope with various things. I don't know how people with insomnia even function.) Edit: One way to put it is that sleeping is the "if it sucks, hit da bricks" of consciousness
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Jul 21, 2023 08:08
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The sleep thing is part of why I doubt I'll ever be able to tolerate stopping the suboxone, because from past experiences "a fundamental inability to truly relax my body and mind" is a very long-term symptom even once you get past acute withdrawal, and I don't think I'd be able to stay sane through that. My only hope would be some sort of sleep medication, but I was prescribed Ambien many years ago and had An Incident one night where I apparently stumbled around the house and ended up in the ER and have zero recollection of any of it. It was one of the more unsettling things I've experienced - it's really weird to be told about stuff that happened, but have this complete void in your memory. I wasn't even abusing it or anything. I suspect that I didn't fall asleep like normal soon after taking it and forgot I had already taken my dose. Anyways, the whole experience scared me away from those hardcore sleep meds.
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Jul 22, 2023 01:50
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drat, that sucks (and is definitely pretty awkward, since it's harder to come up with an excuse for that sort of thing as an adult). I completely understand that sort of frustration. I remember futilely trying to knock myself out by slamming my head into things while experiencing opiate withdrawal. I also gave myself a black eye once, though I was a kid (IIRC I was 11 or 12) and it was because I had the bright idea to try playing baseball, but with a basketball. My friend throws the basketball and I hit it with my aluminum baseball bat, which proceeds to bounce off the basketball and slam into my face (it happened so fast that I was just sort of stunned - it didn't even hurt that much, but my friend mentioned that I was getting a huge black eye). Other kids at school thought I had been in a fight, which I did not deny.
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Jul 24, 2023 19:44
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It's weird how the valet's insurance is used when they were presumably driving in their role as an employee of the company. Seems like the employer would legally be responsible. Maybe something to do with the valet being a contractor?
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Aug 25, 2023 21:56
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Whirling posted:I'm feeling better about life now that I'm on lamictal, although I wish it didn't make feel so groggy and slow down my thinking at times. I've been better about motivating myself to do things and take care of myself, so I should bear with it, but ugh. What issues were you dealing with that the Lamictal helped with? I'm asking because I was prescribed it a while back but haven't started taking it yet due to fear of side effects (and I'm also like 99% sure antidepressants won't do anything for me*, so I'm unwilling to try anything that might have significant side effects or difficulty with discontinuation). I had a very bad experience with another non-SSRI/SNRI antidepressant (amitryptiline) so I don't want that to happen again. But if there aren't any significant downsides, it can't hurt to try. * this is because I'm on suboxone and my primary issue is a simple inability to enjoy anything that likely stems from my brain's reward systems being completely hosed up from over a decade of opioid dependence; I'm emotionally extremely stable (to an abnormal extent) and don't really have "bad moods" (beyond the constant understanding that life has nothing to offer, but I've felt that way for over 10 years now and it's something I've come to terms with - it's genuinely better this way than just torturing myself over things that can't be changed)
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Sep 25, 2023 01:25
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Consummate Professional posted:Yoo sleep apnea crew checking in. My symptoms were the midday crash, feeling like I got an hour of sleep every day and taking frequent naps whenever I could. I'm starting to wonder if something like this might be the case for me. I'm not overweight at all, but apparently it's possible to have sleep apnea even if you aren't. In the past year or so I've noticed that the extent to which I'm sleepy is clearly abnormal. The thing that clued me in is when I was at my friend's bachelor party last year, and couldn't stop yawning constantly, while other people there, some of whom were extremely out of shape and in their 40s, were okay. The yawning is something I literally can't stop - it just involuntarily happens constantly. On the other hand, sleep itself feels good and I feel good in the early morning. I just get extremely sleepy in the mid-day, and at literally any point during the rest of the day I could easily lay down and fall asleep. Early morning is literally the only time of day I have much energy. Whirling posted:I'm seeking to regulate my emotions better; I tend to have bad mood swings and I go into hysterics in the wrong conditions. So far, its helping; I feel more motivated to do things and I react a little loss strongly to things. Thanks! It probably won't be that helpful then, since mood stability is one of the only things I have going for me. Still can't hurt since there apparently aren't any bad side effects, though. Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 08:10 on Sep 26, 2023 |
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Sep 26, 2023 08:07
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I'm psyching myself up to finally ask my suboxone doctor to up my dose back to 8mg next month. I should have done this literally like 2 years ago (I've been on my current dose at least 3 years), since it's been obvious for a long time that I feel way better and more "stable" on that dose. On my current dose of 4mg, I can get by, but I feel noticeably bad when it's been a while since my last dose, and find myself having to plan around when I take my doses. On 8mg I would feel much more normal 24/7, with the dose just split into twice a day. Part of me wonders if something about the composition of the 8mg strips makes them last longer, or if it's just a question of dosage. It's stupid that I haven't done this yet, since my doctor probably won't give a poo poo and I'm basically an ideal suboxone patient who never causes any problems (since it's pretty common for suboxone patients to over-use and start asking for an early prescription, etc), but I still feel a lot of anxiety over it. I know that I'll feel so much better and relieved once I've done it, but it's so easy to just be like "yeah, everything's good!" at my appointments and procrastinate until the next month. Another upside is that 30 8mg strips are significantly cheaper than 60 2mg strips (which runs me like 250 bucks a month - I think 30x8 is more like 150 or something) but that's really a secondary concern - I'm willing to pay more if it means I can feel better.
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Nov 4, 2023 10:10
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Trauts posted:I'm thinking about getting back on bupe since I now have insurance but gently caress Suboxone. Subutex is a lot cheaper and doesn't require you to dissolve it in your mouth. That part of subs doesn't seem to have helped my dental situation ANY lol. But of course doctors are dumb and think that the naloxone in Suboxone actually does anything. idk. There's also the issue of drug screens. Subutex would probably be better, but I like the sublingual strips (the taste doesn't bother me at all) and I've heard a lot of horror stories about generic sublingual strips (and they're actually pretty believable, since it's very easy to imagine poor manufacturing QA leading to inconsistent doses on strips). Something like kratom would basically have a worse version of the main reason I want to up my suboxone dose to 8mg - I don't like the "instability" of lower/shorter-acting doses that leave me constantly aware of when I took my last dose. On the higher dose (though 8mg is really more of a medium dose) I don't need to think about it nearly as much. I had a really great ~1.5 years during the period when I was tapering from 16mg to 8mg, and then things gradually went downhill as my dose decreased further. I think part of it is that I just have really fast drug metabolism - even on higher doses I've always needed to split suboxone into twice a day, and taking my full dose at once would make me straight-up euphoric for a while, but leave me feeling too bad to sleep later that night. I like that my current doctor just doesn't give a poo poo and writes the scripts. My old one (from like <2015) did drug screens constantly + made me go to meetings and keep a journal, and I get that this stuff is helpful for many people, but it just made me super stressed out all the time. It ironically caused me to relapse constantly. I just want to live normally, and the last thing I want to do is constantly think and talk about addiction. Dealing with pharmacists can be a pain, but fortunately I've been going to the same pharmacy for like 6 years now, so most of the people there know me and are aware that I've never caused any problems or tried to get my script early. On rare occasions there's some new tech who gives me a hard time, but the actual pharmacists are all nice. Btw regarding drug screens, back when I was getting screened and using kratom, the kratom sometimes showed up as a PCP false positive on the immediate test (though obviously not the more accurate test that gets sent into the lab; from what I understand that never has false positives). This may have overlapped with when I was using FST or UEI though, so it might have been caused by whatever the gently caress was in that.
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Nov 4, 2023 23:57
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Eat This Glob posted:last week, i paid the last of them off. i thought some of that latent anxiety would be lifted with zero balances across the board, but i felt nothing. no relief, happiness, pride - just nothing. that's a real bummer. i guess i was kind of expecting the anxiety load to get a little lighter and it didn't. i guess ill start making small piles of money and stashing them around the apartment like a squirrel and their nuts and see if that helps lol In my experience it never fully goes away. I'm in pretty good financial shape now (and have been for a little over 5 years now), but I still feel anxious about my debit card being rejected every time I use it, even though I rationally know it's not going to happen.
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Nov 7, 2023 11:28
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Pajser posted:What the gently caress? This is obvious bullshit, right. And its making my head cave in. The frustrating thing about mental healthcare is that huge numbers of therapists (and mental health professionals in general) basically subscribe to pseudoscience. In my experience, younger psychologists and psychiatrists are often better, specifically because they haven't accrued decades of pseudoscientific ideas. This isn't to discourage seeking out therapy, but it's unfortunately necessary to put in effort as the "consumer." It's sort of like buying supplements at the grocery store - there's a ton of pseudoscience mixed in, so you have to do your own research (which sucks rear end and isn't something anyone should have to do for anything health-related, but is sadly necessary).
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Nov 14, 2023 20:50
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I'm very happy and relieved that my suboxone doctor agreed to increase my dose to 8mg today (though I won't be getting the new prescription for another week or so). I finally got around to asking about this, after putting it off for literally like 2 years. Going to be such a relief to not constantly feel like I'm on such limited "feeling decent" rations - for some reason I never seemed to fully "adapt" to <8mg doses, despite having been on my current dose at least 2 years. I could get by on them, but they seemed to last a shorter time so I constantly had to schedule around when I was taking my doses. It will also save me a significant amount of money each month (after checking, I think around $60-80), since a smaller number of 8mg strips costs less than the larger number of 2mg ones I'm currently getting.
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Nov 27, 2023 19:04
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Ronwayne posted:Context: I underwent a varient of TMS https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7609207/ that unfortunately did not work. I can't tell if it works on others, just did not work on me, or was just quackery, but I had a lot of hope it could reduce my symptoms, but it didn't unfortunately. For what it's worth, I mostly agree with your take on a lot of mental health stuff. I wouldn't quite put it at the "bodily humours" level, since we at least have some accurate understanding of "what we don't know," but people also frequently overstate our knowledge of and ability to treat psychiatric conditions like depression, anxiety, etc (and pharmaceutical companies are heavily involved in overstating the efficacy of psychiatric treatments in particular). The worst example of this is when people are like "just like you take an antibiotic when you have an infection, you take an antidepressant if you have depression!" On one hand that's complete bullshit, but on the other I understand the impulse to say stuff like that to encourage people to attempt treatment. I think I err on the side of "it's not good to lie to people," though (and a lot of that sort of messaging is pushed by the pharma companies for obvious reasons). I think at least part of the issue is that, due to a combination of our lack of understanding of the human brain + how hard/impossible it is to directly examine patients' brains, we're forced to make purely symptomatic diagnoses, and some of those symptoms are very vague things that can manifest in a huge variety of ways (like "depression" or "anxiety"). The analogy I like to use is that diagnosing someone with "depression" is like diagnosing them with "a fever." "Depression" obviously isn't a single discrete condition with a single cause. So it's possible that, when we prescribe people something like SSRIs, it's like taking everyone who has "a fever" and giving them all the medication for "one of the countless diseases that happens to cause a fever as a symptom." This isn't a perfect analogy, since antidepressants aren't exactly "curing" anything so much as just messing around with neurotransmitters in ways that we just kinda hope will have a net positive effect. But I think it's a good way to explain why treating those conditions is such a roll of the dice. And with mental health there's also the extremely complex interaction between environment and biology. We aren't even close to being able to untangle that stuff. In genetics, papers are still mostly just trying to find specific genes that have some statistically-significant impact, but in reality you're looking at huge networks of genetic and environmental factors (with "environment" including both a person's experiences as well as "their diet," etc), and those studies still need to rely on either self-reported symptoms or some sort of metric that is used as a proxy for depression/anxiety/etc. IMO, we probably won't see any fundamental change in our lifetimes. "Being able to directly look at someone's brain and find the cause of most mental health issues and address their physiological causes" is basically still in the realm of science fiction. The only exceptions are likely to be the few conditions that actually *do* have very direct causes, like conditions caused by specific genes or something. It's kind of a bummer. I'll likely never know exactly what's wrong with my brain that (in my case) lead to me becoming addicted to opiates in my early 20s. I have some vague ideas - my brain has always had some weird issue where it seems to poo poo out all its dopamine at the beginning of the day and leaves me feeling bad later in the day, even before I ever touched opiates. But even if my understanding is correct, I'll never know why that's the case, much less how to address it.
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Dec 6, 2023 00:55
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Got my new suboxone prescription. Very nice to be on a more stable-feeling dose. If nothing else, this will at least enable me to start doing regular cardio on the elliptical again. On my lower dose it was always hard, because I felt like I had to "ration" my dose throughout the day and schedule around my limited "feeling decent" hours after each dose. I'd feel decent a couple hours after my morning dose, but wanted to use that time to do work. And then I'd feel crappy until my evening dose. But after that dose I'd want to use my limited "feeling okay" time to do something I enjoy, instead of exercise. But now I feel decent enough between doses that it's not an issue. Josherino posted:I also went to Tokyo This sounds sorta like my approach when I went to Honk Kong in college. I had one fully free day (it was a school trip so all other days were scheduled), and I literally just took the train out to a completely random station (literally - I closed my eyes and pointed at the map and found the nearest station to my finger) outside of the more urban areas. I then just walked aimlessly for most of the day. It was very fun just seeing various people living their lives and not knowing where I was going. I just trusted there's be a station reasonably close to wherever I ended up (which ended up being accurate, though it took some effort to reorient myself on my map - this was in 2008, so before everyone had phone GPSs).
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Dec 7, 2023 18:08
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during Thanksgiving. I wandered neighborhoods, stayed away from tourism, and did some much-needed brewery hopping with my partner.
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skooma512 posted:My dog's been having some hip issues at ~8 years old and I can't help but think this is the beginning of the end. He just moves slower for the moment, but all I can think about is how this is just going to get progressively worse and that get better is not an option. Week 3 since he tweaked something and we noticed altered mobility, the vet said it was a back issue and to let him rest, but he still sprints after balls and jumps up and down on couchs and beds regardless. He could still have many years left. My last dog had hip issues, and I think there were at least 5 years from when they first started showing up until he passed away. And he was also very overweight, which exacerbated the situation. One of my current dogs (around the same age as yours) has also started having hip issues since a year or two ago, and it doesn't seem like they'll be big problem for a while. One thing to keep in mind is watching his weight. One thing that's been very frustrating to me is that both my dogs are in the process of getting overweight, and my dad keeps giving them too many treats. I try to make him stop and have told him "you're only going to make her life worse" (about the one with hip issues), and he says he understands and then just keeps doing it because he's old and it's part of his routine*. And like a lot of dog owners, he doesn't comprehend that dogs aren't people. They aren't actually going to personally hold it against you believe you give them fewer treats! I feel powerless to do anything about it, short of literally throwing away the treats. I don't think he understands that even a bigger dog is still only the size/weight of a small child - people just assume "big animals need big portions." On the upside, he at least doesn't give them human food. * I kind of feel similarly about this to how you seem to feel about your dog. Like I'm seeing the beginnings of my dad's brain just decaying due to old age. My mom has dealt with retired life very well - she stays active and does lots of activities, and barring something like cancer I can easily see her staying lucid into her 80s/90s (she's 75, but you wouldn't believe it if you saw her - she looks like someone in her 50s). But my dad doesn't really do anything but watch internet/TV and lose his mind in response to it.
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Jan 10, 2024 23:36
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Karach posted:Now I'm a grown rear end man and realize making friends with a decent person is really hard. It's very hard, and I'm incredibly lucky that one of my childhood friends ended up being so great. All I have is him and one other friend who is a good guy but not the type who I'd generally choose to talk about serious things with. Once my parents pass away (which won't be super long, since they're 75/73) I'd basically have no significant human connections left if not for him. And I honestly don't know how you'd even begin to form them as an adult my age. I think it's easier for people who are more....uh, normal? Like if you were a religious person in the South, that instantly gives you a zillion people to connect with. But I have very little in common with roughly 99.5% of people. Even my youth memories don't correspond to most other peoples' since I didn't listen to "normal" music and watched poo poo like 90s/00s Japanese live-action dramas as a teenager.
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Jan 14, 2024 02:44
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Regarding _____ Anonymous groups, it depends heavily on the people in the specific group. It can't hurt to try either way. And (if my understanding is correct) Al-Anon is for people who know alcoholics/addicts, so it might be less of an issue there since less will be required of you personally. Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 08:27 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 00:28
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Well, last night basically confirmed that drinking beer every night was loving with me, since yesterday was my first (of a planned "forever outside of possibly rare social functions") day without any in ages and I slept really poorly last night. The past few nights I was only having a single can of a 4% beer every night, but apparently that was enough to stave off whatever caused my sleep to be disrupted. I feel really nice this morning, though! That's the main thing that motivated me to stop. Morning through early afternoon used to be my favorite part of the day, and the alcohol messed that up and instead made me feel vaguely restless until my evening beer. Screaming Idiot posted:I FINALLY GOT MY FUKKEN ADDERALL PRESCRIPTION RENEWED! Sure, I had to get grilled by a lady who obviously thought I was a junkie trying to get a fix, and I had to give a piss test (which they claimed I tested positive for THC despite the fact I haven't had an edible for months), but I got a prescription for a month of rapid release generic Adderall! Adderall makes most people feel really awake/focused (because it's a stimulant - like super-coffee or something). It's why it has a reputation as "the thing college students take to study for exams." I think the only people who don't get that way are people (mainly children maybe?) with ADHD (emphasis on the H part). I remember when my aunt/grandma/cousin decided to have me try some of my cousin's Ritalin (which is basically the same sort of medication as Adderall) back when I was in college, and I was like "other people feel like this all the time?!" (they don't lol) Tbh I wish I had kept getting my prescription back when I was prescribed it (I had it, and later Adderall, prescribed to me soon after I tried it), since it did help immensely. I don't try to get it prescribed now just because the "people thinking you're a junkie trying to get a fix" factor increases drastically when you're on suboxone and have an actual history of substance abuse. (just to be real clear, this post isn't meant to sound critical in any way; I think it's great that you managed to finally get a prescription and think that stuff like this should be made more easily available to people. Many people seem to think that people feeling "really awake/focused" from stimulant ADD meds means "they don't have ADD," but I think there are just different types and many people still need/benefit from the stimulant effects)
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Jan 25, 2024 18:34
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Screaming Idiot posted:I don't mean hyperactive -- I mean just active. I could finish complete sentences, keep from going on tangents, and speak without stuttering or repeating myself. I'm not climbing the walls, I'm just clocking in to work and making it throughout the entire day without taking an hour-long "FMLA" break where I spend the entire time pacing around the apartment hyperventilating and berating myself for not being able to force myself to function like a normal human being. I think some people (including me and seemingly you) have something wrong about the way our brains produce/use dopamine (which is basically the neurotransmitter that makes it easier and more pleasant/rewarding to focus on things). That's what adderall/ritalin/etc affect (since they're dopamine reuptake inhibitors). Stimulant meds like Adderall or Ritalin basically affect us the same as anyone else (jack up dopamine levels, basically making "doing things" feel easier and more pleasant), but we need the effects more because it's basically impossible to function otherwise. The effect is different on some ADHD people like my cousin, though. He actively dislikes taking his Ritalin because it makes him feel "flat" and like a zombie. So there's obviously something very different going on with that particular variety of ADD, since dopamine reuptake inhibitor meds like Adderall/Ritalin seemingly affect them very differently.
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Jan 26, 2024 04:27
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skooma512 posted:Alcohol to me is a social lubricant - it attracts and traps grit and makes the whole operation work slower and worse. The one good thing about my relationship with alcohol is that it's never been good for me socially. I was smart enough to quickly recognize a bad pattern in college. When I drank in social settings in college, it always went like the following: 1. Feel kinda good and talkative for, at most, an hour or so 2. Feel super depressed as reality comes crashing down and I realize that the alcohol was just fooling me into thinking people weren't ambivalent about my company This lead to me quitting drinking entirely until around 3 years ago, where I gradually got into a habit of drinking daily to help relax in the evenings (which I quit 3 weeks ago, as of tomorrow). Eat This Glob posted:polar does use some not great source water with PFAS in it and other stuff, like triple what some other companies test at, but they can pry my orange vanilla seltzer from my cold, new england hands I've been drinking these Spindrift seltzers a lot lately. You can really taste the difference with them using actual juice (which means it has some calories, but still not many - at most it's like 15 calories a can for stuff like the Pineapple flavor, with others ranging between 5-15). It's kind of amazing/impressive that they manage to make these things not just taste like "watered down ____ juice"; like they use the perfect minimal amount of pineapple (or whatever) juice to make it actually taste like mellow pineapple juice instead of watered-down pineapple juice. Do any other brands also use actual fruit/juice? I haven't tried Polar yet. Tulip posted:I worked on the recruiting side and its just absolute loving bullshit. Not limiting this to the fact that its generally bullshit but that like, what is happening behind the scenes is complete and devastating chaos. I've seen times where they interviewed 12 candidates, all 12 candidates were perfectly acceptable, and because two managers involved in the hiring cycle got mad at each other, all 12 got rejected and the hiring had to start over again. I imagine there are a lot of situations where they already know who they want to hire but are required to make the posting public. That happened when we were trying to hire someone recently (one of the guys in Kenya who has been doing contract work with us is finally getting hired full-time and moving over here, which is cool). The guy in question has already been doing the job we're hiring him for - it's just transitioning into a "full" position. Since we're a state university, the posting had to be made public for a certain interval of time. It sucks rear end, because it's just wasting the time of the other applicants. Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 22:37 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 22:32
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Organic Lube User posted:Whiny long post warning. This is awful. My dad is like a less extreme version of your wife, and it's incredibly stressful trying to manage his attitudes towards health stuff. In his case there's the additional factor of the health issues sometimes being real, but often completely different from whatever he's complaining about, which puts me in the unenviable position of having to figure things out. Like a few weeks ago when he kept telling the healthcare workers at the ER about his flu and some completely unrelated issue with his diaphragm, when the actual emergency was that his bladder was not voiding. If I wasn't there to repeatedly emphasize this I don't know what would have happened. There's just a profound feeling of helplessness when someone is dealing with some mental health thing and there's nothing you can do to somehow fix it. All you can often do is try and cope with their unreasonable behavior and keep them from hurting themselves.
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Apr 8, 2024 08:24
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Organic Lube User posted:We're constantly having situations where she thinks some medication she just started is causing heart palpitations, we'll go in to the ER, and they'll be like "yeah you stopped drinking for like a day, you're dehydrated." Its incredibly frustrating. This exact thing happened with my dad a few years ago! He actually ended up in renal failure due to the dehydration (though it was addressed by IV hydration).
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Apr 8, 2024 17:52
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