It takes time and experience, yes, and I still have plenty - plenty - of bad moments/days.

But I remember one therapy session from about five years ago, when I was describing a certain interaction I had recently had with a friend and his fiancee, whom I knew only somewhat well - a pretty safe and mundane interaction, though slightly more intimidating than usual. But as I told my therapist, there was a certain point maybe an hour into the interaction when I found myself caught up in a train of hyperbolically self-abusive thoughts - it was rough and exhausting, and all I could do was tell myself, "It's the anxiety talking, try to just breathe and power through." I was expecting my therapist to have to suppress an exasperated sigh and think to herself, "That's it?! After all this counseling, he couldn't do more than that?!" But much to my surprise, she took on just the opposite tone, and was evidently pleased and proud that her influence had rubbed off on me a bit.

So, you know...I'm not "cured" or anything, but it's a helpful, ongoing process. The way it looks to me, people generally don't change their minds on the spot, but given a supportive environment, and given the beginnings (at least) of a positive, self-empowered attitude - which I see evidence of in your posts - healthier habits of thought gradually emerge.

I appreciate your optimism, and hope to learn from it. "Hyperbolically self-abusive thoughts" resonates strongly with me. Just typing this out, much less posting (here or elsewhere) has been unfamiliar & daunting, but as you keyed in on, progress is incremental. I do have to remind myself of that often. I wouldn't have been capable of these interactions a few months ago, so I can't deny that's an improvement, however small. I've never been confident or hopeful, but consistently trying is the only way I can get outta bed.

One helpful thing I learned in therapy years back was the slow mental transition from "I'm anxious" to "I feel anxious," and ultimately, "I recognize that I'm feeling anxious." (Substitute anxious for anything.) It's a little pedantic typed out, but being self-aware of your feelings and how/if they reflect reality, even if it doesn't happen right away, is definitely a worthwhile process. I'm hoping you're right, that gradually healthier habits will emerge with effort & time.

I suffer from major depressive disorder, OCD and binge eating and i have also ADHD. Medications literally saved my life, i couldn't absolutely live without them. When i used to have psychosis and self harm i took antipsychotics, now i rely only on antidepressant. When OCD and ADHD overlap is kinda shitty, because you "play to think" on topics in inappropriate times and at the same time you get heavy intrusive thoughts, not to mention the compulsions you have to perform to remove them. Food is another major problem, all my frustrations are vented on huge quantities of food, especially after i take my sleeping pill and right before i go to bed, now i'm overweight and i'm getting increasingly fat every time

Good luck, mate. Sounds like you have got a better handle on things, especially in regards to your medication.

The binge eating is something I can sympathise with, as I also have historically used food to relax or bury feelings. That's an every day battle. I hope you're able to get assistance with that in the future.

I have a legitimate question, and if I'm in the wrong then I'd like to take the time to understand where my thought process went wrong.

I made a response to someone in the politics thread about people who subscribe to QAnon type beliefs and said that some of those individuals have to be suffering from some serious mental illnesses. Morrigan, who I'm not too fond of frankly but sometimes he makes good points, said that I was being insulting to people with legitimate mental illnesses.

Now, I'm well aware that being mentally ill doesn't automatically make one fall prey to bigotry, ignorance and harmful beliefs and behavior. I'm aware that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illnesses are good people who are struggling and need help.

I'm also aware that many of these Qanon individuals are just selfish, ignorant, bigoted assholes who don't have any mental illnesses at all.

Perhaps maybe even I worded the statement in a way that could be considered insulting.

But I don't think it's insensitive to think that many of these individuals have some serious antisocial personality disorders at the very least.

Am I wrong to think that?

^There's some overlap between psychological disorder and belief in conspiracy theories, but I'm not sure how clear and straightforward it's considered to be. I'll look into it a bit and comment later. Also, Morrigan's a woman.

Morrigan is a woman? Are you sure?

Yes, she sure is.

I had no idea. Ok...

But anyways, I'm just asking if I was wrong to think that and if I was indeed being insensitive and insulting

For what it’s worth, I was diagnosed with ASPD and severe social anxiety along with paranoia and I had some instances of persecution complex and while those are more personality disorders than actual mental illnesses your post didn’t offend me at all. Can’t speak for everybody else though.

I'm kinda zapped, so I haven't managed to do more than look at a few cursory sources. Here's what I've got.

1. Overview of the topic (Wikipedia: "Conspiracy theory: Psychology")
2. "Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?" (PsychCentral)
3. "Conspiracy Theories Aren't Delusions" (Psychology Today)

The authors of (2) and (3) seem to differ in their views of the normalcy of conspiracist thinking. The first seems to connect it more readily with pathological traits, whereas the second argues that this connection is unsubstantiated except in cases where the subjects have committed crimes - the traits seem to him less noteworthy otherwise. ("We all have needs for certainty or control, just as many of us have less than perfect analytical thinking skills.")

I have no evidence here to back me up, but I'm of the belief that those that subscribe to QAnon and deify Trump and admit to contrary behaviours are lonely and isolated. If you're lonely and isolated, I feel like you're more likely to fall for conspiracy theories and exaggerated belief systems. It brings a sense of togetherness and allows the victim to cultivate a sense of "me vs. the world" since they're so easily gullible to such extreme views due to how they've been treated throughout their lives.

On top of that, I know that the current capitalist system hasn't been favourable to many Americans (and those of other countries like my native Australia). As such, a vote for Trump is a vote for "something different." It's not so much the result of mental illness as much as it's a vote of "well, nothing in the last few decades has worked for me, so what's the harm in trying something drastic?" It's a result of Americans being tired of a system that continually punishes them for no other reason than them being poor. In my opinion, that's why people turn to conspiracy theories, QAnon, Trump, and similar thought patterns.

There would be some people with mental illnesses that would fall for these things, but I reckon that's more a lack of education about a wide variety of political, sexual, and racial topics. It's not just about a low score in an IQ test. There's a multitude of factors working in tandem to facilitate and cultivate such extreme views.

Overall, I don't think your comment was offensive in any way. I just think that "serious mental illness" is just one part of a larger, more global, problem that many people around the world are facing.

Been diagnosed with a chronic depression since 2019. Have tried 3 different antidepressants and tried to get off them twice but my mind responded terribly, especially the 2nd time. And even going back to the meds I was taking didn't help that time, so I had to change antidepressants again.

I've started with Escitalopram(Lexapro). Then took Brintellix. Now I'm taking Prozac. With the first 2, I took 10mg dosages, but with Prozac I'm taking a 20mg daily dosage.

The worst thing about my crisis when I got off meds was the horrible anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Even almost attempted to hang myself with a bedsheet last summer. I had constant suicidal thoughts at the time. Scary shit.

I've been feeling well lately and sometimes forget I'm depressed. I'm supposed to take Prozac for at least 4 more months. And then I might get off it and see if I finally can stop taking antidepressants for good. If a 4th crisis happens then I guess it's back to meds for a much longer period. But hopefully that doesn't happen. I won't deny I'm a bit scared, since my 3rd crisis was pretty bad, but I won't know unless I try.

Good luck to you, man. That sounds scary indeed, and super-frustrating. If crisis strikes yet again (and hopefully it doesn't), I hope your past experience proves helpful at least in making it more manageable - you've already seen that you have the strength and resources to come out the other side of these terrible episodes (even if this doesn't necessarily result in the cessation of meds).

If I can mope about my own stuff for a moment...social anxiety fucking sucks. This evening I had an awkward interaction with a stranger, who approached me while I was passing time with a book. My inner troll was in rare form; every other sentence exchanged between myself and the other person, I would just be struck with the sense that, "Ooh, this is a conversational dead end, too, and this unfortunate fellow is regretting the approach more and more with every passing moment..."

I hope so, too. Truth be told, I'm too scared to actually attempt suicide. I've done some research in the past and all methods sound horrible and there's a big chance of it going horribly wrong and ending up in a far worse situation than the one I am in right now. I don't want to end up in a wheel chair or without legs. Plus, I read about people who've survived attempts and they mostly seem to regret ever trying it, especially if they suffered serious physical consequences from their attempts.

Maybe I'm just a coward, but you can also say I'm brave for still being here. It boils down to perspective.

Anxiety is something I've struggled with my whole life. One of the best things antidepressants have done for me was severely reducing my anxiety levels. It used to be so bad that my heart rate would accelerate during online discussions. That no longer happens, fortunately. My appetite also would reduce during my crisis periods due to my anxiety kicking back in.

Anxiety can be really paralising, and those who don't suffer from it have no idea what it feels like.

I've always been shy with people, but that has sorta decreased with age. I'm now 32 years old and care less and less what others might think of me. I'm just myself. I don't need to pretend to be someone else to please others. If they don't like me then screw them.

Good luck with everything Festivus. Depression is insidious.

Definitely! I can't track down the video at the moment, but if memory serves, somewhere on YouTube there's a talk (probably a TED Talk) given by a man who had extensive professional experience talking to suicide jumpers at the Golden Gate Bridge - he makes just this point about the survivors. As they report, it's an extremely common experience for jumpers to be seized with regret almost as soon as their feet leave the ground.



The thought about "cowardice" is one you can very safely dismiss, IMO.

The way I see it, depression is like a force that compels a person to interpret the world and themselves in the most disparaging terms they can come up with, terms that generally strain the limits of believability.

"I haven't ended my life, therefore I might be a coward" is a perfect example, but I'll illustrate with something more mundane. If I'm romantically interested in someone, but the interest evidently isn't reciprocated (say I simply ask her out and receive a polite "no"), then on my best days, I'll be able to say to myself, "Oh, well, she doesn't think we're compatible, or she's simply unavailable, but no big deal; I've been on dates in the past, so, there's no reason it couldn't happen again with someone else." But on my most depressed days, it's as if my mind will strain to conjure up the nastiest self-assessment it can get away with: "She, and everyone else, sees right through you - you are an inept, insecure, cretinous man-child. (Not to mention ugly.)"

And if it were psychologically possible for me to be persuaded of something even worse (say, "You are literally the least appealing person she will encounter over her entire life, and it required all her strength just to suppress her vomit"), then I would pretty much be forced to accept that as well - but fortunately it happens that my depression has semi-reasonable limits (most of the time).

Again, I think the same sort of thing applies to the depressed person who wonders if "cowardice" is what accounts for their decision not to end their life. It's like there's this sadistic inner troll character whose mission is to tell you: "If it really, really hurts to think this about yourself, then it's probably true."



That's great. I wish I were there myself, and I'm a bit older. (I'm getting somewhat closer, though!)

Depression is definitely insidious. Sadly, there's still a lot go stigma in many parts of the world about it. Not to mention a lot of ignorance as well.

I've seen that Golden Gate Bridge suicide documentary several years ago on YouTube. It's really sad and powerful. One of the survivors, Kevin something actually goes around the world nowadays speaking about suicide prevention iirc.

That analogy is probably accurate but I can't say I personally relate to it. Romance hasn't been a part of my life ever. I'm a very lonely person and always have been one. Always had trouble making friends, and I don't think getting a girlfriend is something I'd be capable of. Not necessarily because of my physical looks, but a combination of many factors.

The person I was the closest to in the world was my mother. Sadly, câncer took her away from me when I was 18. I'd like to believe I've moved on since it was over a decade ago already, but I guess it's a loss one never fully recovers from. I wouldn't say it's related to my depression per se. I've started to feel the early signs of depression around late 2013. And then they went away in 2015 and came back around mid-2017.

Perhaps I was depressed as a teenager back in the mid-2000s at some point. I was too young to know and to understand. And too scared to tell my mother about it at the time. But I know that I haven't considered myself a happy person ever since I became a teenager.

Sometimes, whenever I give my opinion and POV on something, I'm not sure if they're my actual feelings or if it's depression speaking for me. It's confusing.

Btw, antidepressants give you very interesting dreams. Escitalopram/Lexapro, in particular, gave me really wild ones. Including a few really bad nightmares, but most of the time they were just really the kind of dreams I couldn't imagine ever having. Like, I was some sort of artist or musician on drugs in my sleep or something.

Yes, when I first started taking escitalopram and quetiapine, I was fascinated with how strange and intense my dreams felt, even something about my movements during sleep seemed different, I had a bit of a wild sensation when I woke up, depending on the dream my heart would be racing and I would be in a daze, almost shocked sometimes, the dreams sometimes felt like a crazy combination of surreal and real and I usually had to process what even happened whenever I woke up, until it dawned on me that it was all just a dream. Eventually the effect pretty much faded (which I feel like I miss sometimes, there was something introspective about it all when I woke up and thought about my dreams), and now I usually don't feel anything at all.

I have been thinking lately, it's so hard to feel fulfilled or satisfied with life due to the lack ability to do much within the molds of the system. You know, I can work and save my money, and put that money I saved into a safe sort of investment or whatever, but it just generates an empty sensation. None of it matters, I can't do anything meaningful with it. I can't buy a house, an apartment or even just a piece of land to build mine from scratch. I can engage in mindless, fruitless consumerism, but I refuse because I know it will lead me nowhere, in fact it just serves to distract from the systemic issues in society. It's one of my main sources of frustrations, it's so hard to stay focused or feel positive in such a situation. It's far from the only reason why I feel so constantly negative, but it's the one on my mind at the moment (along with general world events).

Sounds like it's time for you to go inward.

Good on you for coming to this realization. Most people are still chasing the carrot on a stick.

Haven't checked 'em out in a while, but The Minimalists are worth a read/view on the subject, IMO. They have a Website, and one or two books and Netflix specials.

One of the project founders dropped out of a six-figure, white-collar lifestyle and decided on a way of life involving very few possessions, much greater freedom from the rat race, and a deeper commitment to more authentic, creative, constructive relationships and pursuits.

I think what he and his collaborator promote is cool, healthy-minded, and worth emulating - though I myself tend to be pretty un-self-disciplined, am bad at minimizing clutter, and have a lot invested in my collections of stuff (mainly books and CDs). But the guys aren't overzealous and dogmatic about things - they're the kind of people you can pick up a few helpful practical pointers, and some general inspiration and solidarity, from.

Kinda the same thing though, isn't it? To go from getting as much stuff as you can to decluttering and minimalizing your life as much as possible. Both in the pursuit of the belief that doing so will make you happy.

I don't want to get political or anything, and I know many folks here aren't American, but it occurs to me that this hyper-capitalist, uber consumerist society we live in in the West is a huge contributor to mental health deterioration.

Always chasing a carrot, as another poster stated, always encouraged to be productive and working. We never get time to be introspective, we never get afforded the time to take care of our own needs, mentally and physically. That could mean anything from pursuing and exploring our own hopes, dreams and hobbies/aspiration to something like getting actual professional help.

It isn't healthy whatsoever

Yeah, there's a story about Diogenes the Cynic rejoicing upon the discovery that he could simply take a drink of water by cupping his hands - thus eliminating the need to own a cup.

But I don't think the Minimalists (i.e. the guys from that Website) go nearly this far. The idea isn't to be as frugal as possible and to renounce as many possessions as possible; I take it as more of a general, open-ended recommendation against "retail therapy" as a way of life, against busy-ness, against infatuation with money and status, against consumerism ("He who dies with the most toys wins")...that sort of thing. I think they want to say that once a person chooses to reject (or in some way consciously resist) those ways of "filling the void," in whatever ways are appropriate to their desires and situation, a more mindful and authentically human way of life will tend to arise, almost of its own accord. (Maybe I'm off on this.)

There are critics who complain that this stuff is just another vanity project for the rich and privileged, that it doesn't really solve any deep systemic injustices, but I dunno...

For one thing, I don't think justice is the sole or primary purpose of their project. It's more to do with personal, individual well-being. And people can pursue both of these ideals; one (arguably) need not detract from the other. I also tend to agree with the negative side of their vision, i.e. that there's a distressing amount of compulsive consumerism and a kind of nauseating (IMO) glamorization of traditional full-time work, that these things are unlikely to be the key to deep and lasting life-satisfaction (and are likely to even detract from this). But the positive side of their vision, ISTM, is that life has an almost automatic tendency to bring about positive fulfillment (or the essential ingredients of this), and to be experienced as rich and precious, provided that the traps of vain ambition and materialism are avoided. Obviously, if this is a fair description of their view, it'll ring untrue to anyone who's been in the grips of depression, for one. (Schopenhauer, sounding rather anhedonic himself, argues that there are no positive pleasures, that the most "pleasant" thing a person can feel is merely the absence of pain. To escape from the usual stresses of life merely heightens one's vulnerability to emptiness and boredom.)

Yeah, I have a lot to say about capitalism (nothing good, and I won't get into it here), so I definitely agree with living minimal. I don't have a lot of stuff and I'm trying to sell more things, because I realised I don't need a lot to live. That doesn't mean getting rid of cups because I can drink with my hands, or getting rid of my PC or TV or anything like that. More like trinkets and smaller things that I can do without.

Furthermore, constantly chasing that carrot is definitely unhealthy. I think it's because once you get that carrot, society then forces you to think "okay, what next?" I've been caught up with that line of thinking, too, until I gained some introspection and realised that where I am now is exactly the place I wanted to be 5 years ago, and now I'm searching for the next thing because it's suddenly not enough in the eyes of capitalism. Always striving, always working, always earning more. Unfortunately the "cost of living", which is certainly not unique to Australia, can cause this, but it's also nice to stop and realise where you are now.

I'm hopeful that things will change soon, but I doubt it. I'm 37 now and while I'm in the thick of it, I worry about children today and how they'll navigate an upcoming world. Very scary.

I'm a diagnosed Schizoid-Schizophreniac, but hey, we're all crazy to some degree in a way, am I right or wrong?

I have Anxiety and PTSD. Also Autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. The latter three aren't really mental health, but Neurological disorders, which can tie in in some areas. It's as fun as it sounds! With my Physical health issues on top of those (which I won't list as to not derail the original thread context), I literally have no choice but to attempt to work from home in whatever facet I am capable of. Currently, this means running a small YouTube channel, micro-label and distro just to try and pull in extra cash.

Hot take alert, but I actually wouldn't change my life for anything. I was finally diagnosed at 37, and everything fell into place beautifully at that point. I've learned who I am and how to cope with who I am, as well as the way I am perceived by others. Ironically, I've never had a better handle on my life and ambitions since it was all explained to me.

Damn after reading through this entire thread I'm flummoxed!

I will say this though:

There is the kind of guy that gets as many crackers and pieces of cheese he's cut....
Then there's the guy that counts the crackers but not the cheese and vice versa....
Then there is the guy that just brings the box of crackers and the cheese to his table/desk too....
There is also the guy that doesn't even like cheese and crackers and prefers cheez-it's.

My point it: there is NO wrong way to do it!
And more times than not, just getting out of your head, and letting others hear about your problems can help lift the
weight off your own head....because now it's in someone else's head too and they can help carry that load.