Health Depression

[MP_]

I love you

You’ve at least made me lol

 

[MP_]

Sorry to hear mate, Id just say a solid daily routine helps (as mundane as that sounds) and keep busy doing whatever, even going for a long walk along the beach when u feel crap.

I’m just living in my head atm, been diagnosed with severe stenosis in my spine so I can’t do much. On the waiting list for surgery and that may take 18 months. So far four months off work with no pay coming in. I’m just really over it tbh. Going to work was my happy place as I loved it so much and the workmates.

 

[Angus Young]

what else can you do really?

It´s really good question Cuzzy

You got to somehow try and escape the rat race

-entrepreneur stuff
- investing etc
-or just work like a dog with a plan to retire at 40 at something

Or you have to be one of the lucky few that get a job they love- footballer, musician, artist, some niche etc etc

Most people will just drift through life in a job they hate, pay interest on a loan on a mortgage, live for weekends, get Sunday depression, pay bills then die.

It is what is. I guess you have to have a positive mindset, work hard when young, make good decisions etc

 

[Cuzz09]

I dont hate my job but Ive been there nearly 20 years so its autopilot a lot of the time

I gotta say I dont have depression but when I tell people that Im just content doing the minimum they hint at it like I need ti be always striving for some big thing.

Im fine with plodding, bills are paid and got some food etc

 

[Run n Spread]

It´s really good question Cuzzy

You got to somehow try and escape the rat race

-entrepreneur stuff
- investing etc
-or just work like a dog with a plan to retire at 40 at something

Or you have to be one of the lucky few that get a job they love- footballer, musician, artist, some niche etc etc

Most people will just drift through life in a job they hate, pay interest on a loan on a mortgage, live for weekends, get Sunday depression, pay bills then die.

It is what is. I guess you have to have a positive mindset, work hard when young, make good decisions etc

Yes 5 ways.
Entrepreneurs start a business or creative endeavour and hope it succeeds.

Invest hell of a gamble you need to.be knowledgeable and get in fast. Otherwise your in again with the riff raff.

Be and develop an elite talent. AFL.player actor musician etc got to.be in the top.2% thou.

Work hard and retire by 40. Take risks work 4 jobs. Sacrifice life retire at 40. (More for young people). And their choice. **** that

Cur your expenses to the bone. Do nothing live bush and just enjoy nature. Get a Min wage job cruise and do.****.all. won't get married or have a partner thou.

 

[MP_]

The biggest problem I’m having at the moment is keeping my mind busy because it’s my thoughts that are causing my problems . When I could work I didn’t have time to ruminate. Now I’m with myself 24/7 and not able to do much because of my back I’m spending far too much time listening to myself. Ffs I’ve done a mind power course and did the landmark forum I’ve learnt the tools to help myself but I keep giving in to my thoughts and it’s scary where it could end. It’s like I’m digging a hole straight down and getting out of that hole just seems harder so I keep digging. I just don’t know how to stop ruminating about my past and move forward.

 

[Run n Spread]

The biggest problem I’m having at the moment is keeping my mind busy because it’s my thoughts that are causing my problems . When I could work I didn’t have time to ruminate. Now I’m with myself 24/7 and not able to do much because of my back I’m spending far too much time listening to myself. Ffs I’ve done a mind power course and did the landmark forum I’ve learnt the tools to help myself but I keep giving in to my thoughts and it’s scary where it could end. It’s like I’m digging a hole straight down and getting out of that hole just seems harder so I keep digging. I just don’t know how to stop ruminating about my past and move forward.

Im the opposite.
I can't work anymore
I feel like driving off the road and killing myself each morning or shooting myself each time I hear that ****ing alarm
If I could sleep 16 hours a day work 4 and leisure 4 that would be ideal

 

[MP_]

Im the opposite.
I can't work anymore
I feel like driving off the road and killing myself each morning or shooting myself each time I hear that ****ing alarm
If I could sleep 16 hours a day work 4 and leisure 4 that would be ideal

It hits different for everyone

 

[Cuzz09]

All those courses are good but I forget everything so fast

I am a fire warden at work and haven't had a drill for over a year and am dreading if something happens

I picture that south Park episode where people get told to duck under a park bench to avoid a lava flow from a volcano and skeletons pop up

 

[revo333]

I dont hate my job but Ive been there nearly 20 years so its autopilot a lot of the time

I gotta say I dont have depression but when I tell people that Im just content doing the minimum they hint at it like I need ti be always striving for some big thing.

Im fine with plodding, bills are paid and got some food etc

That's the problem, people raise the bar to high with expectations that life is a movie and when they can't live up to it and compare there life to other around them that's when the downward spiral can begin.

There's nothing wrong with living a quiet content life with no aspirations to progress with work.

After all the crappy jobs I had in my 20's , I'd be pretty satisfied with an autopilot job that paid the bills ect for the rest of my life.

 

[revo333]

I’m just living in my head atm, been diagnosed with severe stenosis in my spine so I can’t do much. On the waiting list for surgery and that may take 18 months. So far four months off work with no pay coming in. I’m just really over it tbh. Going to work was my happy place as I loved it so much and the workmates.

Work is great when it's great and the worse when it's not.

I found a job I really liked just after covid and 2 years later new managers came in and ruined the whole vibe of the department I work in.

Really starting to dread looking for a new job because it'd the first job I've had where I get along with everyone.

 

[Run n Spread]

I tried. But the cold weather is just destroying me.
I can not stand work. I wish there was another way.
I really need my own business. But I'm just too tired. All my energy goes to work and simply trying to survive.

 

[SeaOfFire]

I keep saying it. All my life people say smile. Be happy etc. Being content is better than pretending to be happy it is so peaceful.

I hope if I ever get a chance at another life I do things so much better than I have in this one.

Good for you. The 9 till 5 lifestyle is simply bullshit.
Its a harsh lesson but you need to work out how much $$$ you need what you want in life and find a way to build it

I’m replying to all 3 of you rather than the specific messages as such.

I’ve read through the recent stuff you’ve all posted.

Feel free to famil yourselves with my shit ITT - it goes back years also under another username (someone remembered me and there’s a connecting post way back there somewhere). But don’t feel obligated to, this isn’t about me

Well - yeah.

Find your truth they say
Find some happiness in your life they say
Look for the bright moments that bring you joy or satisfaction or contentment they say

As if it’s as simple as just, like, doing that. As if happiness and contentment are like food and you can just go grab it off the shelf.

First off, here’s two short videos that I encountered yesterday.

Walking Alone (Alan Watts)

Courage from the I Ching

I want to make clear that I don’t do the whole “change your life/outlook/self” via video (or any other way for that matter) shit. I don’t trawl through the internet salivating at the newest new age/psychologist rubbish).

I rarely even encounter such things because the internet is part of the problem for me.

I found out last weekend that my father died last November.

Family, lol. If I could go back in time and set every single one of them on fire, I would. So, I wasn’t at all sad or upset.

I have been trying to free myself of all the shit that friends (I have nobody close) and family (**** them all to hell) have forced ME to carry for decades.

I look at the scars on the outside and feel the scars on the inside. A lot of that is their shit. Oh for sure, I haven’t helped myself and I’m always ready to admit that.

But it’s really only recently that I began to understood how much of their baggage I was carrying. It’s like an abuser who abuses. The abused one is eventually forced to confront the knowledge of why the abuser did as they did. And somewhere in there, in gaining that knowledge, the abused carries a bit of their abusers pain, in addition to their own.

Read that more than once.

You walk through life absorbing everything around you. It’s impossible not to. You can play **** The Police at max volume on your earbuds, wear dark sunnies, never talk to anyone - doesn’t matter. You will still be absorbing stuff.

Humans are learning machines, amongst many other things. It’s a survival mechanism.

But what do you do, when EVERYTHING around you makes you sick?

When you spend time following that thought to the conclusion that it’s YOU that has the problem?

Makes wanting to engage, to learn, to understand another path of pain, a road paved with razor blades that you have no choice but to walk. Like carrying the pain of another, being the outcome of their failures.

We spend an awful lot of time numb to everything. Most people do, and they do so well enough to find the small joys and the moments of contentment, such that those things are enough.

For a lucky few , this can blossom into full blown happiness. But the majority, whilst not self harming, aren’t exactly chipper. But they have something else, some other quality, that prevents that swirling pit of darkness from swallowing them up.

And this is usually the direction we look towards, to those around us.

But like I said - what do you do, when EVERYTHING around you is the problem?

When what you DO HURTS
When what you DONT DO HURTS

Suddenly you are nowhere. You are painted into an impossibly small corner surrounded by searing flames and lightless wormholes to nothingness.

You cannot go back of course
Nor can you go forward
Left, right, up, down…. Nada.

What then?

All the medications, all the therapy, all the thinking, all the journaling, all the conversations, all the moments that make life cause you nothing but jagged ripping pain inside.

If you were a superhero, this is the power source you’d use. That emotional and sometimes physical trauma could ignite a sun.

Doesn’t help. Doesn’t help for shit.

The softly spoken therapist, or psychologist has almost ZERO idea of what you are feeling. You are FOREVER being put into a box.

You become, through that process, nothing more than the sum of your pain.

And that’s fine for the therapist. They don’t have to live with your mind every single ****ing day. Ezpz for them.

I’m gonna share with you now my bit.

It isn’t pretty. It isn’t comfortable. It probably isn’t in the texts.

And it might not even help.

You are alone.

It’s just you.

You are the one who is going to have to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, over and over again.

You are gonna wake up and start crying. You are gonna howl, sometimes silently, at the endless sea of pain that never recedes.

And for some ****ing stupid reason, you keep waking up.

You keep doing stuff, like coming here, like watching the footy, whatever it is, day after day after day after day.

And you’ll realise, as you all probably have, that nothing makes it better.

And even when you forsake the regular activities of a “normal” person, when you strike out on a different path, you still end up in the same ****ing pit.

Somewhere in that process, and I’m talking YEARS here, not months, you let it go.

What’s the “it”?

The IT is the idea that you’re broken. The IT is that what you feel is evidence of somehow not being enough. The IT is that your failures mark you as sick or different.

Because if you’ve come this far, through all your struggles and failures, through all your pain and unhappiness, you’ve got something that few others have in abundance as you do.

Strength and resilience.
Compassion and caring.

It’s just that nobody sees that, and maybe you didn’t either.

When we say “X is good”, we immediately are assigning the opposite is bad. When we judge A is valuable, we create something that has no value. When we do one thing, it means we can’t do another.

And this is where the rubber meets the road.

Try to stop looking at things in binary. Humans, especially modern societies, are seemingly engineered to do this. We don’t even realise it.

“What do you want for dinner, X or Y?” Etc etc etc

You are not worthless
You are not pain
You are not suffering
You are not failure

You are a testament to everything that is good and valuable. You are living proof that we all have a spark of eternal grace within us.

So.

A lot of words, a lot of which you will have heard before.

Take time to look through your dark feelings. Accept them and try to see beyond them.

Because I can 100% guarantee you, without meeting you, that you have something nobody else has.

And you prove it, every single ****ing day, by being alive, by being here.

It’s never gonna end. You will always have bad days. But because you know you can endure, you can be certain that you will have good days too.

Hold onto that my friends because it is important. YOU are important.

Peace

 

[Run n Spread]

I accept I'm not normal whatever that means.
I have a very very different way of living and looking at things.
In fact my opinions and certain actions are just a bit too real for most peop

 

[SeaOfFire]

I accept I'm not normal whatever that means.
I have a very very different way of living and looking at things.
In fact my opinions and certain actions are just a bit too real for most peop

Always remember that normality is a majority concept.

Now, within that, we need to accept that when people say “normal”, what they generally mean is not crazy/depressed/unable to function or process within broadly defined parameters etc

Which is fine, nobody likes to imagine a world where EVERYONE is unpredictable.

But the trick is there is no trick.

There’s just work. Your work.

It can take a long time for that to manifest though.

Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Your path is yours. Nobody else can live your life.

I’ve been here for 25 years- officially diagnosed and treated for 20.

I wasted 5 years trying to wrap my head around myself.

I wasted another 19.5 angry at the world and angry at myself.

And I can still see, in my head, how I get back there. It’s easy.

But, I’m learning my path from that place.

I’ve been on suicide watch, I’ve been sectioned, I even got the fencing put up on the Story Bridge.

But I’m still here.

I’ve come to understand myself.

I’m not normal. I never will be.

But I’m me, like I always have been.

It’s just I’ve begun to see, like, REALLY SEE and appreciate myself.

One day, I’ll be able to look in the mirror and be immensely proud of myself- but I’m not there yet.

Walk your path mate. Give yourself credit for the good stuff, don’t bash yourself endlessly for the other stuff.

If you feel like trash at any time, give yourself permission to do so.

Yep, you’ll fall apart, everyone does. Some of us fall harder than others, or have less wriggle room to keep trucking at those moments.

That’s fine.

If you don’t know where to go or what to do, that’s cool too. Just get through the hour. Then the day.

Because tomorrow hasn’t been written yet.

And we all start tomorrow, just like our footy teams put last round away, and focus on next week.

I watch the Lions, every week. It’s easy now of course, but I’ve been through the bad days before the 3peat. And then bad days AFTER the 3peat. And now it’s good days again.

I marvel at our young men, 30, 35 years younger than me.

I see their drive, dedication, commitment, professionalism….and it ****ing inspires me.

I SEE that. I always have.

And it’s taken THIS LONG to understand WHY that matters to me.

Because I am like that too.

I just had a shit childhood with a shit family and fell in with people who weren’t good for me at age 17.

And it’s taken to now, just like the last few months, to finally understand that. And to finally understand how I can USE my good qualities for me in a good way, not in a destructive way.

I’m not gonna lie.

It’s ****ing hard bro. I spent time in winter in Brisbane living on the street - age 54 bro, and I’m living on the street.

And I’m not now popping champers from the Hilton penthouse.

But, knowing I can survive my life has made me strong. I’ve had help along the way, for sure. Often from unlikely quarters.

You will get there dude. Trust the process.

 

[CM86]

Something that I feel I would have resented at the time, I feel like I'd be grateful for now, is the fact that there are people in this forum (even if they don't post) who sit on our shoulders as 'angels'. And they've probably saved more lives than we'd know.

Can anyone here help us all explain better ways to engage with our family or loved ones, around how we're feeling? Or better ways to get help, without feeling trapped. And without feeling scared of being prevented or restricted, even if we'd possibly be grateful for it at a later point.

 

[DemurePrincess]

Something that I feel I would have resented at the time, I feel like I'd be grateful for now, is the fact that there are people in this forum (even if they don't post) who sit on our shoulders as 'angels'. And they've probably saved more lives than we'd know.

Can anyone here help us all explain better ways to engage with our family or loved ones, around how we're feeling? Or better ways to get help, without feeling trapped. And without feeling scared of being prevented or restricted, even if we'd possibly be grateful for it at a later point.

I can only say honesty mate!

You should never feel afraid or scared to share your thoughts and worries with those that love you the most, regardless of how hard, embarrassing or confronting those feelings are. Your family should be the closest people and the ones you trust enough to be raw and open with.

Whatever your feelings are, they should always feel validated and heard bc when we aren’t heard, is when we allow silence and silence is a killer these days!