Mental Health

Anhedonia means difficulty in feeling joy or happiness, and is a common condition in depression.

And no, this isn't some more "mindfulness" tips. I agree with the author of this article that cultivating the ability to enjoy things is a skill, and skills develop with practice. Like most skills, it is hard at first.

But yeah. I just wanted to share this article, in hopes it might help anyone slightly.

obviously this is just an article and mental health especially depression these days is an affect of our material conditions being very hard and as such, for many people true relief is something beyond reading articles or getting therapy. beyond political activities or mutual aid (the latter of which I'm presently unable to contribute), I wish I could help more towards this end. Anyway, I hope we can all make it through to better days.

EDIT: I'm not sure what to label this post as per the community guidelines. The language used in the article is not spiritual, strictly speaking, at least I (who am not spiritual) did not find it so.... but it's also not strictly "evidence-based". The best fit I think is [discussion]?? However, if it's not appropriate for this community, please let me know if I should remove it from here, or I guess mods can directly delete it. Sorry if here's not the right place for this.

My mood has severely dropped off compared to a month ago where I was feeling my best I’ve felt in many years. I am currently on an assortment of medications to mostly help combat depression, OCD, and anxiety. If it helps the medications I’m on are 150mg Quetiapine (75mg twice a day), 20 mg propanalol (10mg twice a day), 50mg Pristiq, and 1 mg clonazepan. I was prescribed 21 days worth of Ritalin which I believe increased my mood and helped me get out of bed and do things with my life. The issue here is it sucks that I’m having to rely on a chemical dependence in order to feel good, also the fact the cocktail of medications I’m on aren’t doing anything for my mood and I’m just falling deeper into a depressed state.

I asked my psychiatrist a month ago if we could trial other stimulants as the 10mg Ritalin only worked for about 3 hours max and then would drain me of all energy for the rest of the day. Last week when I spoke to him he said “I don’t want to add too many moving parts” which is a way of saying I shouldn’t be on stimulants.

I see my psychiatrist soon, maybe if I explain how depressed and exhausted I’ve been he might be able to look into some alternative treatments to combat how I feel. I’m concerned with bringing up controlled substances as he has already provided me with a months worth of Benzodiazepines, asking him for stimulants because they make me feel good might not go well especially since he is concerned there’s too many drugs in my repertoire.

It’s annoying that I’m on so many drugs yet they seem to not be doing anything for my mood, and the only drugs that help are addictive.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4564737

It's needless to say that climate change is a very scary topic that is a lot to handle. There are a lot of very bleak predictions, and even optimistic predictions will significantly disrupt humanity for at least some time.

What are your tips on how I (and many others) can cope with this?

(P.S. It's like I make a new post every day, isn't it?)

As some of you might know, I experience strong mood swings accompanied during the hyperthymic phases by delirious thoughts (technically not bipolar though, so no option for targeted treatment until it worsens, for now I only get an antipsychotic drug at low dose).

I already feel a reduced need for sleep, lots of energy, etc. And I'm beginning to spend much more money than usual, making ridiculous plans, talking and writing too much and having a fast stream of thoughts involving nonsensical math, economy and science.

This time I'll try to keep myself safe. So no more huge debates with libs on Reddit, no more deranged thought posts here, etc. Irl my friends and family know when to warn me.

In between jobs again recently and as usual everytime this happens my stepdad rips into me every chance he gets about having "no money and no job"

Among other things like calling me a parasite or whatever.

Go into mental health treatment soon and that cant come soon enough to get away from this crap.

I usually fall asleep around 22:30-23 and have to wake up around 6 for school. I’m a night person so I can’t really get to sleep before that. Also, the sound of my alarm is physically painful so I tend to be half-awake a while before it in anxious anticipation. High schoolers (I’m USian) need more sleep than most people, so I feel miserable on less than nine hours and deteriorate throughout the week. Idk how some people do it on even less sleep. My head buzzes and I can’t focus most of the time during the school day. On weekends I used to get 11-12 hours to make up for my sleep debt, but I haven’t been able to since daylight savings time. I can now barely get ten hours a lot of the time, leaving me tired enough to have a strong tendency to go on social media without much energy for else.

Any advice? I can provide more information if necessary.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1756185

It's dangerous to go alone.

Use this.

It seems all I do nowadays is work, be grumpy or read. Usually if I'm too grumpy to do anything I just sleep early, but I can't physically sleep enough for my mood these days.

Your methods will probably not work for me, but I think this might get my head working on ideas.

Besides that, I bet others will find some use for your ideas too.

I'll probably be feeling reasonably okay after some sleep tomorrow, but I need to lose my composure somewhere right now to blow off steam, and I guess this is a mental health community and I feel reasonably comfortable posting this here.

It's relevant for this that I'm autistic.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1585366

One of my good friends tried to take her life last week. I happened to be over hanging out with one of her roommates when her gf came out and said 'we need to get her to the hospital like now,' and I volunteered to drive.

My crisis response is typically to get very robotic and problem solve about the events at hand. I had the thought "I am going to need to cry about this in about a week," but otherwise stayed focused on supporting the two of them. Later that night, I took care of my bf because he was really triggered by everything too.

While a few friends have sat with me and kept me company when I've asked, for the most part no one has been proactive about checking in on me. Today and yesterday, my feelings have finally caught up to me and I've felt really sad and overwhelmed—more or less on schedule. with my original prediction.

I have been having a lot of whiplash between the incredible support our community has had for our friend, and my frustration about feeling isolated now. I am worried that actually people are making some effort that way and that I am just being receptive enough to it and feeling guilty about feeling sad wrong.

My own hurt and frustration are started to transfer into anger at my friend for doing something so traumatizing right now when I had already been having a difficult time. It feels like a lot of the progress I have been making on feeling more secure and self-sufficient have been undercut by this round of insecurity and isolation. I have done a better job of asking for help than I have in past times when I have been upset, I just wish people gave it proactively when they knew I was upset. It is a cruel thing to blame my friend for the response of our community. It is a cruel thing to be mad (upset is okay!) at my community for not saving energy for my delayed emotional response when hey there is a big crisis that happened and used up lots of people's energy.

I am seeking advice on letting go of these bitter feelings.

I've been helplessly struggling with intrusive thoughts since as long I can remember. They were hard to explain. They got more drastic since the start of my teen years and gets bad to the point they make me want to commit suicide.

They ruin about everything. Things I love, critical thinking, my perception of reality, my sanity, and my mental health.

I rarely tell people because I was afraid that they were going to give me very dull advice. And it was months ago when I finally found the actual term for these thoughts. Right now my mind feels numb and worn out. (Probably gonna edit this later.)

Sorry for making a big text and sorry for my English. Cheers to you even if you're not reading it.

I'm a Brazilian from a big city, and I was accustomed to the Brazilian way of life. I recently went to the US to visit family and the sheer difference in purchasing power, quality of life, the humongous disparity between the US and Brazil are killing me. The US middle class is better off than the BR upper class by a big margin. I'm currently studying computer science in university, and my goal is to leave BR for somewhere ""better"" (take better with heavy quotes). Thing is, in BR there's basically no university-grade job in my field and there's basically almost no way of getting out if you don't have experience in the field like me.

Recently, about 2 months ago, I've stopped taking my (light) anxiety meds because they're expensive. My parents (I'm 20) can buy it no problem but my expenses weigh on me so much I just stopped it. I started to itch some tiny wounds in my legs and they got rather ugly, which is not as bad as an infection or something.

I was always worried about getting out of BR because I wanted a good professional life in which I could actually use the skills I got from uni, but in Brazil there's basically nothing besides making websites and bugfixing banking software. I want to make graphics drivers, motherboard firmware, work with free and open source software, but there's nothing here. And with nothing here, how do I get an opening to move to another country like Germany or the US? (countries I have family living in)

Seeing NYC compared to São Paulo, seeing the standards of living in person is driving me nuts. I'll live a comparably miserable life, with a miserable job, with mental health issues, and I'll never start a revolution. I'm giving up.

Do you have any words of advice for a young comrade? Thank you for reading thus far and sorry for being so incoherent.

Cheers from Delaware (and from São Paulo)

Bad news: It’s still retailing at $365/month

Death to America

Me explaining where I post to a normal person

• Usual: voices have no meaning, no voice, repetitions of certain phrases, few seconds, Idling. The following are special recent cases that stood out.
• Encounter one: unintelligible conversation with an inanimate object (Tomato), thoughts, whispering voice, meaning: sabotage of someone I know, few minutes, Idling.
• Encounter two: stapler in right hand, pin in left backhand hand, no memory, Idling.
• Encounter three: conversation with mirror(?) reflection(?), rhythmic beat tapping with nails, nonsensical, meaning: fight(?), few minutes, Idling.
• Encounter four: unintelligible voices, a need for isolation, emotional weight with no link, 2 days, Idling.
• Recent encounter: unintelligible voices, attempts at detaching fingernails, few seconds, Reading a book.

I feel like help is an illusion.

Frankly, I need to start using this with deciding on "what to read next" and "what to study next."

I feel like I have been deteriorating for months. I haven't wanted to do anything and talk to anyone. Even playing video games feels like more work than I'm willing to do. I don't want to leave bed and just want to sleep permanently.

I'm lucky that I work from home and have a slow enough job that I can regularly shirk responsibility without anyone noticing. I'm also lucky that I still live with my parents and have some people around. But I can't keep living like this. Despite having a full time job, I'm living like a NEET.

I'm already seeing a therapist and getting medication from a shrink. That doesn't seem to be making a difference. Between support from professionals and family members and professionals, I'm getting more than enough help for most people to get back on their feet. Yet for some reason it's not enough for me.

I can only conclude at this point that the reason I'm continuing to get worse is that I refuse to take personal responsibility. I know "personal responsibility" isn't enough in most cases where systemic issues keep people down, but I'm ridiculously privileged, as in "has never faced anything resembling real hardship" privileged. The system is set up for shits like me to do well and I still can't pick myself up. It doesn't help that I have less self discipline than a teenage twitter anarchist who wants to abolish bedtime.

How do I get myself to stop being so lazy and do something? I'm tired of being little more than a parasitic slug.

Hey Comrades,

With the current state of the world and general increase in negative feelings and emotions as a result of the current state of affairs, I wanted to start a community weekly vent and support post.

This will be for anything you need to talk about related to your mental health that is bothering you. If you feel overwhelmed, angry, scared, depressed, anxious, anything, write what you’re feeling and why below. Let’s use this as a place to help each other get through this awful shite

On a side note I want to suggest checking out It's Not Just In Your Head, a podcast by two radical anti-capitalist psychologists discussing mental health and it's relationship with Capitalism. https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead https://www.stitcher.com/show/its-not-just-in-your-head

i have biolar 1 with psychotic features. what illness you got from these people?

I’m very sorry for rambling and writing terribly. It’s very late where I am and I feel exhausted after spending all day fighting myself again. I’ve been putting off sending a post like this for a while, but I just feel like I’m at the end of my rope. Hopefully I make at least a little sense. I just started typing and wrote from my heart without looking back. Thank you for reading.

I’m just very confused and its destroying my mental health. Thinking of the future in general is soul sucking. I don’t have dreams of traveling anymore, or going out with friends, or having a family or a high paying job. All I have is stress and fear from the very idea of working 40+ hour weeks at a dead end capitalist job with no vacations, no benefits, no sick days, playing a capitalist rat race, not having enough money to save up and support myself, and not having enough time or money to do anything interesting or worthwhile. I feel like I’m trapped in a cruel hell.

I’m currently in the college hell of trying to determine what to major in, and more importantly pursue in the future as a career or field. I’m quite lost and extremely anxious going through this. I feel that most of my interests are laughable and/or translate to poorly paying jobs, or are social “negatives” that can only be rarely applied in a very niche collection of spaces in a capitalist system (i.e. Marxism). For example I was very interested in political sciences, but jobs are one in a million if I weren’t to pursue academia or law which I’m not particularly interested in. Even then what little jobs there are are pretty much all for neoliberal, conservative, and imperialist; corporations, thinktanks, and government institutions. Along with that, all my dreams of the future feel empty and impossible now, as I have a hard time finding any strength to fight back against the system alone. It’s hard to see the purpose is trying. I feel like I made a big mistake walking out Plato’s cave and seeing the world for what it is. I wish I could go back to the blissful ignorance.

I can’t even decide what I like anymore, I don’t enjoy anything useful like Comp Sci or Medicine, and I don’t feel a particular strong passion or interest for any field, even ones that don’t pay well or are rare. For example I have a friend in art school, which while an unconventional and poorly respected path in the capitalist hellscape, they find great passion and interest in what they do and love every moment of it. Letting them pay little attention to the future.

Meanwhile I feel trapped thinking about the failure I will amount to as I am stuck paralyzed. All I can think about is the hellscape of the system I’m trapped in with no way to claw out of. Like a bad dream that you can’t wake up from.

I’m very privileged to have been able to see a a very distinguished and well respected therapist and psychologist for what’s been going on in my life, but even they’re clueless. All they can give are sad platitudes, and depressing agreement to what I say. They are a wonderful person and try their best, but it seems like there’s little someone can do to help a problem like this.

I feel trapped and cursed.

Hey Comrades,

First, I want to apologize for not being more active in developing this community, life became very hectic shortly after taking over moderating and hasn't really let up since. Will do my best to get these threads up weekly going forward to help grow the community.

With the current state of the world and general increase in negative feelings and emotions as a result of the current state of affairs, I wanted to start a community weekly vent post.

This will be for anything you need to talk about related to your mental health that is bothering you. If you feel overwhelmed, angry, scared, depressed, anxious, anything, write what you're feeling and why below. Let's use this as a place to help each other get through this awful shite.

I dont want to become like the #1 poster of long-winded rants about my life here, but I find it therapeutic. I am also wondering if this just my brain being checked out, a medical thing, or something everyone has.

I have this thing where my brain decides to think things that I would never do. Its also hard to talk about because then everyone would think I secretly want to do all the things described. Cookie cutter extreme example: it imagines me killing everyone around me or something. I would never want to kill anyone around me, at least usually lol. Most times it's my family which I care for deeply. Ill just be near something, or someone, and my brain imagines me doing the absolute worse thing someone could do in that situation. It fucks with me. Because I feel like there's a serial killer describing some really fucked shit in my head as I'm trying to exist. That odd force would never have any power, and it shares no desires with me, it just sits there and acts like I want to engage in horrible acts. Also, I dont see it as an actual entity in my brain, like another person, it's more like self-doubt but saying things that make me want to never talk to anyone again. Again, does this happen to any of you? Do any of you know what this is?

thanks.

(Also worth noting, much worse shit it imagines as compared to just killing people. Shit that makes not want to see anyone ever again.)

(Edit: I suppose this is relatively normal. I guess no one told me people have thoughts they may not agree with, maybe more of a comment on Amerikkkan education and parenting.)

Lately discussing politics with people is really doing my head in. Like, is it that hard to be a decent human being and care for eachother, nature and yourself? Is it that hard to understand that we're better off working together instead of being hyper competitive to benefit a few people at the top? Is it too much to ask if we want decent living standards for everyone?

Sometimes I internally ask myself why I bother this much. Not that I see myself as the next Jesus bringing world peace or something, I only want to make this world a better place in the ways that I can. But so many people over here seem to not care in the slightest and that gets me to be negative sometimes. Makes we want to buy a tiny house in nature somewhere and just piss off and let everyone go their own way.

Just wanted to rant, comrades. I know I need to remain calm, read my theory and keep on explaining to people. But my God if I need to keep hearing about the free market economy or how immigrants are to blame for everything for the next years I might go insane.