The mental health support thread

[Kirby101]

I hear you. I am just saying not to accept society's mischaracterizations. I am not saying "it's all in your head, so buck up". I know you have big problems that need medical help. I just hate the stigmatization. I have a bad knee, I might need a replacement some day. I got Cortisone shots and need to do physical therapy for it. No big deal, a lot of people have this problem. No one looks and says there is something "wrong" with me, I just have a medical condition. I also have a prostate problem, took meds and then had an operation, again, similar to millions of men.
Why should we accept these ailments as something "regular" people have, but look at mental illness and depression as something is wrong with that person. It is very destructive.
I am saying take care of yourself, get all the help you can, but don't look down on yourself as if you are not a normal person.

[babyblob]

I hear you. I am just saying not to accept society's mischaracterizations. I am not saying "it's all in your head, so buck up". I know you have big problems that need medical help. I just hate the stigmatization. I have a bad knee, I might need a replacement some day. I got Cortisone shots and need to do physical therapy for it. No big deal, a lot of people have this problem. No one looks and says there is something "wrong" with me, I just have a medical condition. I also have a prostate problem, took meds and then had an operation, again, similar to millions of men.
Why should we accept these ailments as something "regular" people have, but look at mental illness and depression as something is wrong with that person. It is very destructive.
I am saying take care of yourself, get all the help you can, but don't look down on yourself as if you are not a normal person.

I know you are not saying buck up.

I read your words and I am thankful them. I know you are understanding and offering advice in good faith and it means a lot to me.

[Rzerox21xx]

I know you are not saying buck up.

I read your words and I am thankful them. I know you are understanding and offering advice in good faith and it means a lot to me.

I'm sorry for what you going through Blob, I wish I can help but I hope you lifted up, Depression and mental illness is a lifetime battle. its something we have to accept. I can never get off my meds and when i did I regretted. are we all going through this and we can support each other.

[babyblob]

I'm sorry for what you going through Blob, I wish I can help but I hope you lifted up, Depression and mental illness is a lifetime battle. its something we have to accept. I can never get off my meds and when i did I regretted. are we all going through this and we can support each other.

Thank you for your words.

Staying on the meds us the hardest part.

I hope when you need to that you also reach out.

[CaptCleghorn]

Meds for the rest of one's life is a very scary prospect. I understand that and have also seen my son go through the same process. There really aren't any words that will relieve the stress one feels with such a situation. However, the fact is that you and we are all better off if we maintain our prescribed medical itineraries. Even during those times when that statement is the least believed, we need to know that that's the time we most need to understand it.

[babyblob]

I want to thank everyone for their posts. It has helped a great deal

[Vakanai]

I'll admit that my mental health usually isn't on my radar. It's bad, I know it is, but it's almost always been bad. To me, I got used to it, I've normalized my poor mental health. Cyclical bouts of depression is my state of being, to the point I remember a few times it felt weird when I seemed to go too long without feeling depression. And of course like anyone with long term depression either unwilling or without access to mental healthcare (more the former most my life, more the latter currently) I've developed your standard bad coping habits. Television, internet, music, sometimes doing anything to keep my mind preoccupied enough that I'm just not left alone in the quiet with my own thoughts. Sometimes I fear going to bed because I'll lie awake thinking in the dark. But again this is usual, normal, standard operating procedure - it isn't healthy, far from, but I could honestly live this way forever. My entire life it seems has been the long mastering of bottling up my emotions and keeping a lid on my ongoing mental health crisis of simply living, and until recently I'd gotten to the point where I was able to go for years in a holding pattern.


Now the reasons for my lifetime of poor mental health seemed many and varied, but compartmentalized and simple - I thought I understood it all, and my thinking for many, many years was this:
1. I scowl when I look in the mirror or make funny faces and voices to lighten the mood - this is because I have a poor body image (dreadful, I rarely ever feel handsome, and often felt like Frankenstein's monster).
2. But my poor body image is becaus-look forget the numbering system, short version:
Body image cause by low self esteem caused by self loathing caused by depression caused by I don't know what hence the self loathing because I blamed myself for being depressed.
So image/esteem/loathing/depression have always been my main demons, one seemingly feeding the other feeding the next in a brutal fucked up bad feeling camaraderie. And I could never explain why, not with anything that lasted. There were a lot of things I went through - people at school hated me and bullied me because I was a loner, I was a bit of a loner because I was lost in my own world sometimes and honestly people are hard, I was put on ritalin against my protests for ADD (attention deficit disorder) which made it feel like I was being told I was stupid and given a prescription for how much of an idiot I was, my relationship with my dad and stepmom was big oof for a lot of years - I love them, but it was not easy growing up with them a lot, and for some reason a LOT of people always get the impression I'm gay even though I find men not sexy and women incredibly sexy, so ngl tripping people's gaydar when you're into women is a awkward blow to your masculine security I don't know how to describe. I just had to chalk it up that maybe I'm just weird and people couldn't separate weird from gay? To be honest though I mostly held onto the ritalin thing and my relationship with my dad for the longest time for why I'm not happy/confident, but eventually that faded and I was left with nothing to pin my depression on other than myself.


Okay, so that kind of turned into a ramble going nowhere. Anyways, my point was I thought I had understood my emotional health problems, and instead of confronting them had found a way to bury them. I buried them, and I played online, and I kept my brain quiet as much as I could. Flashback to the middle of July last year when, through a series of events I got an insight. I took out one of my old problems that'd been bothering me since puberty, my god awful self image, and asked would I feel different, would I be happier, if I took all the physical features I hate about myself and made them feminine, if I looked like a female. I got the answer in a pretty strong affirmative when a tidal wave of gender dysphoria I was not ready for struck. And now, remember that holding pattern I mentioned? That's hard to maintain now. I was hoping that somehow I was mistaken and wrong and that this would go away in a few months, but I'm in month 9 now I think and instead of going away it just became more entrenched in my head as the truth. Which is not good. I find myself thinking about it constantly. I am really not enjoying being "a man", and it made me so much aware of all my old problems and issues I never resolved because now I know the cause and just ugh!


My coping mechanism is breaking, no matter how distracted I am I have to constantly tell myself "shut up brain!" because I keep thinking about it in one way or another. And the internet is not helpful in the matter, every time I looked online for how to handle dysphoria, it kept devolving into coming out to loved ones and transitioning, neither of which I'm willing to do. The world is a scary place right now especially in the US with one party declaring culture war on all trans, and although I believe my family would still love me and accept me if I came out, there's always the possibility some of my loved ones would reject me and frankly that's not worth the risk to me. If anyone on my family rejected me I think I might attempt suicide, that's how important family is to me. Just not worth that pain. And most days I'm fine. Even though this is on my mind literally every day, I can ignore the thoughts and feel like I'm still just the normal acceptable level of depressed I'm used to, that my holding pattern is still stable. And then other times...every so often it's like I know this is the thing that's ultimately going to kill me.


So yeah, that, just all that...

[babyblob]

I'll admit that my mental health usually isn't on my radar. It's bad, I know it is, but it's almost always been bad. To me, I got used to it, I've normalized my poor mental health. Cyclical bouts of depression is my state of being, to the point I remember a few times it felt weird when I seemed to go too long without feeling depression. And of course like anyone with long term depression either unwilling or without access to mental healthcare (more the former most my life, more the latter currently) I've developed your standard bad coping habits. Television, internet, music, sometimes doing anything to keep my mind preoccupied enough that I'm just not left alone in the quiet with my own thoughts. Sometimes I fear going to bed because I'll lie awake thinking in the dark. But again this is usual, normal, standard operating procedure - it isn't healthy, far from, but I could honestly live this way forever. My entire life it seems has been the long mastering of bottling up my emotions and keeping a lid on my ongoing mental health crisis of simply living, and until recently I'd gotten to the point where I was able to go for years in a holding pattern.


Now the reasons for my lifetime of poor mental health seemed many and varied, but compartmentalized and simple - I thought I understood it all, and my thinking for many, many years was this:
1. I scowl when I look in the mirror or make funny faces and voices to lighten the mood - this is because I have a poor body image (dreadful, I rarely ever feel handsome, and often felt like Frankenstein's monster).
2. But my poor body image is becaus-look forget the numbering system, short version:
Body image cause by low self esteem caused by self loathing caused by depression caused by I don't know what hence the self loathing because I blamed myself for being depressed.
So image/esteem/loathing/depression have always been my main demons, one seemingly feeding the other feeding the next in a brutal fucked up bad feeling camaraderie. And I could never explain why, not with anything that lasted. There were a lot of things I went through - people at school hated me and bullied me because I was a loner, I was a bit of a loner because I was lost in my own world sometimes and honestly people are hard, I was put on ritalin against my protests for ADD (attention deficit disorder) which made it feel like I was being told I was stupid and given a prescription for how much of an idiot I was, my relationship with my dad and stepmom was big oof for a lot of years - I love them, but it was not easy growing up with them a lot, and for some reason a LOT of people always get the impression I'm gay even though I find men not sexy and women incredibly sexy, so ngl tripping people's gaydar when you're into women is a awkward blow to your masculine security I don't know how to describe. I just had to chalk it up that maybe I'm just weird and people couldn't separate weird from gay? To be honest though I mostly held onto the ritalin thing and my relationship with my dad for the longest time for why I'm not happy/confident, but eventually that faded and I was left with nothing to pin my depression on other than myself.


Okay, so that kind of turned into a ramble going nowhere. Anyways, my point was I thought I had understood my emotional health problems, and instead of confronting them had found a way to bury them. I buried them, and I played online, and I kept my brain quiet as much as I could. Flashback to the middle of July last year when, through a series of events I got an insight. I took out one of my old problems that'd been bothering me since puberty, my god awful self image, and asked would I feel different, would I be happier, if I took all the physical features I hate about myself and made them feminine, if I looked like a female. I got the answer in a pretty strong affirmative when a tidal wave of gender dysphoria I was not ready for struck. And now, remember that holding pattern I mentioned? That's hard to maintain now. I was hoping that somehow I was mistaken and wrong and that this would go away in a few months, but I'm in month 9 now I think and instead of going away it just became more entrenched in my head as the truth. Which is not good. I find myself thinking about it constantly. I am really not enjoying being "a man", and it made me so much aware of all my old problems and issues I never resolved because now I know the cause and just ugh!


My coping mechanism is breaking, no matter how distracted I am I have to constantly tell myself "shut up brain!" because I keep thinking about it in one way or another. And the internet is not helpful in the matter, every time I looked online for how to handle dysphoria, it kept devolving into coming out to loved ones and transitioning, neither of which I'm willing to do. The world is a scary place right now especially in the US with one party declaring culture war on all trans, and although I believe my family would still love me and accept me if I came out, there's always the possibility some of my loved ones would reject me and frankly that's not worth the risk to me. If anyone on my family rejected me I think I might attempt suicide, that's how important family is to me. Just not worth that pain. And most days I'm fine. Even though this is on my mind literally every day, I can ignore the thoughts and feel like I'm still just the normal acceptable level of depressed I'm used to, that my holding pattern is still stable. And then other times...every so often it's like I know this is the thing that's ultimately going to kill me.


So yeah, that, just all that...

Thank you for opening you heart like that. I know it was not easy. That was very brave and I admire you for doing it.

[Kirby101]

Vakanai, this is way too complex for me to even comment. Just let you know you are excepted here for who you are, what ever that might be. My hope is that the good outweighs the bad for you.

[Vakanai]

Thank you for opening you heart like that. I know it was not easy. That was very brave and I admire you for doing it.

Thank you, but it doesn't seem or feel very brave to just post something online. Online there's no outing, no consequence, no real risk. The anonymity of the internet makes it a safe place, even in spite of the occasional troll/s. But I don't have real courage. No one who knows me knows this about me. I still go through life trying to conform somewhat to people's expectations and beliefs. That I've taken to shaving much more regularly or decided to let my hair grow out is the biggest "steps" I've taken in the real world to express myself. And no one suspects just going off from that. Sometimes I daydream about some scenario where the secret slips or I would have to tell them, but I always end such thoughts with "shut up brain" and remind myself of just how bad it could go and what I'd be risking. It's not worth it. I'm not worth it. So on top of everything else I feel more cowardly than I used to when I didn't quite get what was so off.

It was easier when it was just "all my problems stem from my depression, and since I don't know what causes that I'm free to dismiss it as just bad brain chemistry and bury it." Like not having a reason for "why my life" gave me a lot of freedom and ability to dismiss things and tamp down on them. But having a reason why hits all that differently now. Before nothing could be done, so it was easy to just give up and brace against life. Nothing could be done. But now I think things like "wouldn't HRT be so nice?" because really everything about that just sounds so freaking good ngl, which is pretty damning on the whole "yep, definitely trans" thing. Just adds a complicated veneer to everything.

[Vakanai]

Vakanai, this is way too complex for me to even comment. Just let you know you are excepted here for who you are, what ever that might be. My hope is that the good outweighs the bad for you.

Thank you very much. It also too complex for me to be honest, which is one of the reasons I try to keep my mind so busy with stuff. Most anything else seems easier to think about and process.
While there's been nothing good to come out of this, life in general is still more good than bad. I love my family, I have a baby niece who's the most precious thing ever, and more of my family lives closer now so I can see them more often. So that's good. Even if I can never tell them about this, just having them in my life is a blessing.

[Rzerox21xx]

Well things were going well but I'm falling to my bad habits and this week I only went to the gym once and eating more, and drank some soda. I'm sorry, I don't know why I keep digging myself down just when I started climbing higher. I plan to get back to it, sure I skip those gym days in order for some doctor appointments and my dad birthday but yeah i could go to the gym in a later day but Im a creature of habit and well there's more people in the gym later in the day compare to the morning I always go. it sucks. yeah I'm probably coming up with excuses and I drank some sprite yesterday and some coke, sure most of it was diet coke but still...... Yeah I slipped and fell and I need to get back at it, its a struggle to get myself at the gym and push myself and it usually involved my state of mind.

[Vakanai]

Literally every single dream I had last night was about either seeking professional help so I could tell someone in real life that I'm trans and going through hell pretending to be a normal "man" or dreaming about literally running away from people so I wouldn't have to tell them.

And about 45 minutes ago I had one accidental thought that triggered a dysphoria episode worse than I have had in a good 3/4 months, just lying in bed for a half hour trying to stifle the urge to scream or shout as I was going through a mental freakout.

[Kirby101]

It is truly f*@k up that you can't go through this openly with all the help you need. I am sorry our society is so backward when it comes to this. I hate the fact that the GOP is demonizing innocent people and making it worse.

[babyblob]

I have been away for awhile. In the last 6 weeks or so I have been in the mental ward for 4 of them on and off. But they changed my meds around and I am doing better. I hope that lasts long term. But for now I am back on the site