Had a word with the manager this morning. They've told me to put some holidays in. O haven't had a proper break since last summer. Rely on the current income and a drop isn't really viable at the moment. Partner is retraining and only works p/t so my salary is vital.
There seem to be a lot of us that are quite happy to explicitly say that we have personal experience. Like Charlie Dog, I accepted anti-depressants from the GP years ago, came off, too quickly, and nosedived again. Now I just embrace the fact that they alter a chemical imbalance for me and it’s a victimless crime to see them like a morning cuppa. So, if you feel that your thoughts are getting ****ed up by the anxiety and low mood then, my personal view would be so NOT feel embarrassed to tell your GP and ask for some assistance to get you through the temporary blip. Don’t risk it lengthening out, the longer the illness remains untreated the less likely you are to want to tackle it because you can lose rational decision making capacity - so grab it by the scruff of the neck now; you’ve already done a great thing by posting to friends here. Drugs and or talking-therapies may be made available - my view is that talking therapy (alongside drugs) is best for the deep-seated/upbringing related illnesses; and drugs for the less historical issues. Personally I found talking therapy with a counsellor pointless for me, I wanted a medication to blunt the mood, not a discussion on why a woman would leave such a wonderful man ;0) Drugs worked. For me. Not for everyone. My depressions have always been caused by events rather than a natural cycle - so my divorce (it was being ripped away from the kids rather than losing the wife! (She walked)), the loss of a love (who is now, of course, just a distant memory!), being bullied by a chief executive where I worked.... events. Temporary events. Things change and events become the past; but when you are in it, you are ‘in it’ and concepts like “it won’t be like this forever” are alien, no matter how true it is. Some things of course are very difficult to escape from - extreme debt can cause mental ill health, & catastrophic events like family bereavements impact on people in different ways. Nonetheless, a common feature of external-event-driven mental ill health is absence of control, a sense of powerlessness. So we need to look for ways for you to find control..... I saw the suggestion that making an internal decision to look for another job might help - I agree, that would be a reminder to yourself that this is situational and that changing that situation would make a difference. But you could also look for ways of getting your employer to sit up and take notice - but without knowing what kind of organisation you’ve work for, how long you’ve been there, what the day job is etc etc it is difficult to expand on that suggestion. You are not alone. I suspect all of us here sharing are functioning compassionate human beings (exception of Cap’n Wrong is just proving the general rule) holding down jobs and relationships and I’d say ten times more agreeable as people than 80% of the population in the UK. We’re not nutters, we’re not weak. And the insight and empathy you gain from the suffering will make you an even better and stronger person. Keep talking. Eat. Breathe. Exercise. Rest.
Good man. Everyone needs a break mate. It will recharge your batteries but just make sure that the issue isn’t work overload.
Good post: simple reality is that life is Damn ****ing hard at times. I think anyone who doesn’t go through some form of depression is either incredibly lucky or just wired totally straight. This last year had been hard for a lot of people and it’s easy to get sucked into the depression of it all. I had a very positive Saturday and was optimistic until a lot of posts on here about our match and it flipped me to being negative and yesterday I was totally down. I always try and take the highs and the lows. It just feels like the lows can overwhelm you. I used to use nufc to balance out the negativity in daily life. Can’t really do that right now. So I bought a road bike (see separate post) and I went out yesterday. Funny thing is. The positives where that it was a nice day. I got some exercise but DAMN by arse is sore today. Easy wins. I guess it’s funny. End of the day I think sometimes you just have to take each day as it comes and work out what you want. I’m a negative person. But I find it easier to talk to others and listen than listen to my own advise. It’s like a chip on the shoulder.
Sorry you are going through this mate. I had a stint last year where work really got on top of me. I was working abroad without a break and the isolation was horrendous. Eat, sleep, work and repeat. In the end the exhaustion caught up with me and I'm very fortunate to be in a new job where all those initial problems have gone away. Apply for a new job and that may help
Spot on. That is one of the reasons why I stopped letting NUFC get me down. I don't even get pissed off anymore. I tend to just stick my nose in a book if I want yo try and clear my head.
The goofiest song I’ve listened to over the year is this.... But honestly a mate posted it to me when he knew I was down and he said “your challenge is to NOT smile”. We are all going through **** on varying levels. You have yours and others have theirs but internally you think it’s all about you.
Obviously I’m saying that the point is you can feel alone but you always have a friend who can get you by.
Anyone see the BBC report today about the school that had been bombed in (I think it was) Syria? The outside walls had been blown out but lessons were being taught on the ground and first floors. The kids were about 9 years old, one lad the report focused on was blind from birth and while talking to the reporters he jumped at the sound of nearby gunfire. He had grown used to this. The one thing I thought was that I could never again complain about the pressures of my life when I saw these kids being taught on a bomb site, a stray bullet away from death. My life is a doddle when compared to theirs.
In perspective, most people's pressures fade away in comparison. However, those pressures still exist and affect individuals differently. Modern society has developed in a way that the pressure starts in childhood and gathers pace the older you get. For me Covid has exasperated matters, because it's changed the way we think, which goes against the grain of how we naturally are. People generally don't like change and find it difficult to deal with. Life will always have it's ups and downs, thats just a fact of life. I'm lucky working from home, when i look at others who haven't had that luxury. Shielding for 12 months pisses me off, but, so what, I've had worse. You know me, I've always made the most of the cards i was dealt. Listen to a bit of Sham - That's Life.....
Indeed. I do not envy the younger generation. They are faced with relentless bills, relentless work hours, relentless family pressures. It's small wonder people hit a wall, they must feel there is often no escape from it.
Always said that the human brain is not compatible with modern life. As an anxiety sufferer I would deem it a blessing if things just slowed down. I would love it if I had to wait for the postman if I was waiting for a message, only get the news through the News at 10 or a newspaper. My design work to be scrutinised after it being delivered by courier instead of it being e-mailed back to me within 20 minutes. The only way somebody could make contact with you was by knocking on your door or ringing your house phone. Waiting to be told by the doctor of my ailments and not searching for clues on the internet. We are basically being constantly hassled by our environment. Look at football. It was better when you only had to worry about the score line on Saturday and not be induced into traipsing through the internet looking for clues about some takeover that you have absolutely no control over. We have too much of the world at our finger tips and its not healthy. We know too much. When I watch programs like Open All Hours, the simple life on a simple street, slow, hardly a car parked outside, social interactions in person, local gossip in the local shop, Nurse Gladys going off to work in her Morris Minor, and I wish I could just switch off and go back to those times.
I have felt like that too. The irony being I am saying it on one of the things I detest. I hate mobile phones and the constant need for everything to be immediate. Technology has just made life stressful.
I agree to an extent with Mr 55p, we do need to slow our lives down. Speaking purely for me I am self-employed, I get by on 30 hours a week at the moment (as opposed to 60). I've cut out a lot of spending, exercise a lot more, and have learned the art of letting things go over my head (commonly known as not giving a ****). Sometimes in life it also helps to "play dumb".
On the tech front I'm giving serious thought to self imposing a Tech ban at certain times of the day, like 6-8pm where I'll pick up a book, read the paper etc.. just to see how chilled I can get. Also thinking of banning myself from driving anywhere at the weekend and just walking to shops, Gym etc too to see how that adjustment works. I'm a big believer in the aggregation of marginal gains which was a big British Cycling thing pushed by Sir Dave Brailsford. Make little adjustments and see how the wider piece benefits. Check this out mate.. it really makes you think: https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains I've started doing a 30 min walk first thing, lunchtime runs or longer walks and with the lighter nights now another walk after teatime. Feel lots better for it. I also shut the laptop down at lunch and tell the boss I'm off air and he supports that. Again I feel quite a lot better for it. Like I said the next thing I'm going to introduce is a Tech ban on myself. It's just too easy to reach for the ipad, iphone etc....
I remember Paul Merton saying something along the lines of 'I love my mobile phone......only problem is, people keep ringing me up on it!'
Problem is, many anxiety sufferers, constantly, 24/7, can only do the total opposite of 'not giving a ****' I was at a CBT course. I introduced myself as a Generalised Anxiety Disorder sufferer, but focused on Health Anxiety. I told the group my problems going so far as to say that I cant even pick my nose or wipe my arse without the fear of whether I have felt a lump or not. One of the other people on the course basically said 'you dont want to worry about that, if you get something, it happens, you deal with it.' I could have smacked him. This was coming from a person who was having panic attacks in his garden if people happened to walked past, couldnt even go shopping to Tesco's. Which even to an anxiety sufferer like me, I could never understand. Another lass on the course could only function if she had a fistful of bog roll in her hand. I remember reading about an actor who was in Coronation Street. His anxiety was so bad he feared sitting down in case he broke his coccyx. Again anxieties that I could never comprehend. Absurd. My anxiety, generally, during an episode, I am 99% sure that there is nothing wrong with me, nothing to worry about. However that 1% just seems to over power me. I can wake up feeling anxious. I can spend half the morning trying to convince myself that everythings fine to the point that i can function normally. Then bang, one negative thought and I'm back to square one. Its a constant internal battle whilst trying to show to the outside world that I am functioning normally. It can be more tiring and physically draining than anything anybody could throw at me. Having to suffer the normal trials and tribulations of life whilst suffering from the stupid chemical imbalance in my brain. Exhausting.
