Depression rears it's ugly head again

[Dandolin]

mindfulness has saved my life, JWAR - I hope you can find a way to make the choice every day to feel better.

[cosmicevan]

mindfulness has saved my life, JWAR - I hope you can find a way to make the choice very day to feel better.

I would agree with this with everything I have. Lately, it's REALLY...no REALLY effin hard to keep it together all the time. You are NOT alone these days...I'd wager everyone is in some sort of struggle...but the way out is to make the choice. Recognize when are going south and do whatever you can to change that. Try all sorts of things.

For me, I'm WFH until social distancing is a memory. My kids just started school and wife declined work (daycare teacher in a place that is a disaster) so she's making plans and getting out of the house. Got rid of the 2nd car in May so I'm mostly home...like ALWAYS. My mancave...now office...is filled with music stuff too, though my job rarely gives me time to do anything but work (taking a breather right now from work to browse ILF ---and yeah, it's after midnight). I've started taking walks around the block, exploring new music while revisiting favs, started exploring self development, and just as much stuff to keep me distracted as possible. There's also the flipside of the pressure of not being able to keep up with it all, but that's better than being bummed about the world and life. Also, check out coursera. Yale has a course, the science of happiness...and it's free (at least it was earlier in the pandemic). Give it a try. Tells you how your mind interprets happiness and how to rewire yourself to be happier...or at least understand what your brain sees as happy.

We are here. We are with you Jwar (and everyone). We will get through this. We will find pure regular happiness again. Patience. It sucks, but it's what we need to learn.

[Paul_C]

I hope you're doing ok.

Thanks for you for that. I appreciate it more than you know.


The last month has been really, really hard. Like, uncontrollable crying for over an hour twice a day.


I decided to do something to help myself and started TMS therapy yesterday. So far, so good. I have not cried since I started which I get is not long, but two treatments in. I go 5 days a week and have a high powered magnet stuck to my head that pulses for 20 minutes. It supposed to move neurotransmitters that have been bound and release them. It's more involved then that but that's the most simplistic way to look at it. It can make memories that have been stuck in your head forever come back as well. I experienced it yesterday when I recalled a fishing trip I went on (randomly) 30 years ago. So, weird. Anyway, I have hope for the first time in over a year and I'm going to keep going with that momentum.

You're welcome, I noticed your absence and was hoping nothing bad had happened.

By the sound of things the magnets are having an effect (can anyone have a go ? ) and as far as I see it, anything that gives you a chance to find your way back to the surface is a good thing.

Hope is a good sign

[dubkitty]

UVA wanted me to be part of a test for the TMS thing, but i would have had to stop all my meds so they could evaluate its effectiveness so i passed. recently my partner has suggested i check it out. i'm thinking about it. it reminds me of one day i was hanging out with a couple of Dead taper friends and one held up a bulk demagnetizer to his temple and said "isn't it a shame that this won't work?"

i had to totally stop social media for several days and then cut back considerably...minute-by-minute updates on politics, COVID, and every incident of police brutality both with and away from the continuing protests made me so wack that i spent a week listening to nothing but Radiohead.

and i really do have to choose, multiple times a day, to focus on the good rather than the bad. i think i described before how the Dialectical Behavior Therapy group i went through, and my most recent therapist, taught me how to in esse argue against my own depressive nature. every fucking day i go "i hate life" several times, then interrupt myself as if i was my mom, saying "come on, sweetie, it's not that bad." it's hard to catch yourself every time you go down that path, but i've found that it really helps.

[Jwar]

I have left social media expect for Facebook, which I’m going to be doing as well. It’s toxic and it’s made specifically to exploit our weaknesses and destroy the way the human mind is supposed to function. It’s a cancer. I’ve always believed that and I also believe it ought to be destroyed forever. It’s all addiction based and anyone that says different is lying to themselves. We are a culture of non social beings because we’ve hide ourselves behind screens for so long we’ve forgotten what it’s like to only have each other.


The TMS is great. I feel a real difference already and it’s not placebo either. I have had the inability not cry for the last 3 months (I asked my daughter just now because she would always comfort me). It was very time specific as well. 11 am or a few minutes before. I would walk up the stairs as fast as I could while trying to hold the tears in and the I’d lay down in my closet and cry like I was dying. I mean, deep, painful crying. The kind that takes your breath away as well as all the energy.

I had gotten so bad that the TMS was my last ditch effort. I was going to end it. I knew I was and I honestly cannot even tell you why other than how hard life has been the last few years. Maybe that’s all it is/was. Or maybe it’s because I have been on antidepressants most of my life and have not been able to cry, save for seldom times. I had cried preciously probably 10 times in total in the last decade. I was numb. For some reason I started feeling again and then I couldn’t stop. It was too much emotion that had been repressed for so long.

I’m discovering a lot about myself and how I need to change and what I need to change. I knew I needed change but was afraid of it, so life forced it.

I feel better today and yesterday. I actually am feeling better everyday and this is the second full day I have not cried. Small victory. I’ll take it.

Hope is what I needed and now it’s been given to me. Thank you all so much for caring about me and giving me your feedback and thoughts. They have all helped me in different ways. I love that about ILF. You all have always been there for me and well I love you all.

[Seance]

I have left social media expect for Facebook, which I’m going to be doing as well. I

I applaud your decision to leave social media. That's a healthy move. I try not to look at Facebook ever.
Like you said, it is toxic and designed to exploit our weaknesses for profit. I don't want to feed into it.
I don't want to be seduced into the false notion of a form of connection that is actually FOMO for profit.

I am glad that you are finding something that is helping you. I am happy to hear that you are discovering a lot about yourself. To be alive is
to constantly adjust. It takes a lot of effort and work. Don't lose faith. There are people out there to listen, to help. To offer advice.

One of the things I've discovered in my own life is that "a solution" that I arrived at during a specific point in the past to cope is not a permanent fix.
It worked for that point in my life. It is human nature to assume that the same tactic will always work in all circumstances. But sometimes
that old technique doesn't work anymore because time has moved on, I am a different person, and life is presenting me with different problems.
To be present, to be in the moment—as painful as that often is—allows me to better assess what new technique or recombination of old techniques
will help me navigate the moment of now.

Another thing I think about is that what I might see as a "disability" or "liability" in the fabric of my personality is usually just a misplaced ability.
I look for patterns. I analyze things. In the past this has gotten me stuck in the paralysis of over-analysis. Creatively and interpersonally I cut myself off
at the knees before taking a step in any direction. Self-sabotage is exhausting. But I can't just STOP myself from reacting that way. The thing
that I try to do is nudge the fire hose of those personal proclivities into a direction that is healthy so that the force of that reaction (one that I
cannot help but resort to) is working for me and not against me. There is a time and place for analysis. I also have to provide myself
with times and places where I react instinctually in the moment, improvise, act without over-thinking. I don't want to shut off all analysis, nor do
I want to be hobbled by it.

I've found that making music, making animations, drawing, writing, are all activities that let me address these things in certain ways. Growing up
my focus was wanting to be a writer. But I've spent nearly 25 years struggling with the Writer/Editor divide. If I don't allow myself to put down
words, then my tender, long-held aspirations will never "fail". But if the Internal Editor doesn't get out of the way, how can the Writer ever write?
Many writers use alcohol to subdue the inner critic, but while that might work for a time, that is not healthy or sustainable.

Through the process of making a rather laborious animation I arrived at something that felt like a revelation to me (as painfully obvious as it may be).
Within the confines of the work I realized that in order to create something, something is destroyed. And by destroying something, something else
is created. Energy and matter are not created or destroyed—they transform. Nature is the unfolding of this process. Nothing is perfect, so I can't
wait to achieve the unachievable before taking a first step. The steps build up over time. It can seem daunting, but life is a constant striving.
But life provides opportunities to retry.

In the music world there is the assumption that if you aren't a fully formed genius at the age of 17, then it's too late and you are irrelevant.
But I like music. So I play music. Not constantly. And that is another thing that is important...balance.

It is hard to achieve or maintain personal equilibrium in a society that sells you doubt and the idea that you always lack that special something
available through four easy installments that will make all your dreams come true. Wall Street is based upon the toxic notion that endless growth
is possible and a positive outcome. The only things that grow endlessly are viruses and bacteria. Sustainability is a much more valuable goal. To achieve
sustainability and balance you have to make adjustments based on where you are and how you are. It might not sound so grand, but the truth is that
after you've done meaningful work, rest is all the sweeter. When you are thirsty, taking a drink of water feels incredible. This society, through TV and
social media, tries to tell us that we are always thirsty, that we can never rest. That our hunger will never and can never be satiated.

It's good to hear that you are finding ways to make adjustments to achieve meaningful balance in your life. Don't lose faith! It takes a lot of work.

[D.o.S.]

I don't want to be seduced into the false notion of a form of connection that is actually FOMO for profit.

He said, on a gear forum built on small builders and limited availabilty

(sorry to kneecap a really great post but it made me chuckle).

Good to hear you're doing well/better Adam. Maybe if global travel is less fucked in the near future we can organise some kind of States-based transcontinental meetup.

[Seance]

I don't want to be seduced into the false notion of a form of connection that is actually FOMO for profit.

He said, on a gear forum built on small builders and limited availabilty

(sorry to kneecap a really great post but it made me chuckle).

I acknowledge the seeming contradiction, but the good thing about this forum is that it doesn't "highlight" "trending topics" as TGP has started to do.
That is only designed to pour gasoline on FOMO fires and poking kneecaps for knee-jerk reactions and hissy fits to drive up post counts.

There is plenty going on all throughout ilf that I'm not a part of. I "miss out", but am not forcefully made aware of it and so don't get my nose rubbed in
the sense of my "lack". I interact with things of interest...which, to me, is different from being sold a sense that the "new thing" is going to change my life
or make me successful and attractive and a more evolved human-consumer.

But it is true that small builders with limited availability can give people who purchase such hard-won tools a sense that they are "buying a personality" or
part of a club who have taken a brave "stance" in the world of mass consumption. To my mind that is tempered here by people willing to consider affordable
options and sonic tools and also by people having a sense of humor and having strong opinions while not taking themselves too seriously.

[dubkitty]

the Society Of The Fuzz Spectacle.

[sears]

the fellowship of the fuzz. Great post, seance.