Mental illness?
 

Anyone struggle with depression, anxiety, borderline, etc, etc?

I have bipolar disorder. I seem poised for a depressive episode. I was awake maybe 4 hours yesterday and I woke up today battling suicidal urges. Been crying about it. Sucks.

Listening to Steve Reich's The Desert Music. Thank God for music. It's literally a motivation to live. Think of all the cool music I would miss out on!

Not really an 'illness' per se, but I've got an autism spectrum disorder. Much less obvious than it was when I was a little kid, but still there. (I get really embarrassed and upset whenever I think about it for too long.)

I might have depression, or at least something in that area - I'd be third-generation bipolar if I did have it, and there's an aunt with borderline.

Oh, and gender dysphoria of course, but that comes and goes.

I'm not okaaaaaaaay...

Oh yeah, gotta love that dysphoria. Doesn't help the suicidal ideation.

I've also dealt with some pretty bad anxiety. I would run out of food a lot because I couldn't stand going to the grocery store.

Anything I do is generally unnoticed and certainly undiagnosed. Sometimes I wonder if I should get a mental checkup.

Re: autism

I have to plead ignorance a bit on autism. I hope to god i don't sound insensitive or anything here. I understand that it is a spectrum (like many mental things), but its kind of strange to me how wide that spectrum can be. My first encounter with it was my mom working with special needs kids so I had that association with it. I've known a few peeps online that didn't seem encumbered by it in any way. My recent ex who had it, never would have guessed if she hadn't told me. Perhaps more out of not knowing how it affects people. Her things with food, fabrics, fetishism. I would have just thought she had some eccentricities. So it affects learning in childhood but it doesn't affect intelligence, correct? Cuz she was one of like 4 people in my life that could keep up with me mentally, and on some levels was smarter than me.

Hey, it's all good. My mum probably does more about it than I do, but that's mostly because any reading about it for too long tends to get me down.

I'm at the high functioning end of the spectrum (what used to be called Asperger's syndrome, before they dumped it in DSM-V). So yeah, I get fixated on things and fuck up socially; but apart from that I'm fairly regular.
On the other end, you've got the highly disabled non-verbal people who basically need full-time care.

There's some concerns that the spectrum is being widened too much though, and that we've got people who are just 'odd' being classed as autistic and getting help that they arguably don't need.
There is medication for some of the more extreme parts of it, but I've never been on it AFAIK.

(There's a guy, John Elder Robison, who's very Asperger's and has written several books about it. Look Me In The Eye is a memoir - he had an interesting life; he made special effects guitars for KISS and stuff. And Raising Cubby is about watching his autistic son grow up. If you've heard of Running with Scissors, the author of that is Robison's younger brother.)

Yo I fucks with generalized anxiety disorder, occasional major depressive disorder, some insomnia, and generally being kind of a negative nelly sometimes. Also probably some PSTD.

It's interesting how different neurological maladies are interrelated. I have severe chronic migraine (have one right now). I have also had a few seizures. Drugs designed for epilepsy were found to work for bipolar and migraine.


Back to the spectrum thing, there are some similarities between autism and bipolar/schizo disorders. Out of curiosity I took that neuorotypical test that may indicate that one has autism. I scored pretty high. I know I don't have autism. The questions that put me in that category were all things from having bipolar.

ive got a bit of adhd which always made me either bore very easy with shit that didn’t interest me or go very deeply into shit that interests me. that runs on my mom’s side and several of us have it.

from age 3 till grad school i was an addictive reader then grad school made reading annoying, hahaha. so i got heavy into film in gradschool.

i also get easily bored with people. i don’t know if it’s an autism related thing, but i’m much more interested in ideas than in gossip or “people-noise.” i can read facial expressions well, so im not impaired in that sense, but rather i often don’t know what to do with that social-cue information, which tends to be rather overwhelming. i’m a nerd i guess.

i’m not shy (took a lot to overcome that), but i’m introverted, which means after a party i need a long break to rest from all that information. gimme a puzzle to crack or something to analyze, without interruptions. ah, pleasure!

i also am usually not interested in the same things as the general populace so it’s hard for me to have small talk with strangers but i’ve learned to cope by asking questions. sometimes you find an interesting story that way.

most people in my family are “normal” people, with ordinary middle class professions, but there are a few eccentrics on my dad’s side. so i think mine is genetic. my brother who grew up the exact same way i did is like, supernormal.

this being “different” can often be a cause for depression because of the social pressure to conform. for me it no longer is a problem because i had therapy for many years. therapy is the best thing. it’s like religion but not stupid. hahahaha. my therapy was a years-long argument. maybe i should have been born a jew (could have happened actually) but i was born into a catholic family instead. un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.

anyway, therapy taught me to accept myself and it’s been a lot of fun since. because before i was a bit at war with the conformatrons. now i just ask them to leave me the fuck alone and that is good for everyone. then i can find people i really relate to, which is nice—nicer than fake friends.

so, the pressure to conform is the real sickness i think. it’s a social disease. it destroys individuals who feel bad because they’re not “normal”. they should enjoy their neural diversity instead, as much as possible, instead of feeling out of step.

this is why recommend that all misfits watch buffy, hahaha. buffy is “the chosen one” (ridiculous name i know), that is her fate from birth, but what does she want? she wants to be normal! haaa haaa haaaa! haaaa haaaa haaa! absurd... she’s internalized social pressure. lol @ teens.

anyway—resist! enjoy! and become what you are!

oh, nietzsche helped too, tons.

okay.

ps- i also get winter depression, but that’s separate, and easily cured by sunlight, vitamin d, and the tropics if possible.

pps- i’ve had some entanglements with borderline women and that didn’t end well ha ha ha—crazymaking. i do remember my bipolar exes fondly though.

Things I know for sure:

I've had panic attacks, time and time again. The first one occured when I was 14. It felt like everything I had read about heart attacks. Around the same time I was starting to experience psychosomatic symptoms. That shit was kickstarted by an irritable bladder (you feel like you have to pee constantly because your brain sends signals to your bladder non-stop) that pretty much ruined my summer of 2005. Went to a psychologist because of both of those problems months later (By that time I had been to a doctor a few times and no physical causes could be determined). I've kind of learned to live with those problems since then. They do reapper from time to time, with different symptoms and guises but it's become easier to identify them.

Things I suspect but have no diagnosis to back them up:

I'm pretty certain that I've at least dealt with depressive episodes. I've had bouts where I pretty much hated myself and found it hard to motivate myself to do much at all. And I've had bouts were my room was a huge fucking mess and I found it hard to clean up. I also tend to get easily depressed in winter.

I'm also pretty certain that I'm introverted. As !@#$%! has mentioned, I do need my breaks after parties or extended times of socialization. I like meeting people I care about and I'm not averse to meeting awesome new people. It just drains my energy over time and I need to recharge it to be able to socialize again. So I carefully ration my days of socializing.

I have however realized in the last two years that the timespans where I just keep to myself and don't call or contact anyone have gotten bigger and bigger. Not sure if I myself am okay with that because sometimes I feel like I neglect people I actually care about. Whenever I can, I fight against it, but then there's these longer stretches where I just kind of isolate myself. That's not always the case, but it has gotten more prevalent for sure. I'm suspecting I might have developed some kind of social anxiety/fatigue after having had a few soured relationships (three friends and one romantic relationship) in a relatively short amount of time and the trust issues that have ensued (Not going into detail but I had to end one of those friendships myself and shoot down the proposal of another former friend to reconnect because things just got too much for me. The third friendship ended in mutual frustration I guess. And the breakup left me depressed and ridden with unnescessary self-imposed feelings of guilt for quite some time.).

Alright, that was a lot. Sorry. But it was somewhat cathartic.

I tried Thus Spake Zarathustra when I was like 17. Too dense. Too young maybe. I wasn't aware of Zoroastrianism either tho, lol.

My ex talked a bit about being borderline. May have dodged a bullet there.

I'm surprised you didn't have a bad experience with bipolar exes though. Not everyone has the extremes. When I get full manic I have pretty bad delusions and psychosis. I get angry easily, think I'm some incarnation of a religious figure, hear voices in my head. I have had some hallucinations that fucked me up. When you think you meet God but it turns out you were in a hospital, it makes you a hardcore atheist.

There's this neighbor of mine who is a "preacher" and obsessed with conspiracy theories. It's obvious he has bipolar. He told me he was kicked out of the army with a bipolar diagnosis. Wasn't at all surprised. Of course he doesn't see that his delusional thinking is off the rails. He's been homeless, he can't keep a job. I'm trying to convince him to let me take him to netcare that gives free mental health screenings, but of course psychiatric medications are an evil conspiracy.

i didn’t like zarathustra either, read a bit like a very ponderous comic book, and i definitely wasn’t ready for it. it was nietzsche’s own favorite book though, and the ideas there keep coming back throughout his work, so i’d like to revisit some day.

there are other books i have enjoyed, and the walter kaufmann’s translations are the best. my favorite is “beyond good and evil” which is maybe his peak after the excesses of youth and before his breakdown and manipulations by the family. but there is so much stuff out there. i wish i could read german! apparently his prose is great.


the modus operandi of the borderline in a relationship is “i hate you—don’t leave me.” which, wow, can exhaust the neurotransmitters.

the other thing is that they go from idealizing you one day to demonizing you the next one. there’s no way to negotiate an easy departure in my experience. if you’re the one leaving you gotta run and don’t look back.

yeah you dodged a bullet. if you were the dumpee, be doubly glad.


i never got the psychotic part, or maybe i read them as mystical visions and cosmic vibrations and shared into all that a bit. but it was never extreme. and then, yeah, things would sour for no apparent reason, there would be absurd dramas, etc. still, it was neither mean nor manipulative, so we could part as friends.

i do have a bipolar friend and sometimes he’ll get a bit paranoid, but when we hang out we mostly laugh a lot. he’s moved literally across the planet though so it’s been a while since.


my friend has a hard time keeping a regular job and was dependant on his wife for a long time. but he’s a good artist, and now he teaches. how he keeps to his schedule i am not sure but he kept a panoply of pharmaceuticals he would sometimes share (lol).

one ex i know used to work as a writer, drank too much, lost everything, hooked up with some pathological liars, got a stalker, turned religious, and now works in the mental health field—yup. of course meds help, and finding the right place that accepts and understands helps.

it’s always about the social system.

I have suffer from split personality

Re: borderline

It was mutual. She warned me about the i love you, i hate you, don't ever leave me pattern. She once felt hate for me because I didn't understand her belief in communism. I thought it was just a normal conversation. I had a borderline diagnosis once (inaccurate) and I sort of did that before. Not hate, but phases of obsessive love, no love, break up/get back together over and over, then never able to move on. So I wasn't entirely scared. Sounds like I should have been though.

Re: bipolar
I can't hold a job. Between migraines, anxiety and bipolar I never make it past a couple months. I enjoy making music and art but I have no idea how to make a living off of it. Every aptitude test I've ever taken told me to be a visual artist. I only make visual art for my music though. I have had very unpleasant experiences traveling out of town to play shows but some day I will force myself to tour. (have no idea how to organize one either.)

Finding the right meds is key. Trouble is it takes years to figure out.

Anti depressant: paxil
Mood stabilizers: lamictal, depakote, seroquel
Anti psychotic: risperdal

Migraines: maxalt, cannabis, naproxen

Also -

Hormones: spironolactone, nadolol, finasteride

And more!

“i thought it was just a normal conversation” hahaha... yeah...

the thing about work etc is you don’t have to do everything. you only have to do what you’re good at, so if you’re disorganized find someone who will organize you, etc. if you feel unsafe find someone to handle the “protection” part.

again it’s all about the social system. since “life” provides a flawed one (made for “normals”) it’s up to you to build your own.

there used to be, i don’t know if this happened, but the guy who created cdbaby, and emigrated to singapore, etc, wanted to create a virtual assistant service for musicians and touring bands. this was years ago. maybe see if it exists?

but yeah, nobody can hack it completely alone, so... a bit like a d&d game where you can’t have just mages, you need a mix of abilities around you. might be hard to find a “community” but if done right (the done right is key) it’s worth it

I like the D&D analogy!

I get a lot of help around town for shows. When I play, they always ask me to go first in case I have a migraine or anxiety attack. Maybe half the time I am able to stick around for the whole show.

ok so here’s an interesting puzzle for you if you like puzzles (i do, but ymmv)

imagine that you were askd to headline. forget the panic, and consider analytically—what people and tools would you need to make it?

if that question bothers you just ignore. but if you like puzzles then have at it!

(also if you like dramedies instead of puzzles, you could script it like one)

I guess I headlined in Chicago? I assume most people were there for Fire-Toolz though.

I know if I do tour it will be late spring/summer/early fall. I want to be able to camp out instead of couch surf. I wouldn't be able to sleep at someone's house. I couldn't in Chicago and left at 4 in the morning. Ended up having to get a hotel cuz it was winter and I couldn't sleep in my car.

I can't decide if I would want another musician to tour with me. I think I would feel less stressed if I were alone.

so you’d need a hotel then? that sounds optimal

camping with instruments must be a plague

im a type 2 bipolar visual artist myself and i work in a cubicle for a major automobile company


i just make it work and put images of my dog, hockey stuff, bands i like, and my nieces and nephew at my desk

idk at some point dont u just gotta kinda learn to suffer? take it on the chin?

i mean nobody likes their job... and most people suffer from some sort of anxiety, etc, these days... idk