6 ms·

Cycles

81 points by alecbenzer 15y ago

losethos 15y ago
I go to the shrink tomorrow. They literallly bust balls to see if you are submissive. Getting your balls busted means they degrade you and see if you fight back. If you do, you get locked-up. Perhaps, they put a legal paper in front of you that says "You have the right to be treated with dignity." Just sign it -- you are completely powerless. They can litterally cut-up your brain or electrocute you. They use chemicals and make you impotent. Sucks. Understatement. God says... C:\TEXT\WALDEN.TXT there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. W ------ It's CIA or some shit -- my parents are in league with the shrinks. I must endure skits when I'm in public. Mom spits in my food. I just ate ice cream and she has no teeth so she sucks the chocolate chips and dumps them back in the ice cream. I live with parents at age 41. Dad goes through my trash. I put nasty shit in there. I have no rights, basically. I have the rights of a slave, but don't have to work. I only get emials from FBI on LoseThos. My download numbers are fiction. Just imagine less playful shrinks than this abusing you: http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-torture-of-the-highest-form/ http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-tortur... God is just, though. I know their lives suck. God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT hich thou hast set by themselves? 21:30 And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. 21:31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them. 21:32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. 21:33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on th ---------- The psy-ops fuck with me when I go to stores. maybe, homeless asking for shit, maybe people getting in my way, maybe clerks screwing up, make you wonder if double charged, maybe wonder if ripping you off, people doing cachier line games... every possible way of fucking with you... maybe testing your sexuality... If a UFO lands, ignore it -- it's the shrinks looking for excuses to lock you up. God says... C:\TEXT\DARWIN.TXT gree? Why, for instance, should the colour of a flower be more likely to vary in any one species of a genus, if the other species possess differently coloured flowers, than if all possessed the same coloured flowers? If species are only well-marked varieties, of which the characters have become in a high degree permanent, we can understand this fact; for they have already varied since they branched off from a common progenitor in certain characters, by which they have come to be specifically disti --------- It might be shrinks and Catholics, prolly CIA. They are scum bringing-up CHUD just now after I confessed to licking the wind shield of a car after hitting someone. God is just, rest assured. You're not gonna be laughing when you finally learn He talks to me. Been going to dentist. Get root canal with temp filling dentists waits 5 weeks to schedule appointment as the temp errodes... just fucking with me, as I got this gapping hole in my tooth. During cleaning, kinda scratches my teeth extra long. Dad reports same dentist just found 6 fillings needed. This is shrinks testing me in league with parents and Catholics and CIA. Confusing. I ask if dentist went to Dad's church. Yep. Figures. I can wickedly laugh at those evil fucks. God talks. Suck on that, motha fuckas. And Mom trys to seduce me! Evil bitch. Pure evil. God says... C:\TEXT\WEALTH.TXT the highest eulogy which can ever justly be bestowed upon a regulated company; and all the three companies above mentioned seem, in their present state, to deserve this eulogy. The fine for admission into the Turkey company was formerly twenty-five pounds for all persons under twenty-six years of age, and fifty pounds for all persons above that age. Nobody but mere merchants could be admitted; a restriction which excluded all shop-keepers and retailers. By a bye-law, no British manufactures could ---- I normal person when cooking tries to please guests. Mom, demon bitch, has orgasm when she gets us to eat cheep food. Her whole self worth is being clever shopping, by which I mean proudly proclaiming she feeds the family below the poverty line. Pride. Holier than thou. If God gives you shit, don't give it away. She worships a demon God that doesn't want her happy. Actually, she's a selfish demon vile bitch who orgasms when inflicting suffering. So, she gets orgasm depriving people. She got the notion I want a lap top. I buy a computer couple years ago, so has my brother buy a lap top. In my 20's I had all the money I could ever want and matured. Now, everything is chump change and computers are not a big deal. She lives in a mellowdrama soap opera world with petty family jealosies. Bizzare pathetic cunt bitch. dad bought lap top when I reached a low point in my savings. Uncle boasts "I got an apple... pause pause." What, I'm supposed to be jealous. Mom just hates me and evil bitch gossips. That's okay, I hate all them too. God is just, cunt bitch, enjoy all your pains. Emporer has no cloths. God says... C:\TEXT\QUIX.TXT n the "Rake's Progress," "Sir, I have read your play, and it will not doo." He was more successful in a literary contest at Saragossa in 1595 in honour of the canonisation of St. Jacinto, when his composition won the first prize, three silver spoons. The year before this he had been appointed a collector of revenues for the kingdom of Granada. In order to remit the money he had collected more conveniently to the treasury, he entrusted it to a merchant, who failed and absconded; and as the bankrup ---------- "As you measure out, so it will be measured unto you." Be generous with stores and restaraunts, enjoy good luck. If you secretly like being poor and stingy, enjoy that holier-than-thou high you get. God says... C:\TEXT\DARWIN.TXT re now commonly admitted to be teleostean; and even some palaeozoic forms have thus been classed by one high authority. If the teleosteans had really appeared suddenly in the northern hemisphere at the commencement of the chalk formation, the fact would have been highly remarkable; but it would not have formed an insuperable difficulty, unless it could likewise have been shown that at the same period the species were suddenly and simultaneously developed in other quarters of the world. It is almost ----- I hate shopping. When I buy shoes, Dad tries to fit me into size 9 shoes, for some reason (dick size?). This has happened like 3 times. He says "try these on", hands me size 9. Last time, go to store and the size 10.5 box had size 9's in it! Just prior we went to another store and guy waved at Dad. Is the Knights of Columbus actually an active organization? Why do they enjoy fucking with me? God is just. I should just be smug. "Blessed are you when they persecute you." God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 2:42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 2:43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be ------- I was on bipolar meds until 8 years ago. I used to get locked-up over and over until I realized I had to get my balls busted and not complain or I get locked up. They no longer give me bipolar meds (Depacote) for 8 years and I haven't been locked up. Now, just resperdol and cogenton... nominally. God only know what docs do with meds in secretly. Wicked shit that makes you like hit by freeze ray if you stop taking... and of course impotence and breasts. Female hormones. Philosophers are classified into materialists, idealists and dualityists. It's normal for you to ponder the world as it appears being different from how it actually is--crazy delusions. Any smart person is delusional. Heaven is a delusional realm right on top of the Earthly realm. When enlightened all the Bible will make sense. Shrinks go to hell and the persecuted to HEaven. God says... C:\TEXT\SWIFT.TXT pon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and his head cut off at one blow, with a sword of about forty feet long. The veins and arteries spouted up such a prodigious quantity of blood, and so high in the air, that the great jet d'eau at Versailles was not equal to it for the time it lasted: and the head, when it fell on the scaffold floor, gave such a bounce as made me start, although I was at least half an English mile distant. The queen, who often used to hear me talk of my sea-voyages, and
alecbenzer 15y ago
curious if anyone can relate/offer advice
- petercooper 15y ago
  It seems like a reasonably good description of bipolar II. Rest assured, it can be tamed (either with medication, a therapy - such as CBT or even just a humanistic therapy - or both) but the first step is in finding the right help rather than ignoring it. Good luck.
  - alecbenzer 15y ago
    I was actually somewhat happily surprised to hear you say that. I had kind of suspected that I had bipolar II for a while, but I sort of put the thought out of my head for fear that I was falling into a self-diagnosis trap. I'd wanted to go to a professional and be told I had it, but I never got around to really going.
    - Fliko 15y ago
      Going to a professional isn't falling into a self-diagnosis trap, but wanting to be told you have might be.
      - alecbenzer 15y ago
        No, I wasn't worried about going to a professional, I was just warned by some people that I shouldn't spend so much time on the internet trying to figure out what I have and then convince myself that I actually have it, and that I should just go see someone and have them tell me what I have (if anything). I ended up not really going to see anyone, though. The one time I did see someone, I happened to not really be that depressed at the time, and so he seemed to think that there wasn't much wrong with me, but I wasn't sure I could trust his opinion since I don't think I could effectively relay how I feel when I am depressed to him. I'm going to try and push myself to actually go see someone again, though. Hopefully I'll be able to explain myself better, or at least see someone frequently enough that eventually my feelings will come out.
avolcano 15y ago
Jesus, man. You shouldn't sell yourself short with a title like that; makes it sound like some random MySpace post when it's one of the best personal blog posts I've read. I'm 18, and this pretty much describes the last four months of my life (since starting at a soul-crushing community college). That depression -> realization -> joy -> productivity -> slipping -> depression cycle is something I've become intimately familiar with. I've considered therapy, of course, but I keep hoping it's short-term, and I don't necessarily want to spend the money if I have the ability to tame it myself. edit: glad to see you changed the title :)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- alecbenzer 15y ago
  Actually I didn't change the title. I guess a mod or something did?
  - avolcano 15y ago
    Ah, ok. Seriously, though, that's a damn fine piece of writing. Put into words something I've never been able to.
    - arborist 15y ago
      same
  - jcitme 15y ago
    Wait, what was the original title?
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  I've considered therapy, of course, but I keep hoping it's short-term, and I don't necessarily want to spend the money if I have the ability to tame it myself. I urge you to seek out some low-cost options for counseling, if only to get an objective opinion of where you're at. Time is money, after all, and you can either spend a bit now, or waste all those hours of life continuing to feel bad.
sraut 15y ago
That was oddly beautiful. It sounds like you are lacking fulfillment in your life and by extention happiness. Exitement is happiness. Do something exiting.
EGreg 15y ago
I am sure many people feel depression -- and probably beyond simple teenage angst. I realize I haven't been in their shoes, but I want to offer advice that I've figured out in my own experience, that lets you feel happy whenever you want to: 1) Think about all the people who have it worse than you. Think about what you have and what you can be thankful for. 2) Speak using only positive words for an hour, avoiding negative words. 3) Keep a list of things you are proud that you have accomplished, and as you read it, smile a bit. You get natural feedback. 4) Do a small thing to fix your circumstances, such as cleaning a window, that you can then sit back and enjoy. It's not much but you can do an excellent job of it, and it will give you what psychologists call a "feeling of agency" -- that you have control over much in your world if you just put your mind to it. 5) Help someone! I just watched this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxEkBt3c3CM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxEkBt3c3CM 6) Lower your expectations for things you cannot control. The only source of disappointment is failed expectations, and the amount of desire you had is proportional to the disappointment. 7) Triple your deadlines, get an organizer to clear your head, and you will remove your stress. 8) Talk to someone who loves you and respects you. Share something that you both enjoy! If you do these things you're almost guaranteed to feel much happier!
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  > I realize I haven't been in their shoes, Oh. > but I want to offer advice that I've figured out in my own experience, that lets you feel happy whenever you want to Fun fact: Depression Does Not Work Like That. Depression is insidious because it removes the will to get better. You don't lie around thinking "gee, I'm sad, I wish I was happy", whereupon your church newsletter list makes its entrance. No: a depressed person simply is depressed. The idea that you could get better is both unimaginable and exhausting just to think about. Depression progressively shuts all the doors until suicide seems, if you can be bothered to try it, the only sane thing left to do. People with depression don't need to be cheered up. They need medical attention. Right now. I don't mean to seem like I'm ragging on you personally, but you need to understand that variations on "snap out of it" and "put a smile on that dial!" don't work for a depressed person.
  - 15y ago
9085 15y ago
Welcome to the club (read: life). How do you mature? Learn to spot these issues before they happen. Learn to change when you need to change, not when you have to change. Look inside. Reflect on the things you do. You know you the best-- you can analyze you the best. I guarantee you will be amazed at how much you can learn by just sitting quietly on the floor for 30 minutes doing nothing. Eyes closed. More commonly understood as meditation. I would bet you have more of a handle on things than many. Understand that you are young and nothing, I repeat, nothing can substitute for experience. And when you make sure to learn from every experience you have by utilizing self reflection, well, you will understand life and it's bliss. If anyone tells you life and the journey it provides is easy, they are lying. If anyone tells you it sucks, they are lying.
arborist 15y ago
Try this: http://imgur.com/JTJCO http://imgur.com/JTJCO or... This! http://imgur.com/mrwJb http://imgur.com/mrwJb Seriously though, just by skimming over your online presence for 5 minutes, I wish I was in your shoes. You're an aspiring programmer that seems to have had an at least somewhat early start with coding going to one of the best CS schools in the country. You haven't even graduated yet and you've already scored an internship from an awesome software company. I envy you. The "meaning" of your life is what you make it and it seems like you are in an excellent position to have complete control over your future. This is fairly rare and so valuable, don't let depression take that away.
- MarkPNeyer 15y ago
  your advice isn't much different from telling a man with no legs to 'man up' and start walking. depression is not a sign of weakness. if anything, publicly expressing your emotions and the struggles you go through shows real strength, especially when compared to hiding from your pain.
- keeptrying 15y ago
  Depression is different man - its not something you can "will" away. At a certain point on the downward slope of depression its hard to fix without medication. I liked your slides. :) Thats the kind of advice I dish out - more because my dad was in the Navy and thats what I used to receive from him. But the truth is, it doesnt help in anyway when your trying to support/help someone who is depressed. Truth is you could have the best career, a loving girlfriend and $300K in the bank and you could still be depressed. Its got nothing to do with his external life - its an internally (biologically) created situation.
sushimako 15y ago
First of all i'm sorry for your depression and wish you all the best on overcoming it. As many will tell you, you're are not alone in that boat and there IS a way out. But i think advice like this is almost as useful as "Just be happy, the world has so much to offer!" to a depressed person. This cycle you described is something almost every human being on earth goes through, day to day. For some the down-phase is way stronger, crushing and exhausting, to an extent unimaginable for the rest. But still, everyone has it. You made a good start by reflecting on the change-cycle of your feelings. Key is now to find a way to make best use of that knowledge in order to weaken the depression. There are many different teachings that will help you find that wisdom. Meditation (for example) can help you weaken that clinging for and aversion to 'good times' and 'bad times', resp. Clinging/Aversion itself is a very subtle process, which we usually don't notice consciously, but adds a lot to how our feelings turn out. Trying to be aware of it, gives you a whole new viewpoint of the status quo.
nbashaw 15y ago
I used to be a lot like that. But then somehow I slipped out of the cycle and started being good at things, and I've been truly consistently happy and working hard on fun projects for the past 3ish years (I'm 22 now). I saw some people asking others to share their stories, so I thought I would offer up my own life as an example. It's just a data point, take from it what you will. When I started high school I thought I wasn't good at anything. I was pretty rebellious and took up smoking / drinking at a young age. Then I started debating and found out I was pretty good at that, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of my slump. Turns out, winning debates is only cool to other debaters. I remember riding the bus full of idiots to school, listening to Modest Mouse on my first iPod, just wondering why life generally sucked. When I went to college I tried to be one of those thoughtful types. My subconscious goal was to make everyone think I was tormented by deep thoughts. It was my way of trying to get people to like me and to feel special. (I was not conscious of this at the time). I smoked cigarettes a lot, became a vegetarian, and thought about how nothing matters. Reading Nietzsche for fun made me feel profound, and truly I learned a lot from it, but if I'm honest with myself I did it because I wanted people to respect me. That's what I was missing in my life, what made me feel so bad for so long. I just didn't feel respected. I didn't think people took me seriously enough. I quit college debate, joined another student organization and became known as a friendly and smart guy there. Almost overnight everything got better. As I started getting happier and more respected by my peers, I also started becoming more ambitious. I dreamed about becoming president one day, about starting massive companies, about changing history. That was about 3 years ago, and I've been mostly happy since that point in my life. Gradually I shed my old bad habits, like smoking, and picked up some good ones, like eating healthier and exercising. I no longer want people to think of me as someone who is tormented by his genius. I realized that people really don't relate to or respond well to that. I still want to be respected, but now I'm capable of getting respect because I learned the first step is to be a warm person towards others - not by trying to project any sort of image. The problem is that we all project an image whether we want to or not, so we have a tendency to try and control it. I've found that I'm happiest and I feel most respected when I'm focusing on the matter at hand rather than myself. Whether it's designing an interface (my job) or talking to a friend, I find I am happiest when I'm not thinking about myself. Hope this helps somebody who's feeling like I felt 4 years ago.
- 15y ago
richardw 15y ago
I found, over time, that the simple knowledge there's a cycle means that a) when I'm up, remember what it's like and b) when I'm down, remember that it's temporary, and likely chemical. This is not you, it's just how you're feeling for a bit. Know that it will go up, and don't fight it up. Accept it, which helps. Don't be scared of being down. Look for environmental issues like exams coming up or work pressures, or anything that if a friend were experiencing, you'd be more understanding of. And if you can't find any, at least you have the knowledge that it's a cycle and not permanent. Also, make your decisions when you're up. Do the work on yourself you need to do when you're up. Call the social worker, the therapist, plan to meditate. Because you have the energy. Remember the highs and the lows, use the highs to help the lows. Think of it as integrating two aspects of yourself, rather than trying to get rid of the one that is down.
keeptrying 15y ago
Has anyone had any experiences that suggests bipolar people do better in a "difficult" environment than "regular" people would in the same situation?
- paganel 15y ago
  > that suggests bipolar people do better in a "difficult" environment than "regular" people would in the same situation? Maybe there's something about it in here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism#References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism#References ?
larve 15y ago
I would recommend going to a good professional, as this is something that obviously is affecting your life more than just being down for a couple of days. I would recommend going to the best of the best professional you can find though, I had a terrible experience with one psychotherapist that kept me from trying it again for more than 7 years. Even if you think your case is just "mild" (not that this applies to you) doesn't mean that seeking help is wrong, after all, you go to the doc if you have acne, or other things that are not life threatening. I have been diagnosed with bipolar I at age 29, and while I was able to come back out an extreme manic + delusional phase without hurting anyone nor myself too much, I now know the terrible danger that lies there. I selfmedicated with various drugs since age 13, and after having found a substance that stabilized me in a reasonable amount, I decided to go see a psychiatrist. Lucky as I am, some pills and a round of psychoeducation fixed almost all of it. At least I am not caught up in the cycle so much that I can't reflect on it and follow the "backup steps" when I need to (sports + friends + happy stuff when I spiral downward, more sleep, less socializing, less work when I am skyrocketing upwards). And I am able to see the value in leading a boring life, doing stuff you like and getting paid for it, and someday in the not too far away future having a house and a garden and kids and just riding a smooth ride at 50 km/h. Not missing the highs and not fearing the lows. The key thing to all of this is though: the pills did it. After 29 years I am suddenly able to a) have a grasp what a normal life is / can be, b) recognize my own feelings without being completely overwhelmed by them, c) realizing that even just thinking about suicidal thoughts is a sign that something is wrong. Of course this is all terribly subjective, but the closest you can come to objectivity (hah!) is getting professional help. Getting feel-good advice or whatever on the internet doesn't even work for normal well-understood illnesses, so think about what it is for mental illnesses.
- polymatter 15y ago
  How do you find a good professional (one thats good for me) and how long do you give it to expect results? I have always had an issue with depression, but its been getting worse lately as basically friends have moved on (married, house, kids). I went to see my university councillor who, emotionally I felt just wanted me out the door and just gave general feel-good advice. I couldn't cope and then defacto dropped out of my fully-paid phd at Oxford. Then my dad dragged me to the doctor who gave me some antidepressants, which I have to say worked amazing while I took them - much to my utter surprise. I expected the drugs to be overcharged placebo effect. They didn't make me feel happier, but I felt the relief that my "downs" were no longer so long or painful. The doctor recommended some therapy which ... didn't work for me at all. And was really expensive for an unemployed dropout. So I stopped them and stopped the medication being on a high, thinking I was better. But now I'm realising I'm not. Your comment that "just thinking about suicidal thoughts is a sign something is wrong" struck a chord with me. I think I have a good CV, but I have found it impossible to get a job. My impression is that employers see a gap in work history, I say 'personal reasons' and they then thank me for my time. The cite lack of experience, but that's weird since I'm going for entry-level jobs. So now I'd like to go back on the antidepressants, which seemed to do something, but without the associated therapy. I'm ambivalent about talking to people. It has to be someone I feel safe with, and whom I can relate to. Which seems to indicate friends, but lean on your friends too much, and they slip and slide away. Nobody likes a depressed friend. Least that's my experience. Anyway, so how do you find a good professional? Just go down the list?

81 points by alecbenzer 15y ago

I go to the shrink tomorrow. They literallly bust balls to see if you are submissive. Getting your balls busted means they degrade you and see if you fight back. If you do, you get locked-up. Perhaps, they put a legal paper in front of you that says "You have the right to be treated with dignity." Just sign it -- you are completely powerless. They can litterally cut-up your brain or electrocute you. They use chemicals and make you impotent. Sucks. Understatement. God says... C:\TEXT\WALDEN.TXT there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. W ------ It's CIA or some shit -- my parents are in league with the shrinks. I must endure skits when I'm in public. Mom spits in my food. I just ate ice cream and she has no teeth so she sucks the chocolate chips and dumps them back in the ice cream. I live with parents at age 41. Dad goes through my trash. I put nasty shit in there. I have no rights, basically. I have the rights of a slave, but don't have to work. I only get emials from FBI on LoseThos. My download numbers are fiction. Just imagine less playful shrinks than this abusing you: http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-torture-of-the-highest-form/ http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-tortur... God is just, though. I know their lives suck. God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT hich thou hast set by themselves? 21:30 And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. 21:31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them. 21:32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. 21:33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on th ---------- The psy-ops fuck with me when I go to stores. maybe, homeless asking for shit, maybe people getting in my way, maybe clerks screwing up, make you wonder if double charged, maybe wonder if ripping you off, people doing cachier line games... every possible way of fucking with you... maybe testing your sexuality... If a UFO lands, ignore it -- it's the shrinks looking for excuses to lock you up. God says... C:\TEXT\DARWIN.TXT gree? Why, for instance, should the colour of a flower be more likely to vary in any one species of a genus, if the other species possess differently coloured flowers, than if all possessed the same coloured flowers? If species are only well-marked varieties, of which the characters have become in a high degree permanent, we can understand this fact; for they have already varied since they branched off from a common progenitor in certain characters, by which they have come to be specifically disti --------- It might be shrinks and Catholics, prolly CIA. They are scum bringing-up CHUD just now after I confessed to licking the wind shield of a car after hitting someone. God is just, rest assured. You're not gonna be laughing when you finally learn He talks to me. Been going to dentist. Get root canal with temp filling dentists waits 5 weeks to schedule appointment as the temp errodes... just fucking with me, as I got this gapping hole in my tooth. During cleaning, kinda scratches my teeth extra long. Dad reports same dentist just found 6 fillings needed. This is shrinks testing me in league with parents and Catholics and CIA. Confusing. I ask if dentist went to Dad's church. Yep. Figures. I can wickedly laugh at those evil fucks. God talks. Suck on that, motha fuckas. And Mom trys to seduce me! Evil bitch. Pure evil. God says... C:\TEXT\WEALTH.TXT the highest eulogy which can ever justly be bestowed upon a regulated company; and all the three companies above mentioned seem, in their present state, to deserve this eulogy. The fine for admission into the Turkey company was formerly twenty-five pounds for all persons under twenty-six years of age, and fifty pounds for all persons above that age. Nobody but mere merchants could be admitted; a restriction which excluded all shop-keepers and retailers. By a bye-law, no British manufactures could ---- I normal person when cooking tries to please guests. Mom, demon bitch, has orgasm when she gets us to eat cheep food. Her whole self worth is being clever shopping, by which I mean proudly proclaiming she feeds the family below the poverty line. Pride. Holier than thou. If God gives you shit, don't give it away. She worships a demon God that doesn't want her happy. Actually, she's a selfish demon vile bitch who orgasms when inflicting suffering. So, she gets orgasm depriving people. She got the notion I want a lap top. I buy a computer couple years ago, so has my brother buy a lap top. In my 20's I had all the money I could ever want and matured. Now, everything is chump change and computers are not a big deal. She lives in a mellowdrama soap opera world with petty family jealosies. Bizzare pathetic cunt bitch. dad bought lap top when I reached a low point in my savings. Uncle boasts "I got an apple... pause pause." What, I'm supposed to be jealous. Mom just hates me and evil bitch gossips. That's okay, I hate all them too. God is just, cunt bitch, enjoy all your pains. Emporer has no cloths. God says... C:\TEXT\QUIX.TXT n the "Rake's Progress," "Sir, I have read your play, and it will not doo." He was more successful in a literary contest at Saragossa in 1595 in honour of the canonisation of St. Jacinto, when his composition won the first prize, three silver spoons. The year before this he had been appointed a collector of revenues for the kingdom of Granada. In order to remit the money he had collected more conveniently to the treasury, he entrusted it to a merchant, who failed and absconded; and as the bankrup ---------- "As you measure out, so it will be measured unto you." Be generous with stores and restaraunts, enjoy good luck. If you secretly like being poor and stingy, enjoy that holier-than-thou high you get. God says... C:\TEXT\DARWIN.TXT re now commonly admitted to be teleostean; and even some palaeozoic forms have thus been classed by one high authority. If the teleosteans had really appeared suddenly in the northern hemisphere at the commencement of the chalk formation, the fact would have been highly remarkable; but it would not have formed an insuperable difficulty, unless it could likewise have been shown that at the same period the species were suddenly and simultaneously developed in other quarters of the world. It is almost ----- I hate shopping. When I buy shoes, Dad tries to fit me into size 9 shoes, for some reason (dick size?). This has happened like 3 times. He says "try these on", hands me size 9. Last time, go to store and the size 10.5 box had size 9's in it! Just prior we went to another store and guy waved at Dad. Is the Knights of Columbus actually an active organization? Why do they enjoy fucking with me? God is just. I should just be smug. "Blessed are you when they persecute you." God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 2:42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 2:43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be ------- I was on bipolar meds until 8 years ago. I used to get locked-up over and over until I realized I had to get my balls busted and not complain or I get locked up. They no longer give me bipolar meds (Depacote) for 8 years and I haven't been locked up. Now, just resperdol and cogenton... nominally. God only know what docs do with meds in secretly. Wicked shit that makes you like hit by freeze ray if you stop taking... and of course impotence and breasts. Female hormones. Philosophers are classified into materialists, idealists and dualityists. It's normal for you to ponder the world as it appears being different from how it actually is--crazy delusions. Any smart person is delusional. Heaven is a delusional realm right on top of the Earthly realm. When enlightened all the Bible will make sense. Shrinks go to hell and the persecuted to HEaven. God says... C:\TEXT\SWIFT.TXT pon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and his head cut off at one blow, with a sword of about forty feet long. The veins and arteries spouted up such a prodigious quantity of blood, and so high in the air, that the great jet d'eau at Versailles was not equal to it for the time it lasted: and the head, when it fell on the scaffold floor, gave such a bounce as made me start, although I was at least half an English mile distant. The queen, who often used to hear me talk of my sea-voyages, and

alecbenzer 15y ago

curious if anyone can relate/offer advice

petercooper 15y ago
It seems like a reasonably good description of bipolar II. Rest assured, it can be tamed (either with medication, a therapy - such as CBT or even just a humanistic therapy - or both) but the first step is in finding the right help rather than ignoring it. Good luck.
- alecbenzer 15y ago
  I was actually somewhat happily surprised to hear you say that. I had kind of suspected that I had bipolar II for a while, but I sort of put the thought out of my head for fear that I was falling into a self-diagnosis trap. I'd wanted to go to a professional and be told I had it, but I never got around to really going.
  - Fliko 15y ago
    Going to a professional isn't falling into a self-diagnosis trap, but wanting to be told you have might be.
    - alecbenzer 15y ago
      No, I wasn't worried about going to a professional, I was just warned by some people that I shouldn't spend so much time on the internet trying to figure out what I have and then convince myself that I actually have it, and that I should just go see someone and have them tell me what I have (if anything). I ended up not really going to see anyone, though. The one time I did see someone, I happened to not really be that depressed at the time, and so he seemed to think that there wasn't much wrong with me, but I wasn't sure I could trust his opinion since I don't think I could effectively relay how I feel when I am depressed to him. I'm going to try and push myself to actually go see someone again, though. Hopefully I'll be able to explain myself better, or at least see someone frequently enough that eventually my feelings will come out.

avolcano 15y ago

Jesus, man. You shouldn't sell yourself short with a title like that; makes it sound like some random MySpace post when it's one of the best personal blog posts I've read. I'm 18, and this pretty much describes the last four months of my life (since starting at a soul-crushing community college). That depression -> realization -> joy -> productivity -> slipping -> depression cycle is something I've become intimately familiar with. I've considered therapy, of course, but I keep hoping it's short-term, and I don't necessarily want to spend the money if I have the ability to tame it myself. edit: glad to see you changed the title :)

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
alecbenzer 15y ago
Actually I didn't change the title. I guess a mod or something did?
- avolcano 15y ago
  Ah, ok. Seriously, though, that's a damn fine piece of writing. Put into words something I've never been able to.
  - arborist 15y ago
    same
- jcitme 15y ago
  Wait, what was the original title?
georgieporgie 15y ago
I've considered therapy, of course, but I keep hoping it's short-term, and I don't necessarily want to spend the money if I have the ability to tame it myself. I urge you to seek out some low-cost options for counseling, if only to get an objective opinion of where you're at. Time is money, after all, and you can either spend a bit now, or waste all those hours of life continuing to feel bad.

sraut 15y ago

That was oddly beautiful. It sounds like you are lacking fulfillment in your life and by extention happiness. Exitement is happiness. Do something exiting.

EGreg 15y ago

I am sure many people feel depression -- and probably beyond simple teenage angst. I realize I haven't been in their shoes, but I want to offer advice that I've figured out in my own experience, that lets you feel happy whenever you want to: 1) Think about all the people who have it worse than you. Think about what you have and what you can be thankful for. 2) Speak using only positive words for an hour, avoiding negative words. 3) Keep a list of things you are proud that you have accomplished, and as you read it, smile a bit. You get natural feedback. 4) Do a small thing to fix your circumstances, such as cleaning a window, that you can then sit back and enjoy. It's not much but you can do an excellent job of it, and it will give you what psychologists call a "feeling of agency" -- that you have control over much in your world if you just put your mind to it. 5) Help someone! I just watched this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxEkBt3c3CM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxEkBt3c3CM 6) Lower your expectations for things you cannot control. The only source of disappointment is failed expectations, and the amount of desire you had is proportional to the disappointment. 7) Triple your deadlines, get an organizer to clear your head, and you will remove your stress. 8) Talk to someone who loves you and respects you. Share something that you both enjoy! If you do these things you're almost guaranteed to feel much happier!

jacques_chester 15y ago
> I realize I haven't been in their shoes, Oh. > but I want to offer advice that I've figured out in my own experience, that lets you feel happy whenever you want to Fun fact: Depression Does Not Work Like That. Depression is insidious because it removes the will to get better. You don't lie around thinking "gee, I'm sad, I wish I was happy", whereupon your church newsletter list makes its entrance. No: a depressed person simply is depressed. The idea that you could get better is both unimaginable and exhausting just to think about. Depression progressively shuts all the doors until suicide seems, if you can be bothered to try it, the only sane thing left to do. People with depression don't need to be cheered up. They need medical attention. Right now. I don't mean to seem like I'm ragging on you personally, but you need to understand that variations on "snap out of it" and "put a smile on that dial!" don't work for a depressed person.
- 15y ago

9085 15y ago

Welcome to the club (read: life). How do you mature? Learn to spot these issues before they happen. Learn to change when you need to change, not when you have to change. Look inside. Reflect on the things you do. You know you the best-- you can analyze you the best. I guarantee you will be amazed at how much you can learn by just sitting quietly on the floor for 30 minutes doing nothing. Eyes closed. More commonly understood as meditation. I would bet you have more of a handle on things than many. Understand that you are young and nothing, I repeat, nothing can substitute for experience. And when you make sure to learn from every experience you have by utilizing self reflection, well, you will understand life and it's bliss. If anyone tells you life and the journey it provides is easy, they are lying. If anyone tells you it sucks, they are lying.

arborist 15y ago

Try this: http://imgur.com/JTJCO http://imgur.com/JTJCO or... This! http://imgur.com/mrwJb http://imgur.com/mrwJb Seriously though, just by skimming over your online presence for 5 minutes, I wish I was in your shoes. You're an aspiring programmer that seems to have had an at least somewhat early start with coding going to one of the best CS schools in the country. You haven't even graduated yet and you've already scored an internship from an awesome software company. I envy you. The "meaning" of your life is what you make it and it seems like you are in an excellent position to have complete control over your future. This is fairly rare and so valuable, don't let depression take that away.

MarkPNeyer 15y ago
your advice isn't much different from telling a man with no legs to 'man up' and start walking. depression is not a sign of weakness. if anything, publicly expressing your emotions and the struggles you go through shows real strength, especially when compared to hiding from your pain.
keeptrying 15y ago
Depression is different man - its not something you can "will" away. At a certain point on the downward slope of depression its hard to fix without medication. I liked your slides. :) Thats the kind of advice I dish out - more because my dad was in the Navy and thats what I used to receive from him. But the truth is, it doesnt help in anyway when your trying to support/help someone who is depressed. Truth is you could have the best career, a loving girlfriend and $300K in the bank and you could still be depressed. Its got nothing to do with his external life - its an internally (biologically) created situation.

sushimako 15y ago

First of all i'm sorry for your depression and wish you all the best on overcoming it. As many will tell you, you're are not alone in that boat and there IS a way out. But i think advice like this is almost as useful as "Just be happy, the world has so much to offer!" to a depressed person. This cycle you described is something almost every human being on earth goes through, day to day. For some the down-phase is way stronger, crushing and exhausting, to an extent unimaginable for the rest. But still, everyone has it. You made a good start by reflecting on the change-cycle of your feelings. Key is now to find a way to make best use of that knowledge in order to weaken the depression. There are many different teachings that will help you find that wisdom. Meditation (for example) can help you weaken that clinging for and aversion to 'good times' and 'bad times', resp. Clinging/Aversion itself is a very subtle process, which we usually don't notice consciously, but adds a lot to how our feelings turn out. Trying to be aware of it, gives you a whole new viewpoint of the status quo.

nbashaw 15y ago

I used to be a lot like that. But then somehow I slipped out of the cycle and started being good at things, and I've been truly consistently happy and working hard on fun projects for the past 3ish years (I'm 22 now). I saw some people asking others to share their stories, so I thought I would offer up my own life as an example. It's just a data point, take from it what you will. When I started high school I thought I wasn't good at anything. I was pretty rebellious and took up smoking / drinking at a young age. Then I started debating and found out I was pretty good at that, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of my slump. Turns out, winning debates is only cool to other debaters. I remember riding the bus full of idiots to school, listening to Modest Mouse on my first iPod, just wondering why life generally sucked. When I went to college I tried to be one of those thoughtful types. My subconscious goal was to make everyone think I was tormented by deep thoughts. It was my way of trying to get people to like me and to feel special. (I was not conscious of this at the time). I smoked cigarettes a lot, became a vegetarian, and thought about how nothing matters. Reading Nietzsche for fun made me feel profound, and truly I learned a lot from it, but if I'm honest with myself I did it because I wanted people to respect me. That's what I was missing in my life, what made me feel so bad for so long. I just didn't feel respected. I didn't think people took me seriously enough. I quit college debate, joined another student organization and became known as a friendly and smart guy there. Almost overnight everything got better. As I started getting happier and more respected by my peers, I also started becoming more ambitious. I dreamed about becoming president one day, about starting massive companies, about changing history. That was about 3 years ago, and I've been mostly happy since that point in my life. Gradually I shed my old bad habits, like smoking, and picked up some good ones, like eating healthier and exercising. I no longer want people to think of me as someone who is tormented by his genius. I realized that people really don't relate to or respond well to that. I still want to be respected, but now I'm capable of getting respect because I learned the first step is to be a warm person towards others - not by trying to project any sort of image. The problem is that we all project an image whether we want to or not, so we have a tendency to try and control it. I've found that I'm happiest and I feel most respected when I'm focusing on the matter at hand rather than myself. Whether it's designing an interface (my job) or talking to a friend, I find I am happiest when I'm not thinking about myself. Hope this helps somebody who's feeling like I felt 4 years ago.

15y ago

richardw 15y ago

I found, over time, that the simple knowledge there's a cycle means that a) when I'm up, remember what it's like and b) when I'm down, remember that it's temporary, and likely chemical. This is not you, it's just how you're feeling for a bit. Know that it will go up, and don't fight it up. Accept it, which helps. Don't be scared of being down. Look for environmental issues like exams coming up or work pressures, or anything that if a friend were experiencing, you'd be more understanding of. And if you can't find any, at least you have the knowledge that it's a cycle and not permanent. Also, make your decisions when you're up. Do the work on yourself you need to do when you're up. Call the social worker, the therapist, plan to meditate. Because you have the energy. Remember the highs and the lows, use the highs to help the lows. Think of it as integrating two aspects of yourself, rather than trying to get rid of the one that is down.

keeptrying 15y ago

Has anyone had any experiences that suggests bipolar people do better in a "difficult" environment than "regular" people would in the same situation?

paganel 15y ago
> that suggests bipolar people do better in a "difficult" environment than "regular" people would in the same situation? Maybe there's something about it in here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism#References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism#References ?

larve 15y ago

I would recommend going to a good professional, as this is something that obviously is affecting your life more than just being down for a couple of days. I would recommend going to the best of the best professional you can find though, I had a terrible experience with one psychotherapist that kept me from trying it again for more than 7 years. Even if you think your case is just "mild" (not that this applies to you) doesn't mean that seeking help is wrong, after all, you go to the doc if you have acne, or other things that are not life threatening. I have been diagnosed with bipolar I at age 29, and while I was able to come back out an extreme manic + delusional phase without hurting anyone nor myself too much, I now know the terrible danger that lies there. I selfmedicated with various drugs since age 13, and after having found a substance that stabilized me in a reasonable amount, I decided to go see a psychiatrist. Lucky as I am, some pills and a round of psychoeducation fixed almost all of it. At least I am not caught up in the cycle so much that I can't reflect on it and follow the "backup steps" when I need to (sports + friends + happy stuff when I spiral downward, more sleep, less socializing, less work when I am skyrocketing upwards). And I am able to see the value in leading a boring life, doing stuff you like and getting paid for it, and someday in the not too far away future having a house and a garden and kids and just riding a smooth ride at 50 km/h. Not missing the highs and not fearing the lows. The key thing to all of this is though: the pills did it. After 29 years I am suddenly able to a) have a grasp what a normal life is / can be, b) recognize my own feelings without being completely overwhelmed by them, c) realizing that even just thinking about suicidal thoughts is a sign that something is wrong. Of course this is all terribly subjective, but the closest you can come to objectivity (hah!) is getting professional help. Getting feel-good advice or whatever on the internet doesn't even work for normal well-understood illnesses, so think about what it is for mental illnesses.

polymatter 15y ago
How do you find a good professional (one thats good for me) and how long do you give it to expect results? I have always had an issue with depression, but its been getting worse lately as basically friends have moved on (married, house, kids). I went to see my university councillor who, emotionally I felt just wanted me out the door and just gave general feel-good advice. I couldn't cope and then defacto dropped out of my fully-paid phd at Oxford. Then my dad dragged me to the doctor who gave me some antidepressants, which I have to say worked amazing while I took them - much to my utter surprise. I expected the drugs to be overcharged placebo effect. They didn't make me feel happier, but I felt the relief that my "downs" were no longer so long or painful. The doctor recommended some therapy which ... didn't work for me at all. And was really expensive for an unemployed dropout. So I stopped them and stopped the medication being on a high, thinking I was better. But now I'm realising I'm not. Your comment that "just thinking about suicidal thoughts is a sign something is wrong" struck a chord with me. I think I have a good CV, but I have found it impossible to get a job. My impression is that employers see a gap in work history, I say 'personal reasons' and they then thank me for my time. The cite lack of experience, but that's weird since I'm going for entry-level jobs. So now I'd like to go back on the antidepressants, which seemed to do something, but without the associated therapy. I'm ambivalent about talking to people. It has to be someone I feel safe with, and whom I can relate to. Which seems to indicate friends, but lean on your friends too much, and they slip and slide away. Nobody likes a depressed friend. Least that's my experience. Anyway, so how do you find a good professional? Just go down the list?