[LelouchLamperouge]

Some are good and some are bad. How do you guys deal with this? Has anyone been able to shake off or manage their bad ones?

Mine is being on my PC and playing video games. I started this since I was in middle school and now I'm turning 26 this year. It allowed me to escape from the real world that I so desperately struggled with and wanted to avoid as much as possible. It was a place where I could make a personality to people who completely don't know me online in order to feel any kind of normalness. It's good in the aspect that it also became an alternative to doing drugs when I was younger and putting aside thoughts of severe depression and suicide.

However, I guess I need to tell and convince myself somehow that this is not entirely good either. I am always glued to my computer playing games for countless hours everyday. I've been like this for my entire childhood and teenage years. It just seems impossible to change this and I don't know if I will even be able to. I guess I need to somehow manage and cut back from all of my time I spend playing video games. I have never had a "real" relationship nor any type of sexual relations. I don't really have any friends either, I'm not able to create or sustain a friendship with people. People I know are more just like acquaintances. I find myself awkward and extremely uncomfortable in any type of social setting. I have difficulty expressing my thoughts and emotions. I was always the person who had little to nothing to say and was always quiet. I always get lost in the middle of saying something, stutter frequently and often completely lose my train of thought. Social anxiety isn't something that really helps...I also have a chronic skin illness that I got in high school and only made things like ten times more worse. How do I change if I've been like this forever and this is the only thing that I know?

Maybe I'll bring this up with my T at my next meeting on Wednesday. That's if I feel I'm up to it at that moment.

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[IrisBloom]

In general, there is nothing wrong with being a loner. But you should learn to socialize. How about joining a church? Or find a local mental health facility that has group meetings. You do have to put yourself out there to have a social life, but it's not that hard. You can do it if you want to!

Is the skin illness something that can be managed with treatment? I've had chronic skin stuff before and found that you often have to really bug your doctor to get them to be serious about treating it. And then the treatment itself can be time-consuming and annoying.

Plenty of people have chronic skin conditons. I just know from experience that it's easier to work on social anxiety if you don't have to deal with worrying about the skin issues as well. Sometimes you do, though.

I'm glad that you are asking yourself these questions. One place that has been good for me to go is to do volunteer work at animal or wildlife rescues. The people doing that sort of work generally are more non-judging and accepting than people in average, in my experience.

[LelouchLamperouge]

Originally Posted by jo_thorne

Is the skin illness something that can be managed with treatment? I've had chronic skin stuff before and found that you often have to really bug your doctor to get them to be serious about treating it. And then the treatment itself can be time-consuming and annoying.

My skin condition is a subject that I'm very sensitive about so I'm not going to mention what it is called. I've been on so many different antibiotics that I've lost track. The best they ever did was just manage my condition a bit. I was always told they were staph infections but staph is something that was treatable but how come I was dealing with it for so many years with no remedy. I was dx'ed last year by a new dermatologist a skin illness that is life long with really no fully effective cure. I will be going to see another dermatologist soon once I get my health insurance within a couple of weeks.

If it truly is chronic and something I have to deal with my entire life, then I don't know what I'm going to do. I can only handle so much physical and emotional distress. I'm always in physical discomfort and pain. This isn't a main part of my depression but it has escalated it along with my social anxiety. There were many times I've contemplated taking my life. Even though I'm getting help now with my T and psychiatrist, if I don't end up finding any solace or any kind of solution then I might end up finding that taking my life would be a viable alternative again.

Sorry this got a bit off topic lol

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Okay, I totally understand your not wanting to discuss it. I hope you have a correct diagnosis now and that it can be cured. I went 20 years before getting a correct diagnosis for a skin condition that I had, which although I doubt was as bad as yours, was embarrassing and frustrating for me.

I have some chronic autoimmune problems that I take meds for, too, so I know how much medical conditions can negatively affect your efforts to improve your mental health.

and back on topic...my big form of escapism is reading. I have always read a lot. I just notice that I do more of it when I'm depressed and that my reading selection narrows to books that are comfortable or distracting.

If I get extremely depressed, I may be unable to concentrate enough to read.

[Fuzzybear]