Roll Call 16

i had a weird dream about T last night. i was with my sister and i left a party to go do hard drugs and she called him and he came and found me. it was weird because i dont usually dream about T. it made me want to talk to him as soon as i woke up. but i think he is sick today cuz i went to see him for a visit yesterday and he was sick and left. it reminds me of when i was psychotic last and the voices were telling me to take a bottle of advil. i called T and he talked me out of it and had me flush them down the toilet. maybe thats what it was about.

i had to ask my mom for money today. i get my disability check on monday. i hate not having enough money. i need to find a job but im scared. im making good grades in school.

do any of u get depressed when ur bored? i dnt know how to cope with boredom and i always get really depressed and sad. i have plenty of things i could do but i have no motivation to do them. any ideas for overcoming poor motivation to cope with being bored?

I got through yesterday without smoking, it was tough but I did it. So now I'm on day two. It feels good, I already feel healthier.

have you notice any negative or positive symptoms go away because of stopping so far? like rise in motivation? or anything else?

I haven't noticed much of a difference so far.

What is roll call? I'm so confused :/

It just lets people know you are here---we just gossip on it for the most part...

So I bought an LED SAD light--local delivery it should be here tomorrow...yay!

Oh, that's exciting. I hope it works and you start to feel better.

Newtus: It could be the weather like you said, making you lose motivation, or laying down all day. Staying down all day can trigger depression. I know it's hard but try to get up and move around if you can.

Willow: I hope whatever they want it's not to be mean to you. And you're not a terrible person. You can only give so much and if you're not well it's hard. Just because you're worried about being a terrible person prooves you're not. Terrible people don't care.

Cracking: I hope things go beter today. I know you're having a rough time.

Punky: having been severly bullied in junior high, all I can say is it's the hardest time out of all the school years. Is there any way you can set up a meeting with your daugther's friends parents? Because they all have trouble maybe a "group meeting" can help resolve the issues between them while the counselor is out? Just an idea. Just let your daughter know you have her back. I hated junior high.

As for me, well some good news. My dad owned his CPAP machine for sleep apnea. So, my step-mom gave it to me. I just need a new mask, because you're not supposed to share. My aunt said she would send me some parts they have which are new. That's nice. Finally something turning around. I'm scared to sleep in that mask, though. I don't like being confined around my face. In the hospital I can barely even stand the little nose tubes of oxygene for long. So... we'll have to see.

On the plus side you now have the option--- I think I may have said this before but the lady down the hall from me said she had one and didn't even realize that she slept so poorly until she tried it and now feels wonderful---are you still going to do the sleep study to see if you actually have it?

was at the hearing voices group today then went to a drop in voices are so loud didn't feel safe at all

I guess I'm not going over a friends house tomorrow after all. Damn.

I can't do the 2nd test because it's $2500 and my wonderful insurance doesn't cover a penny of it until I reach my $4000 deductable. The first test was free because my doctor's office has a contract with them to give the first test free so people will get their machines. But, I think teh 2nd test isn't needed because I had 7 apena events every hour according to the first test. That's a lot. That's like every 8.6 minutes I have an event.... No wonder I'm so tired.

Yeah wow that is a lot---I wouldn't do the 2nd test either---good luck with the machine!

i didnt know it could trigger depression. really didnt. thanks for that bit. ever since my dad started working i didnt know what to do. so ive been either sleeping off/on or just laying down all day. i think staying down all day is triggering a bit of headaches too.

yeah, change is a trigger too. So, change and then laying around it kind of settles on you. You know that old saying "idle hands are the devil's play things?" well, I think of it more like sitting idle triggers depression, because you start just soaking in your own blah.

One of the tips for coping with depression is forcing yourself to get up every day and put your clothes and shoes on, not to sit around in your pjs. It's one I have worked on a long time, and in my experienc it does help.

Sorry you are having hard time with your voices. I'm glad you went to your group, though. Maybe some people there can give you tips on skills to make them quieter.

i know the change of him working has stressed me and caused me to hear voices more and be more paranoid.

ive definitely been laying around. fatigued and no motivation. i suspect some of that is negative symptoms. idk how much is depression.

my neighbors said i look happier. but i dont feel happier. i think i just hide my symptoms well enough.

yeah, it's something we're all good at, hiding what's really going on. I remember once I told a lady I have bipolar and she was like "really? You're not that mean and don't seem at all crazy." Well... errr... offended or complimented? Not sure.

Even if it's not depression and it's negative symptoms, it could be both. Remember, big changes cause big stress and big stress causes depression. Even if it isn't "clinical" depression your body can still respond that way.

People have such horrible ideas of mental illness---I know I did for sz before getting sick---all the stuff in the newspapers presents the worst side---you know before I went into the psych hospital I didn't realize that it would be locked---later I attributed this total lack of knowledge to the fact that I never watch horror films...yeah...like that's a great education source...

ive been told im not crazy enough. but thats usually like now. when im on meds. when im off meds i think people can tell a little bit that something is off about me.

My cousin has been totally depressed for 10 years---you can tell when she doesn't take her meds because she is actually frowning all the time---she says she can't tell the difference at all but it makes a big difference in how likely people are to interact with you---and its a lot easier to be happy when more people interact with you.

There was also a story I can't find of a guy who took ADs and basically said he didn't know why but people started to be nicer to him on the meds, he didn't think he changed either but I'm guessing it was a smiling thing there too...

People can't always tell what you're feeling inside and its hard to tell if you're expressing it or not----when I first got on the meds I went for a week vacation with my parents in Florida we were constantly doing everything and they said they could not tell if I was happy or not---in my case it was actually the meds suppressing my normal emotion so it can be either way but my point is only outsiders can tell you how much emotion you are expressing but they can never tell you how you feel inside...

i cant tell either about my smile. but i dont want people to tell me how i FEEL. i dont tell people how i feel cuz ill just not be believed. i remember when i was a teen i used to tell my dad i was depressed and he would make comments like "how can you be depressed?" or "you dont look depressed". or something like that. my depression isnt taken seriously and it kills me. if i am depressed it isnt taken seriously. i remember having my first full blown psychotic episode at 17 i was taken more seriously. it was just bad. and it still is just bad.

i dont feel happier just because im on meds.

yeah I know its not actually how you feel is the problem--the two aren't actually correlated in people with MI so far as I can tell---the problem is with "normal" people they actually smile when they are happy and frown when they are sad so they don't understand that the two aren't connected in everyone...its almost like if someone picked a random thing you did like wearing black socks vs white socks and one was supposedly happy and one sad----Oh you wore white socks today you must be happy!---well no that has nothing to do with me being happy or not---sorry...

The other thing that comes into play is mirroring---people will sort of smile or frown in their own face and that mirroring produces the same emotion in you so its a lot easier to be around people who have "happy' facial expressions.

The thing is it's not even universal---there are real cultural differences in the expressions people have so it really is just as arbitrary as wearing white socks...

When I was a teen everyone used to say "Smile!" And I would always think they were crazy. Or everyone would ask me "what's wrong?" But nothing was wrong. There are so many pictures of me with just this kind of upset face. Even at happy events. There's some photos from Christmas when I was about 18 and me and MIL and hubby all laugh because I look totally pissed off in the pics. But, I remember that as one of the most fun Christmases ever, with lots of laughing.

Same with the videos of me in Hawaii when I was 13, those are creepy. My dad took me because my mom had died, so he wanted to do something cheerful for us. Well, in the videos if I know I'm being filmed I seem like a happy, jumping around kid. But, he did these long pans across the landscape, often catching me when I wasn't aware. And I'm a complete zombie.

Newtus: my dad used to do teh same thing when I was a teen. I'd tell him "I'm depressed" and he's say "what do you have to be depressed about." Or "everyone is despressed, keep it to yourself." Stuff like that.