for me but anybody is welcome :)

well, didn't hear from either of 2 companies I felt SURE I would this week.

Turns out my sense of self is much more tenuous than even I realized.

Now I'm convinced that I'm old, past-my-prime, useless, way overestimating my capabilities, going to end up taking some crap job with a scraping-by salary.

I am terrified and meanwhile I keep steadfastedly checking "no" on every application when it asks "Do you have a disability?"

(((((((((Lavendersage)))))))))) hugs on their way.

have you tried taking up a musical instrument...?

it helps me... i played the guitar for years but because of my avpd stuff i tend to do it alone... which is fine, its for me - ya know?
i started playing guitar when i was 4-5 years old.. i dont know many songs because my memory ... i keep forgetting them all.. but its really nice to be able to pick it up and play around with it if even just for a few minutes...

now days they have musical software for the computer so you dont even have to buy an instrument... can play around with musical sounds on the computer - thats what i have been doing mostly recently...

i read in previous post of yours that you said music makes you feel good...
so i was just wondering if maybe you would be interested in taking it up... your never too old to learn to play music - just for yourself - dont have to go on stage and impress the world or anything...

i use the software called Fruity Loops... its great... but there are more out there..
learning how to make it work can be challenging in the beginning so maybe there is a more simple software that you could get started with / just to play around with..


just wanted to say that - many hugs...

im no superstar myself and im not like the best musician in the world, but if you enjoy it then it doesnt matter how good you are..

thanks elevated - I appreciate your hugs and words. Unfortunately, I don't have the mental stability to try and learn an instrument right now.

One of the biggest loves in my life has always been (since I was 6yo), reading. These past 7-8 years I simply can't focus my brain for any length of time on it; I used to read a book a week. I haven't read a book in almost 8 years. If I cn't focus long enough to do something that for me was as natural and needed as breathing....learning an instrument is a non-starter.

I do love love love music though. And, thankfully, listening to it still brings me great joy.

Oh God. I realize popular vote has me as should be feeling happy excited but I have got to BE REAL here, if nowhere else.

My life has been a failure. I am a failure and I don't see what point there is in my doing much of anything. Doesn't mean I won't keep moving....I just can see absolutely no point in it.

I wanted to find a life partner. I've f'd up every relationship I've ever been in (not that any of them were keepers - but that just goes to show you how bad my judgment is, too.)

I wanted a closeness with my family. Nope. Not. Just one of the very large group of us - and it's an extended family member - not even from my primary, immediate.

I wish I were not alive anymore; I'm so tired of this BS life.

((((((((Lavendersage)))))))))

(((((((((( Lavendersage ))))))))))

Shopping on weekends is the PITS. So many people, stores are a mess, so noisy, so little room to maneuver around.

A woman in one store where I was shopping was walking around holding a wind chime. Just letting it jingle-jangle-chime the entire frigging time. For,like, at least TWENTY MINUTES. She never.stopped.walking. (consequently the chimes never.stopped.chiming). Who does that?? (I have misophonia.) I'm so proud I'm sitting here typing rather than waiting to be arraigned or post bail but holy hell.

Well done for being so restrained Lavendersage, sounded like torture!

I once went on a train journey during the Olympics from London to Penzance (over 5 hours) in a carriage full of children under 10 with vuvuzelas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuvuzela.

Just to sound like a huffy old fart but when I was a child travelling on long journeys we got sedated and locked in the toilet. JUST KIDDING.

bwahhahahaha.

Well, I'm putting this here as it's likely to be on the long-ish side and I'm opening myself up to possibly coming across as whining, ungrateful, impossible (none of which is my intent).

Today was my first day at the new job.

Before I say more I think it's important to acknowledge that I hate every new job because I hate being "new", not knowing anybody, where the bathroom is, forgetting everyone's name, not having any substantive work to do. Ugh - I hate this part of every new job.

Soooo, maybe this too shall pass but for now, gotta say, not feeling I can do this for years and years.

I mean, I love where the job's located, and I thought I'd be all gah-gah to - after a 12 year absence - be back in the town again...but I'm not feeling it. What I AM feeling about it is holy HELL I have to get up early to commute there and I don't get home until 6:30/7pm and wtf - I'm not in my 20's anymore.

The people are all nice but I don't know that I'll be able to be "me" with them...but, really, work is not the place to look for friends, right?

My boss is very nice, very nice woman....but I've got to answer her phone and I'm so not in to that. She wasn't mean/overbearing/entitled when she asked; if anything she looked uncomfortable. But she did ask and it...rankles me.... to be doing that sort of thing in this day and age and at my age.

And the work itself. Ah, dios mio. I think there are a few ways people relate to their jobs. Some have passion for what they do and for what they get out of it. Others don't necessarily have a passion for what they're doing, but they do for what they're getting out of it (i.e. accolades,"making a difference", quantifiable results.) Still others, I'm sure could give a flying F so long as they get paid and devote their passion pursuits elsewhere.

I've never had a passion for any paid work I've done. Total dedication and giving 150-200 percent, always....but that's not the same thing as passion. It's just an excellent work ethic. And maybe if my life were chugging away in all other areas I, too, could just view it as a paycheck. And maybe I one day will. But, again, NOW (and my life is pretty damn dismal across the board) what strikes me is that I would like to do something I had a passion for.

The problem is I need $$$$ to live and I'm not 24 anymore. I have a specialized skill set that lends itself to a particular type of work and that about sums it up in a nutshell.

There is one job: teaching, that my one awesome family member has been trying to get me to do for, literally, YEARS and I thought about it tonight and thought, "Well, maybe." But I'd need to know more about it: what the pay is likely to be first and foremost because, as per usual, everything always seems to boil down to the almighty dollar.

I feel like a whiny pissant. I realize so many people would love to be able to be making the money I am, working where (town) that I do. To have a job at all! And I am not ungrateful; I am exceedingly grateful.

I'm just not thrilled...and I'd love, for once, to be thrilled by what I do for my work.

And to not have to answer anybody's GD phone.

Who knows - maybe I'll end up feeling better about it. I can't say "love it" as I know I won't: I don't love the type of work I do. I do it really well but there's a difference. I can clean my house really well and will because I like a clean house....but that doesn't mean I LOVE doing it.

Re: teaching. IDK - it'd be college-age because anybody younger I probably wouldn't work well with (too young and all I'd want to do is play with them, middle school and I'd probably want to skewer them). But do kids even read anymore? Do they even know who Shakespeare is? Does literature even get taught in American colleges anymore?

I feel like a dinosaur. Plodding, obtrusive. Obsolete.

That should be illegal! Such kids should be taught to read on train journeys or plugged into electronic games with ear phones!

I realized today that I live in a constant state of worry. Constant. It's killing me. But I can't control it. Inside I'm in a ceaseless state of fear sometimes ratcheting up to an almost full-on panic. God how I can't wait to start seeing a pdoc and a therapist!!!

Oh, and the family member that I live in their house sent me a text message on my 3rd day of my new job - during work hours - to tell me they need the space I'm living in back for May. There are really no words.

((((((((((( lavendersage ))))))))))

(((((((Lavendersage))))))) that's so hard!!

I now have a date, discharge on 4/5/16, unless anything drastic happens.
So there it is. There is a 'step down' arrangement to help with the transition.

Had a full-on anxiety attack at work today. Holy friggin' moly it was NOT fun. Calmer now. I have an appt. with a pdoc last week of May. I don't even care about trying to treat the depression with a med; I don't think they work for me. But I REALLY need help with the anxiety obsessive negative
thoughts and constant fear and dread.

Hang on in there ((((((Lavendersage)))))).

I'm struggling so hard at work with my depression. I went on disability for 18 months because of severe treatment resistant depression and just recently went back to work because I needed the money and I was tired of feeling sick and being sick so I just decided to put myself out there.

I have had so much trouble staying focused and on task at work...my concentration level is just so low, I'm lucky to be engaged in anything for 5 minutes.

Help me, Obi Wan, you're my only hope.

Seesaw

((((((((((Seesaw))))))))))

I'm sorry for your struggle; I know how you feel. My concentration level is crap plus the work is SO BORING that it holds absolutely no intellectual appeal for me.

I like your Obi Wan quote. Good one.

I can only manage one hour voluntary work a week. Sometimes that's almost too much.

I miss being productive.

Kudos to anyone who is managing to work despite the difficulty.

Not doing well.

Searching for a therapist, though I honestly don't think there's much they can do for me anymore. I've had a ton of talk therapy in my life. It'll just be nice to have someone professionally trained to talk to - that's basically where my head is at in terms of my prospects for any kind of improvement now.

Complete family estrangement. Oh the irony. Couldn't wait to move back to this area of the country as I missed them and now....don't talk to any of them.

Continue to see a pdoc who is trying me on this, that, and the next thing...and none of it works in terms of lifting - even just easing in the slightest - my depression. Nada. Zilch.

I still love music and my cat - those two things can still make me feel good. And, children, too can lift my mood. But it doesn't last. I plunge back to the bottom of the abyss very quickly. I haven't felt happy for any length of time in 7 or 8 years. I think this may be baseline for me now and forevermore...and that's really tough to take.

I started going to a social group I found out about online. It feels good (though nerve-wracking, too; I'm shy around groups of people that I don't know) to interact with humans socially. I spent an inordinate amount of time alone in 2016. I've only slightly lessened that by joining this group. But....at least I did that.

I wonder A LOT about, apart from taking something to help me sleep and something to keep my anxiety at bay, if I should even bother with the anti-depressants?? They're not doing a DAMN thing.

I know there is something seriously wrong with me. For 8 years I have been nothing like how I was for most of my life. I was recently asking myself, "Is it some kind of pathology? What is it that's going on with you?" But what I really think it boils down to is that I've been in a major, major depressive episode for this long length of time. And I don't really think or harbor much hope that it will change in any substantive way.

I used to be more social. I self-isolate and live like a recluse now (except I did join that group recently.)

I used to keep my home spotless; I wouldn't anyone to see how the inside of my home looks now.

I used to care about the interior decoration aspect of ALL my apartments. Used to love "nesting" in my new homes. Now I could care less. I lived with a boxspring and mattress on the floor (not even on a bed-frame), a small dresser and a desk I was using as a vanity for months. You could have held a dance in my living room; it was so empty in here it actually echoed. And I just didn't care.

I finally got the apt. painted, bought furniture, started putting my things out and up on the walls - but I was forcing myself every step of the way. I just don't care.

I used to clean the litterbox every day, stay on top of my paperwork, get my mail out of the mailbox every day. I go days and days and days without doing those things. In the case of paperwork, it's more like months. I just let the piles build up on the kitchen counters.

And, what's more, I just don't care. I used to very much care.

I used to be a voracious reader. Constantly had a book going. Lost all capacity for being able to focus and sit still to do that. Instead became addicted to web-surfing and watching TV. Forced myself to read the first book in almost 8 years last month.

I used to take care of myself hygiene-wise. Like....I was meticulous about myself. I do so for work M-F but apart from that, I'm a sloth.

I used to love sex. Now I could care less about sex.

I used to want to try and find a life partner. Now I think all that's ever done is end up a disaster, that I have terrible judgment, and feel who the hell in their right mind would want to take on anyone with my struggles - and not get laid in to the bargain. So I don't even consider that as an option anymore.

I used to love having "stuff". Now I hate stuff.

I live with a constant, relentless angst of existential "what is the point in ANY of this?" that will simply NOT leave me alone for a minute's worth of peace coupled with an ever-present always just-under-the-surface dread and fear of "what is to become of me?" as I have no savings nor pension to fall back on as I grow older.

I KNOW that in the course of my life that despite having clinically depressive episodes, there were lengths of time in-between where I didn't feel all that I've written about above in this post. I remember that to be true.

But it's been 8 years now. I didn't think depressive episodes lasted that long. I guess they can. Or, like I also said, maybe this is just my life now. Maybe it's not an "episode"; maybe it's just my life, my new reality from here on out.

So, in a nutshell, I walk around with the constant thought of "what is the point of anything?", a fear & dread of my future, and an overall absence of caring about just about everything that used to bring me pleasure or, at the very least, make me a responsible adult (showering, litterbox, paperwork, mail!!).

I think I'm very messed up. I don't know what to do about it or if anything even can be.

Many many of us can relate! I love Binaural Beats, they can be used for sleep, pain etc. can use them free also! I have to resort to Benadryl sometimes, but thats ok. melatonin gives me hangovers. I have other meds to take but none for sleep as I tend to have the bad side effects. Positive vibes your way!