Very Complicated Situation

[smackie9]

Guys you are not reading the thread fully. He lacks self confidence, has no money for therapy and has social anxiety issues. He is struggling, and writing an email like this is his way of releasing some of the hurt he is so trying to get rid of. So stop criticizing and posting the vanilla advice. He is using this forum as an outlet to express himself because he has nothing else at this time.

He wants to move forward, but his brain (due to mental issues) can't as easily as the rest of us.

[IndiReloaded]

So, how does one change an auto-looping mindset, Smackie?

Okay, here's novel approach (not seeing anyone else come up with them, btw). If writing helps then OP should write something *completely* orthogonal to his angst about this girl.

@ White - How about writing your story with an alternate ending? Not where you end up with the girl, but where you realize your obsession and find the confidence to get out there and meet a really nice girl. All in writing. No risk. Write out the life you want. When you find yourself going down old paths, hit that delete key and rewrite.

[smackie9]

He knows he has obsessive behavior. He wishes it will just go away...but if you understand mental illness, you would know there is no off switch, that ourselves take for granted. To stop the auto-looping he needs medication and counseling, but he can't afford it, so he does what he can. It's very very tough to redirect those thoughts that's why it leads to uncontrolled behavior problems. Our suggestions are a band-aid solution unfortunately.........he comes on here because he has no one to share what he is going through.....just needs a safe place to visit, vent, express himself, get some support......

I'll give him credit, it takes a lot, especially someone like him, coming forward and talking about any of this.


Hopefully he gets some relief by trying your suggestion.....something different to try at least.

[IndiReloaded]

Depends if he wants to change or wants to complain.

Its true. I don't have much patience for 'mental illness' like this. Anyone with the intelligence to hold a job, use a computer and write volumes on a subject is lacking direction (and perhaps self-discipline). Those things can be learned and it not 'mental illness' to lack them. Only willpower.

What did we ever do before pills and shrinks? Oh yeah: we knuckled down and got shit done.

Case in point: are you going to at least try my suggestion White?

[whitedragon20na]

First off, I'd like to say that I don't appreciate the way you devalue the importance of one's mental health. Just because it's a recently new discovery (just in the 20th century) doesn't mean it should be scoffed at as just a person not having self-control.

Until you have to go through certain things, you shouldn't put someone down for them. You think I can just 'turn it off' and I'll be all better; well that's clearly not the case, or I would've done that years ago. It's like telling someone who's developmentally handicapped to just 'get smarter', it doesn't work that way.

We have no control over the chemical balances and neurons in our brains. We cannot simply force things to be the way we think they should be when things are physiologically out of whack. I mean, you wouldn't just tell someone who has cancer to simply 'make it go away' by willing it to do so.

I would also like to add that I have a very difficult time holding down any job (it's been almost 10 years where I had a steady job, at a workplace, where I had to interact with people) because of my behavioral disorders that cause me to be anti social. My intelligence doesn't help the situation at all, in fact, the higher one's intelligence is, the more likely they are to develop mental disorders.

As far as your idea of writing something like that out goes, I'm not too sure about it, because the first thing that comes into my mind is to start before I met her and write something completely different where she was never there in the first place. That's a big problem I'm having right now in that I continue to run things through my mind and think about how I could have done something different before meeting her so none of this every happened. That's not going to help anything because it's in the past and there's nothing I can do to alter it, no matter how much I think about it.


To Smackie: Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad you really do understand why I keep coming back here and posting. As of right now my only outlets are the journal I started and this thread here. If I start going down that dark road, I have to write/type/say something, or else it'll build up and become much worse.

[IndiReloaded]

Okay, well, I'm not going to enable you. Whatever your issues, its clear what you need to *do*. Other people manage, you can too. Good luck getting there.

[whitedragon20na]

Okay, well, I'm not going to enable you. Whatever your issues, its clear what you need to *do*. Other people manage, you can too. Good luck getting there.

That's actually the point of me continuing to come back to the thread here. I don't want sympathy or anything of that nature, just a place where I can talk about things when I need to.

[searock]

Some other people manage, some other people still kill themselves. Mental illness is not something "anyone can get over". It's an illness, it can't go away just by willpower. It takes away your willpower and your will to even just live. I don't know how people coped before the illness was discovered, but I'm pretty sure the rate of suicides was pretty much the same as it is today. People killing themselves "for love", people dying "of heartache", etc... depression, called in different terms.

I think the OP should get therapy, I understand he can't afford it right now, but isn't there someplace (like the equivalent of a woman's shelter or something) he can get it for free, or for very low prices?

[smackie9]

Depends if he wants to change or wants to complain.

Its true. I don't have much patience for 'mental illness' like this. Anyone with the intelligence to hold a job, use a computer and write volumes on a subject is lacking direction (and perhaps self-discipline). Those things can be learned and it not 'mental illness' to lack them. Only willpower.

What did we ever do before pills and shrinks? Oh yeah: we knuckled down and got shit done.

Case in point: are you going to at least try my suggestion White?

What happened to people before pills? I will tell you what they did with my grandmother back in the late 40's early 50's.....they were giving her electric shocks to her brain. If anything you were tossed into a insane asylum along with kids with down syndrome. The asylums were horrible. People were abused, experimented on and it was common practice to lobotomize patients. That's what they did with people with mental illness before pills. If you want to go back any further, they were considered as possessed so they were tortured and killed or thrown into dungeons. The other alternative was suicide.

[IndiReloaded]

We're all assuming here. A *lot* of people these days claim the 'mental illness' label w/o actually being diagnosed by a professional. Plus docs will hand out happy pills to pretty much anyone who asks. Lots of stressed people these days (with serious issues like job loss, mortgages and families to feed).

Have you read the OPs other thread? He's been chasing a bi girl who lives in another state. Everyone here is enabling this behaviour. Fact is, if one wants to have a healthy relationship, one needs to *be* healthy. That doesn't happen by obsessing about a hopeless situation and not taking action to improve oneself.

I agree with you Searock. White should get therapy and there are definitely options to do so. If he really wanted to. That is the crux, right there. Sorry to go biblical here, but this quote seems to apply:

God gives every bird its food... but he does not throw it into the nest.

Anyway I'll stop here before Haxan jumps in and tell me I need to remove my boot from White's ass.

[smackie9]

I think the OP should get therapy, I understand he can't afford it right now, but isn't there someplace (like the equivalent of a woman's shelter or something) he can get it for free, or for very low prices?

I have already repeatedly suggested that posts back. He's working on it.

[searock]

Thing is, when someone is depressed, even just going to therapy seems like an extremely difficult and pointless thing to do. It may not be his fault if he can't make it - it's just part of the illness. I hope he'll find the strength somehow.

[smackie9]

That's why I said I give him credit for even coming on here to openly talk about it....that's a huge step.

[IndiReloaded]

Assuming he *is* mildly depressed, there are inexpensive options. Any chemist will carry St Johns Wort, which is an effective mild antidepressant. A bottle costs <$20, which I'm sure for someone who can afford a laptop + internet won't break the bank. No excuses, just buy the stuff and take it for a month. A banana a day (which has a chemical that eventually converts into serotonin) won't hurt either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_wort

[smackie9]

No he is not "mildly" depressed....he has a lot more issues that you think. Just give it up.