Discussion & help on depression & mental health related issues

[Deleted member 28206]

Hey all, long time reader first time poster, Had to try to contribute here.
Been a longterm sufferer of the blues (bloos) for 20 odd years now. No self confidence, Finding small trivial matters to some are blown out of all proportion to me.
My doctor asked "sleeping Ok ??, lack of energy ?? thoughts of suicide ???...no yeah...and sometimes. Prescribed me 20 mg Citalopram. That was 7 years ago, Yeah, Being depressed is a horrible feeling as it seems like It's a cloud or hood that falls over the lids of the eyes for no apparent reason. Have to say though that the Citalopram has helped immeserably .....except with spelling. Only thing that seems to have been effected has been the inability to show any real deep feelings for, well anything in particular. Very Mtv attention span like, It seems there is no magical medicine here to help for everything. Luckily My wife has been a fantastic partner in all this and generally supports me and tbh that seems the most important part of the process. Family, exercise, Music ??
Boards of canada, prefuse 73, Proem and Autechre very much help with my busy mind. They seem to relax the brain with unexpected sonic waves...can't explain it but Electronic music Deffo helps too.

You have just described me, to a tee there.

 

[Baines' left foot]

I was thinking that this was some other ironic thread like so many others so didn't even bother having a look at it, now I see how serious it is...

Do you guys have any idea what to do in case of a lack of self confidence? I really don't have any in my private life. I've realised that I am absolutely different in my behaviour on, say, the internet and in person. Here, I perceive absolutely no anxiety, probably because I'm in effect typing on a keyboard and watching a darn monitor, but in person, I always feel anxious when I'm in a group of people. I've not been going out lately too much, less and less to be honest, and even if I do, only with friends I've known for ages, in fact, I shun meeting new people and avoid getting into contact with people. When I do, I often feel that my heart starts to beat quicker and I feel edgy. I'm not much of a communicator, it takes a lot of effort to get a conversation going. I have virtually zero confidence with girls, I would never have the guts to ask someone out or anything. Mostly I "escape" into eating owing to which I always have a weight issue, sometimes I manage to keep it under control with exercising and losing weight but then I fall back and begin to gain weight again... I just don't know how I could gain a bit of confidence when it comes to interacting with people, it would be so much easier than spending all the time home in front of a computer screen, I often think about how miserable I am for not being able to actually get my life going. I mean, I'm 23 years old, I still go to university, but if I finish it in a year or two, I'll have to start working permanently and I can't live all my life with my parents. I mean, I could theoretically, but I would disappoint them massively in that case.

Any advice?

Hello mate.

As someone who has suffered from low self confidence for a while I can relate. To put it bluntly I only started to feel more confident about myself once I started to be proud of myself. Once I felt like I'd achieved something or bettered myself, no matter how insignificant it may seem. You say you have difficulties controlling your weight, and no doubt your appearance massively influences your confidence levels. I've been quite fortunate with weight as I've always found it nigh on impossible to gain weight. On the contrary I've always been quite skinny, which I was never really happy about. I've found that regularly going to the gym and changing my diet has MASSIVELY improved my overall mood and being able to look at yourself in the mirror and think "Yeah. I look alright". As has been previously mentioned by a few people on here, exercise can have a significant effect on your mood. You feel good after you've just finished a run/workout.

I still have dark moments myself, at night in particular, but they're much less frequent and I can control my thoughts better now. I too used to hide from my problems and would often avoid nights out with my friends and just sit and smoke weed by myself and play games or watch TV, which only put me further out of touch with society and made me feel like a bit of an outcast, but when I was high it didn't really enter my thoughts. It was an escape. I've got a few close friends who have/have had issues with depression, and are all within a year or so of my age, so it's no coincidence that our age group is one of the most susceptible to depression. Don't think that you're mentally weak or anything mate.

Like @the esk said, finding a sport of hobby could be very beneficial. It's an easy way to meet new people who have a shared interest.

Also, you say you're in uni. Do you enjoy your course? I've just finished uni and whilst I didn't really enjoy it that much (the course was fine, I just didn't enjoy the whole experience that much), I've come out of the other side and have just had two very successful job interviews, which have quite frankly drastically improved my self confidence and made me realise I have a lot more to offer than I ever thought I did. I'm a bit shocked to be honest. You're at uni for a reason mate, you're obviously an intelligent chap so give yourself some credit for that and try and make sure you get the grades you want to get the job that you want to do.

Sorry for the wall of text by the way, got a bit carried away there! I just hope that makes you feel a bit more at ease and that things improve for you mate. This thread is definitely the right place to start though.

 

[Dozbik]

Thank you the esk and Baines' left foot for your kind remarks. I'm not feeling so much under the weather or anything, I just thought it would be nice to share these emotions with others. In person, I often find it difficult to talk to people about my innermost feelings, because they are difficult to grasp and the appropriate moment never seems to come. Then again, there are evenings when I'm sitting at home and wish I was together with other people, socialising.
It's sort of encoded in our family - and generally in Hungarian people - to be pessimistic and negative about life. It's especially strange to me because when I go to German language course most people seem to be positive and optimistic about their lives, as if they had no problems or even if they do, they don't make too much a fuss about it. Then I come home and I face my dad again who's ultra pessimistic and I don't think he'll ever change. And I also noticed on myself that I've taken the same negativity over... and I know I shouldn't be doing that but I'm not sure how I could change that if that's even possible. Sometimes I ponder if I should move and separate from my parents, but then again I realise that essentially I love them a lot and it would probably be a lot worse without them than together. Also, I'm not much of a talent around the house and I have my mum here who keeps the household running. I kind of admire her for her work ethic, especially between my dad and me, two super lazy bastards.
As for what you wrote about higher education, Baines', I guess I do like what I study. I think I'm among those more talented in my year - although there's only 25 of us and altogether I must say it's not an outstandingly talented bunch of people -. Still, I have an impression that I don't actually appreciate the free education the state guarantees us, which students here take for granted even though in other countries they have to spend hefty sums in order to get the same quality education. In addition, it doesn't help that the profession I'm studying (translation and interpreting) is one that doesn't have all too many jobs, well in Hungarian that is. Doing it the other way around, that is translating into English is a massive market, but since English isn't my mother tongue, I obviously can't produce such sophisticated texts as the level of a translator is expected. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that getting a full-time translator job is quite a long shot, depends whether you have good connections (no, I don't) or are really outstanding (no, I'm not). Doing it as a part-time activity is absolutely feasible, but it's hard to get as much work to do it full-time as a freelancer. So I need to look at other opportunities... but I'm still uncertain, although I was thinking I might want to dabble in an IT helpdesk role, there are quite a lot of jobs like that here where I could use my language skills which are more or less the only "valuable" skills that I have. Even though I tried a couple of interviews in which I was told my German was just not quite fast paced enough to be able to handle German customers. So now I'm working on it, I think it's not an impossible task to master, not saying it's easy either, but you can reach the necessary level in 6-12 months if you consequently work on it. I will also go to Germany in around half a year for a semester (I almost decided to go to Liverpool, it was really hard to resist, but eventually the commonsensical side of me gained ascendancy over the sentimental side) which I am a bit scared about, because although I've done my BA away from home living most of the time in a student hostel, I was still 3 hours away from home and could return on the weekends, I won't be able to do that away. But still, I somehow feel that I simply have to take this step in order to improve my skills and be able to establish myself in the long run. I'm reluctant to start slave work, because that's not why I'm studying.
So that just adds up to the uncertainty factor about my future... I see my mates who study at the technical university that they don't need to be anxious about their future jobs, they will have the option to choose between multiple. But students who study humanities are not that sought after...
It was also an interesting experience in the previous months that I did an internship at IBM. Just a student position, so I didn't have too much to do, but I was still surprised that I was always thanked after each and every small task for the effort I had put into... that's absolutely not what I am used to. So it was really positive. I guess I wasn't so reliant on the cash really, I was much more in search of the sense of success that I actually can be up to it. Even though I really didn't have to do much, just goofing around with Microsoft Excel and collecting files from people from other countries, it was good to feel the appreciation of other people and that I felt as a valued member of the group, even though I was obviously contributing a lot less, but nobody actually expected me to do a perfect job, after all they knew this was my first one. I guess this is a problem with us/me/our (Hungarian) society that we think we must do an impeccable job, even if we don't possess the skills or the experience for that. And if I feel even a tiny bit uncertain about it, our education system from the beginning puts us under pressure not to ask questions and to feel bad if we do. So this place was quite the opposite of what I've experienced at school beforehand, which is fantastic. On the other hand, I couldn't focus so much on my studies, so I felt a little bit guilty that my grades had slipped and professors complaining about my performance drop.
But anyway, thank you for your suggestions so far, I really appreciate that you took the time to give detailed answers. I think there's an amazing and brilliant presentation on "psychofitness" by a Hungarian psychiatrist, if anyone is interested, I might give it a try and do some subtitles for it (although that would take some time because it's a one-hour-long presentation and the woman speaks crazy fast, she jabbers, so it really takes a mental effort to follow her train of thought even in Hungarian, doing subtitles to it would be even more of a challenge, but I'll have a lot of free time in the summer... probably the screen will be full of text though. ). The main point of it is how can we get on better with each other in today's world where we are so distanced from each other. It's a really thought provoking presentation and she gives really simple bulletpoints to follow, but could make all the difference.

Jesus Christ, I literally wrote a short story here.

P.S.: Does anyone know by the way how to become a team mascot? My dream job in fact is not a translator, but much rather a team mascot. I'd love to dress up as a big teddy bear or some other animal and play on with the kids on team events.

 

[EFCPaul]

Threads like these are absolutely fantastic, a small place where people can come to pour their heart out if they feel they need too or ask for advice without fear of being judged, kudos to everyone who's supported this and kept it going!

I still struggle with my low moods on many days. One thing I've found is I'm always comparing myself to other people and convincing myself that they have it so much better than I do. I'll see something posted on facebook or twitter or something, it could be something as simple as "I had a great night last night" and it'll immediately put me on a downer for some reason. It makes me feel like "why are they so happy yet I feel so rubbish? What am I doing wrong in life?" Seriously.

I've said this before, the best thing to do is to try and broaden your mind's horizons. Do something in your day that will give your brain a small sense of accomplishment at the end of it, whether it be exercising or writing or anything really. Locking yourself away and stewing is the worst thing you can do.

Again, this thread is great. Well done to everyone for being so helpful and caring for your fellows!

 

[Deleted member 28206]

Threads like these are absolutely fantastic, a small place where people can come to pour their heart out if they feel they need too or ask for advice without fear of being judged, kudos to everyone who's supported this and kept it going!

I still struggle with my low moods on many days. One thing I've found is I'm always comparing myself to other people and convincing myself that they have it so much better than I do. I'll see something posted on facebook or twitter or something, it could be something as simple as "I had a great night last night" and it'll immediately put me on a downer for some reason. It makes me feel like "why are they so happy yet I feel so rubbish? What am I doing wrong in life?" Seriously.

I've said this before, the best thing to do is to try and broaden your mind's horizons. Do something in your day that will give your brain a small sense of accomplishment at the end of it, whether it be exercising or writing or anything really. Locking yourself away and stewing is the worst thing you can do.

Again, this thread is great. Well done to everyone for being so helpful and caring for your fellows!

Great post, I'm not one for phrases or sayings but an interesting one i heard was " To get something you've never had, do something you've never done".

So true.

 

[roydo]

Threads like these are absolutely fantastic, a small place where people can come to pour their heart out if they feel they need too or ask for advice without fear of being judged, kudos to everyone who's supported this and kept it going!

I still struggle with my low moods on many days. One thing I've found is I'm always comparing myself to other people and convincing myself that they have it so much better than I do. I'll see something posted on facebook or twitter or something, it could be something as simple as "I had a great night last night" and it'll immediately put me on a downer for some reason. It makes me feel like "why are they so happy yet I feel so rubbish? What am I doing wrong in life?" Seriously.

I've said this before, the best thing to do is to try and broaden your mind's horizons. Do something in your day that will give your brain a small sense of accomplishment at the end of it, whether it be exercising or writing or anything really. Locking yourself away and stewing is the worst thing you can do.

Again, this thread is great. Well done to everyone for being so helpful and caring for your fellows!

And thank you for posting! Shows what it is all about.

 

[The Esk]

Thank you the esk and Baines' left foot for your kind remarks. I'm not feeling so much under the weather or anything, I just thought it would be nice to share these emotions with others. In person, I often find it difficult to talk to people about my innermost feelings, because they are difficult to grasp and the appropriate moment never seems to come. Then again, there are evenings when I'm sitting at home and wish I was together with other people, socialising.
It's sort of encoded in our family - and generally in Hungarian people - to be pessimistic and negative about life. It's especially strange to me because when I go to German language course most people seem to be positive and optimistic about their lives, as if they had no problems or even if they do, they don't make too much a fuss about it. Then I come home and I face my dad again who's ultra pessimistic and I don't think he'll ever change. And I also noticed on myself that I've taken the same negativity over... and I know I shouldn't be doing that but I'm not sure how I could change that if that's even possible. Sometimes I ponder if I should move and separate from my parents, but then again I realise that essentially I love them a lot and it would probably be a lot worse without them than together. Also, I'm not much of a talent around the house and I have my mum here who keeps the household running. I kind of admire her for her work ethic, especially between my dad and me, two super lazy bastards.
As for what you wrote about higher education, Baines', I guess I do like what I study. I think I'm among those more talented in my year - although there's only 25 of us and altogether I must say it's not an outstandingly talented bunch of people -. Still, I have an impression that I don't actually appreciate the free education the state guarantees us, which students here take for granted even though in other countries they have to spend hefty sums in order to get the same quality education. In addition, it doesn't help that the profession I'm studying (translation and interpreting) is one that doesn't have all too many jobs, well in Hungarian that is. Doing it the other way around, that is translating into English is a massive market, but since English isn't my mother tongue, I obviously can't produce such sophisticated texts as the level of a translator is expected. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that getting a full-time translator job is quite a long shot, depends whether you have good connections (no, I don't) or are really outstanding (no, I'm not). Doing it as a part-time activity is absolutely feasible, but it's hard to get as much work to do it full-time as a freelancer. So I need to look at other opportunities... but I'm still uncertain, although I was thinking I might want to dabble in an IT helpdesk role, there are quite a lot of jobs like that here where I could use my language skills which are more or less the only "valuable" skills that I have. Even though I tried a couple of interviews in which I was told my German was just not quite fast paced enough to be able to handle German customers. So now I'm working on it, I think it's not an impossible task to master, not saying it's easy either, but you can reach the necessary level in 6-12 months if you consequently work on it. I will also go to Germany in around half a year for a semester (I almost decided to go to Liverpool, it was really hard to resist, but eventually the commonsensical side of me gained ascendancy over the sentimental side) which I am a bit scared about, because although I've done my BA away from home living most of the time in a student hostel, I was still 3 hours away from home and could return on the weekends, I won't be able to do that away. But still, I somehow feel that I simply have to take this step in order to improve my skills and be able to establish myself in the long run. I'm reluctant to start slave work, because that's not why I'm studying.
So that just adds up to the uncertainty factor about my future... I see my mates who study at the technical university that they don't need to be anxious about their future jobs, they will have the option to choose between multiple. But students who study humanities are not that sought after...
It was also an interesting experience in the previous months that I did an internship at IBM. Just a student position, so I didn't have too much to do, but I was still surprised that I was always thanked after each and every small task for the effort I had put into... that's absolutely not what I am used to. So it was really positive. I guess I wasn't so reliant on the cash really, I was much more in search of the sense of success that I actually can be up to it. Even though I really didn't have to do much, just goofing around with Microsoft Excel and collecting files from people from other countries, it was good to feel the appreciation of other people and that I felt as a valued member of the group, even though I was obviously contributing a lot less, but nobody actually expected me to do a perfect job, after all they knew this was my first one. I guess this is a problem with us/me/our (Hungarian) society that we think we must do an impeccable job, even if we don't possess the skills or the experience for that. And if I feel even a tiny bit uncertain about it, our education system from the beginning puts us under pressure not to ask questions and to feel bad if we do. So this place was quite the opposite of what I've experienced at school beforehand, which is fantastic. On the other hand, I couldn't focus so much on my studies, so I felt a little bit guilty that my grades had slipped and professors complaining about my performance drop.
But anyway, thank you for your suggestions so far, I really appreciate that you took the time to give detailed answers. I think there's an amazing and brilliant presentation on "psychofitness" by a Hungarian psychiatrist, if anyone is interested, I might give it a try and do some subtitles for it (although that would take some time because it's a one-hour-long presentation and the woman speaks crazy fast, she jabbers, so it really takes a mental effort to follow her train of thought even in Hungarian, doing subtitles to it would be even more of a challenge, but I'll have a lot of free time in the summer... probably the screen will be full of text though. ). The main point of it is how can we get on better with each other in today's world where we are so distanced from each other. It's a really thought provoking presentation and she gives really simple bulletpoints to follow, but could make all the difference.

Jesus Christ, I literally wrote a short story here.

P.S.: Does anyone know by the way how to become a team mascot? My dream job in fact is not a translator, but much rather a team mascot. I'd love to dress up as a big teddy bear or some other animal and play on with the kids on team events.

Mate, really good that you explained your situation in detail, I hope it helped just doing that!

Interesting what you say about the Hungarian mentality of seeking perfection. I work with a large number of Bosnian's and I know they are different, but I am forever telling them that their seeking of perfection is a huge inhibitor in their thought processes and actions. It's a collective lack of confidence. They're so scared of not being perfect they'd rather not do something than do something wrong.

That's OK if you're a brain surgeon or nuclear physicist, but for ordinary people doing ordinary jobs then perfection is not expected. Doing your best, working hard and improving over time is far more valuable to an employer than inactivity brought about searching for perfection.

You mentioned your Dad in particular, and I think that his pessimism is a legacy of his generation coming through the communist system where there was once certainty, then becoming "free" and finding that actually life for many economically has been much tougher than during the Soviet era. That's certainly the case in the Balkans.

The fact that can converse here in English so well should be a great boost to your confidence in translating - your English is excellent.

Keep posting mate

 

[BiggyRat]

Well, thought I'd drop back in to this thread and see how it's going.

I've mentioned before some of my issues, and how after seeking help, discovered they were not PTSD. Unfortunately, my work situation has deteriorated somewhat and after holding out for as long as I could, something gave.

Going into Hospital this Thursday for an angiogram. It seems that at 48, I've not taken enough care of the old ticker!

For those who have dietary & mental health issues please, take heed, and look after yourselves.

 

[wbn61]

Well, thought I'd drop back in to this thread and see how it's going.

I've mentioned before some of my issues, and how after seeking help, discovered they were not PTSD. Unfortunately, my work situation has deteriorated somewhat and after holding out for as long as I could, something gave.

Going into Hospital this Thursday for an angiogram. It seems that at 48, I've not taken enough care of the old ticker!

For those who have dietary & mental health issues please, take heed, and look after yourselves.

GOOD LUCK

 

[Clint Planet]

As an aside, im guilty of not looking in this thread often enough, gonna make a point of coming back every day.

Nosey get.

 

[Baines' left foot]

The fact that can converse here in English so well should be a great boost to your confidence in translating - your English is excellent.

I forgot to say, @Dozbik your English is absolutely superb!

 

[Clint Planet]

Dozbik, don't get too excited about Scousers complementing you on your English.

 

[Groucho]

Dozbik, don't get too excited about Scousers complementing you on your English.

Oi!!!!!

 

[wbn61]

go for my 3 month review with oncologist on Friday. nothing new there but wife is a bit panicky. work colleague was in remission from cancer he went for his review and was told the cancer had returned. they gave him 12 months. within a week he died.

 

[Groucho]

go for my 3 month review with oncologist on Friday. nothing new there but wife is a bit panicky. work colleague was in remission from cancer he went for his review and was told the cancer had returned. they gave him 12 months. within a week he died.

Everyone is different mate, I'm sure you'll be ok.