Psychological Health Neurodiversity and Holistic Wellness Support/Sharing Circle

bwood

God Hand

I’m painfully afraid to post here, but want to terribly.

One thing I feel comfortable writing: since I’ve been here, I’ve realized I suffer from misophonia.

I can’t stand listening to people drink or chew, including myself. The eating habits of various family members have made me physically ill. I broke up with the most beautiful person because of how she’d eaten popcorn. I don’t eat lunch in the staff room, and if I eat with coworkers, I have to sit far away from them with their backs turned to me. Other sounds trigger nauseousness and I have other peculiar mannerisms, but the people here discussing misophonia have eased a lot of stress.

RubySunrise

Well, the assessment I was referred to is well outside of what I can afford. It’s one of those “your insurance might partially reimburse you” situations. This one was referred to me on the basis of being affordable and someone who takes my insurance, too. I’ll probably start drinking coffee again while I try and set aside the money.

Shaneus

2501 Beyond potentially getting an Adderall prescription though I’m not totally sure what an official diagnosis for ADHD does for you as an adult - not that I have any better solutions.

Possibly more than the medication I started way back when I was diagnosed around 10 years ago, the biggest thing was the actual diagnosis itself. Just knowing that you’re not alone, other people have gone through similar issues and you don’t have to re-invent the wheel when it comes to coping mechanisms etc. can be more valuable than one might think.

2501

I’ve had very bad experiences being categorized by a diagnostic label, so I guess it confuses me how many people these days seem eager to obtain one and publicize it. I get that it’s a useful starting point for understanding what the hell’s going on in your head, but… idk.

Anyway, if I start talking about myself here I’m only going to spiral but suffice to say I’m not doing great either and have semi-seriously weighed the option of ending it all in the recent past. I can’t even tell what’s mental illness and what’s just me making bad lazy choices anymore. If you manage to find some ironclad method to improve executive functioning that isn’t just drugs, please do share.

RubySunrise

Well, in my case I want a diagnosis so I can get prescription medication. I want prescription meds for the reasons I outlined above.

I suppose I don’t really believe in a method for improving executive dysfunction that always works. Not for myself anyway. That’s just not how I’ve observed myself or my reality working. No silver bullets. I use a lot of different methods and tools that “work,” in the sense that I’ve practiced them and incorporated them into my life to the point that when I do things I do them using these methods.

I write a lot of lists. Mostly to-do lists. Before I start anything, I’ll try and write a to-do list for it. Even if it’s simple and I feel like I understand exactly what I need to do. Why not write it down? It helps me 10 minutes later, when I’ve gone completely off-track or hit a dead end and have that nagging feeling, “what was I doing again?”/“what now?”

I’ve practiced a lot of narrative therapy, which I know as learning to recognize, interrupt, and supplant the “stories” of negative self-talk I give myself. I’ve mostly done this in a cognitive behavioral therapy context, and some self-help contexts, but my understanding is this is a modality present in other therapeutic approaches, too. There are a lot of different ways to practice this. I like free writing, going back over what I wrote to pull out the negative self-talk parts, and literally rewriting them to be more supportive.

Within the last couple years I’ve gotten familiar with an Inner Family Systems approach. I like it because it’s given a bit more form and direction to the narrative re-telling I had been doing. It’s been a trip wrapping my head around it, but it can be sweet and loving, which I like.

All these things, and more, work in tandem or seemingly not at all, depending on the day and what’s going on with me. I have real trouble with having perspective on myself, though, and I know I’ve been wrong a lot. So I choose to believe that they do work, even if the progress isn’t linear, and that chasing some kind of perfect ideal for my executive functioning is going to be a soul sucking wild goose chase.

2501

RubySunrise I write a lot of lists. Mostly to-do lists. Before I start anything, I’ll try and write a to-do list for it. Even if it’s simple and I feel like I understand exactly what I need to do. Why not write it down? It helps me 10 minutes later, when I’ve gone completely off-track or hit a dead end and have that nagging feeling, “what was I doing again?”/“what now?”

I’ve practiced a lot of narrative therapy, which I know as learning to recognize, interrupt, and supplant the “stories” of negative self-talk I give myself. I’ve mostly done this in a cognitive behavioral therapy context, and some self-help contexts, but my understanding is this is a modality present in other therapeutic approaches, too. There are a lot of different ways to practice this. I like free writing, going back over what I wrote to pull out the negative self-talk parts, and literally rewriting them to be more supportive.

Interesting. This is already a good deal more structure than I find myself able (or willing - it’s genuinely hard to tell) to commit to. Even in the process of writing a list, if I don’t get distracted in the process of opening up the notepad to write the list, I interrupt myself to criticize my framing of the list and chastise myself for potentially excluding tasks or important details, or when it comes time to follow through on the list actions I simply get distracted or self-sabotage out of fear/spite. But I recognize a lot of this “losing track of yourself” and being adrift without structure stuff. I guess I need to trust myself more to actually follow through on self-imposed structures instead of feeling like everything is futile because I’m not in control of my own brain.

RubySunrise

2501 Totally! Yeah, I may have made it sound more structured and refined than it is. I don’t make a list 100% of the time, and I do it different each time. I’ve noticed some “better practices” pop up for me over the years - I use pen and paper instead of anything digital, for example. That is something that’s nearly 100% consistent. It’s taken literally years of doing it, at whatever level I’m doing it at, for me to have found some of these “best practices.” And I still don’t do them every time! That’s ok. It is what it is. One of those narratives I’m working against is striving for maximum efficiency. It’s actually totally ok if I don’t do that.

captain

2501 Forgive me for overstepping my boundaries as a stranger on the internet, and ofc I have very little contextually important information here, but: if you have not done so already you need to tell your boss/whoever what is going on, if they don’t already know, and do whatever is within your power to get out of this spiral. Is there a therapist/psychiatrist/hospital/wellness center you can go to? Is it prohibitively expensive to do so?

2501
2501

bwood

I listened to the audio book/seminars 7 Habits of Highly Effective People a few years ago and I found that very helpful - much more helpful than any time-management book I’d ever tried. The book itself, I don’t know, it’s very preachy.

There’s a four-box activity I like a lot - it goes beyond writing lists.

2501

bwood Yeah I am always extremely wary of the self-help industry or any piece of media with a title like that (an ideologically loaded one, to boot) but if there are concrete activities that people find helpful that sounds worth a look

bwood

I don’t know if this would be helpful or not - it’s a book for teachers to directly teach executive functioning skills.

Edit: I tried to upload it but it wouldn’t take. It’s titled Executive Functioning Training by Carolyn Gottschall and Constance Rozendaal. It’s for elementary students, but you could possibly figure out a way to use it to benefit yourself. If you’re interested, send me a PM and I’ll email it to you.

treefroggy

This will be a good place for people having a rough time, so I figured I’ll add a positive outcome before things get started. I’m not gonna go after anybody or check this thread really. Just putting here that I completely overcame a life of severe depression on my own without meds!

I overcame that stuff in a major way, I feel great, (but not too great!) like I’m right where I’m supposed to be in life, and I had a heck of a time getting here!
First half of my 20’s was the worst, my childhood was also really bad, I was highly stunted as a youth by “parents” who illegally “adopted” me. I had some wild and cool experiences as a teenager, then after high school fell back into being cripplingly depressed, practically for eight straight years.

It wasn’t until I was 26 that something clicked, I started cutting ties and stopped reaching
Now I’m about to be 30, and I love life

If anyone needs to reach out, I give good pep talks.

A random old internet friend from wayyy back in the day (like 2008) reached out to me randomly last week, and they’re about to call me on the phone in a couple hours for a pep talk. I like helping people.

I did all the drugs in my late teens & early 20’s. First time taking LSD, ecstasy, K, was with my own father. He was a big raver in 1999. But now, he can’t even get me to take drugs. I just don’t need any of that where I am in life, I like having my brain function normally, I worked very hard to regulate my mental chemistry, and I’m super proud that I can be happy and satisfied in life. Altering my brain just disrupts that.

I never really liked weed, but I was smoking a lot more regularly from age 16-25. I only had a good experience like 1 out of 10 times. I think I need to have my brain working, without that I’m nothing, lol.
Now I have a healthy relationship with alcohol, I’ll drink socially like, once every few months. I can still get down and party hard, but everything is kinda “been there, done that” for me. At this point it’s just grind time, working hard and saving. There’s absolutely no FOMO and YOLO, it’s all NOMO, cause I don’t do that stuff NOMO! Now I want for nothin.

and don’t get the wrong idea, I was still a good and nice person before, but I just leveled up and healed my mental health in a major way the past couple years. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s all about slowly building healthy habits!

2501

Have you ever, like, missed every professional commitment you had? For two days in a row? Because you’re chronically exhausted, battling intrusive thoughts and have roughly the executive functioning level of a “functional” hard drug addict? And you channel the frustration into getting mad on the internet about things you have no control over? Because, LOL

RubySunrise

2501 liking a post in this thread feels like a minefield. I offer mine as a way to show recognition. I’ve been there and it’s rough. I’m sorry you’re going through it.

bwood

2501

I am too.

One of the first things I did to get out of my own way was ask myself what type of principles I wanted to live by. I think I chose four: honesty, kindness, security, and knowledge (heh. It kind of sounds like stats for a video game). I then worked on building myself up with those stats. I was a real jerk, so it took a while to break myself out of my meanness, and in doing so I also grew apart from family members and friends.

Before focusing on principles, I felt like I was trying to make a broth while constantly stirring the pot. Focusing got me to stop stirring, and the toxic fat began rising to the surface. I started skimming the toxicity off by fixing or cutting off toxic relationships, quitting social media, dropping the sarcasm and only saying honest, nice things to people, and then going a step beyond and doing nice things for people.

I knew I couldn’t get better on my own, so I looked for someone to mentor me. I asked a friend of mine whom I really respected, and he turned me down, but there was a woman at work I only saw at meetings who appeared very genuine and kind, and she said she’d help me out. She didn’t even really do anything. I just made it a point to say hi to her, ask her how her day was, stuff that sort of forced me to be the person I wanted to be.

Another thing I did was start to work on a schedule. To this day I’m garbage with this sort of thing, but IIRC the book emphasizes making room for things that benefit us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially.

The other thing was making a list of what I had to do, but put the items into 1 of 4 quadrants.

Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important
Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important
Quadrant 3: Urgent but not Important
Quadrant 4: Neither Urgent nor Important

I definitely dumped everything off of quadrant 4. I don’t remember what I did with quadrant 3 stuff. I realized it was stuff important to others and not to me. Somehow I got rid of it. Either I told people I couldn’t do whatever it was, or if it was extra work I told them no, and if it was mandatory work stuff, I guess I moved it to quadrant 1. I then chipped away at both quadrants 1 and 2, because the goal is to just live in quadrant 2. Stuff like reading books, playing video games, and playing guitar are in my quadrant 2. Just because others don’t think they’re important doesn’t mean they’re not important to me. But I no longer watch tv or go on social media (except here) because I was only doing that stuff out of FOMO or habit.

I hope these tips are helpful. Actually, because you got me thinking about this, I’m going to get back into working on being a better me, so thanks.

bwood

When I was like that I went to the city’s behavioral health services, which is right next to the hospital. You might be in a state where a forum cannot help you. There’s no shame in that.

Perhaps take a shower, so the overstimulation of water might calm your brain down, and if you can’t get out of the brain funk, seek professional help.

2501

Slept through the start of work (which means missing the whole day) three times this week and might lose my job hooray

2501

Wrote a letter to my supervisor explaining I have a diagnosed sleep disorder (which is mostly true), no mention of mental health

whatsarobot

this right here is one heck of a thread! thanks to everyone who’s had the courage to post in it so far.

like many of you, i relate to a lot of what’s been shared here, but to me, it all comes down to this, which @2501 summarized:

alienation from community, family and sense of collective purpose.

i feel alienated from everything, all the time. personal interactions with almost anyone except my two children and a few select others is a source of pain, frustration, fear and shame. and yet when i am alone (which is almost all the time physically, and even more almost all the time mentally), i yearn (so much so that i actually felt justified using the word ‘yearn’) for meaningful contact with others.

how do we even interact with each other meaningfully anymore? it always feels like there are layers of bullshit in between, whether in the form of corporate bureaucracy, social obligation (agreed-upon calendar dates or pre-established ‘reasons’ which i had no say in), or media-mandated pleasantries.

i feel like a crazy person and/or a Holden Caufield writing these things. but i do feel like a phoney and everyone who appears to be genuinely enjoying themselves free of irony most of the time appears phoney to me.

comfort can be found (for me) in the fact that some ancient belief systems teach that existence is indeed suffering—that sounds about right to me!

learning to meditate – daily mindfulness sessions and guided meditations using an app – has been a relief, but everything about the world freaks me out. i am going to be 40 years old soon, and i still don’t know what i want to be when i grow up. i am only just now getting comfortable with the fact that humans killing the planet we live on is just part of who we are.

saddleblasters

whatsarobot i know very little about what your personal life/work life is like, so not sure how much this question applies, but i’m curious how much the feelings of isolation you’re describing are related to living in a foreign country? maybe “foreign” isn’t the right word, since you’ve been in Japan for most of your adult life if i’m doing my math right – though it’s still not the place you were born in or grew up in, and i’m assuming your parents and other (non-spouse/kids) family don’t live there. (not that proximity to family necessary reduces isolation.)

whatsarobot

(god it felt good to get that out. thanks for setting this thread up, @Gaagaagiins)

« Previous Page Next Page »