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Hey folks. It's me, VubDapple. I'm a (not so active but still present) mod for this community and also a mental health professional. Recently there was some upset at this young community's rule about posts concerning suicide. I thought I'd offer a few thoughts about suicide and where things seem to stand right now. Sorry for the delay in my response; things have been rather busy in my life.

Suicide is a super frightening topic for many people - with good reason. As such, it is difficult to figure out how to manage discussion of suicide in a public and anonymous volunteer forum so that everyone's needs are best met. A few issues come to mind that have to do with such balancing of needs:

1. How to balance the needs of people who want to discuss their suicidal thoughts against the needs of other people who would be triggered by reading it and would really like to avoid it? Suicidal ideation is really common within groups of people who self-identify as having mental health issues, so on the one hand it is reasonable to discuss it. On the other hand, the very nature of the topic feels dangerous to many, sometimes because it might trigger one's own suicidal thoughts and at other times because there is concern that if not handled properly any discussion could make the issue worse rather than better.

2. How to know what the risk is that someone who is suicidal might actually attempt suicide? Many people who are suicidal are not in imminent danger, but some really are. Because this judgement is difficult to make, and because no one here including moderators is able to take on an actual care-giving clinical role, it is reasonable for us to treat all suicidal discussion as potentially dangerous.

3. How to best care for a suicidal person? This community is simply not able to provide any actual suicide prevention service! There is nothing like /r/suicidewatch here at this time! The community is not staffed to care for an acutely suicidal person.

The recent rule adjustment (Rule #4) has been made to try to strike a balance between the competing needs of community members. Basically, it's okay to acknowledge the existence of suicidal thoughts or thoughts relating to self-harm but we want to discourage extended discussion of such topics, precisely because no one here is able to take on an extended care-giving role in the manner a professional caregiver would and because there is a reasonable chance or at least reasonable concern that extended discussion might make things worse than they already are. The best advice that can be given at this time would be to seek professional mental health care.

I can shed some light on how to know when suicidal thoughts are considered acutely and immediately dangerous and when they are not by providing the following psycho-educational information.

Mental health professionals divided the universe of suicidal thoughts into "active" and "passive" categories. I like to offer the metaphor of a "poison flower" to help people recognize how these categories work.

Suicidal thoughts are a developmental process that starts small and grows to become a threat. Think of a flower seedling - it is very small at first - just a shoot coming out of the soil. As it grows it develops tiny leaves and the stem gets larger, the leaves get larger, etc. in a developmental process. Eventually a bud forms, that bud opens and then we have a flower. The universe of passive suicidal ideation is just like this flower during its developmental phase eg., before the flower blooms. The universe of active suicidal ideation is like the flower after it has bloomed. Active suicidality is much more dangerous than passive suicidal ideation.

Passive ideation usually starts with a feeling of overwhelm; a sense that a person simply does not have what it will take to manage the situation they find themselves in. As it grows, the passively suicidal person becomes aware of the thought that they might be better off dead. Often this thought is frightening at first; the people who experience it do not want it there and see it as a sign that they aren't well. A further development of the suicidal process but still passive suicidality occurs when a person finds themselves fantasizing about how they might end their life. The thoughts may still be unwanted and at this phase of the developmental process there can be a sense of a growing struggle between the thoughts of dying and the desire to push those thoughts away. An even further development might occur when a person starts taking seriously the idea that they might actually kill themselves. At this late stage of passive suicidal ideation there may still not be what we call intent, but nevertheless the suicidal person may start researching how they would end their life.

The turning point between passive and active suicidality comes when three criteria are met: 1) there is intent to harm one's self, 2) there is a plan for how the person will harm themselves, and 3) the person has access to the means to harm themselves. The term intent means that the person has come to regard the idea of suicide as something they will carry out. The term plan means only that the person has picked a method for how they will die. You don't need to have a "good" plan (eg., one likely to be lethal) in order for it to count that you have a plan; any plan will do. Finally having access to the means for committing suicide means having access to the tools and materials that the person would use to end their life. When all three of these criteria are met, we mental health professionals consider the person to be actively suicidal. When the criteria are not all met then we consider people to be more passively suicidal.

Suicidal ideation is not a one-way process. People can move from not-suicidal to passively suicidal and then later to actively suicidal, but it is also true that actively suicidal people can exit their active suicidal status back usually to passively suicidal status, and then even later become not suicidal again. It's important to keep this in mind because of what some call the "suicidal trance" eg., the tendency, as a person becomes more and more actively suicidal, to believe that suicide is the only reasonable response to what appears to that person at the moment to be an endless and entirely hopeless set of life problems from which suicide is the only escape. Most of the time it isn't true that the person's life problems are actually endlessly hopeless, but it does tend to feel that way when you're in it.

There is no hard and fast rule for assessing danger here, but the general idea is that passive suicidality is less acutely dangerous than active suicidality; mostly because with active suicidality by definition there is intent to die and the person's energies are marshaled in the direction of finding a way to make that happen in a manner that is simply not the case when a person is more passively suicidal. Passive suicidality is dangerous in that it may become active later on, but most of the time when someone is passively suicidal they are not going to go home and kill themselves any time soon. Active suicidality is a crisis. The actively suicidal person needs help and they need it as quickly as it can be found. A good way to gain that help if there is no other resource around would be to go to a hospital emergency room and tell the staff there that you are actively suicidal. Such action might help best in the short term because at least in the USA (where I am located) the healthcare system is broken and there easily might not be follow up care provided which would be needed, but it might be better than nothing.

What sort of care does a suicidal person benefit from? If you know of someone who is suicidal and the right solution is not immediate hospitalization to contain a crisis that will unfold very very shortly if urgent measures are not taken, then what is the right solution? It used to be the case that mental health professionals were trained to ask suicidal people to "sign a no-suicide contract" whether actually or metaphorically. It turns out that this doesn't help much. These days, in addition to whatever therapy they may provide mental health professionals are trained to help passively suicidal clients by helping them complete a Suicide Safety Plan.

The Suicide Safety Plan is simply a list of resources that the suicidal person can think about when they are tempted by the possibility of harming themselves. It is designed to help a suicidal person to maintain perspective about their larger situation even as the "suicidal trance" beckons them to die, and to remind the suicidal person of the techniques they can use or the resources they can call upon if they are feeling especially tempted.

Anyone can make a Suicide Safety Plan by answering the following questions:

1. What are the warning signs in your behavior that signal that you are becoming increasingly suicidal?

2. What are the ways you have available to calm or sooth yourself that might lessen your need to suicide?

3. What can you do to make the environment safer for you (like getting rid of the means of harming yourself)?

4. What are reasons for living? Often this one boils down to "Who would be harmed if you were to die?"

5. Who in your personal life can you talk to about how bad things are?

6. Who are the healthcare professionals you can call on if things get really bad?

I know what you might be thinking! A lot of people looking at these questions have told me that they can't see it coming, they don't know how to sooth themselves, there are no valid reasons for living, they have no friends or people who care about them and that they can't access healthcare because it is too expensive (which is often true in the profit-obsessed USA unfortunately). Even so, it is worth trying to engage with these questions so as to write out methods and names and resources as well as you can. Even a little bit of hope and a little bit of planning in advance can become critical in a crisis, making the difference between life and death.

A final word about reasons for living. Many times suicidal people have told me that even though they have children or loved ones, that their children will be better off without them alive. Such is the warping influence of the suicidal trance which commonly argues that the suicidal person is and can only be a burden and that children or loved ones will be better off without them. This simply isn't true. Children get FUCKED UP when their parents commit suicide. Loved ones get FUCKED UP when their loved ones commit suicide. Particularly for children who lose their parents to suicide, the effect is to traumatize them rather permanently for the rest of their lives. I have seen it up close and personal. Nothing I might say can make the influence of the suicidal trance less strong, but at least hear me in that this part of what that trance says is a lie. Nothing good comes of suicide except maybe that your own personal pain is discharged. The others around you will suffer. If you don't want to contribute to the suffering of others, please consider looking for another way. That other way might be very hard to find or very expensive to access, but when it is life or death, it's a good investment to make.

General Suicide Information

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/index.html

Suicide Helplines In the USA: call or text 988

https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp

https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/

Suicide Safety Planning:

https://www.verywellmind.com/suicide-safety-plan-1067524

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-recovery-coach/202306/how-to-develop-a-safety-plan-to-manage-a-suicidal-crisis

Edit:

Fuck. I don't want to downplay your suffering if you're American, Arab or Ukrainian, an oppressed minority and/or female (I'm neither) but sometimes I feel like empathy is taking a toll on me. It's a huge weight to add to my mental problems. Thanks for the advice, I'm trying to get my parents on board with the "winding down" on the project while I try to get my mind off things and establish a schedule by trying to work in a help call center (I would have preferred manual labor but they are the only company hiring around that is large and evil enough I don't mind them losing money through my incompetence in the presumably short time I last).

Original comment content below.

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I'm European but after doomscrolling on Lemmy, watching Last Week Tonight etc. I can't keep my calm over the US election, which is not helping my existing depression and suspected ADHD. The only good thing I did today was not eat much (I'm overweight) and 15 minutes of gardening. I can't keep todo lists because I'm really depressed over not having completing any meaningful item for weeks, and not even my long-abandoned passion projects spark joy anymore.

I'm afraid things will go very wrong for my mental state if Trump wins. I have two psychologists and a psychiatrist but I'm only meeting them next week. Please help me get my mind off this and maybe even get something done.

we have created a signal support group to connect a supportive network of people struggling with cptsd, bpd and other forms of trauma. please feel free to vent, trauma dump and be together during tough times 🩷

https://signal.group/#CjQKIDyYlgFaxeDUSqLmJBwWiVzGgbtBC0exF3kew0J4A-3LEhA9q2epnMPa-nL_gmAqa2Xo

we have created a signal support group to connect a supportive network of people struggling with cptsd, bpd and other forms of trauma. please feel free to vent, trauma dump and be together during tough times 🩷

https://signal.group/#CjQKIDyYlgFaxeDUSqLmJBwWiVzGgbtBC0exF3kew0J4A-3LEhA9q2epnMPa-nL_gmAqa2Xo

Basically title

Drugs, alcohol, and now coffee! I've used a variety of substances to self medicate while in a depressed mood. A few years ago I cut out cannabis, and I stay away from using alcohol when I'm down, but I have no limits with coffee. It seems like I can drink as much as I want whenever I want and it doesn't create the same problems it does when my mood is better.

Does anyone have a headset? What do you think about it in the context of your mental health?

The intersection of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Bipolar Disorder (BD) within the same individual presents a complex and nuanced psychological experience. Through both personal experience and psychological study, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of how these two conditions co-exist, shaping not only my emotional landscape but also my relationships, personal development, and everyday functioning. Central to my experience is the reality that I live predominantly in a state of hypomania, with little to no periods of neutrality. Every once in a while, I experience an escalation into mania, but it typically remains in the middle range—not overwhelmingly intense. However, on rare occasions, it delves deep into mania, leaving me feeling uneasy and out of control.

Bipolar Disorder: Living in Hypomania

Bipolar Disorder manifests differently in everyone, and in my case, hypomania is the default state of being. While many with Bipolar Disorder cycle through clear manic, depressive, and neutral phases, I rarely experience emotional neutrality. When I was younger, I spent much of my time in varying states of depression, ranging from mild melancholy to major depressive episodes. However, as I aged, the balance shifted. Now, I find myself anchored in hypomania, with occasional escalations into full mania.

Hypomania, for me, is marked by heightened energy, creativity, and focus. I can go for days with minimal sleep, immersed in projects and ideas, feeling an endless stream of possibilities. This state has many advantages: I feel productive, engaged, and alive. Most of the time, I stay in a moderate state of hypomania, which is manageable and beneficial. However, every once in a while, I can feel myself shifting into mania. While it typically remains in a mid-level intensity, there are rare times when it deepens into full mania, causing unease and making it harder to control my thoughts and actions.

Medication, specifically Lamotrigine at 100 mg, has played a crucial role in moderating my symptoms. It has allowed me to maintain the benefits of hypomania—creativity, energy, and productivity—while minimizing the irritability and anger that once accompanied it. This pharmacological support has enabled me to stay in a functional hypomanic state, avoiding the darker depths of depression or the destabilizing effects of mania.

Borderline Personality Disorder: Emotional Intensity Amplified

While Bipolar Disorder has shaped the broader rhythms of my emotional life, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) adds another layer of emotional complexity. BPD has been particularly challenging in how it influences my relationships and emotional reactivity. The hallmark of BPD is emotional intensity, particularly in the realm of personal connections. Minor events can feel like major emotional upheavals, and the fear of abandonment or rejection often triggers extreme responses.

In my younger years, I experienced profound emotional swings in relationships. For example, when separated from someone I cared about, I would enter emotional meltdowns or what felt like trance-like states—overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of my feelings. The smallest disruptions in my connection to loved ones could lead to days of emotional turmoil.

Over time, I’ve learned to manage these emotional extremes through a combination of therapy and self-regulation strategies. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) have been particularly helpful in teaching me how to recognize and moderate my emotional responses. Through focused work, I’ve significantly reduced the trances and emotional breakdowns, though certain traits—such as intense romantic devotion—remain a part of who I am. Rather than viewing these traits as purely negative, I’ve come to embrace and channel them constructively.

The Challenge of Co-occurrence: Navigating Bipolar and BPD Simultaneously

One of the unique challenges of living with both Bipolar Disorder and BPD is navigating the interplay between the episodic nature of Bipolar and the emotional instability of BPD. While Bipolar Disorder brings longer, more predictable mood phases, BPD introduces a level of emotional volatility that is more reactive and immediate.

In particular, during hypomanic episodes, the emotional sensitivity of BPD can create a heightened sense of connection or euphoria in relationships. However, this emotional high can also come crashing down if there is a perceived rupture in the relationship, leading to BPD-related emotional crises. The two conditions feed off each other, with hypomania amplifying the emotional swings inherent to BPD.

Despite this, I’ve found that the key to managing both conditions lies in balance. Medication helps to moderate the more extreme fluctuations in mood, while therapy provides tools to manage emotional reactivity. Together, they form a comprehensive approach that allows me to maintain stability, even when living in a state of perpetual hypomania.

Redefining the Narrative: Embracing Hypomania as the Default State

Living in hypomania is not a problem to be solved, but rather a state of being that I’ve learned to navigate and manage. While many view Bipolar Disorder through the lens of balancing highs and lows, I have come to accept that my “normal” is a heightened state of existence. Instead of striving for emotional neutrality, I focus on maintaining stability within my hypomanic state, ensuring that it doesn’t escalate into mania or devolve into depression. On the rare occasions that mania deepens, I’ve learned to recognize the warning signs and implement strategies to regain control before it overwhelms me.

This proactive approach to managing my mental health includes carefully curating my emotional environment. For example, I avoid triggers such as sad music, which could potentially disrupt my mood. By maintaining control over my sensory input, I help sustain the positive aspects of hypomania, while reducing the risk of a downward emotional shift.

BPD, similarly, is something I’ve learned to live with rather than eradicate. Over time, I’ve gained the ability to recognize my emotional patterns and intervene before they escalate. I no longer view BPD as something that threatens my relationships or emotional well-being, but as a facet of my personality that, when managed, adds depth and intensity to my connections.

Conclusion

Living with both Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder is an ongoing journey of self-awareness and adaptation. For me, the experience is not defined by constant shifts between depression, mania, or emotional turmoil, but by learning to live in a state of hypomania, with all its creativity, energy, and potential challenges. While the occasional dive into full mania brings unease, it remains a rarity in an otherwise manageable experience.

Through therapy, medication, and personal strategies, I’ve created a mental health framework that supports my emotional needs while allowing me to thrive. The key has been recognizing the unique interplay between BPD and Bipolar Disorder, and using this awareness to maintain balance and emotional well-being. As mental health discourse evolves, I hope that more individuals can be empowered to embrace their own unique experiences, finding not just management, but meaning and strength in the process.

So I tried to take steps to try improve myself and I have been able to sort of come up with something where I do daily tasks and over the weekend take it easy.

Basically, light meditation, some positive words to myself, exercise, journalling, consistent self-care and reading

I have made it to 7 days so far with me being able to complete the tasks I have been setting for myself.

However as a concequence of journalling out stuff, I have been confronted with an area of my life that I have not let vent out properly. It's its own monster of sorts that feels like it is consuming my thoughts as I relive and try come to terms with past events that leave me with realising how deep the regret and anger I have kept underwraps.

How that part of my life had some effect in disrupting my academic prospects as I let it thrown me off enough that I ended up dropping out in frustration of falling behind and also how I listened to someone ask that I do not do something I wanted to do, but out of respect to them I ended up regretting not doing it.

It is has the disruptive flow to things as it boils off and simmers as something I am having difficulty trying to come to terms with

Before I get too off track and devolving into that, I'll refocus towards what I wish to ask.

Is there resources or a social group where one can join that can act like an accountability group of sorts as I fear that what I am doing now will eventually hit a wall where I fall off and linger into bad habits again.

I know I have been driven to do the tasks on a day-to-day basis, but I already have days where it is hard to do it and I sort of just get through things out of a stubborness to tick off a box with a clean conscious, but I fear that I can only do so much on my own steam with the concern that I might need someone to help "revive the battery" if it runs low

I cannot rely on anyone that I know and I get people have their own lives but the I have tried reaching out to people that I trust and I only had one help, but they are an unreliable source of help( not in a bad way) as they can only really listen when they have time for it as they live in a different timezone and they keep a busy life schedule so asking for help is not something is readily available.

The other people I have tried have yet to really show in interest in communicating.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the person who was trying to help me and coincidentally also put the framework in place for the idea for the routine has also recently cut me off as well so I cannot look towards them for assistance either.

Mentioning that as I feel alone in this and have concern that I will relapse if I try to work on my "strength" alone

I just lost my job and its been months of endless searching. I feel like the interviews go well but I still don't have anything. I am giving up all my hobbies and pretty much everything me from killing myself and I still cannot find anything. I am close to losing my apartment and everyday is a nightmare. I am starting to self harm I cannot afford to get help I can't even eat full meals anymore and I do not know what to do.

The mood matrix (ie the Microsoft logo). A four quadrant grid to plot energy and pleasantness. Some charts have 100 emotions, others have 4. You can find one online, here are some example (https://transkatgirl.github.io/TheMoodMeter/), https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mood+matrix+chart+meter+-app&t=ffab&iar=images.

Description Blue: Low energy, low pleasantness. This is where depression sits.

Red: High energy, low pleasantness. This is where anger goes.

Yellow: High energy, high pleasant. Festive.

Green: Low energy, high pleasant. Serene, content, calm.

Maybe you know this already. Maybe you also know that you can try to pair your activities with your mood. So why am I sharing? It's a prompt. I've heard of this before, never bothered to try it or never did it successfully. It's worth trying if you're struggling right now and have to work.

My week has been rough, mental health dropped of a cliff after being solid for several weeks. Monday, the usual, 'I can't do this right now' feelings. I'd usually grind through the day, nap with my phone on alert, take a long lunch, stop early and tell myself I'd catch up later when I'm feeling better. Mental health days right? Meanwhile I'm falling behind, having less than positive interactions with coworkers, making mistakes, and just generally making my life worse.

I'll try the mood chart thing, this time I have an LLM to help me think because I'm an idiot.

I only sort of want the day off, but I realize I might be on this roller coaster for a while. What can I actually do today?

1. Red Zone (Angry, Frustrated, Overwhelmed)

• Urgent, high-energy tasks: clearing backlogs, problem-solving, making quick decisions
• Use the frustration energy to push through stuck problems
• Physical tasks: organizing, rearranging, building things.
• Brainstorming: Pull out some paper, a web tool, or whiteboard and come up with ideas and plans. Explore solutions later if that's better.
• Avoid talking to people, mute notifications

2. Yellow Zone (Anxious, Excited)

• Creative work: Channel that restless energy into being creative
• Wrap up projects, put a bow on it and then start something else that sounds fun
• Planning: Outline projects, create to-do lists, or schedule future work.
• Bring donuts

3. Green Zone (Calm, Focused, Happy)

• Deep-focus work: Tackle complex projects, research, writing, meticulous and challenging activities, analysis
• Collaborative tasks: Team meetings, discussions, problem-solving with others.
• Socializing with colleagues, go out for lunch, call someone, bring donuts for people
• Planning. I think planning goes everywhere except blue.

4. Blue Zone (Tired, Sad, Low Energy)

• Low-energy tasks: Organizing files, deleting things, sorting documents, or simple administrative work, simple things, dull tasks that you've been putting off
• Research: Tasks that require reading, learning, or reviewing information at a comfortable pace. Get cozy.
• Planning: review work you've done recently

It's helping me get through this wave. Monday and Tuesday have been better than I expected, I've been productive and I don't feel worse.

On one hand I sort of dislike doing this because it's a reminder of my failings, but on the other hand I am not sure what do either

A major pillar of support has decided to cut ties with me and it not something I can hold it against them as they have their own lives and when I recently decided to share my troubles it became too hard to deal with on account that they couldn't help me and fear that they are only making things worse.

My latest round of issues has been identifying with the long standing issue of loneliness. It is something that I have sat on and thought about recently as a root of a lot of my issues. I am isolated with feelings I am sure go back as far as childhood. I don't know how to maintain friendships, I have developed unhealthy habits that suppress who I am and overwhelm people with all the stored up misery when they get close.

It scares people away and because of it I have to force myself to suppress the person I am, which has and continues to lead to a feedback loop which further perpetuates the cycle.

I feel I only have one long standing bond left and even then I am careful to control what I say and do and avoid contact in an attempt to perserve it.

I used to be able to communicate with some people who I shared a common interest with over discord but cannot do it now as the hand me down pc I received after my old pc broke has trouble with real-time communication as the audio is heavily distorted and delayed

I feel alone, isolated, helpless, worthless.... insert self depreciating adjective.... and I stuck in this really bad mindset that has me feeling trapped, literally and figuratively

I cannot afford professional help and when I tried in the past to get help through the local clinic I became disenfrachised by the treatment I received as it felt that I was a "functional" case that drug use was enough to treat (mentioned conditions Anxiety, Depression and ADHD with an an off-hand remark of possible Aspergers, but never received an official prognosis, much less a diagnosis) - with them not really giving me any answers or support - other local lines were just as useless as they are both made me aware of how overworked they are and provide far too general advice to issues which results in me reserving myself and not addressing problems knowing that they aren't really listening.

It feels like because I am not a stark raving lunatic that it not considered that my mental health is at a point of concern.

It is always text book do this or do that and do not take into account the mental barriers I have developed as coping method, which is not so much coping as much as trying to keep up appearances.

An example, which I am not even sure if it even makes sense is : if I do not have a immediate reason to, I do not go outside.... an immediate reason primarily doing something for someone else's sake... which leads to me not going outside much at all, I cannot mentally motivate myself a reason to do something for myself.

Other advice I have been told tell me to be to selflessly kind and to show love and it will be returned, but my experiences trying have only led twisted failures as it brings back memories of opening myself to others and having it being taken advantage of and leaving me more bitter as a result. I believe my younger self attempted to embrace those values too readily and the real world was eager to correct the nail sticking out.

Which I believe has lead to a desparate desire to form bonds, as a form of self-correction from the attempt to avoid connections from the perceived pain it brought and in doing so fall victim to unscrupulous individuals that take advantage of it for their own benefit and even when I found people who not intentionally malicious, something still happens that ends up causing pain.

It is like have developemed a twisted moral code around what I assumed people want from someone to have - honesty, loyalty, integrity - and the values being destroyed as one is confronted with a world running on hypocrisy run by the status quo and then questioning why people are like they way they are as the perceived most sucessful make use of deception and selfishness to make use of people for their own self interest without consideration for another. Throwing others away the moment they get what they want.

It hurts to put trust in others and then being hurt, especially when they take pride in their self-indulgence whether they intentionally do it or not

I think the person who decided to cut ties came to the conclusion that I was, To quote from the video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5L1sJ99jklc at around the 6 minute mark, :

"being so desparate to change yourself, but being unable to communicate those feelings. It can make you latch onto people in an unhealthy way, unfairly placing the burden of change on them when they can't help you in the way you want"

was something they probably thought they needed to do. That and mentioned that they feel like they are walking on eggshells and that I was scaring them - not in a physical violence sense but more in they are concerned of me "losing" it and them being caught in the crossfire.

I do feel there is more to write, but I feel I need to try and contain the "Pandora's Box" from opening full tilt everytime I write ... so I guess I am just shouting into the void as I feel emotionally mixed ( ranging between numbness and anger) from losing yet another person from feeling overwhelmed in loneliness and expressing myself to another who has context to what I feel, but ended up relying on them too much

I wanted to share the story of my life. Mental health and growth. This touches on subjects such as Autism, BPD, Bipolar, DID and Psychopathy.

CW Major Trigger

spoiler

recently I feel closer and closer to just ending it, I have essentially became aware that all of my friends put me in the outer circle of our friend group, and actively view me as a child. I am autistic but also I feel like my friends view me as disgusting with no real solution of what to do with me, I live with them and the only option I realistically have other than this is to move in with my mom who tends to emotionally depend on me.

I know that I am always the friend but never the best friend, I have no inner circle where I feel like I can talk about my thoughts and how dark things have gotten recently. I feel like if I told my friends it would likely result in me being hospitalized and than having my stuff moved out and kinda told "no one ever liked you and we have felt that way for a really long time". I don't blame them I know I am annoying and socially awkward, I know my depression has lead me to neglect things in my life. Keep in mind this is not me being autistic, many of our friends are ND as well, this is me specifically. Part of the reason I have not tried yet was that I am afraid it will be viewed as emotionally manipulated, the truth of this world is that no one wants to see the social behind and awkward 23 year transfem blow her brains out, but people can think your weird thats their right.

Me being trans is always a side fact, HRT has not done me good, people tell me I look like a women to be nice but in reality I look disgusting, I look like some cringe fetish account you will find on Reddit that everyone equally agrees is disgusting.

People I do talk to on discord from time to time will say I am just overthinking it, since no one has outright said they hate me, or think that. but the truth is i have heard them say "I don't want her to hear xyz" or say thing about me right outside of ear shot.

What's kept me alive other than worrying it will come off as emotionally manipulative to my "friends" is the fact my mom has repeatedly told me over and over she will off herself if I do, it's like a known thing that i cannot avoid. it's guilt I have to carry, I do hate the fact this is true and i carry a ton of guilt and i usually ball my eyes out when I am confronted with this morality problem, but I remember the first time I attempted I overcame this and just accepted that it is what it is. I also do fear death, i don't know what comes after but in that moment I consider that maybe whatever it is I deserve that. I don't deserve to walk this earth anymore. I sometimes watch the sucide ending to cyberpunk, not cause i actually think anyone would care about me like that but I am reminded that no one really cares about me like that.

There was a time when I had dreams and goals in life, I wanted to work in tech, I wanted to get bachelors degree I wanted to have friends, but the truth is I never realized how gross I was until now, I never realized my transition would be a failure, I never realized just how much i got on peoples nerves

I often want to just run away and restart I try to distract myself from reality imaging maybe an internship or anything else to get my life back on track. than maybe buy a car but I know that not really possible anymore

NOTICE TO LEMMY MODERATORS

Hi, I understand your concerns and want to help out, I know in this rare instance you likely think giving my IP to the pigs is a moral good, and that I will get the help I need, the main mental hospital I would go to is currently facing sexual abuse allegations, my roommates would likely kick me out during my stay at the mental hospital assuming that I am not a danger to myself and that it would be much safer to do it at this time. I am currently 9k in debt if you combine credit card, and existing medical debt, with zero income. you doing this would likely add additional financial strain to my already difficult to justify existence. If you do this I would likely be even closer than I already am. and I would likely not vent online next time.

Todays media is full of beautiful people and great places to visit but no one ever talks about how hard it is to maintain these ideals. Try to get rid of people that judge you cause of your look. If you ever feel like you have nothing important to give for this world, think about it twice cause you might come up with great things after you had some development of your character- which happens automaticly during life. You might not like yourself yet but you shouldnt give up so quick, who you are is only defined by yourself, take a few uncertain steps forward and you will get surprised too.

This is about programming specifically, but I guess you can experience similar things with many other activities as well. So if you can even remotely relate your thoughts are very welcome.

Alright so, every time when I sit down to programme it tends to start out great, I feel relaxed and kind of looking forward to it. However, at some point there is going to be a bug in the code or some library does not work as I expect it to. I then start googling; try something out; doesn't work; google some more; try more stuff; still doesn't work. While this is of course just what coding is like, during these "google, test, repeat" sessions I tend to go faster with every iteration and at some point I am in such a rush that it feels like I hardly remember to breathe. Needless to say that this is freaking exhausting. After an hour of this my brain is just mush.

Of course, the obvious solution to this is to just take a break as soon as I notice me speeding up. I will try to do this more, but sometimes it feels like I can't. This unsolved bug will sit in my mind so that I can't stop thinking about it even if I'm not at the keyboard. "It must be solved. Now". Of course it doesn't, but that's what my mind is telling me.

In a few months I will probably be working as a full time dev again and until then I have to have solved this problem somehow if I want to do this any longer than a couple of years.

Ideally I want programming to be a meditative experience and feel refreshed afterwards instead of completely drained. This might be illusionary, but at least I would want it to be draining more like I've been on a good run, instead of feeling like being hit by a truck.

Anyways I'm wondering if any of you can relate to this and maybe has solved this in some way. Does this ever happen to you? What do you do to prevent this from happening? I appreciate any thoughts you have on this.

>Researchers at Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study exploring conflicting findings on whether pet ownership is good for our mental health have found that having — and loving — a dog (sorry, cat people) is associated with lower symptoms of depression and anxiety. > >... > >We used several different measures for depression and for anxiety and found overall that there is an inverse association between pet attachment and negative mental health outcomes. That means the more attached you are to your pet, the lower your risk of depression and anxiety. > >The effect was particularly strong among women who had a history of sexual or physical abuse in childhood, who made up the majority of our study population. > >I think those findings were mostly driven by dogs, because the majority of the pets owned in the study were dogs — it was about two-thirds dogs and one-third cats. The association was similar to what we found when restricting the analysis just to dogs, but not as strong. > >With cats, there doesn’t seem to be an association between pet attachment and mental health outcomes. There was a smaller number of respondents though, so we cannot rule out that we don’t see anything because there were too few cats in the survey. > >... > >Many studies have been done on the effects of pet ownership, but the premise of this study is that it may matter more how much you are attached to the pet than if you simply own a pet. Many people have pets, but not every owner is attached to their pet. > >Plenty of people don’t enjoy having to walk their dogs in the morning because the dog is the beloved pet of their child, for example. So the goal was to sort out whether attachment is the more important variable that links pets to health outcomes in humans, and then to study mechanisms.

I'm 40 years old, in a crappy job without prospects despite degrees, and I have 0 friends.

I used to have a grand total of 2 friends before Covid, but then we lost contact. I've tried to rekindle, but all effort was onesided so I stopped.

I'm a lifelong spineless people pleaser despite lots of therapy, and the ironic thing is that this turns people off of you instead of having them like you.

At this point I don't see any reasons to continue trying.

If I had one wish in life, it would be to be a stereotypical asshole with actual self esteem - those are the kinds of people who seem to be anle to reach all of their goals and have others worship the ground they walk on.

But as for me, I'm so turned off by other people in general that I would probably be morbidly amused to read, oh I dunno, that Moscow nuked Kiev (or vive versa), that Jerusalem is burning, or that my hometown was wiped away by a hurricane.

Not to be "edgy". It's emotionally debilitating, and to be clear I don't enjoy/wish for human suffering.

I've just become as indifferent to it as the world seems to be to me. Simple tit for tat.

I'm tired. Kinda hoped I wouldn't wake up from my anaesthesia today. Ah well.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/15700734

> The mental health of adolescents and young adults has been on the decline and it’s partly because of “harmful megatrends” like financial inequality, according to a new report published on Tuesday in the scientific journal The Lancet Psychiatry. The global trends affecting younger generations also include wage theft, unregulated social media, job insecurity and climate change, all of which are creating “a bleak present and future for young people in many countries,” according to the authors. > > Full text link: https://dnyuz.com/2024/08/13/are-we-thinking-about-the-youth-mental-health-crisis-all-wrong/

As Texas adults struggle to access mental health care, people in San Antonio are turning to faith leaders, new data shows.

Calls to Oklahoma's 988 Mental Health Lifeline increased by 44% in its second full year, with 36,493 calls received. Officials attribute the rise to growing awareness, ongoing mental health challenges, and reduced stigma. Calls are typically answered within 12 to 14.5 seconds, with 72% resolved over the phone. Mobile crisis teams are dispatched for 12% of calls, with 20% of those requiring further mental healthcare.

As if people with anxiety don’t have enough to worry about, a new study is adding to that list — suggesting the disorder may nearly triple the risk of developing dementia years later.

“We have known for a long time that stress increases risk for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wasn’t involved in the study, via email. “This study agrees with earlier studies that therapy aimed at alleviating anxiety can help reduce risk for (Alzheimer’s disease). But, it’s the size of this study that is particularly compelling.”

Mental health inequities are projected to cost the U.S. $14 trillion between now and 2040, according to a new study from the School of Global Health at Meharry Medical College and the Deloitte Health Equity Institute.

The analysis concluded that unaddressed mental health conditions create a significant economic burden for the country and that eliminating inequities in treatment could lead to significant savings on health care.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14951340

> Dementia patients at Kaiser Permanente and UCSF Health have increasingly utilized telehealth services. A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed a significant rise in telehealth usage among these patients, who often face travel difficulties due to complex medical issues. The study compared data from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022, showing a drop in in-person visits and an increase in hybrid and telehealth-only care. Kaiser Permanente primarily used phone visits and offered "virtual rooming," while UCSF favored video visits and provided tech support in patients' preferred languages. > > >

Folks with depression who got therapy via text or voice messages fared just as well as those who got weekly video-based telemedicine sessions with a therapist, a new trial has found.

The findings "suggest that psychotherapy delivered via text messages may be a viable alternative to face-to-face or videoconferencing delivery and may allow for more immediate on-demand care," in a time when it's often tough for people to access mental health care, the study authors wrote.