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☮ Social ☮ PD Social Distancing Talk Thread: Swirly Congregation That's 100% Pandemic-Proof

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I had a great practice today with my band... then I got home and my girlfriend is just in an awful mood. She's basically depressed 100% of the time, told me she hates life. Lately she's been really grumpy a lot of the time, it used to be she'd be really sweet all the time and put in effort to try to be happy even though she was struggling, but it seems like lately she's just given up. It's scaring me because I realized that she's really the only negative person in my life, and what does that say? All the other people I surround myself with lift me up, help me to be a happier and more fulfilled person. She's always negative about everything these days, like literally everything, even if something good happens she finds what is negative about it and focuses on that. It's like I have to recharge myself when I'm with other people or alone, so I can not get totally frustrated and depressed when I spend time with her. She just won't address her issues or get help. She's still good to me, she's supportive and helpful, she pulls her weight financially... but it used to be she made me feel happier and I had fun with her, lately she doesn't have fun doing anything almost ever, and she exudes negativity like a cloud. I don't know want to deal with this, but I love her. I don't even think I CAN deal with it forever, and I certainly shouldn't. But honestly looking at it objectively, I think a big part of my stress and unhappiness for the last while has been because of the stress and pain I feel knowing how miserable she is. :( It's really hard for me.

I try to tell her about how you create your reality by the story you tell yourself, and she rolls her eyes like it's some trite hippie shit. But it's absolutely true. She acts like she is life's victim, and yes she had a rough childhood. But she just won't do anything about it and her attitude gets worse and worse the older she gets. She constantly tells herself that everything sucks and there's no way out of it, that it's too late for her, etc. She's become probably the least happy/satisfied person I know in real life. It's a real bummer and it's really sad. I don't know what to do...
 
You're lucky you can report about those things. My heart is being stirred as well, distance is just not acceptable, is it? Sometimes synchronicity tears the heart so it can grow, apparently. That's all can say about it, as it's still happening.
 
Yeah, Xorkoth, that's really hard. Negativity is hell on romantic relationships. It sounds like depression. Does she recognize it as depression, and if so, has she tried anything (counseling, medication, sleep hygiene, energy healing, exercise, you name it?) Sometimes making a commitment to trying just one thing to see if it helps is helpful. You may know it probably won't, but then committing to trying just one thing at first is often easier than trying to change a laundry list. It's rapid prototyping.

I know it's not your place or your job to fix her, and it may not be appreciated, but there it is just in case she's receptive
 
Cosmic Charlie said:
Personally I would only wanna Cook in formal Restaurants though as I have a passion for Food and what I do and be unhappy doing that.
Click to expand...

Yeah you can't even really look at what happens in a fast food kitchen as being like real cooking. It's more akin to what happens in a factory. A factory where each part is slightly different.

I suppose, now that I think about it, the only reason I loved Taco Bell so much is I was a cashier, and my personality is the right mix of "outgoing but shy" that a job like that that forces you to be social ends up working really well. My Taco Bell was across the road from one of the bigger "party" colleges in the Midwest, so getting to see all the drunk and high student peers of mine come through was pretty hilarious.

If I had been stuck in the kitchen I would have hated it. I am too high strung to be around kitchen staff often anyway, tho, I just get them stressed out lol. It works out great for a more solo spot like cashier tho.
 
Pfafffed said:
Yeah, Xorkoth, that's really hard. Negativity is hell on romantic relationships. It sounds like depression. Does she recognize it as depression, and if so, has she tried anything (counseling, medication, sleep hygiene, energy healing, exercise, you name it?) Sometimes making a commitment to trying just one thing to see if it helps is helpful. You may know it probably won't, but then committing to trying just one thing at first is often easier than trying to change a laundry list. It's rapid prototyping.

I know it's not your place or your job to fix her, and it may not be appreciated, but there it is just in case she's receptive
Click to expand...

Yes she is well aware that she is depressed. It's the result of childhood PTSD (emotional abuse and an overbearing/controlling father, plus her mother essentially abandoned her and moved to Hawaii when she was 9 when her parents split). She has tried counseling a few times, I believe she's always had a bad therapist, but she has never tried it more than a few sessions. I think she is convinced, and tells herself repeatedly, that therapy won't work. She has tried exercise to some extent, I think it helps somewhat but she also either has adrenal burnout from lifelong anxiety (probably) or else they didn't really cure her Lyme disease when she got it and they caught it right away (I think this is possible as well as she has very weird reactions to a lot of things), because she has very low energy and has to sleep 10+ hours to even feel functional the next day and she gets tired super fast so working out drains her. But I remember there being a difference, not a huge one, but a difference. She really adheres strictly to to no light when sleeping, no blue screens near bed, all that stuff, in case she's just getting really poor quality sleep. I guess she's never been to a sleep clinic or anything. She refuses to try medication, being raised by hippies and taught that medication is bad and an absolute last resort (not sure why she doesn't see this as last resort time... it frustrates me but she will not consider medication).

I think her biggest problem is attitude. She beats up on herself really bad (as bad as my ex beat up on me I'd say, for roughly the same childhood issues) and any time anything is brought up, it's the same sort of "nothing will work for me, it's too late, I'm too messed up, and if I try, it will probably fail anyway". I think she needs a temporary and profound change in perception from which to draw inspiration and realize things could be different. She has never had that. We have tried tripping, but she tells herself it won't work beforehand. She still holds out hope that a trained therapist could help guide her through an MDMA experience and that belief that it could work says to me that it very well might, or at least could. I mean, if a person is convinced nothing will work, they defeat themselves before they even try. She does this all the time, for example, one of her huge regrets in life/traumas is that her dad forced her to do a major in college that she hated and will never use (art history) because he's fucking weird and thought that because she didn't want to talk to him about what she wanted to do (because she wanted to get away from him and hadn't quite figured it out yet), that he would know better than her. So he withheld paying for college unless she did art history. So she hated college and is really angry about it still, and didn't study what she really wanted to do. But when I tell her she's only 33, my mom went back to school at age 58 and changed the course of her life, etc, she says "no, it's too late, I don't have the energy, I can't handle college again, and I probably won't even be able to make anything of it if I do study something else so I'm not going to". How do you break through that insistence on defeating yourself? I have no idea, and I've tried.
 
Kinda like Walmart. A store that has pretty much everything people usually need (food, clothes, electronics, tools, and so on) for cheaper than everywhere else.
 
Well, I'm less optimistic about MDMA psychotherapy than she is, but if she's willing to try it in a clinical setting, I'm all about it. Set and setting matter TREMENDOUSLY in medicine, particularly with treating psychological conditions. I imagine it will be hard to get into expanded access, though, at least in the short term.

Expecting something to fail is fine, so long as the willingness to try is there ("prove it then move on.")

As for the why, we all tell ourselves stories about why we are the way we are. I think they're relevant only so far as working with the narrative can be a way of getting us to where we need to go cognitively.

For what it's worth, if she's interested in meditation instead of medication she might enjoy listening to the early podcasts of Sharon Salzburg's Metta Hour before she started doing interviews. The Great Courses / The Teaching Company 's "Practicing Mindfulness: an Introduction to Meditation." I'll say that after decades of thinking that I knew how to practice mindfulness meditation, it turns out that I had the wrong idea entirely. These resources cleared that up. Also, using a Muse headband can make it easier to get started for some people.

As for therapy, I'd recommend CBT or mindfulness based cognitive therapy, because they both provide actionable tools. Won't help if she won't go to an appointment, though.

Keeping a gratitude journal, while it sounds granola, can make a HUGE difference and is supported by a ton of evidence.

I understand the frustration re: medication. It does sound like a last case scenario to me, too, and it's frustrating that the defeatism caused by depression makes it so hard to get help. You're doing what you can by being compassionate but not personally invested, and there's nothing wrong with deciding that it's too hard for you.
 
@Xorkoth It amuses me how we both seem to date similar type women. My wife is chronically depressed but she has been getting a bit better lately. She's much happier at her new job and working out more often. I know I stress her out because I've had so many health issues lately. She's a real trooper but sometimes she really brings me down...
 
Yeah I have really tried to emphasize how I have heard great things about CBT. Regarding meditation and gratitude journals, both of these things she kinda rolls her eyes at as "stupid hippie shit" (I mentioned she is kind of a hippie because she was raised one, well she resents the way she was raised and kinda took the bad parts of it without the good parts other than a strong desire to leave as little impact as possible on the world and a love for nature). I do really think CBT could be very useful, as I explained to her, because it doesn't focus on talking through stuff but on interrupting thought patterns and modifying behavior. Every time she's gone to therapy it has dragged up a bunch of stuff that makes her feel way worse for a while. I think that's a normal part of talk therapy and probably necessary for it to work, but CBT isn't like that, but I think she's just scared.

I dunno, sometimes I feel like the only thing that would motivate her is if she really thought I was going to end things otherwise because she really relies on me to have something to be happy about and she loves me (and I love her). I don't want to do that, though. I just have really realized how much she's bringing me down lately. My emotional health is certainly suffering. There are also some things that I wish were different, most notably that she is pretty firmly in the camp of "no kids, ever", and I'm feeling the opposite way increasingly. That's the only really major one. I can never tell how much of that is just from her trauma though, because the very idea of reproducing instills an obvious fear response.
 
Xorkoth said:
Yes she is well aware that she is depressed. It's the result of childhood PTSD (emotional abuse and an overbearing/controlling father, plus her mother essentially abandoned her and moved to Hawaii when she was 9 when her parents split). She has tried counseling a few times, I believe she's always had a bad therapist, but she has never tried it more than a few sessions. I think she is convinced, and tells herself repeatedly, that therapy won't work. She has tried exercise to some extent, I think it helps somewhat but she also either has adrenal burnout from lifelong anxiety (probably) or else they didn't really cure her Lyme disease when she got it and they caught it right away (I think this is possible as well as she has very weird reactions to a lot of things), because she has very low energy and has to sleep 10+ hours to even feel functional the next day and she gets tired super fast so working out drains her. But I remember there being a difference, not a huge one, but a difference. She really adheres strictly to to no light when sleeping, no blue screens near bed, all that stuff, in case she's just getting really poor quality sleep. I guess she's never been to a sleep clinic or anything. She refuses to try medication, being raised by hippies and taught that medication is bad and an absolute last resort (not sure why she doesn't see this as last resort time... it frustrates me but she will not consider medication).

I think her biggest problem is attitude. She beats up on herself really bad (as bad as my ex beat up on me I'd say, for roughly the same childhood issues) and any time anything is brought up, it's the same sort of "nothing will work for me, it's too late, I'm too messed up, and if I try, it will probably fail anyway". I think she needs a temporary and profound change in perception from which to draw inspiration and realize things could be different. She has never had that. We have tried tripping, but she tells herself it won't work beforehand. She still holds out hope that a trained therapist could help guide her through an MDMA experience and that belief that it could work says to me that it very well might, or at least could. I mean, if a person is convinced nothing will work, they defeat themselves before they even try. She does this all the time, for example, one of her huge regrets in life/traumas is that her dad forced her to do a major in college that she hated and will never use (art history) because he's fucking weird and thought that because she didn't want to talk to him about what she wanted to do (because she wanted to get away from him and hadn't quite figured it out yet), that he would know better than her. So he withheld paying for college unless she did art history. So she hated college and is really angry about it still, and didn't study what she really wanted to do. But when I tell her she's only 33, my mom went back to school at age 58 and changed the course of her life, etc, she says "no, it's too late, I don't have the energy, I can't handle college again, and I probably won't even be able to make anything of it if I do study something else so I'm not going to". How do you break through that insistence on defeating yourself? I have no idea, and I've tried.
Click to expand...

Hey, you know she and I suffer a lot of the same emotional issues. I am currently struggling with setting up a therapist appointment because I really feel like it just won't work and not be worth the time and effort, as one real example. Tell her I'm 33 and worn out from four years of cancer treatment, and I'm still about to go back to college. Because I want to get my doctorate and research medicine to hopefully help people avoid having to go through what I've gone through.

One of the things that might actually be curable through medicine some day is the uncontrolled stress hormone release that adults who suffered severe adverse childhood experiences go through. Finding out about that stuff made me weep for a few days when I realized just how deep my damage might be, but it also gave me hope because I see something real and tangible that I might be able to fix some day

If she really is like me, then she will need to feel like she is making making a difference in the world in order to keep motivated at a life long career. Maybe she should go into social work? Non profit work? Peace Corps? AmeriCorps? So many possibilities, probably especially in Ashland.

She might have it bad, and she shouldn't lie to herself and tell herself she doesn't. Her very neurochemistry is working against her. But, even tho she has it bad, there are so many people out there that have it worse off. Tell her to go find them and make a difference in their lives? :)

Edit --------------------------

For anyone else reading along, here's a link to the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) stuff I mentioned above. It really is quite tragic. The scientists that first put the data together and realized how strong the correlation between ACEs and adult disease are, both physical and mental, wept quite strongly. And other psychiatrists/psychologists weeping when they first read about it too is quite common. The data is that strong =\

aeon.co

How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illness | Aeon Essays

Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults
aeon.co aeon.co

When subjected to enough stress, the developing brain ends up getting so damaged that even the DNA responsible for stress hormone release gets methylated to the point of complete malfunction. Bad enough cases have a nearly constant 24/7 stress hormone (cortisol etc) release. This causes an enormous increase in the risk of adult disease, ranging from depression to CANCER,

with a strong enough correlation that the connection is undeniable. Enough proof that we can tell this is not science overcomplicating things. There is strong enough data that we know it would take an even more convoluted explanation than this to explain it.

ACE scores are given on a scale 0-10, 10 being the most adverse. The correlation is strong enough that in the original data set of a few thousand well off San Diegans, 99% of patients with a score of 5 or had been prescribed an antidepressant at some point in their life.

The data is strong enough that you can ask someone 10 of these questions like "did you have a parent that was an alcoholic or addicted to drugs?" or "did you have an adult in your life that made you physically afraid?", and if they answer 5 or more of them "yes" then you know with nearly 100% certainty that they've been prescribed a particular class of drug.

That's seriously just a mind blowing level of correlation, and why this has quickly become accepted science even tho it was just discovered 20 years ago. The link is that undeniable. The authors of the original study say that they think this is the link to curing the majority of human suffering. And they might be right.

Sorry for going on and on so long, but you know I tend to be a man of few words, so when I go on this much about something... Well, I hope you all know by now anyway that this article must be worth reading.

It's sad but it really is the key to understanding so much human suffering...
 
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xammy said:
What kind of store is Target?
Click to expand...

There is also a different Target in Australia, owned by a completely different corporation. American Target couldn't get the copyright there. I think they are ultimately pretty similar tho, as far as what they sell? Not 100% on that from memory :)
 
pharmakos said:
Hey, you know she and I suffer a lot of the same emotional issues. I am currently struggling with setting up a therapist appointment because I really feel like it just won't work and not be worth the time and effort, as one real example. Tell her I'm 33 and worn out from four years of cancer treatment, and I'm still about to go back to college. Because I want to get my doctorate and research medicine to hopefully help people avoid having to go through what I've gone through.

One of the things that might actually be curable through medicine some day is the uncontrolled stress hormone release that adults who suffered severe adverse childhood experiences go through. Finding out about that stuff made me weep for a few days when I realized just how deep my damage might be, but it also gave me hope because I see something real and tangible that I might be able to fix some day

If she really is like me, then she will need to feel like she is making making a difference in the world in order to keep motivated at a life long career. Maybe she should go into social work? Non profit work? Peace Corps? AmeriCorps? So many possibilities, probably especially in Ashland.

She might have it bad, and she shouldn't lie to herself and tell herself she doesn't. Her very neurochemistry is working against her. But, even tho she has it bad, there are so many people out there that have it worse off. Tell her to go find them and make a difference in their lives? :)

Edit --------------------------

For anyone else reading along, here's a link to the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) stuff I mentioned above. It really is quite tragic. The scientists that first put the data together and realized how strong the correlation between ACEs and adult disease are, both physical and mental, wept quite strongly. And other psychiatrists/psychologists weeping when they first read about it too is quite common. The data is that strong =\

aeon.co

How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illness | Aeon Essays

Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults
aeon.co aeon.co

When subjected to enough stress, the developing brain ends up getting so damaged that even the DNA responsible for stress hormone release gets methylated to the point of complete malfunction. Bad enough cases have a nearly constant 24/7 stress hormone (cortisol etc) release. This causes an enormous increase in the risk of adult disease, ranging from depression to CANCER,

with a strong enough correlation that the connection is undeniable. Enough proof that we can tell this is not science overcomplicating things. There is strong enough data that we know it would take an even more convoluted explanation than this to explain it.

ACE scores are given on a scale 0-10, 10 being the most adverse. The correlation is strong enough that in the original data set of a few thousand well off San Diegans, 99% of patients with a score of 5 or had been prescribed an antidepressant at some point in their life.

The data is strong enough that you can ask someone 10 of these questions like "did you have a parent that was an alcoholic or addicted to drugs?" or "did you have an adult in your life that made you physically afraid?", and if they answer 5 or more of them "yes" then you know with nearly 100% certainty that they've been prescribed a particular class of drug.

That's seriously just a mind blowing level of correlation, and why this has quickly become accepted science even tho it was just discovered 20 years ago. The link is that undeniable. The authors of the original study say that they think this is the link to curing the majority of human suffering. And they might be right.

Sorry for going on and on so long, but you know I tend to be a man of few words, so when I go on this much about something... Well, I hope you all know by now anyway that this article must be worth reading.

It's sad but it really is the key to understanding so much human suffering...
Click to expand...

As I've gotten older and gotten to know more people, and some of them having bad childhoods while others didn't... I actually do not doubt that a large portion of human suffering is due to traumatic childhood and the inability to rise up out of that. It really is tragic and as someone who is not suffering from it, there is a tremendous feeling of helplessness in seeing loved ones suffering. Of course there are other reasons for human suffering, too, but I think in developed nations, a huge portion is hereditary and unnecessary.

The older I get the more I thank my parents every day for being great.
 
pharmakos said:
For anyone else reading along, here's a link to the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) stuff I mentioned above. It really is quite tragic. The scientists that first put the data together and realized how strong the correlation between ACEs and adult disease are, both physical and mental, wept quite strongly. And other psychiatrists/psychologists weeping when they first read about it too is quite common. The data is that strong =\
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what really bothers me about the family separation policy at the U.S.-México border. There's a whole generation of kids that are going to have trauma severe enough to not only damage them, but also their children and grandchildren. Damn epigenetics.
 
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yeah it's fucked. Let's target people fleeing violence with family separation. Hooray USA, we're #1!
 
I've been at a recording studio all day with my guitar player in my band. About 2 months ago we spent 5 days here recording a 10 song album. We came back for a day to put down the rest of the tracks. Mostly it's the vocals. I'm recording all of the background vocals because my voice is the best, so I'm doing the backups for 3 people. Good times. :) We're gonna send the stems to my guitar player in my other band who is a very gifted producer, and pay him a friend rate to sit down with him and spend all the time necessary to dial everything in with mixing to where it's exactly where we want it. Then from now on we;'re going to record with him, having been to a couple of other studios, he really produces the best quality product of anyone I've recorded with. Over the course of this year in between being on the road, we're going to record new songs, and release some as singles, and then by the edn of the year we'll have enough for another album.

Good times. :)
 
I used to daydream about doing this kind of thing, since I grew up playing music, but like, classical music, in band and for myself. Then I forgot it was something I wanted over time, and then I remembered when I started doing it. Best thing ever. :)
 
Gonna build a decent studio once I've got the financial knot untangled. Current setup is almost duct-taped together, and the software is downright haunted. Went along with it cuz it's been kinda thematic, y'know.. but it's been sucking sanity out of me every time I attempt an audio project, so it has to go.

The atrocious EPE wound I had inflicted upon myself seems to be healable after all. For a while it seemed like insurmountable psychic self-mutilation.. I suppose that's what I needed to feel in order to lose interest in the easy dissociatives. Kinda still hate that it had to come to that.. would have preferred a road with less manly tears.. but if it's stupid and it works it's not stupid. I mean it still was mindbogglingly stupid stuff what it allowed me to do.. but it turns out there's life after emotional suicide.
 
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