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  1. - Top - End - #781
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    Astrella's Avatar

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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    *sympathies for Kitty*

    Hmm, I remember you saying something along this maybe not being possible, but any chances you could reach your dad to find out about it without your mum finding out?

    -----

    So, how do I get it through to people that they should try and talk a bit calmer? Cause I'm only home for about an hour and I'm already burnt out. I've tried to explain it several times that I don't deal with with loudness but the default conversation tone stays stuck at shouting. :/
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  2. - Top - End - #782
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheWombatOfDoom View Post
    I can certainly understand that. Are you aware of how often they check their email?
    Pretty regularly, last I knew.

    Quote Originally Posted by Astrella View Post
    So, how do I get it through to people that they should try and talk a bit calmer? Cause I'm only home for about an hour and I'm already burnt out. I've tried to explain it several times that I don't deal with with loudness but the default conversation tone stays stuck at shouting. :/
    I find this is one of those things that is improved by physical displays of distress. Sit down and act like you're trying to shield yourself from the noise. When someone notices, tell them that you can't handle the volume very well and they'll have to tone it down if they want you to participate.
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  3. - Top - End - #783
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    Planetar

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    Quote Originally Posted by WarKitty View Post
    Somehow I just can't see that working. I'm not sure I actually want to talk about it right now, and if they haven't gotten the email mom's going to demand that I tell her right then over the phone. I'm really trying my hardest to both take care of myself and not do anything that she'd consider "disrespectful" or "irresponsible" so she doesn't get mad...but I feel like it's turning out to be an impossible task.
    How about an actual physical letter, with an envelope and a stamp and everything?

    And yes, I don't think your mother's going to be pleased with you whatever you do. So you're going to need to alter that dynamic, and one way to do it is to project calm self-confidence and self-assurance. That you are who you are, you love yourself, and you don't need her approval.

    If you can't say that and mean it, then lie like anything and pretend it's true until it actually is :).

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  4. - Top - End - #784
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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    So apparently they did get it and just decided not to respond. I'm hoping this works out ok, but...I dunno, my mom's almost worse when she's trying to be helpful.

    I honestly don't know if I want this relationship to work out. Sounds bad to say, I know. But...I feel like just "ok it's working now, let's move on" isn't really what I want. I want the past fixed, really; I want my memories of having my parents being there for me when I needed them. Or at the very least I want someone to actually acknowledge that the level of crap was not normal, not keep justifying everything.
    Last edited by WarKitty; 2012-12-23 at 04:47 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #785
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    I’m just feeling depressed. Was fine till about an hour and a half ago (12:30 AM local time) which may mean it’s time to sleep, but whatever.

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    I’m in my last year of high school, and the second semester starts next week. Because my school has a policy of if you are a senior with an 85 or above in a class you don’t have to take an exam, I’m pretty much done with all the hard school work for the year. I just need to make sure I don’t slip.

    And yet, for some reason, this thought is not comforting. I feel like I’m under a huge amount of pressure to get all of my stupid college **** in so that I can get on with my life, but why? So I can get a job and be successful? Do something meaningful? Bah.

    After the end of the summer I’m going to rarely, if ever, see any of the people I’ve grown to cherish after these last four year. Screw it, can't I just go live in the basement or something? Anyway, back to college. My parents are almost, as ridiculous as it sounds, too supportive. They're both reasonably successful and want me to do the same, they just don't care how.

    Give me some direction, dammit! ... I feel useless and unaccomplished and all around inferior. I think it's these stupid college applications. As my dad said, it's a bunch of **** shining, and while I have plenty of **** to shine, it is ****.
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  6. - Top - End - #786
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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    Quote Originally Posted by AtlanteanTroll View Post
    I’m just feeling depressed. Was fine till about an hour and a half ago (12:30 AM local time) which may mean it’s time to sleep, but whatever.

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    I’m in my last year of high school, and the second semester starts next week. Because my school has a policy of if you are a senior with an 85 or above in a class you don’t have to take an exam, I’m pretty much done with all the hard school work for the year. I just need to make sure I don’t slip.

    And yet, for some reason, this thought is not comforting. I feel like I’m under a huge amount of pressure to get all of my stupid college **** in so that I can get on with my life, but why? So I can get a job and be successful? Do something meaningful? Bah.

    After the end of the summer I’m going to rarely, if ever, see any of the people I’ve grown to cherish after these last four year. Screw it, can't I just go live in the basement or something? Anyway, back to college. My parents are almost, as ridiculous as it sounds, too supportive. They're both reasonably successful and want me to do the same, they just don't care how.

    Give me some direction, dammit! ... I feel useless and unaccomplished and all around inferior. I think it's these stupid college applications. As my dad said, it's a bunch of **** shining, and while I have plenty of **** to shine, it is ****.
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    It's easy to be apprehensive and/or sad about going to college. You're going to a place that you've most likely only seen a few times at best, with almost no support base. It can be pretty scary. However, it's not all bad.

    One thing you should know about college is the 20-80 rule: in high school, they taught you around 80% of everything you needed to know in the classroom, while you had to learn 20% outside the classroom. In college, it's the reverse. It's stuff like this that can make college seem like the fecal matter of a male bovine. Still, if you can get that, college will be a lot easier for you.

    And yes, while the chances of you seeing the people you care about from high school decrease as time goes on, Skype and Facebook can do a lot for maintaining contact with those people. Plus, depending on how you are with meeting new people, you'll find at least some people that you'll grow to cherish in college.

    Lastly, college applications can seem like a load of polished turds, because they sort of are. However, if it gets you into a college you want to go to, you will definitely think that it was worth it after you get the acceptance letter, right after squeeing like a 13 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert (that wasn't just me, right? Guys? Back me up here?).

    tl;dr: Chill. Everything will be fine, even if it doesn't seem that way now. Now, get some sleep, and after that, cherish the last moments of high school with your friends.
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  7. - Top - End - #787
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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    Anyone who pays any attention to me on Facebook (I don't recommend it) will have noticed that I've been a big fat whinger all day today. I've just been in a miserably bad mood.
    It's due to a bunch of things, but I think I just worked out that it mostly boils down to this: I really want and/or need to get out doing things and going places, specifically with the purpose of meeting new people and building friendships with those I have just met... but I can't afford to, and won't be able to afford to for a month or more. And I'm not sure what I can do about that.

    Of course, the bonus is this horrible abcess or whatever it is crushed up against my wisdom tooth. It hurts like hell, gets in the way, is really gross and has me worried about my oral health. I've been taking Panadol to try to help with the pain, even though I don't think it'll help much for that sort, and have been swirling salty water around a dozen odd times a day to try to break the infection upon Dr Mum's suggestion. And New Years is tomorrow and me witha gross painful mouth -.-
    Dear people with chronic pain problems: dear God, no wonder you need pain management services, including the psychological side of it. It sucks balls in itself and makes everything else seem even more miserable. *hugs*

    edit: I took pictures of my mouth. It looks gloriously disgusting :I
    Last edited by Serpentine; 2012-12-30 at 01:51 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #788
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    RogueGuy

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    Is it a good thing or bad thing that people whom I know as acquaintances think I'm awesome, and people whom I call best friends think I'm a terrible terrible person?
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  9. - Top - End - #789
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eloel View Post
    Is it a good thing or bad thing that people whom I know as acquaintances think I'm awesome, and people whom I call best friends think I'm a terrible terrible person?
    I wouldn't mind if I were you.
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  10. - Top - End - #790
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eloel View Post
    Is it a good thing or bad thing that people whom I know as acquaintances think I'm awesome, and people whom I call best friends think I'm a terrible terrible person?
    Well, you could take it as a compliment of your powers of disguising your villainy
    Last edited by Mx.Silver; 2012-12-31 at 10:02 PM.

  11. - Top - End - #791
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    My life has been going pretty steadily downhill for the last year and a half, and I feel powerless to stop it.

    Until recently, I was a senior pursuing my Bachelor's in Elementary Education in order to become a teacher, although I have just recently dropped out for an indeterminate period of time. A year and a half ago, I was a full-time student with straight As and three jobs with which I paid my own tuition, and somehow staying afloat and keeping my head in the game; now, I am an unemployed*, part-time student who had to take incompletes and is still struggling with teacher intervention to pass my classes (*OK, I work one night a week at one job), and even this feels overwhelming to me. I've punished myself for this slow, yet persistent failure by isolating myself from my friends to the point where, outside of the tables I run (which I feel burnt out of running), I seldom see or hear from anyone outside my family; in fact, the only reason I haven't stopped running my games is because I feel like I would be killing off my last few reliable connections with the outside world. I've chased away the only woman who has ever loved me and wanted to be with me because I felt like my deepening depression and disconnect would eventually poison the relationship and ruin her (and continue to chase her away--even though she keeps coming back, months later), and I've quietly sabotaged any other relationship prospects I may have had by either ruining my already abysmal self-esteem to the point where I retreat into my own little world and stay there, or by actively turning people away with the honest opinion of "you don't want to be saddled with half the baggage I bring with me," even if the baggage is all inside my head. I've recently discovered that depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders are so pervasive in my family that they can be traced to literally every surviving member of my family extending out as far back as my grandfather and as far out as all my aunts, uncles, and first cousins--a revelation that has caused me to finally abandon my dream of one day having children, because I don't want to risk saddling them with the same problems I am going through now. Nowadays, getting out of bed in the morning and facing the world long enough to eat three square meals before retreating under the covers seems like a daunting, and sometimes even unbearable task. Though my memory seems to be much hazier of late, this is the worst I can remember feeling in eight or so years, and perhaps it's just by my own dim perceptions, but I can only see things getting worse still from here.

    The worst part of it all is the numbness that I feel. I'm crying as I write this, but it's the first time in months that I can remember crying, or really feeling anything resembling an emotion, whether I am feeling weighted down or not. I feel, for lack of a better word, disconnected. I've gotten better at hiding it over the years, but I've basically repressed any and all emotions I have, to the point where I have difficulty really feeling anything, even when I try my hardest. Sometimes, once every few months, something or other provokes some emotional outburst (usually this just involves crying uncontrollably into a pillow or in the shower for a long time), but aside from that, I feel I am like a robot, and my overly formal nature does nothing to shake this perception...

    ...Oh god... I have become Marvin the Paranoid Android.

    ...Anyway.

    Before anyone asks, because everyone does, I am not suicidal, nor will I be. I was seeing a counselor (within the university support network that I attended), but since I am no longer a university student, I can no longer take advantage of their services, so I am... Between counselors, I suppose. I have spent much of my last semester taking psychology tests of various natures being administered to me, and am expecting the results this week... Though I don't think I'm going to like what they're going to tell me. I guess I am just feeling like I'm falling through rock bottom at terminal velocity, and I don't know what to do to stop myself. Maybe there isn't. Maybe this is the rest of my life (it has certainly been a large part of it up to this point--though not ever quite like this), and I just need to learn to cope with it. I just feel like I'm in a rare moment of vulnerability, here, and I wanted to remind myself that I am real and I am human before I snapped out of this.
    Last edited by Lonely Tylenol; 2013-01-01 at 09:11 AM.
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  12. - Top - End - #792
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    RedWizardGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pyromancer999 View Post
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    So....Finally seems like I'm in need of a change in my major. I'm stuck between two majors:

    • In Major A, I'm pretty confident that I can do well in it and get my bachelor's degree in four years. However, it would not offer up much in the job department.
    • In Major B, I could probably get a good job with it, perhaps even have a decent chance of a government job and sounds interesting, but I'm not as sure I can do well in it, plus I would have to face an extra semester or two, most likely without most of my current friend group, as they all plan to leave with just a bachelor's degree.


    In addition, the stress of having to make this decision is leaving me with a major headache, in addition to my chest sometimes feeling tight and some other stuff, leaving me feeling sort of just like **** in general. Does anyone have advice on this, whether which major sounds better in the long run, or on how to handle the stress this is causing?
    So, it seems my major's still undecided, as my parents keep switching up what they think I should do, which does matter as they're the ones financing my education. They keep switching between multiple majors that they think I should do, and hound me, not every moment of the day, but at least a few hours a day about not being able to decide on a major, several of which they don't think I have the brains to succeed in(including Major B above), a partial concern of theirs being that I have a hard time remembering or focusing on things I don't find interesting, if that matters. All of this just makes me confused about what the heck I should do, and as a bonus, I haven't slept soundly for a little over a month, let alone gone more than maybe a couple hours a day without feeling panicked. It just really stresses me out and I'm at the end of my rope. I'm really stressed and so confused on what to do about my major I feel like just giving it a dice roll because at least then my major is somehow determined.

    Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? I'm really just lost right now, and have no idea what to do.
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  13. - Top - End - #793
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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    @Lonely Tylenol: As someone who has been/is in a similar situation I express my sympathies. I would also try and offer some sort of suggestion (hopefully without breaking rule 2): try not to push yourself away from people. I know it's a lot harder done than it is said, but this sort of headspace is not territory you want to be facing alone. Yes, it's difficult to overcome everything you'll be telling yourself about burdening other people with your baggage but it's important that you try. Without some sort of support network (which is basically what any close interpersonal relationship is like, if you think about it) that disconnect is going to get worse, and it may well not be the only thing.

  14. - Top - End - #794
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    So the mental health mess is back with a vengeance. The trouble? How much of this mess was caused by mental health people in the first place. After the last mental health person I saw, I literally could not stop crying for hours and couldn't function enough to even eat properly for a week. I'm absolutely terrified of going anywhere near a hospital. I'm not going to go into too many details, but - this is getting to be a bad situation, and it's been made bad by the people that were supposed to keep it from going into a tailspin like this. I know I need help, but I just can't go back and set myself up for the sort of abuse that the profession dishes out regularly.

    I know they're not all bad, but my observation is that the bad ones are far more prevalent than people think, and that the profession and society at large tend to shelter the truly abusive ones. Basically, my experience was that anything a mental health professional did was ok, because after all I was the sick one. Having a mental illness essentially negated anything bad I said about him - it was just another symptom, and when I'd recovered I'd see that it was all fine. I don't think most of it was outright malicious, though I think I encountered one of that sort. But most of it was incompetent, based on conforming to relatively arbitrary standards of other people's personal comfort, rather than a serious look at what functioning was and where I personally could have a decent life.
    Last edited by WarKitty; 2013-01-04 at 11:26 PM.
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  15. - Top - End - #795
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pyromancer999 View Post
    So, it seems my major's still undecided, as my parents keep switching up what they think I should do, which does matter as they're the ones financing my education. They keep switching between multiple majors that they think I should do, and hound me, not every moment of the day, but at least a few hours a day about not being able to decide on a major, several of which they don't think I have the brains to succeed in(including Major B above), a partial concern of theirs being that I have a hard time remembering or focusing on things I don't find interesting, if that matters. All of this just makes me confused about what the heck I should do, and as a bonus, I haven't slept soundly for a little over a month, let alone gone more than maybe a couple hours a day without feeling panicked. It just really stresses me out and I'm at the end of my rope. I'm really stressed and so confused on what to do about my major I feel like just giving it a dice roll because at least then my major is somehow determined.

    Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? I'm really just lost right now, and have no idea what to do.
    Believe in the random internet guy, and take Major B. If it's something you're interested in, you're likely to do at least okay, and even if your current friends are mostly leaving, you'll make new ones (maybe from people studying the same thing, or from newer students).

    Since the employment in the field is more likely, you'll have no problem justifying it to your parents, and they'll probably be happy that you've come to a decision (even if only retroactively). You'll also feel better having decided on a course of action.
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  16. - Top - End - #796
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    Quote Originally Posted by WarKitty View Post
    I find this is one of those things that is improved by physical displays of distress. Sit down and act like you're trying to shield yourself from the noise. When someone notices, tell them that you can't handle the volume very well and they'll have to tone it down if they want you to participate.
    Wow. What kind of world do you live in that this works, instead of getting people to start blowing air-horns in your face while hurling insults? I'm jealous.
    Last edited by Ialdabaoth; 2013-01-05 at 10:39 AM.

  17. - Top - End - #797
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    Quote Originally Posted by WarKitty View Post
    So the mental health mess is back with a vengeance. The trouble? How much of this mess was caused by mental health people in the first place. After the last mental health person I saw, I literally could not stop crying for hours and couldn't function enough to even eat properly for a week. I'm absolutely terrified of going anywhere near a hospital. I'm not going to go into too many details, but - this is getting to be a bad situation, and it's been made bad by the people that were supposed to keep it from going into a tailspin like this. I know I need help, but I just can't go back and set myself up for the sort of abuse that the profession dishes out regularly.

    I know they're not all bad, but my observation is that the bad ones are far more prevalent than people think, and that the profession and society at large tend to shelter the truly abusive ones. Basically, my experience was that anything a mental health professional did was ok, because after all I was the sick one. Having a mental illness essentially negated anything bad I said about him - it was just another symptom, and when I'd recovered I'd see that it was all fine. I don't think most of it was outright malicious, though I think I encountered one of that sort. But most of it was incompetent, based on conforming to relatively arbitrary standards of other people's personal comfort, rather than a serious look at what functioning was and where I personally could have a decent life.
    I've also experienced all of this first-hand. For the truly sadistic, mental health professional is an awesome gig if you can land it.

  18. - Top - End - #798
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greenish View Post
    Believe in the random internet guy, and take Major B. If it's something you're interested in, you're likely to do at least okay, and even if your current friends are mostly leaving, you'll make new ones (maybe from people studying the same thing, or from newer students).

    Since the employment in the field is more likely, you'll have no problem justifying it to your parents, and they'll probably be happy that you've come to a decision (even if only retroactively). You'll also feel better having decided on a course of action.
    True. Also, looked at prospective plans for the courses, and discovered I might be able to do Major B in four years as well, and only have to do one extra semester maximum. So, guess I'll choose Major B, although I won't be able to get started until fall on it.
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  19. - Top - End - #799
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    I have found in my personal choices between Medical help for my issues, and religious, that generally priests are better people.

    I find Medical Professionals to be cold and heartless often times (Not all the time, but generally). To them its not going out to do what is best for the people, but what is best for them. Line their pockets, rack up some Accolades, make everyone think they wear a halo, retire well off. I can count the number of honestly good doctors I have met in my life on one hand, and I have spent literally years in hospitals. With this goes an old saying, Psychologists want to find something broken in everyone because they are broken, and don't want to be alone. Some of the Psychologists I have met, not in professional encounters, are on the verge of being monsters.

    Priests on the other hand I believe are more likely to want to help you. For one they have a longer track record of healing the sickness of the soul, and for two they won't just dope you up. While a strong belief may not just magic wand our troubles away, it gives a good anchor upon which to hold against the smashing waves of life. While it may not work for anyone, those out there like me who felt empty and devoid of something may find solace in practicing religion.

    There was a time when I was younger that I rejected religion entirely, problems had cropped up and I blamed God. Years later, I have come to terms with myself, and my religion has helped to level me out and give me something to keep me from sinking.

  20. - Top - End - #800
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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Jib View Post
    I find Medical Professionals to be cold and heartless often times (Not all the time, but generally). To them its not going out to do what is best for the people, but what is best for them. Line their pockets, rack up some Accolades, make everyone think they wear a halo, retire well off. I can count the number of honestly good doctors I have met in my life on one hand, and I have spent literally years in hospitals. With this goes an old saying, Psychologists want to find something broken in everyone because they are broken, and don't want to be alone. Some of the Psychologists I have met, not in professional encounters, are on the verge of being monsters.
    As a medical professional, all I can say is "ouch". =/ I did have a rather long and angry rant about some of the sweeping and rather cruel generalisations here but I doubt it'd contribute much to the thread. All I will say is that it's very difficult to treat a patient that has an extremely low opinion of you and fights you every step of the way, even when you're trying to help to the best of your abilities.

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    Default Re: Personal Woes and Advice 2

    I'm sorry, but you are in a field where generally no one is happy to see you :D

    And as for the Psychologist. My girlfriends mom dated a Psychologist for a while and passed that tidbit on to me. He didn't like the cat Mewing, so he performed behavior modification on it by sticking it in a pure white shower-stall whenever it mewed.

    As for me, I went under surgery a healthy 13 year old, came out a cripple~ it had to happen, but it made me pretty dour as to doctors. Then, I spent ten years fighting with them because they are more worried about their licenses than getting me the care I require. (Half the bone up and down the knee, and the knee are missing, and I can't seem to get pain killers from anyone, have been in the hospital because of liver damage from Tylenol twice now, and I have ulcers because of the Ibuprofen). And now they want me to go back into surgery because they installed a part that was wrong. I don't feel like being crippled up totally again for nine months.

    The psychologist I saw gave me all kinds of mood changing drugs, for a problem that I told him repeatedly was pain based. I still wish I could stab him in the face, just once, for justice.

    I am a slightly extreme case, but I am also a very forgiving person.

    Not saying your a bad person, but you may not be in good company.

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    So the mental health mess is back with a vengeance. The trouble? How much of this mess was caused by mental health people in the first place. After the last mental health person I saw, I literally could not stop crying for hours and couldn't function enough to even eat properly for a week. I'm absolutely terrified of going anywhere near a hospital. I'm not going to go into too many details, but - this is getting to be a bad situation, and it's been made bad by the people that were supposed to keep it from going into a tailspin like this. I know I need help, but I just can't go back and set myself up for the sort of abuse that the profession dishes out regularly.

    I know they're not all bad, but my observation is that the bad ones are far more prevalent than people think, and that the profession and society at large tend to shelter the truly abusive ones. Basically, my experience was that anything a mental health professional did was ok, because after all I was the sick one. Having a mental illness essentially negated anything bad I said about him - it was just another symptom, and when I'd recovered I'd see that it was all fine. I don't think most of it was outright malicious, though I think I encountered one of that sort. But most of it was incompetent, based on conforming to relatively arbitrary standards of other people's personal comfort, rather than a serious look at what functioning was and where I personally could have a decent life.
    Someday ... when I have more time ... I must post a long discussion on my own "fun" with the mental health system as a child.

    When I was very young, I was sent in for IQ testing. I scored extremely high on verbal and mathematics, but extremely poorly on spatial reasoning. My mother assumed this might have something to do with my astigmatism (eye deformation resulting in distortion). The school psychologist told her that according to HIS template I was dangerously psychotic.

    In point of fact, I was behaving extremely poorly in school. This was due to the fact that A) I did not want to be going to public school anyway -- I wanted to be homeschooled (though the word did not exist in 1976). B) I had just moved across country to a new neighborhood with new people and no other kids and I was having considerable adjustment difficulties.

    At any rate , things reached a point where the mental health people wanted to commit me to an institution. My mother talked them into a day-only institution instead, so I would have to go in the afternoons.

    My memories of that time are of various drugs, various counselors, sitting in circles with other kids in sessions. Once I ran away from the clinic and made it as far as halfway home before they caught up to me and brought me back. I assume that taught them the value of NOT sending me to sit outside for minutes as a punishment :). I simply walked away.

    At any rate, because I am a fairly intelligent child I eventually learned to "fake" normalcy. When I was given drugs, I palmed them under my tongue and then spit them out. Eventually , they were discontinued. I learned to give the answers the people wanted. I learned to play compliant, and to turn in ridiculously high test scores at school. I learned to avoid the other children and hang out in the school library.

    Eventually, I made it back into mainstream classes. I did this by a combination of keeping a low profile, avoiding obvious bad behavior, boycotting the occupational therapy classes I was supposed to take while running up high grades.

    And since then, I have done everything humanly possible to NEVER go into the clutches of the mental health system ever again.

    I cannot say that the psychologists or psychiatrists I worked with were cruel, incompetent, or callous. No, quite a few of them were decent , upstanding people with a genuine compassion for their patients. I must especially single out Dr. Mackey in Orange County for special mention in this regard.

    No, the distinct impression I got as a child -- an impression that has not changed -- was that I was dealing with well-meaning, well-intentioned people who were diagnosing from a playbook little better than the dark ages. It took millenia for modern medicine to get away from bleeding patients, and doctors only started washing their hands before surgery 200 years ago. We've had psychiatry and psychology for less than that.

    It isn't that the professionals are evil. It's that the discipline, IMO, is immature and we're still in a stage regarding mental health roughly equivalent to the 19th century. There are some things we understand, and some problems we can treat. But the human mind is a complex thing that makes global weather patterns, by contrast, seem elementary jigsaw puzzles by comparison.

    So I would recommend avoiding mental health unless one is actually a danger to oneself or others. Like a previous poster, I too have found better solace from friends and religious types of less science but more wisdom. And when I say "religious type", I don't mean the brand new pastor with a shiny degree from Bratwell Bible College. No, I mean, someone who's been there, done that, and has a good understanding of human nature.

    ETA: I suppose that in reality I'm as crazy as I ever was, but I've learned to fake sanity well enough to hold a job, stay out of jail or institutions, and walk down the street without drawing strange glances or have police cars pull up and ask me what I'm doing (that used to happen, once). So I suppose I'm as sane as the next man. :)

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2013-01-07 at 11:23 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr.Silver View Post
    @Lonely Tylenol: As someone who has been/is in a similar situation I express my sympathies. I would also try and offer some sort of suggestion (hopefully without breaking rule 2): try not to push yourself away from people. I know it's a lot harder done than it is said, but this sort of headspace is not territory you want to be facing alone. Yes, it's difficult to overcome everything you'll be telling yourself about burdening other people with your baggage but it's important that you try. Without some sort of support network (which is basically what any close interpersonal relationship is like, if you think about it) that disconnect is going to get worse, and it may well not be the only thing.
    What's left of the thinking, reasoning part of me agrees and knows the wisdom of this, but the remainder feels that I've waded (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting] territory, here.

    WarKitty, Ialdabaoth, Jib, and pendell: Speaking as somebody who is finally being forced to leave the relative safety and security of university health services, and is just now tiptoeing into the murky waters of private mental health services:

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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I was behaving extremely poorly in school. This was due to the fact that A) I did not want to be going to public school anyway -- I wanted to be homeschooled (though the word did not exist in 1976). B) I had just moved across country to a new neighborhood with new people and no other kids and I was having considerable adjustment difficulties.
    I apologize in advance to Pendell if this is is going to come off as a criticism of him and his experiences, or of issues of mental health in general but..
    If I'd ever said to my mum that I wanted to be homeschooled and not go to school when I moved from Holland to Italy, or to my dad, later when I moved in with him, they'd both have sent me to bed without dinner and brought me to school making sure I got inside the building and that would have been the end of it. I wouldn't have presumed to know better than my parents ..or been in the position to presume my opinion carried any weight on the matter, whether I agreed with them or not.
    Less considerate parents might have slapped some "sense" in me physically. My parents only went that far when I caused some considerable damage to property... (i.e. I thoroughly deserved the few spankings I got.)

    IQ testing is something that is completely ignored by the italian school system..either out of negligence or because they don't believe in it's validity. I myself find it all rather suspicious.. especially so when someone tries to correlate to its results the mental health state of whoever took the test.
    Trying to google it, I wonder why anything IQ testing related you can find in Italian is little more than a shifty moneyscheme on the internet.
    so.. genuine question.. is IQ testing a controversial subject or is it an accepted/routine practice and it's results on the whole accepted as significant?

    As for psychology and contiguous subjects.. I'm sure that professional help can be of assistance, to a degree..but really, I have a hard time taking a "diagnose" or a professional opinion for something more than an educated opinion/guess.
    I don't even know where this bias comes from.
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    In that case, I offer the following advice:

    The more you are afraid, the worse it is.

    Yes, there are terrible mental health professionals and terrible mental health treatment. But if you are in it, assuming it's going to suck right out of the gate is a recipe for self-fulfilling prophecy.

    So it's best to make self-fulfilling prophecy work FOR You rather than against you.

    I would tell myself "everything will work out."

    I would expect my mental health professionals to conduct themselves professionally. It's funny how even miserable people respond to expectations of other people, even if it's only expressed subconsciously. It's not just the words we say. It's our body language, our manner.

    It's certain that there will be aspects of your experience which will flat suck, no question. But positive expectations and positive outlook will help change neutral experiences into good ones, and even bad experiences can be mitigated when doctors see that you believe and expect the best of them, not the worst.

    So don't be afraid! It doesn't have to be miserable. Yes, we've had bad experiences. But our bad past is not necessarily a predictor of your future. You're dealing with different people and you have different problems. People have gone through the mental health system with far fewer problems than I have.

    Positive self-fulfilling prophecy can be as false as negative self-fulfilling prophecy. But a positive outlook shapes the way you see the world and the way you interact with other people, which in turn impacts the way they deal with you.

    It's a kind of magic , really. I can't change my physical body. But I can change my mental self-image into whatever I want. And to the extent I can convince my self and others of the reality of that self-image, the more real that self becomes. "Real" in the sense that both I and other people act as if it were true , and if that isn't reality, what is?


    I apologize in advance to Pendell if this is is going to come off as a criticism of him and his experiences, or of issues of mental health in general but..
    If I'd ever said to my mum that I wanted to be homeschooled and not go to school when I moved from Holland to Italy, or to my dad, later when I moved in with him, they'd both have sent me to bed without dinner and brought me to school making sure I got inside the building and that would have been the end of it. I wouldn't have presumed to know better than my parents ..or been in the position to presume my opinion carried any weight on the matter, whether I agreed with them or not.
    Not offended, Dehro.

    Question: So what if homeschooling would have been better for you than public school? Does that truth become false merely because your parents refuse to believe it?

    And if it IS a truth, what is truly best for you, is it truly the right thing to do to keep silent about your needs? Even if telling the truth results in punishment for speaking?

    The reason authority exists in human society is because not everyone knows everything, and some people have the information to make decisions others do not. Authority rests on the concept that the people in charge know what they're doing better than the people they rule.

    This is an assumption which is highly dubious when dealing with very, very intelligent children. The author of this book experienced many of the same issues that I did, and dealt with them in the same way.

    To tolerate a child's every willful act and selfishness is no favor to the child. But to teach a child to disregard their own mind and reason and submit to authority without question is the other end of the scale. That ultimately leads to the Milgram Experiment .

    The trick, then, is to raise up a child who is both respectful of authority figures but ultimately accountable to their own conscience and their own reason. Because we do not grant infallibility when we grant authority, and when authority goes wrong the errors are much harder to correct and require far more courage than when individuals do.

    Regrettably, I have no magic formula to do so. My parents did the best they could, as did yours :).


    ETA: Part of the difference, perhaps, is that at different parts of my life I experienced abuse at the hands of authority figures. When you're a child, when you know in your innermost being that what is being done to your body is WRONG but you cannot put it into words -- no one will believe you and you can do nothing but act out -- well, it leaves you with a very different view of authority. When you know that authority is not right, but is simply used as a whip to keep the victim underfoot. When you see women lying about the bruises on their faces because they were taught to submit to their husbands -- when you are taught by authority figures that this is Right and Good while your insides are screaming NO NO NO NO NO -- I don't know how it works for other people , but for myself I learned not to ignore the voice of conscience. I learned that right and wrong, truth and falsity, are independent of human authority. And when human authority is in error, it must be called to account. Even by a child. Relevant story


    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2013-01-07 at 01:42 PM.
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    Question: So what if homeschooling would have been better for you than public school? Does that truth become false merely because your parents refuse to believe it?
    honestly, no idea. Homeschooling is a rather unusual thing to happen in my part of the world, where it's always, and to my knowledge, only, done out of pure necessity
    say you have a serious illness that prevents you from leaving the hospital/bedroom/safety of your home and that forces you to be homeschooled or fall behind and having to postpone your education. That's pretty much the only reason anyone would think of homeschooling in these parts.. be it because it's just not something that is part of our system/culture, or because most families have both parents working, or because the school system here makes it much harder to be done with success
    The sheer nr of subjects in any given high school or professional course makes it almost impossible for most parents to give their children a decent preparation on each subject..which would make passing your exam to the next year or even your final exam rather difficult

    as a kid of 10 or 14, or even 16, I'm pretty sure that the only reason I would have wanted to be homeschooled would have been lazyness and thinking it would mean less work... but that's probably just me.. so I'm grateful it never occurred to me or my parents to try that route even when I failed a couple of classes. Instead I changed high school entering an entirely different course and did much better.
    truth be told, the first school I tried my hand at was mostly "inspired" by my mother.. though I never really objected to it and wasn't "unhappy".. I just was a lazy student, excelling in the few subjects I liked and utterly failing in those I disliked.
    the same thing happened in my second choice..except the classes I liked and did pretty well in outweighted the ones I sucked abysmally at.. granting me decent grades in the end.
    Last edited by dehro; 2013-01-07 at 02:02 PM.
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    Here in the states, homeschooling is mostly done through grade school and middle school. Once a student gets into high school, they need professionals to teach them chemistry, physics, algebra, etc.

    Here in America, homeschooling is a product of religious dissidents, very intelligent college-graduated parents and mediocre school systems. As a rule, *if a parent can devote the time to it*, a parent is better at assessing a grade-school child's needs and customizing a curriculum to them than a harried public school teacher can when confronted with 30 children and substandard equipment. Which is one reason homeschoolers win a disproportionate number of academic contests .

    Even in a public school system, a child as a rule does better when a parent is fully engaged with the teachers than when the parent is neglectful and expects the teachers to do the parents job. Homeschooling simply elevates this principle to the next step up -- the parent assumes primary responsibility for the child's education and brings in experts as needed only when the parent's own skillset is inadequate.

    The main criticism of homeschooling is that some contend that children who learn at home are not well socialized -- academic achievement is one thing, but getting along with one's peers is something else.

    Defenders of homeschool claim that socialization occurs via family outings, via social outlets such as football or scouts, via church, and via swimming clubs or what not. Also, given the existence of the school-to-prison pipeline, many homeschooling parents are unsure that school 'socialization' is at all a good thing. There's even a book on the subject: the twelve-year sentence .

    Maybe things are different in Italy. Here in America the dysfunction of our schools is such that many parents choose to operate outside of it and tutor their children personally. This is especially prevalent when either the child or the parent is exceptionally bright.

    In my case, the motivating factor was not laziness; in fact, I studied in the library on my own time and earned my college credit in history without needing to attend classes. No, the motivating factor was that I loved my parents and wanted to be with them and not in an institution surrounded by strangers.

    Now that we live in a world where working from home and telecommuting is the norm, I'm not convinced I was wrong. Being prepared for a 1950s-style job and atmosphere is not useful when working in a 21st century environment.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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    gotcha.. thanks for the explanation.
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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    The main criticism of homeschooling is that some contend that children who learn at home are not well socialized -- academic achievement is one thing, but getting along with one's peers is something else.
    I'm not going to delve too far into this topic, but as somebody who was home-schooled (technically unschooled, though the term did not exist at the time) from the age of ten, I would like to say that this criticism is quite valid, at least from my perspective. I spent my entire teens pretty much removed from regular interaction with people my age, and entered college hopelessly awkward and completely unable to interact with anybody around me. I spoke barely a word to anybody; I didn't even really know how. I didn't make friends with anybody for the first year of college because I creeped everyone out just by showing up; in fact, when the Virginia Tech shootings happened during the tail end of my first semester, it was remarked that I fit the profile better than the shooter, and people sort of gave me a wide(r) berth. I had to re-learn how to interact with somebody in a medium that wasn't chat logs. I'm not saying I missed middle and high school (I understand I missed very little), but it's a valid concern.
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    Noted. Thank you :).

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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