This is another fairly personal one.
Anyone following anything I've posted on here in the past will likely have worked out by now that I'm in Australia - in a fairly left-wing part of it, no less.
You'll also probably have noticed that I'm fairly... Fucked up. Depression, anxiety, probably ADHD and OCD, plus abuse and a fairly horrific childhood and adolescence - these things have fucked me up no end, and, contrary to the "happy shit" you see in, say, Pedowood - I can assure you from experience that a lot of people like me DON'T fucking recover, and we never come back from the pits. Some do. Most don't. Which do you really think is the likely end result, for a fuck-up like me..?
Anyway, I think you all know by now that things in Australia are completely fucked. They're getting worse. Continuously. Every fucking day, we lose another "human right", and the totalitarian screws get tighter. I've just learned, today, that thanks to a pronouncement from our state "premier", the equivalent of a US Governor, if I LEAVE this state, say, to go back to my university, I won't be allowed back in, until I'm doubly vaccinated AND test negative to coof. This means that if my grandfather's health declines, which is... Likely, I may not even be able to get back to see him in time, because of the fucking government. I cannot TELL YOU how blackpilling that is, amongst everything else.
Shit here is fucked, and I am so fucking sick of it! Never mind the fact that, without going into too many details, my family pets keep dying, and I keep fucking having to bury them. I spent the last three days burying one. I only adopted him earlier this year. Last I saw, he was healthy and fine. This happens... Every couple of years. And then family members just up and die, too, or someone I know kills themselves. It's... I don't know why the fuck I'm so unlucky, but fuck, death just seems to follow me. If you haven't experienced this yourself, let me tell you - digging a grave for your animals on a regular basis is... Pretty devastating.
Moving on: For the last... While, anger has been what has sustained me. Anger, resentment and hatred. I'm a bitter, jaded person (you would be, too, if you had seen what I have, and experienced what I have), and I fucking detest what my society has become. Clearly, at least "anonymously", I'm very active online, in trying to fight back, and to use that anger... "Constructively". I also use it to motivate exercise, which... Works, but the exercise doesn't... Make the anger go away, at all.
After a while, though, you begin to realise this is a losing battle. Australia is completely fucked. I'm genuinely not sure there is any coming back from this, and I do not think, if I lived much longer, that I would want to do so in this country. It is becoming unrecognisable, and I genuinely fear for the future, here. My own future is gone. That does not matter. But for the country itself... The best outcome is probably Argentina or Chile at their lowest points. Or what, Portugal under Salazar? I seriously don't see an outcome under which Australia stays a democracy, with basic rights for citizens, which is... Scary. And while I have fought back and fought back, pretty hard... I've now realised how futile it is.
My efforts aren't really changing anything. Shit here is sliding, and nothing I do will really change that. But it's more than that. Anger can only sustain you for so long. While my rage can be pretty... Intimidating, I think sadness and loneliness are generally stronger, longer-lasting emotions than anger, and nothing I have done takes that away. So...
I dunno if this is it. I hope the rest of you are able to better "maintain the rage", and fight back in the culture wars in your respective countries. But even if the fight for Australia isn't over; even if there is some hope left for this place - I'm not sure I'll be around to keep on fighting.
I'm pretty done. I've tried. I've fought. I've failed. I just want... Peace, now, and I really... I'm not sure I know of many other ways to find it, unfortunately.
Cheers.
Hm. You aren't on psychiatric medications, are you? 99% of the time, this stuff comes from problems you can fix without drugs.
Drugs will also hinder your ability to be self-reliant. Tying into self-reliance is confidence, which I'd wager you could use some more of.
Here, see, this could be causing all of it. I strongly advise you to talk to someone about it. Not here; not a public place. I had a poor youth, and spent half my life dealing with it. You have to learn some particular things to cope with trauma, and be willing to discard other ideas that block your path. I think it's too much of a burden for a man to bear on his own.
Finding someone trustworthy to open up to is a whole other matter. You say you're in college, right? Most colleges I've checked in on have some form of free counseling - usually operated by psych majors. A good friend is better, but most people don't seem to have friends that good. If they try to put you on drugs, just walk out.
Edit: Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention something important. I'm not sure how the system differs in your country, but I generally advise against telling the truth when a therapist asks if you have thoughts about harming yourself or others. You probably know how much of a hassle it is to be a failed suicider - you'll be made to jump through some hoops, like you're a fuckin' criminal. Best to just lie about that stuff if it's a therapist. Keep them on topic, you're there for you not for them.
I think being an absolutist and telling someone you don't even know "no psychiatric meds ever", especially when they are really struggling, is unhelpful and may make them feel guiltier if they are already taking them.
The first line treatment for depression, anxiety and OCD are SSRIs, whose effectiveness is pretty dismal but also are fairly benign drugs, besides some transient erectile dysfunction and some rare paradoxical worsening of suicidal thoughts. It's reasonable to give a new med 4 weeks to see if you notice any improvement, and if not, it's unlikely to happen.
Psych drugs can't fix or insulate a person from shitty lives, but it can certainly help the symptoms of a clinical condition that arose as a result of it.
Counseling is great in theory but realistically unobtainable in practice. The actual type of psychotherapy proven to be an alternative treatment to medications for most mental health condition is mostly an academic unicorn that doesn't exist in the real world and is unavailable to 99% of the population.
Talking to someone who does "counseling" can be therapeutic, but the term is so nonspecific that the credentials and techniques used by any potential therapist is a crapshoot.
Your advice re: not admitting to any homicidal/suicidal thoughts is probably a good one though, unless one truly wishes to be institutionalized. These magic words can activate certain mandatory procedures depending on the jurisdiction. At the very least, it will derail the session as the therapist's agenda will become focused on exploring how "real" these claims are instead of addressing whatever agenda is important to you.
Thank you for posting this, this is the best advice here. Meds rarely work from my experience, but they can help someone get over that initial hump when they do, and once they have some momentum they can take off the water wings and be fine. The suicidal effects are very rare, but after some high profile incidents with kids everyone seems to think they're common. You probably won't have any, or it will be sleepiness or something. they up the does very slowly too, to lessen the effects, but that can also mean it takes awhile to see if it will help, so it can take more than 4 weeks, sometimes it has to build up. Talk therapy is usually a waste of time, but can be an outlet. You often don't need to know what got you where you are, you just need to know how get yourself out of the ditch. Crappy genes and life situations are something a therapist can't really solve unless they're giving you the tools and encouragement to get out of that situation. I don't know what access is like for people in Aussie to therapists, let alone good ones, but it's best not to rely on them, if you can. Cognitive behavioral therapy has been proven to be pretty effective and you can do it in a self-help context with good results. Especially in today's political climate I would be wary of mentioning being suicidal to a therapist because you could be committed (and further traumatized), or if they're really Liberal and think you're rural and might have guns, and are a White male, might think you're a danger to others. Too many people overreact now so they don't get sued. But if someone is suicidal then they should speak out rather then hurt themselves. It's a hard call to make. I'm pretty sure those helplines trace calls too (and aren't necessarily staffed by good, qualified people). There's not really a good way for people with such thoughts to get the help they need without potentially running the risk of an overkill response.
I don't think I was being an absolutist, there was an initial statement about how 1% of the time a person really does need the drugs.
I've gone through the wringer on psych drugs, so I don't have a lot of faith in the system. I tended to get effects like brain fog, emotional numbness, and confusion - even with SSRIs. But the upside is usually stability; the pills will calm you down enough to take a step back and re-evaluate your life. Once that is done, the pills shouldn't be needed anymore (if everything goes to shit when the pills stop, you're probably in that 1%).
Bamboozler strikes me as a young guy, so I'm not confident he fully grasps the benefit and necessity of occasionally saying no when he's offered drugs. I'm advocating for him to build a relationship of trust first, anyway; he sounds lonely and it doesn't sound like he has a useful support group in his life. I'm wagering that he'll see more out of that than the direct effect of proper therapy.
What psychiatrists seem to neglect telling patients is that they should stop taking the pills if their condition worsens. They also don't make it clear that psychiatry is not an exact science.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I've had enough exposure to various forms of therapy to know most of it's not exactly what's advertised. But over the years, I realized that I felt better simply from talking about my problems and having anyone listen. I was basically renting a friend because my own friends didn't care to listen to my problems. Even if it sounds pathetic, I think it isn't a rare situation, so I'm taking the leap and pointing people to that because it's a lot more attainable and understandable than wishing some guy is gonna have the perfect thing to say to you that makes everything click.
And god help anyone that ends up with an "alternative" therapist, I ask every new therapist I get what their specialty is ever since I had a fucking dance therapist assigned to me.