Any estimation as to when you’ll know more?
Nope. I’ll contact my physician tomorrow as well ad the psychiatrist. I’ll also try to get a new appointment with the endo.
Other than that I don’t even know what kind of doctor I need in this case. I’ll ask the physician to refer me to someome.
1 Like
Best of luck fam
Thanks mate
Everything alright dude?
2 Likes
Trending up. Hit a deep low. It’ll take some time but eventually things will be good. Don’t want to talk about it right now. I might do a writeup later and remove it. Thanks for caring! Nothing in particular happened it’s just like with tendons and stuff. Acute chronic overuse but for the mind.
1 Like
@Voxel I honestly hope everything works out for you. You’ve been so helpful and more than patient with me. Thank you for everything
1 Like
I have no expertise, but I can listen as well as anyone, as long as you don’t use big words.
Let us know if we can help.
2 Likes
Well, a cliff notes rundown is I was doing pretty well up until I came down with (suspected) corona.
As I was sick for weeks I ate way too much and that became a drain on my psyche which would’ve been surmountable on its own.
However, I never really got my creative problemsolving mental faculties back (my head is still somewhat foggy whenever I attempt anything of that sort of labour) so I came to a standstill in my work and that’s a bit of a blow to me as part of my identity is being good at my job and being smart. Now I was neither of those things.
The way I attack adversity is trying harder, and I have burned out previously. Now I was working from home, stuck, trying hard every day to overcome and it just wasn’t budging. I also struggled then to separate work from home life so I never felt as if I was either off or working. It all just meshed together. No relaxation, no recovery, no progress. Sleep started tanking hard.
I started dieting because, well, eating disorder, control, etc. which causes additional stress hormones to be released.
I came to the conclusion that I wanted something else out of life. I wanted to not do this for the remainder of it and so I decided I was going to start prepping to apply for becoming a firefighter. So I started running. And this gave me some hope and energy. I could stomach being bad at my job as I had, in my mind, an “out”.
But I’m undereating and over-exercising so it didn’t take long to hurt myself. Okay, that sucks but I’ll heal and maybe I won’t be the best runner during the tests but the rest should be fine…
And then, the day before going on vacation, I’m climbing and I strain a pulley in my finger. Which is quite a big downer as the season just got started. Obviously, it sucks, and it’ll take months to heal but again the damage is done so just… Tape it up and do what’s possible. But my entire social life is structured around this activity so it felt bad.
I’m on vacation for a week. Sleep continues to get worse. I realise when I wake up in the middle of the night my heart rate is about at a 100-120BPM and eventually my head goes to thoughts of suicide (it’s a coping mechanism that I acquired ages ago). And that’s when I realised that I wasn’t going to end up well-rested enough to tackle this fall and make up for all the work I fucked up.
The waking up bit is despite sleep aids and glycine FWIW.
And then I sought healthcare.
Also my HRT isn’t really dialed in. 6 weeks after an injection I feel atrocious. And I get joint pain everywhere. My doctor hasn’t been willing to investigate but I finally got him to refer me to a different doctor.
So, it’s just been a lot of compounding stuff that’s mostly y’know “my fault” and eventually I just broke. Couldn’t push anymore.
I’ve broken myself down three times now before the age of thirty. The first time I didn’t go on sick leave but absolutely should have. The second time I came back too quick (did go on sick leave). And this is the third time. And that is absolutely not something that I’m happy about 
I’ll give others advice, but I’m totally incapable of applying the same level of reasoning with myself. Or, that’s glossing over the fact that I absolutely know what I should and shouldn’t do but I don’t feel in control of my actions contrary to my own intuition.
It’s not that strange though. I was brought up to ignore a lot of base instincts. You don’t stay home just if you feel sick, you only stay home if you are bedridden. You don’t eat when hungry, you go by the clock. In pain? Work through it.
Add to that that early friendships and relationships were abusive made it so that I became hyper attentive to others so I never really relax around people I’m just aggregating how to navigate them
That’s not to say that I myself haven’t made plenty of mistakes on my own in becoming who I am either
Have to put in some work to undo all of this
2 Likes
I really appreciate the time taken to write all this out. I think I should take some time to read it carefully and think before I make any meaningful reply.
2 Likes
Cheers man. It’s not super coherent but good enough
-
Thank you for sharing. It was quite coherent.
-
I am not qualified to talk about mental health or hormonal issues (and have a fair share of them myself) , but I have an idea for the sleep thing. Try playing an audio book while you’re trying to go to sleep. Hormonal issues aside, it seems like you have a hard time being “alone with your thoughts”, so having a distraction could help. It works for my mom
2 Likes
I always listen to familiar Netflix shows. Absent company I cannot sleep absent some auditory stimulus. Appreciate the tip.
2 Likes
There’s only some areas of this that I can speak to with any level of familiarity, so any omissions are either deliberate or the result of a lack of coffee.
Reading this, my first thought was that I was able to draw some pretty clear parallels between a situation earlier in my life and this. Bear with me, because this is going to get autobiographical.
When little man was born (4.5 years ago), me and my better half were in a pretty good place. We’d worked our way out of some pretty bad places, financially, health wise, career wise and relationship wise. It was a long battle, but we’d come out of it pretty well and we were proud of where we were. Little man comes along 12 weeks early with a few issues and we spent the next few years having a bad time of it, in many ways. I won’t go into details, but it was several years of “no-fun”. The upshot is that several years later, things calmed down enough for me to be able to “look up” and see where we’d landed and it wasn’t a happy place. Physically, I was a 240lb mess. Mentally, we’d both picked up some low level mental health issues that were causing issues. Our relationship was strained at best, we had debt up to our eyeballs, and my career had suffered in a big way. I’d lost my “spark”, that I’d unknowingly relied on for years, as well as a few other tools that had set me apart (the freedom of a young man, etc.). “Foggy” is exactly the word I’d use to describe it.
Hopefully you can see the parallels here. My approach previously would be similar to how you describe yours “default aggressive”. So I hit everything hard and fast, and ran into a brick wall. I did it again, and ran into the same brick wall. Because I’m not the same person I was, and I’m not in the same situation I was, I could no longer use “extremes” to fix the problem, I needed to find balance and I needed to find some new tools. I think I’ve had a conversation with yourself before about Dan John’s “spiral outwards” concept and how I dislike it as a tool, dislike it as a visualisation, but absolutely cannot deny the wisdom in it, in particular for me the idea of “pray”. I choose to read this as Steven R Coveys “sharpen the saw”, ie. To find new tools. A quote I also like is Will Smith’s “every day you gotta read and you gotta run”. Now there’s several different ways to read this, and I use several, burning this situation I choose it to mean that you have to learn and you have to work hard. I used to neglect the “read” (because I was a smart, well educated guy), and focus on the “run”. Now I realise that because i can’t rely on my old tools, I need to “read” to find more tools, then “run” to put them into practice and that finding the balance between the two is key. This is what I now strive for, the balance, and it’s what helped me to recover my life to a much better place.
Do I have the life now that I “should have had” looking forward as an 18 year old? Absolutely not, no. But am I proud of pulling myself (and my family) out of some pretty shitty situations? Absolutely, yes. We’re now debt-free again, moderately healthy in body and mind, and we’ve “fixed” or are well on the way to fixing most of the other issues above.
TL:DR: Dan John’s “spiral of success” and “being present” in wherever I am have been the big difference.
Awesome decision, I’ve mentioned that previously I think, but absolute respect for this way of thinking.
Balance. You know this.
This sucks. But the fact that you can’t climb, doesn’t mean you can’t be sociable. If the goal is to be sociable, surely this is a positive? Who doesn’t want to go climb with the guy who can’t climb and can only belay?
Definitely sympathise with this, for the reasons described above. My life is a train wreck compared to where I “should be”, and I definitely broke down last year under the pressure and the self-blame, but there’s 2 things that help me here:
- Perspective. I spent a lot of time in a children’s hospital and it was horrible. I’ve replaced some of these experiences with other thoughts since, but the cliched thought remains the same: life could be so much worse. It feels cliched, it feels cheap and throw away as a comment, but when I commited to actually thinking seriously about my situation in objective terms, my dramas are always very small and therefore definitely fixable.
- For many years I’ve been trying to remove the word “fault” from my vocabulary because i don’t think it serves a positive purpose. It’s a way to place sole blame on one person and paint them as a villain, and I don’t think that’s ever helpful or accurate. It’s always more complicated than that, and there are always more than one factor at play. By removing the idea of “blame”, it allows you to see the picture slightly more clearly and see where the opportunities to correct are. It removes the idea that the “bad thing” was the result of one destructive or neglectful decision by one person, and paints a fuller, more accurate picture which in turn leads to more opportunities for change next time.
So you’re learning every time? Good.
I believe you sent me a link saying the same thing recently? It’s not uncommon. Have you ever heard of the phrase “you can’t reason someone out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into”? It also applies to yourself, emotions don’t respond to logic so don’t try.
I believe this is called discipline, and it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It could also be described as “doing what’s necassary”. It falls down when you haven’t first got a handle on what is necessary, which I believe in your case is balance.
Me too, my dude. Hence my log title, it isn’t just a lifting thing.
I hope my ramblings are of some value to you. I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, I’m just trying to present where my mind is at, and what I’ve found to be helpful for myself in the hope it will be of some small value to you.
Just to recap:
- Balance your life. To misquote Dan John: your life is one piece: every area affects every other area, they can’t be stone walled off.
- Learn new skills and thought processes. Your old tools may not work if you’re in a new situation.
- Be proactive, not reactive wherever possible. Reactive allows your emotions and motivation too much control, proactive allows your discipline to take over.
3 Likes
Sorry, my decisions science nerd brain kicking in 
This seems like basic system 1 system 2 thinking. When addressing others, you’re forced to engage your “slow” system 2 logical thinking- thus producing rational answers. When addressing yourself, you subconsciously assume you “know yourself “ and this don’t “need” to slow down or “spend mental energy” to engage system 2 so system 1 kicks in with your default habits
1 Like
That’s a much cleaner explanation than mine, I like that.
1 Like
Is healthcare doing anything for you?
Everyone hates the guy who blames all the bad things in his life on everyone else or the circumstances around him.
You’re taking the other end of that spectrum and putting all the blame on you, when you say “I’ve broken myself down” instead of “I’ve broken down”.
By putting the blame on you, you’re kicking yourself while you’re already down. There’s nothing to gain from that other than self hatred and bitterness and more distrust for your own decisions and instincts.
Analyze what steps you failed to take and what measures you maybe could have used to prevent crushing this far down but also don’t lose sight of what happened in your life that you had little to no control over. There are a lot of things that all came at once and would have absolutely fucked with anyone.
Understanding how these things happen is very valuable in order to learn from them. Please try to change the perspective of how I presume you look at those events because it just poisons your view. You’re not weak, nor a failure or a victim. You’ve merely been dealt a shit hand and need to figure out how to play that hand to win.
That’s something very common for people that deal with mental illness or just deal with a lot of shit in their life. That became very apparent to me when I was in a clinic at the start of the year. Most people there were wildly above average caring characters who were great with advice and yet failed to apply it to themselves. I myself am the best example for that. I have a theory of why that is in addition to something a therapist once said to me, but I’m digressing.
The whole abstract still reads like you’re facing the adversity with some optimism and positivity. That’s invaluable and strong work on your end.
Thanks for sharing buddy and don’t hesitate to reach out.
If you’ll allow it, I just want to add one last note on suicide (because to no one’s surprise, the topic hits home): I would be the last person to blame someone for those thoughts or even taking them into action because I sincerely get it. Just always remind yourself, you will never see what could have been. That decision is final.
2 Likes
@dagill2 @anna_5588 @Koestrizer I’ll reply tomorrow. I want to use a keyboard. Thank you all.
3 Likes
<3
Thank you for sharing all of this. I’m happy you are coming out the other end of the tunnel. I’m sorry you had to go through it all.
This doesn’t ring a bell, but at the moment my mental faculties are at the level where I’m forgetting names of people that I know. Do you have a link, I imagine that it’s a concept Dan has possibly revisited? Is it from his article or book (Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning)?
I like these two quotes. In a way. I think we’ve grown as a society to be obsessed with self-improvement that we forget to be content, and that is at the root of many of our problems. And that applies not only psychologically. If people were a forest, then this obsession leads to certain individuals developing a canopy so large that others do not get any sunlight.
As you damn well should.
Congratulations, all of these are big accomplishments.
This is a good remark. So, as I mentioned this is not my first foray across this path in life and one thing that is discussed a lot is not being on auto-pilot and being mindful and present in the now. However, I cannot relate to this at all this time (last time, sure, I auto-piloted tons) but now I always feel present but I haven’t been able to discuss this with my psychologist yet to dig into what that means since such a great deal of the therapy is centered around not ending up in that mode. This might relate to @anna_5588
Cheers. As I said then I believe, I want to retire and be proud of having done something that mattered to me. Most people seem to get it. When they realise I’m cutting my income by 25% a little less so (and I could have an income higher than I currently do so, it’s more like 50%, I just decided to go into the public sector).
The knowing part is the easy part. Applying, well… I’ve been trying to read (struggle) but one thing that stood out to me while perusing different disorders was the concept of non-suicidal self-injury disorder (NSSI) and I think in a way this behaviour is very inspired by that.
This is absolutely true. But I can climb, I just have to be very conscious to not half-crimp (open hand only). I do always run a risk of getting too excited though. I’m becoming increasingly competitive, maybe as a side-effect of my HRT, so I try to mostly climb with the older crowd.
I focus on this a lot, it is something that lets me absorb a lot of things, but in some respects I also ended sweeping some things under the rug that I shouldn’t have. I only used it as a tool to distance myself from problems, not to actually qualitatively sieve through which ones needed attention.
With item number 2, I want to reply that I’m not placing myself at fault here but acknowledging where the responsibility lies. I have more to say on this, but you’ll find that addressed to @Koestrizer
Discipline is all well and good, until it becomes stupid. Me and my siblings all do some really dumb shit as a corollary. Examples include: biking to the hospital after a bike crash (me). Driving yourself home with a dislocated knee (sister).
They are.
Honestly, I need to be more in-tune with my emotions and motivations. So, I really need the opposite here. I exercise discipline to a fault. “You zigged when you should have zagged”. Sometimes, reacting is a good thing. Emotions aren’t bad. Suppressing them repeatedly is.
1 Like
I’ll read that book when I feel able!
1 Like