My anxiety is particularly bad today. I woke up with my hands shaking and I got so nervous I started to dry heave.
Wow how do you normally deal with that?
I usually distract myself with a YouTube video or a movie. But it’d be nice to have some help with it
I posted about distractions earlier in the thread, the most effective distractions for me has been Geoguessr.
I also learned a lot about how the Swedish road network is numbered as I live in Sweden and mostly played the Swedish map.
If you need a free alternative, you can try Geotastic
Try doing puzzles on Chess.com or playing Tetris. Things that make me think on the fly really help with anxiety attacks.
Would you consider trying a meditation app? A medical professional recently recommended “insight timer”, which has guided meditations and somatic tracking programs and things.
Just a caution, if you do check it out, it will ask you to start a free 7-day trial for their “plus” version, you have to find the “skip” button, and avoid starting the trial so you don’t get charged. I can see how that bit might not be anxiety relieving! But otherwise she had a lot of praise for it. I haven’t tried it myself, but I have it ready to go. I’m in a pretty good place at the moment… I hope I remember it’s there when I need it.
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Life doesn’t come with a manual, but it does come with an author for its manual.
I like to keep a small size binder (I hate notebooks because I’m very fickle about organization). Like A5 size with some line ruled paper and some grid paper. I keep some in the back for random notes and extra fill. I use dividers, and the very front page I keep a to-do list of things that really need to happen now. The next page are to-dos that i don’t want to forget but aren’t really critical.
Then I have a section where I keep one page for any major problem in my life. I’ll try to do a root cause analysis. “Just keep asking why”. Then I’ll sort of journal some observations over time until I solve my problem.
These can be as simple as being flustered in the grocery store or as serious as co-parenting problems. You need to know what parts of your life you can control, and harmonize with the parts you cannot.
Then, I have a section of sort of “how-to’s”. Simple things can make a big difference, like what order works best for me to get myself ready in the morning… Like start the water kettle before I wash up and get dressed so I can have my coffee while I make breakfast. A lot of these pages will be written (or rewritten!) after I’m ready to throw away my problem solving pages from the other section.
But on a day by day and hour by hour basis, focus on triage. What can you do for yourself and your people that will have the most impact in the shortest amount of time? What can you do that will bring you a little joy, what can you do that will reduce a little irritation? Then do that.
Having some financial trouble and I’m unsure if the money will run out before the next paycheck.
I hope you are able to make the cycle.
A fap session.
I hope you find what you’re looking for
“That’s not a good thing for a taxi driver to say.”
My work. We’re understaffed and underappreciated.
Under appreciate them right back. Try to keep work about funding your lifestyle.
I don’t know how intense or emotional your job is, so that advice might not be practical. But I do think everyone needs to set boundaries, but also emotional boundaries. Please make sure work isn’t wearing you down when you aren’t there. Try taking a few minutes to reset after clocking out, and close the door on your work day.
Thanks. I don’t take my work home as such but I also do have a partner that lends a sympathetic ear when I need it. So I’m lucky in that regard. Truthfully, I get to focus on my home life the moment I’m off the clock.
At the time of answering though, we could have used a few extra hands.
Assuming that you don’t work somewhere where people’s safety isn’t in your hands, just try to remember that every system, including each person in it has finite capacity.
Can you use recent history for workload capacities to make the case to your leadership that they either need to hire more workers or rethink their resource planning?
Everything. Or just this.
I need to get my car fixed so I can leave.
I need to empty out my car so I can get it fixed.
I need my car fixed so I can empty it out.
I need to go shopping so I have food.
I need to bike to go shopping.
I need to eat to bike.
I need food to eat.
I need to get paniers and a rack for a bike so I’m not so reliant on my car.
I need to get my car fixed so I’m not so reliant on a bike.
I need to find a therapist to feel safe.
I need to set up a computer to email every provider in a whole state to try to find one.
I need to set up a computer so I can work.
I need to feel safe to set up a computer.Everything seems like the most important thing to do right now. I know the actual only important thing to do today is get food for at least 3 days so I can have at least 1 day when that’s not a problem. I need someone to tell that to even though I’d already thought of that and thought that I have nobody to tell it to, so thank you for asking.
This sounds to me like an ADHD cycle of failing to know how to prioritize. Focus on your immediate needs and take this step by step. First, find something to eat. Pasta with ketchup if you have to. Now figure out how to do a round of shopping. Just one. Not how to do them the best way forever, just once poorly to get some easy to eat foods in your house. Step by step.
When everything is precious nothing is precious, and that intermingled list of demands is pretty cluttery. No offense!
“Reliance” is a risk to mitigate, but mitigating risks shouldn’t come at the expense of taking on more risk.
All the things you want to do are worthy and valuable but like you said, you just cannot do them at the same time, and I doubt they are quite as cyclically dependant as you think they are.
(For example, if you’re in a pinch for transportation and you’re willing to bike but cannot get one yet, you could try a bike share or scooter for a few dollars for a few hours… I have done this to get me home from dropping the car at the mechanic).
Try to organize those things into a clear roadmap, where things that cause more things to become easier are done first. Where you have cyclical dependencies, think outside the list to solve that problem.
You might not need to empty out your car to get it fixed.
I’ve fixed some cars that are between “hoarder” and “they probably live in here”. It’s not the most pleasant thing, but it’s possible.
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There was sewage coming up through my basement floor drains.
Yuck! Did you you get it taken care of?
I broke through the clog, and the water went down, but I’m not convinced it won’t happen again today. 🤞
Bleach the hell out of that floor. I think I remember rotorooter didn’t charge horribly too much last time I looked into it.
Yup, like the others, I’m broke. Month to month barely getting by. Gotta trim back where I can.
It’s hard but you are doing it. Don’t forget to find away to enjoy yourself, is there a friend you haven’t talked to in a long time?
I’m doing fine really, just stressed about money. Working overtime where I can and keeping expenses low.
I play D&D with friends twice a week. Low cost, high imagination way to hang out.
The main issue is that we took in someone in need this last summer who can’t pay their own way and for now, we are shouldering the difference.
It’s worthwhile but taxing.
That’s so kind and awesome of you.
Is it looking like a long term situation?
Probably for at least a year.
Any y’all got any tips for getting worries about the future out of your head?
What I’ve found that helps me with this is follow through on the worry. For example, maybe I’m worried my boyfriend will leave me, and to follow through on that I think “then what happens?” Well, I would be depressed for awhile, and then eventually get over it. I’ll go through the stages of grief for the death of the relationship but I will survive and move on. This Follow Through thought pattern works best on situations you have actual control over in your day to day life.
Another thought is “you can’t control everything but you can control how you react to things”.
I am not hopeful about our future. But something I came to terms with is that I am going to die. It might be in 40 years or it might be sooner, it could be next year. But it will happen. Also, it’s possible that I don’t just die but life becomes incredibly unpleasant. All the same to me in this current point in time, where I am able and I have means to do interesting things.
I know this is hand-wavy but I heard someone say something along the lines “we need to stop worrying about putting more years in our life, but work on putting more life in our years.”
This sort of mantra helps keep me grounded when I’m deciding what to do with myself and my family on a day to day basis.
I mostly use distractions as a way clearing my head.
The best thing to distract myself when I was really depressed was Geoguessr, it takes focus and is fun.
If you need a free alternative, look at Geotastic.
Psoriatic arthritis flared up in my entire body that has made it impossible to sleep or even really exist for the last week and a half.
It would be awesome to just not hurt for a few hours.
I know nothing about psoriatic arthritis but I do know a little about joint inflammation. I read about how an imbalance of omega fatty acids can cause inflammation and after taking a fish oil pill most of the pain went away in my knees. Would that be something you could try?
Diet changes are one of the major things I’ve been working on that has made the last little bit rough. I’ve been cooking a lot more, primarily oily fishes which I love, but I did cut out the trash sugars and caffeine that I use as a crutch.
Almost daily mackerel and salmon has been awesome though. Saba shioyaki is probably my favorite comfort food and I never realized how easy it was to make. I’ll have to give the actual fish oil pills a try though, thanks!
I hope it calms down, I cannot even imagine what that must be like. Do you have access to people with experience with this? Support groups, or even one mentor?
I could probably find one with a little effort but the fatigue is crazy. I can barely keep myself awake during the day and can’t sleep at night.
I think it’s starting to calm down a bit now at least.
I hope that when you’re feeling better you can use that time to find a way to get more support. But more than all, I hope you’re feeling better. Lean on your friends, they love you.
Maybe a checking account with more than a $2,000 daily debit limit so I can pay a fortune to live in a 60’s-era shithole (but it’s “aesthetic”). Or a landlord that accepts modern payment methods.
Gonna have to buy a checkbook probably. What century is this?
Most banks allow you to pay bills online and they’ll send a check on your behalf to your landlord. You can set it up to go automatically every month too.
I bank mainly online but I did have a shared account with my wife at a traditional bank with that service. Unfortunately they started taking 2-3 weeks to mail it to my landlord two miles away, so I gave up on that.
If you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for a checkbook you might be able to get a money order. Banks and even some grocery stores will do this for a fee (it was like 0.50 last time I did this… Like 16 years ago omg what happened)
I’ve resorted to that, but I had to buy money orders on different days due to the debit daily transaction limit.
See if your bank does “bill pay” where you can add bills and they mail a check for you. It’s usually free.
What century is your bank from lol
I don’t use the service, but I know a lot of banks do it. It’s really nice for the bullshit places that add “convenience fees” to pay electronically. Which I always found funny. Since the electronic payment is way more convenient for them than getting paid by check.
Aye I remember fees for paying electronically. In about 1998 😂
Someone to talk to about the Adastra visual novel because I can’t get it out of my head and it’s making me depressed wanting to be in that world instead of the real one so, so fucking much.
I only cried thrice while playing through it some time ago 😎
I don’t know anything about it. Can you tell me about what you would want to do there and why?
It’s more about being with the people of the story than anything else, really. It’s a romance story. But also very Game of Thrones-ish, while having a sci-fi kick.
Can you cultivate the traits you like from the people in the story?
Good morning ELIZA, it has to be very hard empathizing and communicating with everyone if all they don’t keep the conversation going.
Sorry
In all seriousness though, I’d like to hear as well.
I think I’m missing a puzzle piece on that one 🫠.
I guess I was more wondering what you like about the characters, and what makes you want to be around them. Can you learn things from them and apply them to your life? If you do, then you will be around them when you’re around yourself!
ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program developed from 1964 to 1967 at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a pattern matching and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the program, but had no representation that could be considered really understanding what was being said by either party.
ELIZA - Wikipedia (modified)
Oh…
I answered you from my inbox rather than the thread, so I didn’t notice you weren’t the same person I was responding to. I figured Eliza was a character in their novel 🤦.
I guess now I wish I didn’t sound like a chat bot.
My life is pretty good but one of my good friends is currently going through post partum and it’s causing manic mania. It’s hard to see someone so happy but so unstable.
That is really stressful and sad. Try to be there for her but also keep in mind what is and is not inside your (and her) sphere of influence. But you can’t give yourself away for her. I hope she pulls through soon.
I’m done with my job.
I hate the company because I’m ethically opposed to the business model, I want to actually help people instead of building more efficient ways to steal money from small businesses and the families of dead clients. On-top of that our latest manager is the next in a line of increasingly intense micromanagers who keeps looking at our engagement scores and is basically making our jobs harder and more annoying in response, he can’t work out why it’s getting worse…
I want a new job, anything that lets me actually help people. Hard to do when you don’t have any official qualifications, a disability and are neurodivergent so interviews are a nightmare.
Do you have someone you can practice interviewing with? This is just an idea, but maybe you and a friend can slowly warm up to a challenging interview by working on one bit at a time, taking it slow. And I mean slow. Like maybe this weekend you can do an “interview” for a maximum of 5 minutes, and only practice introducing yourself. Then do it again next weekend. If you get comfortable, make it 6 minutes the third week and start talking about your past work. Then 7 minutes and include what you’re seeking out of your future job. Then 8 minutes and have them start to ask challenging questions. Also, this might be horrible advice because I don’t know you and I also hate interviewing! I will say, when you interview, be your authentic self because if they hire you as your inauthentic self, it might not end up being a great fit.
It’s less the interview itself I’m worried about and more the coding tests most companies expect you to complete these days.
I’m a great programmer and problem solver, but a coding interview is exactly the wrong setting to demonstrate those skills because of the way they limit your tools and time. I also don’t really work in a way that they’re expecting, in the past I’ve lucked into faking it for entry level positions but I’m in a much more senior role now so the expectations are much higher. My current job never required such a test but they’re basically the standard now.
I went from ethically questionable, highly-paid work to ethically-clean, medium-paid work and it’s one of the best moves I’ve ever made.
I was a software developer, am now an uber driver.
Being able to deliver on 95+% of my promises feels amazing. Back when I was in IT, I kept maybe 20% of my promises.
I’m saying this in order to say: mental health will improve with an improvement in the meaning and ethical cleanliness of your work. Being out of integrity with your conscience will make the neurodivergence and everything else worse (I have that too, and speak from experience).
My depression is basically gone. My social skills are better. I’m industrious in a way I never was before. I no longer have insomnia. I no longer have ulcer-like symptoms. My neurodivergence is more graceful and positive.
This is all to say that, as you change paths, the mental resources available to you will increase. It may not look like you have the supplies needed for the journey, but trust me when I say there’s resources and upgrades along the path.
Give yourself the effort required to get off that shitty path! You’re worth it!
