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I enjoyed having a conversation with a woman today at the store. We were in the air freshener section and she was trying to find the best thing to get rid of pet odors and I pointed out the best thing and I said yeah I use that all the time. It works great! Then she started talking about her pets and I said I've never had pets.😃

This is the first holiday season in a veeeeeerrrrryyy looooong time that I have - gasp - almost (I said almost) looked forward to Christmas. I guess Covid has given me a 'legit' reason to openly be a coward about get togethers. 'Cause Covid' - there, I can isolate (apparently my lifestyle is referred to as 'isolation') and not feel guilty - or, more importantly, guilted. BTW, I've really missed you guys.

Yeah nothing makes you more bitter than knowing you have to pretend to be happy. Oh people will offer to talk about things but only because they know I will say I'm fine and don't need to talk. One of these days I'm going to talk for 12 hours straight about what I'm going through. That will teach them for playing the game with me.

I think for someone that mostly talks to myself and spends all day in my own world I'm doing pretty good.😃

So-so. I am currently getting ready to run some of the errands I have avoided for the last few days. Hopefully, that will lift my spirits. Have as good of a day as is possible. 🙂

Goodnight df friends hope your night is good and get get good rest and wake up in a good mood 🤗😊

I love to keep people guessing! I've never been normal. At one time, I thought I wanted to be...but more recently, I realized that I definitely do NOT want to be.

I already got the Richard Simmons chia pet. It even has growing chest hair on the plant. The reactions from people when they saw me carrying it in the store were funny enough but yeah he'll get it in few hours. It takes nerve but I've been an idiot my whole life so this is just a normal day for me.

Could just get a Ken doll and glue a Brillo pad to the top of its head. 🙂

@iWantRope how is your job going? Im only a month in and its like high school but worse. Would you be happy to win the lotto and never work again?

The only thing that can do this is if him & I win the top prize in our respective national lotteries.

Well, I’m going to start a new me that doesn’t care about what others think or say about me. I am going to recreate myself into things that I can do along and enjoy myself as I do them. Planting flowers and beautifying mothers nature around me. Creating flower pots and painting them to make a beautiful statement around my place

Yeah, I think that running a home is a full time job and should be respected as such 🤔 Also, being a cat slave is underestimated 😂😻😆

Happy thanksgiving 🦃🍁

I'm feeling tired. I think it's hormonal. But I feel ok: Am allowing myself to take it easy and working hard at not beating myself up, as usual. Im slightly irked at a comment narc sis made the other day. She said that in our old age 'we could look after each other' and my reaction (in my head) was 'Please god, no, I don't wanna be married to any more needy narcissists 👰 Leave me, the hell alone'. My response was: 'Ah, but you see, I'll most likely be living in Spain by then'. 😬 I think that about nipped it in the bud 👍

Considerably better. I finished two large and stressful assignments for school. Two more to finish this week and final exams the week after. Then I get a break. 🌮 and 🍻 Thanksgiving is all messed up in my family. Gonna be me, mommAtra and my bestie while BrAtra and his wife begged off cause Covid. My cousin will see my mom another day but won't come near the rest of us. "The Holidays" are the label for a time when I put my ordinary, everyday anxiety and stress into the closet and unpack my "fancy" anxiety. This year is different tho, cause Thankscoviding 🦃😷 and Sant-izer Claus ☣🎅

Thanks for starting this convo. I guess middle age is the proper stage in development for me to re-write of the narrative of my life. I was out of the workforce because of depression for 12 of the last 15 years. Hated my "career" but was good at my job, made decent money (nope, together that's a recipe for happiness). Long term relationships with partners fizzled out. My old narrative was: I'm defective from birth due to mental illness. What meager potential or gifts I possessed, I squandered due to a lack of individualist ethic (not competitive) and held no big dreams to aim for. Never married or had children because I'm barely tolerable when my mood is baseline. And, I never got the big break because I'm unlucky (the Midas Touch is for other people, I was endowed with the Fecal Touch). Happiness is something other people enjoy (same for real love) and that's because I believed if I ever allowed anyone to know the real me, they'd abandon me. So I always checked-out before that could happen. That old narrative is bullsh1t. A comforting, but pleasantly painful myth I adopted, casting myself as anti-hero/victim/prisoner to make sense of life's boring opera. This narrative served a purpose in part because treatment-resistant depression is a cruel disease that contaminates my environment, perception, cognition, relationships and eventually my soul. But, I was also miserable and that's because I live in a culture that manufactures needs, devalues empathy, rewards takers and punishes givers, and scolds me for not playing a game I hate (and makes me hate myself). I always figured it was just me, being deficient. I'm 50. I've had enough of trying to live up to a storyline about who I "ought to be", which I copied from my mass media idols, and basically wrote when I was 16 years old. I got mad. I went to therapy. I hired a guidance counselor. I spent years trying, crying, writing posts on DF. Eventually, I borrowed 20 large to go to grad school. My life ain't great but it is meaningful to me, has direction and feels right. No epiphany, no catharsis. I've just began writing a different narrative, one that actually fits who my weird-ass self actually is rather than some guy I'm not, never was and don't wanna be.

Sunday night. My least favorite time of the week because I know Monday morning is just around the corner. Soon I will get to face the main source of my anxiety and stress full blast. Thinking about it wrecks my Sunday evenings and night. I try to watch something "funny" on DVD to take my mind off of it but I've seen everything so many times now. My go-to has always been Mystery Science Theater 3000 but I've seen all the episodes several times, including the most recent two seasons. I used to get absolutely bombed on Sunday evenings just to blot out all of the thoughts. Fortunately, I quit drinking. Nothing worse than a Monday morning at work, except a Monday morning at work while suffering with a hangover.

I envy those who have passed away, they no longer feel painful distress

I am enjoying my day off 🙂

I think I'm feeling pretty good lately. Weather has always had a huge impact on my mood, and with winter, snow and the holidays approaching.. I'm looking forward to it. I know it's the opposite of the way most people with depression feel, but I love winter. It's just who I am. Also I had a not so great summer/early fall, so this is like a refreshing renewal for me. Or something like that 🙂 Other than all that my social anxiety is still pretty terrible, but I can usually trudge through it when I really need to. Overall I'd say I'm doing ok. 👍

Yeah in my mind I accomplished tons of things the first three days of the week. The average person probably could have done it all in a couple of hours. I'm 41 and a big day is making it to the store and back. Wow I have enough left of my mind to make it back to the house!

Good morning everyone! It is sunny and beautiful in my town! 29F.

My bullsh1t narrative, continued: Turning 40. (Trigger warning: mentions sexual assault) Sex. Gonna say a few words about how phuqed up it was for me to understand what, as a male-gendered American lad, I was meant to do about sex. I entered adolescence in the mid 1980s. John Hughes movies, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink. Rob Reimer films like The Sure Thing. I didn't really enjoy the films but this is what white boys my age were watching. And we were unaware, we gave no thought to how we were inhaling movie messages like, "if you want to brag about getting laid? You need to basically force yourself on teen girls, otherwise you're an outcast or potentially gay." How messed up was that? It was the 80s. 🤷‍♂️ As a teenager I had many female friends but hardly any girlfriends. They liked talking to me because I'm a listener and I liked being seen with them because my male ego. Pretty much every female teen friend of mine, at one time or another, confided in me that their first time sleeping with some guy was a sexual assault. Their painful stories conflicted with the messages conveyed by the teen films. And the guys they were telling me who hurt them weren't strangers like the movie teens, they were people I knew, most were my friends. I couldn't reconcile this dissonance. I didn't see myself in the movie characters but what about my friends? Sex became terrifying to me because if Hollywood taught me anything? It's that men like myself can't control sexual urges. And from my female friends I concluded that eventually, one day I'm gonna hurt a person for life. So I remained a virgin until my 20s, I just lied about that fact to other men because I was ashamed of it. Fast-forward 20 years, just three girlfriends over the decades. I found it really difficult to initiate sex and each woman I dated was convinced there must be something wrong with them. I wouldn't talk about it which unsurprisingly led to the end of each relationship. In therapy sessions, my therapist and I never attempted to grap what impact my adolescent environmental may have had on my sexuality and development. Or how to separate this from my individual preferences, choices and my values. So to make some sense of it, I created a bullsh1t story which explained I was always weird and deficient while everyone else must be totally normal. Whatever the phuq that means. The narrative I constructed really bothered me so I did something about it. In my early 40s, I began having sex with friends, online dates, whomever. My criteria was simple: if they wanted me, I wanted them. I hoped somehow making up for lost time in my teen years would make me whole--yeah, no. I wasn't enjoying myself at all but I did learn how to please partners so...that was something positive? No again. In my mid-40s, I met a male-to-female trans woman, mutual attraction and admiration so we began dating. Every one of my friends were accepting of this though many suggested that it was evidence I was "a least a little bisexual". I didn't agree and I told them so. When I told my mother, she was visibly surprised and just asked me outright if I was gay. I felt pressured to explain how my girlfriend had top and bottom surgery. Mom didn't know what that meant and felt like she didn't know her son anymore. To relieve that distress, mom needed to discuss my girlfriend's genitals in order to understand the difference between trans women and transvestites and whether or not this meant I was gay. Phuqed up. At 50, I identify as "questioning". I'm answering the question "Past 50, is it worth it" with an emphatic "YES". After 50 is when I get to explore my sexuality and my romantic interests in broader terms, with bigger questions than I ever dared. In my opinion, surprises await everyone regardless of age. They are part of what makes a life worth living. Oh I still have hella issues with sexual contact--so I get to explore those, too! Hooray for more learning, more healing! All chapters waiting to be written, a new narrative to replaced my bullsh1t one.

Feeling a bit stuck and frustrated. It feels so much harder to do anything these days....I have zero money or support and we have covid thrown in for good measure. I remember the days when I could do anything I wanted 😕 I had the time and the money. I get by, but that's about it 🤷‍♀️ I can't complain, I have enough to eat and a roof over my head..but life can be overwhelming if you don't feel you have any control over it. I can't seem to make any changes..... I'm hoping if I move next year things will start to take shape a bit more for me. I think it will be easier for me to get a job which would enable me to do the things I want to in further education. I also need more money to take care of myself and mini lion a bit better.

Yeah I've said it before with me. Most people are more comfortable when people think they're normal. I'm more comfortable when people think I'm strange. I'm back and yes I did give him the gift.🤭

Yeah and i will be striking back! 😾

I'm actually feeling better than I was this morning. Today is dad's birthday so I went shopping. I left the house trying to find a Chewbacca chia pet and I found it but I decided he would like the Richard Simmons chia pet more.🤭

I’m sorry to hear this my friend. Find something that brings you to your happy place and hold onto it. Example seeing your daughter graduate from grad school should bring you some contentment or happiness. That’s what I do I just try to find a silver lining or a rainbow 🌈 in the middle of chaos. Be blessed my friend and I’ll keep you in my prayers as I pray

..I need to relax a bit:) ..And I'll have a new job apparently, so pray for me (who like to pray) to be able to do it, to be able to keep it for a desirable time. I won't earn a lot of money but it can help me relax. (I will work at a pet store). 🙂❤️

@Devlinkyla @duck thanks, missed you guys too. @Nightjar aaahh, the perks of being a cat slave. 😸🐈 Mine only talks to me when she's telling me to do something. She talks to hubby all day long, and for apparently no reason. But me? No, it's just 'do this, do that'.... LOL. Though I have to admit that cats are not nearly as bossy as Guinea Pigs....

@Floor2017 @sober4life Funny you should talk about plants.... One of the ways my kids know I'm doing better is by how green the living room is. The better I'm doing, the more plants I have, inside and outside. Of course, when it comes to outside plants, I still have to have the 'can't kill it if you tried' versions. If it survives my yard, it's pretty hardy, LOL. BTW, I learned a tidbit this week.... Did you know that setting a plant near a computer monitor or computer tower can make it sick? I brought one home from the office that was sick - I have two identical ones, and the other one was fine. But the sick one was right behind my double monitor setup. 'The More You Know....'

Yeah I said I can't go to get togethers because of the virus so now I'll sit here and worry about them showing up the whole time. Around here people look at it differently. I'm one of the strange ones that everyone rolls their eyes at if I wear a mask or take any of this seriously. I might as well say I just saw bigfoot around here.

I ate hay with the cows for Thanksgiving which was strange because they didn't have hay. They made turkey and were eating turkey. I brought the hay with me.😊

.. And when I say "suffering I mean more" ennui, "weltschmerz" and good old existential emptiness a la Shopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, than pain and agony, hell and brimstone. But thanks @Mikayla. You are spot on. I should do stuff I enjoy. Recently I have had trouble focusing on that side of things. I do stuff I enjoy (or used to) but I end up feeling empty, with a "now what?" mentality. When I am reading I realized I don't understand a word of what I have read. I don't have the capacity to concentrate anymore. On a somewhat different note and following up on: I saw my GP today. And it was talking to her I realized that of late I have been SCARED of letting in joy or anything remotely like happiness in. And the reason why? I am afraid that I will somehow jinx myself into bad luck if I begin feeling grateful. That the minute I am, it will suddenly be taken away from me. So I don't indulge. "There is nothing to fear but fear itself", as the saying goes. But there it is. There is an obvious connection to the chronic anxious/agitated state I am in most of the time. Anxiety and feelings of panic have been my lot most of my life. Add poor self esteem to the equation and you have.. Well, me. And these were some of things I was in psychotherapy for back in the day. The GP was good enough to send me for xrays(multiple tendon issues), a referral to a rheumatologist (whom I have see before for similar reasons) and also a pdoc. I have to add that a lot of my "suffering" is also cerebral in nature. I see the world inherently void of any meaning or point, but that is OK. I understand the bid for sentient beings to create meaning themselves, both in the individual and collective sense. But I struggle with the question of meaning myself. I have always been a glass half empty person and that is OK too. Optismism/pessimism are characteristics and both serve a function. But the point is, as many of you say and as @Atra pointed out: This can and SHOULD include us being optimists/pessimists, introverts/extroverts, whatever we are as we are as our true authentic selves. Oh well, the quest continues I guess.

Yes, I agree. I'm super impressed with our team here and am delighted to see what a lot of wisdom we have between us 🤝 In the spirit of teamwork and connection, I thought I would chime in. I'm at polar opposites with you @samadhiSheol in spite of sharing the same affliction 😬 However, I respect your thoughts and your right to express them. How do you stop feeling the way you feel, right? It's true and authentic to you 🙃 Changing the narrative is not an easy thing to do unless you can step back and get some distance from it. I've said it before and I won't harp on and on about it 😆 however since we're discussing it here, I think it's worth mentioning again: You need to be able to observe your mind. Writing your thoughts down and looking at them (as 2deep says) is an excellent way of doing this. Taking your attention away from the mind and putting it onto anything else which requires concentration is another way. Can't concentrate? Start small, build up 👍 Spending time in nature is another excellent way of getting out of yourself. Of course, there's drinking, but it tends to leave a nasty aftertaste lol. And finally, meditation, yoga, tai chi etc and exercise are super hot for getting that attention into your body and away from the spiral in the mind. This all sounds super simple and it is really, but it's effective. I can't keep saying the same things over and over so I'll leave it there. I will say that @Atra has a highly developed skill of observing himself and that with this comes wisdom. Above are ways to develop this but maybe he has some tips to share? Suffering is another way to develop the self observing skill and wisdom. Many of us have developed this simply through suffering. And whether you know it or not @samadhiSheol you are developing wisdom and insight every day that you suffer....Some of us suffer a lot before we are willing to look at ourselves in a kinder way - as mentioned above. But eventually, the suffering becomes too much and we just have to be kind and be labelled as hippies, goddammit 😆 Anyway, love to all.. Special respect to @Atra(my spiritual buddy) @samadhiSheol@samadhiSheol(who suffers greatly and deserves compassion) @In2deep4me(my fellow warrior) @JD4010 (my kind hearted friend) @sober4life(my DF bestie) @jkd_sd (my wise and respected friend) Thankyou all and respect to you on your journey 🤝👊👏🐾🌻🌼🌷 Nightjar

I don't have to celebrate with family until Saturday. I'll be "perfect" by then. The week long process I have to go through to be presentable is fun. Of course the madness in my mind will tell me are they really against you if they force you to lose all of that weight and get a haircut and wear your best clothes. They're helping you get healthier right?

Not bad today 👍

I feel a lot better now having finally gotten some sleep. I guess I was so sleep-deprived that I was falling into a mini-spiral.

A delicious meal that I don't have to cook, I'm thinking of a hamburger with cheese on a buttery toasted bun with everything on it and go ahead and give me a order of seasoned crinkle fries 🍔🍟

I noticed my older brother eating a spaghetti sandwich one day in the last few years. Some of the pasta was hanging from the sandwich, or I wouldn't have guessed that's what he was eating. I said, man is that a spaghetti sandwich? Yeah, it's good he said. It would have never occurred to me. Bulgakov

Why hate yourself when it's the world that favors fast, efficient multitaskers? It's not your intentional fault As to getting out of it, unfortunately even if all of us DFers combine our efforts we can't change how the world thinks. Which is why I'm back to looking for jobs that's okay with everything done at slow pace

Like I need a friend 😔 I just wanna make sense to someone. Just to be accepted. Just to be understood and to be allowed to be who I am.

I remember the days where I would unscrew registers looking for hidden cameras and bugs and the days where I thought the bugs and the birds were government cameras sent to spy on me. Paranoia can actually make you see people taking your picture or talking on walkie talkies or driving in vehichles with tinted windows falsely. Who knows in this world maybe it's true.

I'll soon be switching it on too in an attempt to empty out my brain.

I've been doing laundry this morning too and singing in a child's voice. I think that's something the world needs to hear. It needs to be a skipping everywhere singing all day day. I really don't care. The hell with it. Whatever happens happens at this point.

I have this highly successful older brother. He was always the family favorite. He's made a very nice life for himself while I continue to flail about purposelessly. He's even published several books! He didn't inherit this genetic disease that causes cancer and other fun stuff from our mother, but I did. We each had a 50/50 chance for inheriting it. I "won". He didn't inherit her depression either. I will admit I'm envious, but on the other hand, I wouldn't wish this crap on anyone. Well, maybe some politicians, but I meant other humans.

Happiness.. In my case it has always been illusory. Yes perhaps back in the day I was "happier" or more hopeful.. But then one gets older and realizes that your future is actually your past and you are disappointed with who you are and what you have done/"achieved". You realize your life has been someone else's., not yours. And then you realize you don't even know who you are and what it is you want. In fact I have never known.

...except for Wall Street, the banks, and the war industry.

Sure it makes sense. It's why most of my life I haven't voted. It's rare to have a good choice for anything. It's always choosing the less terrible choice. People will eventually get sick of not having any good choices.