Life's worst feelings

[Whirlingdervish]

well with 102 errors, I think you were closer to being started than you were to "finishing" it.
the initial burst of inspired coding, is almost always followed by the tedious process of bugfixing all the shit you glossed over in your first run through.

 

keep at it tho. Programming classes were the best ones I ever took in school.
Having a pretty workable understanding of how computer programs will/should/can work, is priceless in the business world, no matter what field you end up in.
 

[ĄƦçɧąɳɠҾԼ]

Right now, my worst feeling is the thought of losing a good friend.

I have this friend that suffers from depression, she's 15 years old.  She's constantly saying that she's worthless and ugly and wants to die, she even inflicts pain upon herself, whether it be by cutting or burning or whatever.  I keep trying to reassure her that she is worth something and that she should live.  But it seems like everyday we go in circles about it.  What makes it even harder is that she lives in another state, so I can't really be there for her in person.

The other day I found out she's been doing meth.  Now I'm left making a decision to try to get her help and risk breaking up our friendship in the process, or let her be consumed by this drug and die from it.  I can get in contact with her cousin through MySpace.  But I don't really know how to approach this, as the cousin doesn't (nor any of her family members) know about me, and I don't want to create a situation where they freak out about everything.

Either way, I may end up losing her as a friend, but if I get her help, at least I know she'll be alive.

[quadz]

the initial burst of inspired coding, is almost always followed by the tedious process of bugfixing all the shit you glossed over in your first run through.

Unfortunately, it works out this way because universities are ironically horrible at actually teaching how to write code.

[quadz]

[quote author=j

[X'tyfe]

[quote author=j

[reaper]

Finishing the program you wrote for comp sci and then when you go ahead to build/run it and it gives you 102 errors and 6 warnings.
Having IEA and Calculus exams on the same day.

[Jman-CRU]

Hm... I can only speak for myself, but maybe the one or other thing might be true for somebody else, too...
I agree that medication only "cures" symptoms, not the cause or the root of it. I've seen people suffering from depression who've literally been zombiefied, weren't able to talk, eat and so on... And when their dose was reduced, they were just like before - nothing had changed. It was only kind of putting them into a mental stasis.
And in my case, it was very hard to find a "drug" which wouldn't cause another addiction - physically or psychically. So the one I got was something so weak that it didn't matter whether or not I took it. Well, so my doc and I asked ourselves: "Why take it, then?" 
Even more: I like my ratio to be as clean and clear as possible.

I also agree that souls indeed get injured just like bodies, and also they heal in a similar way. As well as it takes some time, depending on the cause, the kind of injury, the person and so on. But it's much harder to find out what's happening and how to support their own ability to recover. Yep, and a DECENT therapy gives people the tools to aid themselves. 

I'd say, those 4 years of talking therapy helped a lot. For me, it was no distortion of the real world, but a process of learning how to see YOURSELF in a different way. Simply because my self-awareness was distorted, very much due to disproportional (violent) feedback on "normal" child's behaviour and things like that (for example, one day I got a beating for being ill). Not sure whether or not the things I suffered from back then were genetic. But it's a fact those feelings slowly started to change during therapy, and so did I.
That means: I learned how to support recovery MYSELF. Before, I didn't do that AT ALL... In fact I did to myself what others did to me before...

I wrote about some of the things I learned during those 4 years in another post, so I'll skip it here. Somehow I'm sure this post is about to get long enough anyway...

Don't get me wrong - those feelings aren't completely gone. They faded, but keep returning from time to time, e.g. if something reminds me of the past. But it's easy to smile now. It's like talking to a kid, opening up the closet to show there's no monster in it. 

What I want to point out is, if a mental illness is not caused by some physical "defect" (like brain damage or something), medication might reduce symptoms, but also keeps people from getting to the cause. Ok, after a talking therapy one might not be able to end a feeling affecting his/her life, either. But you can do a lot to enable this feeling to fade. To understand it and deal with it in a different way.
I don't know if it was Hesse who once wrote it, but I found out one thing is true: It's important to understand that you have a feeling - and this feeling doesn't have you. No matter, how powerful pain might be, this pain is not you. You can't control it, but it can't entirely control you, either. (Damnit, I wish English was my first language... lol - I just hope you know what I mean...) It hurts, but it can't harm you - it "simply" shows you there already IS an injury. It can make you harm yourself - but that's something different.
What I want to say is, there's always something that's deeper than this pain. There's always something stronger, even if it doesn't seem so. For it's the SANE part of you that feels this pain. Sometimes you can only react or be patient, but MOST of the time, you can act.

I've had moments in former times when I would have rather taken drugs to make those feelings stop. So I can understand people who are suffering and more or less "prefer" or really need medication to get through the worst times. And with this depression I'm in now, there are those moments, too. Moments when I'm fed up and tired. And there are those moments when I wish I was dead. But it's different now. It does not have ALL of me. One part of me is calm, knowing that once again, I've simply had more bullshit than I could take. And I'm now going through different phases of suffering, working up and recovery. Knowing I can't speed up anything (just like with a broken arm), but take lots of small steps to get there, each of them at the proper time. An aid to self-recovery - like reaper said.

A DECENT therapy is hard work, especially when you've suffered for 10 or more years. It's like going all the way back, going through all of it once again.
And the worst thing about it might be to find out where you were wrong... But a DECENT therapy (cleaning up unfinished things from the past AND learning how to aid oneself) pays - guess otherwise I wouldn't be here anymore.
So IF medication, I'd say, only combined with a DECENT therapy. Unfortunately it depends on the individual, which therapy is a decent one for him/her.
And unfortunately, there's a lot of bullshit out there... The first one I tried was bullshit squared. But it was good for meeting some nice people, laughing my ass off and finding out what I definitely DON'T need. So it was a good cure, too. 
It helped to find the second one. Which at some point started to feel like "Oh my fuckin' God! I won't get through this alive..." And that was the right one for me. But well.

Last, not least: Hey reaper! Sorry to hear you've been through that.
And now that I finished laughing about a quote that first of all reminds me of a bunch of almost naked (gay) spartans fighting in a plane... LOL
What was it you wanted to criticize? Was it that I didn't "fight", or that I said "I dunno why... blah, blah.", although I know very well that it hurts, because my feelings WERE kind of selfish? Because I wanted her to stay with me? 

[[BTF]adam]

Finding World of Warcraft and later being beat in FFA. 

Srsly though, even when my father died 3 years ago and my gran shortly after, I didn't get 'depressed'  (just hurt)  but only on that kind of scale can I see where the line is for "depression" and just thinking you're unhappy for an unimportant reason (oh noes, I got a D on my exam.. /cut)

but that's just me :>

[jägermonsta]

[quote author=j

[DaHanG]

Attitude probably influences the deepness of depression, but there's no way every individual can have complete control over how they feel.
It may be analogous to how some people can become obese much easier than others because of their genes. Some people are more susceptible to depression and they can't help it. 

[jägermonsta]

Alright. I guess that's the case. 

[Unstable]

A few years ago, my former psycho doc moved, so I began seeing another pdoc. At the time I was severely depressed. Even tho I told him I was being treated for Bipolar, he insisted that he wanted to make that diagnosis himself. So he put me on Effexor (an antidepressant), and chalked it up as I was suffering from Major Depression

[X'tyfe]

actually jager, im a very social person when i get the chance
i didnt choose this because i dont want to be around people
nothing makes me more happy than to be with friends

its because i have NO ONE at all to be around
and because its been this way for so long, this is where i find myself
i use the internet to do my socializing now, and this is the way it will be for a long time

[Robot]

Psychosomatism (mind affecting the body) does occur, but it's limited in power for good reason, like you can't kill yourself just by thinking you're going to die.  Everyday since being sick, I witness myself being overpowered by fatigue and weakened attention, and there's nothing I can do to directly stop it.  An interesting thing that happens is when I have something I want to say, but I have less than a high level of motivation to say it, I am unable to say it without stuttering, and there's nothing I can do about it until I find good enough reason to speak.

[jägermonsta]

actually jager, im a very social person when i get the chance
i didnt choose this because i dont want to be around people
nothing makes me more happy than to be with friends

its because i have NO ONE at all to be around
and because its been this way for so long, this is where i find myself
i use the internet to do my socializing now, and this is the way it will be for a long time

Well I don't know then. Sorry you live in ten buck two.