Mental Health Thread • Page 325

With everything going on right now I almost forget about coronavirus for a minute but now that I have to go to the grocery store again soon I’m already terrified. I was finally getting comfortable with going once a month but now that a lot of people have just said fuck it and acted like everything is normal it feels like I’m even more likely to get sick next time. So couple that anxiety with the fact that I haven’t really been sleeping the past week and a half and I’m just spent. Everything feels dull and detached.

 

Do stores near you have curbside pick up? It takes a little more planning and I have to order a few days ahead but I haven't stepped foot in a store in 3 months. Honestly, even when things are "safe" again I'll probably keep doing this because it is so easy and convenient. Obviously still a risk with the items and an associate from the store but it makes me feel a little better.

 

They do but it’s a relatively small store staff-wise so the spots get booked as soon as they’re available. It would definitely help me feel better about it especially since the last few times at the store some people were walking around without masks making no effort to distance and walking against the directional arrows. I think I’ll keep a close watch for spots to open.

 

if possible can you go at off random times, I've been trying to go at like 2:00 on a Tueday if possible so it's less busy than prime time, a few people have made me anxious but overall it's been relatively quiet and I usually don't have to wait on line

 

Yeah I just went @ noon on a Wednesday and it was very empty lol

 

Not to dismiss your anxiety or anything because I compleeeetely get it

 

Yeah I’ve gone right before close the last couple of times and it’s been fairly empty so if I do need to go I’ll stick to that. I’ve driven by a few times with the intention of going and turning right back around after seeing a packed parking lot haha.

 

Oh no not at all! It’s honestly helpful having others say it’s probably ok. When my friends and family do it it seems like “Ryan you’ll be fine just shut up and go” and I know they mean well but of course I interpret it as dismissive haha.

 

I do a lot of babysitting on the side, and while I usually love it, babysitting 4 kids and a dog, 9 hours a day, multiple days a week is completely crushing whatever spirit and thinking abilities I have left at this point. Before covid, I'd get a nice mix of afternoons/night, just nights, maybe a full day Saturday here or there, and random school holidays. Now, it's just straight up full-time days. I cringe at every text sound, dreading I'll be asked to do another day. I've seriously been thinking about telling this family I just can't do it that much anymore, but it's also (usually) really fun and easy money...and money right now is not something I want to pass on (my main job is in business events/marketing, so that's still TBD). I've been with them 9 years and I love them, and they treat me so well but I actually hid in the bathroom and cried yesterday. Usually when Im available but don't want to watch them, I'll lie and say I have something else to do, but like what can I lie about having to do right now? Lately they've been using up all my patience, and tolerance for noise, that I'm just a huge crank to all other people in my life. I've always been on the fence about having kids but these last few weeks have really been pushing me to the not side. I walk in my house and people know not to greet me right away. I don't even want to hear tv or music anymore

 

My girlfriend and I smoked so fucking much during quarantine from stress/boredom and now I’m trying to reel it back in but now we’re moving in two weeks and I don’t have a new job so I’m stressed as fuck and only want to smoke a bunch now

 

I feel this 100%. I was spending most of my time outside of work smoking and trying to tune things out and it’s definitely not the healthiest way to cope. Hope things get easier soon!

 

@Renee there’s always the ole cramps excuse


Lol but for real, like claiming to be sick but in a way that makes it clear it’s not covid

orrr that you have to be at home because some service person or delivery person is coming by

 

Me: I hate lying so much
Also me: I have so many excuses to get out of work

 

would you feel comfortable telling the parents that you don’t have the energy? I feel like if you frame it as like “I want to be a good babysitter but today I don’t have it in me to be a good babysitter” they would be understanding.

 

A majority of the time I don't feel liked or wanted and my friendships feel hollow.

 

This is going to sound really whiny but I’m hurting and need to vent

I’m so tired of spending every waking moment wanting to die. I’m so tired of being so utterly alone. I don’t even know the last time I really even had a one-on-one conversation with someone. No one in my life has reached out to me in weeks. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen other people in the last 3 months (not counting grocery stores and protests which I know are a luxury some people don’t even have right now) and I just constantly am aware of how little I matter
No one misses me now when I’m right here so why would anyone miss me when I’m gone

 

It doesn’t sound whiny at all, it sounds like you’re feeling incredibly isolated and that’s so hard on top of everything else happening. I know it’s never the same and we’ve talked about internet connections not filling the void before, but I and lots of other people here value you and want you around and well.

I always doubt myself in exactly the same way and think everyone hates me (or worse, don’t care at all), so I totally get it and know how futile it might be to try to convince you, but you matter a lot to me.

 

i appreciate you. I am incredibly isolated because as I’ve touched on in here a long time ago, my abusive relationship isolated me from everyone I knew and now hes gone and I’m alone.
I appreciate what you’re saying but like you said it’s so hard when the only people who give a shit about you have never met you and don’t even really know the “real” you. Also numerous situations on this site have shown me that even people I thought were my friends don’t show up for me when it matter so I don’t think we’re as close as I once let myself believe.
anyway this is the part where I’m a brat and say I kNoW nOoNe CaReS, oKaY?! But thank you

 

Yeah, definitely feeling alone too. Feels especially great since I took the steps to repair some friendships and those friends seemed really excited to hear from me again, they even said they thought about reaching out over the time frame but felt it might have been unwanted. I mean I get that and I appreciate the space, it was a gradual drift and kind of mutual stopping of contacting each other, but also gee thanks could have tried? I initiated all the conversations recently, havent heard from them in a month

 

The only person I’ve legit talked face to face to in months is a doctor. Lol. Things certainly are going well for us here. Sigh.

 

I always thought I had pretty low self-esteem and body image insecurities before I gained all this weight and now I'm realizing just how low my self-esteem can go and I was definitely self-conscious before but now it's like a whole new ballgame of insecurities. It's kind of damaging always having been known as like the "small" one. I didn't realize how often I'd heard that and how I conditioned it and now that I don't feel like I fit in that identity anymore it is really just messing with me and I hate how shallow I feel and I wish I could just be like a badass confident feminist about it but I'm not

 

Yeah, I’ve only spoken to a handful of people since March in person, and they were all very distanced and for a short conversation only. Having my mom has been a lifesaver. It feels so weird to still in some ways be doing better because I haven’t had to interact in stressful social situations for months but at the same time feeling desperate to see anyone else that I love.

I also keep realizing just how few true friends I have at this point and I’m having a harder and harder time figuring out if it’s because that happens naturally all the time or if I’m secretly just terrible and that’s why it happens to me so much.

 

Yeah it’s one of those things where I feel like I can’t even complain because even in this case I mention how few people I’ve seen and there’s a handful of others saying they’ve seen the same/less and I don’t think anyone was saying it in a “so you should be grateful!” way, but I end up feeling that way

and I just feel like while it’s so sad to me that we’re all in similar boats, I feel so frustrated bc it feels like a different boat than anything else I see on other social media. I feel like we are the minority not the majority.
Like across social media all I see are people with their families, or just going about their lives since things opened back up here.

it is so complex and stirs so many emotions. I end up feeling resentment towards people who don’t - and can’t, through no fault of their own- understand how I feel.

It sucks how hard it is to want to be heard without invalidating anyone else

 

Living alone right now just blows more than I can express
And I feel like people will offer consolation without actually trying to be empathetic in a literal put-yourself-in-my-shoes way

it’s been a week since my last protest and what my life has looked like since then:
-went to grocery store for 5 minutes
- my ex came by for ~20 min to pick up his things

the rest of the 24 hours of the past 7 days were spent completely by myself in silence in a one bedroom apartment.
Now multiply that by the last however many weeks.
I literally recorded a Snapchat video Monday for the sole purpose of talking out loud for the first time in days. I haven’t FaceTimed or called or otherwise talked to anyone in weeks.

I’m completely fucking alone.

as someone who is a Gemini (ha!), someone very social, who likes talking so much they majored in it, I really just don’t have the words to adequately express the toll that the last few months have taken

 

Furthermore doing all of that ^ while trying to get over the breakup It’s a whole hot mess

typically I’d be able to throw myself into other things like hobbies or more realistically desperately reaching out to anyone to hang out with in an attempt to get over him and distract myself and put myself back into other social situations
But I literally can’t even do that now lmao
So all I can do is sit by myself and be sad and smoke weed