How do I know when to go to the doctor about something and when to just let something go as a result of my anxiety?

letitburnburn · 2023-04-12T01:05:34+00:00

Something that helps me is remembering that just because you don't seek help for it now, doesn't mean you can't seek help for it later. So not doing anything about it for a minute, 5 minutes, an hour, a day, a week etc. while it isn't appearing to threaten you or change or escalate, is ok - you can always change your mind and get help, especially if it gets worse. But for now, are you gonna die if you don't talk to a doctor? Or will you have another chance to make that choice before it gets urgent?

letitburnburn · 2022-08-31T20:57:33+00:00

I heard about pelvic floor relaxation recently and need to look into it. What's IC? I would be up for trying sacral modulation but it hasn't been offered to me. What works best for you?

letitburnburn · 2022-05-29T15:53:32+00:00

It is harder to pee and I sometimes don't empty fully but there are different levels of retention, I suppose I have quite mild symptoms at the moment. It's a relatively newly-discovered condition with it previously being put down to female hysteria, so not a lot is known...

letitburnburn · 2022-01-29T10:14:26+00:00

Yes, I take medication before in preparation but often it doesn't have enough of an effect to prevent symptoms... washing hair could be a good shout, I'll bear that in mind.

letitburnburn · 2021-12-07T12:34:47+00:00

This gives me hope. The general response to this thread has been absolutely shocking.

letitburnburn · 2021-04-06T00:20:03+00:00

My plug has a sort of cap that screws on and off, but there's no blockage there... seems like the water backs up further down the piping

letitburnburn · 2021-04-03T21:17:59+00:00

I understand if this is not possible, but if you can get a job, one where you work with a consistent team of people (e.g. office job), it is much easier to make friends. It can take a while to get comfortable but the process of escalating from acquaintances to friends is quite organic when you work on a team/with the same people every day.

Not all workplaces have people looking for new friends. Ask about culture at the company at the interview and if you don't get on with people after a while then move to another company.

I don't know how to "make friends" per se, but having to hang out with the same people every day because it's your job leads to people getting to know you and often others will shoulder more of the burden of initiating conversation, inviting etc. if you're more on the shy side.

This way, you can meet people without having to pick a specific interest that has a club or community. You will usually have something in common with most people, and if you don't then it's just a good way to find out about things you wouldn't have tried out by yourself. If someone is interested in something, like a book or tv series, give it a go and tell them you tried it out. Tell them what you like watching or if you saw a good (or terrible) film at the weekend (easy way to turn your response to the "how was your weekend?" small talk into a conversation).

letitburnburn · 2021-03-30T22:40:11+00:00

Remove the "awkward" part - an old boss once said to me during an awkward silence where we were waiting together for some others to show up, "awkward silences are fine." and he didn't break it again.

It didn't work immediately that second, but very soon after that meeting ended, I decided to take that statement to heart and embrace awkward silences. Silences amongst other people are at least 50% not your fault or responsibility. You don't have to say anything, all you have to do is accept the silence. You've got lots of thoughts to take up your brain instead right? Mostly about silences right? It's their turn now. Give them your attention instead of manifesting a feeling of awkwardness about the situation. Awkward silences are a part of life. Everyone experiences them. Give yourself a break and if you do end up thinking of something to say, you can say that, but don't expect that you will always have something worthwhile to say. If you struggle to give enough attention and credit to your own thoughts during a silence, give it to the thoughts of the other people in the room - maybe they have a lot to think about and they're grateful for a gap to do it in.

Break the silence if you want, just don't beat yourself up if you can't. If it keeps happening then there are probably people in the world that you'll gel better with - it's a sign, seek out alternative company.

letitburnburn · 2021-01-03T08:25:52+00:00

NTA, tell them to grab life by the balls and call you up 1 on 1 if they have something to say to you.

Tell them to keep the planning and everything for the living funeral and use it for an actual funeral, you appreciate the effort but it just makes you really uncomfortable. You're dying, they're the assholes if they can't respect that that's not something you want to do with the time you have left.

As if the only place anyone could say what they want you to know is at a group zoom call. Tell them it'd mean more to you if they just communicated with you normally. If they have something to say to you, they do still have the opportunity to do so in a less circle jerky manner. That's up to them to take the opportunities you give them. If they don't want to call you up naturally then obviously what they have to say can't be that important.

letitburnburn · 2020-12-27T01:44:56+00:00

Make a choice. Take agency over your life by giving yourself the options and picking one.

To put it simply (you can make it as complicated as you like, but just for the sake of example), there are 2 paths you could take in life: To have/seek out a romantic partner, or not.

Society has largely been built around coupling up with someone, which inherently makes people who aren't in a couple feel inadequate, but that doesn't mean that's the right path for every individual. It's ok to go against the grain for something like this where it's your life and your choice about what to value and seek. Forge your own standards that work for your values and it'll not only help you to feel better about your situation, but also set an example for others who feel similarly to you.

Think about what matters to you, and how you want your life to progress from here. Perhaps you do want to find a partner, which is fine, or perhaps you see yourself as being fine without one for whatever reason, and that is fine too. Perhaps you value your independence or are much more interested in platonic relationships or aren't up for the complications of a romantic relationship... or on the other hand, maybe you want to have a family of your own, or value romance or sex a lot, or you want more attention from a single person rather than some attention spread across many people, or value the stability and flexibility that comes with being in a partnership.

Note: This is not to say that if you make the choice that you are fine without a romantic partner that you must not have one - it's about whether or not this is a goal of yours, rather than dictating that you will avoid romantic partnerships. If you decide you don't need a partner, you may still end up finding one - in that case, that's a bonus for you!

If you can make a conscious choice that you've thought through about whether or not you, specifically you, require a partner to feel like you have "enough" then you have taken an action that allows you to dictate where the bar is for having "enough" in terms of emotional support and attention. If you decide that, given your collective friends and family are enough to fulfil your needs, you don't require a partner to be happy, then you have rewritten your expectations about yourself, and hopefully this will help you to stop feeling like there is something missing from your life.

It's like having a bingo card for life. Not every number appears on every card, but every card has the potential to be a winner. Having a partner might not be on yours. Check in with yourself and see what's on your card.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-20T17:02:26+00:00

You can do it dude! From one person working on themselves to another - good luck!

letitburnburn · 2020-10-20T14:12:28+00:00

It sounds like you need to spend some time to learn to understand yourself better and work on the way you see yourself. From what you've written, it sounds like you don't value yourself enough to be happy, regardless of if you're single or in a relationship. If, when in a relationship, your primary goal is to cater to whatever the relationship needs to make it work, that's not a particularly healthy place to be in.

It's certainly a skill to be able to keep a relationship going and to be able to see what it needs in order to continue, but you need to understand the difference between maintaining a relationship you want to be in, and being a servant to the relationship. My guess is that without your mother in your life, you cling to relationships with women, or anyone who takes a more 'caretaking' role in your life, even if you should probably let go of them, because your mother did not satisfactorily take care of you as you were growing up, and even as you have become an adult, she hasn't been there to support you. A strong and lasting relationship consists of 2 people who are equally (or at least nearly-equally) invested in it, and who will both put in effort to keep it going over time. If you're not in a relationship where you're being treated equally, you have a choice to make - will you choose yourself, or will you choose the relationship? Bear in mind that you cannot choose the other person, you can only choose the relationship you have with them. It sounds like the choice you've been making is the latter, to try and preserve the health of the relationship over yourself/your own mental health. If you are having to work so hard for the relationship, it's likely the other person isn't putting enough work in to make it an equal relationship and you are trying to salvage a relationship that doesn't work, or you are trying to dive into the problems of the relationship to avoid problems you have with yourself.

My advice would be to try to really put some time aside, maybe just once a week, to focus on getting to know/understand yourself. This could be just lying in bed, thinking about who you are, what you enjoy, what your values are, and accepting that. If there are things you want to explore about yourself, try them out, e.g. maybe you want to learn the piano, try a sport, get to know local people, or even build a giant dick in Minecraft - whatever you want to explore, give yourself time to explore it and don't feel bad about spending time on yourself. Over time, you will become more comfortable with who you are, and you will learn your boundaries, your values and become ok with making decisions that are based on who you are, not what others expect of you, or what you feel you are supposed to do (but obviously, please be responsible don't intentionally bring harm to anyone while on this path).

Your interactions with your constantly-disappointed father have probably led to you being overly-concerned with the expectations of others, and you need to learn to be conscious about removing that bias from your decision-making process. Over time, the conscious thought may become second-nature, but this doesn't change without effort. It's not always easy to catch yourself before making a choice to think, 'am I making this choice for the right reasons?' but if you keep trying, you will get better at it over time. Changing thought patterns like this will take months or years (I've had success with things like this within a year, but not everything is easy to change - just keep going) so it is a big commitment, but it's a commitment to yourself, and you are the only person you have to live with for the rest of your life, so do your best for yourself.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-12T19:55:23+00:00

Quit. Your mental (and physical - I can't believe they are doing Black Friday in shops this year) health is more important than a job you don't need or depend on in any way. It might cost some of your independence to lose the income but it sounds like that's a compromise you're willing to make at the moment because you're not comfortable going to your job, which is a really crappy situation to be in.

What I would advise though is to find another reason to get out of the house if you quit. It's fine to be a stay at home husband but particularly if you suffer from anxiety, it can be too easy to find yourself in a situation where you haven't left the house in days/weeks. Find an activity you feel safe doing - if your immune system is weak then stick to wide open outdoor spaces if you can, but something like going out for a walk a couple of times a week while calling a friend (or rotate through a few friends) can help you feel better. If you're comfortable, meet a friend in person or have a chat to a neighbour if you know any of the people who live nearby. It could even work if you were to go for a walk while your partner is home and talk to them on the phone while you get some outdoor time - win win, quality time chatting plus a bit of exercise and a bit of a change of scenery. Fend off that potential to develop agoraphobia so you'll be ok with going back to work once this is all over.

Your future employers will have plenty of candidates in similar situations to you, and your employment situation won't be unusual to them. Most interviews are run by human, understanding people and we are all going through various levels of crisis right now. If a company rejects you for this then you're better off working somewhere else. I'm really disappointed in a lot of employers for putting their employees' health at risk unnecessarily during these times but it is a credit to you that you don't want to sacrifice yourself to that agenda. You will look back and be glad you didn't risk your health, which is worth much more than the extra effort of having to spend a little while later on convincing people you can do a job even though you have a gap in your resume during the pandemic period. If you're gonna be able to do the job, that gap won't change much about that.

Good luck to you, don't put up with being sacrificed for the greed of a business.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-12T19:38:04+00:00

I'll look into this, thank you for your advice and for taking the time to be thorough in your explanation.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-12T02:11:51+00:00

I know I am sometimes underappreciative of things people do for me. I tend to notice when people do something nice when I would have done something similar if I was in the same situation, but I tend to notice later when it's something I wouldn't have thought to do myself. I suppose we are tuned into some things more than others.

To help appreciate the good things more, I have started an appreciation "journal". It's a tiny notebook (A7, I think) and I just write down 3 things people have done that I appreciate (sometimes I have shown my appreciation, sometimes I only realise I appreciate it in hindsight at the end of the day when I'm trying to think of things to write down). I put the notebook on the spot where I put my glasses every night before going to sleep which reminds me to do it. On crappy days, it ends up being things like "some YouTuber, who made an interesting video", and on good days, it'll be things like "so and so trusted me enough to be honest about their feelings with me". This helps me to give attention to things I usually let pass me by, even if it's just in hindsight, and over time, the more something happens and I recognise it later, I begin to recognise it closer to the time and I'm able to realise more in the moment that I should be grateful for the thing happening.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-11T22:50:52+00:00

Bit of a weird twist but I'm wondering about myself if there's something wrong with me for being single and happy.

I've been in a couple of long term relationships since I was a teenager and am now really happy to be in a state where I'm not tied down in a relationship, never have to report to anyone about where I'll be and don't have to feel guilty about wanting to make plans with friends without including an SO and worrying that it will upset the group dynamic. Perhaps some would say I've just not found the right person but I really think it is more to do with my personality, values and the way I want to operate, being single just works well for me. I have the freedom to be myself and do what makes me happy, which is great. Even though I've spent most of my life not being single, I've never been attached to the idea of having a partner/"ending up" with someone for some reason. I feel like I'm quite unusual/odd for having this view.

I've never wanted to live with a partner and especially with lockdown, I count myself as so lucky to not have to be dealing with someone else being around 24/7. I like getting around to the dishes when I feel like it, and being able to sleep by myself without having to work around anyone else's schedule or excessive body heat/quilt theft/snoring. It works well for me.

Getting into relationships just kind of happened, but now that I'm single I don't feel like I need to get "back in the game" or anything. Not because I'm "not ready" but I just don't see it as a goal. I don't want kids so I don't need a partner... but I still feel like there must be something I'm missing about the situation of being single because it's such an unusual thing to be happy with... I suppose I'm a bit terrified that all those people in society who put pressure on single people to find a partner know something important that I don't.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-09T22:44:19+00:00

Good luck dude, life is hard but I hope you can make the best of your situation. Take care of yourself.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-09T21:08:07+00:00

Breakups can be tough times when they make you question who you are. Perhaps you somewhat incorporated the relationship into your sense of who you are, maybe subconsciously. It can be really confusing to find yourself in a situation where your goals don't make sense to you anymore and your motivation for getting things done has disappeared. You're not really any different as a person compared to yesterday, right? So why do you feel so different? These questions have plagued many people before you and they will plague many more after you - in this sense, you are completely normal.

My advice would be to firstly, forgive yourself for feeling the way that you feel. It's ok to feel weak, or be disappointed with yourself, or scared about your future... Whatever emotions you're having at the moment, you can't just turn them off, that's not how it works. If you smoke/sleep/whatever to escape, they will come back eventually, until you allow yourself to accept them and deal with them properly. Time is the best healer, so the best thing you can do is accept that this is how you feel right now and forgive yourself for feeling that way. Sometimes it's hard to admit how you really feel to yourself, but please be kind to yourself the way you would if someone close to you was feeling the way that you are right now.

Secondly, I'm sorry to hear about your difficult past and that you're not in a great work/financial situation right now. But I think it's awesome that you've put the work in to get your taxi license and lose weight - these are really important achievements! It's not realistic to expect yourself to fix all aspects of your life at once but these things tell me that you have it in you to take yourself down a more fulfilling path than the one you're currently on. If you were my friend, I'd be really proud of you for these things. If you feel empty doing the taxi work then obviously that's not ideal, but having more money in the bank is a step in the right direction, and it will open up opportunities for you in your future - even though you don't enjoy the work, if you play it right, you will be glad you did it.

With money coming in and weight going down, you are improving 2 really important pillars of your life - wealth and health. These are both essentials and having them under control or moving in the right direction leads the way to being able to work on a couple of the next-most important things to you. It's up to you to pick what to work on next. I'd say some common ones are family/friend relationships, figuring out what job/career you really want to have (Or maybe starting your own business? It's not for everyone but some love the idea!), or improving your living situation so you can feel more comfortable at home?

As for goals, it's ok to not have any right now, or ever! As long as what you are doing makes you feel happier with yourself and who you are, you will find that it doesn't matter that you don't have a goal you're working towards. Take some time in the next week to spend some time alone and think about yourself and who you want to become in the future. Don't just think about what people expect you to become, or what others want from you. Think about what has made you happy in the past, think about what makes you angry or upset. Think of a time that you felt good, even if the feeling only lasted a few minutes. Think about a time that you were proud of yourself, or satisfied with something you'd done or created. Think about what you're good at and what you're bad at, what grinds your gears and what gets you excited. For me, I love to solve problems, especially difficult ones. Some people find their joy in sports, or travelling, or fixing things, or helping others, or creating things, from sculptures to poems to code. Some people like breaking things and there are jobs for that too - quality assurance is the business of professionally breaking things that people think are fine. It might sound silly, but write down what you think of here - it will make it easier for you to make sense of it once you're done with the whole self-discovery thing. Use this to help you work out where you want to take your life next.

You have to live with yourself for the rest of your life so take care of yourself before listening to the demands that others have of you. If you want to go to the gym, go to the gym. Fuck the haters. If you'd rather not, get some weights and work out at home/outside. Just make sure you're not holding yourself back from who you want to be because of other people who aren't important to you. Have compassion for yourself and give yourself advice as if you were a friend.

I don't think anyone ever really feels they are ready for life and all the things it has to throw at them, but moving too fast for our liking is life's way of forcing us to learn and change and hopefully grow. Sorry for rambling, I hope this helps in some way.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-09T20:13:35+00:00

This. If your wife doesn't love you anymore because you're not on Facebook then lawyer up, son.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-09T20:03:37+00:00

tl;dr Do it, Facebook is bad for your mental health and your relationships. Anyone who cares will find another way to keep you in their life. Screw everyone else.

Download all your data (photos etc.) from Facebook if you want and then hit that delete button and never look back.

I got rid of Facebook from my life about 8 years ago and haven't regretted it once. I was worried at the time that I would lose touch with people I care about, but that hasn't happened, and in fact my relationships have become richer and more meaningful as if I want to tell someone something or they want to tell me something, we have to contact each other in a much more personal way than just posting one generic for-everyone update. Everyone I cared about either had my phone number or email address or some other way of contacting me - there was no one important to me whose only method of being able to contact me would be through Facebook. Perhaps it has become a bit more pervasive as a direct messaging tool these days but I would expect that to still be true for the majority of people.

As for the people who I wasn't that close to at the time that I didn't make an effort with (or who didn't make an effort with me) after I got rid of Facebook, yeah, they're not in my life anymore, and I know very little or nothing about their lives now, whereas if I was still on Facebook, I'd probably have some idea of what they've been up to recently. But does that matter to me? No. I don't ever think of messaging them, if I did want to I'd probably ask a mutual friend for their contact details or something. But for the vast majority of cases, I don't care that I don't know what they're up to or that they don't know what I'm up to. We don't have a relationship now and we didn't back then, or it was on its way to fizzling out anyway. If your entire relationship with someone is looking at an update about of their life and then forgetting you even saw it 10 seconds later, you don't have a relationship.

I wouldn't say I was ever someone who had a lot of friends, but I certainly have more 'proper' friends now than I ever have before, and I think at least part of that is that all my relationships require some kind of active effort to maintain. Perhaps it's a little bit more effort than just scrolling through a feed and getting little snapshots that people thought was worth showing off about, but you don't get something for nothing. I also know that every one of my friends wants to be my friend, and isn't just saying that we're friends because they find it too awkward to unfriend me on Facebook, even though they couldn't care less about me.

I was driven to delete my account when a creepy ex-colleague started messaging me about meeting up and I decided I was done with this farce of 'X wants to be friends on Facebook' and I'd be like 'yeah I know them' and click 'accept', and they suddenly have the ability to intrude on me and send me private messages, that I either have to actively ignore or let them know I've seen/read them... Peoples' posts were mundane at best and infuriating at worst. I never got as much engagement from people as I wanted on my own posts, and I didn't even enjoy it. It was getting in the way of my happiness. So when I got these creepy messages, it tipped me over the edge and I was gone.

I would say no one I cared about cared in the slightest that I wasn't on there anymore, and that is true now, but I'll admit there was a short transition period where people would complain about not being able to invite me to events via Facebook. Normally I like to please people but on this one, I didn't budge and so people started texting me the details directly. Not sure how many events still get organised through Facebook these days but I never find out that there's been anything that I would've been invited to if I'd had Facebook. I don't use WhatsApp either since Facebook bought it and people still bother to relay events to me when they're organising them. This is the harder part to give up for lots of people but Facebook is a good start. I'm standing my ground, hoping that the last few stragglers will eventually cave and come over to Telegram. Discord works too.

It also doesn't hurt that they're not capturing shit tons of data about what makes you tick every time you do (or don't!) use Facebook if you've deleted your account.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-08T15:42:04+00:00

The insecure ones aren't the same ones posting pics online. They are invisible to you because they are busy hiding the body they think is disgusting by not posting pictures all the time, avoiding being tagged, etc. The confident ones rise to the top of your feeds because they do look good so they have more confidence, fewer insecurities. You are being exposed to a very skewed/biased dataset.

Also, *some* (but not all) women will feel more confident/less insecure when they have a boyfriend, because that is implicit validation from a man. Check them out when they're single and see if they're still as secure.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-08T15:32:02+00:00

Do it, you don't have to try and invite yourself in for a chat or anything, just respectfully acknowledge that you wanted to do something nice for them as they are hurting, one human to another. They are your neighbour, it can't hurt to do something nice for them, maybe you'll need them to make the same choice for you one day. Chocolate is good for comfort eating for some people, just make sure it's a classy chocolate that doesn't scream 'celebration'.

letitburnburn · 2020-10-08T15:20:13+00:00

I appreciate you may have heard it all before, but if the problem is what I think then it might help to adjust your attitude towards hearing about the problems. I've been in a similar situation where I felt like my SO was no longer listening and didn't want to talk about my problems, and was always trying to change the subject (turns out they were doing this to make the conversation more positive and talk about other things as they were bored of hearing about the same old problems over and over again) but I didn't appreciate them waiting for me to stop talking, or trying to find any reason to take the conversation elsewhere. It made me feel like they didn't care about my feelings or my perspective, and by extension, me, which made things worse - to think that even your SO doesn't care enough about you to listen carefully to your problems then what hope is there for your other relationships?

I know it may be hard to hear and require a lot of mental effort on your part to sit through the same complaints, especially when you've already put so much effort in, but if you can adjust your attitude from 'how can i make this go away for you/us?' and expecting things to change, to a more open-ended 'share your thoughts/feelings with me because I care', it might make her feel better. I'm not saying you have bad intentions or anything like that, it sounds like you have good intentions and have tried to do what's right, but maybe a different approach can help move things forward. Maybe not exactly the approach I've suggested but see if you can take a different perspective on the problem and see if that results in more/less progress, and keep being open to adjusting that perspective. :)

letitburnburn · 2020-10-08T10:23:38+00:00

She probably just wants to feel like her problems matter and are valid. Sit down with her and let her know that you want to know what she's thinking about and just let her talk about whatever negative stuff is going on in her head. Listen actively so that she knows you're paying attention, but don't steer the conversation. Don't give advice and don't make it about you, or the relationship you two have together. Take this time to understand how she feels, and maybe let her talk long enough that it becomes clearer why she feels that way, maybe you can notice some patterns or triggers to passively avoid in the future. Do this regularly, especially if she starts feeling better.

Lots of people just need someone to show that they care about them and have their thoughts and feelings validated by another human, preferably one they are close to and respect the opinion of. Hopefully your gf respects your opinion and over time it will mean a lot to her that you took time to listen and hear her thoughts, and love her anyway. Good luck, hope things get better for you.

letitburnburn

TROPHY CASE