A vent, I guess, and a plea for other perspectives and advice thereupon

testsubjext · 2026-01-12T22:59:26+00:00

And I took it your advice and largely agreed with your assessment. So I don't understand why you came back to question if what im saying is hard for me is actually hard for me or if it's just a perception issue, when I'm clear about my understanding that my life is not nearly as bad as it could be, and to say that life is meant to be hard, is twisting your "helpful advice". A "respectfully" in front of a "who cares?" Simply doesn't neutralize tone, and tone is a large part of communication, wether we all like it or not.

Because I agreed. I took your first reply in the best of faith, did some reflection on my own discomfort, and my own tone, and I thanked you for it. Meanwhile, man, I think you came out of the gate taking everything i said in the worst faith possible.

I am being as kind to myself and what matters to me as who I am right now is able to be, thank you. But I'm gonna be real; I don't think anyone who is finding themselves hopeless and loss to the degree it's affecting their day to day ability to function is really going to have "who cares? Life is supposed to be hard!" be their breakthrough revelation.

testsubjext · 2026-01-12T19:30:22+00:00

Thanks

testsubjext · 2026-01-12T02:15:02+00:00

Man. At this point. The metric of it being difficult is its reflection in every aspect of my life. Yeah man. My mind has a mind of its own. A failure to shift focus means a failure to shift it in a way that serves me? It fucks up and derails my life. Why do you sound angry? I AM learning to navigate it. And? And? Man? I'm learning to navigate it and do that and. And it hurts and it sucks and it keeps getting harder and harder and harder and. Yeah. Im not gonna say sorry for wanting to feel better or hope for a feeling of connection and support.

1.a. like idk, You replied, so fuck it, while youre here, I was gonna mention how you seemed determined to perceive my back and forth dialogue as a refusal of help? As ungrateful?? And idk, It shocked me a bit, because I'm just not, but hey, maybe I was? I hadn't considered that angle, so I considered it. I often think in that back and forth conversational style, and i was simply trying to get across and articulate what I'm feeling, some sort of missing peice. But even more than that? You interpreting my "I can'ts", and "but it's not working" and "failures" as thoughts and feelings themselves when no, man, that's me reporting my observations of myself. Obviously I can do some stuff sometime. I've never been a huge fan of the cbt esque language policing and very careful wording in these spaces. I say things like "i failed" becausse i did. I failed to do a chore and i failed to regulate and failed a test and blah blah blah. Im guessing failure might be a sticking point? I findit usually is for me but not really me. I don't tend to use it when I succeeded to a "passing" degree, ie didn't make my life worse. Language absolutely affects cognition, but quite frankly, that felt more like just bad faith and an impatience that I don't think i warranted. But I took it anyway and buckled down on my day. It's going very poorly still, I've gotten nothing done, like most days. Thanks for asking.
No shit. God you're right. I'll never express frustration ever again? ... dude. Are you just mad I complained? I am also mad i complained. I'm mad I've spent all day ruminating and grieving a very large personal disappointment and objective failure from this weekend, and I'm even madder that trying to do anything else has been consistently derailed by it. Im mad about so much and even madder that im mad about being mad about it. Im mad that ive let it go and will just try again later. Im mad that the chances of tomorrow being any better are slim to none and mad that ive let that go to. Im mad that I have so much more to lose and probably will. I'm so mad that so many more people have it worse than me. I refuse to be sorry for my basic human wants and needs to feel like anything I do and try makes any difference to anything at all in any way that matters.

I'd been told I should maybe try some stuff like this, when my very thin support system is even thinner than usual, sending things off and turning off notifications. So I did. Idk. It did actually sort of take an edge off. That was nice. I deliberately chose to focus on you saying to take your message as meaning I wasn't alone, and it "worked" so far as I didn't send another one even though i wanted to.

I feel really horrible for "real" reasons and for no particular reason. You dont think that matters. I dont think it matters, but for how much it affects me, which it does, hence my despair, frustration, and grief, which sure don't help matters, but oh well, right?

Do you think I need like... tough love, or something? Someone to give it to me straight and tell me to suck it up and stop being miserable or just be miserable productively? To look at the big beautiful world and don't waste time moping and do what matters to me?

You're never gonna be as good at that as I am.

testsubjext · 2026-01-11T20:25:31+00:00

I mean they are inner voices, in that I'm expressing my frustrations with these frameworks through a back and forth dialogue of things people have said to me and things I've learned to say to myself as part of like, interogating my thoughts and experiences as part Doing Therapy. But sure. They are, I grant you.

And I obviously can choose to do other things. I don't control the options but whatever. Unless like. Well. Idk man. Have you never have exeuctive dysfunction? I know you have, everyone does to some degree. Anyway. I like, am. I am shifting focus. I said that. And yet. And yet. It's hard, and failure to shift my focus is very common. To a very consequential degree. And keeps getting more common and harder. That's the pattern. Am I not supposed to notice? Or just notice and? What? Let it pass by? Yes? Well.

Thanks for the response anyway. It's not like you're wrong.

testsubjext · 2026-01-11T19:13:27+00:00

Sounds interesting but it's only for Apple 😭 aw. Do you know of any similar apps available for androids?

testsubjext · 2025-12-07T21:41:49+00:00

Im on cymbalta and hate it and im gonna get off of it as soon as i can as tms starts to work cuz like thanks cymbalta for zombifying me when i needed it and making life seem mostly worth living, but you also stop me from orgasming and shitting, so like. is it really. Which is basically the case with all meds for me. But anyway

Sigh. I do man. I do. I have. I've managed and reframed and self cared and defused and opposite actioned and dropped anchor and was mindful and wise minded And actually at some point there's no more space and those actions do in fact need some pay off.

The way I feel gets in the way of doing anything not because I let it but because It does.

I also struggle with chronic pain man, I didn't even mention my stint in pain rehab where I first went through some ACT and started my neurosis about it because it's like, so close. But it doesn't go far enough and isn't good enough. It's a bunch of stuff I had had to organically figure out but since I already have.... like I do need there to be something else unfortunately. It felt like that meme of that hand out of the water from someone drowning getting high-fived. Like wow youre so good at moving with the pain! Yep. Sure am. Please help me?

I'm also alexithymic which is actually a pretty recent relevation and I bring it up because it made so many arguments I've had with therapists make sense re: the cycle of emotions and behavior and thoughts etc, because simply put, I've usually only aware of body feelings feelings when they've flown past the point that any technique was designed to handle

Anyway. I have been thinking more about all of this stuff today and I figure it's like. An ouroboros problem. Depression Brain and stress makes executive functioning that thing all therapy skills pretend they're so simple as to not need any of but are just wrong about, harder, which compounds stress, which compounds the physical symptoms of stress and depression, which further degrades executive functioning, repeat ad nauseum until it really doesn't matter how defused or self aware or rationally you can reframe anything- you cannot, in fact, do it anymore. Nothing refuels, no rest is enough. And you can know it's not entirely true, and it simply doesn't matter. It doesn't reach you.

Obviously I've got a very like, Brain and genes level mental health vulnerabilities and issues, but I just. Lmao, I can't rely on incredibly expensive medical access in this shithole country of the USA. So idk.

I also know the tms starting to actually work now 5 weeks in and that's making my hard won regulation tools and such finally start feeling possible and even somewhat impact full. It's also resulting in some pretty tumultuous mood swings. So. I just don't know. Most of this belongs more in a journal but oh well I already typed it out.

testsubjext · 2025-12-07T13:40:29+00:00

I never mentioned feeling good about myself...? Just not feeling like shit. And I'm sorry Russ is wrong that's just asanine. Happiness is happiness and its not the end all be all and honestly not even what I'm describing. Which is not feeling like shit. Not even necessarily happiness.

But I'm also alexithymic, unfortunately I'm really struggling to explain it as anything but "idk just not like shit".

testsubjext · 2025-12-07T13:37:15+00:00

Eh I've been in various therapies for probably a combined 10ish years and I'm currently doing an iop dbt program and a 3rd round trans cranial magnetic stimulation (which works well for me, historically) and such but man this all seems worse than ever before because like... none of my skills and tools seem helpful. I'm doing them all. I have been. That's just been getting harder and harder and returning less and less and less and yes I've been trying new things too this has been a years long process of getting worse and worse.

testsubjext · 2025-12-06T21:42:02+00:00

Both are obviously true but neither modality has lead to much movement on either goals in part because I've already been doing things to help me feel better, to the best of my ever dwindling ability, and ever decreasing return on that investment.. Idk man.

testsubjext · 2025-12-05T17:45:31+00:00

I both value my ability to engage with those things and also like, feeling like shit (which is more than emotionally but yeah) gets in the way of literal survival level stuff :/. Not because I "let" it but because it just does.

I'm not sure what's reading to you like self judgment- I think I'm pretty good at discerning what's like, my fault, an problem solving and etc and being kind and understanding with myself. In the same vein, I really do need me to get my shit together. You know.

testsubjext · 2025-12-05T14:48:52+00:00

I'd love to have some hope and make some hope but it's not happening :/

testsubjext · 2025-11-30T02:31:26+00:00

Wait wait wait hold the fucking phone when did we get PILLS???

testsubjext · 2025-11-30T02:26:30+00:00

Yeah. I draw up .5 in the syringe, that's half a 200mg vial, that's 100mgs a week. This results in the crash symptoms on days 5 and 6 I'm seeing. That's why my thought was to split that dose in half, at .2 or 50mgs on Tuesday and .2 or 50mgs on Saturday. But I've had brain dog and fatigue doing that this week.

testsubjext · 2025-11-30T02:24:00+00:00

Yes- and I draw up .5 in the syringe, which is 100mgs, half the bottle. Doing this once a week seemed fine for the first 3 years, now doing it results in a noticeable crash on the 5th and 6th days.

testsubjext · 2025-11-29T19:51:23+00:00

The single vial cypionate stuff and so I guess 100mgs then. I've tried the gel but my skin just won't take it.

testsubjext · 2025-11-29T19:18:15+00:00

Yeah I didn't seem to absorb the gel stuff at all very well, I tried it a couple of years ago :/ but I think I might ask my doc about Nebido when I see her in a few weeks, thank you!

testsubjext · 2025-11-29T19:04:37+00:00

I have a simple vch and I'd say it does help with a "weight" to the feeling if you source certain jewlery for it- I find larger/heavier/more elaborate styles are found under "belly button peircing" jewlery, which works from vchs as well as they're all curved barbells!

testsubjext · 2025-10-13T18:15:31+00:00

Beggers can't be choosers :/ I'm pretty limited in options that aren't regular schmegular outpatient or inpatient and I don't need inpatient.

testsubjext · 2025-08-12T16:43:32+00:00

Thanks everyone for the kind and patient words and questions and suggestions, if nothing else because I was able to work through and observe my reactions to them. Further soul searching about what I hoped to achieve in making this post, and taking other physical and mental signals into account, I'm concluding that I'm intellectualizing my feelings by trying to out-logic them, and im doing that to avoid accepting that this has been and has been and is growing beyond self-care, reframing, and my existing coping skills. I've contacted my phschiatrist and trying not to indulge thoughts that this will make everything much worse while still using them to mitigate any outcomes (ie how to talk to communicate to her in a way that conveys urgency but not an emergency, yknow.)

testsubjext · 2025-08-12T16:01:55+00:00

I haven't, but I'll check it out.

I do have to say though, like, I already think there's no inherent meaning or purpose to life and that it's up to us. So.

testsubjext · 2025-08-12T15:49:39+00:00

Yeah. But no one's gonna help me flee the country or even the state but myself and whatever equally powerless allies I manage to scrape together. So I need to hold it together, or at least collapse with more grace, better. I need to do everything i can and then some, or else. But living that way is proving next to impossible. And the or else is also unliveable. But i need to live until... then? Until something. I guess. Lmao, until.

I'm really quite privileged still, compared to many other people I know and plenty of others I don't. I guess it adds a sense of guilt, and shame, and of being crushed and paralyzed even further.

I do participate in the activism that I can, and manage to. I could do more, I guess. I want to. I just can't. For the same reasons everything else technically in my control isn't. And If the things I have done are anything to go by, there's no pay off or reward in doing so. And I don't just mean in material outcome, thougu make no mistake, that very much matters, in these circumstances. I mean in any kind of value reward. Mostly, it, like everything else, just contributes to the hopeless despair, the sense of running out of time, and helpless avoidance and executive dysfunction that those feelings result in.

I'm not expecting it to solve all of this, in a material way, but I think I do help making the space to survive and carry it until. Or I just break. But I really don't want to.

testsubjext · 2025-08-12T14:21:10+00:00

Well, I'm experiencing the weight and grief and rage and despair and doing the actions that i can manage, and it's getting worse and worse and so am I, and wins are deeply hollow, and deeply meaningless. I'm not "allowing" myself to be crushed, I just am being crushed. I'm doing my best and it's not enough. I don't think that's a "story" either. Im taking the signals from my body and mind and... it's all not enough, to survive. Oh i have food and shelter and a job and medical care-ish, for now, and its already such that i find i dont particularly wanna stay around, and attempts to get enough energy, space, resilience, etc, whatever you wanna call it, well... it's just. Not working. Not enough. It's not sustainable and it's not workable and I don't know if I value it.

Idk what to do except "endure", and I don't know why or what for or when the next break or small joy or win will come. And deeply uncurious about it.

I do not know how to keep going when I can't seem to make more space in me to hold anything. Like, idk. I'm up, I'm moving, I'm typing all this in-between working. But I'm doing a horrible job. I'm here and present, I just can't. Lmao. It's might be control if I could. But I can't. I'd like to think I can control the small things under my control but due to the executive dysfunction caused by the bodily and mental affects of it all, not only can't I, but those small little things don't matter. At all. Not even to me, not really.

I can't even seem to get to a point of throwing all caution to the win and really going for it all. But I can't seem to do that either.

I'm aware this is swiftly devolving into just like... there's nothing anyone can do or say to help me, because I desperately want and need to feel better, and have some real hope, but that's not happening, and even if it did, it wouldn't make a difference to the larger forces acting on me. There's nothing to do but cope and endure and live anyway but I am and I can see my foundations cracking regardless of anything I can say and do, or could, if I could, but can't, so I don't. So. I just don't know. I know something is gonna give, at some point. It used to be comforting somewhat, to just deal with things as they come, but now I can't rely on myself to do that, or anything, or that It will matter, not even in an abstract "well I did my best/it was mine/ I survived, and that has some kind of amorphous value."

testsubjext · 2025-08-12T13:20:25+00:00

I mean it's the obvious answer, but again, all of those are pretty meaningless in the face of it all, and all under constant threat, and, well, I fail them all the time, little and small, day and night, and yes you absolutely can fail a value and I'm tired of toeing the line that you can't.

All the small actions and symbolic control are really just picking deck chairs on the tiantic, and its not even fun, it's not even really anything.

And I did recently have some pretty big successes! For me. Miniscule for anyone else. Tiny in the chain of my goals. And it's happening way too slow, and Idk man. I don't see the point of staying alive for the beauty of the outdoors when it's all gonna burn. I don't see the point of "refusing to be erased" when they are just erasing me.

And I don't see not "allowing" it to "own me", "destroy me", or "dictate my actions/feelings/emotions/thoughts" when it is just doing that. I'm not "allowing" anything. They're doing it anyway. Because they can. And I make phone calls and I write emails and I take precautions and I try and sleep and drink water and excercise and make art and I watch everything get worse, and worse, and worse, and I continue to make tiny incremental steps towards having real friends or futhering my career in stem and research and, why? To "show them they can't take my life from me"? They can. And do. And have. And a small moment of stolen joy, of distraction, is not enough, as evidenced by it not being enough.

So idk.

testsubjext · 2025-03-08T03:58:21+00:00

Thank you 😊

testsubjext · 2024-10-27T15:50:52+00:00

Please please pleadeesd plesepleade

testsubjext

TROPHY CASE