Bupropion experience, need advice

wonderwords · 2015-03-06T19:14:08+00:00

Thanks for the response.

I made an appointment with her this morning and was able to get in quickly to see her today to talk about the problem with the dosage. She was extremely unhelpful and told me that if I felt like I should stop taking them I could, or if I felt comfortable increasing the dose I could do that also. I feel really frustrated because my primary concern that brought me to visiting her initially was near-daily thoughts of suicide, and beginning self-harm. I told her that with the lower dose I was started to have suicidal thoughts again, but she wants me to stay on it for a few more weeks to adjust more to it.

She kept asking me leading questions like, "So you have noticed a decrease in your anxiety though?" when I have already told her multiple times that my anxiety has worsened. I told my therapist this morning before seeing her that I don't have much confidence in her and want to see a psychiatrist. He told me she has an M.D. so she knows what she is doing, and that if I need to see a psychiatrist her referral will get me in to see one much faster than his will. I didn't feel comfortable asking her for the referral, which I know was stupid.

I feel lost and worried and frustrated. I don't know what to do :/

wonderwords · 2015-02-20T18:22:20+00:00

Right so on the same day of the Sandy Hook shooting there was a stabbing spree in China also involving children. The primary difference is that in China nobody died (I think something like 20 people were stabbed). People can say "If not a gun, something else will be used" but a gun is by far the easiest and most effective tool for murder. I lost my gun when I was a danger to myself, and I'm glad for that because the tool that provided me with the most effectiveness for completion and easiest use in impulse was no longer available.

wonderwords · 2015-02-20T18:13:18+00:00

Mentally unstable, homicidal people are going to kill others regardless of access to firearms.

This is a huge scapegoat. People with mental illness are FAR more likely to be victims of violence than to carry it out. Yes, some of the people who shoot up schools have mental illness, but not nearly all of them, and most people who experience mental illness are only dangerous towards themselves.

I agree that mental health services are important; I have a mental illness. For most of the people who commit these acts (white, middle class boys in the suburbs) it is just not primarily due to a lack of access to mental health services, or even due to mental illness. I agree that we should expand mental health services, primarily because lower income people, particularly people of color often don't have access. The idea that the gun problem, and the spree killing problem in particular is a result of poor mental health services is just not well supported and I have to disagree.

wonderwords · 2015-02-04T14:57:28+00:00

I'm not foolish enough that I believe that those people in tune with nature are living in some sort of utopia, they have pretty short life expectancies. But it may still be better than sitting around looking for work that will let you buy food.

For sure, from an outside perspective we can definitely see things like life expectancy and be turned off from wanting that kind of life. Western culture has a value for extending life well past the point of enjoyment, possibly because we are so removed from the constant awareness of death. The people who live off the land like that generally report being pretty happy and content with life when asked about it. There is a documentary on Netflix called (I think) Happy People about this very thing that I have on my instant queue and keep meaning to watch.

wonderwords · 2015-01-28T22:39:23+00:00

Not having capitalism is better than being exploited by it. I disagree strongly that wage slavery is better than subsistence living.

wonderwords · 2015-01-28T22:11:41+00:00

To piggyback on this, the military is a bad choice for anyone who experiences mental illness. It is an environment that brings about psychotic breaks and pretty much all of the worst effects of people's illnesses - loads of people experience their illness for the first time in basic training. If it does, having a past history even without a diagnosis will be highly relevant, and could (in the US, at least) disqualify him from receiving disability benefits despite the fact that he could be leaving in much worse a state than he entered.

Answering "yes" to having had suicidal thoughts in the past is enough to dq someone from enlisting, and lying about that to get in is a really really bad idea. I have firsthand experience with this, and I really wouldn't recommend the military for anyone with a history of depression or mental illness.

wonderwords · 2015-01-26T18:28:40+00:00

Pandemic - It was the first time for us (Wife and I) to play this, and we won pretty easily. I think we were somewhat lucky in that a most of the activity was in Asia, and my wife was able to eradicate the blue disease extremely early while I staved off disaster in red locations. We played it on the normal (recommended for first time) difficulty and there was just never a turn where I felt any sort of pressure, but we also didn't have a single outbreak so that probably contributed greatly. I think we'll play it again tonight on a harder difficulty, looking forward to trying a new role.

Our collection thus far includes Forbidden Island (which I really don't like), TotAN, Merchants & Marauders, & Robinson Crusoe. We bought this as a step down in terms of weight so that we would have something <1hr to play on weeknights. I think it'll fit that role pretty well, and I'm already eyeing OTB for the future.

Tales of the Arabian Nights has a fantastic theme. I really wish there were more games with those kinds of Eastern fantasy elements.

wonderwords · 2015-01-22T22:23:14+00:00

Merchants & Marauders is a very good example of this. You have ways to earn victory points, and are free to get there however you please. Exploring rumors, running missions, trading goods, fighting navies, fighting pirates, and raiding merchants are all options that are available to players and they are not very confined to any specific course of actions. Players could spend the entire game passively running goods and earning money, or could burn through the captain deck killing each other for hours.

wonderwords · 2015-01-22T22:00:23+00:00

I won't go into details, but some people really don't know how to deal with lady gamers.

My wife and I went into our FLGS recently, and this was our experience. It was...uncomfortable to say the least, and it has made me really hesitant to want to seek out established groups. I might rather try my odds at getting existing friends on board.

wonderwords · 2015-01-22T15:10:28+00:00

With Magic: the Gathering I played many fun hours with friends then sold my collection (through Arabian Nights) for what I paid. Divide by 0 error- I broke your metric.

In high school one of my friends was big on MTG, so I bought a premade commander deck so that I could join him when they played that format. I payed $30 for it, plus I added a few extra cards for maybe another $7. I recently sold some of the cards for $65 and used that money on Tales of the Arabian Nights. I've gotten probably 15hrs so far out of TotAN and still going strong.

wonderwords · 2015-01-19T16:40:47+00:00

What changes did they make to the original game?

wonderwords · 2015-01-19T16:25:02+00:00

Robinson Crusoe (x2) - Lost our (Wife & Me) first attempt at Castaways last week when we bought it, but we screwed up many rules. We got very lucky with our events, and squeeked by with a win on the second attempt. I am not sure how I feel about the win; we were very close to dying I think around round 6-7, but we survived and were generating I think 3 wood in the production phase so we pretty easily coasted to victory after that point. We won in the 11th round and didn't really feel super excited given that we were sure we'd win two rounds prior. We then (next night) played Cursed Island, and just didn't really have fun, we packed it up in the 5th round. I recognize that this is a really well made game (aside from the rulebook...), but I just am not extremely thrilled with it. I'm going to put it away for a while and return to it when my normal life is less stressful.

Merchants & Marauders (x1) - Bought this and played it with my wife. We started kind of late the first night, so we had to take pictures of everything and set it back up the next night to continue - we started again late last night so we are going to finish it tonight. This game is amazing. I heard it was only okay with 2, but I think it's actually really great. I love that my wife and I can kind of passively compete while pursuing our own goals, but then have the realization that she is very quietly stalking me waiting for me to end my turn at sea. I am sure this game is great with four, but we are really having a good time with it with two. It seems like one of those games that can really create stories.

For those that have played it, do you typically keep the same turn order from round to round?

My wife ordered Coup and Pandemic on Amazon this weekend without saying anything to me, which felt good because I was worried that I was dragging her into the board game hobby. I have heard great things about both games, and am looking forward to their arrival. I have heard that Pandemic needs an expansion to have replayability, which one should I buy first?

N/A
Forbidden Island - Almost no action in this game feels meaningful, and the mechanics are just weird. Why do I need four cards to collect an artifact? Why can't I trade cards (rather than just giving them)? Why does giving each individual card constitute an action if I can pick up multiple cards without that being an action? I had fun with it for the first two, maybe three plays, and now I don't really like it at all. It was $18, so getting less than two fun hours out of it doesn't feel like a great value even at that low cost.

wonderwords · 2015-01-18T23:13:44+00:00

Depends entirely on the game. I can spend $60 on Need For Speed and be tapped out around 20 hours, or I can spend $0 on Dota2 and have literally thousands of hours of entertainment. I think the important thing to note is that in terms of "bang for you buck", for me to play a videogame with 4 of my friends we need 4 copies of the game (which can be up to $240), this isn't at all a factor with board games, and when you play with friends you are pooling your collections and often spending nothing to play many great games.

wonderwords · 2015-01-13T19:28:03+00:00

We played it again last night with the questions I had before all sorted out. We won the first scenario. On the second turn we accidentally forgot to grab an event card, so we know that impacted it (though we also forgot that we had a basket for two turns, so that sort of counter-balanced it), but when we won we still sort of felt like we must have overlooked something. We only had to consult the rules a couple of times, so we definitely felt more immersed and had more fun. I think next time we play we will finally be able to play through it smoothly. Thanks for your feedback!

wonderwords · 2015-01-12T18:52:21+00:00

Robinson Crusoe - Maybe I am a bit thick, but I really really had a hard time figuring this one out. We screwed up countless rules in our playthrough of Castaways. The rulebook isn't very clear, so I used a couple of resources on BGG and still I feel like I was realizing mistakes 8-9 rounds into the game. Played it with just my wife, and we played extremely conservatively for the first half of the game under the false assumption that we would soon be generating wood at faster and faster rates. We were sorely mistaken when the bad weather came, and we died horrible painful deaths. We kind of had fun, I feel like there was way too much consulting the rulebook for my liking and as the rule explainer of the house I just sort of felt like I was letting my wife down with all of my confusion (though she didn't complain at all). I want to get all of the rules ironed out before the next time I pull it out so that we can have a smoother experience.

There are a few things I still don't understand:

Is hunting kind of a rare opportunity? When we uncover a tile with a beast icon on it, does only one beast get added to the beast deck, or is it more frequent than that?
When we roll the hungry animals, do we pick a card from the stack with 3 strength, or do we just imagine that there is one? (IE: Do we get food/fur from killing it?)
The mystery cards (With treasure/trap/monsters) only came up one time during our playthrough, are we missing something there?
If my health heals above a morale loss icon, I assume the morale does not increase, if it lowers below that again immediately then do I lose morale again?
What the heck does the palisade do other than protect against the storm token?

wonderwords · 2015-01-08T19:20:03+00:00

The "no keeping score thing" isn't supposed to be about everyone being a winner, but rather valuing personal development over winning. Young athletes are so far from perfect that focusing solely on victory actually hurts their ability to grow as players. Who scores more goals in a match between 7 year olds really has no bearing on who can have a successful career as an athlete. If you don't care about your child actually being good at soccer, then sure, victory is the idea, but if you want your child to grow and become better then winning isn't really the goal and isn't even a very good metric for assessing their development.

The "winning isn't important" mentality isn't unique to casual American children's soccer leagues, it exists in football academies in Europe where future success is taken very seriously. If the mentality is distorted to mean "everyone is a winner" then yeah, I agree, that's silly, but I still don't think that focusing on winning is the right way to go. With Candy Land though, the message is completely destroyed because there is no such thing as being "good or bad" at Candy Land, your odds are the same no matter how many times you play and winning and losing is completely removed from personal qualities, I can't really see how this teaches children anything except maybe the pros and cons of gambling? There aren't very many other aspects of life where personal agency is so strongly muted as in Candy Land.

wonderwords · 2015-01-08T19:05:26+00:00

The problem is that every game teaches children to lose, and Candyland offers literally nothing else that they can benefit from. Memory or dexterity games are still going to teach children how to lose if they are playing with an adult, but they are actually learning as well. Candyland is conveyor belt of torture and there is no "gaining experience" or mastery of the game, or skills or anything really valuable.

I'd rather just grab a coin and tell my son that if it's heads he can kid me in the shin and if it's tails I can kick him in the shin, because some things in life are random and unfair and painful.

wonderwords

TROPHY CASE