Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,959 
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Post by Crimebuster on Jul 17, 2015 4:41:29 GMT -5
This depression thing must be making the rounds here, because I am in a pretty bad way at the moment. Maybe our forum has a case of internet mono.
There's a lot of stuff going into it. My mother has terminal cancer. I've developed a mysterious nervous disorder that the doctors can't quite figure out; they originally thought it might be MS, but have backed away from that and are officially shrugging in confusion. My aunt died completely out of the blue last month, which has been very difficult for the family in general and myself specifically.
To top everything off, one of my closest friends and I are having some major issues. She's going through an extremely difficult divorce from an absolutely destructive marriage, so she's as or more emotionally messed up than I am. We've been leaning on each other a lot through all this, but a bunch of stuff between us has come up - mainly the fact that I've had (mostly) unrequited feelings for her for over a decade - which last night resulted in her basically questioning the entire basis of our friendship. Instead of supporting each other, we're just tearing each other down more.
I've been through depression before, so I know how it goes. Back in 1998, I had a very serious, deep depression that lasted a year or so. Since then I've been mostly okay, you know? But man. Man. I am so low right now. What a world this is.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,959
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Post by Crimebuster on Jul 17, 2015 4:43:47 GMT -5
I don't usually like discussing personal matters since I have been using my real name on the forums, but honestly, I need any support I can get at the moment. So I am going to just change my screen name for now anyway. Not that anyone would have much luck googling my name, but whatever.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 17, 2015 5:36:18 GMT -5
Crap, I'm really sorry to hear that, Crimebuster. It really piles up sometimes. Hang in there and don't let life's worst aspects bring you down.
Perhaps a little shared misery will help, insofar as I can vouch that things do get better eventually. My father died after ten years of Alzheimer's disease, a shell of the great man he had been, crapping his adult diaper and unable to speak, wracked by pneumonia. My kid sister, who had greatly helped in taking care care of him, was crushed in a car crash the following year, kept alive by machines (her brainstem was severed). I was the one who had to agree to unplug the machines (Jesus, my own sister!) while I was bent at a ninety degree angle because of severely herniated disks that had crippled me two weeks before that.
I figure that's pretty much where you are right now, at that point where anyone would start thinking "well, crap, How can it get any worse?" (The question is rhetorical... of course, it could always get worse... it's just not the way we feel when life dumps on us that way).
In any case... After a while, when the dust settles, things do get better. The missing people are still gone, the heartaches still hurt, the broken pieces are still sore, but the human mind is remarkably adaptable; we manage to survive it all and to appreciate the joys that are left. True story.
I sincerely hope that things get better for you soon. Hang in there.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 17, 2015 6:23:17 GMT -5
I'm sorry Crimebuster and Shax.  All I can do is pray that God gives you strength and favor in the coming days. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 17, 2015 6:48:33 GMT -5
Today started amazingly well, crashed and burned horrendously in the afternoon, and, just as I was starting to feel things were getting better, I got a phone call: my 73 year old mother is in the emergency room. Well, screw dieting tonight, at least... I am sorry to hear that, Shaxper. Best wishes to your mom (and to you). |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 17, 2015 8:42:00 GMT -5
Wow, you guys really know how to make a fella feel guilty for having a relatively happy life (knock on wood)!
Seriously, I care about you all a whole lot and it hurts me when any of you are hurting. Dan, shax, Scott and everybody else going through a rough patch, I hope and pray things get better for you soon. If I can help in any way, just ask.
Cei-U!
I summon the geek solidarity!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,874
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Post by shaxper on Jul 17, 2015 9:05:11 GMT -5
I don't usually like discussing personal matters since I have been using my real name on the forums, but honestly, I need any support I can get at the moment. So I am going to just change my screen name for now anyway. Not that anyone would have much luck googling my name, but whatever. On the brighter side, when I looked at my notifications this morning and saw that "Crimebuster" had replied to one of my posts, I immediately knew you must have changed your name. I guess my point is that we know you well, and, when you don't have others to lean on in your life, this is your family too. I never would have gotten through the low points in my marriage or started losing weight without this community to lean on, and you should feel free to do the same. So sorry to hear about your mother, your aunt, and your mysterious ailment, and I wish you the best of luck in repairing your friendship, CB. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,874
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Post by shaxper on Jul 17, 2015 9:05:55 GMT -5
Wow, you guys really know how to make a fella feel guilty for having a relatively happy life (knock on wood)! Well now that IS good news, and it caused me to smile for the first time today. Keep it going, Kurt. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jul 17, 2015 9:50:05 GMT -5
Wow, you guys really know how to make a fella feel guilty for having a relatively happy life (knock on wood)! Well now that IS good news, and it caused me to smile for the first time today. Keep it going, Kurt. And Kurt made me feel guilty considering all the troubles he's had of late with just getting a decent wheelchair and he still has a positive attitude. Guess I'll try not to complain so much about my middle-aged aches and pains and musical chairs game of what company I work for.
But seriously, all of you, all of us, need a place to unload sometimes. Hopefully things will look up for all of us. But if not, we have here. I mean, we're all geeks, who are we judge?
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 17, 2015 10:40:18 GMT -5
Hardships are hardships. I hope we all feel comfortable to post here, whether one actually does or not (being private people). Cei-U shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to get what he needs from the government after paying in tax dollars.
Dan, wickedmountain and Crimebuster, I can't imagine depression. I deal with it on the outside with my wife, but never on the inside, personally. I hate that there's nothing I can do to "fix" her depression, bi-polar and anxiety. Now she's immobile due to her ankle surgery.
Also Shax, I am starting to think about my parent's age and come to grips with a day I'd never thought I'd see. Or at least it was so far in the future I didn't prepare well for it. RR, sorry about your father. That is a big fear too for me. How/can I deal with my parents if some debilitating disease were to strike my folks.
DE, jobs are important and the scare of them not being there or loosing them is a great big deal for a father and husband. Right now the price of oil is hurting the drilling industry, which in turn threatens my job. Yeah it will probably boom again, but will I survive with a job for as long as it takes. We all have our hardships, and I am glad that there is somewhere we can all go, where we won't be belittled or someone try to 1up with something worse.
Getting things out to people that it doesn't hurt, helps put things in perspective. I can't let my wife know I tire of doing literally everything since May and will continue to till at least September, because then she feels guilty, even though she isn't responsible for her lack of mobility. Then and now when I say something like 6am-11pm, 5 days a week of work and run, run, run, do, do, do I realize what an ass I am because it's what I said I would do when I married her. And what I said I would do when I created two children. But it still helps to just say it, without the fear of it hurting someone even unintentionally.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 11:37:37 GMT -5
Shax and Crimebuster, I understand what you guys are going through and I just wanted to let you both know that I will be thinking of you and thanks for sharing it and letting us know what you are going through. I have that same problem that you guys are going through - I had a year of depression back in 1997, dealing with my horrible Father that thinks that I'm worthless, and the pains that I gone through losing my Mother of whom I adore three years ago was difficult due to Alhezimers.
Now, after spending some time with my Brother in the past few days we have to deal with my Father of whom just been diagnosed with Alhezimers and we are thinking of putting him in a nursing home very soon and that's will make my Dad really mad. My Brother has the Power of Attorney and with a team of Doctors that supports him - My own Father will lose his ability to do things will have great impact on my family.
I'm might be getting out of the Condo Business for good and moving into a small house because of the stupid people that I put up every single day of driving in and out of this complex. I'm considering moving in a month or 2. I haven't told my family yet.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 11:44:01 GMT -5
Today started amazingly well, crashed and burned horrendously in the afternoon, and, just as I was starting to feel things were getting better, I got a phone call: my 73 year old mother is in the emergency room. Well, screw dieting tonight, at least... Good lord. My co-worker has been out all week, I learned when I got back Wednesday afternoon, because his 81-year-old father fell flat on his back in his assisted living center & smacked the hell out of his head on a concrete floor. As a result of the attendant impact, bleeding, bruising, etc., not till yesterday was he able to recognize anyone. Not to be morbid (said the morbid guy), but this is far from the first time I've thought that in some ways it's just as well that I lost my parents young & don't have to cope with these sorts of concerns while I'm aging myself. (Part of the situation, of course, is that my mother just wasn't in good shape mentally or, increasingly, physically toward the end. Sort of sobering to realize that she was 1 year & 2 months older than I am when she died.) As for dieting, I haven't owned a pair of scales in well over a decade, so I have no idea how much weight I've lost post-surgery. A fair amount, I'm hoping, considering my continued lack of an appetite (aided & abetted a sense of taste that still seems a bit off, evidently from the antibiotics I was on in the hospital), but probably not nearly as much as I'd like, considering the fact that my idea of strenuous exercise is walking down the hall from my desk here to the break room. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jul 17, 2015 14:07:09 GMT -5
Today started amazingly well, crashed and burned horrendously in the afternoon, and, just as I was starting to feel things were getting better, I got a phone call: my 73 year old mother is in the emergency room. Well, screw dieting tonight, at least... Good lord. My co-worker has been out all week, I learned when I got back Wednesday afternoon, because his 81-year-old father fell flat on his back in his assisted living center & smacked the hell out of his head on a concrete floor. As a result of the attendant impact, bleeding, bruising, etc., not till yesterday was he able to recognize anyone. Not to be morbid (said the morbid guy), but this is far from the first time I've thought that in some ways it's just as well that I lost my parents young & don't have to cope with these sorts of concerns while I'm aging myself. (Part of the situation, of course, is that my mother just wasn't in good shape mentally or, increasingly, physically toward the end. Sort of sobering to realize that she was 1 year & 2 months older than I am when she died.) As for dieting, I haven't owned a pair of scales in well over a decade, so I have no idea how much weight I've lost post-surgery. A fair amount, I'm hoping, considering my continued lack of an appetite (aided & abetted a sense of taste that still seems a bit off, evidently from the antibiotics I was on in the hospital), but probably not nearly as much as I'd like, considering the fact that my idea of strenuous exercise is walking down the hall from my desk here to the break room.Seriously, Dan, after major surgery and being laid up that long, walking to the break room is strenuous exercise. Give yourself a break. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 14:19:53 GMT -5
Well ... yeah. I guess so. I do plan to do some walking at least a couple of blocks around my neighborhood several times this weekend, though lord knows temps in the high 90s aren't making that a very appealing prospect.
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Post by berkley on Jul 17, 2015 15:01:02 GMT -5
I think some kind of regular exercise is of vital importance not only to our physical but almost equally so to our mental health. Even if you've always thought of yourself as someone who doesn't "do" sports or exercise or anything of that kind, I think one of the best changes anyone can make in their lives is to make some kind of physical activity part of their daily routine if it isn't already. You need it, everyone does, it's just the way human beings are made.
Obviously that general rule has to be applied keeping individual circumstances and limitations in mind.
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All I can do is pray that God gives you strength and favor in the coming days. 
