Ok, so it is time for an altogether-too-personal story, but there’s a chance it will help, and it is relevant to the thread:
I spent most of my life since high school struggling with bouts of depression. They lasted long, long periods of time. I think the longest was around two years, with only a month or two before the next one that lasted over a year. These gradually got worse, from constant thoughts of “I hate life” to constant thoughts of “I want to die. How do I go about dying?”
This went on for a long time. Then I managed to get in a successful relationship, and for a couple of years, it mostly faded. I told her about it, and she suggested I get help. I figured it was basically in the past and I could get over it without it. But of course it came back.
Here’s the thing. My mother has the same condition: chronic depression, with no easily identifiable cause. She’s on medication for it, and she claims it saved her life. I knew it had a strong genetic component, I knew I probably had the same condition, and after I deconverted from Christianity, I knew the brain was essentially a biological machine that could easily malfunction.
Yet I persisted in not seeking help. I was worried about side effects from medication, among other things. I saw other people zombied out and thought it would happen to me too.
It didn’t even occur to me to research the drugs and find out that they worked in lots of different ways.
When it was finally too much, I convinced myself to use my school’s (FREE!) psychologica/psychiatric services. They put me on Prozac.
Relevant to the thread: The ENTIRE TIME, from high school to the third year of grad school of being miserable and suicidal, I was being completely and totally irrational. Worse yet, it was the kind of irrationality that you can’t just recognize and fix immediately. It took a big push and the help of professionals.
Relevant to your comment: After about 4 weeks on Prozac, the strangest thing happened to me. I went into the bathroom for whatever reason, looked in the mirror, and saw staring back. . . a downright handsome guy.
I didn’t even know I had problems with thinking myself unattractive, but I realized at that moment that, while I accepted other people thought me attractive, I had never at any point thought of myself as an attractive man. Well, now I do.
Anyway. I don’t know if you’ve been through anything like that. I know that you think you’re ugly. I’ve seen your OKC profile (I just looked at it again, actually; hi) and you are attractive. But it’s probably not enough for other people to tell you. Learn from my irrationality.
Ok, so it is time for an altogether-too-personal story, but there’s a chance it will help, and it is relevant to the thread:
I spent most of my life since high school struggling with bouts of depression. They lasted long, long periods of time. I think the longest was around two years, with only a month or two before the next one that lasted over a year. These gradually got worse, from constant thoughts of “I hate life” to constant thoughts of “I want to die. How do I go about dying?”
This went on for a long time. Then I managed to get in a successful relationship, and for a couple of years, it mostly faded. I told her about it, and she suggested I get help. I figured it was basically in the past and I could get over it without it. But of course it came back.
Here’s the thing. My mother has the same condition: chronic depression, with no easily identifiable cause. She’s on medication for it, and she claims it saved her life. I knew it had a strong genetic component, I knew I probably had the same condition, and after I deconverted from Christianity, I knew the brain was essentially a biological machine that could easily malfunction.
Yet I persisted in not seeking help. I was worried about side effects from medication, among other things. I saw other people zombied out and thought it would happen to me too.
It didn’t even occur to me to research the drugs and find out that they worked in lots of different ways.
When it was finally too much, I convinced myself to use my school’s (FREE!) psychologica/psychiatric services. They put me on Prozac.
Relevant to the thread: The ENTIRE TIME, from high school to the third year of grad school of being miserable and suicidal, I was being completely and totally irrational. Worse yet, it was the kind of irrationality that you can’t just recognize and fix immediately. It took a big push and the help of professionals.
Relevant to your comment: After about 4 weeks on Prozac, the strangest thing happened to me. I went into the bathroom for whatever reason, looked in the mirror, and saw staring back. . . a downright handsome guy.
I didn’t even know I had problems with thinking myself unattractive, but I realized at that moment that, while I accepted other people thought me attractive, I had never at any point thought of myself as an attractive man. Well, now I do.
Anyway. I don’t know if you’ve been through anything like that. I know that you think you’re ugly. I’ve seen your OKC profile (I just looked at it again, actually; hi) and you are attractive. But it’s probably not enough for other people to tell you. Learn from my irrationality.