How Being Sad, Depressed And Anxious Online Became Trendy

Posted on June 30, 2019 by luckyotter

I’ve definitely noticed this trend. I’m guilty of it too.

Please comment on the original post.

Social media personas built on the illusion of happy, perfect lives are so tired. In 2019, it’s all about being Sad Online.

BY JESS JOHO

“Trendy” emotional distress on social media is part of many must-follow accounts across all platforms. Whether by retweeting the depressing relatability of the So Sad Today Twitter account (at 855,000 followers as of this writing) or commenting the obligatory “same” on a MyTherapistSays Instagram post (currently at 3.6 million). As recently immortalized by a Tim Robinson sketch in I Think You Should Leave, even if you do post pictures where you look cute and happy, it must be accompanied by a self-deprecating caption.

The era of being Sad Online is defined by a sense of reverse FOMO, a tacit agreement to redefine being cool on the internet through JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) — then file it under social anxiety. It’s possible, though…

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Things are getting really scary.

Posted on May 18, 2019 by luckyotter

wearenotok

There’s a reason why I haven’t posted in so long. My PTSD is at full bore and I can’t focus. I can’t write because my ability to concentrate is shot. I seem less able to cope with problems as they come up. I feel constantly on edge. My anxiety is unrelenting; it keeps me up at night and darkens my days. I’m often on the verge of tears, and frequently close to white hot rage. Getting through each day feels like a herculean accomplishment, but there’s no attendant pleasure in a job well done. Life is more burdensome and the future seems very dark.

There have been problems involving my daughter and addiction again. That’s bad enough, but I’d be able to cope with that more easily if my country wasn’t collapsing into so much rubble. Lately, the destruction seems to be accelerating and the things that are happening are becoming more nightmarish and blatantly oppressive. America has become a place I no longer recognize.

It’s not just Trump. It’s the fascist patriarchy the Trumpian-retooled GOP has become. Because of Trump, it has become a party run by a group of all-white, almost exclusively male sociopaths who despise people of color, non-Christians, Democrats, LGBTQ, migrant children — and women. Perhaps women most of all. Their misogyny seems to have no bottom.

The slew of abortion bans attempting to overturn a law that has been in place for 46 years is clear evidence of how much this group hates women. I don’t care how you feel about abortion, or what your religious views are, the federal government has no business making rules about what should be a personal decision between a woman and her doctor (and in some cases her husband or partner). The fact that two states made no exceptions for rape and incest, even if it’s a child raped by a relative, proves to me the patriarchy cares nothing about preserving life, or about a woman’s emotional or physical health, but about oppressing women and girls. The GOP is reminding me more and more of the Taliban. How much longer until they start making laws mandating restrictive clothing? How much longer until we are told what we can own and how much money we can have? How much longer until we lose our right to vote?

The hypocrisy of these men (and a few women) is astounding. This group is anything but pro-life, judging by their callous and cruel treatment of migrant families and children, their blithe lack of concern about the endless school shootings, their neverending attempts to take away our healthcare (including making pregnancy and even just being a woman a preexisting condition), their contempt for laws that protect our environment, and their unmitigated greed, hunger for power, and lack of empathy.

This is why our founding fathers wrote the separation of church and state into the Constitution. Mixing religion and government never leads to anything good. It corrupts both, and theocracies are without exception violent, hellish places to live, especially for women and people who deviate from the governing religion. One only needs to look at some of the Middle Eastern countries or medieval Europe to see how bad things can get. Here in America today, we have a group of fundamentalist evangelical Christians who have way too much power and who wish to replace the Constitution with biblical law. They appear to be succeeding in their efforts so far. Such an outcome seemed unthinkable at the time of Trump’s election.

We are falling behind other developed nations in every way. As they move forward into the future, we are becoming an oppressive backwater, a country resembling a repressive Middle Eastern theocracy or a violent banana republic more than a forward looking democracy. There’s been an uptick in police brutality, and no one does anything about it. We have a president who chose an attorney general to be his personal lawyer and “fixer” instead of representing the People. Trump stomps all over our Constitution and the rule of law. He and his sycophants break the law on a daily basis and are never held accountable. There are no checks and balances anymore, and the Democratic Congress seems weak and ineffectual, unable or unwilling to contain Trump’s destructive impulses.

No one wants to come here anymore. On social media, I have heard people from other countries say they have cancelled trips to America because they are too afraid. I don’t blame them. There is much to be afraid of. People who are able to are leaving, especially the young, who rightly see no future here.

I have a terrible feeling about where this country is going that I will leave unsaid. But I think anyone who is awake and aware sees what’s coming.

We ar running out of time. We must rise up because no one is coming to save us. If we don’t, we are complicit in our own destruction.

Let’s Talk About Generalised Anxiety Disorder

Posted on March 5, 2019 by luckyotter

I can relate to this article. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is the medical term for my chronic “free floating” anxiety that I complain about so often. Believe me, it’s a lot worse than it sounds.

Please leave your comments on the original post.

Why is depression more tolerable than anxiety?

Posted on March 2, 2019 by luckyotter

anxietyanddepression

I haven’t been at my best. My anxiety has really been acting up. I’m finding it hard to stay mindful and have a positive outlook. All the tools I learned to stay mindful and avoid the worst of Complex PTSD are almost useless.

I can never relax. I’ve been filled with a free floating sense of awful, black dread. I can’t take naps in the middle of the day like I used to, or even sleep in late because at some point I feel like my heart is slamming in my throat and I’m jumping out of my skin. Often I wake up early in the morning with a jolt, all that oppressive black anxiety weighing down on me like a lead blanket, and I almost feel like I can’t breathe. Sometimes it’s so intense it borders on full blown panic.

Some of my anxiety is very specific:

Worry about the future of our country under the current president;
Worry about my personal freedom and rights as I get older, especially since I’m what most would consider poor and under this horrific regime, I will be VERY vulnerable to exploitation or early death from lack of social security, Medicare or other old age benefits that older generations took for granted;
Worry about what will happen to my children (or any children they have) should we become a real dictatorship;
Worry that the payout from my insurance company won’t be enough to allow me to buy any kind of decent vehicle, which I need for work;
Worry about my daughter’s new husband not being capable of providing sufficiently for her or any children they have.
Worry about a likely move in the future: will I be able to afford it?
Worry that one of my adult children will be in a terrible accident and possibly die;
Worry that my own family is using me financially and talking badly about me behind my back (this is probably the most irrational fear I have). I know this is due to my past as a victim of narcissistic abuse. When I’m very anxious and triggered, I have a hard time trusting people, even people I know aren’t out to hurt me.

There’s also the free floating, nameless anxiety I’ve lived with all my life, magnified by my specific (and possibly even rational) fears. It’s this overwhelming feeling that something awful is about to happen, though I have no idea what.

All that anxiety is debilitating, and yes, it’s painful. It’s hard to function properly or maintain healthy relationships when you’re constantly fretting or ruminating about something that might happen in the future — or might not. I irritate my family because of my constant need for reassurance that I’m not being used or they are not going to be doing something dangerous that will get them hurt or killed. I get annoyed easily at work and just in general. I snap at others, not because I’m angry, but because I’m so anxious all the time.

There have even been days I’ve contemplated suicide (though I know I won’t actually do it) just to escape from the oppressiveness of all this anxiety and dread.

Every so often though, my anxiety gives way to depression. I know that depression is actually worse than anxiety because it means you have given up. You’re no longer fighting (anxiety definitely feels like you’re fighting for your life sometimes). Oddly enough it feels almost…comforting. When I’m depressed, I can just lie in bed or in front of the TV and not feel like my heart’s about to slam right out of my chest. I feel no guilt about being so slothful. When I’m depressed, I can actually sleep and escape my emotional hell through dreams, or just the oblivion of featureless slumber. I can find food comforting even though I can barely taste it. Though tears come rarely, when they do, it feels cathartic.

But mostly, when I’m depressed, it’s like boredom turned up to 11. Depression is very, very boring. There are elements of sadness and sometimes grief, but more than anything else, depression is boring. Yet, I have no urge to do anything to relieve the boredom, except maybe sleep or eat. The boredom is there, and while it’s intense, it isn’t painful or intolerable the way normal boredom is, the kind of boredom that makes you have to go DO something about it immediately. It’s just there, like gray wallpaper.

When I’m depressed, I don’t suffer much (or any) anxiety or dread, because in my mind, the bad thing has already happened. Even though my belief it already happened may be irrational, I’ve emotionally succumbed and accepted it.

It’s like that moment you know you are going to die. You go through your whole life fearing death, but when you’re finally face to face with it, staring into its infinite maw, knowing there’s nothing you can do, your fear disappears and you just accept you’re going to die at this moment, right here and now. I know this is true because when I was 18 I got raped. The man had a knife, and I thought he was going to kill me. At one point, I was sure I was a goner, and at that moment a strange calm took over and I just accepted this was how I was going to leave this earth. Obviously it didn’t happen, but I remember that sense of peaceful calm and acceptance.

That’s what happens when I’m depressed. It’s like I’ve already accepted something that might not even have happened and may never happen. No, of course it isn’t healthy, but it’s oddly comforting and far more tolerable to me than the almost constant high level of anxiety I’m forever doing battle with.

I want my life back.

Posted on October 28, 2018 by luckyotter

munsch

There hasn’t been one morning since Trump became president that I haven’t woke up with my stomach in knots and my heart racing. It’s impossible to get back to sleep and the first thing I always do is pull up Twitter to find out what the latest calamity is.

I’m edgy with people, edgy at work all the time, edgy with my family. I can barely function due to the constant nerves. And it’s all because of the political situation which occupies my mind 24/7 and is growing worse with each passing day.

Self care (which I recommend!) is only a temporary respite from the endless rollercoaster of anxiety, anger, dread, and depression. Going on vacation helps, but I can’t afford to do that more than once or twice a year. And even then, in the back of my mind, is the heavy feeling of knowing that soon, I’ll once again have to face our dark reality. Self care activities are necessary, but all they do is keep me from falling into the abyss. They don’t remove me from its edge.

I have NEVER had this kind of reaction before to ANY president. Even when I didn’t particularly like the president or his political platform, in the back of my mind I always knew he knew what he was doing, was going to protect democracy, and that we were more or less safe from terrorism, both foreign and domestic. I could focus on other things besides politics. Since January 9, 2017 I can’t.

I read somewhere that in functioning democracies, people don’t obsess about politics. They can actually live their lives. Since January 9, 2017 I feel like my life has been on hold and I can never relax.

Maybe in 9 days, we can put some much needed checks and balances back in place to keep this despotic president under control. Perhaps then I can relax a little. But I have a feeling no matter how the election goes, calamity will ensue. Trump’s base is so huge, so violent and so full of hatred toward most Americans, that I fear if we win, there will be civil war waged against us (which Trump himself has threatened). Already there seem to be bands of roving vigilantes and right wing militia groups sprouting up like metastatic tumors in the body republic, and not just at the southern border (where they await the “caravan” which consists primarily of women and children seeking asylum, not rapists, MS-13, and murderers). I have no faith these groups will be kept in check by our military, and no faith our military will even take our side (even though they’re supposed to protect the Constitution, not the president).

fascism_characteristics

Two days ago, pipe bombs were sent through the mail to Democratic leaders and reporters by a Trump supporting white supremacist (yet the Trump camp, as they always do, blames the victim, claiming Democrats sent the bombs to themselves). We were fortunate this time that the bombs were intercepted and defused before a disaster (or many disasters) happened, but next time, someone may die. And there will be a next time. We have become as tribal and violent as a third world country — and the violence isn’t coming from Antifa (which is a tiny minority on the very far left that engages in vandalism, not violence against actual people) or the left. Resistance protests have been peaceful, with any violence that occurs stirred up by counterprotesters (Charlottesville) and far right domestic terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and other far right extremist groups. The left (which now includes what used to be moderates and Never Trumpers due to the rightward shift of the Overton Window) has been gaslighted, demonized, and smeared by the Trump regime and its cult members to the point that anyone who disapproves of Trump and the toxic fear based rhetoric he spews at his rallies is seen as an enemy. We have been identified and marginalized. Removal of our rights and finally elimination will follow. People are going to die.

If we lose, I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen. It’s too terrifying to contemplate.

I just want this madness to end. I don’t want to have to obsess about politics anymore.

I just want my life back.

Update about my son’s mental health ordeal.

Posted on February 10, 2018 by luckyotter

This is just a quick update about my son, who started suffering severe panic attacks/dissociation episodes and a week later, from near-suicidal depression.

He is doing much better. It turned out the medication the Emergency Room gave him to control the panic attacks (lorazepam — commercially known as Ativan) had an adverse effect on him and caused the depression. Since he stopped taking them, he has not been depressed.

He’s been a lot less anxious too, but that may have been job-related. He was transferred to a different location which is closer to his home, and is less stressful, and he has not had another attack.

He still plans to find a therapist, since he is an anxious person who has OCD and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which my daughter also has). Having these disorders together makes a person likely to suffer sudden panic attacks.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers! I do think that helped too.

“George.”

Posted on January 27, 2018 by luckyotter

Ogre

Linda Lee, who writes “A Blog About Healing from PTSD” wrote this article about how she learned to deal with her panic attacks — and the advice is quite simple.

GET ANGRY!

Yes, get angry. While anger isn’t an ideal place to be, it’s a much more proactive and stronger emotion than fear.

The other day, I wrote about the panic attacks my son has been suffering from. As his concerned mom (who used to suffer from panic attacks myself), I’ve been talking to him every day, monitoring his progress. He’s been getting some good advice from his friends, since he hasn’t been able to see a therapist yet (but is planning to soon).

The best advice I heard of came from someone who told him to name his panic attacks. By naming them, you effectively separate them from yourself, and they become an outside “person” instead of a part of yourself you can’t separate from.

So he decided to name them “George.” Whenever he sees George coming, he tells him to get lost and yes, he gets angry at George. He tells George he’s nothing but a big bully with no real power over him. My son is much stronger than George and he tells him so. George hasn’t gone away yet, but he’s having less power over my son than he did, and doesn’t seem quite so dangerous.

Panic attacks, dissociation, and my son’s anxiety issues.

Posted on January 25, 2018 by luckyotter

escher

Geometries by M.C. Escher

My son, who already suffers from OCD and ADHD (both diagnosed) tweeted this the other night:

I just had one of the strangest things happen… and it was the scariest experience of my life. I just had a Depersonalization/Derealization episode. It was SO FUCKING TERRIFYING. I thought I was gonna wake up in the ER or never sleep again.

Then later:

Other than OCD, ADHD and depression i have no psych disorders i know of. That shit LITERALLY made me feel like i’d lost my grip on reality and self.

The next day:

I’m going to the emergency room.

A few hours later:

Guys, if anything happens i love you all. Absolutely terrified in the waiting room rn feeling like death.

Late last night:

I got released. They gave me an anxiety pill. It was officially diagnosed as an anxiety attack.

Today:

Looking into therapy. my anxiety is getting REALLY bad.

As his mom, of course I was alarmed by these tweets. But, as someone who used to suffer from panic attacks just as debilitating during my 20s and 30s, I KNOW HOW HE FEELS! Panic attacks suck, and the type that involve dissociation are absolutely the worst. For me, the dissociation usually involved derealization (feeling like your environment was unreal) but sometimes depersonalization (feeling like you’re disconnected from the world or like you’re not in your own body) too.

The panic might be hereditary. His father suffers from anxiety attacks too. I used to have exactly the kind of panic attacks he describes — always some kind of dissociative hell where I felt like everything was a dream and the people around me suddenly looked very frightening — either robotic or demonic. Sometimes they looked like wax figures or seemed like they were being run by machines, and the environment itself became very surreal and dreamlike. Sometimes it looked like a cartoon or two-dimensional.

disorienting

Museum installation by artist Peter Koler

During the worst attacks, I used to feel like I was literally outside of my body, and that really freaked me out. I actually would have trouble controlling my body. I remember once this happened to me on the subway in New York (which is scary enough as it is!) and I literally had to run off the train as soon as it stopped and ran into a corner and started whimpering. Sometimes I used to have to bite my hands to feel “real.” There were a few times I actually drew blood from doing that. These dissociative episodes felt just like a bad drug trip, and I’ve had a few of those too.

I suffered from my first dissociative panic attack at about age 10. I was playing outside in the early evening in the driveway and suddenly I felt like I wasn’t in my body. But I wasn’t able to find the words to describe the feeling, and when I tried to tell my mother about how “weird” I felt, she had no idea what I was talking about and said I was being overdramatic and imagining things. Eventually it passed, but from then on, every so often I’d get that weird feeling again. As I entered my teens and twenties, the attacks became worse and more frequent. They eventually tapered off when I reached my thirties and I haven’t had a full blown panic attack in years.

In my case, the episodes may have been due to my generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or possibly from C-PTSD and/or BPD. I don’t think my son has BPD, but he likely has PTSD or C-PTSD (his father is a narcissist and we had a very toxic marriage when the kids were young, which I have described elsewhere in this blog). OCD can definitely cause a person to have anxiety or panic attacks, and I’m sure having ADHD just exacerbates the tendency.

I talked to him tonight for a while about this, and suggested some mindfulness tools that have helped me. I think CBT could help him with this. Thankfully, he has health insurance with his job, and has set up an appointment to see a therapist. The emergency room gave him a short term prescription for some anti-anxiety meds (not benzodiazepines though). But there are many things he can do to help himself too.

He has never sought therapy for his anxiety or OCD because he’s been able to deal with it on his own until now, but he does need help with the panic and dissociation. He also admitted his new job is much more stressful than he expected, and he is already looking around for something else.

If you pray, please send your prayers his way. No one ever died or went crazy from a panic attack, but as someone who’s suffered from them, I know they can certainly feel that way when you’re in the midst of one!

*****

Further reading:

Derealization and Depersonalization in BPD and NPD

My worst nightmare.

Posted on September 9, 2017 by luckyotter

I’m a natural worrywart. A few days ago, when Irma was still out in the middle of the Atlantic and Harvey was still the #1 topic, I wrote a post about being worried that Irma might hit my son, who lives in the Tampa Bay area. My rational mind told me I was probably just catastrophizing, because I tend to do that. I mean, what were the chances the eyewall of this storm, would actually go right over him? It really didn’t seem all that likely.

But I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I had. I have good intuition, but my intuition tends to get mixed up with my tendency to catastrophize everything, and it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. As a result, my intuition doesn’t always work very well, since I get “bad vibes” even about things that pose no danger.

This time, my intuition was accurate. As the days passed since I wrote that post, Irma appears to be doing exactly what I prayed it wouldn’t do. Like a sadistic narcissist, this bitch has been teasing me and giving false hope — she moved to the east for awhile and looked like she was going to head up the Atlantic, sparing the Tampa area from the worst of the storm. I was able to relax a bit and laugh at myself for having been so worried.

But yesterday she shifted back to the west. Unless a miracle happens, she will be skirting up the western coast of Florida, with the eyewall passing directly over my son’s area. It won’t have weakened too much by the time the worst of it hits late Sunday night or early Monday morning — at best it might be a category 3 hurricane, which is still pretty bad.

My son is in some ways his father’s son. He lacks his dad’s narcissism and lack of empathy or conscience, but he definitely has his stubborness. I’ve been begging him to evacuate and drive up here until the danger passes. He said he didn’t have gas money. I told him not to worry about money and that I would provide anything he would need, but his answer was no. He’s determined to stay and ride this thing out. Now it’s too late for him to evacuate even if he decided to finally do so (which I know he won’t). The roads going north are bumper to bumper and there is no gas to be had.

I think there is another reason for his decision to stay besides his stubborness. Since he was a small boy, he’s always been fascinated by storms. When he was in his early teens, he flirted with the idea of being a tornado chaser. He used to watch all those Weather Channel shows about brave men and women who put themselves in the paths of dangerous tornadoes just for the adrenaline rush and to take videos of them for the rest of us more faint-hearted people to marvel at.

So I think he sees this as the opportunity of a lifetime, an adventure like no other, a dream come true for any fan of severe weather who is a bit of an adrenaline junkie too. He wants to have a story to tell, a story that few others will be able to tell. It’s like being a fighter pilot in World War II and or having climbed Mount Everest. “I was in Hurricane Irma back in ’17,” is something that will definitely get people’s attention.

My son is not going into this blind. He has been tracking this storm, paying attention to the warnings and evacuation orders, has gotten all the supplies he needs, and has chosen to leave his apartment (which is in the storm surge zone) and go slightly inland to a sturdy one story brick home where he will be riding Irma out with about 9 of his friends (it’s still in Tampa though). They are well prepared and he tells me they are not in an area prone to storm surge or flooding.

But this hurricane is a beast, and who knows what havoc she will bring? Irma is unpredictable, and not like any other hurricane. Even if my son and his friends are safe from storm surge, they are not safe from the furious winds, which will be around 100-112 mph as the eyewall passes over them. More than anything, I am glad he is not alone. But I’m still terrified for him.

Please keep my son and his friends in your prayers.

I feel like I’m about to snap.

Posted on September 4, 2017 by luckyotter

I’m not handing all the bad news well today, especially now that I have to worry about a major hurricane possibly hitting where my son lives next weekend. All my C-PTSD and BPD symptom are triggered — dissociation, hypervigilance, obsessive monitoring of the weather/news in general, physical symptoms (fatigue, headache), snappishness, mood swings, isolation, feeling helpless, and intense anxiety are all symptoms that have returned and threaten to overwhelm me.

I recently quit therapy because I felt guilty about not wanting to talk about anything but the political situation, but dammit, it’s so triggering and I take it very personally, given my background of abuse. So I might have to go back soon.

I’ve been busy on Twitter (I’m meeting a lot of fellow #resisters there and it’s how I get the most up to date news). Today I just had to sound off. It was just stream of conscienceness venting. It feels good to get all this off my chest, even if no one was really paying attention. (Read bottom to top).

I chose my new Twitter user name because it makes me laugh and I need all the laughs I can get. Gallows humor does help.