Cantankerous but still kicking…

Hello.  I’m new here, but I’ve been reading posts for days.  I can empathize, truly, but try to hear me.

I can relate. As an emerging teen, I had deep times of depression. I tried to kill myself when I was 21, and came very close again when I was 30. As time went on, I just would be dismissive. “It’s just depression” I’d tell myself, “it will pass”, and I was right.

Several years ago, I found myself at an unlikely place, someone’s home where a church group met. (This is not a God endorsement.) The leader shared her story about asking God what the upcoming new year would be about and what she prayed for for the year. When asked “what about you?”, I was beside myself with amusement, having never thought about asking what might be up for me; after all, I just assumed that I made plans and God would s— on them. When I left though, I flippantly asked for healing from depression.

HOPE FOR A QUICK REMEDY?
Coincidence or not, I discovered some new medical features (gluten intolerance, which apparently can cause neurotoxins in the brain) and that supplementing with B vitamins, tyrosine, and 5TP made a big difference for me–far more effective than any of the antidepressants I’d tried over the years. So “yey” for me right?

You all know that depression can be due to a chemical imbalance, and that these imbalances often come into play during the teen years when different portions of your brain are growing and coming online. And before you add another limiting belief to your internal scripts, such as “I’m defective”, consider that you are living in a world with more toxic exposure than ever before, and that it’s not optimum for most of us.

Recently, I hit an emotional pothole, and I upped my supplements. The next day, I felt far more balanced and grounded. So, there may be something simple that can help.

DAMN SCRIPTS!
We all have them, and a lot of you have shared them. Regardless of any factual validity, you’re not going to see long term improvement, until you can change the channel or learn to challenge your negative beliefs. As you do, you’ll gain perspective and not allow yourself to be defined by some story. Meditation can be a great tool for this. If you can learn, to create a crack between thoughts negatively ruminating about the past, and scripts of fears and hopelessness of the future, you can begin to recognize your broadcasting on your own bummer channel. At some point, there is a critical mass balance point that gets tipped, and you’ll be less snared by limiting beliefs, and more excited about creating things (a nice right brain activity), and new positive possibilities that you never conceived of before. You’ll enjoy having your mind spend time there so much, that a negative dart will seem like a vulgar little nuisance that needs to be plucked out.

TROLL?
My intent here is not to piss people off, just to suggest different strategies and remedies give us more tools for coping. We all need to continually upgrade our coping skills, and even so, there will be overwhelming waves that exceed our abilities, but know you’ll end up on the beach, and that you don’t have to solve everything in one day.

Truth be told, I am beginning to look like a troll. My marathoner’s body is long gone; and I probably should give a s— and get a haircut. I’ve contracted Lyme disease and my immune system is collapsing under heavy viral loads of typical viruses most of us have been exposed to, but my body can’t put up much of a fight. I have difficulty standing and making it from one part of the house to the other.

HYPOCRITE?
The decline from being active to the ongoing financial drain ($50K out of pocket medical last year) to not having been able to work since 2011, to treatments that don’t provide relief–all have me considering “self-deliverance”. Planning it has given me a sense of empowerment that I haven’t had while on this downward journey (with no end in sight). It’s nice to know I may still have some control over my life, and that I can stop the financial drain, if desired, as medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US. This is not an impulsive act due to depression, it’s a rational decision.

SO, …
For you young able bodied folks, consider finding someone to help. I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate paying a reliable, honest person to help with the stuff piling up that I now have difficulty managing. Check out too the It Gets Better books, even if you’re not struggling with sexual identity issues, … because it does get better (high school can suck).

And speaking of sex, some of you may have a few decades of promiscuous sex ahead of you, and you sure don’t want to miss that! ;^D

And don’t think there’s no one for you. When I briefly sold cars in my 20s, I remember an old timer salesman say to me as we looked over the lot, “You can’t get down, … there’s an a– for every seat.” But remember, you can rarely go wrong by lowering your expectations of people.

Thanks for reading this far. I guess I had a lot to get off my chest.