bloody miserable

[Corpsey]

I've just started reading Daniel Kahnemann's (aforementioned by me a few pages back) book ''Thinking, fast and slow" and its so interesting I'd thoroughly recommend it to anybody regardless of whether you've experienced mental health issues or not. Its very insightful into the way people's minds work, how a whole lot of thinking is done completely intuitively and unconsciously, and how this unconscious process can be influenced by all sorts of 'priming' influences, external and internal (i.e. memories).

Also I recently started reading the "5:2 Diet" book which is all the rage at the moment, as I'm intending to lose weight in the new year but its been interesting to read about the effect on mental health diet has, too. In both books the level of glucose/insulin in the blood is mentioned. Another interesting idea in Kahnemann's book is that cognitive exertion is drawn from the same energy pool as self-control - so that people who exert themselves mentally for a short period are more likely to give in to the temptation to eat something unhealthy, e.g. I wonder if, chemicals aside, this is one reason why exercise and dieting has such a positive effect on people with depression? The very discipline required to go to a gym or on a run several times a week, despite knowing it will be somewhat uncomfortable or even painful, is linked with the mental strength needed to repel easy (though painful) thoughts of how pointless everything is etc.

 

[baboon2004]

yeah it's grim... hard to talk about it as well, cos you end up inadvertently slagging off mates who are successful, or alienating people still hopeful of success. Just makes you feel totally alone, and the credit from people who know the score (like, Zeke Clough is really into my work, had Move D come up to me in a club and say how much he liked one of my live sets) just kind of makes it worse, cos it feeds the arrogant side where you know what you've done is good, but doesn't make you feel any better about the indifference from 99.9%. And arrogance is just hide and seek for self hate.

i think there's a difference between arrogance and healthy narcissism - you've every right to feel good about your work (plus you know it is good, cos of the feedback you're getting).

It's a really difficult situation though, because there's obviously no given relation between success (in material terms) and talent.

 

[baboon2004]

Another interesting idea in Kahnemann's book is that cognitive exertion is drawn from the same energy pool as self-control - so that people who exert themselves mentally for a short period are more likely to give in to the temptation to eat something unhealthy, e.g. I wonder if, chemicals aside, this is one reason why exercise and dieting has such a positive effect on people with depression? The very discipline required to go to a gym or on a run several times a week, despite knowing it will be somewhat uncomfortable or even painful, is linked with the mental strength needed to repel easy (though painful) thoughts of how pointless everything is etc.

I think there's truth in this, but also I think that exercising/eating well is being good to yourself, so that in itself doing these things (and having the discipline to do them ,as you say) is a demonstration that you care about your own well-being. Depression is often anger turned inwards against the self, meaning that you don't care about your own well-being/don't treat yourself as well as you would other people.

 

[Corpsey]

I read a little bit of it today on my way home from C.B.T. class number one (wasn't incredibly useful, but I'm going to give it a chance) .

Wow, this thread takes me down memory lane. Memory lane is a dank, rubbish-strewn hellhole of festering misery, but it feels good to be back!

All those years later and I've still not tried meditation! Left my therapist back in Bristol and not seen one since. I'm still a miserable bugger. Occasionally it will suddenly strike me that the way I view life isn't remotely normal or healthy, and that depresses me even more. My outlook on life tends towards Larkinesque levels of hopelessness and despair. The absolute best mood I can reach is one of melancholy joy in other peoples' happiness. That, or when I'm stoned, eating Reese's pieces and watching The Avengers for the 50th time.

 

[Corpsey]

Can't find luka's advice on this thread (I think) that actually has made sense to me a lot over the last year in particular - that he used to have a negative voice in his head and then he killed it.

It sounds very simple but I think there's something to that. A lot of my depression is generated by a self-criticising voice that I feel compelled to 'listen to'. It is rather like carrying a tiny annoying Thom Yorke around in your head the whole time. A tiny Thom Yorke that, like Ant Man, is ten times as powerful as a fully grown man.

 

[droid]

Was reading something on Kek's blog about immunotherapy and mental illness - posited that depression could be caused by errant immune responses affecting the body & mind.

 

[Lichen]

I have a mantra "think out, not in" which sounds daft, but is great way of inhabiting the moment, and quashing the negative internal chatter.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The Litany Against Fear is good too.

 

[Leo]

UK appoints minister of loneliness.


https://www.theguardian.com/society...nister-tackle-loneliness-issues-raised-jo-cox

 

[baboon2004]

I'm not surprised - the political bit is sickening though (sure Jo Cox would have been delighted to hear Theresa f-ing May gushing blankly about her work), and maybe the Tory party could look into stopping destroying community structures too as an antidote to loneliness?

 

[john eden]

I'm not surprised - the political bit is sickening though (sure Jo Cox would have been delighted to hear Theresa f-ing May gushing blankly about her work), and maybe the Tory party could look into stopping destroying community structures too as an antidote to loneliness?

The point is surely that this minister will be the Elastoplast over the gaping wound of the mental health consequences of austerity.

The appointment of the minister is happening exactly because they won’t examine the root structural causes.

 

[Turns out HMG was right!]

maybe the Tory party could look into stopping destroying community structures too as an antidote to loneliness?

Community structures like the family, which has been under attack from the left forever?

 

[john eden]

Community structures like the family, which has been under attack from the left forever?

The family has also been under attack by neoliberalism of course, with more success in terms of what has replaced it.

 

[baboon2004]

The point is surely that this minister will be the Elastoplast over the gaping wound of the mental health consequences of austerity.

The appointment of the minister is happening exactly because they won’t examine the root structural causes.

obviously I agree with this, but I guess what I was saying is that I'd rather there was an Elastoplast than no Elastoplast, because at least then these issues are in the news. Yep, the Tories aren't ever going to examine the root structural causes because they caused (a lot of) them, so this is the best to be hoped for. At least then there might be some chance of their blatant hypocrisy on the issue of loneliness/mental health being pointed out.

 

[baboon2004]

Community structures like the family, which has been under attack from the left forever?

has it? surely it's been opposed only to a really restrictive and restricting view of the family, rather than the concept itself?

 

[luka]

has it? surely it's been opposed only to a really restrictive and restricting view of the family, rather than the concept itself?

single mums, step parents, the gays, miscegenation. it's like sodom and gomarrah all over again. i blame cultural marxism.

 

[baboon2004]

or even, god help us, giving individuals the cultural power to redefine family to disown the people they're blood-related to, and replace them with people they actually like

 

[thirdform]

i probably have bpd sometimes massive rages come over me i fly into tempers for no apparent reason and feel like everyone is attacking me i can'tt even get decent treatment for major depression i wish my parents would allow me to die tbh.

 

[thirdform]

ive turned into the worst cunt imaginable since being sectioned in 2016 i feel like this country is against me even tho there are no voices anymore everything feels like its working against me.

 

[luka]

probably better not to die. i dont know if its necessarily true but its always best to assume there
is a solution for even the knottiest of problems. that you can, with time and effort and patience, start to untangle the threads, bit by bit. by focusing all your efforts and expending all your energy on the question. paying close attention and taking care not to keep repeating the same mistakes.

things do get very bad sometimes.