# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Ask/Tell Me About >  >  What's your psychological disorder?

## Original Poster

Have you got a mental illness? Share about it here!

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## Narwhal

Got diagnosed with ADHD in head start. Then something else later on that I think is fictional. My most recent diagnosis is c-ptsd which I don't even think is a thing.

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## Original Poster

I think it's a thing but it's a very gray and open ended thing. It could almost be considered synonymous with the word maladjusted.

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## Narwhal

Yeah you're probably right, especially since the only reason for my reaching out for help from a so called professional was for anxiety and hygiene and stuff.

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## Original Poster

Our society has it backwards, we think only the mentally unhealthiest seek help, when it's actually our mentally healthiest that do. Or maybe our therapists just tell us that to make us feel better :\

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## Universal Mind

Attention Deficit Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I have gone through some pretty bad OCD periods, but I think I have a handle on it for the most part now. I don't have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, which is the cleanness obsession, put the food in alphabetical order problem. I have the thing that makes people feel the need to scratch the right knee if they just scratched the left knee and then start the process over with the right knee to make things even. I have had a lot of off the wall tics in my life, such as flexing my right nostril and blowing my wrist. 

My ADD is textbook case. I once stopped by a grocery store on my way to a dry cleaner and walked into the grocery store with my clothes I brought for cleaning. I made it all the way to the produce section before I realized what I had done. I don't have the hyperactive form. I just have the on Mars all the time form. I have very little experience with actually listening to what a teacher is saying in class. I have been a teacher at several schools, and I can listen to myself talk for hours straight. It's just when somebody else is the teacher that I drift off to far away places almost immediately. I depended almost entirely on my textbooks to get through school.

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## Narwhal

> Our society has it backwards, we think only the mentally unhealthiest seek help, when it's actually our mentally healthiest that do. Or maybe our therapists just tell us that to make us feel better :\



I wouldn't doubt that to just being a trust enticing fib of theirs. I hate the tactics they learned from their textbooks that they try to implement on me, because I'm very aware of it. All the therapists I've been to, within the first day they begin using fowl language based upon my looks to try and make me feel at ease with them, or relate, but I never verbally swear. Now on the internet that is a different story, I use fowl language because it feels different. That only makes me feel they are unprofessional. Then they go on about how they relate to me because they too went through familial trauma, and how she had traveling anxiety, and how he was hung from the garage rafters by his dad. Then he says "don't you want to punch your grandma in the boob?".....What the actual fuck? After I just explained to him my Grandma and Grandpa were my childhood saviors from my asshole parents. And then this female therapist showed me her stomach, and her legs, and made me show her my toe, and she was consistently late. And she talked incessantly, and showed me all the photos of her family and talked about her family, and then tried to get something out of me using the question in 90 different forms. One time she kept trying to move into my personal space bit by bit by using sporadic arm movement in her expressive blabbering, and I was thinking in my head "I know you're trying to get into my personal space because I'm not making eye contact with you", I mean challenge accepted, I had nail polish on my fingers that needed chipping off to be done, but the point is, those are the same tactics they use in police interrogation to get a confession out of a murderer. They take his personal space away. 

"*Confrontation
The detective presents the facts of the case and informs the suspect of the evidence against him. This evidence might be real, or it might be made up. The detective typically states in a confident manner that the suspect is involved in the crime. The suspect's stress level starts increasing, and the interrogator may move around the room and invade the suspect's personal space to increase the discomfort.

If the suspect starts fidgeting, licking his lips and or grooming himself (running his hand through his hair, for instance), the detective takes these as indicators of deception and knows he's on the right track.*"

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## Zoth

Makes me sad thinking about the people who don't feel comfortable discussing their mental problems, or even be open about them (but then once again, this is a public forum  :tongue2: ). We certainly still have a lot to work towards removing the stigma of mental illness.

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## tropicalbreeze

i was labeled with type 2 ADD and dyslexia, though i no longer see it as an "illness."

if anything the more i saw it as an illness, the more i started using that as an excuse for my failures.

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## Original Poster

Let's pretend I'm using the word illness innocuously because sanity doesn't exist and people are going to try to label your personality as various disorders anyways so wear terms like illness and disorder with pride.

I suppose it's supposed to disrupt your life, and people are actually inhibited by things like depression and anxiety, and it's not fair to call these people "lazy" or otherwise. And it's unfair when someone, for example, is diagnosed with ADD and their parents say the doctors don't understand that person is just lazy. You can't hold people up to your standards because they don't have the same chemical concoction, hard wiring and conditioning as you, and what's worse maybe you're such a go-getter because space and peace create intolerable anxiety so you call others lazy to justify your own unwillingness to face this anxiety.

But that being said, it's all in how you see things, and something like my bipolar does impair me in certain ways but it also gives me advantages. So I too do not see it as an illness, but it's still considered an illness.

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## JoannaB

Haven't sought out a doctor about it, but I am very excited because my self diagnosis indicates that my depression may actually be seasonal affective disorder, and if it is then phototherapy may well help me feel better. Let there be light!

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## ParadoxOwl

I was diagnosed with ADHD and I'm gunna be honest...it ruined the earlier years of my life, I was such a stupid pain in the ass kid, I would get so angry when people weren't doing what I told them to do and I would break things due to boredom. I made a teacher quit her job, that's how bad I was.

I got put on some pills and that calmed my ADHD down. I have been off the pills for like 10-12 years. It no longer effects me.

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## splodeymissile

Depression, with slight hints of a messiah complex.

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## snoop

Officially diagnosed with ADHD predominantly inattentive, but Bipolar is not off the table apparently. Hyperactivity etc. has been present since childhood, but the real issues occurred after a head injury which can actually lead to such disorders as ADHD and bipolar and other disorders that are all very related and more on a spectrum than something that can be simply labeled. I don't really treat these diagnoses as legitimate in the sense that I tell people regularly that I have it or even fully believe them myself.  All I know are my symptoms: highly inattentive, easily distractable, virtually no working-memory, hyperactive, odd sleep patterns and difficulty falling asleep yet somehow in school or while I was in the military if I sat still I couldn't stay awake (like I had narcolepsy or something), trouble with focus, starting lots of projects but never following up on them or completing them, depression ranging from non-existent, to melancholy, to seriously depressed (drug use  makes it difficult to really tell what's a symptom of a disorder and what's from drugs, especially the variety), drug abuse, unwarranted feelings of rage toward other human beings, blunted emotion, violent ideation and fantasization, lack of empathy, typically a lack of remorse (though I am not incapable of it), and the seeming inability to properly feel or express love in normal cases (such as normal family members, etc... I can only feel love in very specific cases and as some added background info I do not have many bad relationships with people and no bad relationships in my family). I often, even before drug use, suffered from both derealization and depersonalization.

Now, what I would say is wrong with me is some brain damage from multiple traumatic brain injuries, brain damage from drug use (specifically adderall abuse, and maybe DXM), and my natural personality of being absent-minded and uh... just different, with a developed sociopathy of sorts.

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## goldenphoniex

self diagonised social anxiety disorder, i am afraid of what people think of me.  ::sad2::

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## Anju

Self diagnosed OCD. Maybe Asperger's Syndrome too.

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## ElsiaStar

Bipolar type II and social anxiety. ruining my life. yay.

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## acatalephobic

If I were to self-diagnose I would say for certain that I have an addictive personality.  

I would describe it further as...basically the anxiety I sometimes experience can manifest itself as some action taken to relieve said anxiety.   These action(s) might not even make sense, and although I realize they might not affect the situation whatsoever,  I perform these action(s) anyway.   Even if doing so gives me no real relief from the anxiety involved.

OCD seems likely to me,  but since what I just described isn't always the case, I can't say for sure.  Clearly I'm no professional.

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## Original Poster

> Bipolar type II and social anxiety. ruining my life. yay.



Hey mine too high five!

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## Voldmer

It seems to me that there are an ever increasing number of conceivable psychological disorders. Is anyone psychologically _in order_ these days - I mean, anyone at all? Don't we all have a little bit of everything?

Just a thought ...

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## Box77

Hypochondria! I have it, I know I have it!!

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## Marvo

Gay as hell.

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## Zhaylin

Generalized Anxiety Disorder here and/or I'm a "Highly Sensitive Person" (16 Habits Of Highly Sensitive People Not all of that is me though.  I don't outwardly express most emotions because of childhood/natural inclination).

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## Anju

@zhaylin: I'm HSP too! But i think that doesn't count as a disorder... 

@marvo: yours doesn't count either!

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## Zhaylin

Yeah, you're right Anju.  Grats (or condolences) on being HSP.  I added that because all medical people say I have an anxiety disorder but I'm still not so convinced  ::lol::   I think HSP covers most of my problems.

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## Astaroth

> Generalized Anxiety Disorder here and/or I'm a "Highly Sensitive Person" (16 Habits Of Highly Sensitive People Not all of that is me though.  I don't outwardly express most emotions because of childhood/natural inclination).



Damn I didn't even know I had that  ::wtf::

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## Voldmer

> Yeah, you're right Anju.  Grats (or condolences) on being HSP.  I added that because all medical people say I have an anxiety disorder but I'm still not so convinced   I think HSP covers most of my problems.



Actually, we HSPs (I'm another) ought to be well positioned to make the most of our dreams because of the higher sensitivity.  :smiley: 

On the flip side, my experience is that the slightest sound will awaken me rapidly and render me completely awake.  ::disconcerted:: 

At any rate, I consider high sensitivity a psychological advantage, and certainly not a disorder.

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## Anju

Btw, after reading that article, i guess i need to reconsider my assumption.
Most of those points don't apply to me.
I'm not more emotionally reactive. I don't take things personally. I don't work well in team environments. I have no problem with violent movies. I don't have above-average manners. In fact, I don't really care much about other people.

I'm not emotionally sensitive; I'm only sensitive to stimuli. Is there a different term for that?

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## Voldmer

There's another - more detailed - HSP-test here: Self Test

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## Anju

I've taken that test before. Came positive.

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## Zhaylin

I checked 22 out of 27.
I'm almost immune to caffeine and I LOVE horror movies  :smiley:   Now, make me watch a chick flick and I can turn into a basket case (disquieted, broody, angry, not weepy).  I don't handle emotional situations well.  I don't care for drama much at all for that reason.

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## jumpscreamfly

Post traumatic syndrome or something of the sorts...chronic depression. Two separate things. One is caused by the other though.

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## Maeni

Well, y'know. I'm still a pedophile, so there's that.
I also definitely have some anxieties, have trouble handling many social situations.
I can identify with a lot of the descriptions of HSP, but I hate the term. I'd much rather just say _"I'm a sensitive person."_

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## Marm

> Well, y'know. I'm still a pedophile, so there's that.
> I also definitely have some anxieties, have trouble handling many social situations.
> I can identify with a lot of the descriptions of HSP, but I hate the term. I'd much rather just say _"I'm a sensitive person."_



I remembered a few guys attacked you for this in some extended discussions post a few years back, think it was mainly Warheit though... a narcissist if you ask me.

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## goldenphoniex

Social Anxiety.   my life is a living hell

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## Eonnn

Paranoid Schizophrenic. DON'T LOOK AT ME! j/k  :tongue2: 

I've been hospitalised several times for it and on meds for the rest of my life. Technically it's drug induced psychosis, but I think because it's happened multiple times they re-evaluated it to paranoid schizophrenic.

The psychotic state can be a very frightening experience but at other times it can be quite enjoyable. I've experienced so many things which could be classed as spiritual or other-worldy although doctors say its all delusion.

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## Forg

I'm diagnosed with ADD, I always found myself daydreaming, couldn't concentrate well, et cetera.
Got Ritalin and it really worked, motivation for schoolwork was up, concentration was a lot better. But I stopped taking it because I found that other people actually like me better when I don't take it.

Now I don't really suffer from ADD anymore. I learned meditation and mindfulness. 
I now have this idea that maybe I have concentration problems because I never thaught myself how to concentrate on something for a long time. I didn't need to concentrate a lot in primary school, because it was just a piece of cake for me. I daydreamed so much because I was bored to death in primary school, for me it was all easy, so I didn't have to. Only now I am almost done with high school I just need to concentrate more because it just gets a bit harder. 

I think that many people are diagnosed with these kind of disorders, and they just give you pills. Helping you to actually improve yourself? Teach you how to train your concentration skills? No way.
Here, lucid dreaming helped me, I started practicing mindfulness for lucid dreaming, and it stops me from daydreaming when I shouldn't. I learned from meditation how to actually concentrate on something.

So if anyone here is eating these pills like candy; how about actually improving yourself?

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## oneiroer

Paranoid schizophrenia...

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## snoop

ADD predominantly inattentive diagnosis moved to Bipolar II, or it's being seriously investigated now anyway. Guess I take after my uncle :v

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## Conscience

Don't self-diagnose, guys
Go to a doctor if you rly think you have a problem

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## figurefly

I really don't like this labeling thing. Don't let psychiatry/psychiatrists fool you, label you with freshly invented disorders and poison you with drugs. _Sometimes it is just you being you._ Accepting this, changed/saved my life. Wish you all the best.

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## Ginsan

figurefly, if someone has a genuine disorder, what's wrong with diagnosing it? After it's diagnosed you can find treatments. Maybe what you are trying to say is don't let people tell you "you're a ...... patient", right? If that's what you are saying I'd say yes. It's much better to say "these things you're suffering from are called .....". If that is what you're trying to say, it isn't clear in your post.

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## Conscience

> I really don't like this labeling thing. Don't let psychiatry/psychiatrists fool you, label you with freshly invented disorders and poison you with drugs. _Sometimes it is just you being you._ Accepting this, changed/saved my life. Wish you all the best.



well
you can only change if you accept your diagnosis. 
If you don't accept that you have social anxiety but tell yourself that you're just a little shy, you won't be able to get rid of your nervousness and disconnection

these "labels" are important because it makes it much easier for doctors to help you, so long as you actually let them help.
They know what they're talking about, they know what to do when someone has ADD, OCD or PTSD
they had to study for years in order to get where they are now.

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## Voldmer

> They know what they're talking about, they know what to do when someone has ADD, OCD or PTSD they had to study for years in order to get where they are now.



Well, maybe, but I'm actually not so sure that they _do_ know. The number of possible diagnoses has been increasing to an absolutely insane level. The socalled "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - IV" includes more than 250 mental disorders. It seems that they are inventing new disorders all the time at the drop of a hat. I seriously doubt that the average psychiatrist has the skills to safely diagnose, when there are so many possibilities.

How many people go through life having their mental "disorder" replaced every few years - without actually displaying a change in symptoms? Quite a lot, I suspect.

Personally, I think there are no clear divisions between "disorders" and the state of "perfectly healthy"; we probably all have all the "disorders", only in varying degrees. Moreover, who is to be trusted to say what is "order", and what is "disorder", when the list of "disorders" is in constant flux?

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## Ginsan

Voldmer, perhaps they find more specific ways to name things when they understand them better? Just like it's first called a headache and then it can be called something like migraine or the result of a punch in the head. Maybe it branches? I don't know how they go about naming new disorders, and there is nothing about your post that suggests that you know anything about it other than the increasing number of diagnoses and amount of mental disorders, which I can't take your word for but for the sake of this argument I will.

Ofcourse there is no clear division between a disorder and a normal person and ofcourse it's hard to pinpoint the exaxt cause of the symptoms and say which disorder it is and then give the person a cure. And these things are definitely not trivial, but they can't be used as an argument against the whole field of psychiatry. Are you seriously suggesting that this field is completely useless and all these names for disorders are just some people deciding on a name at the drop of a hat without having a clue of what they are doing? I don't know how efficient this field is, but I don't think it's useless.

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## Voldmer

I wouldn't say that pyschiatry is useless, because surely some people have benefited from the actions of psychiatrists. But I don't think that you can afford to automatically trust someone to deliver a useful diagnosis, merely by virtue of that person having a degree in psychiatry.

And it should always be kept in mind that the more people are diagnosed with "mental disorders", the better the career prospects of the psychiatrists look. This could nudge their entire profession towards seeing "disorders" where none really are.

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## Ginsan

Ofcourse, that should raise our suspicions. But I don't have much information about mental disorders and about psychiatrists. I simply can't justifiably form an opinion.

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## Conscience

I do understand your suspicion Voldmer, and I think being skeptical is a good thing.
In fact, there are people who accuse APA (the organization that makes DSM) of accepting funding of pharmaceutical companies. I even heard some people of APA were paid more by pharmaceutical companies if they added more disorders to the DSM. So some people believe the pharmaceutical industry is pulling the strings and influencing APA so they can make more money.

I don't like giving information without evidence, so to back this up, this is a quote from this document





> Enormous financial and political influence has enabled the
> pharmaceutical industry to assume a significant role in
> directing medical treatment (Brennan et al., 2006), clinical
> research, and physician education (Antonuccio, Danton, &
> McClanahan, 2003; Associated Press, 2000; Coyle, 2002b;
> Relman & Angell, 2002; Wazana, 2000).



Ronald E. Fox (2007)

note that this is from 2007, it's a little outdated



but hey, you're from Denmark, you shouldn't be in contact with the DSM anyway
We use the ICD in Europe, as far as I know, which is made by the WHO
I think the WHO is relatively trustworthy.

I know this kind of suspicious attitude towards doctors from my grandparents. They're hypocritical though, because they would never trust a doctor with a degree but they would easily trust a guy who believes in homeopathy and has no education whatsoever in the field of medicine (a 2-week course about homeopathy at best). They would much rather be ripped off by a guy who has no idea what he's talking about just because he preaches that all his oils and ointments are natural. To me that's zealotry. Just make sure you're not a hypocrite like my grandparents

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## Ginsan

To contribute to the thread..

I may have an extremely mild, almost nonexistent, but still existent multiple-personality disorder. I also have mild PTSD from when my mother thought that the most appropriate way to wake me up, mainly justified by her emotional upheaval, was to bang on the door hard 3-4 times, swing it open and barge towards my bed in loud footsteps. As a result I became super easy to jumpscare.

EDIT: The multi-personality thing is actually just a way of saying that my mood fluctuates, but what the heck.

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## Voldmer

> I also have mild PTSD from when my mother thought that the most appropriate way to wake me up, mainly justified by her emotional upheaval, was to bang on the door hard 3-4 times, swing it open and barge towards my bed in loud footsteps. As a result I became super easy to jumpscare.



That's a rough way to be awoken! Maybe you would benefit from taking up meditation. I saw a reference to a study, from a few years back, where it was found that experienced meditators tended to be highly affected by sudden sounds - but they would return to normal much faster than non-meditators.

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## Ginsan

I remember it differently. They react about the same to any kind of stimulus as "normal" people but recover faster. Also when the experimenters set it up so that they can expect pain after a certain cue, they do not freak themselves out. Normal people actually feel part of the pain, after the cue, _before_ the actual pain, but highly experienced meditators don't, they just feel the pain when it arrives. But yeah I occasionally meditate and it helps.

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## Ashikael

I have a few that are co-morbid with temporal lobe epilepsy, but I'm not sure if I would consider them psychological disorders since they're caused by a physical disorder. (Maybe I just say that because it makes me feel better about myself or something.)

They just slapped the label of schizophrenia on me and said it might be epilepsy-related, it might not. I'd probably find out more if I went to doctors more, but health care in the US is way too damn expensive to bother with unless you're close to dying. I've got some meds that do well at keeping me stable, and only cost ten bucks a month, so as long as they work I don't feel like it's a problem.

Plus I like to think it might be a reason why I lucid dream naturally and as often as I do.

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## Cubellius

Hmm, I don't have any "official" diagnoses of any mental illness, but I do suspect I have a mild case of ADHD and OCD. I can't focus on anything sometimes, and other times if I do manage to focus, I can do a task for hours on end until I realize I haven't eaten anything for a long time and am starving. I also double check some things, like if I took my phone (well, I check that every 5 minutes actually, it's a habit of mine to slap my pocket and see if it's still in there all the time) and if I locked the door, etc.

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## korak

Try Magnesium supplements. Magnesium miracle is one of the books which shows How Magnesium deficiency affects and produce mental disorders.

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## Paigesaddiction

Social Anxiety, Anxiety, Manic Depression, Trichotillomania, Borderline personality disorder.

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## CaesarVD

I have a form of PDD NOS and Asperger's syndrome

I am really bad at socializing

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## Timothy Paradox

Social anxiety, mostly. I'm also still very angry and insecure because of my history with bullies. I tend to lash out and hurt people for little or no reason. Over the years I have lost all my friends (or rather, "acquaintances") and now the only person I ever see physically is my mom - but she'll be moving to another country next month.

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## Catastrophe

I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder  :Sad:  It sucks. It's not as bad as it was though thanks to medication and meditation.

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## Dandon

Generalized Anxiety Disorder for me as well. I've tried dealing with it using all kinds of methods, some effective and others maladaptive. It led me to a pretty dark place mentally for a long time, though these days I'm managing better than ever with a combination of marijuana, health conscious practices, and various cognitive strategies. After suffering with it for decades I've come to realize it's something I'll never get rid of entirely, but accepting that has been helpful in itself.

I keep meaning to give meditation a proper try, I just can't seem to get into the habit.  Any tips?

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## Voldmer

> I keep meaning to give meditation a proper try, I just can't seem to get into the habit.  Any tips?




Start slow. Just one minute per day (but make an effort during that minute). Then, after a week, meditate for two minutes a day. And similarly add one minute every week. It will be very little effort initially, because of the short duration. And weeks later it will be fairly little effort still, because you will have gotten used to it.

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## Dandon

> Start slow. Just one minute per day (but make an effort during that minute). Then, after a week, meditate for two minutes a day. And similarly add one minute every week. It will be very little effort initially, because of the short duration. And weeks later it will be fairly little effort still, because you will have gotten used to it.



Thanks for the advice! I think my problem might be trying too much too soon. I'll see if I can ease my way into it like you suggest.

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