Thread: Rant and Rave, Cry and Complain

I have an exam on Friday and I'm totally unprepared, I forgot all about it and now I have to cram all day long tomorrow. Well, I should study all day long but if we we're being realistic, I'll get bored after the third hour. Why must I always procrastinate. >:[

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I see what you're saying, and am not at all saying you should go off of them if they work for you.

Oh, no I wasn't addressing you with that rant. Don't worry about it.

My situation is probably different. My depression seems to be more event-driven, and something that I can imagine going away if things changed. The constant depression I had when I was a teenager is gone, and a year ago I was fine. This has only been in the last few months, and I'd need to be sure that it wasn't going to go away before I resorted to taking medication.

Mine's pretty event driven as well, I used to be just fine until about 2007. Then again, different strokes for different folks. You can always talk to someone and get professional opinions before you use meds, absolutely. Or maybe talk therapy would work better for you instead, who knows.

Originally Posted by DeeryTheDeer

It's unfair and ignorant to say that those suffering from moderate to severe depression/anxiety should have to fight it without drugs, because believe me, nothing besides drugs work....Don't you dare say that's a bad thing, and that we should go back to hardship and suffering simply because of some alternative quack mentalities. That's insane.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm all for drugs tbh. I probably just used the wrong words, but my last post should be taken totally in context, relating to yours. No "anti-depressant" drugs, i.e SSRI's, MAOI's, tricyclic anti-depressants etc. They're useless.

There are drugs that work, but they're not those ones. And if you had taken some of the drugs which have been shown to actually work (MDMA, Ketamine), as opposed to ones that haven't (SSRI's etc.), you would see the difference within minutes. And not just a short-lived difference; a high. I mean an actual long term benefit.

I'm happy they worked for you. But that's not conclusive proof that they work or are safe. And when you go telling people to get on them as well, you're putting them at serious risk. If you'd seen someone who got side-effects from them, you would not be so quick to recommend others take them.

Oh and Gavin - Stop smoking bud and study for a bit

Originally Posted by tommo

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm all for drugs tbh. I probably just used the wrong words, but my last post should be taken totally in context, relating to yours. No "anti-depressant" drugs, i.e SSRI's, MAOI's, tricyclic anti-depressants etc. They're useless.

Okay. Maybe for you, but SSRI's have worked great for me personally. And it's not a short-lived high; in fact it was a bit of a slow, eventual return to normalcy. Of course, the side effect is that I sleep a ton every night, when I used to be an insomniac.

I'm happy they worked for you. But that's not conclusive proof that they work or are safe. And when you go telling people to get on them as well, you're putting them at serious risk. If you'd seen someone who got side-effects from them, you would not be so quick to recommend others take them.

Fine, but you should realize that you're probably just as biased with negativity from your experience as I may be biased with positivity from my experience. Besides, how can it work for me (and my family), yet also not work in general? If it works, it works. But yes, I'm all for being cautious and considering all options, including regular talk therapy, before getting onto any drugs. I don't want to come across as pushing anti-depressants as the only option, I'm just giving my personal experience.

Originally Posted by DeeryTheDeer

Okay. Maybe for you, but SSRI's have worked great for me personally. And it's not a short-lived high; in fact it was a bit of a slow, eventual return to normalcy. Of course, the side effect is that I sleep a ton every night, when I used to be an insomniac.

No I didn't mean anti-depressants have a short lived high. I was referring to the drugs I mentioned, bu saying they're not just that.

Originally Posted by DeeryTheDeer

Fine, but you should realize that you're probably just as biased with negativity from your experience as I may be biased with positivity from my experience. Besides, how can it work for me (and my family), yet also not work in general?

I may be biased, I hate the things and don't think they should be used at all, especially when there are better things available. But I have also looked at the evidence, and at least 2 systematic reviews of studies done on anti-depressants have shown no effect beyond placebo. Except for in very serious clinical depression, where there is a very slight improvement in mood.
So basically, how it can work is placebo effect, or you and your family just got better because you were going to get better anyway.
You probably spent years trying different ones right?
That's a pretty big window of time to start feeling better.

Originally Posted by DeeryTheDeer

If it works, it works. But yes, I'm all for being cautious and considering all options, including regular talk therapy, before getting onto any drugs. I don't want to come across as pushing anti-depressants as the only option, I'm just giving my personal experience.

Well you said drugs are the only thing that works. I've also seen you mention this several times before.
I just don't think it's very safe, that's all.

And now you've gone and distracted me from Dianeva....

Originally Posted by Dianeva

lol You don't know how good it feels to hear that anyone would care at all if I left DV. I may still end up leaving though, idk.

Why do you want to leave though? You can PM me if you want.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Believe me you know way more than I do about almost everything. Most of your posts in ED seem to contain knowledge about things I have no idea about. If I seem to know stuff at all it's probably because I tend not to participate in discussions about things I'm ignorant of. When's the last time I posted on something political? Never, literally.

I think I was better off before I paid any attention to that stuff. I envy you tbh.
Politics is probably the most useless thing you could ever spend time on, and it just ends up pissing you off.
I also sometimes voice my opinions on things I don't really know enough about, lol

Sometimes I speculate on why people want to commit suicide. My politically correct mind would just proclaim that these people are just cowards trying to run away from their problems, that they feel like the whole world is on their shoulders and the pain is too much for them.

Everyone makes it look like people who contemplate on suicide are pathetic, but aren't we all going to share the same fate too? No matter how you try to look at life, it's all about passing off our genes in hopes that future generations with become dominant. There's nothing wrong with that, because that's instinct. Even though we're not aware of it, our body finds people that we're attracted to, but it still focuses on what can be the best situation to sustain the passing of our genes.

Like how a "regular" person will marry a rich person because of financial stability, or knowing that the person will be an enduring and respectable parent. Why is it that we have to exhibit emotions if it's all just for sustainability? To make the experience more memorable? Bullshit. Because there's so many people, it's no wonder people speculate on suicide. If you think of it in a cynical approach, we're just a liability that has to be satisfied. You're enticed to believe that you're just a number, a piece of amphibian crap, an ant, whatever...

What was the point of typing all that? I just feel confused with the contradicting beliefs of continuing life because of the "Keeping the torch lit" mentality when it's inevitably going to burn out one way or another. All of these achievements to go for will go to waste, memories will eventually be destroyed at some point. Even the Universe must die eventually, and as I'm typing this, I feel like a grain of sand compared to the Universe. Sure we could lucid dream to find a modicum of motivation to keep going, but really, it's only prolonging the inevitable conclusion.

The world has already decided that it wants us dead, might as well focus on what you can do for others and yourself in the mean time...Don't give up.

The will to live is the strongest emotion of all, in my opinion. There may not be anyone who cares about you in your eyes, but there's always someone who is concerned. And that's not just to give solace to people eating ice-cream while watching their favorite chick-flick when they're sad..

I really can't find a tangible reality, always mixing myself in the positive and negative. But I'm still trying to master lucid dreaming and stabilization in hopes that my subconscious will give me paths to take, even if it may be a placebo.

I don't think this is a biological brain disorder. If our brain is basically a meth laboratory and we can induce several reactions at will if we're strong enough, then our brain really is a sociopath.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

With this the problem I see is that we have no reason to believe logic works. Everything comes down to empiricism, which suffers from the problem of induction. Lately I've been thinking I have no solid reason to believe anything I do and I'm just being irrational all the time, that those crazy people in the Inner Sanctum and Beyond Dreaming are right. I honestly don't know how to get past it and convince myself that I'm justified in anything I believe.

If anything, the belief in absolute logic is the source of craziness. As humans, we really don’t know everything about our experience. We’re surrounded by mystery, things change, we evolve; logic is a process. Have some more confidence and self-reliance in your best reasoning in the mist of the unknown, there’s no eternal and all knowing logic fairy who’s going to tell you you’re right.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Thanks for responding. That would be nice but isn't really an option. Especially now since I'm in school. Then on winter break I'll be going to stay at my bfs house and that isn't really different.

Even daily escape would help, but I can't even do that. I really just want to play Skyrim, earlier I wanted to brood and write poetry. But I just have no time. If I didn't know better I could swear that weeks were literally getting shorter, and days too. I get home and relax a bit on DV, and as soon as I feel like I'm relaxed and can start on homework, it's late and I have barely any time to do it. And it just keeps repeating. Now I have two assignments due tomorrow and Sunday. As soon as those are done I'll probably have more to rush to get done.

College or High school?As for Christmas, go elsewhere. Borrow some money, go stay at a hotel near by or something. Don't go to your BF's house if you don't want to. If he does throw a fit, then maybe he isn't who you need.

And Again, do what you want to do, don't do it to please other people. Sure its nice and all that, but when it's starting to, well.... kill you, then fuck 'em. Focus on yourself. Make yourself happy.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

lol You don't know how good it feels to hear that anyone would care at all if I left DV. I may still end up leaving though, idk.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I get home and relax a bit on DV

If DV relaxes you, why would you leave it? Even if its just a bit, its still better than nothing. The only I would suggest is do your HW first :/ Strench your HW out if you can. Don't do it all at once. From Personal experience, that is a terrible, terrible idea.

Regarding depression and pills: both experimentally and chemically, by far the best thing you can do for yourself is exercise. Go for a half an hour jog every day, or even better find somebody to play squash with. Anything physically wearing injects a fuck-tonne of feel-good chemicals into your brain with lasting effects. The human body has a deeply entrenched biological reward system; most depression comes from modern life not satisfying these needs.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

With this the problem I see is that we have no reason to believe logic works. Everything comes down to empiricism, which suffers from the problem of induction. Lately I've been thinking I have no solid reason to believe anything I do and I'm just being irrational all the time, that those crazy people in the Inner Sanctum and Beyond Dreaming are right. I honestly don't know how to get past it and convince myself that I'm justified in anything I believe.

No philosophy of logic can be self-justifying, because that would be a cyclical fallacy; rationalism can't justify rationalism either. You're always going to have to accept some basal layer. The best we can do is choose whatever best fits to observed reality. The idea that if something always happens in the same way, then by the law of large numbers it'll probably keep happening in that way for a while, simply works.

When you think about it in naturalistic terms, none of this is really surprising: what kind of mental faculties were useful for us to evolve? Well, ones which saw the patterns in our immediate vicinity, and were able to orient themselves with those patterns. That has a clear survival advantage. There's no reason to think that we have some magical power to get a handle on universal principles; and indeed, as technology increased our sphere of observation, we discovered that fundamental principles we thought were universal were in fact local approximations; the linearity of time and space, and even causality, have all been thrown out of the window.

Personally I think this is a very aesthetically pleasing world view; you just have to look at it in the right way. Give up the idea that you'd ever be able to comprehend the whole of reality: accept that you are just a pattern recognising machine. There's still a gigantic amount you can usefully know and experience, loads of which is beautiful. By whatever cosmic miracle, you inhabit a body that has the potential to experience a plethora of amazing things. No amount of thinking can ever dislodge this basic axiom.

That was beautiful Xei. Seriously - and I couldn't help but hear the last paragraph in Carl Sagan's voice. Hell, I'm going to re-read the whole thing now as Sagan, and maybe I'll bust out the mental Auto Tune and hear it as a Symphony of Science vid.

If you need a break, then leave for a while. I understand completely. But everyone will definitely miss you A LOT You're a wonderful person and I always look forward to reading your posts. If you do go, just give us notice and don't stay gone for too long (please )

My only rant is that I have parenting class today. I'm NOT in the mood to go over a bunch of crap that has NEVER helped. My kids are almost old enough to leave home. It's kind of overkill. They need to focus on educating the kids so they don't make my mistakes.

Oh, I forgot I fell asleep before posting my real rant.
My 14 year old was taken from the shelter she was staying at- by ambulance- and transported to a facility that specializes in psychological evaluations. They did that because she had SCARS from past episodes of extreme self-injury. She'll be there for at least 45 days.
I went into her bedroom earlier to see if a cat was hiding inside and one of her walls is almost completely missing. She kept a large tapestry/blanket hanging up but my son removed it to cover the living room window. How did I not hear her?!

Then my hubby got ranting because I drive for a soda and salad every day and when he heard about Zee he told me I wouldn't be visiting her "right?". I said "mayyyybeee". But he wasn't in the mood for my whimsy. He started ranting that she should rot where she is for at least 6 months so she could consider what she did wrong and maybe she would appreciate it more and change her ways.
Then I told him "What people don't seem to understand is she was MOLESTED by her brother. She did NOTHING wrong. It doesn't matter if she was high when it happened. She could've been completely naked and it still doesn't give anyone that right."
Then he kind of paused because he forgot all about THAT and said "well, she's not there because of that. She's there because of her drug use and truancy." And I reminded him that it's all connected even though she did have a problem before then, it got worse.

So now I'm depressed because I have failed all of my children. I could I have screwed up with ALL of them?!

Originally Posted by Linkzelda41

Like how a "regular" person will marry a rich person because of financial stability, or knowing that the person will be an enduring and respectable parent. Why is it that we have to exhibit emotions if it's all just for sustainability? To make the experience more memorable? Bullshit.

What reason would you have for doing any thing if it weren't for the emotions driving you to do that thing?

Insects don't need these emotions (some of them, anyway) because they just do stuff automatically, basic programming you could say.
We are intelligent, and thus we don't just do everything automatically, we always think about stuff first, the ramifications etc.
So we need emotions to drive us to do things.

Zhaylin - Why is her wall missing?

Also, everyone blaming your daughter is just fucked. Plain and simple. Tell them to go fuck themselves.
And....
http://www.theonion.com/articles/stu...es-dist,26452/

"SANTA ROSA, CA—A study released by the California Parenting Institute Tuesday shows that every style of parenting inevitably causes children to grow into profoundly unhappy adults. "Our research suggests that while overprotective parenting ultimately produces adults unprepared to contend with life's difficulties, highly permissive parenting leads to feelings of bitterness and isolation throughout adulthood," lead researcher Daniel Porter said. "And, interestingly, we found that anything between those two extremes is equally damaging, always resulting in an adult who suffers from some debilitating combination of unpreparedness and isolation. Despite great variance in parenting styles across populations, the end product is always the same: a profoundly flawed and joyless human being." The study did find, however, that adults often achieve temporary happiness when they have children of their own to perpetuate the cycle of human misery."

Well, I have finals week, and for the past 2 days, I have done jack shit of anything. All the classes I went to were empty, and the campus is eerily quiet, especially at night.

So, I 'm pretty sure that I have Raynaud's syndrome because I just came in from the cold, and the rest of me warmed up while one of my fingers was turning a bit grey and was hard to move. Fuck...

Originally Posted by Puffin

So, I 'm pretty sure that I have Raynaud's syndrome

So do I. I didn't have it years ago, but it has kicked in the last couple years. It's usually half a hand turns white and loses circulation. I have been taking a Hawthorn Berry extract for it with much success. I use either crushed berries in tea or the capsules for a daily circulation maintenance, and an alcohol-based extract for emergency use. Works wonderfully, but may interact with some blood pressure meds.

Here's a link to it on Wikipedia.

Wish you luck!

lol Tommo. Thanks for the link
Her walll is missing because it is cheap dry wall that's thinner than a quarter thick and when she got mad she punched it. I knew she was punching something because I saw her knuckles.
My children are so freagin "emo" it's ridiculous. They act out in an attention grabbing way- visible scars on their arms, torn up knuckles. I'll do the good parent thing and ask what's wrong, I'll tell them about healthier alternatives, but I never pushed or nagged. I figured they'd open up when they were good and ready. I guess they really wanted me to drag the truth out of them? I don't understand that line of thinking.
I self injured as a kid. I punched walls. But I'd have been damned if I would let anyone know about it.

When I became a young adult though, I used their tactics somewhat. I'd leave my diary lying around and I'd have a nick or two visible (for my ex-husband), hoping it would start a dialogue. And when it worked I opened up and discussed what bothered me.
I don't understand the logic of "reaching out" if you're not going to at least grab hold of the hand offered.

AnderJ and Puffin. That's sounds terrible!

I don't wanna go to the doctor tomorrow >:C

And Damnit.
I am so mad that it's still not super cold here.
It's 39 here, and like the 50s usually in the day..supposed to have high in the 70s later this week.
Not okay.
Not. Okay.
Then it's supposed to have a high of 40 the next day and rain though, so that's good xD

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

My children are so freagin "emo" it's ridiculous. They act out in an attention grabbing way- visible scars on their arms, torn up knuckles. I'll do the good parent thing and ask what's wrong, I'll tell them about healthier alternatives, but I never pushed or nagged. I figured they'd open up when they were good and ready. I guess they really wanted me to drag the truth out of them? I don't understand that line of thinking.
I self injured as a kid. I punched walls. But I'd have been damned if I would let anyone know about it.

When I became a young adult though, I used their tactics somewhat. I'd leave my diary lying around and I'd have a nick or two visible (for my ex-husband), hoping it would start a dialogue. And when it worked I opened up and discussed what bothered me.
I don't understand the logic of "reaching out" if you're not going to at least grab hold of the hand offered.

AnderJ and Puffin. That's sounds terrible!

I get how they're thinking. I don't mean this offensively, just as information.... I think that one of the worst parenting tactics is to "let kids open up on their own". It just doesn't work. Unless you're friends with your kids and are open with them as well and basically just have a normal friendship with them. But that's rare. Too many parents act like parents. You sounds like you basically took a passive parenting stance, which is exactly what my mum did. And she enabled me too much. I would be much better off right now if she just forced me to do some things, like homework and piano. I didn't fully think about how I would feel in the future, or what I would like to do. Kids don't have that sort of reasoning, so you have to push them to do certain things.

It's not like I hated playing piano, or doing homework (for certain subjects), I was just lazy and didn't have the foresight to realise that it would be incredibly helpful in the future. I sort of did know it, but not the full spectrum of it, so to speak.

Of course you shouldn't push your kids to do stuff that they hate, like basically force them to become a doctor or a lawyer or something, that will just screw their life up.

Originally Posted by tommo

Oh and Gavin - Stop smoking bud and study for a bit

It's been a few days since I last smoked. I always have a hard time bringing myself to open my books and get to work while I'm sober but when I'm high, I start to worry about failing so I hit the books asap.
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I slept in until 5:00 PM so I didn't get a chance to study until now, I've only got a few hours to cram now. Maybe I'll pull off a fluke like I did on the last one. Hopefully. =P

Originally Posted by Xei

Regarding depression and pills: both experimentally and chemically, by far the best thing you can do for yourself is exercise. Go for a half an hour jog every day, or even better find somebody to play squash with. Anything physically wearing injects a fuck-tonne of feel-good chemicals into your brain with lasting effects. The human body has a deeply entrenched biological reward system; most depression comes from modern life not satisfying these needs.

Yep, I wrote a whole report/essay about this back in high school, ironically while my own depression was just about to hit me. When I was really depressed/anxious and not on drugs, I spent at least 15 to 30 minutes on an elliptical, going hard every single morning for a few weeks. I was disappointed to feel no difference, even while I was sweating and exerting myself for a while. Not even a "runner's high". I've kept exercising off and on since then, maybe it helped in the long run.

I obviously don't doubt there are other alternatives for people, but I don't like the attitude that you're a weak, stupid, pathetic loser for succombing to anti-depressants. Dealing with depression when it's actually a serious issue is really, really fucking hard. Luckily I don't have it anymore, so I have to think back to how crushingly, piercingly, insurmountably miserable it was every waking second of life. I feel like you guys are judging me like some ignorant common fool for the way I got out of that hole. Obviously you haven't had my experience.

So yes, what I've been saying (or trying to say) is that for ME, drugs were the most actually effective. Not desperately hoping they could be effective, like a placebo.

Originally Posted by OldSparta

The only I would suggest is do your HW first :/ Strench your HW out if you can. Don't do it all at once. From Personal experience, that is a terrible, terrible idea.

My personal experience concludes the same, yet it's extremely difficult. I only work one day a week, on the weekend, but I'm considering dropping that because that 1 free day a week seems even more important than the money right now.

Originally Posted by Xei

Regarding depression and pills: both experimentally and chemically, by far the best thing you can do for yourself is exercise. Go for a half an hour jog every day, or even better find somebody to play squash with. Anything physically wearing injects a fuck-tonne of feel-good chemicals into your brain with lasting effects. The human body has a deeply entrenched biological reward system; most depression comes from modern life not satisfying these needs.

It isn't a good reason, I know, and the response to this type of thing is usually to just get over it, but I'm just too self-conscious to go jogging. Not about weight or anything, I just feel extremely uncomfortable doing any physical activity in public. I do walk every day for about half an hour, and am pretty sure that helps. Every time I go a couple days without walking I'm noticeably more depressed.

Originally Posted by Xei

No philosophy of logic can be self-justifying, because that would be a cyclical fallacy; rationalism can't justify rationalism either. You're always going to have to accept some basal layer. The best we can do is choose whatever best fits to observed reality. The idea that if something always happens in the same way, then by the law of large numbers it'll probably keep happening in that way for a while, simply works.

I suppose that's some answer. I keep running into people though who argue for absurd things, like that we have no reason to think that the objective world likely exists. My response is usually that it's the best explanation, at least for me, given my knowledge. That it fits best with my observed reality. But to some people that sounds like I'm assuming something I have no real basis for believing, just because I'm more comfortable with it. Saying it's "the best we can do" doesn't sound convincing to them. Haven't you used induction to come up with that, and so the argument is circular? I guess there are some core philosophical issues that aren't clear enough to me. It's hard to come up with reasons for believing in induction and deduction when I can't use either of those two to come up with the reasons.

I got distracted so I'm going to start studying... now. My exam's in 8 hours and I'm totally clueless when it comes to chapters 5 and 6, and that's what we're being tested on. The best I can hope for is a C- or a high F (lulz). I'm getting 63% overall and if I fail this exam, I'll still be passing but just barely. We still have a couple assignments and one more exam to go so if I buckle down and get my shit together, I should be able to bring my mark up around the 70% - 80% range.

I know I should start studying asap but I just really don't want to. D:
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Over the past week or two, I've noticed a few white hairs on my head and in my beard stubble. Things have been pretty stressful lately so I'm guessing that's it; this has happened before but they usually go back to black once things settle down or after a few consecutive days of smoking bud. Still, ew. Maybe I should go for the pepper-colored Jon Stewert look.
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EDIT: I fell asleep and school starts in two hours. It'll take me half an hour to get ready so that leave me an hour and a half to study. There's no way I'm going to pass this thing now, I may as well just buy a dime bag on the way to school. =/

I lost a friend this morning to a long battle with cancer. He was just too young to go at 31. Thoughts and prayers to his family.

Originally Posted by anderj101

I lost a friend this morning to a long battle with cancer. He was just too young to go at 31. Thoughts and prayers to his family.