Mentally ill MoFos

Well, I guess tend to get obssessed with things more than the average person.

I think everyone has a varying degree of every characteristic. How someone handles today will be different than tomorrow. Many "experts" want to cash-in, and have a disorder so there's treatment.

I've always loved being alone. Though I love being around people I like, and could hang out all the time. In the last few years, I'm not as excited about going to concerts, etc., because of modern society. The phones, what people talk about, the music and movie culture or lack of it makes me NOT wanna hang out. My goal is to live alone forever and to never accidentally have a kid!

The only medication I take is Xanax. I take it at about 8:30 and hope to go to bed around midnight. I threw in the towel years ago - I wanna get my sleep, and I don't care what it takes. I have tried other medication to help me sleep, and they were all junk, lots of side effects, and I would never take anything else.

Maybe some people aren't depressed. Maybe we just need a reason to get out of the house. I rather watch a great movie!

Similar here. I think Swan called it social anxiety.
If that's a thing, then I've got that. When I was little it was shyness, intense shyness. School was always a nightmare. I find crowds particularly uncomfortable. I've always been reclusive & introverted.

In recent years I discovered that I don't like "parties." It never really occurred to me because I thought that the simple concept of a party should be universally fun for everyone, yet I always felt anxiety about attending them, would want to leave in the midst of them, and feel relieved getting away from them. Instead of a party atmosphere, I much prefer talking with a small group of people in a quiet setting or talking with someone one on one.

I had friends who loved parties, so I'd go but I didn't like most people, and you could never have a conversation really. It was a bunch of kids drinking, smoking, playing horribly music. If I don't like the music, I don't even wanna be in the house, especially when the little chatter that is going on is really stupid. There are exceptions, but I love groups under 10. So I act accordingly to get the conversation I want. It's a big reason I like to travel, and will travel (just in the US - SF) - for conversation. If I'm in Thailand, not only am I in a foreign country, but living in a hostel, you're surrounded with people from many countries, and you share everything, so the social situations are much easier. Nothing contrived - guys and girls slept, ate, relaxed, etc., in the same room. Couchsurfing was "out there" - it's a travel community, and "free" is stressed, and accommodation is what it's centered around, even though it makes for only a portion of the interaction. I guess by doing many different things, you see what you like, what you are most comfortable with, etc. At this point, I want to be as free as possible, and until I change my mind, stay away from any drama, and not letting anything tempt me.

I've never minded crowds, if it's someone else' concert. There's been over a hundred times where I was around about 20,000 people for a music or sports event. Though I've been playing live since I was 15, I still get a little nervous. I once played for 1,500 people, and had a drum solo, with everyone exiting. Not only do I do things better alone, even when I'm alone and hit RECORD my playing isn't as experimental, so lately I try to just record the beat so I don't forget it, and go back enjoying music for itself, the joy of doing it, and not showing it off later on.

My problem is what's going on in my head. I wish it could relax, the ongoing commentary gets overwhelming sometimes. Going through scenarios that have happened, or might happen, or might never happen (more fantasy which I don't mind), but even in this message, I'm just typing what I'm thinking.

When I was 17 I was super excited to eat a burger out with friends. Now I usually choose to watch a movie or read a manga at home in many cases. Maybe because my friends are not as cool as they were in highschool.

I also had problems getting to sleep. My solution? Just decided that my body should deserve all the time it needs to sleep and so I usually wake up around 11:00 AM. Since I work in academia and I teach my classes around 5 PM I can afford that. Once I had to teach for 1 hour and 30 minutes at 9:45 AM, OMG that was horrible and I felt like I was going to die by the end.

You're just an introvert and it's not an illness.

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Funny, I attended a Christmas party at a friend's house last week and it's ironic that it involved so many things already discussed here, including noise aversion...

I was seated in the dining room where they had Christmas music playing on the stereo - that part was fine. But directly next to the stereo speakers they had a TV on, blasting a violent movie. In the kitchen, off the dining room, I could both see & hear another TV, tuned into a different channel on a counter top. In a room above the dining room, kids were playing video games which shook the whole dining room. The hostess even commented how the video games sounded like thunder over our heads. Simultaneously, some of the young people were playing videos, music or using the speakers on their handheld devices, while yelling into them for phone calls.

You couldn't listen to or enjoy any of it (if that was the intent), no less try to have a conversation. So I didn't see why a noise-making device had to be blasting in every room. I have a hard time understanding why people think this creates a warm or comfortable atmosphere, is conducive to reconnecting to old acquaintances, or that it's somehow "normal."

So you had people trying to talk in each room with music from the stereo, two TV's blasting different stations, people yelling into or playing music on cell phones, and video game explosions overhead - I don't know how anyone felt this was a comfortable atmosphere - it was more like a cacophony designed to torture people.

I have diagnosed social anxiety. The difference between that and introversion is, at my worst I literally couldn't go out of the house or be around people. I was a complete recluse. Severity differs from person to person but it's a bit different from introversion. Introversion is simply not wanting to go out and be around people. Social anxiety is being terrified at the prospect of going out and being around people.

What's funny is, I don't even know if I'm an introvert. I spend a lot of time inside and enjoy doing stuff like being on here, watching movies, making music etc. but at the same time I have found I enjoy socializing too. So it's entirely possible I'm an extrovert with social anxiety. Which is, as you can image, loads of fun.

Fortunately my anxiety is not nearly as bad as it was at its peak. I still get nervous sometimes but I've more or less overcome the really crippling stuff. I have friends that I hang out with a lot now, and find I enjoy being around people again.

Introverts tire quickly in social interactions. You can have a social anxiety and be an extrovert, you can be shy and extrovert at the same time.

I don't believe in mental illness.

I though you said you had aspengers?

There is a huge difference in us who have seen a doctor and the people who think they know as much as a doctor..

I know for myself personally.. I know the extent of my illness however I do not act on it.... I have learned to control it by self control or prescription drugs. its kind of hard on here when you arent really around that person physically to determine exactly whats wrong with them..

Believe me Im an evil bitch and I learned to shut up and step back... because if I was to let it all go... Yoda would have banned me by now...

I wish I had something. If there's one group of people I envy, it's the mentals. It's a built-in excuse to get away with doing the wrong thing.

spoken like someone who has no idea what they're talking about

The brain is a physical organ, and you think it's impossible for it to not function correctly?

This is one of the dumbest things I've heard on here. It's also really offensive to people who struggle with mental illness on a daily basis.

No it not.. we are still held as accountable as everyone else....

Can't a mentally ill person sometimes take therapy as an alternative to punishment?

My brother has OCD. Yes, the disease that people either like to claim they have or like to make fun of. Both of which annoy the hell out of me. He has been diagnosed with what they called "textbook OCD". It is bad.

My brother had graduated high school not too long before it "officially" started (I don't know a better word for it). This was in 1988. So, it wasn't at a time when OCD was talked about so much so that he could make anything up. He was out with my father at a restaurant. And for no reason, when they left, he took a napkin to push in his chair and to open the door. He wouldn't touch anything. By the next day he was a different person.

It seemed to happen so fast how bad he became. It was various different things. My one brother always talks about how that other brother was standing in the corner of the room when he left for work, and when he came home, he was still there. He spent hours folding a towel. Over and over again until he felt it was right. He ended up sitting in the corner of the living room for days. He chose a spot. And he sat there with his arms in the air. He couldn't put them down. Finally, my mother was begging him to drink some juice (after he'd been like that for so long) and she accidentally touched him. All I will say is that he went into a rage. Oh my God, if you would've dared to have touched him (or touched anything that belonged to him). It was horrible. Nobody knows unless they lived with it. I can clearly remember the time when he was standing with his arms up and all he did was cry because he couldn't seem to do anything else about it.

He always has to do his rituals. When he was living at home, he would, quite often, get "stuck" in them. This generally happened when he was in a doorway. He would have to step a certain amount of times before he could go through. And if he would mess that ritual up just slightly he would have to do it all over again. Rituals are a big, and always will be a big, part of his life. These rituals are mainly things that he has to do in his head - involving numbers and counting. He gets uncontrollable thoughts in his head that he doesn't like. So, then he will have to do a ritual to get them out of his head. I talked him into going to a movie with me a few years ago. And something happened in that movie that he put a thought in his mind. He spent the rest of the movie doing his rituals.

He was a hand washer. I don't think he is as bad with that now. But if he is going to go away (i.e. doctor, grocery store, et.c.), he will spend the entire day beforehand making sure he is clean enough before he goes. I know he said that he is now more worried about other people getting his germs rather than it being my brother getting the germs from other people. But when he did wash his hands, they would bleed. He even got to the point to where he was washing his money! That was terrible.

My parents got him into the county's mental hospital, which was horrible. Don't say there is no such thing as mental illness until you have been there. Then they sent him to Madison, which is far enough away from here, to be examined. And that is when they diagnosed him with having "textbook OCD". He is never going to get better. All he can do is "control" it. That is it.

He lives on his own. He has been doing it for about 20 years. He is on medication. What is strange, though, is how you can tell when he hasn't had any. Even over the phone, he is a different person. And his rituals become more frequent then.

This is what his life is now. And it will be until the day he dies. He even said, a few months ago, that I have no idea how horrible a thought it is to know that he will never be better. That he has to be like this. He doesn't want to be that way. So if anyone thinks it is a choice, or it isn't real, they have never known someone who has something that bad.

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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe

That's heartbreaking and terrifying, Vamp.