Mental Health

I am just venting here. I am very self-aware. I am a weird guy and it rubs people the wrong way. I have some internal mental handicaps which have been over-diagnosed and misdiagnosed, but I have my own coping mechanisms and consciously try every day to improve and live a healthy, happy life. It’s not easy. I do not seek pity, do not think I am a victim, and never want to be viewed as some kind of hero or role model (all of the above completely disgust me). But the reality is that some life experiences (and maybe something biological) screwed me up just enough to sincerely knock something loose, and the addition of some substance abuse problems exacerbated the issue - which among many things includes forming and maintaining relationships, whether intimate or not.

Overall I am doing OK, but recent occurrences have me seriously questioning my condition, and the work I have done to maintain my mental health. I do not have to go into detail, but I am struggling to determine what is real and what is created within my mind. Einstein once said something like, God made coincidences to remain anonymous, which is particularly amusing to me because I rarely believe either exists. Rarely, not never. And due to my over-analytical nature and intermittent inability to blind my mind’s eye or quiet my ear’s voice, I fear I am too frequently powerless to properly determine what is paranoia, coincidence, or overt reality. I can ignore everything, but then I do not make real connections with humans. But when I pay attention, I sense everything so vividly it is impossible to interpret. I see, hear, feel and smell everything with such acuteness and I cannot filter the stimuli. It is complete focus, ignoring everything around, or absorbing so much that it becomes surreal. There is no happy medium.

So most of the time I choose to just ignore everything, but this misleads other people into believing I am arrogant, clueless, insensitive, or purposefully rude and uncooperative. Unfortunately when I try to open up my heart and mind to people, I don’t know exactly how to do it so this also fails to help me connect, form trust, and cultivate any kind of healthy relationship. It’s all much worse when I cannot explain to people that I mean no harm or ill-will on anyone, and want to learn to exist in harmony with other human beings. If I figuratively walk on egg shells to constantly beware of offending or making mistakes, my work and life will suffer. But if I am not careful, my usual oblivious but self-motivated drive may result in something worse. I must learn, I desperately want to learn, I painstakingly try to learn. But I am tired. Thanks for letting me get this out of my head.

The only way you learn is by continuing to do things incorrectly. Want to learn? Keep trying! Try not to over analyze things, I do that too. Just let a conversation flow, try to moderate yourself. I can't do much to help, but, with time you should be able to help yourself if you try hard enough.

i get over stimulated as wel by everything around me.
i see hear smell and feel to strongly and i have no way to tone that down or filter out the irellivant stuff.
completely blocking everything works but leaves me completely shut off from everything and everyone, not a pleasant way to live.

what has worked for me at this moment is adapting my live to what i can handle.
i had to accept that i cant just go out there everyday exposing myself to the outside world overflowing me with impressions.
i need to take the time to proces things before i go out there again.
if i dont all my thought and fealings just turn into chaos and i dont know what im feeling anymore.

as for living in harmony with every other person, that is never gonne happen.
you are going to offend people, youre gonne make misstakes, some people are not gonne like you or understand you or even want to.
but that is the same for anyone else.
the most you can do is respect people and find the ones you do get along with.
but learning to live with and understand yourself is prob the first thing to do.

I regret that I can't help. I'm afraid that I have dealt with similar issues my whole life. I usually cope well, but I still fail in situations similar to these you described.

LoneHistoric said:

I must learn, I desperately want to learn, I painstakingly try to learn. But I am tired.

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I admire it. Myself, I gave up. Maybe I'm too old to change much. It's exhausting to control and analyze each word and event. I'm not saying that I take it lightly when I see someone offended by my words or behaviour. I do try my best to avoid any misunderstanding, but too often I end up keeping quiet or paralyzed. The very first contact is the worst, but as Paulo said we will make mistakes and offend others anyway. As long as I don't spoil something terribly at the beginning, later, people tend to accept me despite my awkwardness. With some, whom I know for longer, my awkwardness and weirdness disappear completely, which makes me feel more optimistic and sane sometimes.

There was a period in my life when I used drugs to cope. Either super-focused my senses or dulled them to a comatose state. I was stubborn and arrogant enough to think I had it under control, but obviously I did not.

Got help, got clean, and doing fine...but now I want to learn to manage and even use some of my issues to my advantage in a sober life. I don't expect to get along with everyone, and believe me I don't. But I would like to connect with a couple people. I've never had a connection with people who were loosely considered 'friends' in my past or even with family members. Always feel unplugged from the rest of the world, hooked up to a foreign transformer. But I am working on it, and I hope to find someone with whom the awkwardness slowly fades - due to their understanding but most importantly due to my newly found ability to manage my personality and not be such a crazy weirdo.

But I do maintain a quiet and cautious optimism. I learn a lot everyday and try not to think too much (an ironic concept to say the least). Until I figure things out, I will continue to just be as nice and honest as I can, because right now that is the extent of my capabilities in social conduct.

LoneHistoric,

There is definitely a couple of things you absolutely must take pride in, and those are being very intelligent and extremely well spoken.

I have mental health issues too and have been disabled since 7/85 because of them. Most people here know that from my posts. It is definitely not an easy thing to deal with. Very recently I had to return to therapy and have ANOTHER medication change, because of the severity of my anxiety and depression.

Substance abuse, I have read, is or has been a part of 96% (maybe even more now) of people with mental illnesses lives. I commend you at your success in getting clean.

Just do your best in whatever you do, and you will be fine. The worse thing you can do is worry about what anyone else thinks or says about you. I believe if people have to talk about me for "entertainment", their life is a heckuva a lot more messed up than mine!

The best to you!

A woman wrote a book called Highly Sensitive People that describes some of it. I kind of skimmed it and I didn't find anything of value in it, it was more like, duh, of course, but you might get something out of it. At least know there's others like us -- somewhere. LOL.

it was good to talk to everyone. even those who knew who I was (I meant for you to see - oh, how deep the rabbit hole goes) where are all the honest people? life is strange and depressing, which makes it oddly worth living. maybe I am completely insane.

http://www.alonelylife.com/thread-of-course-i-know