An open thread for personal stuff. As always with these threads, no MRAs, trolls, jerkfaces, etc.
Categories
Open Thread for Personal Stuff: April 2016 Dogs Enjoying Couch Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
I have been working on my idea for an animated series for about seven years now. I’ve had some good success getting it in front of people but for the most part they want a lot of changes that I’m really not comfortable with. For example, I have two male, two females, and one bug eyed alien for main characters and I have been told many, many times that I would have better luck if I made it four males and a bug eyed alien. It would appeal to boys who buy more toys and who don’t want to play with girl characters. I was told outright that if I made that change, a certain company would buy the idea from me. I told them no because representation is vital to the me and to the story.
I have also been told that if I’m going to keep it with 2 males, 2 females (and a bug eyed alien) then I need have a romance between a boy and a girl. I nixed this as well because I want to show pre-teens and teens that boys and girls can be and are friends with no romance involved. Besides, there’s plenty of possibilities of outside-the-group romance.
Anyways, my personal thing is I just finished the script to turn it into a five part comic book series and managed to score a pretty good penciller and a great colourist for the cover.
Feel free to click on the link in my name to check out the webpage.
I think my problem is that (against my own better advice) I became really invested in medical treatment for my newly-dxed ADHD (inattentive type) as The Thing That Would Fix All The Things. The reality has fallen short of those expectations.
Adderall allowed me to do so much housework on the weekend (hooray!) but it increased my anxiety so much that I had a mild panic attack at work. They lowered the dosage until I had no side-effects – but also no main effects, so. As of this weekend I’m on Concerta, which doesn’t seem to be doing too much.
I can’t really kick the feeling that maybe I don’t have ADHD, maybe I really am just lazy and bad at being an adult, and I’m happy to glom on to any mental health-related excuse for my own failures.
My friend’s birthday was pretty fun! I went with her to Japanese place, pretty nice place too, reservation and everything. The table was big grill and I watched the chef prepare the food in front of everyone. My favorite was the fried rice, and I added soysauce. I gave M her presents, a vaguely-creepy doll, a black wide-brimmed hat with a fake flower on it, and some black and white striped thighhigh stockings, and she said she liked them! I hope we can hang out again soon~
Was that POM? Good for you! I know the guilt so much from when you do well and I wish I could wish it away for you. Your words have helped me so much these last couple of weeks, so thank you.
Mom starts chemo and radiation tomorrow. Someone else said that above too. All the best to everyone going through tough stuff. My almost 102-year-old narcissistic “father” is being impossible and making it all about him.
I just wish everyone here, who, even though I mostly lurk, gives me so much that they don’t even know…ok, this makes no sense, but thanks
And thank you Dave for the adorable puppies. I’d give anything to be one of those couch cushions.
Also, take this video. The caption makes it funny IMO but I’m a dumbass kid who likes meming. I have soooo much stuff to say here but I don’t want to spam the thread, so I’ll let the grown-ups go back to talking for now.
@Viscaria please let up on yourself. The human body is tremendously complex, the human mind no less so. Medications can be a godsend but it can take time and patience to find the right ones at the right dosages.
I’m so sorry it’s so hard. I wish I could say there is a magic bullet but this is why we call it “managing depression” (in my own personal case) and not “curing depression”. It doesn’t always work, and it doesn’t always work right away. There can be side effects.
Please stick with it, although I know it is disappointing. Keep investigating. Work with your health care provider/psychiatrist/whoever it is you trust. Be honest with them.
It *DOES* get better and it *IS* possible to manage these illnesses with pretty good results. I’m not kidding or being flippant when I say I wouldn’t have survived my 20s without medication. Even though I have things well-managed now, I know that it wouldn’t take much to upset the balance, and I have to be prepared for that.
Aw FrickleFrackle, it sounds like you had a nice time with your friend.
My sympathies to everyone with a loved one dealing with cancer. I lost my mother last summer to it as well. It’s a hard row.
I’m almost done with my short comic! I am also going to be a senior next semester. @_@ I’m not ready. I’m not good enough.
Warm thoughts to everyone here. Anyone who is dealing with depression or any other kind of illness, I’m so sorry that you have to go through this and I wish you well.
@dreemr, recognize your name & avatar and I appreciate you sharing your experiences and insight. :3
Aww, my sympathy to anyone with diseases or mental health that needs addressing (is this ableist to say? And that’s not a gotcha I mean it call me out if I need to be called out please). And yes, medicine does help, but it rarely solves everything.
Yeah, today was pretty fun! And I dunno how good it is but I finished my history paper today after my parents gave it some feedback.
1) I have been having migraine all weekend long.
2) Carisma is in heat, and is roaring 24 hours a day. Roaring, people. I’ve never heard such noise coming from a tiny kitten like her. My head hurts even more.
3) I have to go and slip “please excuse our cat” explanation sheets to people in our apartment complex, in an hour or so, once they’ve left to work…
4) It looks like the tom that was planned to accompany her can’t make it here this week. Which means we gotta wait ’till she’s in heat again. Oh gods.
Cats, being cute, and not at all noisy:
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CffnlCgWEAANdK3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xOZKU6K.jpg
I need these in my life yesterday.
I do love me some Shiba Inu puppies, or any kind of puppies – except the Sad or Rabid kind (if you get the reference) – though I’ll always love the kittehs.
Been an emotional mess these days otherwise, after landing a job I loved and wanted to keep…only to be laid-off two weeks later. I’m trying to get re-hired in the same place as a sales rep, in the hope my previous two weeks and having had the position before – as well as getting along well with the woman in charge of the hiring – might work in my favor.
I applied to a burger place I’ve been a regular at for a long time now and live right next to, but now I can’t go near the place without feeling enraged – not after the outright disrespect I received when checking in about my resume. I don’t fucking care if they had a “bad day” or whatever, because I didn’t say or do anything to to deserve that response. I loved the place where I wanted to work…and I was treated like a piece of shit…
Thank you all for providing fluffy critters :3 I’m kind of sick and they really brighten up my day.
@NickNameNick
I’m sorry to hear that the burger place treated you disrespectfully. Other people can be a real pain sometimes! I hope that you find a job soon.
I work as a freelance editor. At the end of 2014/beginning of 2015, I went for two months without significant work. And then the same thing happened at the end of 2015/beginning of 2016. That’s too much downtime for my budget to handle. So I’m struggling. The economy seems to be changing. I’ve been doing this gig for a long time, and I had more work years ago. I haven’t been able to raise my rate in ten years. And I know that I’m a better editor now! I really am a good editor and I love the work. But I’m taking a community college class, improving my computer skills, with the intention of getting an administrative assistant job again if I have to.
I’m a free spirit with social anxiety and a fear of men with authority. So I’ve never been happy in the corporate world. Plus when I’m alienated, I’m bored. Really, really bored. But I just have to be a grown-up about this situation.
Right now, I have enough work, thank Katie.
To everyone who’s struggling: Keep on keeping on.
And to everyone who’s doing well: That’s terrific!
The fuzzy animals and the parrot made me go Squeee!
Massive hugs and/or warm wishes of support to everyone here who’s coping with depression.
I’m very fortunate that I’ve managed to find a job which suits my mindset well enough and has enough flex in it that I can survive the black days, but I recognise that this is sheer luck and is not the reality for everyone.
Viscaria, IP, dreemr, Jarnsaxa – you are not alone. You are not without people who care about you. If nobody else cares then I care, and if you have nobody else to talk to then please talk to me.
WWTH – all my best wishes for the ED. I’ve been in quite a bad place myself over the past month or so due to stress elsewhere in my life but am emerging. If you need someone to talk to non-judgmentally then I’d be happy to be a sympathetic ear.
I am NOT a doctor. However, it’s important to note that quite a lot of mental health problems have an important diagnostic criterion in them: “to the extent that it interferes with your daily life.” From my nonmedical point of view, it does sound like something is interfering with your daily life.
Another important thing to note is that people respond to meds quite differently and it may well take multiple tries to get the right stuff and the right amount, regardless of what the illness is.
And the third thing I wanna say is, I’m a fairly lazy and untidy person myself, but that’s me, that’s not my illness. When I was ill I didn’t do anything, because I was ill, and it made me feel sad and guilty and useless. Now I still don’t clean as much as I should, but I scrape along just fine doing a minimum to keep me content. I’m not even sure the amount I actually clean changed, but the way I feel about it did.
I don’t think there’s a particularly high incidence of madness amongst the people on this board. We’re just less afraid to talk about it. Mental illness is more prevalent than most believe.
It took me almost a decade to find a medication regimen that would control my bipolar disorder. I used to call it my medication adventure. LOL I don’t want to discourage you with that fact, because it probably won’t take you nearly that long. One of my problems is that I rarely display the stereotypical “manic” phase, although I do occasionally. So it looked like depression, and it was treated like depression for a good while. Surprise! That doesn’t actually work when it’s not depression!
What I’m getting at is that initial failures with medication don’t mean that medication can’t help. There are a lot of medications out today, and the way we metabolize them varies between people, a lot.
It’s also possible that you really don’t have ADHD, but some other problem that just looks like it, the same way my bipolar was misdiagnosed as depression for years and years. Stick with treatment and give it a chance. You’re not a failure if it doesn’t work the first or second or fifth or sixth time. The treatment is failing you, not the reverse.
Also, @Viscaria and everyone,
If you’re dealing with your primary care physician and medication fails 2 or 3 times, really think about seeing a psychiatrist. PCPs are capable of doing medication management of straightforward mental illness that responds to the ol’ standby treatments, but if you’re not getting help from that, you need to see someone who is knowledgeable enough to write you prescriptions off-label. Specialists keep up with the latest literature so they know when some random drug intended to treat a completely different condition has been found to work for yours. Taking a drug off-label doesn’t mean you’re doing anything illicit.
@dreemr – I clicked on your kitty link and he is GORGEOUS. Wow. What’s his name?
Everyone managing depression – every single bit of advice and help offered in previous comments is spot-on and fantastic.
All the fuzzy animals and the sleepy parrot are adorable. They are especially appreciated after the toxicity that found its way onto the recent thread (I will never, ever look at cupcakes the same way again).
@eli – I have lurked here for ages too before commenting, and I know exactly what you mean!
This is the kind of thread where I want to reply to every single comment, but I only have half an hour before I need to be in bed … I wish all of you the very best, and thanks for being who you are.
@Jarnsaxa again writes it the way it is.
I, too, am much more of a dreamer (uh, nickname), a thinker, a dawdler and a procrastinator. I don’t like to get up early, and I like to stay up late. I require a certain amount of what I call “staring into space” time. I don’t like housework (although I do like a clean house).
I spent years hating myself for these traits. Growing up in the Midwest, where “Work Ethic Is Everything!” drove me into the laziness closet. As @Jarnsaxa says so well, the way I felt about it changed when I was able to get my depression under control.
I’m out and proud about my natural proclivities now. I don’t make excuses and I don’t present myself as someone I’m not anymore. My house is never “drop-in” ready – but fortunately, I’m fairly introverted, so the only people who come over know me well enough and love me well enough to NOT CARE. I keep it reasonable – thank goodness I don’t also have the issues of hoarding or similar anxiety disorders. I strive for “good enough”.
On the weekends, I sleep until 10 a.m. – something no one in my rural area would ever admit to. Sometimes I stay up until 4 a.m. and sleep until noon! I only vacuum once a week – and I have a dog and cat that shed enormously. I keep our clothes clean, and I keep food put away. I like to cook and have been practicing and learning cooking much more in the past year, so I keep the kitchen fairly neat.
And if I don’t feel like it? If I want to just hang out with my kid and watch Netflix all weekend? I let it happen. I give myself permission. It’s okay to do the dishes another day. It’s okay to vacuum Monday instead of Saturday.
Its a trade off, but one thing managing my depression has done is make that interior harpy of mine stfu for once so I can be good to myself for a change.
@Mish – thank you so much (I’m a little embarrassed that I posted his pic but if you can’t post a cat pic here at WHTM, then where CAN ya?). His name is Darby, he’s 4 years old, and he fancies himself quite the Lord of the Manor.
@dreemr
Yup, I have the same problem. I struggle to keep up with vacuuming once a week, and we have two cats. I also thing there’s something about me personally that makes dust form at alarming rates. Wherever I live, it’s always been very dusty.
My laptop recently had problems with overheating and shutting down, so I handed it over to tech support to see if they could fix it for me. They said they had never, ever seen so much dust inside a computer. I resorted to making up a lie about having 6 cats, because it felt embarrassing to admit that I live in a pool of dust.
Thanks EJ.
And right back at you. I know their are a lot of people who don’t believe men can get EDs, or are super judgmental about it because it’s a girl problem.
@Dreemer and Petal
I almost never vacuum because my husband usually reaches the tipping point before I do. He vacuums every other week, sometimes we go longer than that. And we have two cats. I used to feel extremely self-conscious about the state of my floors, but now that my depression is under control I’m okay with it.
@Petal
Meh, it always feels like the most dust you’ve ever seen when you open up a really dusty computer. Thing is, that can have more to do with the way the computer is designed than anything you have control over. And with a laptop it’s not like you can pop the case open and spray an air can in there.