Can't bear to be alone–help!
Question:
want to this newsgroup. We don’t have any easy answers to hand to you, but maybe together we can find somethings to help… Now where the heck is shuras when we need him? 
Hi, Jesse 
. Hello, everyone. Happy New Year – here’s hoping it’s a good one for everyone. I have somewhat reduced access to the internet over semester breaks (wah!!!! ughhh!!!!) as I live about an hour and a half from here. But I couldn’t go a whole three weeks without you guys – ESPECIALLY being around the family. Can you believe it – three geniune bona fide all out fights with my father within two days of pulling into the driveway. Things are very interesting if not a little rocky right now. I am thinking very seriously about changing my major (at least the Bachelor’s) to, of all things, psychology. Now, do I expect this to yield any vocational direction? Unlikely – but who knows. What I came to realize this past semester is that I do not want to teach music in the average school in the average town with the *STATISTICALLY* "average" class of children. I now feel that I would like to teach music to students who have a difficult time with the "average" teacher and teaching method. I can get out of here, realistically, in about a year and a half with a psych degree. This is only one more semester than it would take me to complete the music ed. degree (including student teaching). I’ve declared a psych minor anyway, and genuinely enjoy studying the stuff. Get a load of this: I’m actually pondering the idea of writing a book. Ha!! I was talking to the coordinator of disabilities services here on campus and she suggested this. That was the capper. She promised to guide me and such along the way – God knows I’ll need that to stick with it. Who knows, I may change my mind in a week. I must give some credit (or blame : ) to you, Betina – you planted this seed a little while back and I’ve been thinking about it since. You might have created a monster. Roar!!!!!! Well, gotta go. See you all later. Take care. -stan :)
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Just to mention to those who have tried Prozac and had a bad experience — there are other choices for antidepressant medications. REgarding ideas for organic, natural ways to get the brain to work better, you might like to try yoga and pranic breathing for long-term improvement in functioning. But I also say — don’t be afraid to take some form of medication, because your life IS important to us all.
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Jason- you’re not alone. You can post here and people will answer you. When I was younger – in my teens and twenties I used to get very worked up about being alone. (Ohmygod! it’s another weekend or friday night and I am alone! Yiii…!) I was too programmed into doing things I thought were "normal" or that people were supposed to do. The above foolishness would get me thinking, "wow maybe I really am a dork" and I’d feel even worse. I was setting myself up to feel bad. If you are alone use the time wisely, there is so much hectic stuff in life some quiet and privacy (or "space") is good. Don’t know what to say about medication. I am mostly against it. As a kid I was misdiagnosed and given dilantin for a minor "glitch" thought to be petite mal. Later in my teens tried marijuana (unlike Clinton, I inhaled) LSD, but what scared me the most were "downers" (seconal). These boosted my self confidence, made me less wound-up and "more affectionate" as one date put it. At one point, I was taking three pills where one used to work. That was 20 years ago when I stopped. My wife and I are into organic foods and products, the change in diet and removal of unnecessary chemical junk from our lives helped my depressions a little- and gives me a little better physical condition to cope with depression. It may not be a panacea for everyone. Jay
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I mean… I am depressed especially when I am alone. mostly because the ADD keeps me from being able to find an activity that I can stay intersted in for more than a little while. Although I like the idea of reading to learn new things, the ADD makes reading VERY frustrating.
god, I hear that!! I want to read so bad, actually have time, but it’s sooo hard to concentrate. One thing might be to not fight the restlessness thing. What if you *wrote a list* (I have to have lists!) of things you could do that are fun and/or productive. When you get tired/inattentive with whatever you are doing, look at your list and find something else to do for a bit. do you get that hyperfocusing stuff sometimes? I never know exactly when it’s going to hit me, it just does. One thing I can usually do even when I’m having a *really* hard time concentrating is watch tv…my mind may float from it, but who cares? the problem is I don’t like much tv… so I started taping the few shows that I do like, and I watch them later/again. I now have 17 tapes full of various Star Trek episodes : But I like seeing old favorites again, and sometimes do well doing something else at the same time, like cleaning my desk, going thru the mail (e and snail), or needlework. You might want to give some of these things a try. Well.. this caused me to fear drugs for helping my problems. My doctor recently prescribed Wellbutrin, but I am too scared to take it… the side effects really frighten me!
Please do try it! Most people *don’t* get spacy from it, tho you might get dry mouth or something…but so what? drink water, chew gum…yeah, it’s an inconvenience, but usually nothing more than that. And they go away after a bit. Recently, a 2.5 year relationship I was in ended. The girl I was with didn’t understand me. she felt that the negative things that I did (ie, I was late, not a good listener, changed subject sometimes) meant that I didn’t care about her. This REALLY hurt. now that we are broken up, she is dating someone else, and she still believes to this day that I never really cared. this has done wonders for my self confidence.
oof! I had similar problems when I was in college and a bit older; frineds and lovers didnt’ always understand my depression. They took my symptoms to mean I didn’t care about them, which of course wasn’t true. It takes a lot for people to understnad. My husband and I are really having to tread lightly with my probable ADD and long-time depression– this changing of meds is really difficult on both of us, but I needed to try to find something that works. Even tho he knows that my extreme irritability and bitchiness are from my depression and ADD, he still doesn’t like being snapped at, of course. We are learning to deal with it as we go. Mixed into the forementioned problems is a feeling of rejection, of not being understood and accepted, and it is reallyy painful. I am finding it harder and harder to live day to day. I am scared that I won’t ever find a person that will accept me for who I am, and love me for it.
It is my firm belief that nearly everyone can find love–but they do have to try. (tho it may nt be a priority at all points of one’s life of course). I sometimes despaired of a serious relationship: I have serious depression, cna’t hold down a job, am bitchy and selfish and and a size 28. (read: quite fat). but I foudn the love of mylife, and he sees my good points, and lives iwth my not-so-bad ones. Someone for whom I need not take medication to make them love me.
Jason, medication may be a necessary part of your life. If you had diabetes and had to take insulin, you would not worry over someone who would love you "without medication." ADD and OCD are problems with chemical deficiencies in the body, just as diabetes it. Only diabetes is better understood and accepted (for now). That’s all. I don’t recall you mentioning how old you are, but I firmly believe that relationships and dealing with/loving yourself get easier as you get older. (not that I’m too old yet; 31! some wise woman, hah!! As you get older, your age-mates with be more experienced, mature and understanding. College is a hell of a time. Any help or support would be really appreciated..
I hope this helps at least a bit! — "There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief amoung these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible." –P.J. O’Rourke
Response:
: I think I have some OCD as well. Well, I wrote an e-mail message but the blasted computer lost it (we know it isn’t my fault… ), so I will try this again, but I have lost some of my momentum… Anyways, you sure aren’t alone. At the very least you have alt.support.attn-deficit, which is a group full of people who actually know exactly how you feel. As I like to say, "Been there, done that." Sounds like you are a lot more than a "little OCD." I’m taking Prozac for my OCD right now, and I have to wonder how much you were on. If I go above 18mg a day for over a week, I start getting drugged and spacey. All too often docs don’t think of Prozac in terms of small dosages, but my doc tells me he has another patient with OCD/ADD who is even more sensitive to Prozac than me. He alternates between 2 and 3 mg every other day (yes, they don’t make pills that small, so he has to weigh out the powder himself) and it does wonders for him. Plus there are a lot of other drugs out there besides Prozac for OCD (zoloft and effexor are two others that increase serotinin, but do it in different ways than Prozac). One of the nasty things about OCD is that it can make you scared of drugs. You should see some of the the e-mail messages I wrote to friends before I finally tried Prozac again. I was (and with regards to ritalin, still am) scared out of my head. So what I decided was that if I didn’t like how I felt, that I would stop the drug. No ifs ands or buts. If the drug makes me feel weird, than it can’t be helping me if I spend all my time worried about feeling weird all the time. Relationships with non-adders suck. I know, that doesn’t help one whit, you still hurt and you don’t know what to do. I would doubt if there is anyone in this group who doesn’t know exactly how you feel. All I can say is that if you did care and she didn’t belive that, then how much could she have cared for you? (I know, advice from people also sucks when you hurt, but you should know that there are people that *do* care about you, and there are people who can relate to what you’re going through better than you think). As long as you have friends that are willing to talk to you, you have nothing to be embarassed about. I know there are many nights where I’d rather not think about what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten a hold of someone to talk to. Most of my friends know that every now and then I need to babble or rant or just chat for a few hours, and they help me through those times. Friends are good that way. I think this has something to do with the lack of order for adders. When you talk to someone else, they have a sense of order to what they are saying or doing and you can kind of "borrow" their sense of order while talking to them. They provide a framework for you to work in for a while, instead of bouncing along inside your own head by yourself. The best advice I can think of is to feel free to post as much as you want to this newsgroup. We don’t have any easy answers to hand to you, but maybe together we can find somethings to help… Now where the heck is shuras when we need him? jesse scott campbell PS You can e-mail me if you want, any time, if there is something you don’t feel comfortable posting for everyone to read. But you can feel comfy posting anything you want here, we occasionally bark but we always apologize in the next post… I j. scott campbell "Oh well. I I http://www.esu.edu:80/~jesse Nevermind." -Nirvana I
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I have ADD and find that I am quite depressed, alot of the time. I don’t have much self confidence, either. I think I have some OCD as well. I am a slow reader, and this really bothers me. In short, I feel like a "defeat" myself. I mean… I am depressed especially when I am alone. mostly because the ADD keeps me from being able to find an activity that I can stay intersted in for more than a little while. Although I like the idea of reading to learn new things, the ADD makes reading VERY frustrating. Consequently, I find myself constantly on the phone… trying to find a person to talk to. and when no one is around, or noone calls me, I become EXTREMELY depressed. I think as a combination of the OCD and the inability to be alone, I sit there and try calling people all day, or checking my email. So when I am alone, I am usually just sitting around wondering who I could talk to, instead of concentrating on what I am doing. I am always searching for solutions to these problems, but I am convinced that I can’t handle it without making a change in my life (this, I suppose, seems rather obvious). This change could be by taking some sort of medication or trying something like meditation or biofeedback. The former (medication) seems like the must direct treatment in that it "adjusts" the chemical imbalanaces which I believe exist. However, medication scares me. I have tried such drugs as prozac, and its side effect, namely the "spacey" feeling, scared me into not taking it any more. You see, I am very sensitive about the limited (at least I believe it is limited) intellectual power that I have. A drug that makes me feel spacey takes this intellectual power away from me. I also tried stimulants (like Ritalin) for the ADD. It gave me headaches and chest pains, as did all the other stimulants that I tried (like dexidrinem and I know there’s one more, but can’t remember the name of it!) Well.. this caused me to fear drugs for helping my problems. My doctor recently prescribed Wellbutrin, but I am too scared to take it… the side effects really frighten me! I am still searching for other means of fixing/working with my problems… one that doesn’t scare me! Recently, a 2.5 year relationship I was in ended. The girl I was with didn’t understand me. she felt that the negative things that I did (ie, I was late, not a good listener, changed subject sometimes) meant that I didn’t care about her. This REALLY hurt. now that we are broken up, she is dating someone else, and she still believes to this day that I never really cared. this has done wonders for my self confidence. Mixed into the forementioned problems is a feeling of rejection, of not being understood and accepted, and it is reallyy painful. I am finding it harder and harder to live day to day. I am scared that I won’t ever find a person that will accept me for who I am, and love me for it. Someone for whom I need not take medication to make them love me. Sheesh. I don’t want to get too depressed while I am writing this letter! Any help or support would be really appreciated.. thank you. Jason
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