This time of year is meant to be filled with joy and family get-togethers, but not everyone has family or anything to be happy about. So are you ok?
No.
Same
Of course not. I’m a millennial on anti-depressants, working a zero-hours contract job with no hope of ever owning property in my lifetime, living in a developed country with solved problems but a populace too spiteful to ever implement the solutions.
I’m in the same boat and at this rate I feel like my retirement is with Remington
The hair care one right?
Honestly, not really. I experienced something traumatic on Christmas eve of 2017 and have never completely recovered. I’ll probably never get back to where I was before that.
It really used to be my favorite day of the year but now it’s just raw and awful and I have to keep up appearances so I’m not a miserable person to be around. I really don’t want to be that way, I’m generally a pretty easygoing, easy to get along with kinda guy so I hate the shift that I make.
I’m sorry to hear. Have you tried talking to your family/friends about it? I’m sure they would be understanding and try to help you the way I wish I could.
I’ve talked to some friends about it, but honestly it’s probably ground I need to tread with a therapist. I thought I had a good handle on it but this year has been particularly tough for some reason.
Thank you, though, I appreciate the sentiment!
Your welcome. If you can, please do see someone about it. It’s better to talk about it than to let it build.
I’ve talked to a therapist in the past - not about this, but about the rest of the abuse that was heaped on me during that time. It did help some.
You’re right, and it’s very similar advice my friends gave me. The hard part is finding the time and energy together to let me do it.
Sadly not. I still have no friends, and no one to talk to. I recently escaped from being literal forced labor for a gang, and am now trying to put life back together without telling my family.
My family are all very catholic, and they’d want my head on a stick if they knew I was stuck working for a gang, despite it being against my will.
Christmas is gonna be hard, because I’ll have to resist the urge to let out those emotions, as they’re the only people I talk to. Still looking for a good friend :(
I don’t have a great relationship with my family, so it makes it even harder around christmas times. I’m a paranoid introvert in need of friends, and trust is hard to come by, so stress builds up until I freak out because I have no one to share any ideas or life stories with. No one to keep me level headed and make sure I’m okay, and no one for me to care about. Still looking for that one good friend to come along…
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Yes and no.
Like, am I stressed as fuck? Yes. Am I fed and housed also yes.
I hope things get better for you.
I’m not OK. I’m not super un-OK, but this time of year puts me in a dark mood.
I promise I’m not trying to be edgy in saying this, but I fucking HATE the holidays. Everybody puts so much pressure on things being a certain way, especially because it’s a religious holiday. I’m atheist, my mom is catholic, my dad is Jewish but agnostic, and my husband’s family is some sort of Protestant. I wish I could treat it like a secular holiday, but my mom wants me to go to mass with her, my MIL wants us all to sing carols (fucking why, life isn’t a Hallmark movie!), and a polite “no thanks” doesn’t cut it, so no matter what I do I’m disappointing someone. I’ve gotta negotiate with both sides as to whose house we’re visiting on each day, and I just don’t know… Every year the stress just gets to me, I can’t wait for the holidays to be over. I count down the days until the 26th. The cold weather and lack of sun don’t help either.
Also. I just turned 42 this week. Every birthday I’ve ever had has been xmas-flavored - I can’t escape it even for one day. I have a labral tear and femoroacetabular impingement in my right hip which need to be fixed surgically and have been making it really hard to squat and deadlift. And despite being diligent with sun protection, my dermatologist removed yet another mole - this one came back as “moderately precancerous” and they need to do a larger excision. She also suggested I get laser treatments to remove a few age spots on my face. I feel like I’m too young for any of this shit.
I just want a pause button.
Fuck December. You’re a champion. This will suck but you’ll make it through. Look at all you’re already managing successfully. Just bc it’s not easy, doesn’t mean you’re not doing a fantastic job
Thanks friend :)
Takes a village! I’ve been fighting through a lot of darkness for many years now, with no end in sight for the struggle. Not even inner demon shit,really horrific life shit. I try to remember that we can’t always see the top of the mountain, but it’s there. And the only thing we can do is have faith that by always moving forward, however slowly, there is salvation at the summit. And if I die before that, fuck it, I won’t know :)
I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling - but hang in there, I love your philosophy about moving forward!
Thanks! Good thing about the human condition and adaptation is you can normalize some pretty high levels of struggle to being mundane lol
Happy birthday! I hope your hip can be fixed up.
Thanks!
I feel you on hating the holidays. I get so little time off of work that I just want to relax, but the expectations of the holidays make it near impossible. I have 4 siblings and they all have 2-3 kids and them and my mom always try to plan something for Christmas. The problem is we all live at least 4 hours away from each other. It is a logistical nightmare. This year I finally put my foot down and told my family I’m not doing that this year. I also told them not to get anything for my kids because honestly getting presents for 11 nieces and nephews is getting ridiculous. I even told my mom not to come visit because I just can’t deal with her histrionic personality disorder right now. Of course, I couldn’t put it that way, but to my surprise she actually listened for once.
I do still have to deal with my wife’s family coming over, because apparently me saying I don’t want to do anything for Christmas means I’m find with doing Christmas stuff on December 23rd. However, beside my wife stressing about making our house completely spotless, her family coming over isn’t that bad. They will come over for like half a day and go home, and there is never any drama.
Stay strong, the 26th is only a few days away.
Oh man I sympathize so hard with you. Histrionic moms are the worst because they make everything about them. But good for you for putting your foot down! Hang in there dude.
My girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me on Sunday, she’s the love of my life (have known each other far longer than 2 years). We have a child together, I don’t know what to do about it.
I’m trying to talk to her and discuss how we can work through it, I don’t know if it’s going to work.
Keep your fingers crossed for me I guess?
I also haven’t eaten or slept properly since, I’m starving but I can’t actually put food in my mouth.
Firstly, you need to eat and sleep, you can’t solve anything if you don’t have the energy for it. Make it simple like some soup or chicken. Your girlfriend might need some space or time to think, be patient with her. At the very least, keep goog terms with her and agree to take care of the kid, even if you don’t live together.
I’ve done all of this as best I can, but I’m struggling with the eating and sleeping. I’m doing my best though.
That sounds so tough man. You’re in my thoughts, I don’t know what else to say. I hope you get all the strength and happiness you need.
Sometimes things just fall apart. Do you mourn her, or do you mourn her love more?
If it’s her, then I hope you guys can work something it out.
If you mourn her love, then I think you’re feeling the loss of a shared future you had planned together. This hurts hard, I know, but will get better with time once you realise that you mourn the idea of her. You can and will find that with someone else, and then she will just be your ex that you have fond memories with, who you see once a week to pick up the kids, whilst you build a new future with your new partner.
It’s her I miss, beyond any doubts. I’m fighting like hell to work something out, but also trying to give her some space, it’s difficult finding the right balance between the two.
No, but that’s ok
No. My life is shit and nothing can make it slightly better. At this point I do dumb shit and create messes for myself just to spice it up, otherwise it’s the same boring, sad, routine
What kind of dumb shit do you do?
How are you, OP?
I’m right as rain, but how are you?
2023 has been a calamity for me. I lost my best friend and business partner to cancer in March. Then, the mourning. The burnout. The psychologist. The antidepressants.
I then had a diverticulitis, ended up at the hospital. I reacted badly to an antidepressant, ended up at the hospital. Had a problematic mole in my lower back, got it removed, sent it to biopsy… Didn’t remove enough, remove the rest, and the wound isn’t healing properly and got infected.
Just since Halloween, I started coughing with lots of secretion, until my asthma came back first time in 15 years, and I coughed so hard for a month and a half, I ended up cracking a rib.
Then I got an acute middle ear infection, that lasted 2 weeks, the pain was excruciating.
Now, I still can’t hear from that ear it’s clogged. I stopped coughing. My antidepressant is doing an ok job.
I just want a break from life. I had to take 2 weeks off work completely early in December for my physical and mental health. First time I have to do that in my life.
Fuck, that sounds like a ridiculous amount of shite. Hopefully life balances out just up ahead.
I’m really sorry you’re having such a shitty time, that’s a whole lot to deal with. I hope things improve for you!
My mom died a week and a half ago. So no.
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Here’s a song for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1oVX_ymEU
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Lately when someone asks me if I’m okay, my response is something akin to, “I’ll neve be okay again, but I’m alive so I guess I’ll suffer through it.”
My life has never been particularly bad, I’ve always had people around me that tell me they love me and care about me, but very rarely act that way. Throughout it all I’ve always found someone to lean on that actually shows some level of concern, but as I get older, those people have drifted away from me, physically and sentimentally.
I’ve never felt more alone in life than I do now, even with a person or two that might actually care, I know they have their own lives that take precedent over me, and thus I will end up alone anyway.
I can’t do anything to fix it, because factually, I can’t do anything right or commendable. Even when I’m doing things I’ve done flawlessly in the past, I find a way to screw up somehow and make my whole life worse, and my support network (what little there is) shrinks every day.
So I’m stuck in place, crying myself to sleep every night, hoping to whatever people call ‘God,’ that I won’t wake up. Then I cry even harder because there are people and things that I care about more than myself, but which I will never be able to do anything for.
I refuse to kill myself because of my sentimental debt to them, but if I can do nothing to help or honor them, then why shouldn’t I just end it all, and hope that fate treats them better than it has me? If I’m doing nothing right by being alive, what does it matter if I’m dead?
I hate the world, and generally, but not in totality, I hate people. I hate my life and I hate myself to the very absolute core of my existence. I just want all the pain to end.
Factually is a strong word.
Not really, but since I’m not going to find any solutions here and people have it worse, I’ll leave it at that.
It does not matter if others have it worse. It makes no difference if you are drowning in 2m or 10m of water, you are still drowning. don’t belittle your struggle! Talking about problems gives us the ability to think things through and catalyses change. i wish you the very best!
