The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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So, as is usual, my approaching birthday (the day after the election) is worsening my depression — reminding me of how little I've accomplished, how much of my life I've wasted, how many things it's too late for me to try to turn around. (All of which just increase the frequency of wondering why not just skip to the end, since at this point those remaining years won't change anything.)
I'm on meds, I see a therapist regularly, and I'm spending more time under my SAD light (because winter in Alaska). Any other suggestions?
Find someone you need to stay alive to piss off. Maybe it's an actual person, maybe it's an inner critic, the weak part of yourself that wants to give up, whatever, doesn't matter. Spite is a powerful motivator (at least, it is for me). Leverage the worst parts of yourself to motivate you. A most base example: I don't want to lose weight because I care about my health, but because I'm vain.
With that, I'm not sure of your background, expectations for life, age (I'm guessing mid-late 30s), etc. but for me (possibly one of the bigger fuckups on this forum) I look at it this way: I had a shrink throw up his hands during a consultation and ask how I was still alive. I took it as an insult. Sure, my life was intolerable at the time (as opposed to this time if I seek therapy again, where it's more a case of "I need to get better, decommission the neon sign on my head that attracts dysfunctional people into my life, and quit making shitty decisions to get where I want to be"), but I wasn't ready to quit (In fact, I sought therapy because my lifestyle at 23 was going to get me killed and a recent near-death experience had made me realize that I wanted to live.).
I've wasted most of my adult life, and at the age of 33 am giving it a half-assed go at getting things together, getting a career, and getting toxic people who use me and drag me down out of my life. Do I expect a happy ending with a family? No, I'd love one but am hoping for a smart but neurotic woman who also missed the boat and whose crazy clicks with mine, a partner to complain about the world with. Do I want to finally be a career man to impress my father? No, my easy gravy train job went out of business and I'm tired of being broke, dealing with roommate drama, and driving a 15 year old piece of shit car that I have to work on regularly.
I'm not exactly an AA success story, but I quit being a terrible (drinking until blackout every night) alcoholic the same way. At some point in my late 20s I just ran out of energy and got tired of feeling like shit every day, so I cut down on drinking, have days (sometimes multiple in a row!) where I don't drink at all, etc. and I don't wake up hating myself most of the time. I recently encountered a 36 year old CA who drinks like I did when I was 22 and good God now I understand why the 8th Step exists.
I guess the moral of the story is to use what you want to be as a goal for the future rather than a cudgel to beat yourself up with now. Ask yourself: "Am I a better man than I was yesterday, last week, month, year, etc?" If you can honestly answer with a "yes", you're on the right path.
Tl;dr, ground your expectations.
About to turn 43.
As for background: Disabled. Living in Alaska. Failed my duty as eldest sibling to continue the family line (and my younger brothers certainly aren't going to do it). Failing to do anything to contribute to the survival of my people, against their many and powerful enemies. Failing to do anything productive with my 151 IQ. Failing to leave any legacy. Living by stealing money from the pockets of hard-working Americans — and worse, not even having the courage and masculine fortitude to do it myself, but by outsourcing my banditry to the state.
I assume this means acquired infertility. There's research going on about making sperm out of stem cells, and that should circumvent all forms of infertility (except being dead).
No, it means that "it takes two to tango" and I've never even been on a date. Middle brother literally fled across the country to get away from a "crazy ex-girlfriend," hasn't dated since, lives with our parents, and holds anti-natal views. Youngest brother and his girlfriend — both also on disability — both have serious health issues, some of which for the latter make pregnancy too risky.
Oh. I didn't consider that because it sounded potentially fixable and thus not an already-determined failure.
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