Brainfog. Difficulty concentrating. No desire to do my own programming projects anymore. And without my anti-depressant I cant even muster the will to read a book, what used to be my favorite pastime. Or even take a walk. What annoy me the most is that these are symptoms of depression, but also what seemingly is the reason I’m depressed!
Oh, and stuck in a rented tiny apartment with a roommate who dont clean. And I no longer have the energy to clean for two. But that at least is solvable, I just need to save up money enough to get my own place.
Ah yes brainfog. As someone who writes a lot, I quickly learned brainfog is a writer’s absolute arch nemesis, like the devil if writing itself was a religion. I’ll be half-way through writing something, fall asleep, then wake up and be unable to piece a concept together. No wonder the first Lord of the Rings took twelve years to write.
I would recommend taking a walk. You may say you’re too depressed to take a walk, but it’s the other way around, taking a walk can help with feeling depressed. The other two most helpful things for feeling depressed and brain fog are water (as in showering and staying hydrated) and getting eight hours of sleep each day when possible. And then just cycle those three things.
So I’ve heard. The latest anti-depressants helped with my will to exercise. Right now I’m trying for at least 6k steps a day and one swimming session a week. It has reversed my weight-trend (and I’ve gone down two notches on my wrist watch as of yesterday). Small victory. Maybe it’ll eventually work better against my brainfog too.
what kinds of programming projects are you into?
Anything I can learn something new from. Gamedev, web dev, frontend, backend, desktop. I have mostly stayed within the languages c# and typescript.
Nice. I’m not sure if programming helps or just makes you forget the world around you. But it sometimes helps clear the mind and/or distracts from other issues. I managed to pick up the book “The Rust Programming Language” today. Something I had planned to do for a long time. Take care.
Cool! I learned myself some basic Rust last year, I loved how they do memory management.
Hehe. I’m currently at chapter 3… 🙃 But so far i like everything. It’s really refreshing to create a new project and it’s nearly without boilerplate code, lengthy project files to do set up generic stuff etc. They seem to use tools that make it easy and don’t get in the way of more advanced people, they even suggest git, coding conventions and so on. I’m stoked. I can’t wait to learn memory management and what legacy ballast they threw overbord. I often use C or C++ so this should be a nice ‘upgrade’.
- Constantly nagging unhelpful family
- Social anxiety
- Degrading health
- About to fail my college
- No direction
Talk to your University counseling services. They can likely help waive failed credits for diagnosed mental health issues, since they qualify as a disability. You can also possibly get accommodations such as extended due dates, etc, if you have continued mental health issues. Even without accommodations or getting credits waived, utilizing the counseling services for therapy or psychiatry can likely help a lot. There’s a lot of options and services likely available for you that you may not know about. I would have dropped out of college if I hadn’t started going to University counseling and I had failed several classes due to anxiety and depression. Seeing a therapist turned that all around and I was able to graduate and only had to take one extra semester. Hang in there!
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Have you considered that these are all related?
No direction, degrading health and fading college are more likely just because you’re a loser. Then your family nags you because they dont want some PoS who doesnt care as a relative and then your social anxiety is because you are aware of the fact you’re a fucking loser and so you dont have the left confidence.
To me it’s not weight, but a greyscale filter on life. This greyscale filter is always there. Sometimes it feels stronger, sometimes it feels less strong, but it never fully goes away.
So I’d say: this.
By greyscale filter, you mean like a feeling of numbness?
In a way, yes.
I can relate to this.
saying “you are loved” is like saying “thoughts and prayers”, it’s nonsense. love is an action, something done for you selflessly
I know, I just thought it would be lighthearted to have Yoda say it in his Yoda voice.
I have recently tested positive for a dozen different autoimmune issues. I went from a sharp 38 year old to a 40 year old who struggles with concentration. As a small business owner, it scares the hell out of me because I there is a lot riding on me to maintain the success of my business.
It’s terrifying.
A dozen? I have a few and could offer advice from time to time… does the list include MS?
Not yet. Almost 100% going to be an SLE (Lupus) diagnosis, but I’ve been subject to a battery of blood tests (seriously, I’m like 40 tubes in at this point) and hitting for everything from cryoglobulenemia, to sclerederma (ANA). It’s just super disheartening to see a new test added to a retest order only for the new test to show positive as well as the retest. However, I don’t believe we’ve ruled out MS yet and I know MS presents weirdly in men.
The real issues? Social anxiety, general guilt and regret about the past, the acceptance and occasional pain in knowing that I’ll never have a partner.
But the situation has been the same for about a decade and I’ve moved past the point where it bothers me other than acute episodes. I’m fortunate enough to have a good job and enough money that I don’t have to worry about housing or food, and aside from work I can basically do whatever I want (the positive side of “no partner”). I have hobbies and am going to start traveling soon and work keeps me busy, so I don’t really have grounds to complain.
Also, at some point if you’re not dangerously depressed, it just becomes a part of life and the new baseline. I feel “meh” at the best of times aside from when I level up on OSRS, and having that kind of pessimistic outlook does have some advantages. I don’t really panic when something goes wrong because everything is shit anyways, so the boiler breaking down or w/e is just another Tuesday. Makes life much more chill then the rollercoaster of being an optimist.
Work probably. I make a good living but I feel like no amount of money can compensate for the time I waste every day doing work that I get almost no meaning from.
My only hope besides winning the lottery is that developements in AI is going to make the economy (along with the stocks I’m invested in) skyrocket so that I can retire and move to a middle of forest.
Depression tends to go hand in hand with having a chronic illness. Especially when it feels like you’re constantly fighting what feels like a losing battle with it…
Lately my sense of motivation has been in an odd state. I’ll do things for others, or when it involves more than just myself - like I’ll go to work and do my best because I’ve committed to it, if friends ask me to do something I’ll do so, etc. But when it comes to doing things for just me I’m finding it difficult to have the drive to do so. Listening to music and jamming it out while programming was always one of my favorite ways to pass the time and even that seems to not have the “spark” that it once did.
It feels like there are just so many factors of my life that are off kilter, and when I try to re-balance one, its difficult to do so because a different facet is off and affecting it. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole really.
Economic anxiety. I still don’t feel like I’m in a comfortable position at the moment and it feels like I’m falling behind some of my goals, economically speaking. I put some of my hobbies and interests on the back burner to focus on work. I started a new job a few months ago and I genuinely like it. I hope to there longterm as I slowly replenish my finances and pay off my debts.
My health. It’s made me lose so many connections, and lately it’s made me feel like I’m invisible. Not even those closest to me really know how to deal with me and me having to cancel things because my body says no.
I have CRPS (Complex Reginal Pain Syndrome) also known as suicide disease. Every movement and sensation to my limbs causes extreme pain, it’s about 42-46/50 on the McGill’s pain scale.
That is more than enough for my depression to hit me hard. I can’t work, I feel useless, I sit on the couch and even that hurts. But I still push through the pain, and I still walk. But I’m stagnant in life.
All that being said the amount of extra weight comes from reading about the world right now. Everything is on fire, everyone is mad and seemingly at the wrong person. I can’t even afford normal groceries anymore. The future always seems bleek, and I’m not physically able to do anything about it.
Minor inconveniences make the call to the void a roar. Thank Glob for therapy, another thing I can barely afford haha.
Lack of sleep. Lack of time to do anytging except the bare minimum to get back to work.
I’m ugly as shit and socially awkward.
I don’t mean to come across as insensitive to your issues. I just wanted to say that ugly is not objective truth and it shouldn’t hold you back from finding people in your life. Plenty of similar looking or even different looking people are there who will not discriminate against you. For social awkwardness, it goes away with time as you interact more in real life with people.
I mean, my experiences interacting with people feel like navigating a minefield. I’ve had several times where I think everything is fine and then hours later I get texts and messages telling me how awful I behaved and how shit I am. I try to adjust to what they tell me because I feel bad if I bother other people and same thing happens. Like everything seems fine and then haha nope fucking loser.
And unfortunately my appearance does prevent me from having friends. I’ve been described as a 2 on a good day, trying to talk to men, even if it’s part of my job, often results in references to girlfriends or wives. I’m 32 and no one has ever asked me out or been interested in me. Women will sometimes take pity on me and talk to me for maybe a week or two but then the social awkwardness leads to them ditching me.
I’m sorry to hear that. If I’m assuming correctly and you are a woman, then i just want to say that woman are judged much more harshly than men based on looks since the fucked up expectations are they should look “cute” and girly and a bunch of other things as well. But still, it’s very sad to hear that other woman are also avoiding you.
If it’s truly a behaviour problem from your side, do you have anyone in your life who you trust who can share an honest feedback with you regarding what might be going wrong in these interactions you have with others? That might help you work with what’s going wrong.
But if it’s not a personality problem and just a looks problem, then maybe it’s still worth a shot trying to find like minded folks. I’ve been alone at times in life and sympathize with your situation. For me what worked was I had a supportive family who I could still call even when i was not feeling great and a bunch of new friends who actually cared about me because I had previously helped them a lot with things without any expectations from them. What i mean to say is that I felt that I’ll be alone always at many times in my life but with time and much effort and luck, that’s not the case and I have a good support system in place. I hope you can get find a way around this and wish you best of luck as well friend!
The feedback I get is random, often times a week or more after an interaction. For example, I was watching a movie in a discord chat and people were making comments during the movie. I joined in with a few (fucking 3 comments) of my own and people laughed with me. I did not say anything else during the movie. A week later I get 3 messages saying I was a loud asshole during the movie. I joined a discord when someone was streaming and asked if I could watch. They said yes. I then get a message after I leave saying I was creepy and quiet. Like I don’t know what to make of this. This is what I mean by minefield. Social interaction has infinite rules and it is ridiculously easy to piss someone off by mistake.
Are these interactions with the people you know and are close to you? Because these are not constructive criticisms of you… it would be far more helpful if someone who personally knows you and is trustworthy tells you if there are things that you might be unaware of… i can’t imagine why would being quiet be taken as creepy. I wouldn’t be giving much value to these incidents since they have no basis.
I don’t have any friends, so I’ve been trying to make some online and irl, so no I don’t know them that well. The only people I talk to on a regular basis are my family and coworkers and they say there’s no issue. So idk what the problem is.
At least you get feedback. I dont know what I do wrong or right, I’m just ignored. Maybe a gendered thing? I mean I have never heard someone tell a man his low ranking to his face. But also I dont know if I could have handled the amount and kind of feedback I’ve heard you women get. It probably hurts, and I’d probably punch someone eventually.
Work, society at large, “the economy”, et al
That some day all of the good things in my life could disappear, without me even doing anything. The fleetingness of real happiness and the fact that constant euphoria is unattainable. That I’m not living up to my potential, that I’m being exploited and under valued, that I’m never present for my emotions because I self medicate and distract.
Also my dad just died and I didn’t think it would affect me much because we didn’t have a great relationship. But yesterday I woke up from a dream where he was alive and the happiness I felt to see him again was immediately crushed by the relalisation that I would never see him again, and he’d miss everything from here on out. I was inconsolable, still am tbf
But also I’m in therapy and take prescribed meds that work for me, so I’m doing my best.
