The Black Dog Thread

[TordelBack]

Feel for you Sharky - it's easy to look at your life and wonder quite how far below even the most modest expectations it is. And in your situation I imagine it's easier than it is for most of us. However, as Jayzus says you don't have to look far to see the flipside, how immeasurably better your life is than for so many others.

I've been struggling with the usual feelings of crushing inadequacy myself as  an upturn in work brings me back into contact with my career contemporaries (now as a distant underling), who almost universally appear to be thriving in well-paid interesting pensionable jobs while I earn the same as a third-year apprentice at 45, and for 7 years have done nothing but service my debts: 'luckily' this has been balanced by my attempts to support one of my best mates, whose life has completely imploded after a sudden bereavement and the knock-on effects that appear to have torn his remaining family apart. It doesn't prevent me berating myself for my own gross failures and derelicitions, but listening to such awful grief and almost instant isolation in someone who I would previously have considered very popular socially and the definition of comfortable certainly forces me to have some perspective.

None of which helps you there Sharky, and there is little advice more trite that 'Count your blessings', but well, sometimes it can help. Easy to say when not facing into another winter in the shed, I know.

[ZenArcade]

Sorry to hear if this guys....It sounds dreadful. Z

PS posted a wee pic on Threadjacking...hopefully to cheer the Shark up!

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks, chaps.

I hate whining like this but sometimes it helps to get this crap into words, to pin it down. I think Bill's death might have hit me harder than I realised but I'm pretty sure I'll bounce back. That's what we humans tend to do, I think. Besides, if it wasn't for feeling miserable I wouldn't appreciate the happiness.

Look at that, I must be on my way back if I can see the bright side of misery!

[Grugz]

 I am a firm believer in fate/karma etc and think that things do happen for a reason , I lost my job was drowning in debt and ready to catch the bus at one particularly low point. Now, still unemployed but thanks to iva debt free, not known as grumpy dad and am closer to my daughter than ever before (even if our constant teasing each other winds my wife up)  my health is still at a low though not as life threatening as it was last year and my wifes health is slowly getting worse but I always (now) have to see a bright future .


  but failing all that have a gander


  http://metro.co.uk/2016/10/16/mans-penis-amputated-after-using-bottle-as-a-sex-toy-6195227/

there always someone worse off. to quote a cliché !

  hang in there fellas.

[Modern Panther]

I've been trying for a while to type a comment voicing support.  I know though, that the last thing anyone wants to hear when they're low is some bloke saying "hey, express your feeling, man.  It'll help", like some internet based hippy.

Truth is though, that it does.  The lie that is depression swirls around inside your head until it becomes the truth.  It wasn't until I was sat down and essentially forced into telling someone how shitty I felt everyday that I was able to realise that, although being sad is sometimes a perfectly reasonable response, that doesn't mean that it had to dominate my life.

[Radbacker]

well after 25 yrs as a pretty heavy Weed Smoker I've giotten help to get off the stuff, shit its hard and now my mind is reminding me of all the shit things about life that led me to spending the last 25 years in a stoned stupour (i was generally stonned form the minute i got up to the time i went to bed).  I;ve been using it as a fall back to beat depression and various other issues (stress, sadness and social anxiety, who'd have thiunk weed made me less paranoid! i seem to have ignored for 26years (its' awfully hard to stay stressed over anything when your buzzing it all just floats away (sure its still there when you straighten out but thats why i stayued stoned for 25 years).  Well i now have a lovely wife and a baby on the way it really is time to stop being a miserable 16 year old and f^&ken grow up.
Docs given me some nice meds to help with the depression and a pack of Vals to help with the stress (the Vals are only a 30 pack and thats all I'm getting but it should be ample to help get through the first few weeks to help kill that anxiety i get in public, and wait for the proper meds to kick in last thing i want is to replac one mionkey on my back with another.
So big Pharma have finaly got me off the unnregulated happy stuff that they get no cut from and now i'm probably goung to be slave to their drugs but hey if it keeps the missus happy (and me ahppy too I supose) thats the way to go, also way cheaper $30 for month supply compaired to $500 per month on the green. i am hoping afte ra bit of counceling to help me find myself proeprly (when you've been smoking hardcore for 25 years you kind of becom eRadbacker the stonner i dont seem to have any other person I am butr thats what i've got to find and hoping the counciling will help me achieve that.
Anyway needed to get that off my back, good luck tyo everyone else it took me years to get the help but thats really what you need in the situations you simply can not deal with this sort of problem yourself professional help is needed.

CU Radbacker

[Grugz]

nice one rads, hope you manage to kick the vile stuff for good

[TordelBack]

Wow, that's an impressive change to make RB!  500 a month, even in Aus Dollars/Stirling, that was quite a habit!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Fecking hell, it certainly is.  Sometimes it's Small Pharma that's ripping you off.

I've never quite understood how people can use weed to treat depression (though I know plenty who do) - for me it tends to make my brain race way too fast, overthink everything, get paranoid  and wish it could unstone itself as quickly as possible.  It took me many years of smoking it to realise that though.

[sheridan]

Good luck Rads, and congratulations on impending babyness!

[Radbacker]

Thanks guys, yeah it was alot but sometimes it was alot more (this stuff cost a bundle in OZ I used to by Ounces of the stuff thinking it would save me some $ but then i'd just smoke twice as much) I still functioned, still worked, buying a house a car etc so I didn't really see it as a problem till recently.  The bub on the way really opened my eyes up I just hope i haven't damaged my realationship with my wife too much befor ei made the choice.

CU Radbacker

[TordelBack]

Oh FFS.

[Hawkmumbler]

Oh FFS.

What's up Tordels old boy?

[The Legendary Shark]

You okay, Tordels?

[TordelBack]

Just the pup of eternal bleakness sinking its needlesharps into my ankle. Been doing well staying just ahead of it these past months, admittedly with a large expenditure of energy on the subject, but as of this morning I've apparently fallen far enough behind to get bit. Trivial triggers as usual. Onwards.