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The Black Dog Thread

Started by Grugz, 02 January, 2016, 09:54:32 PM

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JayzusB.Christ

You can imagine Ice Cream Goat becoming huge in Japan, much like the Geek Pie hairstyle.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Rara Avis

Just checking in Jade, how are things?

Hope everyone is well.

Jade Falcon

Quote from: Rara Avis on 28 August, 2022, 10:10:18 AM
Just checking in Jade, how are things?

Hope everyone is well.

Really, not that great, I've been feeling pretty terrible and emotionally and physically drained.  I just can't seem to find the energy to find any joy in life anymore.  I'm being taken off of Co-Codomol, apparently they were meant to be a short term thing only, I've been on them for 30 years.  Now charity shops are starting to get Christmas cards in, and for various reasons I hate the Christmas season.  I just feel that life is a waste and wish there was a quick and painless way out.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

The Legendary Shark


Stick with it, Jade. You'll make things better as you go.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Jade Falcon

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 29 August, 2022, 09:29:16 PM

Stick with it, Jade. You'll make things better as you go.

Really, it doesn't feel that way...

Take tonight for instance, I'm staring at my screen, I can't feel focused on any one thing.  Not enough to play a game, nor to switch off and watch TV as most of the stuff on it is crap now, nor read a book.  I'm unemployed, but not one of the scroungers, I put in 19 applications in one week and got barely a reply.  The only possible opening was at a meat factory but the conditions sounded lousy.  12 hour shifts, you got docked pay for using the toilet, and the wage was about £9.75 an hour. 
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

Hawkmumbler

Last year I ditched the smartphone for good, this year i'm hoping to ween myself away from social media also. Discord and forums gets a pass, naturally, they're not even in the same hemisphere as the evil blue sites. Really can do with keeping that sort of influence out of my life entirely, they're not good for my health.

The Legendary Shark


I've got a really cheap smartphone but I've taken all the internet stuff off it (browser, apps and whatnot). Now it's just a 'phone and a Walkman and a router for my laptop. Gave up on Facetube and all such bollix even before that. Earlier still, broadcast tv went for a Burton. I'm much happier now.

Jade, all I can tell you is what I went through. For a decade I was where you are now and the root of my problem was, I think, twofold. First, abandonment issues; I felt abandoned by the world and its ruthless and unfeeling systems. Second was fear of the same. It was hard and unpalatable to come to the realisation that being abandoned by the system was actually a good thing as it allowed me to live on my own terms and not get sucked in to the tyranny which expected me only to be its slave. The fear was harder to shake off but shake it off I did, although it meant I had to plunge into and through the fear by not capitulating to the enslavers who think they own and run this world and everything in it. It was a hard and often terrifying journey but I'm glad I took it because now I'm free of much of the inhumane programming that used to dictate my every thought, emotion, and action. I wish I could tell you that there's an easy way through it, but I never found one and I'm not sure such a path even exists. I believe, however, that the strength and will to prevail are within you - all you have to do is find them.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Definitely Not Mister Pops

I can highly recommend getting off the social media. Ditched it all about five years and haven't missed it all. I've heard it has just got worse, and the pandemic/lock downs massively exacerbated it. Just use whatsapp to keep in touch with the people I need to keep in touch with, and curated a reddit account which is mostly animals acting like eejits. Just like the Shark, my phone is mostly just a sophisticated walkman.

For years now, the big social media sites have been driving engagement by making people angry and sad, encouraging outrage and righteous indignation.

For years now I have been comparing social media sites to meatspace social settings. If your local library didn't have a problem with people harassing women and minorities on their premises, you would boycott it as soon as you found out. If a bar doesn't have a problem with nazis using their premises to meet up, then it's a nazi bar and you don't go there.

I wouldn't bother weening off it. Yeet it out the window as the young ones say.
You may quote me on that.

Hawkmumbler

I've pretty much been pulling myself away from them for a year and change now, if it wasn't for the fact i'd like to keep contact with as many global friends of mine as possible who might not use Whatsapp/Discord, i'd chuck them all instantly. I do think more people are starting to wake up to how much these sites have shaped our lives, largely for the worse, over the last decade and a half.

Rara Avis

Quote from: Jade Falcon on 29 August, 2022, 08:19:28 PM
Really, not that great, I've been feeling pretty terrible and emotionally and physically drained.  I just can't seem to find the energy to find any joy in life anymore.  I'm being taken off of Co-Codomol, apparently they were meant to be a short term thing only, I've been on them for 30 years.  Now charity shops are starting to get Christmas cards in, and for various reasons I hate the Christmas season.  I just feel that life is a waste and wish there was a quick and painless way out.

I'm not a fan of Christmas either so I feel you. I'm afraid I have no advice to offer you; you've heard it all at this stage. Just go easy on yourself. I really hope better days are coming for you.

Jade Falcon

#775
Regarding Social Media, I'm on Facebook solely.  I use it mainly for some modelling groups, some related groups like the Black Hole movie, Space 1999 etc and to keep in touch with old school friends.  Some of the general threads from groups can be very toxic.

Despite being Scottish I am not a fan of the SNP and I've seen messages like "People like you will be dealt with", or "I'm a traitor", or "Leave Scotland for the true Scots" etc.  That sort of talk gets depressing so I now try to avoid it.

Although recently I got a little accomplishment of my own.  I do voluntary work in the Ayrshire Hospice.  They had donated to them a 1st edition, 1978 print of Dungeons and Dragons box set.  Multiple listings on ebay were over £200 with no dice in fair condition.  This had the dice in a sealed bag, Module B1 (Before B2 Keep on the Borderlands) which was a royalties issue.  The other staff didn't know what they had and deferred to me, they put it out at £100.

Some chancer tried to say two dice were missing and it wasn't an early edition.  I asked him what dice, he wouldn't answer.  And he stated that there were copies at £40 (why not buy it then).  It apparently sold on my day off, two days after being put out.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: Jade Falcon on 02 September, 2022, 10:48:53 PM
Regarding Social Media, I'm on Facebook solely.  I use it mainly for some modelling groups, some related groups like the Black Hole movie, Space 1999 etc and to keep in touch with old school friends.  Some of the general threads from groups can be very toxic.

As I said, these sites appear to promote outrage and righteous indignation. If the groups on there are as toxic as you say, you might want to consider smaller more obscure fan-sites to indulge your interests. Like here, but for Space 1999 or whatever.

Quote from: Jade Falcon on 02 September, 2022, 10:48:53 PM
I've seen messages like "People like you will be dealt with", or "I'm a traitor", or "Leave Scotland for the true Scots" etc...

No true Scotsman would be posting that sort of nonsense ;)
You may quote me on that.

Jade Falcon

I went to my brothers silver wedding anniversary last night.  It was in a pub, loud music, very loud but at least the songs themselves werent bad.  I have been feeling down for a while and yesterday was even worse before I even got there.  There were a lot of people there, most of whom I didn't even know.

I don't do pubs and loud music really.  I can't drink due to health issues, plus I was driving anyway.  I felt very much alone in a crowded room if that makes sense.  I've even got to the stage of looking up suicide methods online.  I had once considered hanging, but I'm an amateur student of history with specific interest in the second world war era and I'd what could happen when there were botched hangings like those at Nuremberg (look up Sergeant John C Woods on Wikipedia and you'll know what I mean).

I just can't seem to focus attention on anything.  Reading, TV, even just lying in bed gets me thinking ill thoughts.  I just feel that if this is life I want no part of it.  Its complicated and very personal to explain further but I just see no worthwhile future.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

The Legendary Shark

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Leggy Shark is absolutely correct, Falcon. Call that number right this minute.

Speaking as someone who has suffered from the kind of horrors you so eloquently describe for much of his adult life, I know the 'calming thrill' of "looking up suicide methods online", and further the inherent perceived stability that "having it all planned out, right to the smallest detail", gives you.

I was shocked, shocked I say, when I explained all that to a psychiatric professional, and his response to my "but I guess everyone has their death planned out, don't they?" was "No, they do not." Because it is a strong sign that all is not well and you need help. I did. It took me ages to get to the point where I don't, routinely, every bloody day, calm my anxious thoughts with a run-through of my demise.

And now that I don't, I see how wrong, and crazy, it was. And I can use that word, because I know crazy and in all likelihood one day I will feel it again.

But it's not right and it's no way to exist. So ring that number, find out that you are not alone, that it's not all there is and you can change it. It might feel like a comfortable, reassuring, 'safe place' to ponder your end like that. But it's called Morbid Rumination and, as I once explained to my wife in a moment of unforeseen and accidental clarity, "it's the brain fooling you because depression wants you dead". You can beat your brain, train it, whip the fucker into shape. But it's hard, and it's a slog.

Remember, even if this Board is your only outlet- it s an outlet nonetheless. Use it. There are fewer fuckers here than you'd expect from a comics forum and I've never seen anyone belittled for their mental health. That's bloody gold that is. And when you find gold, you don't let it go until you've got it in the bank.

Ring that number.

SBT