Why am I so unlikeable?

[Rosie]

Just got home from hospital because of my mental health.  Lifeline, 000 and the paramedics were so kind and caring.  Then the mental health doctor arrived and he was so arrogant that I just felt like I was a nuisance and a burden to the hospital.  He said "what do you want me to do".  I said I didn't know and maybe I should go home.  He replied "fine, I'll walk you to the door".  I was suicidal and that was the last thing he said to me.  I am NEVER going to go to another doctor again.

I try to be normal and I even tried answering a few BB posts in a positive way, like the way the "community champions" do but I was pathetic.  I have nothing to give as I have very little life experience even at 63.  A fat, ugly old spinster that the neighbourhood bullies make fun of.

I'm so tired!

Rosie 😪

[therising]

Hi Rosie

I've found the forums have definitely made a difference to myself as well. I think it's because the amazing people here can help change that inner dialogue. An example that comes to mind involves a regular on the forums here (White Knight) leading me to wake up to how depressing waiting can become at times. Whether waiting and hoping for someone or something to change, I think it could be the saboteur in me that occasionally dictates 'If you just wait a little longer, things will improve'. So I could be waiting and waiting and waiting and still nothing happens and the longer nothing happens, the more depressing it becomes. While the saboteur insists I wait, it promotes the opposite of action. Action is what often makes a difference. I think the tricky thing about inner dialogue can involve it coming from 2 completely different places. While 'If you wait a little longer, things will improve' could be coming from the sage in us, as good advice under certain circumstances, the same phrase can also come from the saboteur, something that's interfering with us making improvements, through action.

Rosie, I love daydreamers. I can relate, as I've always been one myself. One of my primary school teachers once mentioned to my mum 'I swear she's asleep with her eyes open at times'. 😅 My 19yo son's the same. With serious focus issues, he struggled terribly through year 12 last year. Daydreaming definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. I like to imagine we come into this world with certain tools in our backpack, when it comes to traveling through life. One of the most powerful of those tools is our imagination. Unfortunately it doesn't come with any instructions. So, we gotta work out for our self how to go into our imagination, when to go in, why to go in (for what reasons), how to come out so that focus doesn't become an issue, what to retrieve from there when we come out and the list goes on. One of the things I love most about daydreamers is how they can share vision. I hope I lead you to laugh when I ask whether you can see, in your imagination, a cat standing upright on a yellow brick road wearing high heeled black gumboots. It has red lipstick on it's little lips. It's smiling and wearing a hat with a feather sticking out of it. Can you see what colour the cat is? I bet you never knew that can existed 'til now but there it is, giving us a smile for today (maybe even a laugh). Hang on, I can see it starting to tap dance. 😸 

[Rosie]

Hi therising

I see the cat very clearly and it's a firey orange.  My fantasy world is very vivid, it's like I'm there.  ABC radio national's "All in the mind" took a look at maladaptive daydreaming a couple of year's ago and if you have a chance to listen to it you'll know how deep we go in.  I hope your son is only doing the normal type of daydreaming that sees him in the daydream as that is something I simply will not do because of the way I look. 

Thank you for all your advise.  Deep down I know it's true.  It can feel like a dog-eat-dog world but you are the only one who can take action.  Trouble is, I don't know how to or whether it's the right action or whether it's my depression talking.  Sometimes I can almost cope but then something happens and I'm in the darkness again.  While there I try to think of ways out but I feel so helpless. I am just so unhappy and of course that triggers the daydreaming.  I know I'm distracting myself instead of working out why I'm so unhappy but when I try to let the thoughts come nothing happens. Maybe I've become so used to being like this but I'll keep working on it.

I just do not know how to get better and I guess I hoped the doctor at the hospital would have a magical answer which was unfair of me.   I am a child with a child-like way of looking at the world but I'm in a 63 year old body.  I think I stop growing when I started kindy as, apart from sibling bullying, that's where it started.  I can remember my first day in kindy and I was sitting next to this pretty girl and even then I felt ugly and different.

Thanks again for your advise and I agree Whitekight's always has good advise.

Rosie x

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[Rosie]

Hi Trans22

Thanks for your response.  I guess it is about having perspective.  I'll stop sticking the boot into that particular doctor as the small hospital I went to is under funded and being a Monday it was very busy.  Unfortunately I don't have private health insurance and rely solely on the public hospitals.  I can't wait to receive the ambulance invoice (not).   I've made a few decisions which I feel is right for me.

I hope you continue to have the strengh to reach out and get help.  Thanks again for sharing your experiences with me.

Rosie x

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[Earth Girl]

Hi Rosie,

It makes me sad that you feel this way about yourself. You seem really sweet and you are actually one of the people on BBF that really stand out to me. I also lack a lot of experience as I'm a very shy person and don't talk to people much and my family is kind of toxic really. I'm only 30 now, but even when I get older, I'll probably still act a lot younger.  

I'm sorry that mental health doctor was so rude to you. Try not to take what he said to you personally though because I feel like there's a lot of people working in these types of fields that are very rude to people with mental health issues. When I had my first psychotic episode and the people from the CATT team came to see me, they were SO mean to me. They were treating me like I wasn't even human. They didn't care about how I was feeling at all. They literally mocked me and bullied me the whole time they were there.

I'm also sorry that some of your neighbors bully you. I hope they are at least under the age of 20 (not that it would be okay for them to do it if they were younger, but it's just so shocking when people act that way when they're at an age where you'd think they would know at least a bit better). If they are teenagers, they might grow out of it, but if they at a more mature age, it's hard to know. I don't know what they get out of bullying a nice lady like yourself. I get bullied by some of my neighbors but luckily it's at least only when they are having parties (they just spend all of the time at their parties talking about me in a mean way) and some of these people are 40)! You're neighbors probably bully you because they can get away with it and if you're a lonely person like I am, that makes it really easy for them to bully you. It's like a ganging up type of thing. These people must be really bored as well or something. 

I think its fair enough that you daydream about wishing to be beautiful. I do a lot of maladaptive daydreaming as well and that's one of the things I daydream about too. We live in a world where the way you look as seen as really important and we are also taught to believe that it is. Another thing I like to day dream about is animals, especially cats.

I'm glad Lifeline, 000 and the paramedics were very kind to you at least. Some of these people are super nice. I guess you never know for sure who you are going to get though when it comes to some mental health services such as the CATT team/HEART team or hospitals. I was reading some of the replies and saw that some more people also had bad experiences with hospitals. I hope I never have to go to one because it sounds like it would be really hard. To even need to go to one in the first place would be really hard because you would have to be having a really hard time.

[Ggrand]

Hello Dear Rosie,

Popping in today to say hello and let you know that I’m thinking of you and hoping that today is a better day then yesterday….

I can understand about someone being suicidal and one small (thing in my case said) did make me drop off the edge and I did attempt…I spent nearly 6 weeks in a mental health hospital recovering from my broken soul and mind….

The mental health nurses and physiatrists introduced me to sleep stories, I listen religiously every night when I’m trying to sleep…They really do help me to calm my unrelenting disturbing thoughts….Also through the day when triggers catch me, I don’t really think about the cause anymore, instead I try to ground myself asap….by singing along to a song I like, doing some puzzles or even just looking around the room I’m in, looking at and naming my ornaments, trying to remember where, when and why I bought it….Mind distraction I feel is a life saviour for me…Our minds as complexed as it is….just cannot think of 2 things at once, so distracting our unhealthy thoughts onto something we like can be beneficial to help in managing our mental health…

Theres a thread on how to ground ourselves once triggered into depression and/or anxiety….If you’re interested to find out more about grounding just search in the search bar “Grounding ourselves, what is it and how do we”…..maybe something in their might help you a little…

I have a beautiful sunny but cold day in my part of this universe…I’m sitting out front rugged up with a blanket talking to a beautiful lady called Rosie….How’s your day been sweet friend?

My kindest thoughts and care, with a very gentle caring hug 🤗…

Grandy..

[therising]

Hi Rosie

I'm glad you could see the cat 😊. I hope it led you to smile, especially given it's wearing lipstick.

As I mentioned to my son, it's interesting how daydreamers can get into their imagination in the blink of an eye. 
Some folk actually pay to learn how to do it. Consider guided meditation for example. The guide will gradually take people into their imagination. They'll start with some relaxation technique, some deep breathing and all that kind of stuff. With expert daydreamers, there's no need for the lead up. Just set the scene and we're there.

I'm wondering whether you're a next level daydreamer, someone who can do it with most or all your senses included in the experience. With the brain having a reference for anything we've experienced in life, if we're daydreaming about our self in a field of lavender, we should be able to smell the lavender if we have a reference for it. We should be able to feel the soft grass we're sitting on in our imagination, if we've felt soft grass in reality at some point. The sound of the wind through trees, the taste of a cinnamon doughnut, the vision of a blue sky. It's a sensory experience for someone with a vivid imagination.

I'd say next level beyond that is if we can meet with someone or something in our imagination that's able to guide us in some way. May sound strange but I have an imagined sage that lives in a quaint cottage within a forest. I visit this sage from time to time and ask for advice or guidance. I don't proclaim to know where this guidance comes from exactly but I've often been surprised by what comes to mind when I'm in that cottage. Perhaps it comes from a part of the brain that holds all the answers or solutions and the imagination is just one way of accessing that.

I've managed to track down 'All in the mind' from ABC radio (with thanks to Google). Will have a listen to it. 🙂

[Rosie]

Dear Earth Girl

Nice to hear from you again. I think it’s so sweet the way you answer so many of the BBF community members as it’s always nice when someone replies – makes you feel special.

If your family can’t help you, do you have any support or do you have to handle everything on your own? I think some families just can’t take our ups and downs all the time as it is very draining. My parents are dead and my siblings don’t contact me as they say I’m too depressing and probably too self-obsessed. I try to answer some posts but I don’t really know what to say, the community champions seem to be able to give good advice.

Like a child I’m still stewing about that doctor but I’ll stop sticking the boot into him. I just wanted someone to tell me what to do and get some respite care. I had to look up what CATT stood for so thank you for educating me – “Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team”. Therising explained to me that unless they have experienced what it is like to have, in your case, a psychotic episode they can’t truly empathise with you, they can only image what it’s like but it’s easy to be treated like a number. I think a lot of these community champions have some sort of background in psychology as they sound very educated. I’m so sorry Earth Girl that you were treated so disrespectfully. It sounded like a bunch of thugs stormed in rather than caregivers. I’ve given up on the medical profession, even stop taking my medication. I feel like they are my caregiver overlords and if I displease them my medication will be withheld. I few weeks before I went to hospital, I had an appointment with my GP and pleaded with her to up my dose but she wouldn’t. I knew the 20mg was not enough but maybe it’s something to do with my age. Well, I’m not going back to her or the hospital, maybe I should just embrace being a “mental case” and stop feeling self-conscious about it all the time.

Believe it or not, my neighbourhood bullies are between the ages of 62 and 81. Maybe they get worse with age. I’m also sorry that you have been experiencing bullying by your neighbours. I guarantee you there is a ring leader amongst them, my one calls everyone “lovey”. I think it’s harder for woman who live on their own, we are often referred to as “old spinsters” “cat ladies” which has been turned into an insult, although I quiet like being called an “old witch”.

I hope you are okay Earth Girl and thanks again for responding it really helps.

Rosie x

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[Rosie]

Dear Grandy

Lovely to hear from you. I’m still up and down at the moment like a yo-yo but I’m practicing your mind distraction techniques and it is really helping. I’m also looking at my bookshelves and trying to remember what each book was about. I love popping into the local library and just taking my time browsing. The library is a lovely inclusive place and has so much to offer and it’s free (except for the photocopying but that is very cheap). If you are homeless or without electricity, you can recharge your mobile for free. I just love that about them – no one is left out.

I was so sorry to hear about little Ebony. I have always had cats but they are all dead now and I don’t think I can afford another one or go through one more death. Mind you, they usually find me and just move in like they’re doing me a favour but that’s cats for you. However, I miss not having my cats snoring next to me at night.

I like the idea of sitting somewhere comfortably and having a good old chin-wag with a friend. I have never, ever done that. I’ve always been the “listen lady” at work but now I'm retired I am all alone. I’m having a hot drink and a slice of banana cake while sitting upright in my electric blanket bed talking to you. Have you had a nice week Grandy? Are you working in the back room of the op-shop or still having to deal with customers which I bet can be triggering at times.

I was kind of hoping that horrible doctor would have admitted me so I could get some help like you did. I’ve had many attempts at suicide starting at age 17 but no one noticed or perhaps they choose not to notice. Back then we didn’t have places like Beyond Blue Forums as there was no internet so life could be very lonely and confusing.

How are your lovely new neighbours, I hope those boys don’t target you, try and keep under their radar. You can never pick your neighbours.

Well, I’m finished my hot drink and I’m going to take a nice warm bath with some lavender oil in it so I’ll say goodbye for now dear friend. Thanks for the chat.

Rosie xx

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[Rosie]

Hi therising

I go deep but not that deep but will give it a go.  I love what you can do and I don't think it's strange at all.  It's really, really interesting. Gregory Peel Smith, who lived in near-total isolation in northern NSW, had a similar experience with a guide.  He wrote a book called "Out of the forest" and he was featured on the ABC's "Australian Story" a few years back.  My library has it so might yours.  I'd love to be able to do that.  I guess if I could imagine myself in my daydreaming I might have been able to go down that path.  For some reason I can't see myself in my daydreaming.  It's like I don't exist!  I've always been fascinated by Savant syndrome.   I hope your son inherited your talent.

Warmest regards

Rosie x

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[Eagle Ray]

Hello Rosie,

Reading through your post I just wanted to say I'm so sorry you were treated that way by the doctor and also that I can tell you are such a lovely person and so worthy of being here. I had a few months of strong suicidality where I nearly admitted myself to hospital late last year and early this year. When I was starting to recover just a little I got up the courage to visit a local cafe thinking it might make me feel better. A woman who works in the cafe must have noticed I looked vulnerable and said, "pump up your own tires, no one else is going to do it for you". It was just an aggressive statement that struck me when I was already so completely raw and I spun out of control again. I called the Suicide Callback Service and the woman I spoke with was so understanding and I started to rebalance somewhat again. I can really recommend them for finding some grounding and balance again. I can only think the woman in the cafe who came up to me to say those things cannot stand her own vulnerability and that is why she wanted to attack vulnerability in another, especially someone who looked like they wouldn't fight back. So I understand how such comments from people can really hurt when you are already as raw and vulnerable as anything.

So with that doctor, along with overall work stress levels, such comments can also be a way they cover up their own feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, that they don't really know or understand how to handle the situation better. It's true that if you haven't been through something you can't really understand it. Unfortunately there are people working in mental health at times who really don't understand the experiences of those they work with. I can already tell you have high levels of emotional intelligence, warmth and insight and you would actually know how to talk to someone in that situation much better than the doctor did. At times, like you, I have been ready to walk away from the medical profession entirely because of bad experiences. But I have found an excellent hormone specialist doctor now (late perimenopause with hormones crashing being the driver of my mental health collapse on top of longer term trauma issues). She totally gets me and what has been happening to me. Likewise I have an excellent psychologist too, but I also had to search to find her and go through a few bad experiences first. So I really wish for you there was a way to find a good person you feel safe and can connect with.

I remember seeing the "Out of the Forest" program. I could really relate to Gregory's desire to escape the world and live in the forest for a time. I have had dreams of being a hermit living alone in nature since at least a teenager, I think even younger than that. I now live in a small town outside the city and close to some wild landscapes which is kind of may way of getting part way there. But I've realised I do really need people too and that so much healing happens through our connections with others. So just trying to say in a roundabout way, you are welcome here and, contrary to your post's title, you are very likeable.

Warm wishes,

Eagle Ray