Reality Check

[amd1953]

If you are feeling anxious and depressed, perhaps the last thing you need to read is a book written by Emil Cioran.   He was a Romanian writer/philosopher who wrote some of the most pessimistic books on the planet, including one entitled 'The Trouble with Being Born'.   However, the book is beautifully written, and it shows what other people have to endure during their lifetime.   I am always interested in what other people have to go through although most of us wouldn't feel compelled to write about it.   I could write a hundred books about my life in the hope that it would help other people.   Unfortunately, I lack the motivation to accomplish such a task, so I come on to the BB forum to try to do it that way.   Litle snippets of experience and knowledge that might just prove useful to someone who is undergoing a similar experience.   Sometimes, when I outline something on here, I think afterwards that nobody would have done what I did anyway.   For example, as a child I was convinced that my life was preordained in some way and that all I had to do was show up and everything would work out fine.   Not so!   In reality, you have to fight for everything you want while trying to assure people that you are worth their time.  Naturally, other people have had a hand in my downfall because I was convinced that everyone had my back.   Not so!   We are in competition with every other person on the planet and they don't always have our best interests at heart.   It would be nifty if we could transfer the history of our lives to a DVD and use them as training tools for the upcoming generation.   Just an idea!

amd1953

[amd1953]

1.   An inheritance from a distant, unknown family member.

2.   The birth of my son.

3.   The realisation that I will not be here forever.

4.   The dissolution of my marriages.

5.   Staring up into the night sky and wishing I was a star.

6.   Seeing a rainbow and knowing that someone else already found the gold.

7.   Being the last member of a forgotten family of misfits.

8.   Telling a silly joke and wishing I had not.

9.   Writing something on this forum and realising I should have remained silent.

10.   Knowing that tomorrow always presents a chance to be better than today.

[amd1953]

Life just keeps getting better all the time for amd1953.   Mood swings, depression. anxiety, persecution complex and a perpetual desire to scream my head off.   Plus, I think I have lived my life with something akin to ADHD.   That would explain everything.   Well, most things.   Harking back to my childhood, I was far too garrulous for my own good.   Many's the clip around the ear from various teachers who found an easy way to shut me up.   For a while, that is.   Of course, that was back in the fifties and sixties when teachers were probably encouraged to use corporal punishment to transform your character into something more manageable.   No one in my family ever hit me but they probably wanted to.   They would just lock me in the cupboard under the stairs when things got a bit heated.   I used the time in there well because that is where all of my books were.   Now, I am lucky to see the page itself let alone what is on it.   But I keep telling myself that everything will be OK.   I hope so for my sake and everyone who is forced to listen to me.

amd1953

[Sophie_M]

Hi amd1953, Thank you for sharing this so honestly. There’s a lot of depth in what you’ve written.

Living with mood swings, anxiety, and that constant internal tension you described can be really exhausting. Thank you for sharing what you have been reflecting on through your earlier years and how some of those experiences may still be shaping how things feel now. Being shut away or silenced as a child can stay with a person in ways that aren’t always obvious at the time.

There is a real sense of humour and self-awareness in your post, even while things feel difficult. That line about telling yourself things will be okay. Sometimes holding onto even a small thread of hope like that can matter more than it seems.

If things feel heavy or you’d like someone to talk things through with, you’re always welcome to reach out to the Beyond Blue Support Service on 1300 22 4636. They’re there 24/7 and can listen without judgement.

You’re very welcome to keep sharing here too. There are people in the community who will understand parts of what you’re going through.

Kind regards,
Sophie M

[SucculentQueen]

Thanks amd, I wasnt able to find Owed To Solitude Part 1 but I enjoyed part 2, that quiet humour in your observations and memories.

Teachers have taken a while to evolve that's for sure. In the 80's I remember the chalk dust puffing off of the heads of hyperactive boys as the teacher swung around and threw her duster at whoever was unable to sit still. She'd send kids to the corner - always boys- and I'm sure it was all quite shame inducing for those 7-8 year olds. Many of them just kept on playing up from the corner, smiling towards their friends etc until they were out in the corridor. If those boys were bored to death by teaching styles back then I don't blame them. I remember when white boards came in around '88 they just graduated to throwing textas until throw things at kids wasn't allowed. I'm laughing now but what terrible examples teachers were in showing us how to react in unhinged ways.

As for home life, isnt it great they don't build houses with cupboards under the stairs anymore.  

[amd1953]

Greetings SucculentQueen,

Apologies for not being able to find my original Owed to Solitude.   It shows up on my list of discussions so I'm not sure what is going on there.   The references to my school years and the cupboard under the stairs cover my life in England.   I have commuted a couple of times from there to here.   I'm not sure what teachers are like these days.   Probably just as well.   Anyway, thank you for reading my post and for your kind comments.

Regards amd1953

[amd1953]

Hello Sophie,

Very kind of you to read my previous post and also for your very kind words of support.   I try to inject a little bit of humour into most things.   I don't take life too seriously.   I like to go with the flow as they say in the classics.

I hope that my constant chatter doesn't upset too many people.   I am sure they'll tell me if I do.

Regards

amd1953

[Guest_74586991]

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you didn't remain silent. Sending you love

[amd1953]

I have had enough of this life, let's move on to the next one.   I am kidding of course.   I've had enough of everyone who thinks that they are better than everyone else.   I've had enough of people who think they are worse than everyone else.    I am tired of any kind of authority.   I am so tired of hearing about politics, religion, economics, global warming, global cooling, the mission to Mars and the mission to the moon.   I hate cars, bikes, trucks and bicycles, people and small children.   Yesterday I had a letter telling me that I had to vote in some forthcoming council election.   I hate them too.   If you don't vote, we'll hit you with a fine and the longer you try to hold out, we'll raise the fine.   We will take you to court, find you guilty and throw you in jail forever.   If you don't pay your annual rates, we'll sell your house and throw you out on the street.   Terrific!

It's wonderful to be alive!

amd1953

[amd1953]

As I bask in the sun of autumn, I feel the world is going to the dogs.   I have a sense of impending doom that will just not go away.   Mood swings have a wider arc now and the duration of them is intolerable.   Depression and anxiety are my constant companions.   I am waiting for something to happen, but I fear that it never will.   Something related to my overall condition of pain and suffering.   Last week, I left my house for the second time this year.   I walked up to the local supermarket and back, a total of four kilometers.   On the way back, I bumped into a neighbour who gave me the news that one of my next-door neighbours had passed away a few weeks earlier.   I am surrounded by an odd synthesis of life and death.   Birth and decay.   Good and evil!

I have panic attacks when I think about going anywhere.   So, I don't.   I hide away in my little house on the prairie, and I plan to do nothing for the foreseeable future.   I am teetering on the edge of the abyss and, as Nietzsche so elegantly put it, if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you.   Why does life have to be so draining and consuming when you are not well?   People are the greatest source of annoyance and irritation.

I would like to see cameras on the moon so that they can look back at the earth and say, I told you so.   There is nothing civilised about civilisation.   It is a thin veneer of delayed progress and hyperbolic nonsense.   Truth will always be a commodity in short supply.   Some people ignore it altogether.   So, let this be my rant today.   Let it be whatever it wishes to be for it has a life of its own.   If birth is the enabler, then death must surely be the cost of living.   

amd1953

[Ggrand]

Hello Dear amd1953…

I am so sorry that you don’t like so many things in this world….especially hating people and small children…