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I'm reminded particularly today that it sucks that the only time you can call up and get some free counseling in America is when you're suicidal.
Sometimes you're just having in general and wanting to talk to someone, but not enough to kill yourself, to where one of those hotlines would be wasting valuable time for volunteers who could be talking someone off the edge. Otherwise it's just "shell out cash or GTFO" as far as counselors in this country are concerned.
In the UK, the Samritans charity, who run the hotlines, will listen to you in crisis even if you're not suicidal. One of my crises hit at 4am and there's no way I was phoning my friends or family at that time. So, after a lot of "I'd be wasting their time and keeping them from someone who really needs help", I phoned them and they let me babble on through sobs until I'd talked myself into what passes for normal, or at least under control.
I've always suffered from various forms of anxiety... social anxiety... many, many phobias. All undiagnosed, because I was too socially awkward to even seek out help.
I was diagnosed ADHD and ODD as a kid though.
I currently have an appointment with a counselor because I have decided to talk about my issues. Though most of my anxiety is gone... a part of what I can only call a positive mid-life crisis that has helped change my personality. The only anxiety I still have, are several of my phobias... though they are not nearly as severe.
My mayonnaise phobia is something I always joke about. But it is a serious phobia, and is my worst.
But yeah, my appointment is all a part of my general trying to improve my health.. physically and mentally. Plus since I am an non-traditional student, back in school at an older age... and I have a history of flaming out of college... the last because of agoraphobia.... taking care of my issues is best.
Thank you.. and let me say.. you aren't going to offend me. :)
I don't have that specific water phobia you have... but enclosed areas (water or not) do have an agoraphobia potential with me.
My mayonnaise thing is something that I seriously don't get. I have been doing better. I can actually walk down an aisle with closed mayo jars.. and we currently have mayo in the house.
It's one of those things that I was always fully aware how irrational it was... but my anxiety didn't want to be rational.
This mid-life crisis I am going through has even my phobias in a weird place, I think that is still my worst.. and right now it isn't even that bad. My agoraphobia was always triggered by large groups of people... and it doesn't trigger anymore with people.
I've even been able to do some public speaking, something I have never been able to do.
That's one reason i am going to counseling. I want to see what is going on with me, and possibly even find out why I have had what seems like a major personality shift.
I've even gone from introverted to extroverted. All within the past 2 years.
I've always suffered from various forms of anxiety... social anxiety... many, many phobias. All undiagnosed, because I was too socially awkward to even seek out help.
I was diagnosed ADHD and ODD as a kid though.
I currently have an appointment with a counselor because I have decided to talk about my issues. Though most of my anxiety is gone... a part of what I can only call a positive mid-life crisis that has helped change my personality. The only anxiety I still have, are several of my phobias... though they are not nearly as severe.
My mayonnaise phobia is something I always joke about. But it is a serious phobia, and is my worst.
But yeah, my appointment is all a part of my general trying to improve my health.. physically and mentally. Plus since I am an non-traditional student, back in school at an older age... and I have a history of flaming out of college... the last because of agoraphobia.... taking care of my issues is best.
Well first off, sorry you were saddled with so much crap. But it sounds like you're taking the right steps.
Phobias have always interested me. I have one very specific phobia: water in dark, enclosed places. Like those rectangular filter things at pools with the flaps over them? They terrified me as a kid, and I still won't swim near them. Don't you wonder, as just a hypothetical, what your brain was thinking when it decided "mayonnaise = terror"? That's the stuff that fascinates me. Like, the brain is so impossibly complex and can malfunction in so many ways, but as someone with no shortage of quirks himself... I just marvel at how brains can end up so bloody weird.
I mean no offense at all when I say that by the way. It's just that I understand phobias involving heights, sharp objects, dogs, other things that could potentially be harmful. But there is this vast list of phobias that are by themselves inherently harmless baring a crazy series of Rube-Goldberg-esque events.
To bring up the sex topic again, I see...
I had mottephobia (fear of moths) but that's largely gone now.
Well, I mean I can't swear to how I'd react to a roomful of moths all flying around me, but I don't react to small numbers of them.
Re mayonnaise and inheriting phobias, my sister has an almost pathological hatred of mayonnaise and at least one of my nieces picked it up from her - and indeed, seems to have it worse.
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The internet removes the two best clues to sarcasm. Tone of voice and the assumption hat the other person is sane.
Did someone make a rude joke about what the white stuff in a sandwich at a resturaunt was? Because the sicco would be arrested before the sandwich ever got to the customer.
Did you ever see mayonaise go rancid in the heat? That might do it.
I saw the inherited phobia effect in my own family. My grandmother is so afraid of bees that she would exit a moving car if she saw a bee inside it. My father learned from that example and was very afraid of bees up until his 50s, when it seemed to wear off.
I meanwhile didn't inherit his fear of bees or my mother's fear of spiders, because I took it on myself to become the fixer. I was the bee trapper and spider killer for most of my childhood.
Poor things.
Just put them outside if you don't want them inside.
That's what I did (and still do) with the bees. My mother insisted that spiders die. Now that I'm on my own I leave spiders be for the most part. They can eliminate bugs for me. :P
Poor things.
Just put them outside if you don't want them inside.
Yes, because what are the odds they'll just come right back in? Only almost certain, but that leaves a slim chance they won't!
I let spiders be. Like Scythia, I appreciate their ability to eliminate other bugs.
Also, not being arachnophobic helps.
Spiders are great, cute, little friends who eat up all the bugs that get inside. Well most of them anyway.
It might help that I am immune to bee and spider toxin.
Yes, well lizards and frogs eat bugs too, but aren't horrible little bastards. They get a pass.
If you have an exoskeleton and enter my home, you die. If you are a vertebrate but not human, you are kindly removed.
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Now I have a mental picture of a bunch of frogs and toads free ranging in Thegreenbeltgamer's living room while he goes about his day. :-D
Bats are fun! I have a friend with a bunch of Bathouses around his property and the kids love going over and watching them at dusk. Fascinating creatures!
Bats are fun! I have a friend with a bunch of Bathouses around his property and the kids love going over and watching them at dusk. Fascinating creatures!
Yes, but most likely means of contracting rabies. They sleep in swarms so when one gets disease it travels fast.
Bats eat bugs too!
I've got a bathouse to put up.
I'm not sure how this is relevant to the mental health of gamers, but it seems appropriate somehow.
We have bats in our belfry?
Spiders are great, cute, little friends who eat up all the bugs that get inside. Well most of them anyway.
It might help that I am immune to bee and spider toxin.
I have a simple agreement with my house spiders. They stick to walls and corners and eat other bugs, and we're cool. Start crawling on my furniture or - Spidergod help them - my bed, and it's squish time.
I'm... curious how one goes about learning of a bee/spider immunity. I'm sure it's a simple enough matter, yet I just imagine you being swarmed by like brown recluses and such, then laughing maniacally as their venom does nothing and they all flee in terror. I mean that's how I'd do it, is all I'm saying.
I got stung three times on my face, with almost no swelling beyond some localized redness. Have not experimented with spiders but ticks and mosquitoes leave me mostly alone.
Plants are a different story though. Which, as a landscaper, is not ideal. :-)
Spiders are wonderful.
They remind me of my aunt, which jives quite nicely with aunt nancy/anansi tales I loved as a kid, and are tied for my favorite clan in l5r.
The only spider I never got into was spider man, for some reason.
Yes, well lizards and frogs eat bugs too, but aren't horrible little bastards. They get a pass.
If you have an exoskeleton and enter my home, you die. If you are a vertebrate but not human, you are kindly removed.
I've got frogs and salamanders (the amphibious kind, not the fire kind) living in the basement...
I live in an old house by a forest, I'm used to critters. :P
In high school a friend and I came up with a theory about frogs taking over the world through the use of quickened evolution. We even had t-shirts made. :-)
I'm deathly afraid of wasps. For whatever reason I will freeze cold in fear if I see one flying around near me. Bees I'm fine with and I've been stung several times by both bees and wasps so go figure. Weird I know.
Oh and in my house, all spiders carry a death sentence to be executed on sight and without mercy. Can't stand them.
Spiders are ridiculous little morons who are entirely and fully on our side. It helps that we don't have any dangerous spiders in Sweden, of course. The little freaks catch and eat other bugs (which I don't like), they do nothing to harm or even inconvenience me. Win for everyone.
Spiders are ridiculous little morons who are entirely and fully on our side. It helps that we don't have any dangerous spiders in Sweden, of course. The little freaks catch and eat other bugs (which I don't like), they do nothing to harm or even inconvenience me. Win for everyone.
They'll even eat each other.
Problem solved. :P
The only bug which gets an automatic death sentence from me are mosquitoes because they think I am delicious and I am NOT immune to the itching.
How can you hate a face like this?
Awwww... so cute!
How can you hate a face like this?Awwww... so cute!
Absolutely!
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Exoskeleton.
Look, it's even posted in plain English - no exoskeletons allowed. Even Ripley fighting an alien doesn't get a pass. If they can't read the sign, that's not my fault. This is America. We don't speak Spiderish, and we have rules and regulations, and here, in this house, one rule is if you have an exoskeleton you have to take a bath in Raid or be stepped on, smashed, or otherwise destroyed with extreme prejudice. I can't make exceptions based on the number of legs or whether your thorax is segmented from your abdomen or not.
If they don't wanna die, they have the choice to stay outside. They can live free range in the yard. That's my compromise. Spiders get a pass outside.
If a titan had a house near me and humans who visited kept dying I would stay the hell away from that titan and his home as a level 1 human. Spiders need to learn their place.
Sweep the spider into a box and throw it out the window if you don't want it. You had better have a good flyswatter though.
Well don't bring any fringed jumping spiders here I don't want it to eat my other spiders.
Seriously, they just want to be loved.
That reminds me of my mom's cat when he brought me a mouse... because he clearly thought I wanted a dead mouse.
Rationally, wasps are solitary. Bees are swarm animals and will go after someone who hurts one of their pals. Bees have more potent poison.
For these reasons, wasps are definitely better to deal with than bees. But phobias are not about that.
Rationally, wasps are solitary. Bees are swarm animals and will go after someone who hurts one of their pals. Bees have more potent poison.
For these reasons, wasps are definitely better to deal with than bees. But phobias are not about that.
Most Bees won't sting as readily as a wasp. True Bees die when they sting (or true honeybees at least). Wasp can sting over and over.
I believe they can also bite. Unless we are talking killer bees, wasps tend to be a tad more aggressive as well.
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In the UK, the Samritans charity, who run the hotlines, will listen to you in crisis even if you're not suicidal. One of my crises hit at 4am and there's no way I was phoning my friends or family at that time. So, after a lot of "I'd be wasting their time and keeping them from someone who really needs help", I phoned them and they let me babble on through sobs until I'd talked myself into what passes for normal, or at least under control.
The US postal service has a line that employees can call to receive anonymous counseling, and I think it's also available to various other government employees (although, knowing the government, probably not the military, which would be the people most in need of such a thing...).
There should be more such services, and much less stigma attached to using them, that's for sure.
Seriously, they just want to be loved.
That is indeed cute. If one isn't an arachnophobe, anyway.
Whoo, mental health is fun. I have a number of issues which might be symptoms of one larger disease, or might be several smaller issues combining to occasionally beat my ass. The problem is that I can't get a diagnosis. I was literally told, once, that they thought they knew what was wrong...but that it would simply upset me. I'm pretty sure it's because they thought I was faking to get sickness benefits. Now I've been working for three years, I still struggle getting any help from the doctors. I presume I have a note in my file that I'm either a liar or a hypochondriac, and it makes them unwilling to take anything I say at face value. Which was extra ironic when I was trying to get pain killers to let me keep working through a bad back.
For the curious, I suffer from depressive bouts, insomnia, bouts where I lack emotion, audio, visual and tactile hallucinations (my biggest freak out was on a bus where I saw someone jump under the wheels and couldn't understand why we weren't stopping and helping) and occasionally paranoia. Thankfully, now I'm in a better place in my life they're...less. I still get all of them, but they're rarer than when I was young.
It's tiring trying to get help when everyone seems to just assume you're lying so you can get off work. It was more frustrating that I wanted to work and couldn't get any help to do so.
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You need to be re-diagnosed. Get a second opinion.
Make sure to tell them about the "conspiracy". Even if there is one, they will want to prove in official records that you were told the diagnosis and didn't understand, and so edited it.
I like Jungian psychology, in the sense that even if the stuff you believe were true, you still need treatment.
A lot of those symptoms are indicative of schizophrenia. Specifically the lack of emotion, hallucinations, and occasional paranoia. Any chance you also feel like you never know where to look? Like in a room, you aren't sure where your eyes should be? That's another one. You may want to read up on it - see if perhaps you can get some insight. Sometimes people who don't meet the criteria for a full schizophrenia diagnosis can still be considered to have "subthreshold schizophrenia," which is like schizophrenia lite.There's also a sort of "lesser" version of schizophrenia called schizotypal personality disorder that involves what's termed magical thinking. A bit tough to explain in a few brief sentences, but again, it's something you could at least glance at.
The fact that your doctors outright wouldn't tell you a potential diagnosis sort of blows my mind. I mean I know that doctors are just as capable of being inept asses as anyone else, but still... seems like a really odd move on their part. And sounds like it borders on malpractice to me. I'm sure no doctor wants to tell his or her patient that they have cancer either, but it's better to know than not to know.
The thought has crossed my mind that it's one of those, yes. But if it's accurate them I'm extremely high functioning. Most of the time, for example, I know that hallucinations I have aren't real, although the tactile ones are more...awkward in that regard. Although it has led to a few awkward moments when I assumed something wasn't real when it was...
Honestly, I really think the doctors simply didn't believe me and didn't want to say so. I'm 6ft 3 and not exactly skinny. I think they thought my irritation and frustration were anger or something, and that I'd get violent.