What is your experience of mental health?

[KentVillan]

59 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

I don't know why there's such a significant lack of strength in me, but it unfortunately means even home exercises, like body weight stuff, is impossible because I'm far too heavy to "lift myself", as such. 

That brings me to social stuff... I can't push myself to do gym classes. The above inadequacies would put myself in a pretty embarrassing situation in a group class environment. I've also been going to the gym at 3/4am when there is literally nobody there. I'm at a point now where my social anxiety is at an all time high. Gym aside, I can count on one hand how many times I've left my house since Christmas.

Right we have a couple of things here. Firstly, there's no way bodyweight exercises are "impossible". Most bodyweight exercises don't involve lifting your entire bodyweight - there's always some leverage involved. Some bodyweight exercises will be out of reach at the moment, but certainly not all.

You may not be able to do a full body push up to 20 reps, but can you do a few press ups off your knees? If these are challenging but achievable for you, then that's exactly the sweet spot you're looking for.

Secondly, because of your anxiety you're going to the gym at a time (3am / 4am) when your body isn't primed to get results. Fat burning and muscle building are massively affected by bad sleep.

IMO you need to find a series of bodyweight exercises which you can do in the comfort of your own home, and start doing them at a more reasonable time (ideally mid-morning, or mid-afternoon so you can follow up with a meal and maybe a nap). Surely this is achievable while you're signed off work?

Does a sequence of the following sound feasible:

• Jogging on the spot
• Star jumps
• Burpees
• Knee press ups
• Bodyweight squats (you can adjust how deep you go, or push up off a chair)
• Step ups on the first 1-2 steps of a stair case
• High knee sprints
• Hill climbers (where you do a plank, and raise one knee up to your chest at a time in a sprinting motion)
• Front plank
• Side plank

If so, there are countless tabata style workout videos on YouTube for this kind of thing, usually with variations of each exercise for different ability levels. You can do these workouts in your own home, at any time of day, with nobody watching you. You will get results.

[Stevo985]

6 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

Unfortunately they're aware. As are people at work, same with my brother. My brother will make any excuse to not talk to me really, whether it's out of not giving a shit or feeling uncomfortable, who knows. But still.

If I've reached out in the past, I just get "Hopefully things get better" type messages, no actual support. Just a passing comment to shut me up, I suppose. So now I don't talk to anyone about my problems. I guess that's why I end up posting on here, because if I don't get it out, it just gets worse.

I really feel no support at all. I'm quite disillusioned with HR at this point. They seem more interested in me going to work to do my job than how I'm actually feeling, to the point where I just want to tell them to **** off. I can with complete conviction say that even those who I consider friends, don't care about me. Friendship isn't always a two way thing, feelings aren't always mutual. I genuinely feel completely alone. It's absolutely frightening to open my phone and see that in the last 2 months I've had messages from 5 different numbers, and one of those is a **** doctors appointment reminder.

I'm sure they do care mate. Maybe they don't realise how serious things are. As Laps says, sometimes people don't know what to say. It's no excuse, but it's also still worth reaching out again.

 

Plus VillaTalk is support. It might not help much, but hopefully it helps at least a little.

 

Your location says you're in Lichfield. I'm down the road in Sutton Coldfield. If I can help at all, even if it's to meet up for a beer, or a session at the gym, I will. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Stevo985

[Paddywhack]

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

Unfortunately they're aware. As are people at work, same with my brother. My brother will make any excuse to not talk to me really, whether it's out of not giving a shit or feeling uncomfortable, who knows. But still.

If I've reached out in the past, I just get "Hopefully things get better" type messages, no actual support. Just a passing comment to shut me up, I suppose. So now I don't talk to anyone about my problems. I guess that's why I end up posting on here, because if I don't get it out, it just gets worse.

I really feel no support at all. I'm quite disillusioned with HR at this point. They seem more interested in me going to work to do my job than how I'm actually feeling, to the point where I just want to tell them to **** off. I can with complete conviction say that even those who I consider friends, don't care about me. Friendship isn't always a two way thing, feelings aren't always mutual. I genuinely feel completely alone. It's absolutely frightening to open my phone and see that in the last 2 months I've had messages from 5 different numbers, and one of those is a **** doctors appointment reminder.

I can't even begin to imagine how you're feeling, but please keep posting on here as much as you need to.

I know we're repeating ourselves and it might seem pretty empty coming from a bunch of faceless people on a forum, but there's a lot of people on here that care and want the best for you, myself included.

[NurembergVillan]

I **** love VillaTalk, and I love each and every person that has posted in here.

To share strength, vulnerability, advice, consolation - it's amazing.

I can understand the feeling of having "no friends".  I've used inverted commas because I believe the definition of friends has changed.  Relationships and social interaction have changed.

I've lived in so many cities and countries that it's been hard to have long-lasting friendships in the traditional manner - Sundays down the pub watching football, hanging out, popping round for a brew.  But I know I have a network of people that care about me.  And a real core of that is right here.

I've had ups and downs with mental health, and some real dark downs lately.  I've not posted about it in this thread recently, but it's been a comfort to know I could.

@kurtsimonw @Jimzk5 @Stevo985 @KentVillan and many others - to come in here and talk so openly about perceived weakness takes a huge amount of courage.  Even if we're virtual strangers, we're all virtual community.  Virtual family.

I feel a deep level of care and kinship for so many people on VT, and particularly in this thread.

For me, that makes us friends.

[lapal_fan]

6 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

I feel a deep level of care and kinship for so many people on VT, and particularly in this thread.

For me, that makes us friends.

Absolutely.

Some of the posters (some of which don't post anymore) have been on Villa forums (the official one where it started for me), since 2001.  It staggers me when I think I've been posting on a forum since.  I officially joined VT in 2006, I think the first iteration was 2002/3? 

It's unreal that there is a core membership of people who follow the same football team, yet still post on the forums nearly 20 years later.

I know more about some of you than I do about my colleagues or casual friends.. It's very strange, but it's true. 

It's nice knowing that we can blow off steam on here, and not be judged or called stupid.  Yes there's a bit of stick that goes around, but I genuinely think this place, with all of it's characters is something to cherish. 

It's nice being a Villa fan   

 

[Stevo985]

29 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

I **** love VillaTalk, and I love each and every person that has posted in here.

 

Me too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Except for @lapal_fan

[snowychap]

3 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

She bought a job lot of beads and strings and stuff just so her mind and hands could be doing something on an evening.

[lapal_fan]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

D'oh!

[A'Villan]

Some wonderful posts throughout the thread recently. As it is 4:20am and I have work today, I might have to come back and re-read recent posts to be able to contribute.

However I want to apologise to @maqroll I didn't mean to undermine your feelings and what you had to express, I was only offering my outlook on how things are perceived and why.

For me the mainstream understanding and view on addiction, which is often riddled with stigma and dogma, is as toxic and unbecoming as the abuse of a drug itself.

The system's not reformatory, more purgatory. Punitive measures are taken to those who need the most healing and help. 'Correctional facilities'.. My ass!

Over 80% of people who go through drug rehabilitation relapse within 3 months in Australia. So many of them having paid tens of thousands to recover.

A detox often consists of you going on nicotine replacement, and being given whatever dose of Valium (a drug of addiction) to make your withdrawal experience less stressful, but it's also very much given in order to make you more agreeable and manageable from a service perspective (I'm not saying that's a bad thing), but does it really help cure what ails?

@maqroll did you know that your body produces a version of cannabis compounds (like THC) on it's own, naturally? Endocannabinoids, the body's cannabinoid receptor cells.

Hemp seeds are rich in healthy fats and essential fatty acids. They are also a great protein source and contain high amounts of vitamin E, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, iron and zinc. Hemp is also good for skin care, muscular ointments, clothing and linen, and I am told it's oil can even power engines.

And you're meant to be down about yourself because you've discovered something which the body essentially emulates and creates naturally in order to influence appetite, pain-sensation, memory, sleep and mood modulation. I just don't understand it. Sure, if someone is abusing a drug and causing dysfunction by doing so, then we need to address the issue.

But I believe, so many people are adversely affected by mainstream condemnation and persecution who would otherwise be in a better place.

[A'Villan]

New job role, which is an extension of my work on the mental health advisory board. I now interview community members of a psych ward located in one of Australia's biggest hospitals.

The feedback, insights and perspectives are logged and then apparently we're (or I'm) going to make data out of it. I think they've employed the right man for the job, but it might be a thorn in the side of the owners and management, because I won't be creating tick box data that pigeonholes the kind of feedback we receive. It's my job to advise on how to better the service.

I plan on getting results.

[maqroll]

I concur that exercise is a great tool in fighting depression. In particular outdoor exercise, but any kind helps. I just wish it wasn't winter in New England and I could do more outside right now.

The bouldering idea sounds like a good one because it seems fairly social as well. Maybe a good building block for meeting new people.

Life is trauma. We know this from the moment we are born and someone smacks us on the back.

It's a fight, don't give up!

[KentVillan]

This is fascinating btw, BBC News article about "editing" the emotional component of traumatic memories, so you remember the narrative facts of the memory, but don't relive the emotional impact:

Quote

Memories, their neutral, factual elements, are saved in the brain's hippocampus. But the emotional tone of the memory is saved in its amygdala.

"Imagine that you are shooting a movie in the old-fashioned way so you have the image and and the sound and they are on two separate channels," he says.

When a person relives their traumatic memory they experience both channels. Propranolol helps target one channel - the emotional aspect of memory - inhibiting its reconsolidation and suppressing its pain.

A memory recalled under the influence of the medication will then be "saved" by the brain in its new, less emotional version.

His research suggests about 70% of patients found relief within a few sessions of reconsolidation therapy.

Dr Brunet has collaborated with other PTSD researchers, including Harvard University's PTSD expert Dr Roger Pitman, in studying the method.

More recently, he launched a programme in France in the wake of deadly terror attacks in Paris and Nice, training some 200 doctors in the therapy to help treat victims, witnesses and first responders.

So far, over 400 people have undergone the therapy in that country as part of the programme.

 

[maqroll]

@A'Villan No offense taken, this is a pretty open thread, so it's all good.

It's a great thread as sounding board with some great advice, and I'm happy to contribute.

Like the rest of us I try to attain a healthy balance. Not always achievable. 

[A'Villan]

8 hours ago, KentVillan said:

This is fascinating btw, BBC News article about "editing" the emotional component of traumatic memories, so you remember the narrative facts of the memory, but don't relive the emotional impact:

 

If that interests you be sure to check out The Richards Trauma Process.

[A'Villan]

Apparently the reason why CBT is limited in it's capacity to help people is because trauma is stored in the subconscious and the body.

[mrbojangles]

Not the biggest poster but I scroll through most week days

Yesterday I wrote out a whole message on here and then deleted it. In essence it was things that I thought may help and some struggles that my dad had but is now through them

The reality is although I have felt down on a few occasions in the last couple of years it has never been to the extreme as how some of you people have been feeling. I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulty and I wouldn't pretend to do so

 

What I will echo is most other people, if anyone ever feels the need or want to talk I will always be here to listen. Even if it is just to vent on private message or go for a coffee/pint.

[AVFCDAN]

I think ups and down are part of the normal range of human emotions. Once it goes beyond that into self harming, suicidal thoughts or just not even being able to get out of bed its down to chemical imbalances in the brain, how you deal with that is up for debate really, we know medication can help but for every positive there's usually a negative that meds bring.

[snowychap]

9 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

its down to chemical imbalances in the brain

Please not the old 'chemical imblanace theory' again.

[wilko154]

@kurtsimonw sorry to hear what you are going through, just hope you are aware that a lot of people on VT are here for you and think of you as a friend even if this is only an online football forum.

I can't help you with much, but the gym is something I can possibly help with. Diet is key, if you're not keeping your diet in check then you won't lose fat and you won't gain muscle in the right areas. 

I've tried tracking my calories and macros before but it's never worked for me as I've never had a full understanding of it.

Watch the below video and potentially give it a try. It's the clearest video I have found on how to go about making an impact on my training. Use MyFitness Pal to track what you eat, and try to hit your daily macros, protein, carbs and fat. It's surprising how a diet you have been following and thinking is good, is actually completely wrong.

It's a slow process but following the below video has seen me lose weight and make some gains over the last 6 weeks. It's also something to occupy your mind and focus on. Some of his other videos are also really good.

 

[wazzap24]

Don’t know if this is useful to anybody on here or not, but I know some people on here have tried medication (for better/worse). 

My oldest son has been suffering with clinical depression for around 18-24 months. I won’t go into detail, but it’s been up and down and the latest episode in the run-up to Christmas almost resulted in a suicide attempt. 

He was initially put on Citalopram and then Sertraline. Both of these caused some fairly major issues with fatigue and sex drive, resulting in him not taking them properly and taking himself off them. 

After the most recent episode we spoke to the Crisis team about the meds and he’s been put on Vortioxetine. 

I’ve done a bit of reading on it and although I am not clever enough to understand the science, the difference with this drug appears to be that it can help improve overall cognitive function, over and above a standard SSRI. 

We are only 7/8 weeks in, but things do seem to be a lot better. The depression has eased, but he hasn’t experienced the same issues with tiredness or lack of sex drive (says it’s  lower than it was, but still there). There have been no other side effects as yet, other than a bit of gas early on and his appetite fluctuates a bit. 

The guidance in the UK is that it can only be prescribed if a patient has failed to respond to 2 other treatments, so for those of you that may have tried others without success, it might be worth talking to your GP about it and giving these a go. 

Go well lads. 

Edited February 16, 2020 by wazzap24