Are you happy?

[JazzFunk]

I know it sounds a bit cheesy and loads of folk will simultaneously make this slogan up but what I'm saying is THIS:

"Let us all approach 2020 with 20/20 vision! Hurrah!!!"

(The "Hurrah!!!" is optional but, I feel, quite festive).

[vanpeebles]

I know it sounds a bit cheesy and loads of folk will simultaneously make this slogan up but what I'm saying is THIS:

"Let us all approach 2020 with 20/20 vision! Hurrah!!!"

(The "Hurrah!!!" is optional but, I feel, quite festive).

To be honest 2020 annoys me vastly. I wanted it to look like something from Thunderbirds or UFO etc. Huge jets with a million wheels on them etc. It's all a bit lame really, no flying cars, no hovercraft, no silver foil clothing.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Having had some time to think recently I have found a few things that have helped me.

First, I have learned to stop torturing myself looking for a reason for my anxiety and depression. I have always been under the impression that to have depression there must be an underlying cause for it. Having searched my memory and feelings for a long time I was getting increasingly frustrated that I was coming up blank. I didn't have a bad childhood or have an event that triggered my depression. I have simply found that sometimes people have depression for no reason at all, and that's OK. Its OK just to have depression, stop looking for reasons.

Second, I have leaned to stop looking for an outside 'Fix'. For a long time I followed Taoism and again felt frustrated that it didn't fix me. I read various philosophies and read self help books, but nothing seems to be the definitive 'answer'. I have come to the conclusion that a combination of stuff from all over can help, but it wont be the fix. Only I can fix myself.

Third, I have created a set of rules which I follow now, based on my own life experience. For example, I have a rule about drinking more water because I know sometimes I feel tired and lethargic and its because I just need to remember to have a drink. Other rules are things like 'Think before you speak' and 'be careful with who you trust', because these are things that have bitten me in the ass in the past. I have 25 rules now and I try to regularly recite them. It might not work for everyone, but its something that keeps my mind in check. I guess the point I'm making is that only you know your own mind and what will work for you.

I'm along way from being 'fixed', maybe I never will be.

[Jaz]

I got 24 for depression, 21 for anxiety. I'm ****ed. Last 18 months have been a total ****ing grind, everything's gone wrong and then things keep getting worse and it's just got on top of me. Thank god I've got a coupla really good mates that keep me going.

Can't face another year like this 'un, wanna feel strong for 2020 and sort my scheisse out but there's so much and I feel too weak. Been burying my head in the sand for too long and it's all mounted up and buggered me badly.

Gotta change, get out of this big rut, change me, change my habits, change my world. Thinking of going on meds for a bit cos my thoughts and worries are like constant fireworks in my head and I'm on edge so much that life is no fun at all, even when I'm blasted.

When you're needing to take beta blockers and maybe a can or two just to get you out shopping because the anxiety's so awful then there's something wrong.

Only venting, I'll be OK but it helps writing it down so I can read it back to myself.

Anyone tried Mirtazapine? Have been on Citalopram and Prozac in the past but the latter made me manic and both gave me a limp noodle, especially the former.

Weird. I take Citalopram and it has the opposite effect. I'm banging my wife constantly. She's well pissed off as you can imagine.

[vanpeebles]

Sure you not mixed up your tablets?

[Zaki]

Weird. I take Citalopram and it has the opposite effect. I'm banging my wife constantly. She's well pissed off as you can imagine.

You're doing it wrong then

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, feel like I've got to the point where I realised I've lost my way too much. It's like I've been walking about on the moors and it's so so lovely and peaceful and natural and there's clouds and mist and trees and smell of wet autumnal vegetation and it's lush, it's heaven, heavy and heavenly.

And then ten minutes later I can't hear cars anymore, it's got darker and all I can hear is rustles, hoots, distant growls, scratchy noises.

And I'm alone wearing a cack £40 'Regatta' TK Maxx parka with a half-pack of Trebor Extra Strong Mints in ma right pocket and truly don't know where the fuuuuuuhk I am.

It's bit like that, mentally. But writing here helps. It's the only place I write at *all*, tbh. Serious. The only place that makes me write at all.

Yeah, I get you. I feel like this year I have come to realise that it's less about searching for those other things or focusing on not having those things and more about trying to find some of them in what I do have. Essentially allowing myself to enjoy and make the best of what's here rather than miss what's not. And people have said similar things over the years in various pithy ways but I think there is a huge difference between hearing something and actually making your brain believe it.

But yeah, I get it.

Anyway, 45 now. That seems kind of old. Last night I had a dream that I met a bunch of school friends to go to a party and then it turned out they only wanted me there to clean up dog poo around the venue. It's like some early teenage 'they don't like me!' dream and here I am having it at 45 like I listened to too many Morrissey songs. When is my brain going to grow up?

[JazzFunk]

Weird. I take Citalopram and it has the opposite effect. I'm banging my wife constantly. She's well pissed off as you can imagine.

Crazy, isn't it? I had anorgasmia for about six weeks after first starting them, I wish I'd had that side effect you encountered instead!

Just been to doc's, he's given me Sertraline. Never had it before but it's another SSRI, just hope it's a good one. Feel like a bit of weight's been lifted, always daunting when first taking these things but at least I hold part of the solution, now.

[Dogg Thang]

just hope it's a good one.

Without any fear... And so this is Christmas...

[wakka]

I am younger than most of you guys on here, but I'm already anxious that I've wasted quite a lot of time.

I'm 30 in a few months - I know, I know, you're probably thinking, still a baby - and I'm at a point where a lot of my friends either have settled down or are settling down into marriage and solid careers and thinking about kids.

I've been in a long term relationship for several years (happily), and there's pressure for me to do the same. There's also the looming spectre of dwindling female fertility after the age of 32 (this is something I did not even KNOW about until about 12 months ago, and now it's suddenly this huge thing).

The trouble is, I feel like I've spent the last 5 years in something like second gear. I've not really achieved a whole lot of what I want to achieve. I have part ownership of a business that makes money - not loads of money, but some money, that I live on - and a stable relationship, so I'm really lucky in so many ways and I recognise that.

But there's a part of me that wants to go out there and travel and do weird stuff and have adventures before it's too late. I'm right on the cusp of being locked down into the rest of my life, and it's a pretty scary thought. If I start chucking things out the window and making big life changes, they could be massively destructive acts that I could come to greatly regret. But if I don't, and I continue trundling along the track I'm on without deviation, I feel I could greatly regret never taking those risks and seeing what might happen.

So. Happy. No, not really. Confused and anxious, yes.

[Jaz]

Sure you not mixed up your tablets?

Quite sure!

[JazzFunk]

I'm hoping I get Jaz-level sexness urges like Preston Sturges.

Never tried Sertraline. Kinda looking forward to it. Not even scared, I want what it wants to give me, I know there'll be some crap side fx, I don't care.

I'm READY. First time I've been on an SSRI since Dec 2013, when I cold turkeyed Fluoxetine and lived life through swimming pool vision for about a fortnight. Ugh.

But I don't care. Pop the pressure. Get rid.

I haven't listened to music properly for eons. I remembered when I first tried Citalopram back in 2011, it made me start to really enjoy New Jack Swing music from the 90s, for some bizarre reason.

I'm hoping Sertraline gets me listening to music again and also makes me venture further into the weirder subgenres of 90s hip hop that I couldn't stand, at the time.

[JazzFunk]

FINALLY started the Sertraline today. No more pub appointments in my diary for the next week so I thought I'd do it on a day I wasn't getting sloshed in town.

First impressions? The pill itself is *tiny*, barely much bigger than a grain of rice.

Haven't noticed any major differences so far other than I don't seem to give a shish about stuff as much and the constant negative chatter in my head feels a bit more muted. And lights feel a tad hazier (but it's not unpleasant).

I only took the first 'un seven hours back but they say these can take four weeks to kick in...though I usually find these things have an effect waaaay sooner.

I will keep you posted, it might be useful for me or someone else.

[JazzFunk]

Hmmmm. They are working a bit, already. I have had belly laughs tonite for the first time in yonks. I have proper grinned and my jaws are aching slightly.

I may have grinned like Gary Busey but I grinned.

[JazzFunk]

Itchy, scratchy.

Tasty.