Yesterday was my 28th birthday and I feel like garbage. I want to play music so much but I can t. I took piano lessons and practiced for years and I feel like there s a problem with my brain because I still can t play at a remotely competent level. I can t find the energy, motivation, time, or money to continue trying and I hate myself.

œHate was the wrong word. œFrustrated or œdisappointed with myself is better.

Janeway wrote:how about "hug" yourself I dunno. I feel fundamentally broken. I want to simplify and streamline my life, but being obsessed with music makes that really hard to do. The only instrument I can play with even the most rudimentary skill is keyboard, but I get depressed because I can't just carry one around and play it when I want to. I went to open mics and shows several times a week this year with my friend that plays guitar and lets me sing sometimes at the end of his sets, but all the electronics and money that goes into instruments and making music really intimidates me. I tried taking up acoustic guitar because it is simpler and more portable, but I have tactile sensitivity problems with touching strings and even thinking about them makes my gut hurt. Also most of the music I have bouncing around in my head isn't really suited for it. I feel trapped in a body that doesn't work with what my mind wants to do.

My stepmother and I became estranged over the course of losing my wife to cancer. Basically, the stepmother is used to being the alpha on her own side of the family and got her ego bruised when the rest of us, acting as a team to try to save someone's life, didn't care about giving her power or status. Her presence would've been valued as a team player, but that wasn't enough for her. She responded by throwing tantrums and acting petty.The trouble is that it's making it difficult to maintain a relationship with my dad. We both want to make it work, so we meet for lunch on the regular. Family functions are off the table until my stepmother and I can reach some sort of détente, which is 2% likely, which stresses him out. My ex (who I'm crushed over losing, more on that in a second) lost her dad recently, I've seen the effects, my dad is only now starting to take care of himself in his late 60s, and I'm very aware that the meter is running.I also unfriended my ex just as our post-relationship relationship happened to start thawing. I immediately regretted unfriending her because it came off as petulant, but it's one of those things that's awkward to address, so I didn't. She just figured it out and has been super pissed for the past few days. I created a dumb situation, handled it poorly, and now have a mess to clean up.These are those things in life that you eventually navigate through, but at the moment these things are just bumming my shit. These too shall pass, hopefully.

Disclaimer: This post is quite dark, so feel free to skip it.Looking over The Homeless Guide, and I don't recommend it, it's very heavy reading. At the same time, it feels healthy to be knocked out of my safe zone. Actual people are in those actual situations, and better get used to knowing it. The amount of stress regular life puts on me, the little triumphs I experience over conquering those, is nothing to this - and in that situation you would absolutely need not to break or you are done.At the same time, is that not where the stress of regular life ultimately comes from? The lurking half-awareness that there's where you could end up. So keep smiling and going to work, citizen.Hubris and naivety need to be checked. I have treated people as trustworthy too much at times in the past, to my own detriment, and I tend to lean that way in new encounters, simply because I am so sick of having to be on my guard all the time. Like, we want to believe that others want to trust and be trusted like we do, right? But in the end showing trust can mean showing weakness and showing weakness can spell your doom.A small sense of panic arose as I quickly scanned all my recent involvements with other people too see if I might have done anything like that. Ugh, not good.I'm ok though. Just... it was unexpected.

TFW things are finally looking a bit up for you and your dad seems hell bent on tearing your whole family apart. Jesus fuck..

Janeway wrote:let s skip together down memory lane, that s more fun than letting folks skip over you Sure, I'll skip along. I just became scared of my own thoughts for a moment, and didn't want to put bad things inside anyone's head.Janeway wrote:being homeless is a kind of emotional bankruptcy that replaces many societal emotions like being awkward or nervous and instead adrenalined in survivor mode, it s like when a country is at war and the focus is toughness and survival and not the falsified bs we create in spoiled societal nothingness.Well... A country during war is mostly a bunch of bullshit too - Let's forget how this country is fucking you over daily and pretend like we are a community who take care of each other. Normal, everyday life is focused on toughness and survival, sadly. People are in survival mode - literally - all the time. Every neighbour is a rival. Everyone is looking to take advantage of you. That's the thinking people carry around.And my speculation was that these mini-anxieties are really premonitions of the major anxiety.Janeway wrote:i can t tell if you trusted the wrong person or let someone trust youThe first one. Janeway wrote:either way, just focus on the next time you re gonna get screwed, be like a sex zombie and think œooorrrrrgggaaaasssmmm and chase tail.Haha, where did this come from? Anyway, good advice probably.Janeway wrote:we exist for the greatest feeling in the worldAmen.

Mailed paperwork for a disability lawyer to help me apply for SSI benefits three months ago but never heard from them. I have major anxiety and stutter over the phone so I had to have help from a case worker from my therapist s office to finally call them to find out where I was in the process. Turns out they never got my paperwork in the mail, and closed my case permanently because a year ago I had been referred to them and got halfway through the paperwork before getting overwhelmed with depression and anxiety, and they figured I just did the same thing again. I told them I mailed it and the person didn t believe me. My case manager vouched for me (in fact, a different case manager actually helped me fill everything out and mail it three months ago) but they still wouldn t reopen my case. I started to cry and stutter and in that moment, completely lost all control and attempted suicide by hitting my head as hard as I could repeatedly into a wall. It was a dumb way to try to kill oneself, but I had had enough of this planet and just wanted to leave it forever as fast as I could. Needless to say I failed. I managed to bloody and bruise myself up really badly. I feel like there is no coming back from this. I want my depression and anxiety to end. I want to get better. But I feel like no matter what progress I make, the world always decides to slap me back. I feel more hopeless than I ve ever been before in my life. I m admitting to a message board full of people I ve never met how much of a fuckup I am.

You're not a fuckup MJongo, you are getting fucked up. I don't know why, but those who are hurting the most seem to get the worst treatment. Even if you want to un-fuckup yourself the energy has to come from somewhere, yeah? And when things are like that, it doesn't.Everytime the choice is made to continue rather than give up, there is tremendous strength. It doesn't feel like it, but there is.

Thanks everyone. Talking here has helped my self esteem so much. Made an appointment with my therapist Thursday, and hopefully they will be able to help straighten my meds out (was put on a new one a couple weeks ago and it hasn t been working out). Gonna hang out with my friend tonight for his birthday and hopefully sing at a couple open mics.