Alora Fane

JUST WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!! Also, the mental health help I got didn't much help my mental health.

(I'd prefer to get back to writing these on Sunday... Grumble.)

Embarrassingly - though probably not surprisingly - I haven't made enough progress on the project I talked about in the past couple of posts to actually show anything yet.

I've done some work on it! And it seems feasible that I could have got to that point in a week had I put my mind to it.

It's just that I've been struggling to focus for a while now, and this last week wasn't any exception. I've been doing an hour or two of work on it a day, which isn't enough or as much as I'd like.

I'm sure as well that mentally recategorising it from something I want to do to something I have to do changes any associated feelings I have about working on it from giddy joy to tiresome obligation.

I've made the main character's 3D model, for example, but I keep thinking "will people think the proportions looks creepy? Have issues with the characterisation?"

Hearing that others are unhappy with my work makes me unhappy. And I'm so 'unhappy' these days that I feel it doesn't take much to push me over the edge into breakdown town... as I kind of saw recently.

Still, it's not as if I can just hide away forever making my own stuff solely for myself, as much as I might like to. I'm still plodding away at stuff, it's just slower than I'd prefer.

One of the issues is the struggle to focus, and the fickleness of creative inspiration.

Earlier this week, I composed seven pieces of music for the Tin Whistle! Which might sound impressive, and I'm proud of it - it's time better-spent than just scrolling through Reddit or whatever - but I'm also aware of how badly it misses the target I'm supposed to be aiming for.

I also got quickly 'bored' of it. Or more like the weight of the knowledge that I should be doing other things crushed the fun out of it. A day an a half or so of mad, out-of-nowhere inspiration to compose some music for this new instrument - after it'd been lying on my desk, untouched and gathering dust, for the past three months or so - and then that faded too and the idea of practising the pieces I'd composed for that exact purpose felt like an arduous chore.

While I doubt anyone actually really cares about this, I feel bad about not having anything to show for ages so I've at least uploaded a compilation of six of the pieces to that YouTube channel I've also neglected for months:

This includes some pieces from the other post, and some new ones.

I've got 12, but thought it best to split them into two groups because I like the thought of practising them all back to back, but all 12 at once felt a bit much. I'll upload the set of the other six in a day or two where it'll maybe get a whopping 10 views or something. Time well spent!

I've also been considering posting that to the Tin Whistle subreddit, but... Well, the same issues that always prevent me from posting to Reddit when I mean to. Fear of being criticised or ignored, or of attracting attention to myself at all when I'm so terrible at keeping up with any kind of correspondence, the assumption that I'll be doing something wrong or inappropriate, that I won't fit in and my approach is different from the one all the others share, etc...

I at least enjoyed the experience of composing with such strict limitations. So few notes, just one voice, and I'm pleased that despite that, I was able to come up with tunes that hopefully sound like catchy, complete pieces of music. They've been stuck in my head!

Funnily enough, I first wrote about the Tin Whistle ∞ in a post from about 3 months ago where I also talked about finally starting counselling again ∞. I've now finished that course of counselling. I like the symmetry there.

Was it any use to me? I don't know, or at least it didn't really make much of a dent in the biggest barriers I face, and I suppose a big part of the reason I've been so down is because of that.

People speak of 'getting therapy' as if it's some magical solution akin to medical treatment for a physical disease. Like talking to some stranger is going to fix me to the degree that the brain surgery did.

And maybe if your life is mostly in place but you're feeling off despite your blessings, it can be very useful.

For me, though, it feels like taking painkillers for a missing arm, or something.

During the last session, we talked about options going forward. She put me in contact with organisations that help people find volunteering or employment opportunities. Which I'll try, but... I can't help but imagine I'll be patronised to, that I'll be taking a track alongside people who can't even tie their own shoelaces and I'm 'better than that' in some sense... But I'm likely deluding myself there. If I was, I'd probably be in a better place in life than I am.

I'd also like to finally get a formal diagnosis of exactly what's wrong with me. 'Just' social anxiety, or AvPD, depression, cyclothymia, C-PTSD, etc? I don't like that I can spend years researching it all myself, but any conclusions I come to are irrelevant and it's only the opinion of some stranger who likely partied through uni, eked out a ∞ Second degree ∞, and who'd use maybe an hour's worth or discussion to match key points to DSM symptom lists anyway... that matters. Yes. Long sentence. Also I'm bitter.

I also don't like the idea of medication and never have, but both of the two people I know from uni have recently been telling me about how the pharmacological route has helped them deal with their issues, so I've been thinking about that again. If I could just disable the physiological anxiety response that gets in the way of stupid little things like posting on Reddit, maybe I'd be able to make some significant strides forwards.

So I have plans, I suppose. Things to work towards. Though I can't help feeling bleak, like chipping away at some enormous iceberg with a spoon, and it never seems to get any smaller. I don't know.

8 COMMENTS

fnuion77~12M

I think you are just high is neuroticism, I dont know much about psychology, I thought neurosis is a personlity trait rather than some thing pathological. After watching Jordan peterson's videos, people high in verbal intelligence especially writers and musicians are more prone to this.I have been taking medications for so long and had several side effects including weight gain, akathisia,I started to become skeptical of the pharmaceuatical industry after reading alduos huxleys "brave new world" and seeing youtube videos of people whose lives were wasted to these meds ,But after having a relapse by stopping meds cold turkey I realised that these meds are essential to some people like me, but some doctors prescribe antidepressants them to people who dont usually need them .especially young children.

Tobias 1115~12M

Neuroticism is one of the Big Five personality traits, which psychologists use to understand personality (funnily enough, I found Jordan Peterson through his work with those before he became (in)famous). All of my values on those are relevant:

- I'm introverted, and as such don't go out and form connections.
- I'm agreeable, so I don't assert myself or take what I want.
- I'm not especially conscientious, which makes focusing on work less easy than for some.
- I'm high in openness, so I'm constantly pursuing novel ideas rather than sticking reliably with one.
- And I'm high in neuroticism, so I worry a lot about everything.

That's not the whole story, though. I was raised in a broken home, and most of my issues stem from that. Genetic factors too; that's how it goes. Plus running Fig Hunter and having to deal with a lot of often negative attention during a key development phase - rather than going out and getting a job like everyone else - didn't help at all.

Hopefully all I know about psychology will allow me to be more discerning than the average person about which medication I take, if any, though I don't look forward to the blind experimentation that'll likely need to be done.

- I'm introverted, and as such don't go out and form connections.
- I'm agreeable, so I don't assert myself or take what I want.
- I'm not especially conscientious, which makes focusing on work less easy than for some.
- I'm high in openness, so I'm constantly pursuing novel ideas rather than sticking reliably with one.
- And I'm high in neuroticism, so I worry a lot about everything.

That's not the whole story, though. I was raised in a broken home, and most of my issues stem from that. Genetic factors too; that's how it goes. Plus running Fig Hunter and having to deal with a lot of often negative attention during a key development phase - rather than going out and getting a job like everyone else - didn't help at all.

Hopefully all I know about psychology will allow me to be more discerning than the average person about which medication I take, if any, though I don't look forward to the blind experimentation that'll likely need to be done.

fnuion77~12M

well, be careful which doctor to choose

astralwolf92~12M

Well, dont most clinical psychologists have a postgraduate degree, and not an undergradute? They also go through required in-hospital training for several months as a degree requirement.

Tobias 1115~12M

Not everyone who treats mental health conditions is a clinical psychologist, though. Counsellors certainly aren't, and their role is just to be there to listen rather than to provide technical diagnosis, prescriptions, techniques, or whatever. I went with one because the service was free.

MontyCallay101~12M

I understand feeling like chipping away at one's personal problems bit by bit! If only things were easier. I encourage you to follow up on those volunteering/employment opportunities - it may feel slow, but that's the path to improvement in the areas that you're looking for, I think.

Regarding your experience with counselling, you may have gone in with too high expectations. The counselling unfortunately isn't what actually solves your problems, it's to set you on a path that hopefully leads to a better place - it's like that for most people, I think! Pursuing more serious therapy or a support group makes sense as well, especially if you can't face a given problem on your own, but it doesn't immediately make the problem any easier, but rather assists with the motivation and structure needed to undertake getting towards the solution. It may, after getting out there, very well take you a few years to get somewhat comfortable with working/volunteering/socialising.

I actually find it somewhat interesting how you're so skeptical towards psychotropics as a whole, given that you usually make an effort to be so open-minded! One could even frame the process of finding medication as an opportunity to seek new, possibly useful, experiences. It doesn't even need to be something you take every day for the rest of your life, just something that's hopefully helpful for you right now.

Know, of course, that whatever you do, we'll be behind you every step of the way - when I read your posts these days I am never sure what to comment or if anything I say can even help, but do know there are living, breathing people reading these!!!

Regarding your experience with counselling, you may have gone in with too high expectations. The counselling unfortunately isn't what actually solves your problems, it's to set you on a path that hopefully leads to a better place - it's like that for most people, I think! Pursuing more serious therapy or a support group makes sense as well, especially if you can't face a given problem on your own, but it doesn't immediately make the problem any easier, but rather assists with the motivation and structure needed to undertake getting towards the solution. It may, after getting out there, very well take you a few years to get somewhat comfortable with working/volunteering/socialising.

I actually find it somewhat interesting how you're so skeptical towards psychotropics as a whole, given that you usually make an effort to be so open-minded! One could even frame the process of finding medication as an opportunity to seek new, possibly useful, experiences. It doesn't even need to be something you take every day for the rest of your life, just something that's hopefully helpful for you right now.

Know, of course, that whatever you do, we'll be behind you every step of the way - when I read your posts these days I am never sure what to comment or if anything I say can even help, but do know there are living, breathing people reading these!!!

Tobias 1115~12M

I appreciate the support, it means a lot, especially during these darker periods. Sorry about taking so long to reply.

I've had counselling a number of times before, plus I have my own Psychology degree, so I knew what to expect. Mostly I was just hoping for someone I had to go out of the house to go and see and talk with every week, because I knew that just getting up and getting out of my shell for a bit would be far more beneficial than doing specific CBT exercises or whatever. And going out on the bus did help to some degree, it's just that my life as a whole is in such a poor position, and the counselling sessions were so brief and spread out, that there was only so much that really could ever have been done.

I've been trying to write a blog post about all that in more detail, though I've been struggling with motivation so I've not yet posted it.

My father was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs when I was little, and consequences of that like suffering severe neglect, missing out on many common childhood experiences, and cowering in the broken-off-door'd bathroom while he ranted at imaginary crocodiles downstairs have ever so slightly influenced how I view anything drug-related in general. It's why I don't drink. I'm also aware from getting my Psychology degree of how poorly the actual mechanisms for many drugs - especially antidepressants - are understood, and how much of the process is throwing whatever into the system to see what sticks without understanding why it's doing what it is. The effect of antidepressants in particular may or may not be a placebo; I think I talked about this study in a post a while back: [LINK] (Though it's about a decade old and, from what I can fuzzily recall, was harshly challenged, so I'm hardly presenting it as absolute proof of anything.)

Things are so bad for me these days though that it's not as if medication could make things much worse, so I'm willing to at least entertain the idea.

I appreciate the support, it means a lot, especially during these darker periods. Sorry about taking so long to reply.

I've had counselling a number of times before, plus I have my own Psychology degree, so I knew what to expect. Mostly I was just hoping for someone I had to go out of the house to go and see and talk with every week, because I knew that just getting up and getting out of my shell for a bit would be far more beneficial than doing specific CBT exercises or whatever. And going out on the bus did help to some degree, it's just that my life as a whole is in such a poor position, and the counselling sessions were so brief and spread out, that there was only so much that really could ever have been done.

I've been trying to write a blog post about all that in more detail, though I've been struggling with motivation so I've not yet posted it.

My father was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs when I was little, and consequences of that like suffering severe neglect, missing out on many common childhood experiences, and cowering in the broken-off-door'd bathroom while he ranted at imaginary crocodiles downstairs have ever so slightly influenced how I view anything drug-related in general. It's why I don't drink. I'm also aware from getting my Psychology degree of how poorly the actual mechanisms for many drugs - especially antidepressants - are understood, and how much of the process is throwing whatever into the system to see what sticks without understanding why it's doing what it is. The effect of antidepressants in particular may or may not be a placebo; I think I talked about this study in a post a while back: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/ (Though it's about a decade old and, from what I can fuzzily recall, was harshly challenged, so I'm hardly presenting it as absolute proof of anything.)

Things are so bad for me these days though that it's not as if medication could make things much worse, so I'm willing to at least entertain the idea.

MontyCallay101~12M

That makes sense! I originally got the impression you were disappointed with the counselling in terms of the content of it. I can also totally see how that kind of childhood experience would affect your comfort with the idea of a mind-altering substance! I was thinking it might have been related to that, but wasn't sure.

The thing about SSRIs is that while the mechanisms are indeed poorly understood, they undoubtedly do work! To go on a bit of a nerdy tangent, I think the study you linked makes some good points, but there are limitations as well. Antidepressants generally have smaller effect sizes when measured on formal instruments (as Kirsch’s studies did) than when measured by patient preference, where they usually show a larger effect. To add to that, I have no doubt that antidepressants don't work for everyone - but to my knowledge, in the people who they do work for, they do a good job. The "active placebo" thing in regard to depression is also highly debatable, if not disproven, cf. [LINK] and [LINK] .

I would try to get an appointment with some kind of clinical psychologist/psychiatrist in any case, even if just to have a contact and to be "in the system" so to speak. I imagine this will take a while, unfortunately, but probably a good idea regardless. Did your counsellor offer to refer you to anyone like that?

Concerning excuses to get out of the house, maybe look for a meetup group, hobby group etc. a similar distance away? Actually, I remember you wanted to take driving lessons at some point, and that might serve a similar function as well - getting out of the house along with some social component. It would also have the advantage of giving you an additional useful skill, especially since you live in a rural area. Maybe that's a good idea for something specific to pursue in the immediate future, while waiting for responses from doctors/psychologists for further treatment?

The thing about SSRIs is that while the mechanisms are indeed poorly understood, they undoubtedly do work! To go on a bit of a nerdy tangent, I think the study you linked makes some good points, but there are limitations as well. Antidepressants generally have smaller effect sizes when measured on formal instruments (as Kirsch’s studies did) than when measured by patient preference, where they usually show a larger effect. To add to that, I have no doubt that antidepressants don't work for everyone - but to my knowledge, in the people who they do work for, they do a good job. The "active placebo" thing in regard to depression is also highly debatable, if not disproven, cf. https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=173998 and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29155804 .

I would try to get an appointment with some kind of clinical psychologist/psychiatrist in any case, even if just to have a contact and to be "in the system" so to speak. I imagine this will take a while, unfortunately, but probably a good idea regardless. Did your counsellor offer to refer you to anyone like that?

Concerning excuses to get out of the house, maybe look for a meetup group, hobby group etc. a similar distance away? Actually, I remember you wanted to take driving lessons at some point, and that might serve a similar function as well - getting out of the house along with some social component. It would also have the advantage of giving you an additional useful skill, especially since you live in a rural area. Maybe that's a good idea for something specific to pursue in the immediate future, while waiting for responses from doctors/psychologists for further treatment?