Content note: I’ll be talking about personal issues regarding relationships, fighting, depersonalization and derealization. Feel free to skip interaction if it’s harmful to you or it feels like I’m asking for free therapy. Feel free to just comment “get therapy” if you want lol.

I don’t know how to start this train of thought or necessarily articulate it properly, but I’ll try. My partner and I broke up recently because they think they are a lesbian. We still live together and will for the foreseeable future. We’d been together for about 4 years. My sibling lives with us and I had two more roommates who have since moved out.

That’s just context. I have been… not very good to the people around me for the past year or so. I became jobless and carless in February and had been trying so very hard to get a job and a car, but never really communicated how hard I was trying to my roommates or partner. At times it was all I could do to apply for one job a week or beg my family for money. I was going to doctor’s appointments back-to-back to deal with my disabilities. I stayed up all night disassociating or playing video games and slept all day. I got lost in a lot of niche theory/history and spent hours doing nothing but reading and listening to podcasts. Sleep. Disassociate. Isolate. Sleep. Where did the weeks go? The months? Where the hell am I?

I continued scraping by enough to pay rent and utilities, and bought my own food with food stamps but couldn’t afford household stuff. I mostly stayed in my own bubble and cleaned after only myself. My roommate approached me about not helping with chores, very annoyed, and I got angry. We got into a shouting match where he accused me of not doing anything and of being rude. I felt like I was doing as much as I possibly could with the unending fatigue I was feeling. I isolated further. Anytime we saw each other, it was a shouting match. My partner and I began shouting at each other, too. Social interaction meant shouting and crying for me.

But the weird thing is, and the point of this post, is it was all also just so very… funny? I was angry and I was sad, more than I ever have been in my entire life, probably. But a combination of study, psychadelics and mental illness have sort of forced my brain into a permanent birds-eye view of my life. Everything, everything has systemic roots. The personal is the political. The issues I was having boiled down to poverty, unemployment, and disability, all symptoms of a larger societal sickness. Literally millions of people go through the same and worse. Every fight I was having was happening literally concurrently with thousands of other fights around the globe over petty shit like dirty dishes or unbought paper towels. My partner told me our roommates were moving out. I laughed and said something like “isn’t that a bit of an overreaction?” It all seemed so silly.

When my partner and I started fighting it was over my isolation, alleged rudeness and lack of proper communication. Even with tears streaming down my face there was this lingering sense of non-urgency in the back of my mind, a sensation of utterly mundane, banal absurdness to the whole ordeal that made me feel like we were just stealing lines from TV dramas or scenes from movies where couples fight. We were playing the part of the happy couple for years and now we were playing the part where it all collapsed. It meant nothing even though it meant everything. “Couples break up all the time” was juxtaposed snugly with “my world is disintegrating.” The systemic, empirical lens I view everything through was battling for supremacy over the part of me that gave a shit for my and others’ emotional well-beings, and I think it won. The minutiae of our suffering meant nothing to anyone but us, and it pales in comparison to the collective suffering of humanity, which also goes unseen by the universe writ large. It’s all unimportant unless we make it important. So why does it matter if I isolate? Why does it matter if I’m rude? These thoughts won’t leave me be.

I guess I’m just stuck in a perpetual thought loop where, for instance, me being depressed is so insignificant that it makes me more depressed, which I then view as insignificant, which makes me more depressed, ad infinitum. The systemic supercedes the self. I feel like an actor in a play that no one is watching and I’m begging the void to let me take a smoke break. The “actor” metaphor itself is so cliché that it reminds me of how manufactured our thoughts are by our environments and our media. The systemic supercedes the self.

Thanks for reading my rambling if you did. Thanks for skimming it. This may sound strange, but I want to know what pains you, comrades. Do you feel like you’re acting? Are you okay? Do you think that thinking about whether you’re okay or not is an act of futility and insignificance? I can’t replace a professional and I may suck at giving proper advice, but anyone can feel free to DM me anytime about any of the emotional nonsense we have to deal with as people. I am the void you can scream into, and I will listen.

  • SovereignStateOP
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    112 years ago

    Stream of consciousness shit. In case anyone’s worried, I have a job and a car now. I haven’t been paid yet so I’m still stuck in the “just have to get through this week” cycle but soon I will be able to consoom again which will brighten my mood a bit. I’m doing ok, but the monotony of it all will never cease to be a drag. I have to start searching for passion again.

  • @TeezyZeezy@lemmygrad.ml
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    102 years ago

    You are absolutely significant, comrade. More than. Many people care about you, including us.

    “For billions of years since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived. Every single person on your mom and dad’s side successfully looked after and passed down to you life. What are the chances of that like?”

  • @electric_nan
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    92 years ago

    Put down the psychedelics. They’re great and all, but everything has a limit. They pull back the veil, and tap you into underlying patterns, but you’re not meant to stay in that space. That ‘meta’ space is real, but so is ‘mundane’ space of everyday life. I’ve learned lessons from psychedelics that I can reference when I need to. Like shifting focus with your eyes. If you are able, I would suggest you seek out any forms of physical activity. Bring your consciousness back to your body and the tangible world.

    • SovereignStateOP
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      2 years ago

      Thank you for the input. I haven’t actually done psychadelics in months, and I use them very sparingly anymore simply because I don’t have the time to allot for trips. I’m starting to think that my RX’s might be more of an issue as I’ve always come out of trips more empathetic and better at feeling, at least I think, but I also know that doing them in a state of financial destitution has never worked out for me before. Can’t look at them like an escape from the poverty, but a tool to use when I’m already in an ok place.

        • SovereignStateOP
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          12 years ago

          SNRI’s but from my understanding they’re very similar. That and a mood stabilizer.

            • SovereignStateOP
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              22 years ago

              It may not be your intention, but this read as pretty condescending. I’ve read up plenty on the interactions between my specific medications and psychadelics.

              SNRIs and SSRIs are similar but also different. There are many more studies on the effects of the combination of SSRIs and psychadelics, but there still exist some re: SNRIs and they’ve all come to the same conclusion: serotonin syndrome and issues prevalent with the SSRI-psychadelic combination are not prevalent. SSRIs have been shown to significantly increase the risk of serotonin syndrome when taken with psilocybin and LSD, whereas SNRIs have been shown to merely reduce the effectiveness of the drugs.

  • Catradora-Stalinism☭
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    82 years ago

    Oh

    I didn’t think anyone else was having this issue.

    Its nice to know I’m not the only one.

    You are valid comrade, and so are your problems.

    • SovereignStateOP
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      52 years ago

      Absolutely… I think with the world population being what it is, whatever emotional issues you or I or anyone might be having have almost definitely been felt before, or someone else is currently going through something very similar. With things like the social stigma surrounding talking about especially the particulars of ‘mental illness’ with others, and the overarching individualist cultural ethos, it can make us all feel like islands, people cut off from the emotions of others and experiencing entirely unique suffering. Everyone’s experience is unique, but we’re also never entirely alone in them.

  • Red Phoenix
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    2 years ago

    I read your comment and I’m glad you’re doing a bit better now having found a job and a car. I’m very sorry to hear what you’re going through and have gone through, that sounds awful. I can’t say I know what you’re going through, but I can offer some advice based on my understanding if I may.

    I’m going to get a little philosophical here. Your life is extremely meaningful, as it is your own life, and arguably it is the most meaningful and important life on a 1-to-1 basis with regards to yourself as a subject. Of course the collective misery of the world is more important than just one person, but each of our lives has a special meaning to ourselves because they are ours. So if the individual disassociates too much from their own life they can become self-destructive and/or face negative consequences in their own life.

    I’m going to over-generalize here, but I think the solution is to take care of ourselves and live our best possible lives so that we can benefit others as best we can. In general, we shouldn’t harm ourselves at the expense of helping others, and we shouldn’t help ourselves at the expense of harming others, but find a healthy balance that optimizes helping both ourselves and others as best we can. So, I would say take some time to help yourself get your life in order so that you can live your best life to have the maximum beneficial impact on the people around you and the world.

    I hope your path continues to improve and you and your ex sort things out if that’s what you want to do. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk.

  • I can’t say I understand what it’s like to feel detached like that, but I’m glad things are at least a bit better now. I can relate to being very volatile when depressed, whether that manifests as hostility, isolation, or both, and it was shit for both me and the few people who interacted with me.

    You could get therapy if it’s easily affordable for you, as long as you keep in mind that your therapist probably won’t understand that capitalism is at the root of this. The main reason I joined Lemmygrad was to be able to vent my frustrations about being surrounded by hypocritical pro-imperialist voices, and I definitely don’t feel comfortable talking about that with my therapist

    • SovereignStateOP
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      62 years ago

      Thank you for sharing and your input comrade. I went through therapists like no one’s business when I was younger and there’s absolutely an insidious individualism that permeates the field. Jordan Petersonian “clean your room” shit. I had a therapist tell me to try to stop focusing on politics so much… as if. I’m just gonna be super up-front with my next therapist if and when I go, and tell them that if they’re biased against my political nature I’ll find someone else. Getting a new therapist is like starting a new romantic relationship almost. All your traumas, all your fears, you have to relive and reshare them again and again only for it to maybe work out.

  • Soviet Snake
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    72 years ago

    I fucking hope you are doing better, I assume you are by your commen and once you start having some money I highly recommend going to therapy and maybe taking meds if your depersonalization gets too high.

    I do not go through the same but some other shit, basically. I do not isolate phisicslly but I do not tell anyone anything, I am in a weird place with my AO because of it for a lot of time, I need to see a shrimp but I am afraid of communicating with them, plus it is hard getting one. I haven’t had sex in months, almost a year, which makes me feel more shit, I don’t know anyone I could fuck and I don’t have social media to meet people (I already do other activies, so no, that is not an option). I live like shit, my mother pays the bills and thst’s it, my AO gives me a couple bucks so I don’t starve, I am studying but if I fuxk up my mom takes evertything from me and it will be a shitty 10 hour job with shitty pay that will FUCK MY brain, so yeah, anxiety, need to unfuck. Whstever I guess, maybe my country will fall to pieces before I do.

    • SovereignStateOP
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      62 years ago

      Thank you for sharing comrade. I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through, existing under capitalism is straight up some of the most dehumanizing, infantilizing shit. I’m working that 10 hour shit-job with shit-pay, nights, and it’s absolutely fucking my brain and body. I don’t mean to give unsolicited advice, but I will say that failing out of college is probably my greatest regret in life. I was on track to maybe do some great things but the depression and anxiety were just overwhelming. Now I’m stuck in the self-perpetuating loop that is poverty. I would just recommend trying as hard as you can to get through school even though it sucks shit too.

  • lemmygrabber
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    62 years ago

    I understand that me saying this will not be able to convince you. But your problems and your feelings are significant and you matter. Especially to the people around you and especially true. Looking at the cosmos from a macroscopic point does not mean the small things don’t exist or are not important components of the whole. It’s good to tell yourself things like this sometimes. Maybe you’ll end up eventually believing then too. I’m glad to read that you’re doing better.

  • @holdengreen@lemmygrad.ml
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    52 years ago

    I try to focus on the things I have control over but I’m also fairly privileged. They don’t want you enjoying life and being free so try to do it as much as you can.

  • I feel this big time. It really gets “funny” when you run into someone that believes their choices are sovereign and not a curration, a product, of a death cult. Lmao im cracking a smile right now.

  • Anarcho-Bolshevik
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    32 years ago

    I know that we’ve (very briefly) clashed before, but believe it or not, no, I don’t want you to suffer. Seeing other poor people struggling to stay afloat and make the most out of their shitty situations will always concern me more than some petty sectarian drama. I actually befriended a stranger several days ago and have been sporadically sending her a little money to help with her short food supplies, even if (in all likelihood) she secretly considers some of my politics ‘disturbing’, and I was fairly upfront with her about them after knowing her for a few days too. I would offer you some pocket change myself, but hopefully your new job will make that unnecessary. I’m glad that something improved!

    In general, I don’t feel like I’m acting in life, but I can describe one memorable exception from last January:

    I was having a hell of a time working up the motivation to shower even though my scalp smelled awful and my body was fucking grimy. I knew that I needed to bathe, but at the same time I didn’t want to since it felt like too much effort. I rested my elbow on my lap and rubbed my forehead in frustration.

    Then, suddenly, from the recesses of my mind, I unforgot…

    this scene from RoboCop.

    It’s a powerful scene on its own, but it especially resonated with me at that moment because the character was suffering a challenge that was slightly similar to mine: he was supposed to arrest somebody, but at the moment something internal overwhelmed him and prevented him from continuing, much to his frustration.


    Our situations otherwise couldn’t be more different of course; my problem was far more mundane. Even so, the memory inspired me enough to stop neglecting myself and I showered like almost any able‐bodied and able‐minded adult would have done two days earlier. Dramatizing the situation in my head helped me when I might have continued neglecting myself. The imaginary audience must have rock‐bottom standards if they’ll seriously applaud a hero accomplishing something as trivial as that, but damn it, I can’t let them down!