Dear Gaia:

When overwhelmed with “extreme feelings” (title of your thread), we can’t think clearly, so it is not really useful to try to  understand things.

The thing to do when overwhelmed by emotional storms, or when having what you called this day, “another of my blues days in which I feel melancholy and frustration”, is to go outside if possible, take a short or long walk, have the cold December air refresh your tired brain, and when you are back home, you will feel better.

If it is too cold or dark to go outside, do some exercise at home, twenty minutes of it, or so. Best to have a Daily Exercise Routine, it helps stabilize extreme feelings and/ or lift you up from melancholy and frustration.

*Also, a hot bath is likely to help, warm milk perhaps, listening to music and allowing yourself to drift into relaxing/ feel-good fantasy for some time.

anita

Dear Gaia:

Sometimes psychiatric drugs are the answer, for a short while at the least. The brain is habitual, same operations tend to repeat, and when those habitual operations are maddening, drugs can stop those operations and what a relief that is!

Years ago, I suffered a lot from obsessive thinking (OCD) and finally had the chance to see a psychiatrist who prescribed sertraline for me, it is one of a family of drugs called SSRI drugs. Like magic, that drug cut my obsessive thinking as if it was a pair of scissors, a great relief!

If only I had effective psychotherapy at the time of that relief, I could have made great progress, because a combination of drugs and therapy was what I needed.

You wrote: “I feel like I deserve some serious professional therapy + meds”- I agree. This is exactly what professional help means: drugs to relieve the overwhelming distress and once relieved, have psychotherapy.

I am excited for you, that you arrived to this conclusion. I can’t wait to read from you that you did see a psychiatrist and that he or she prescribed (probably an SSRI) for you. It will be a hopeful and promising way to start the new year!

anita

Dear Gaia:

“as usual, a wave of cringiness and uncomfortableness hit me like it always does whenever I share what happens in myself, out of desperation“-

– better if you share about what happens in yourself before you get desperate, it will keep you from becoming desperate. Do it here, share anytime, little things, anything.

Nothing of what you ever shared here is outside the human experience, none of it is abnormal or weird, including “feeling crazy”, getting “morbid unspeakable thoughts and feelings”, not the feeling that your “face and consciousness split in multiple faces and voices”, and not your imagining yourself in “vivid scenarios.. having a breakdown.. battling some serious mental illness and looking/ behave crazily”.

You are not abnormal, Gaia. Don’t be scared of your own brain’s feelings, thoughts and imaginings, as if your brain is some foreign entity. It is a human brain, like mine, like anyone’s . Stop being scared of it and you will feel better, make friends with it.

“It comes in waves”- this is how brains operate, in waves.

“waiting a bit dreadly the next time my mind and myself crumble in pieces.. crumbling in millions different directions”- like you suggested yesterday, see a doctor for maybe one of those SSRI drugs I mentioned to you, millions and millions of Americans are taking it this very day. I did for many years. It can help a whole lot, for now. But remember: befriend your own brain, don’t fear it, best you can. Don’t fear it and you will feel better.

Post again anytime, today, tomorrow, any day. I want to read from you and I will reply every time.

anita

Dear Gaia:

I am fine, thank you. It is a new year and a new decade, how exciting! I am so glad to read that you made it an intention for this new year and decade to focus on your mental well-being. Maybe counseling is available for you,  maybe through the university you are attending, or some community resource in your area.

Also, remember that psychiatric drugs can help to lessen the distress you feel sometimes, and if you do find good counseling, those drugs can help you benefit from counseling.

And please do post anytime. I want to read from you as often as you want to post here.

Happy New Year!

anita

Dear Gaia:

I am fine, thank you, a bit tired though.

Clearly, you shouldn’t participate in a romantic or sexual activity with a person who repulses you. It is not and cannot make sense to do  otherwise, unless a person is forced through violence or one is dying from starvation and the only way to survive is to have sex with a particular person. Maybe. But otherwise, what is the sense behind enduring romantic or sexual activity with a person who repulses you, none that I can think of.

You wrote about the guy: “He tried to get reasons out of me, out of my ‘strange’ behavior but to be honest I can’t understand it myself”-

– is the strange behavior you are referring to (I am not sure about the following, but basing it on something you shared earlier) that you first encouraged the guy by kissing him passionately, and acting romantic/ sexual, but not because you felt it, but because you were pretending, and then you abruptly stopped because you couldn’t take pretending anymore?

anita

Dear Gaia:

Well, he was then totally in the wrong: you had every right to end that hug and go home. You didn’t owe him a hug or a kiss or any physical contact whatsoever, and you didn’t owe him an explanation as to why. He was wrong to scold you/complain to you about it, and your friend was wrong to take his side. I am sorry you had a negative experience that evening and night. You definitely don’t need more negative experiences in your life, you need positive experiences!

“he said other girls didn’t react like this”- it is sad that some girls (and many do) go along having sex with men just so to avoid that scolding you mentioned, very sad. You did the right thing not reacting like that.

I hope you feel better soon and I can’t wait to read about a positive social experience next. I wonder what it would be…

anita