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Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

When I'm sick, I cannot remember what it is like to be healthy

When I'm healthy, I cannot remember what it is like to be sick

It's very weird.

The idea of me being noticeably off my meds is weird. I don't know what that would 'look like'

Mental illness is fuckin' weird

Ludious

TTODewback wrote: »

Ludious wrote: »

I too, often have dreams in which I completely forgot to attend a class I signed up for at the beginning of the semester and now must pass the final.

Those aren't dreams Lud.
That actually happened.

I'll have you know my 3 years and 65 semester hours in Community College had nothing less than a b+ in it and a gpa of 3.85

Ludious

ok I had a D in College Algebra but it's not my fault I'm not asian

Pony

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

Mortious

TTODewback wrote: »

Abdhyius wrote: »

Paris St. Germain won the league.

So therefore, riot police and tear gas, naturally.

VIVE LA FRANCE!
*crashes flaming bus into Eiffel Tower*

Nooooo, I need to use it for a Tesla coil!

skippydumptruck

http://youtu.be/7PVVT9V2CM0

hee hee

Thomamelas

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot wrote: »

When I'm sick, I cannot remember what it is like to be healthy

When I'm healthy, I cannot remember what it is like to be sick

It's very weird.

The idea of me being noticeably off my meds is weird. I don't know what that would 'look like'

Mental illness is fuckin' weird

Very sad. Your manic phases never really seem to go quite as high as your lows but you start getting wrapped up in projects to the determent of things like sleep.

TTODewback

My deep subconscious chose the Eiffel Tower because of Phallus Envy.

Winky

21stCentury wrote: »

i feel so much better on my meds than off that to get off them is unthinkable to me.

i'm a good little patient, letting The Man chain me down with chemical mind control. WAKE UP, SHEEPLE.

Haha, man this is such the case with adderall for me it's not even funny.

I've come to terms with the fact that it is pretty much just bipolar disorder that I can control when I use my pills. I basically just ask myself when I want to have mania and when I want to have depression.

So It Goes

shalmelo wrote: »

SammyF wrote: »

So It Goes wrote: »

I would buy a jaguar and five hundred audis

Thomamelas wrote: »

The Jaguar is a beautiful car.

Oh the car. I thought SiG was going to buy 120 lbs of jungle cat.

Have you met @So It Goes? She is 120 lbs of jungle cat.

She just needs a way to get around.

I wish

actually no that's probably too skinny

HappylilElf

SammyF wrote: »

TTODewback wrote: »

Abdhyius wrote: »

Paris St. Germain won the league.

So therefore, riot police and tear gas, naturally.

VIVE LA FRANCE!
*crashes flaming bus into Eiffel Tower*

How interesting that you chose to fictitiously crash into the most penis-like landmark that you could immediately call to mind.

You got a strange lookin' dick

Ludious

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

Abdhyius

I signed up for making aioli for the 17th in addition to smoked salmon rolls and salmon tartare.

Pony

The meds my psychiatrist added back in February (Mirtazapine) is going kinda okay thus far. I don't deal with the same severity of depression I used to, which is good, although the depressive bouts still happen.

For me, the hardest struggle right now is actually stress management. Not necessarily in a neurological anxiety kind of way, but because of my metabolic problems that stress turns into very real and serious physical health problems. My blood pressure skyrockets, my potassium levels torpedo, my adrenaline pumps, my aggression, agitation, and anger flare up, my patience evaporates, etc.

Irond Will

spool32 wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

Ludious wrote: »

spool32 wrote: »

Winky wrote: »

Evil Multifarious wrote: »

Someone I was talking to the other day was saying fibromyalgia is likely linked to depression or anxiety - the pain is very real but is caused by neurological issues in the brain itself, and should be treated accordingly. Like a more severe version of the aches and pains and soreness that often accompany depression.

Pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatization_disorder

Worthwhile read if you're interested in these sorts of things.

EDIT: I think my pet theory when it comes to these things is that the individual is highly suggestible. It's the same principle that allows a person to become hypnotized.

What.

What.

I guess it's all just in our wives' heads spool.

well i mean

what if it's a neurological sensitivity to pain coupled with depression?

does that change anything compared to if it's blood parasites or a secret hidden bacteria or a latent body fungus?

why are the second ones acceptable outcomes for "what is fibromyalgia" but the first one is so unacceptable that you want to punch people?

"neurological sensitivity to pain" doesn't really describe the symptoms.

Like, at all. Or the onset, which... how would you just start being more sensitive for no reason.

i dunno - i'm not a neurologist. why do our bodies or brains malfunction in any way?

it's a thing, though, and "hightened sensitivity to pain" and "pricks of pain for no reason" are basically the only fibromyalgia symptoms that are consistently agreed upon.

why would anyone think that something like that isn't fundamentally neurological?

RMS Oceanic

Irond Will wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

I also find that people are less sympathetic to conditions that don't have specified names and might be the subject of ongoing research and understanding.

I have a mental health diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and also Personality Disorder (Not Otherwise Specified), the latter of which is DSM-speak for "Clearly something is wrong but it doesn't fit existing diagnostic criteria for something more specific".

Even among people who don't have the same stigma for mental illness (like SE++'s threads on brain problems, for example), I can talk about struggling with bipolar disorder but if I bring up my PDNOS issues people are largely confused and sorta struggle to sympathize, because they're not even sure if it's like, a real thing so they're hesitant in case I'm some malingering layabout or something.

I also have some kind of inborn error of metabolism that I've struggled with since a teenager that never had a name or satisfied existing metabolic disorder diagnostic criteria and it was only a few months ago that a doctor did a CT of my organs and went "Oh, you have congenitally malformed adrenal glands, that's probably the source of a lot of this", finally giving me some kind of thing to blame in my body rather than just being a symptoms list.

i mean, basically the nature of existence is unknowable, right? people without physical disorders can often understand what it's like to have a physical disorder - we all know what a leg is and what we use it for, so it's not hard to understand what it's like to not have a leg. we know what it's like to be injured and we know what it feels like to be sick.

mental disorders are different, and i think it goes beyond just stigma. i think it's just hard to actually convey what it's like.

like depression is generally explained as "you've been sad, right? well i'm sad all the time for no reason" but really it's not. the really crippling part of depression are the hits on motivation and sensation a lot more than just the sads. that is - you're sad, but also numb, and also there's no reason and also you think maybe it will always be like this.

and depression is probably the very most accessible and sympathizable of all emotional disorders.

the above is basically true of all mental disorders - they make people act in unattractive and sometimes frightening ways, and they're really really difficult to empathize with in any real way, because it's impossible to get into someone else's head.

I try to explain depression to people who don't suffer it in a way that doesn't rely on emotions. Depression doesn't make you "sad". You end up sad because you are depressed, but that's not what depression is. Depression is the inability to recognize any kind of perspective and it distorts your understanding of the past, present, and the future.

It causes you to hover about, numb and listless, in a constant meaningless present. Your past becomes a horrid blur of all the things you hate about yourself and your life, and the future becomes this grey haze of never-ending being like this.

Depressed people don't just struggle with thinking it will ever get better; they struggle with believing that it was ever better than this. They see their life as this oblivion of an unchanging present. They can't acknowledge that it has been better (or worse) in the past, or that it may ever get better in the future. They don't give a shit about that. They just pass the time, whether it's by sleeping or doing boring things by rote or schlubbing along in their daily grind like an automaton.

A forever present is a level of hell. I think that's a lot more understandable to people than "Well, it just makes you sad and numb."

i had depression off and on through my 20s and went on and off medication to try to treat it (nothing really worked well for me). like you described, it wasn't generally sadness so much as a torpor and numbness that i couldn't shake and that just kind of gnawed at me. it happened every spring, like clockwork, and sometimes stuck around, sometimes fled after a few weeks.

it was pretty difficult to describe, and usually i just didn't bother.

I'm no expert, having mercifully been free of such issues in favour of issues like Autism, but your last four words sounds like a very succinct summary of depression, at least in one way.

SammyF

HappylilElf wrote: »

SammyF wrote: »

TTODewback wrote: »

Abdhyius wrote: »

Paris St. Germain won the league.

So therefore, riot police and tear gas, naturally.

VIVE LA FRANCE!
*crashes flaming bus into Eiffel Tower*

How interesting that you chose to fictitiously crash into the most penis-like landmark that you could immediately call to mind.

You got a strange lookin' dick

It's true. I'm told that all the time.

And the coffee I serve in the cafe at the top is so fucking overpriced!

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

When I'm getting a severe full blown anxiety attack everything just blurs together. No one has faces or voices anymore, just smears of paint on the canvas and roaring noise, and it's like everything is about to collapse on me in an attack.

Although it rarely gets to that point.

Either I use CBT methods

or I'm out with friends and Pony will poke me and go haaaaaaay until I make eye contact then help me get back on track

I am super lucky.

Ludious

Aioli, OK champ, we'll all wink and pretend you're not making mayonnaise with garlic in it

Thomamelas

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

You have to learn. I found that for me, working to unlink the idea that there is any sort of balance between the good things that happen to me and the bad things helped. I could start enjoying things without the crushing fear there would be punishment for it by the universe.

Pony

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

yeah, that's how anxiety is the flipside of depression. Depression is this horrid, torporous constant present, but anxiety is this spiraling, constantly unraveling future and a person's brain in the grips of anxiety is just looking at ten million factors at once and going AAAAAAAAAAAA I'M GONNA GET FUCKED I KNOW IT but they do exactly zero meaningful things to actually fix that because they're not capable of being logical and rational, so instead they just slam their breaks on black ice and spin out worse.

broseph are you getting ongoing therapy yes or no

if no

what's up in your life that you ain't

Kalkino

I must admit to being irrepressibly cheerful and that guy who whistles. Although, when in London I sometimes revert to Stern Face to stop random strangers bugging me for money or charity. Which back fired a couple of times when I was so stern people stopped me on the street, one encounter which almost ended up in a fight. I tried to stop using Stern Face about that point.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Kalkino wrote: »

I must admit to being irrepressibly cheerful and that guy who whistles. Although, when in London I sometimes revert to Stern Face to stop random strangers bugging me for money or charity. Which back fired a couple of times when I was so stern people stopped me on the street, one encounter which almost ended up in a fight. I tried to stop using Stern Face about that point.

i think that crosses over from Stern Face into Bitch Face

Pony

Thomamelas wrote: »

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

You have to learn. I found that for me, working to unlink the idea that there is any sort of balance between the good things that happen to me and the bad things helped. I could start enjoying things without the crushing fear there would be punishment for it by the universe.

yeah this is pretty important. you stop feeling anxious about good things coming up in your life and you stop wearing around the shit you've endured like it's some kind of fuckin' badge, and i think everyone in this thread who is talking about this subject right now is guilty of that at some point in their lives and we all know it

Winky

I was thinking about the way I react to identity earlier and I realized that I feel most comfortable when sort of "disembodied". I wonder if it's something to do with growing up playing video games and using the internet.

I get very upset by the notion that I have to be an entity who can be judged, and kind of subconsciously wish I could always just be a passive observer with a fluid identity. I feel as though I've gotten a lot better at making myself into a person, but I still feel much more comfortable being detached from myself than I do feeling like I am defined by my limited human person.

Gooey

depression chat is much less interesting than bass chat

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Pony wrote: »

Thomamelas wrote: »

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

You have to learn. I found that for me, working to unlink the idea that there is any sort of balance between the good things that happen to me and the bad things helped. I could start enjoying things without the crushing fear there would be punishment for it by the universe.

yeah this is pretty important. you stop feeling anxious about good things coming up in your life and you stop wearing around the shit you've endured like it's some kind of fuckin' badge, and i think everyone in this thread who is talking about this subject right now is guilty of that at some point in their lives and we all know it

myehhhh

Pony

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot wrote: »

Ludious wrote: »

Pony wrote: »

Your brain has a literal neurochemical disconnect it can activate. It does it when you're sleeping and dreaming so you don't start re-enacting your dreams physically and a prevailing theory is that a malfunction of that process is what causes sleepwalking, night terrors, and sleep paralysis.

Severe anxiety and depression, like PTSD triggering and serious panic attacks, can engage that same process and more or less literally shut down most of your outward signs of being aware... because you're not.

Like when a person looks like someone pulled a plug on them when they're experiencing an anxiety attack it's because that's almost literally what is happening.

When I am experiencing a severe full blown anxiety attack, the world fades away and I can see what amounts to a giant endless flowchart showing where each possible path I am about to take is going to fuck me over. Some people get genius abilities like being able to see an entire chess game in their heads. "Oh I will beat you in 10 moves."

with me it's more like "Give me a scenario and I'll show you how I get fucked in less than 10 moves."

as I said yesterday, I really don't know how to be happy. Just mildly satisfied that I cheated death and a malice another day

When I'm getting a severe full blown anxiety attack everything just blurs together. No one has faces or voices anymore, just smears of paint on the canvas and roaring noise, and it's like everything is about to collapse on me in an attack.

Although it rarely gets to that point.

Either I use CBT methods

or I'm out with friends and Pony will poke me and go haaaaaaay until I make eye contact then help me get back on track

I am super lucky.

realtalk my "haaaaaaay" method is actually a form of CBT I learned from my shrink

Abdhyius

You know what's wrong with the world?

There's hardly ever any girls about when I take my thinking walks

that dark, brooding mysterious look, just wasted.

Echo

David Foster Wallace described a depression better than I ever could.

Its emotional character is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency -- sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying -- are not just unpleasant but literally horrible.

21stCentury

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

Christ Hadfield Status: Still one of the best Canadians.

SammyF

Abdhyius wrote: »

You know what's wrong with the world?

There's hardly ever any girls about when I take my thinking walks

that dark, brooding mysterious look, just wasted.

This is the same guy who wrote a few pages back that being interesting is overrated?

RMS Oceanic

Gooey wrote: »

depression chat is much less interesting than bass chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz4Rr3202xw

Pony

Winky wrote: »

I was thinking about the way I react to identity earlier and I realized that I feel most comfortable when sort of "disembodied". I wonder if it's something to do with growing up playing video games and using the internet.

I get very upset by the notion that I have to be an entity who can be judged, and kind of subconsciously wish I could always just be a passive observer with a fluid identity. I feel as though I've gotten a lot better at making myself into a person, but I still feel much more comfortable being detached from myself than I do feeling like I am defined by my limited human person.

we're different sorts, you and i

what you describe as a preferred subconscious wish sounds like an abyss to me, i'd hate it

Mortious

Kalkino wrote: »

I must admit to being irrepressibly cheerful and that guy who whistles. Although, when in London I sometimes revert to Stern Face to stop random strangers bugging me for money or charity. Which back fired a couple of times when I was so stern people stopped me on the street, one encounter which almost ended up in a fight. I tried to stop using Stern Face about that point.

Instead you should wear a snappy suit and a hat.

Maybe get an invisible bunny friend. Hand out business cards.

Mortious

Gooey wrote: »

depression chat is much less interesting than bass chat

Yet somehow more cheerful.

skippydumptruck

On August 31, 2012, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki posted four papers on the Internet.

The titles were inscrutable. The volume was daunting: 512 pages in total. The claim was audacious: he said he had proved the ABC Conjecture, a famed, beguilingly simple number theory problem that had stumped mathematicians for decades.

...

The problem, as many mathematicians were discovering when they flocked to Mochizuki’s website, was that the proof was impossible to read. The first paper, entitled “Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory I: Construction of Hodge Theaters,” starts out by stating that the goal is “to establish an arithmetic version of Teichmuller theory for number fields equipped with an elliptic curve…by applying the theory of semi-graphs of anabelioids, Frobenioids, the etale theta function, and log-shells.”

This is not just gibberish to the average layman. It was gibberish to the math community as well.

“You don’t get to say you’ve proved something if you haven’t explained it,” she says. “A proof is a social construct. If the community doesn’t understand it, you haven’t done your job.”

http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof/

Ludious

I am in and out of therapy. I also suffer from ADD severely, and I have sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome. I say all that because I feel like they play into each other.

Even taking requip and having a cpap, I feel like most nights I get shit sleep. I wake up tired, I can't focus. I take my wellbutrin (that my doctor keeps fucking with) and my adderall (that my doctor keeps fucking with), and then I am fine...until the medicine that keeps getting fucked with wears off.

300mg of Welbutrin and my anxiety is helped a lot but my doctor can't up my adderall enough without making me too jittery.
150mg of Wellbutrin and my anxiety isn't helped enough and the Adderall has been moved from XR to normal, and it wears off in like..1hour.
SSRI's make me gain weight like whoa and turn me into a zombie that cares nothing for mortals or their silly problems or desires. Let's not even talk about the anorgasmia, and the fact that Wellbutrin has the opposite effect and neither are fun.

And today my wife had a doctor's appointment and I was talking to her doctor re: her Fibro fatigue and was asking him about nuvigil/provigil and mentioned I had ADD, and while I know it doesn't actually work that good for ADD you see people in those circles talking about it a lot, and it apparently helps Fibro Fatigue quite a bit in some cases. Anyway, I offhandedly mentioned I took Wellbutrin and Adderall and he asked me if I had a deathwish and that I was going to seize on that combo so hooray I'm afraid of my own meds.

Kalkino

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot wrote: »

Kalkino wrote: »

I must admit to being irrepressibly cheerful and that guy who whistles. Although, when in London I sometimes revert to Stern Face to stop random strangers bugging me for money or charity. Which back fired a couple of times when I was so stern people stopped me on the street, one encounter which almost ended up in a fight. I tried to stop using Stern Face about that point.

i think that crosses over from Stern Face into Bitch Face

It was the weirdest feeling. I was at a restaurant for a friend's birthday and he had chosen a restaurant that was both Robin Hood themed as well as being Mexican. Anyway, 15 or 20 people I knew were just in the back of the restaurant and I was waiting out front for some lost friends, then this situation happened. A better than fair prospect of a crazy guy and his two friends kicking the shit out of me while my friends sat oblivious a few metres away, on a lovely summer's night on a busy road. Then when my lost friends turned up it turned out they'd run into the same guy up the street and had waited till he had walked off into the distance, not knowing that he then encountered me.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Sometimes the whole early 20's "who am i?" identity crisis crosses over with my mental illness and my progression to healthiness

where I'm like... okay, you know that philosophy question, of your body constantly having cells die and be replaced, and at which point do you become a new person?

I am grappling with an emotional version of that

Where I've walked away from the trauma and agony and illness that plagued me from 1-19 and I don't really know how to define myself without it

There are worse things in the world than an identity crisis, though.