Men’s Mental Health Challenge

[lyle_destroys]

We're in the dark,cold recesses of winter. Currently longing for some sunshine and warmer temps. It's hard to find any motivation, but when I do, I feel much better. My message is, don't let yourself give up, spring is on the way!


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Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the thing that we need to do. It’s easy to sit and feel sorry for ourselves, late winter seasonal depression grabs hold of a lot of us. It’s only one more day away, think about that next step before you think about what’s after it. It makes big things so much smaller.

 

[lyle_destroys]

Interesting thread. My life is not what I hoped, but it is what it is. I have a lot to be thankful for.

What’s with the username? You an infantry guy?

 

[lyle_destroys]

I wanted very much to kill myself last night. I am grateful it didn't work.

My first wife stopped taking birth control in high school because she knew I would marry her out of obligation. I had broken up with her, but she kept coming around for sex. As a horny 17 year old, I did not say no. We divorced when I was 18 when I found her having sex with my best friend.

From the age of 4 she told my son, who was my padna, that I raped and beat her. His attitude visibly changed toward me and he withdrew into himself. I did not find out what was happening until he was 8, at which point I sued and was granted full custody. At that point though, the damage was done. My son is now 30 and we rarely talk. Even though his mother has since admitted that she lied about it all. His young mind was pulled in two directions and now we speak or see each other rarely. I have tried everything I can think of to repair the relationship. I miss him more than I can express. I cannot express how much I regret the harm done to him during his early years.

I have now been married for 23 years and have a 9 year old daughter. God blessed me with a wonderful daughter who loves me very much. We did not think we could have children. My wife had been off of birth control for 8 years before she became pregnant. Since we before we married, my wife and I have been best friends. There is one subject that we have fought over for literally 20 years.

I was laid off from my job in my early 20s and decided I needed to find a career that I couldn't be fired from or could always find a job in. I went to work from 3am-11am without a lunch break and from 12pm to 930pm went to college 5 days a week. I did this for 4 years until I graduated with my BS and a certification in my trade. I have worked my way up my career and been extremely successful.

God has blessed me with many things; good examples from my father and grandfather, a mind able to learn new skills, determination, affection and loyalty to my family and friends (even though I have few), and good fortune enough to maintain my health when I never saw myself living past 30. I know I have so much that others do not.

I do not know why depression has hit me so hard lately, but the inability to resolve the issue with my wife has truly hurt my soul. I have prayed over and over for guidance, eloquence, and wisdom to know what to do, but nothing has worked.

I do not wish to leave this world because of sadness. It feels more like logic. My wife and daughter would be taken care of for the rest of their lives financially. There would be no more fighting, no more disappointment, and no more loss of love. I not want to go, but sometimes it seems like the right thing to do.


I will be ok. It will all be ok.

You can tell yourself that they will be ok without you and the fact is that they might be, but the bigger truth is that they will be better with you here! You aren’t dead yet and you don’t know what the future holds, sometimes age brings big changes in people and your son may have a change of heart too.

When struggling with depression I know that all you can see is the hole you’re in, all the bad, all the dark, all the sadness. But deep down you always know there’s more out there. Smiles, sunlight and happiness.

We always have enough in us to take one more step, to hold out one more day.

 

[lyle_destroys]

This one hit a little hard. I will say that you need professional help. Talk with someone outside yourself or the forum.

This will be long as I don't have the time to make it short.

Son of an abusive alcoholic who put me in the hospital more times that I can count. Abused my mother and sister. At a young age, I learned that I could piss him off and redirect his anger to me to save them the abuse, so I took the beatings.
He hung himself in front of me when I was 12, but I managed to cut him down in time and save his life. I hid all the evidence and put him to bed. A few years later he drank himself to death.

I was pretty messed up and dealt with a lifetime of depression. At times, withdrawing into a room for three days as I just couldn't bear being around people. Thoughts of suicide every day.

A few years ago, I broke down with the realization that I didn't like who I was. Who I was presenting to the world. And the world didn't like me as I was a bitter sarcastic asshole. Talked to my wife of 19 years and said that I needed to fix myself before I could fix us and that I needed to be selfish and had no idea how much time it would take. She understood and moved to another country to supervise construction on a retirement house we were building.

So I sat in my cabin in the woods and looked out into the forest. And thought. Then a psychoanalyst friend suggested that I would be a good candidate for psychedelic therapy, specifically MDMA and psilocybin. After a lot of research, I agreed.

He found me a team of an integrator (to help pre and post) and a person to trip sit for me. A typical session would be me taking the medicine and then laying down on his sofa with an eye mask and music designed for the session. It would last approx five to six hours, though the medicine would stay in my system for days. It was profoundly life changing and I have subsequently done a dozen sessions. For those curious, you never feel like you are stoned.

I have said over the years that I forgave my father. But now I'm on MDMA which is an empathogen and my heart is open. My father comes to me and I say, "Look man, I get it. You were the son of an abusive alcoholic, who was the son of an abusive alcoholic. I want you to know that it stopped with me and I forgive you. But I also want to ask for your forgiveness. I have kept the worst part of you alive for decades. I want to set you free. Go and get some rest."

With that my father was gone and I don't think of him unless I tell this story. There's was a lot of post work in there as well.

I am in an incredible place right now and my life has changed dramatically. Unfortunately, it did end up costing the marriage but we both think that was a the right thing to do.

Small regret my ego didn't allow me to address all this long ago but so grateful I got here in the end.

Happy to answer any medicine therapy questions.

Good luck, guys.

That’s amazing man, glad to hear you found something that can help you. I’ve heard about a lot of this lately with combat vets struggling with ptsd. Thanks for posting

 

[lyle_destroys]

I'm just starting through this thread. I think about this often. Every time someone calls me "tough" I think about it hard. I am a pussy. I have a better life than I ever thought would be possible after 2008. I have very few physical hardships. I have put myself in a position where I am not rich, but I am relatively clear of financial hardship pending a major recession/depression.

Thinking about my dad's generation and my grandpa's generation makes me ask a lot of questions. First, how did they manage to navigate such trying times and function so well. They had trauma, financial hardships, physical hardships, etc. None of it seemed to really have much negative effect on their everyday lives. How?? What changed?? Modern PTDS, ADHD, Autism, etc are real, but why? Why is depression such a big thing? Why are obesity and diabetes such a big thing? Why is motivation such a problem?

It is becoming more mainstream at this point, but I started realizing about 4 or 5 years ago that the food and pharma industries are poisoning our society and the mental health and education industry/institutions are poisoning our minds. I found, after using the 75 Hard program created by Andy Frisella to fix my mental discipline, that I felt a lot better after developing better eating habits.

I have never been overweight even a little, and I have always been active. My diet was horrible. I was drinking 6-8 cans of soda pop a day and eating oreos for breakfast. My mental acuity and discipline were horrid. After fixing my diet, it seems like a lot of things just automatically fall into place.

We get brainwashed by the education system to believe that never being happy and always wanting more is a bad thing. Without getting into religion, I will say that we need a very strong sense of purpose and belief in something bigger than us to feel fulfillment. We are designed to expand our capabilities and learn and build and create. Feeling inadequate, wanting more, and not being satisfied with who we are and what we have drives that. Those feelings are crucial to the success of the human race. They are emotional hunger. On the other hand, it is good to step back and analyze what we have done and express gratitude for our situation. It is a delicate balance, but one that our mainstream American society has let get way out of whack.

There are many victims. We are all victims of something on one level or another. We all get to start in different places, from the guy with nothing to the trust fund baby. We have very little control over any of that. We can control what we eat, the actions we take, and the media we consume. We might not get to choose where we start from, but regardless, our choices damn sure effect where we end up.

To make a long rant short, the matrix was less advanced in my grandfather's day. Withdraw yourself from the matrix and embrace the simple truths in life. It makes it a lot easier to go in the right direction.

I believe that the increase in male depression has a lot to do with the trend of decreasing testosterone levels. High testosterone makes hard things more enjoyable. Diet, exercise, and environment have a lot to do with the decreasing testosterone levels in all men. Our grandfathers had much higher testosterone levels than we do now.

 

[lyle_destroys]

I've been taking a pounding the last few months , well since November when I tore two muscles in my shoulder OFF ! Had surgery 1-30 , it went well , but it jacked up my blood pressure and I had to go to the ER , 24 hour hold . Cardiologist up the Lisinopril 5 g's , seemed to help .
Yesterday I go in for a Endoscopy and Colonoscopy (been sick for months )found some stuff , waiting on the biopsies.
Then today I stood up too fast and passed out , first time ever , went over backwards and fell in the pool .
The cover was on and thats where I woke up , laying in the pool floating on the cover , no idea what happened . Took me a while to get it together enough to get out and even longer to piece together what had happened . Scary shit .

But here is the bitch ,now I've had a few near death experiences before , but this shook me up . Home alone , could have landed on the pavers , could have drown .
But the thought occurred to me that there was really no one , other than my wife , that I cared to share this with , or if I did no one would care , really care .
The feeling of being alone was overwhelming , and depressing , and I thought about not even telling the wife .
I told her , but I still feel the same .
Being old sucks ...

Glad you aren’t dead! I appreciate every post on this thread and thanks for sharing this. My dad passed out sitting in a tree stand a few years ago and nearly hung himself. He never even told my mom. This is a place to share things, no matter how cliche and how removed we are from each other it’s still a community here. How have things been lately health wise? Is your blood pressure in check?

 

[Speaks]

I was thinking about this a little last night related to a challenge that a friend of mine was having and he was talking about therapy. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with therapy I think that in my own experience I got the opposite of the advice I should have, and the advise I got was very consistent to what many people get.

While spending time talking about and working through truly traumatic events can be helpful and necessary. I think for many people the advice should not be to focus on what is making you feel bad but on what you can do about it. There are few situations in life that are so dire that you cant do something to make your situation better. Jordan Peterson's "clean your room" strategy gets made fun of a lot but when you are faced with either 1) sitting around focusing on what makes you feel bad or 2) spending a few hours doing something physical that will leave you with a sense of accomplishment, will make your daily surroundings more pleasant and 3) can be stacked with other similar steps to start to make a larger difference, option 2 will help more. A run or a weight lifting session can do the same thing so sometimes the chore with more visible tangible results is better.

I tend to take a more philosophically stoic approach. This does not mean that you hide emotion or bottle it in or anything. Its about not focusing on what put you in the situation you are in or what situation you would rather be in, but accepting that "this is where I am right now" and shifting your thinking to "how can I make this better". As soon as a flip my mindset from "state oriented" or "how am I feeling" to "action oriented" or "what should I do" my mental state improves.

I often think we similarly get it backwards with alcoholics rather than "its beyond your control and surrender to a higher power" should we be saying "you are stronger than you think you are, youve got this"

Of course there is true trauma that people try to ignore and not deal with and a therapist can help guide them through this. But many therapists (especially female ones dealing with male clients) try to label everything as trauma and lead people to ruminate on things that they could have instead been fixing.

Interesting notes on the MDMA approach and I have heard lots of interesting things on it. I can say that psylocibin can for sure help change your mental outlook if the session is approached in the right way.

 

[CRJR45]

Glad you aren’t dead! I appreciate every post on this thread and thanks for sharing this. My dad passed out sitting in a tree stand a few years ago and nearly hung himself. He never even told my mom. This is a place to share things, no matter how cliche and how removed we are from each other it’s still a community here. How have things been lately health wise? Is your blood pressure in check?

Still waiting on biopsy results , but I'll be fine . I just shared my story because.. , well a couple reasons I guess . One was to vent without venting to a specific person . And two , well just to share . If you met me or knew me you'd think I had the perfect life , easy going , got all the girls growing up , no money troubles to speak of , pretty much did whatever I've wanted to achieve .
But I've dealt with depression from a early age , which led to a ton of trouble , seasonal depression was really hard , is still . But this getting old shit and losing my physical abilities is a kick in the nuts and just adds to the burden .
We all have our demons to fight . But when I went to AA I was shocked to find out that other people had the same problems I had , and their sharing helped me get perspective on my problems .
So I'm sharing my story just to share , take it for what it's worth I guess .

Good thread !