What is wrong with me?

[ezajac2005]

I need as much help as possible.

To start lets say I am floundering in my adult life and have not yet, and fell as if I never will, acheive my potential.

I currently take 20mg Paxil daily and am addicted to caffiene and nicotene. I am also about 100lbs overweight.

I suffer from depression, anxiety and brief manic periods. These symptoms manifest differently on any given day.

I have taken Prozac and Wellbutrin in the past. The Wellbutrin seemed to trigger panic attacks.

I am 28 and from the ages of 19-25 abused maijuanna daily and had brief but intense periods of using cocaine, meth, ecstacy, nitrous oxide, opium, ketamine, embalming fluid(forget what the street name is), LSD, mescaline, "magic" mushrooms, heroin (in the exstacy pills, never injected) and God knows whatever else was in all this stuff.

I do not feel burnt out or as if my brain is fried. I have since then taken various intelligence tests and score in the low genius range.
I have noticed that I seem to be more intelligent than most people I encounter and rarely is that intelligence used.

I am in the midst of a fairly intense depression period and have had suicidal thoughts that were really the most sincere I have ever had. I really see no purpose in the lives we lead on this planet and have no religious base. I had several atypical religious experiences while on various hallucinagens. Before and after that I would say I am an atheist.

Honestly I think it is the state of the USA and humanity in general that is "off" as opposed to myself. However, I being entrenched in society I am not functioning as I should be.

WHY HAVE I NOT ACHEIVED MY POTENTIAL AND WHY DO I CONTINUE TO SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS DESPITE MY INHERENT ABILITY TO PERCEIVE AND PROCESS THE WORLD I AM IN?

PLEAS HELP ME!

Edward

 

[ezajac2005]

I need as much help as possible.

To start lets say I am floundering in my adult life and have not yet, and fell as if I never will, acheive my potential.

I currently take 20mg Paxil daily and am addicted to caffiene and nicotene. I am also about 100lbs overweight.

I suffer from depression, anxiety and brief manic periods. These symptoms manifest differently on any given day.

I have taken Prozac and Wellbutrin in the past. The Wellbutrin seemed to trigger panic attacks.

I am 28 and from the ages of 19-25 abused maijuanna daily and had brief but intense periods of using cocaine, meth, ecstacy, nitrous oxide, opium, ketamine, embalming fluid(forget what the street name is), LSD, mescaline, "magic" mushrooms, heroin (in the exstacy pills, never injected) and God knows whatever else was in all this stuff.

I do not feel burnt out or as if my brain is fried. I have since then taken various intelligence tests and score in the low genius range.
I have noticed that I seem to be more intelligent than most people I encounter and rarely is that intelligence used.

I am in the midst of a fairly intense depression period and have had suicidal thoughts that were really the most sincere I have ever had. I really see no purpose in the lives we lead on this planet and have no religious base. I had several atypical religious experiences while on various hallucinagens. Before and after that I would say I am an atheist.

Honestly I think it is the state of the USA and humanity in general that is "off" as opposed to myself. However, I being entrenched in society I am not functioning as I should be.

WHY HAVE I NOT ACHEIVED MY POTENTIAL AND WHY DO I CONTINUE TO SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS DESPITE MY INHERENT ABILITY TO PERCEIVE AND PROCESS THE WORLD I AM IN?

PLEAS HELP ME!

Edward

 

[A Crow Left of the Murder]

Can a depressed person helping a depressed person be compared to the blind leading the blind? Whatever the answer, I'll try anyway.

Your obviously a pretty smart guy. You couldn't have killed too many brain cells while doing all that shit, so count yourself lucky. At least you still have your intellect and ability to reason.

I too am atheist. Don't let anyone tell you that this is why your depressed though. Theists are just as capable of being depressed as atheists are, so there's no scientific grounds for this baseless claim. The only advantage I can see religion having on your life is the community support. You can find that elsewhere however.

Honestly I think it is the state of the USA and humanity in general that is "off" as opposed to myself. However, I being entrenched in society I am not functioning as I should be.

Do you find that everyone around you is a mindless, illogical, insensitive *****? I do sometimes. Humanity in general has always been messed up though. I'm pretty glad that I'm living today, as opposed to, say, during World War II or the Inquisitions. Physically, life is very easy for humans these days... mentally however, it keeps getting harder. There's so much pressure to conform, to succeed based on what society defines as success, to practically be somebody else. Your certainly not alone in this view. I agree with you 100%. It's the rest of the world. Not us.

 

[A Crow Left of the Murder]

Can a depressed person helping a depressed person be compared to the blind leading the blind? Whatever the answer, I'll try anyway.

Your obviously a pretty smart guy. You couldn't have killed too many brain cells while doing all that shit, so count yourself lucky. At least you still have your intellect and ability to reason.

I too am atheist. Don't let anyone tell you that this is why your depressed though. Theists are just as capable of being depressed as atheists are, so there's no scientific grounds for this baseless claim. The only advantage I can see religion having on your life is the community support. You can find that elsewhere however.

Honestly I think it is the state of the USA and humanity in general that is "off" as opposed to myself. However, I being entrenched in society I am not functioning as I should be.

Do you find that everyone around you is a mindless, illogical, insensitive *****? I do sometimes. Humanity in general has always been messed up though. I'm pretty glad that I'm living today, as opposed to, say, during World War II or the Inquisitions. Physically, life is very easy for humans these days... mentally however, it keeps getting harder. There's so much pressure to conform, to succeed based on what society defines as success, to practically be somebody else. Your certainly not alone in this view. I agree with you 100%. It's the rest of the world. Not us.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

One of the syndromes that goes along with depression is pessimistic thinking and distorted thinking. I think that colors the way both of you are looking at the world, to some extent.

Of course there is sadness and corruption and even evil in the world. There is also joy and altruism and a lot of simple goodness in the world. Pessimistic thinking and other forms of cognitive distortions permits you to see the negative but filters out the positive.

That said, it is important for each of us to first define our own goals and second to find our own definitions of success. One of the things the American psychologist Carl Rogers said is that to become what he called "the fully functioning person" required that we develop the capacity for "organismic evaluation", an awkward term but one which basically mean we develop the capacity to measure our own progress toward goals and our own measures of success, without the need to rely on feedback from other people to tell us whether we are doing well or poorly.

It's not really a question of "It's the rest of the world. Not us." -- it's more a question of does it work for you just because it works for me? If you are proud of an achievement and I am indifferent to it, does it make it any less an achievement for you?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

One of the syndromes that goes along with depression is pessimistic thinking and distorted thinking. I think that colors the way both of you are looking at the world, to some extent.

Of course there is sadness and corruption and even evil in the world. There is also joy and altruism and a lot of simple goodness in the world. Pessimistic thinking and other forms of cognitive distortions permits you to see the negative but filters out the positive.

That said, it is important for each of us to first define our own goals and second to find our own definitions of success. One of the things the American psychologist Carl Rogers said is that to become what he called "the fully functioning person" required that we develop the capacity for "organismic evaluation", an awkward term but one which basically mean we develop the capacity to measure our own progress toward goals and our own measures of success, without the need to rely on feedback from other people to tell us whether we are doing well or poorly.

It's not really a question of "It's the rest of the world. Not us." -- it's more a question of does it work for you just because it works for me? If you are proud of an achievement and I am indifferent to it, does it make it any less an achievement for you?

 

[Tyrsday]

ezajac2005, I see similarities with you & I.

Incase this is useful...

I used to be bothered by events from my past, so many bad or embarrassing memories and so few good ones. At one point my head was full of so many pathetic, irrelevant thoughts and memories that were totally bothering me. I did this exercise that I got out of some book, the exercise made me feel better.

Spend 20 minutes writing (or typing) out everything that is on your mind twice a day. Just get all down without thinking about punctuation or spelling.

It felt like I got it off my chest.

 

[Tyrsday]

ezajac2005, I see similarities with you & I.

Incase this is useful...

I used to be bothered by events from my past, so many bad or embarrassing memories and so few good ones. At one point my head was full of so many pathetic, irrelevant thoughts and memories that were totally bothering me. I did this exercise that I got out of some book, the exercise made me feel better.

Spend 20 minutes writing (or typing) out everything that is on your mind twice a day. Just get all down without thinking about punctuation or spelling.

It felt like I got it off my chest.