The "let it out" thread.

This thread is for getting stuff out of your system and confessing things, and for giving others advice. You can put things in spoilers if you want. You can post anything you want here. The idea of this thread is to allow members to get to know each more intimately. Remember to be considerate and kind when replying to other people. I'll start.

I'm terrified of physical violence, and I probably couldn't bring myself to fight someone. This has lead to me being bullied before, and forced to ask the school I attend for help.

I got my fingers crossed for ya Wade. That's brave to say even on a forum. I was on the other end in high school. I'm comfortable with fighting and had a bunch in school. Even though I "picked on" the jocks I regret most of them.

Carry pepper spray Wade. I'm not sure what the laws regarding it are like in Ireland but in the States its legal to carry and if someone is violent towards you first its legal to use. A face full of fire sauce will make em think twice before pushing you around a second time.

How depressing of things are we allowed to discuss, as well as how intimate? Again I have a bit of a dark mind hidden behind this cheerful and silly exterior, but I don't want to worry people too much.

I'd say let it rip but my job is looking into dark stuff. Wrote a report on someone's death today. Inordinate shouldn't have pictures and death certificates aren't cool when the guy is eleven days younger than I am. Had a report Monday that combined five suicide attempts into one document because they're so frequent. Those aren't even the worst ones. That's just work. Not sure about Wade's intent though.

skarekrow13 wrote:I'd say let it rip but my job is looking into dark stuff. Wrote a report on someone's death today. Inordinate shouldn't have pictures and death certificates aren't cool when the guy is eleven days younger than I am. Had a report Monday that combined five suicide attempts into one document because they're so frequent. Those aren't even the worst ones. That's just work. Not sure about Wade's intent though.

What do you do exactly? If you don't mind me asking that is.

Well, a lesser thing of mine is recently I've just had issue with feeling attachment to, anything really. As some of you may know, recently my cousin died of an overdose, and I just didn't skip a beat on hearing this. Sure we weren't that close, but it just didn't phase me. This was a family member, as well months ago my Great Aunt died, and every holiday I would talk with her, and knew her very well. And again, I just didn't seem bothered. Others noticed this, and rather than think about her all I could think about was appearing sad so that others wouldn't feel I was being disrespectful. I don't know when this started, but when I think about other people they're just kind of there. It's hard to explain, but basically I just don't seem to care about anyone or anything around me any more.

Tolvo wrote:Well, a lesser thing of mine is recently I've just had issue with feeling attachment to, anything really. As some of you may know, recently my cousin died of an overdose, and I just didn't skip a beat on hearing this. Sure we weren't that close, but it just didn't phase me. This was a family member, as well months ago my Great Aunt died, and every holiday I would talk with her, and knew her very well. And again, I just didn't seem bothered. Others noticed this, and rather than think about her all I could think about was appearing sad so that others wouldn't feel I was being disrespectful. I don't know when this started, but when I think about other people they're just kind of there. It's hard to explain, but basically I just don't seem to care about anyone or anything around me any more.

Everyone deals with death in their own way. Just because your way isn't the same as the way of people around you, doesn't make it wrong, it's just yours. I'm a recovering addict myself, which unfortunately means I've experienced the deaths of quite a few people I cared about. I can say from experience that we all cope with it in different ways. Mine was increasingly blatant self destruction. It's just the way I am. Doesn't make us weird or wrong, just us.

I made great grades in elementary school. Straight A's almost constantly without having to try. As a result of this I got bullied (verbally and physically, but mostly verbally) alot from kids who didn't have it come so easy, the worst case being something along the lines of "He's so smart, he probably planned the 9/11 attacks." Yeah...that happened in 4th grade...anyway. I'd start hiding my tests as soon as I got them, I stopped talking to people and became pretty antisocial. I need a professional to back the rest of this up, but it's probably because of this that I lost alot of self-confidence during those years, stopped caring about my grades in middle/high school, never learned to study since I didn't care about my grades, and dropped out of college since I couldn't handle school life without my family to help me through it.

This is the first time I've ever actually said this to anyone outside of my family, and it actually feels kinda good

I wonder if it's more that I'm not even dealing with the death, just ignoring it or trying to block it out of my mind. Another issue of mine is I'm incredibly afraid and depressed by death. To the point where I've become suicidal just from driving by a Graveyard.

A recovering addict? I imagine that is still very rough on you, would you care to share about that and let it out?

I have no idea of how to say what I mean in my previous statement without sounding like an after school special, so that's the best I could muster up.

Hmm, that is concerning Tolvo, did this start after something happened, or did this come out of the blue? Another thing could be that you expected it? Traumatic experiences can be less so if you expected they were coming. Anyways, I don't want to pry too much without your consent.

Plastic, I'm an investigator for a not for profit that provides services to developmentally disabled adults. State regs mandate that a lot of stuff be looked into including abuse, deaths, criminal acts, and suicide attempts to name a few. Our agency doesn't have too many really serious ones but a couple a year at least to give you the heebie jeebies. My first after starting full time was the death of a guy I went to high school with.

Tolvo, I'd have to know more about your interactions with other people apart from death to gauge if there's any reason to be worried. I'm guessing you've been up front about your age so I'll let you know I wasn't very different than you at that age. I'd rather be closer to a friend than psychologist so I'll cut out the lame analysis garbage but unless you're a sociopath deliberately messing with us (which I doubt) you're good.

This thread makes me kinda happy in the way that we can support each other in the community, for what it's worth from other screen names.

It's a rather courageous thing to both create this thread and/or tell about your troubles here, hats off/condolences to you all.

Reaper, people assume its easy to be the one getting good grades and "smart" but its just another way to be labeled sometimes. And labels are rarely good things to define someone

@Reaperfan: Man I hate bullying, the impacts it makes on ones life is always so significant . Personally, I think that education (to an extent) is a great thing, and it can greatly help both career wise and in broadening ones perspectives. Mind you though, my opinion is heavily biased, so I don't know how much weight it carries :|. However, while I would love to see you give college another shot, I also want to say that my view on education doesn't mean that I look down on you for not having finished college, your awesome regardless

@Skare: Agreed

Reaper I actually had a very similar problem to you, but I managed to force myself back into college. It's very sad how much people can effect us, but people sometimes just don't realize how bad verbal abuse can be. I hope you at least are on your feet in some manner now, while it's harder without college you can still make your way in the world man. So I hope you are still pushing on.

Berkut I don't actually know, I can't really remember how I acted the last time someone died close to me. I probably acted like this back then, and just blocked out/repressed the memories.

Skare I guess I act on these forums just like I do with other people in real life, but it's sort of playing things up. If you've noticed I'm often overly silly and happy go lucky in my posts, as I am in real life, but it's all sort of an act so that other people don't get bothered by me. I noticed early in high school people don't like it when you mope about talking about how much you hate life, so I sort of created the Tolvo character to be the life of the party and someone that everyone loves.

Thanks Serious, I think we are all sharing these feelings.

Tolvo wrote:I wonder if it's more that I'm not even dealing with the death, just ignoring it or trying to block it out of my mind. Another issue of mine is I'm incredibly afraid and depressed by death. To the point where I've become suicidal just from driving by a Graveyard.

A recovering addict? I imagine that is still very rough on you, would you care to share about that and let it out?

I have no idea of how to say what I mean in my previous statement without sounding like an after school special, so that's the best I could muster up.

It's really not that uncommon at all. After my father passed it took me 3 months to have an emotional reaction. It was such an emotional shock to my system that, now in retrospect, I feel like my emotional reaction was numbness. Like subconsciously I felt like I needed to protect myself from it for awhile. Death can be a scarey thing. It forces you to accept your own mortality. When you're still so young sometimes it's hard to accept that we're not invincible, that bad things can't really happen to you, but they can, and sometimes do. IMO part of what you're experiencing is becoming an adult. It's not really something that stops happening. You just get better at it with more experience. Unfortunately part of that experience is grappling with the death's of people we care about. It's just part of being human. As long as you aren't hurting yourself, which is obviously something I have some experience with, than your coping mechanism is just fine.

I've been in recovery for long enough now, just a hair under 3 years, that I've pretty much come to terms with most of it. My biggest recurring issue is the way I treated other people when I was a junkie. There are a lot of people who never did anything but trust and care about me, that I did absolutely horrible things to. I robbed and stole from people. Lied constantly. Didn't care about anything but what could keep me high. I did some pretty bad things to people who didn't deserve it at all, and I have to live with it every day. I don't know that I'm a huge believer in the concept of karma, but part of my coping mechanism is going out of my way to try to be a good person now. I feel like I owe a kind of debt in that respect.

Thanks Plastic.

Also, I firmly believe that it doesn't matter what kind of person you were, what matters is who you are now man. Your past is your past, and you are trying to make up for your mistakes, but to those who have stuck with you I'm pretty sure they don't see you as that junkie, they see you as the good man you are right now, striving to outlive your past.

Phone's gotta be charged so be back in a bit but before I go,

I came to this forum because something like this can happen here. It's online but you have all made a family here. That doesn't happen a lot. Just remember that here is always special.....

For the most part I think you're right. I definitely did some things that are entirely unforgivable. I understand these people not wanting to forgive me. I also don't really feel like I need their forgiveness. It's more my perspective of myself that bothers me. And you are right. There isn't anything I can do to change what's happened. But I can work every day to make myself the man I'd like to be. I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of it. I'm back in college, getting straight A's for the first time in my life. As of last fall semester I actually became a scholarship student due to my good grades. All we can ever do is work at it. That's one of the first things you learn in recovery. Every day you don't take steps backwards you're taking steps forwards

I am deathly afraid of Global Warming, to the extent where at times I feel that it dosen't matter what I do, because I'll be dead pretty soon anyways. Although, in reality I probably won't be affected by Global Warming, and that many countries are doing all they can to adapt and fight, I seem to have a hard time getting that through my stupid head. It's gotten so bad, that I will wake up feeling pretty good, and then get crushed by a wave of deppression. "You woke up today," I think, "but you'll be dead pretty soon, so why bother?" Not that I'm trying to scare you guys or anything, but seriously, somtimes it's pretty hard to cope.

Btw, I have never told anyone in real life abot this.

Well Skare, most always consider the real world and the internet a bit too separate, and forget there are of course faces behind these avatars and names. It is pretty heart warming.

And that's great to hear Plastic, I hope you can keep that up and push on forwards with your education. Pretty great advice as well.

Imar I'm actually a bit worried about it as well, but more so for my children(If I ever have any), and Grandchildren(Same), if it gets to a bad point we probably won't live to see it, which is a scary thought on my end. But still, I like to do everything I can to try and fight it, never get up. Even doing a little is still doing something.

Yeah I don't think that's an unrealistic concern either. We've had the nuttiest weather I've ever experienced for the last year. It was uncharacteristically hot all summer, it snowed maybe twice all winter in a place where we usually have a good foot of snow on the ground all season, and now its 70 degrees again in April. None of that makes sense for where I live.

PlasticandRage wrote:Yeah I don't think that's an unrealistic concern either. We've had the nuttiest weather I've ever experienced for the last year. It was uncharacteristically hot all summer, it snowed maybe twice all winter in a place where we usually have a good foot of snow on the ground all season, and now its 70 degrees again in April. None of that makes sense for where I live.

Although, to be fair, this winter In New York (because I live there too) was warm because of the jetstream, and not much because of Global Warming. And also, as aforementioned, we of this generation have little chance of being affected for the most part. Don't get too hung up on it, like I am.

Coward die many deaths, but bravemen die but once. Somthing I try to tell myself.

@Imar Fears don't have to be logical. That's what makes them so hard to deal with. You cant beat illogical things with logic. You have to overcome it emotionally to conquer it. Another quote - The only difference between a brave man and a coward is the direction that they walk.