This is long, and annoying, and probably not worth your time. If you don't want to deal with that, just keep scrolling, it's okay.

​

My psychological disorder makes everything suck.

Allow me to explain.

I suffer from a complex combination of psychological conditions and symptoms that have garnered me diagnoses that range from Major Depressive Disorder all the way over to a personality disorder. I have symptoms of multiple mood disorders and stress disorders. I actually have a personality disorder (Other: Unspecified under DSM V) and possibly a developmental disorder. I'm a 29 year old infantry veteran that, because my brain decided it doesn't like reality, went from being an infantryman, a full time student, and a full time data analyst all at once, to being completely unable to work within the span of a year. At this point I can't even concentrate well for more than a couple hours a day.

But I've been at this for 6 years. I've made peace with most of that, and even with that peace, I am working hard to get better. I don't get upset anymore at the stuff I used to, like the fact that I'm always in pain, always tired, tend to be moody, freak out at stupid stuff. With that acceptance, I've also gained some control.

One of the symptoms I still have no control over are my flashbacks. Now, a relatively normal person would have flashbacks to trauma. I have flashbacks to when I looked like a doofus. 99% of these moments that I am forced by my mind to relive so vividly I can't breathe only exist in my mind anymore. No one else remembers them. They weren't really that bad. I know all this, but my brain refuses to acknowledge it.

My flashbacks have gotten to the point that I can usually tell when they're going to be triggered. They're not the randomly occurring flashbacks that many people get, mine are triggered, usually by a related memory. So almost anything I tried to do in my life becomes a trigger. Instead of enjoying things, they cause me to experience a flashback (or dissociate, if you want a technical term), resulting in an anxiety attack, a depressive spike, increased pain and decreased ability to function for a little while.

I used to really enjoy ventriloquists. Everyone knows Jeff Dunham (dot com), and I enjoyed his stuff, among a few other similarly talented comedians. Unfortunately, literally once, I tried to do something similar on a stage. Once. I practiced a lot before hand, but obviously not enough, because the host of the event felt the need to, as I was walking off stage, apologize saying "I was told his lips wouldn't move." That was in front of about 200 people. I can almost promise you that if any of them remember it, it's just a vague recollection, but my brain won't let it go. So I can't watch ventriloquists. I want to, because I \*should\* be able to enjoy it, but I can't, not without a lot of pain.

I used to really enjoy Steam Powered Giraffe. They're a mixture of mime and music, and they act as though they're steampunk automatons. Kinda like doing the robot, but a lot more skilled. I would practice along with them, because that's what fans do, and thought I was pretty good, because that's how stupid I am and was. I tried to integrate it into a job I once had at a haunted house attraction. Guess what? I looked like an idiot. Lasted all of two minutes before I shifted to a different character that actually matched my skill set. Can't watch Steam Powered Giraffe now.

This has happened to a lot of things I used to enjoy, and it's infuriating. You can ask people with debilitating psychological disorders, and they'll tell you that it takes your life away. You lose your ability to work, to socialize normally, any number of things. But for me, after years of therapy and treatment, I finally learned to accept all of that. My life is broken for the time being, and hopefully one day I'll get it fixed, but for now it's broken and I've come to be okay with that. But I'm supposed to be trying to keep myself in a positive mindset, to enjoy things so my depressive symptoms don't get worse, that's actually part of what my psychologist and psychiatrist want me to do. And I can't.

There's no help to be had for this, and I'm not asking for help, and I know that, like me, no one gives a fuck about my sob story anymore. I'm just here because I'm pissed that my brain is still finding ways to fuck me over. I remember recently talking about how glad I am that I never became a professional musician, a gourmet, or a film student, or any number of the other kinds of expertise I have seen rob people of their enjoyment of stuff. I know someone who literally can't enjoy music that is not classically creative, and they have perfect pitch, so they get migraines from tones that aren't in tune. I know other people that can't enjoy cheap food, because they learned the details to every dish, and unless the chef cooking it has just as much attention to detail as they do, it just bothers them. I have that problem a little bit with books, but not to the point that I can't enjoy a story, I just enjoy it while analyzing it.

I never expected to lose my enjoyment in things without at least gaining expertise. It's nowhere near any sort of version of "fair" that I lost my ability to enjoy most of the things that I used to love because of tiny mistakes I made years before the onset of my condition. A malfunction in my mind, an imbalance of brain chemistry, something so stupidly small that we can't even figure out where it is much less how to fix it makes everything suck. I guess I'll eventually come to accept this too, and then maybe my brain will pull out another trap to take away the things that make life bearable, but for now, it sucks, and I just wanted to get that off my chest.

TL;DR: my psychological disorder makes everything suck, and I felt saying so.

Have a good night everybody.