I am starting this thread because we need talking about mental illness as a thing and not not a thing. I tried to connect with the Suicide Prevention Day stuff, but it didn’t get me anywhere. I tried to find anything about anxiety and depression in the forum, but there were only a few loose crumbs of genuine discord (not the Discord that is a cute name for a link that I am always locked out of). On the topic of discord or bad news or even trolling, it all exists for a reason. Bad news travels fast not because of a few flawed individuals, but because being risk averse is a real part of the human condition.
COMMENTS ARE USUALLY REACTIONS NOT REASONS
It is only natural for comments to be negative. Text itself lacks tone making the natural default for people that the words are somehow a complaint. Now that you know this you no longer have an excuse to think the world is bad. It’s hard and not always fair, but we evolved to be the way we are, all of US. This means that life is real work and reason a conscious choice that requires real effort.
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TEXT IS TONELESS
What are you doing? V “I wonder what that puddytat is up to now?”
EVEn WITH ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
A flawed coin can be valuable. Being a flawed human being means the chance to learn some valuable lessons. Better than skill points it’s like learning how to feel the ship not just click some buttons.
If being flawed somehow slows us down this is not such a bad thing, especially in a society that is so over stimulated itself. Look at the physical problems Americans suffer from. Look at how Americans die, it’s not terrorism or any other kind of violent death, it’s heart disease and diabetes. My depression did not stop me from being a soldier and a military leader, it did not stop me from being in Germany when the Berlin Wall finally came down. Ya, it was me I did it. J But not like the Angel wall I accidentally targeted, ooops. It is the self imposed physical diseases and ignorance that plague our country like nothing else. And, there is a reason.
I just heard (September, 2021) the President made the vaccine mandatory. With too many American leaders seeming to support those irresponsible enough to refuse to protect themselves and others in their community somebody had to make the call. Personally I feel forcing someone to put something in them they don’t want in them (sounds like my last date : ) is wrong. But, when my neighbors not only make that personal choice but brag about it as if hurting others is their right it’s easy to see how complex our society is and how complex the human condition itself is. I do not like mind altering medications, but I finally gave in to a pill that I can take as needed. And, it does help. More than drugs, caring people help even more. This pill only makes me feel better, it does not solve my problems, for that I have to face the truth, the objective truth. In the meantime running, walking, cycling; these things also help.
There is nothing quite like being told you have a problem that is in remission.
WTF doc! You mean I am not cured. The human condition itself cannot be cured.
How many sci-fi stories do we have to see or read before we all realize this. So what do we do? We embrace our condition, be it that of a ‘normal’ healthy human condition or someone a bit more flawed. My sentiment on “Equilibrium,” “The Giver,” “Metropolis” and all those stories that are my passion follows. The perfection of ALL our imperfections it that we, humanity, will always be employed. Jobs come and go as is their nature, but there will always be good work that needs doing. Our own President suffers from a speech impediment, no joke. He is there doing his duty (shut up Chandler) despite his flaws.
One thing about the gaming community that is often neglected is that so many of us are motivated by service and not greed or violence which we often pretend. Being flawed; physically, mentally, emotionally or even socially; maybe that gives us an edge over those who can take life more for granted. Believe me I don’t wish illness of any kind on any body. I have had to start my own personal Project Lemonade because of all the fear, anger and hate; even if it is from only a few million people in the world; I need to act, to be part of the billions out there. Service is my motive and I need to be allowed to serve and to act, not to turn a frown upside down, but to bring real joy and justice into the world despite what distractions I myself may suffer from.
How did I survive to get to this point. Hundreds and hundred of pushups would be an answer the Army might give, but it was also a lot of time to think and to write. I write every day. I wrote some of my best stuff when I was the most depressed. Know thyself is a powerful idea indeed. Knowledge and experience, some of which take a long life to attain, but it seems worth it now. I have never felt this way before so much better than I thought I could ever be. It’s not like getting high. It’s more like seeing more clearly, but only after figuring some things out for myself. The more I stick to my Training Schedule the better I feel and the stronger I get for real.
Sergeant Severe comes clean:
ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
FEELINGS
Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are.
Instead of judging others as a pre-emptive strike before they can judge you what if instead of expressing your thoughts, that are really feelings of your own, you understood the emotions being expressed first; theirs and yours. How do you feel about others respecting your feelings?
Everyone has an opinion and because of communications technology today we all get more than we would otherwise need, want or desire of other peoples words. A little help; if you are blaming someone else for your problems it is a way to escape responsibility for a while, but delusional thinking does not solve the problems.
What if; we are not rational beings with feelings but rather irrational creatures with the gift of reason. A gift we can put in a closet. A game; the next time you are commenting online count the number of comments, including your own, that are negative feelings. Human beings are a risk averse species. It is only natural that for us bad news travels fast. What if the real news about the world was actually very positive? Google Brain Games for more fun.
THE MORNING AFTER 9/11, 2021
After, I spent this twentieth anniversary of this terrible event watching a loved one watch TV all day, while I hung out in the background flying my EVE ships. They began to gush not with meaningless thoughts and emotions, but with ignorant and uneducated expressions of anxiety.
EVE AND SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY
After 9/11, 2021, I kinda wanna take on NPC’s like they are the Taliban. What is the flip side of suicide? Homicide. Learned that on the Ward. Also, I just watched American Horror Story and am feeling very severe. Full disclosure, these feelings were triggered to the surface by a white truck that tried to run me off the road in Cleburne County, Arkansas. You know who you are and I saw what you did.
EVE is my first MMO, but I come as a game player who has retired from gunrunning, I don’t even carry a gun IRL or in my ships (don’t tell anybody). Career agents have shown me how to kill online, and deal damage. This new American Horror Story for 2021 has this idea that a persons is either a overachieving narcissistic blood sucker or an underachieving angry blood sucker. A chemist working on a military project is doing research on the effects her little black pill has on the occipital lobe. It helps people see who they really are and the options are bifurcated. Either you see yourself as gifted and your gifts grow or you finally admit to yourself your are delusional. Real life is not bifurcated.
“But I being poor have only my dreams
I’ve spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly cause you tread on my dreams.”
~ W.B. Yeats
from the Movie “Equilibrium” with Christian Bale
If you are into depression the Modernist Poets are the bomb.
MY OCCIPITAL LOBE
The (false) idea in this installment of AHS is to remove all thought to make a soldier more lethal. As a professional soldier IRL I resent these implications. I get it horror and killing in a game or a story for fun and maybe to exercise a few personal demons in a society that frowns on death and violence officially. IRL the Army, and the Navy and the rest, can be summed up in a book by a Navy SEAL called “THE HEART AND THE FIST: The Education Of A Humanitarian And The Making Of A Navy SEAL;” a book about “what’s worth doing and how to get it done.” If you have anxiety, depression or post traumatic stress, time spent doing the right kind of reading and keeping a daily journal is an excellent way to exercise your demons.
The author of this book is not a big fan of getting high and/or video games. Options; I can grow up a little and accept that power and authority can be delegated but responsibility cannot; another real life lesson from a professional career not a Career Agent.
Life is not a game and EVE is a lot of fun for me. It is a true passion for me and these are my people, fellow humans who also struggle with social skills.
I say support the troops, but I agree with former President Eisenhower that we need to keep a close eye on the military industrial complex. Eisenhower gave us our wonderful Interstate Highway system, kinda the Stargates of America. EVE is a wonderful place to test some real world ideas or at least express ones self.
One good reason this diatribe of mine is so long; the sentimental and the cynical will tend to be hit and run. My goal is to be more thoughtful and that can take some time and patience.
It’s work on my part, but it also an exercising of my own demons and the hope I will help someone else. Anxiety and depression is not a game and neither is living in modern so called civilization. Billions are living in faith, hope and the giving of themselves; especially as we cooperate our way through this still quite deadly pandemic. The millions who live in fear, anger and hate have their own reasons for doing so.
I do not judge, I do not call names. I just write, do my good work as best I can and look forward to flying my ships rather than getting distracted by the drama of my family and the world, whom I love. They are not really so bad.
Commenting online is not what most healthy people do. They get a life, take on real responsibilities. I am here in Arkansas taking care of family with it’s own stories. Can’t wait to get back to the coast and my friends there.
But, I still cannot look at an NPC right now glowing red and not see the Taliban; not just as something evil, but something to take my frustrations out on. Domestic terrorism, IRL, already working on that one, humanely.
Comments do tend to be complaints not comments and rarely are they compliments. Comments are almost always short. Passion exists in short bursts, like a PVP attack; while reason takes a lot more time and effort, conscious effort like learning how to survive in EVE. My point, it’s not just you, it is a perfectly normal part of the human condition.
