So sorry to hear things are so tough, BF. I love your contributions to these boards.
Much love to Huia too, here’s to lighter days.
And love and prayers to all who struggle. Pesky black slugs.
Sorry to be so late to this thread, and I have neither time to energy to read it all, but just want to say: If this public thread is enough for you, great. However if you want to post more privately, do please PM me and apply to join Waving not Drowning. We lost a lot of dormant members in the board move, so we have plenty of room for more! Conditions for joining:
You have to be a Shipmate with at least 100 posts (we can count posts on the old boards as well as the new).
You have to have a mental health condition of your own - no need for a doctor's cert or anything, just tell me in your PM what you are suffering from. Needn't be depression, could be bipolar or PTSD or schizophrenia or anything really, we take all comers. Just don't take people 'joining to help a friend'.
A Waving host will check your last 50 posts - on the old boards if you don't have enough on the new yet. Just to make sure you're keeping to Ship rules - we very rarely refuse anyone, in fact I can only think of one case in about a decade.
We are a very caring little community and would love to welcome you in our midst.
What are people's thoughts on mental health days? I really feel like I need one tomorrow, with the black slug climbing its way over me.
My manager is such a drain. And so hard to deal with. I can't face her. I know it's only Monday but one day was enough. Add to this a general shitty feeling and I am pondering. Is it wrong?
Take it, rather a mental health day today than several weeks off later. Seriously if you are like me and thinking of a mental health day then you are probably in no fit state to perform adequately at work.
Ian if you are entitled to sick leave then you can take that for mental health reasons. At my workplace in Victoria, we can take three single days a year, no questions asked. Beyond that, a Doctor's Certificate or Stat Dec is required.
The foggy weather has been getting to me, but I find if I wrap up warmly and go out then the mood lifts. Yesterday was the vet, today is the pharmacy - is there no end to this mad, giddy whirl of pleasure-seeking?
Strange pleasures, Huia, strange pleasures. I am glad you can get out and about to your profit.
There was a thick fog here before 2:00 am and while most of it has lifted, it is still hanging around at 10;30. The cold clamminess of it has brought out aches and pains.
{Loth}. May your physical fog lift, and may our mental fogs do the same.
Thank you all. Saw the doctor today which is always a good experience. He never rushes me out (so I feel a bit guilty about those waiting...) and listened to my current black slug issues and gave advice. Very lucky to have him.
Good! Try not to be concerned about those waiting (presumably, your excellent doctor doesn't rush them, either!).
BTW, it's interesting to see how many Shipmates have taken to the concept of a Black Slug, rather than a Black Dog, to describe depression (yes, thank you, Mr. Churchill, but it was Boogie, IIRC, who earlier pointed out that black dogs are very often friendly and companionable - not to say useful - creatures).
I generally associate a black dog with the pictures of Boogie's beautiful labradors (some years ago we came () this close to getting a black lab puppy ourselves) but the Black Dog is an apt description to me in that depression seems able to launch itself upon me almost before I've realised it's been prowling so near. Black Slug is also appropriate in the way it hangs around and slimily, horribly and relentlessly advances.
For me, rather than it being a black slug or a black dog, it's a thankfully rare black fog that rises insidiously, swirls and envelopes. Tends to be its b*st*rd cousin anxiety that wallops me one.
Nenya, I think a Black Beast is a good description. Not using the word dog which often to me suggests a pet. Some years ago I was looking up some links in preparation fpr writing something fpr a competition Beyond Blue was holding down here. The organisation dealing mainly with depression. I found a great deal of old writing , some obviously folk stories but based on something real at one time. All about a nasty black beast which appeared from time to time in wilder parts of the country, amid fog and rain and which prowled around looking for something to attack unprovoked. Actually much more than nasty. Sinister would be a better word. It was all rather chilling. I never did do the writing, but I remember the tales which made me shudder .
Mine is only a puppy in comparison to many here but I still know when it lurks with evil intentions like the beast in the tales from long ago
The black slime and miasma from an ep of Star Trek: TNG? People on a planet managed to remove all their negative thoughts, etc., and it became this...thing.
GK - I was thinking of an earlier Star Trek episode, where an apparent black liquid is, in fact, a sentient (and very hostile) being. IIRC, the writer was Robert Bloch.
I have been thinking about theHound of the Baskervilles. Possibly because it is well known and has been around for ages, I did not find that scary. Some of the stories I read when researching were eerily frightening, although now I have forgotten a lot of the detail in them.
I just need to record here how much my black slug is animated by thoughts of what I am not doing. Almost entirely, in fact. I am not making my life full and fruitful, and I hate that. All I can do at the moment is curl up in a ball. Gah.
GK - I was thinking of an earlier Star Trek episode, where an apparent black liquid is, in fact, a sentient (and very hostile) being. IIRC, the writer was Robert Bloch.
{NOTE: There's a disturbing pic of the creature near the top.}
And that takes us to Dementors - which are a metaphor for JK Rowling's own clinical depression.
The passage that really gets me is the one in which the Dementors are let loose on Dudley (I think - it's a long time since I read them, and I've never seen the films). Reminds me so much of my walk to school, and the fear of (and reality of) bullying during that journey which is the origin of so many of my troubles.
GK, thanks for the link to the Star Trek episode. That wasn't the one I was thinking of - IIRC it came in the original series with Captain Kirk et al. Again, IIRC, the idea of a hideous black liquid entity may have come from Clark Ashton Smith's 1931 story The Tale of Satampra Zeiros.
Whatever, it all goes to show that even being possessed by a Black Beast can't stifle creativity - indeed, a BB might even enhance it.
The slug is in abeyance. Today I ate the most glorious muffin with mixed fruit and dark chocolate chips. It lifted my mood amazingly. And 6 hours or so later it's still good.
I haven't eaten anything as rich for at least 6 years or so, but it was wonderful and well worth it, even if I wait another 6 years for the next.
BF, I must admit I was gobsmacked, I never really expected it to have more that a passing effect.
It hasn't come back today - mind you there was a strange light in the sky and no precipitation after 11 a.m, so that helped too. I even (drumroll) got some washing dry.
Half an hour's brisk walking in the sun to buy fish for tea was another good move.
Last night I got an email from my brother in the US. He had just got back from a conference he goes to every year. Because of the timing I realised it was the Anniversary of Mum's death (he had been about to go when I left a message on his voicemail all those years ago). Suddenly it all clicked into place. Black slugs thrive at such times.
It is funny how our subconsciousness remembers anniversaries our conscious mind does not recall. I have one like that around May which probably explains why last month seemed so hard.
Yes, August is a Bad Time for me, on account of a number of Horrible Things happening to me (or to those I loved and valued) during that month (in various different years, that is).
BTW, my advocacy of GIN was tongue-in-cheek, and probably rather silly.
It is funny how our subconsciousness remembers anniversaries our conscious mind does not recall. I have one like that around May which probably explains why last month seemed so hard.
Yes, March is that month for me. Several times i have been caught out by subconscious but now I am more aware as I begin to feel down in March.
February would be that month for me. It used to be the opposite: five of my family (including me) had birthdays, but now it's marked by deaths: my brother-in-law (in 2009) and my dad and a favourite cousin (this year) all died in February.
I don't have a Black Beastie, but my usual immunity to feeling low in February may become a bit weakened.
Comments
Much love to Huia too, here’s to lighter days.
And love and prayers to all who struggle. Pesky black slugs.
We are a very caring little community and would love to welcome you in our midst.
My manager is such a drain. And so hard to deal with. I can't face her. I know it's only Monday but one day was enough. Add to this a general shitty feeling and I am pondering. Is it wrong?
IJ
A colleague sent me a puffin cam to keep me amused: did the trick. Posted it in heaven.
I'm very pleased you're back at work
(I wonder if Puffins like eating Black Slugs?)
IJ
The foggy weather has been getting to me, but I find if I wrap up warmly and go out then the mood lifts. Yesterday was the vet, today is the pharmacy - is there no end to this mad, giddy whirl of pleasure-seeking?
There was a thick fog here before 2:00 am and while most of it has lifted, it is still hanging around at 10;30. The cold clamminess of it has brought out aches and pains.
Thank you all. Saw the doctor today which is always a good experience. He never rushes me out (so I feel a bit guilty about those waiting...) and listened to my current black slug issues and gave advice. Very lucky to have him.
BTW, it's interesting to see how many Shipmates have taken to the concept of a Black Slug, rather than a Black Dog, to describe depression (yes, thank you, Mr. Churchill, but it was Boogie, IIRC, who earlier pointed out that black dogs are very often friendly and companionable - not to say useful - creatures).
IJ
Alas, the Black Wossname takes various forms, but perhaps seeing it as some sort of recognisable entity enables us to deal with it better? Dunno....
IJ
IJ
I generally associate a black dog with the pictures of Boogie's beautiful labradors (some years ago we came () this close to getting a black lab puppy ourselves) but the Black Dog is an apt description to me in that depression seems able to launch itself upon me almost before I've realised it's been prowling so near. Black Slug is also appropriate in the way it hangs around and slimily, horribly and relentlessly advances.
It's a Black Beast of some sort, I think.
Definitely black, though.
IJ
Mine is only a puppy in comparison to many here but I still know when it lurks with evil intentions like the beast in the tales from long ago
The black slime and miasma from an ep of Star Trek: TNG? People on a planet managed to remove all their negative thoughts, etc., and it became this...thing.
GK - I was thinking of an earlier Star Trek episode, where an apparent black liquid is, in fact, a sentient (and very hostile) being. IIRC, the writer was Robert Bloch.
IJ
I didn't know that, but it rings true because I found them to be amongst the most frightening entities I've ever encountered.
BF--
{NOTE: There's a disturbing pic of the creature near the top.}
We may be thinking of the same episode: "Skin Of Evil" (Memory-Alpha). It's the last one with Tasha.
The passage that really gets me is the one in which the Dementors are let loose on Dudley (I think - it's a long time since I read them, and I've never seen the films). Reminds me so much of my walk to school, and the fear of (and reality of) bullying during that journey which is the origin of so many of my troubles.
{{ThunderBunk}}
{{for all}}
(prolonging tangent slightly)
GK, thanks for the link to the Star Trek episode. That wasn't the one I was thinking of - IIRC it came in the original series with Captain Kirk et al. Again, IIRC, the idea of a hideous black liquid entity may have come from Clark Ashton Smith's 1931 story The Tale of Satampra Zeiros.
Whatever, it all goes to show that even being possessed by a Black Beast can't stifle creativity - indeed, a BB might even enhance it.
IJ
I haven't eaten anything as rich for at least 6 years or so, but it was wonderful and well worth it, even if I wait another 6 years for the next.
Seriously, though, it's amazing how something as simple as a tasty bite to eat can really lift the mood, as you say.
Hope the Slug stays away, too...
IJ
It hasn't come back today - mind you there was a strange light in the sky and no precipitation after 11 a.m, so that helped too. I even (drumroll) got some washing dry.
Half an hour's brisk walking in the sun to buy fish for tea was another good move.
IJ
Hope everyone's slugs, dogs, beasts, are well under control.
Yes, indeed you do. I speak whereof I know...
Of course, it doesn't have to be MUFFIN. Other palliatives include CAKE, CHEESE, SOUP, and (in moderate quantities) GIN.
IJ
Last night I got an email from my brother in the US. He had just got back from a conference he goes to every year. Because of the timing I realised it was the Anniversary of Mum's death (he had been about to go when I left a message on his voicemail all those years ago). Suddenly it all clicked into place. Black slugs thrive at such times.
BTW, my advocacy of GIN was tongue-in-cheek, and probably rather silly.
IJ
Yes, March is that month for me. Several times i have been caught out by subconscious but now I am more aware as I begin to feel down in March.
I don't have a Black Beastie, but my usual immunity to feeling low in February may become a bit weakened.