Random Fail: First World Problems

[Obev]

Work: you've got an interview for a promotion, it'll be next week!
Me: cool
Work: *nothing for 2 weeks*
Me: um... interview?
Work: oh yeah, next Wednesday. Details by the end of Friday.
Me: cool
Work: ok now it's Tuesday, here's the details!
Me: ...
Work: thx for interviewing we'll let you know by end of day.
Me: thx
Work: I know we said end of day how about Thursday?
Me: orz
Work: ok Friday we'll let you know by lunch
Me: finally gets the job an hour after the end of the day

Win in the end but Jesus what a failuretrain to get there.

[dasva]

Clearly they were just testing if you had enough patience

[tyven]

To people who vape during a movie: Please die. Nearly ruined GotG for me and definitely ruined it for my friend's wife.

wow how the fuck did that not start a riot. holy shit. Those big ass clouds

[Arkanna]

wow how the fuck did that not start a riot. holy shit. Those big ass clouds

Exactly what I was thinking. Can't see through them motherfuckers either

[Firedemon]

one of my best friends has been struggling with depression, anxiety, and serious vertigo for a few months now. she's been a complete bitch to everyone; understandable, but still more than I want to deal with. we finally had it out today, and in the course of two texts she managed to:


1) tell me all the things I did that pissed her off that she's been holding against me but I didn't know about it, and
2) tell me "I'm struggling with all this shit, it's not about you" even though she just told me all of the things I did wrong


I'm not mad at her, because I understand depression as well as anybody. it's not her fault. but motherfucker, I'm out

This tells me that you actually don't understand depression at all. My wife struggles with severe depression and anxiety so I understand how to live with it. You usually take out your own frustrations on the ones you love or are closest to, and even if they're lashing out you just fucking man up and take it and realize that none of it is personal. Fighting back or arguing with someone with that disease doesn't help fuck all, and by you being done with your best friend because of a disease makes me pretty sad. Like I don't know you, but this hits pretty close to home for me.

[dasva]

This tells me that you actually don't understand depression at all. My wife struggles with severe depression and anxiety so I understand how to live with it. You usually take out your own frustrations on the ones you love or are closest to, and even if they're lashing out you just fucking man up and take it and realize that none of it is personal. Fighting back or arguing with someone with that disease doesn't help fuck all, and by you being done with your best friend because of a disease makes me pretty sad. Like I don't know you, but this hits pretty close to home for me.

Everyone has a breaking point and everyone is also dealing with their own issues too. So saying just man up and take it is also kind of insensitive.

[zoobernut]

This tells me that you actually don't understand depression at all. My wife struggles with severe depression and anxiety so I understand how to live with it. You usually take out your own frustrations on the ones you love or are closest to, and even if they're lashing out you just fucking man up and take it and realize that none of it is personal. Fighting back or arguing with someone with that disease doesn't help fuck all, and by you being done with your best friend because of a disease makes me pretty sad. Like I don't know you, but this hits pretty close to home for me.

Yeah you could reword this for addiction, abuse, alcoholism, etc. It doesn't work that way. You need to be supportive of people but you don't need to turn yourself into an emotional or physical punching bag to do so. People can only be dumped on for so long before it has a real effect on them.

I agree with you that it is important to keep their lashing out in context but I don't think it is healthy or reasonable to "man up and take it". You can be supportive while also not accepting the lashing out.

[Kalmado]

Maybe FD is trying to communicate that "man up" is more so during the episode you just "take it" and later when things are calm and what not you revisit it. I've been diagnosed with PTSD, high anxiety coupled with mild depression, and I've created an additional problem becoming a functioning alcoholic because that's what I did to self medicate instead of reaching out to the correct venues. My wife puts up with a lot from me and god bless her if I'm having a fit she's so great at coping with it. But, if I say or do some stupid stuff she'll always talk to me about it later. Over the years it's helped me become much better at coping and instead of "taking it out" on her I mostly just attack what's making me have a fit.

[Tokitoki]

Fail for my wife:

She had to go to Little Rock (fail 1) for a meeting with a company they do consulting work for. She was flying back this morning and was supposed to be back to the apartment by 2pm or so. Plane wasn't able to land in NYC because it's fucking POURING so they landed in Baltimore (fail 2). Now she's got to get back to NYC so the company is paying for a train from Baltimore to NYC which is an additional 3 hours (fail 3) and from there has to make the trip up to our apartment at the top of the Bronx when the trains come in to Midtown (fail 4).

I don't want to deal with the grumpiness that's going to happen by the time she gets home probably some 6 hours later than she originally thought.

[Firedemon]

See, the people without depression have the ability to understand that those outbursts are pretty much uncontrollable. If you fight back you're adding nothing to it. It's a disease. Even if my wife is arguing about something stupid and meaningless, I just let it go because if I argue back, chances are she's going to have a breakdown and be fucked for the rest of the day. There's ways of dealing with shit.

I somewhat disagree with lumping depression with addiction. The drugs/alcohol are the root cause, but with depression it's the brain. You can only medicate that to a certain extent.

[synistar]

Exactly what I was thinking. Can't see through them motherfuckers either

Asshole was behind and to the right of me somewhere. I didn't smell it until the last hour of the movie. I'm surprised there wasn't a riot. Also this wasn't some cheap ass theater. This was an Arclight that gave us free tickets after Civil War because the sound was supposedly bad but I didn't even notice it.

[dasva]

Depression isn't some magical thing that can't get better or at least respond to it better and you can't talk thru things. But it wont if you just be their lashing out enabler and that in the end just makes them more dependent on the few they don't drive away... until they do drive those away too or something really big changes them

[Yuri-G]

This tells me that you actually don't understand depression at all. My wife struggles with severe depression and anxiety so I understand how to live with it. You usually take out your own frustrations on the ones you love or are closest to, and even if they're lashing out you just fucking man up and take it and realize that none of it is personal. Fighting back or arguing with someone with that disease doesn't help fuck all, and by you being done with your best friend because of a disease makes me pretty sad. Like I don't know you, but this hits pretty close to home for me.

Wrong. I have lived with clinical depression my entire life as well as an anxiety disorder/PTSD. I am under no obligation to encourage or even accept her behavior toward me when it is destructive, one-sided, and just plain cruel. I don't judge her for the behavior because of the disease, but neither will I just sit here and patiently accept the abuse until she feels better. I'm glad that works for you, I truly am - not being sarcastic here - but that is more than I can handle.


No. I'm not "manning up and taking it." We may talk down the line and be friends again but I am not pouring my emotional energy into a sieve, especially a sieve that bites and scratches and claws at me in the process.

[kuronosan]

I somewhat disagree with lumping depression with addiction. The drugs/alcohol are the root cause, but with depression it's the brain. You can only medicate that to a certain extent.

Um. The problem with addiction is also in the brain, friend-o.

I am under no obligation to encourage or even accept her behavior toward me when it is destructive, one-sided, and just plain cruel.
We may talk down the line and be friends again but I am not pouring my emotional energy into a sieve, especially a sieve that bites and scratches and claws at me in the process.

Abandoning a depressed friend is the epitome of assholism. While you have the right to recognize your own limits, and you should, wording it the way you just did implies that you care more about how other people affect you than how you affect other people. If you have the strength of mind to realize that you have a problem, then you should have the strength of mind to sympathize and recognize when someone else is doing something out of emotion.

We all deal with anxiety and - sometimes depression - in differing amounts. TRUE depression is very different from "sadness" and "anxiety".

Acting as though you have no responsibility to help others because you have your own problems is fucking stupid.

Did you not notice that you come to this topic repeatedly to vent about your frustrations and failures? How would you feel if 99% of the people on this board just said "Well, fuck you. We have problems and the way you're behaving isn't nice, even if you have PTSD and are depressed".

Yea. I don't think you'd be feeling good. You'd be feeling rejected, which is the worst thing you can do with somebody who's depressed. You don't have to take their shit, but acting like a colossal fuckbag because you lack the fortitude to deal with it maturely does not make you the better party.

[Kalmado]

Depression isn't some magical thing that can't get better or at least respond to it better and you can't talk thru things.

This is true. This of course depends on the severity of the person dealing with it and how far along they are in coping.

But it wont if you just be their lashing out enabler and that in the end just makes them more dependent on the few they don't drive away...

This is not true, mainly the bolded. Yes there are lines to not cross, but by letting the person go through their fit is usually more healthy than fighting them. That usually prolongs the fit and more times than not ramps up the problems.

until they do drive those away too or something really big changes them

Just the bolded, and just my opinion because of course it depends on the specific situation, if a person leaves someone that has depression (or other) issues because they basically don't want to deal with them anymore I say it's better for the person with depression. The person leaving is showing they don't care enough deep down to stay through the good and bad and the person with depression will need strong people to help them, whether it's a friend or spouse.

[zoobernut]

See, the people without depression have the ability to understand that those outbursts are pretty much uncontrollable. If you fight back you're adding nothing to it. It's a disease. Even if my wife is arguing about something stupid and meaningless, I just let it go because if I argue back, chances are she's going to have a breakdown and be fucked for the rest of the day. There's ways of dealing with shit.

I somewhat disagree with lumping depression with addiction. The drugs/alcohol are the root cause, but with depression it's the brain. You can only medicate that to a certain extent.

Addiction is the root cause drugs/alcohol are the symptom. Addiction is a disease and is something wrong with the brain. It may be a different part of the brain but that is pretty dismissive of addiction.

[Seha]

A borderline person tends to hurt the ones she loves. If you understand why as a depressed one acts that way, you should also grasp that one-upping the fight will not help and just make it worse.

While it's true that you're not a punchball and shouldn't just take the abuse, the key is how you decide to respond. If you get emotional, defensive, or things like that, and fight it out, it leads nowhere. The depressed person will claw harder and depending on the fortitude of the parties involved it might as well kill the relationship altogether.
You don't have to take the abuse, but you can respond with calm, show understanding and try to tone it down to bring things back to an acceptable level. When someone loses their grip they need their hands to be led somewhere they can hold onto.

It's a lot of work to deal with someone like that and that is what makes many people leave, but if this friendship is truly that important you have to struggle together even when it hurts. She likely doesn't mean it, it's just the worst defense mechanism at work.

I apologize for intruding, I understand that every relationship has its own dynamics that people from outside might not really grasp.

[Firedemon]

Deal with depression however you want. The main difference with addiction, keep in mind that there are rehabilitation programs.

[Yuri-G]

Oh boy. This opened up a much bigger can of worms than I thought it would. That's good. People don't talk about mental illness often enough in this world. This is a really great conversation and I'm loving it.

Abandoning a depressed friend is the epitome of assholism. While you have the right to recognize your own limits, and you should, wording it the way you just did implies that you care more about how other people affect you than how you affect other people. If you have the strength of mind to realize that you have a problem, then you should have the strength of mind to sympathize and recognize when someone else is doing something out of emotion.
We all deal with anxiety and - sometimes depression - in differing amounts. TRUE depression is very different from "sadness" and "anxiety".
Acting as though you have no responsibility to help others because you have your own problems is fucking stupid.
Did you not notice that you come to this topic repeatedly to vent about your frustrations and failures? How would you feel if 99% of the people on this board just said "Well, fuck you. We have problems and the way you're behaving isn't nice, even if you have PTSD and are depressed".
Yea. I don't think you'd be feeling good. You'd be feeling rejected, which is the worst thing you can do with somebody who's depressed. You don't have to take their shit, but acting like a colossal fuckbag because you lack the fortitude to deal with it maturely does not make you the better party

Did I abandon her, or did she abandon me? She ignored me for a month when she didn't feel like talking to me. She held grudges without telling me what I had done wrong. She lashed out at me when I tried to reach out and communicate in a healthy manner. She stonewalled me, she was passive-aggressive, and she treated me like shit. Yes, that's all because of the depression. I don't blame her. I have said that so many times. But that is behavior that is psychologically damaging to me and infringes upon my well-being in a manner that is more than I can handle. To remain her friend at this point would be to put myself in danger of slipping back into my own shit. I cannot afford that right now. I have been drowning in a sea of mental illness my entire life and for the first time - the first time, in decades! - my head is above the water, and she's trying to pull me back under so I can drown with her. Hell. No.
I care about her, but you seem to think that means I should accept her behavior no matter what. I understand her behavior, but she has crossed so many lines that I can no longer accept that behavior in my life. If that makes me a shitty person, then I'm a shitty person. I remain open to reconciliation at a later date, but at this time she is far too much of a negative influence in my life. Call me shitty, call me selfish, call me weak - I'm going to take care of myself here as best I can, and at the moment that means not dealing with this individual. Which isn't hard because like I said, she ignores me most of the time unless she wants to bitch at me anyway lol


Also I don't know what board you've been on but most of the time when I come here to bitch I do get that exact response - shut up and buck up and be responsible for your own shit. Those responses have helped me to shore up my shit and accept responsibility for my own behavior, and I encourage them, even as I also appreciate the people who are more patient and understanding.

A borderline person tends to hurt the ones she loves. If you understand why as a depressed one acts that way, you should also grasp that one-upping the fight will not help and just make it worse.
While it's true that you're not a punchball and shouldn't just take the abuse, the key is how you decide to respond. If you get emotional, defensive, or things like that, and fight it out, it leads nowhere. The depressed person will claw harder and depending on the fortitude of the parties involved it might as well kill the relationship altogether.
You don't have to take the abuse, but you can respond with calm, show understanding and try to tone it down to bring things back to an acceptable level. When someone loses their grip they need their hands to be led somewhere they can hold onto.
It's a lot of work to deal with someone like that and that is what makes many people leave, but if this friendship is truly that important you have to struggle together even when it hurts. She likely doesn't mean it, it's just the worst defense mechanism at work.
I apologize for intruding, I understand that every relationship has its own dynamics that people from outside might not really grasp.

Please feel free to intrude! You make a lot of good points. But what is missing here is that I have my own mental illness to struggle with. I am, as I said to Kuro, barely above water right now. Above water for the first time! But barely. I do not have the patience or the calm to handle someone who is holding shit against me without my knowledge and punishing me for behaviors I didn't even know were a problem. I do not have the emotional wherewithal to support both her and myself right now, and I'm going to choose myself.
Depression is not a license to treat people like shit. I am responsible for my actions no matter how bad my anxiety or my depression gets. I have lost friends because of it and I do not blame them. I am ultimately and always responsible for my own behavior. It's one thing to support someone who is depressed and not take it personally; it's another thing entirely to continually take on their problems and make them your own and enable them. That is the road she has been driving me down, and that is why I stepped the fuck back.

[Tokitoki]

Deal with depression however you want. The main difference with addiction, keep in mind that there are rehabilitation programs.

This is a silly statement. Depression is treatable as well with drugs and therapy. If you say that alcoholism is easier to deal with, then there isn't really anything else to discuss.

Are drugs the best way to handle things like this? No, but at least it's an avenue that can provide a base to try to become stable that alcoholics don't really have. My mom was an alcoholic, started drinking when I was about 12, so I've lived through everything that comes along with trying to help, deal with, and defend against an alcoholic.