[Daniel_Plainview]

The time I was least happy was what I think of as my Slacks period.

I tried to feel good in fancy pants but they just didn't fit me as good as my old work jeans.

I have no idea what you are trying on but you need to check the fit.


Hang in there buddy.

I nominate Pops as the most centered & grounded member of PO.COM !

I don't know how Pops does it, but I'm taking notes!

[mos6507]

I feel that I'm very much alone with that knowledge and it feels like I'm carrying a burden on my shoulders.

Exactly. I think I'll be able to cope with collapse better when everyone around me knows we're going through a collapse (and by collapse I mean peakoil, not the recession/depression, that one people are aware of) rather than being in denial right up to the point where we're falling off the cliff.

I have been aggregating every mainstream global warming and peak oil news link for over a year, obssessively, and yet I am really afraid to share this with anyone because I don't want to hear them slough it off no matter how tall the body of evidence is. It's like I'm collecting this shrine of spiteful "I knew all along" for the moment when the people around me take the blinders off. That and hanging around here is really an unhealthy addiction.

[Heineken]

If I were as grounded as Pops is, I think I'd go crazy!

(I say that with kind intent, Pops.)

[vision-master]

I am having what I call a "strange time." A lengthy period when I don't feel like I'm quite me. When the people I know suddenly don't seem like the people I know---or, more bluntly, when I feel totally alone. When nothing seems to work quite right. When my body feels not quite sick, but not fully healthy either. When the whole world seems off-kilter.

Nothing is normal. Everything is strange.

I feel like a ship in a bad storm. The ship has rolled way over and is fighting to return to even keel.

I am struggling to get back to center. Perhaps I will get there. I think I will get there. I've had "strange times" before.

Do any of you relate to these feelings? Do you have "strange times"?

Thanks for sharing.

People are Strange

[threadbear]

Hi Heineken--The best route to go is to rule out any underlying physical causes. Both my brother and my cousin have had thyroid problems and both identified it, initially, as depression. My cousin went on meds, as did my brother. My brother went off meds when he realized he could control his symptoms by eliminating sugar from his diet. There seems to be an association between wonky blood sugar levels and thyroid.

My brother's case was so extreme, he could have slipped into a coma, had an astute doctor not picked up on it. Other than mental fogginess, sleepiness and depression/anxiety, he had none of the other physical symptoms, like weight gain, etc...

When you have these conditions it's really easy to write them off as purely emotional, as the mind becomes a veritable anxiety or depression seeking missile, seeking subjects, opportunities, targets to express it's hormonal condition.

[davep]

Heineken, I've been through phases similar to this. I think it's to do with a disassociation between reality and your brain. We've all spent so long here preparing for something, and suddenly this worldwide depression comes along and messes up how you see things. It's almost as if it is interfering with the true path of peak oil.

I've spent a couple of weeks recently in bed (ill-ish) when I should be at work. My family is in France while I'm meant to be working in Germany. It's a lonely existence.

What's worrying me more now is that my wife is showing genuine signs of depression living in the doomstead, with my half-finished projects lying around. E.g this weekend I destroyed half the chimney to put a new efficient wood stove in. I had to leave after summarily tidying up. But my poor wife is living in an old house with ongoing work. I need to get stronger and ensure she doesn't lose it, rather than allowing my own exestential angst to perpetuate the situation and end up divorcing.

It's not easy. Just try to stay focused. If that doesn't work, go for a holiday (I did this two weeks ago, and it really helped).

Edit: it was my first genuine (non-visiting relatives) holiday in twenty years.

[Heineken]

Hi Heineken--The best route to go is to rule out any underlying physical causes. Both my brother and my cousin have had thyroid problems and both identified it, initially, as depression. My cousin went on meds, as did my brother. My brother went off meds when he realized he could control his symptoms by eliminating sugar from his diet. There seems to be an association between wonky blood sugar levels and thyroid.

My brother's case was so extreme, he could have slipped into a coma, had an astute doctor not picked up on it. Other than mental fogginess, sleepiness and depression/anxiety, he had none of the other physical symptoms, like weight gain, etc...

When you have these conditions it's really easy to write them off as purely emotional, as the mind becomes a veritable anxiety or depression seeking missile, seeking subjects, opportunities, targets to express it's hormonal condition.

I'm unwilling to go the doctor route on this, Threadbear. I have no health insurance, that's the chief reason. Recently I had a small skin cancer removed from the back of my neck and had to shell out $1,100 for two pathological analyses and two simple excision procedures. I won't walk through a doctor's door unless my back is truly to the wall.

I doubt if I'm going to find an answer at the doctor's for something so complex and so nuanced, in any case. The help I get from you guys is worth more.

I'm very active and muscular; I don't think the problem is hormonal, but of course I could be wrong.

[canuckinczech]

It's not easy. Just try to stay focused. If that doesn't work, go for a holiday (I did this two weeks ago, and it really helped).

The wife and I, try going away for a week each year...has to be somewhere new. Europe is especially a good choice . The first few days are wasted spotting the walking dead. Inevitably, you get absorbed in the history , the cultures, and antiquities . A sense of humility takes over and awe, from where you are, there lay cultures in various states of growth and decay...and in the ruins there is genuine beauty.

I think perspective soothes the weak and strong equally.

[Heineken]

Heineken, I've been through phases similar to this. I think it's to do with a disassociation between reality and your brain. We've all spent so long here preparing for something, and suddenly this worldwide depression comes along and messes up how you see things. It's almost as if it is interfering with the true path of peak oil.

I've spent a couple of weeks recently in bed (ill-ish) when I should be at work. My family is in France while I'm meant to be working in Germany. It's a lonely existence.

What's worrying me more now is that my wife is showing genuine signs of depression living in the doomstead, with my half-finished projects lying around. E.g this weekend I destroyed half the chimney to put a new efficient wood stove in. I had to leave after summarily tidying up. But my poor wife is living in an old house with ongoing work. I need to get stronger and ensure she doesn't lose it, rather than allowing my own exestential angst to perpetuate the situation and end up divorcing.

It's not easy. Just try to stay focused. If that doesn't work, go for a holiday (I did this two weeks ago, and it really helped).

Edit: it was my first genuine (non-visiting relatives) holiday in twenty years.

I think world events could be playing a role in how I'm feeling, davep, even though I've experienced little or no direct impact from them so far.

I do have my tree farm to get away to 90 minutes south of here, with its small cabin and its remoteness.

I feel for you regarding the wife. Although I have no wife, I do know what it's like having responsibilities for (and complications from) other life-forms in my life.

Was thinking of buying a bow and teaching myself archery. Something new to shake things up a bit.

Hang in there too. Some things you just have to tough out until time heals them.

[oowolf]

Classic disassociative reaction due to awareness of rapidly approaching crisis. There are disclipines available to teach you to control your limbic system (Paleomammalian brain) such as Yoga, TM, etc. It will be vital to keep your cool while all the super-redundant others are losing theirs: panic is extremely contagious.

"It is perfectly true that only terror to the point of despair develops a man to his utmost." S. A. Kierkegaard

[vision-master]

Classic disassociative reaction due to awareness of rapidly approaching crisis. There are disclipines available to teach you to control your limbic system (Paleomammalian brain) such as Yoga, TM, etc. It will be vital to keep your cool while all the super-redundant others are losing theirs: panic is extremely contagious.

"It is perfectly true that only terror to the point of despair develops a man to his utmost." S. A. Kierkegaard

Operating on intuition will be the key. Do not over think things out!

[Heineken]

Classic disassociative reaction due to awareness of rapidly approaching crisis. There are disclipines available to teach you to control your limbic system (Paleomammalian brain) such as Yoga, TM, etc. It will be vital to keep your cool while all the super-redundant others are losing theirs: panic is extremely contagious.

"It is perfectly true that only terror to the point of despair develops a man to his utmost." S. A. Kierkegaard

I already practice yoga, although not enough of it lately.

I don't feel panic at all; if anything, the opposite. Some anxiety, though (a life-long problem).

Also, I'm less interested in survival, per se, than I was. I'm drawn more to letting go. I'm tired and I've had my life. From now on it's all re-runs.

I'm not really alluding to suicide. Just an abandonment of the fight. I'm ready to drift.

[Zel]

On the chemical side, have you tried flax seed oil and St. John's Wort? The flax seed oil seems to help balance emotions and St. John's Wort is a mood elevator. I use them both from time to time.

[Ferretlover]

I wonder how much of this "feeling" that many are experiencing is due to being, well, let's say blindsided by currents events.
NOT that most here didn't know that these events should and would occur, but that we thought peak oil would be the first publicly admitted force to cause them.

[vision-master]

On the chemical side, have you tried flax seed oil and St. John's Wort? The flax seed oil seems to help balance emotions and St. John's Wort is a mood elevator. I use them both from time to time.

Not unreasonable. The myelin sheath that surrounds and insulates our nerves cells are made of phospholipids that must be regularly replenished. The good oils (Omega 3, 6 i believe) are not found in modern diets. Eat those nuts. Fish oil is even better.

St. John's Wort is a natural Xanax?

Then there is always that magical green bottle from Amsterdam.

A little green prozac does the trick from time to time.

[Heineken]

Criminy, I've tried prozac and other antidepressants. I can't tolerate them at all. They make me feel as though I'm losing (what's left of) my mind. Even more dissociative than the condition being treated.

As for dietary supplements, I've tried many but not found much relief in them, for anything. Most unbiased studies support the ineffectiveness of most supplements.

[vision-master]

Criminy, I've tried prozac and other antidepressants. I can't tolerate them at all. They make me feel as though I'm losing (what's left of) my mind. Even more dissociative than the condition being treated.

As for dietary supplements, I've tried many but not found much relief in them, for anything. Most unbiased studies support the ineffectiveness of most supplements.

I love the terminology "antidepressant". They suck, they don't work, they numb your emotions and remove any joy one has left in life.

[galacticsurfer]

Try to balance your energies. Perhaps your chakras are misaligned with too much energy in one or the other. So Chakra work could be worthwhile. In a sense yoga, poetry, nature walks do this. Intellectual activity to the exclusion of "soul work" separates mind from body. Yoga is a sort of gland massage, regulating hormonal activity. Tai Chi also stimulates energy body.

Also planets are now in odd constellation. If you are unbalanced it is becasue the planetary energies are catching you unbalanced and exaggerating that. Saturn opposition Uranus.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Try to balance your energies. Perhaps your chakras are misaligned with too much energy in one or the other. So Chakra work could be worthwhile. In a sense yoga, poetry, nature walks do this. Intellectual activity to the exclusion of "soul work" separates mind from body. Yoga is a sort of gland massage, regulating hormonal activity. Tai Chi also stimulates energy body.

Along these same lines, I've found that listening to (and/or performing) music -- particularly classical music -- works wonders for balancing my emotional and intellectual moods.