Conditions weren't ideal shall we say
Poor weather, poorly machine, cramped space. I think we only left it as was in accordance with the fact it was temporary
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Paul, the mental health thing is a big complex space, like space itself. There's so many unknowns, so many combinations.
To put my view on it from the time I've known you and making assumptions on your past
Let's take university for example, I doubt you felt this way back then. Where you were surrounded by those who used complex logical thinking and "big words" to explain their thought processes. I'm always feeling like I have to dumb things down for people, it's the curse of knowledge. I like to pre-plan, organise, detail it out. Doesn't mean you're autistic, it means you're precise and your peers merely dont understand because they don't know. I feel comfortable talking to someone like yourself, you understand my attention to detail, the use of vocabulary in descriptives just mine and your natural way of doing things
For you it's only now after a long bout with putting off the inevitable that you're starting to pick at even the minute detail. Depression is an evil monster but not unbeatable
Don't change who are and don't pin so much hope on some mental health assessor giving you a categoric label. It doesn't help. I've been there and whilst I admire your courage in speaking openly about it here I won't share my story here, I'll share with you sometime. Its a voice of hardy experience believe me, and I'm far from recovery unfortunately I'm going backwards. So believe me when I tell you, a professional may be able to label it for you but it doesn't change anything, at least for me it didn't just gave me words to google. There's a huge difference between a mental illness and a mental injury. An illness is diagnosable, treatable. The latter is me. The causes are known, there's no treatment, no cure only learning to live with it and slight negativity can completely change my recovery path
What helped me was working out what caused me to be down in the first place.
For you I think this is your business investments/jobs. Putting in a lot of effort, financially & emotionally, to get little to no reward. That beats a person down. And to do it multiple times, well I reckon that was tge beginning of your downhill slope.
The relationship side of it hasn't helped either its another effort input for no output. It's frustrating and leads you to believe you're doing something wrong. When you're not.
I'd say I'm on the right lines at least?
You need reward, those engine mount stiffeners, perfect start. That's your time and effort actually reaping what's due. It may not be the dream job but as I say its a beginning. We all start small. I began my journey 5 years ago and despite a huge change 2 years ago and going solo, I'm on my way up business wise. Which will eventually affect me mentally if it cracks my stubborn skull
Take those opportunities Paul, please do. I guarantee I'm not the only person sat here wishing we could dig you out.
I've ignored friends help and advice before as I saw as it as nagging and it became a nuisance to me. And I've done it a lot. Now looking back I appreciate that. That help put my financial train back on its track. I'm the closest to being debt free I've ever been in the last 5 years. Experience trumps opinion. Every time
Apologies for the long post but I believe in you Paul even if at the minute you don't. I've seen people like yourself go downhill unnecessarily, I'm not too dissimilar from you. Except I didn't listen, unfortunately anger precedes logic because I didn't want to accept it
I'll throw opportunities at you. I'll nag the crap out of you to sort that portfolio. I'll throw work at you consistently. I'll irritate you to crap and you'll hate me for it but I'll see it you succeed
ur like a real Ben Kenobi or yoda. such wise words that makes sense and makes me feel better, thanks
indeed I was never like this in school/college/uni cos there was a certain pre-determined path to follow through my education and had security of living at home and was young and focused on work/grades and social stuff like clubbing & women etc weren't of importance, priority or interest (not that I had a chance anyway).
difference nowadays is that I've completed my education path, still have an uncertain career path, an uncertain home coming up, have been stubborn in hanging onto 3 local risky startup companies that's repeatedly crashed & burned and stung me, leaving a very bad taste and loss of trust in myself & others, I'm almost middle aged while similar groups are already dating few times/married/kids.
basically alot of uncertainty = anxiety, danger, the rug underneath has been tugged afew times, so brain tries to protect by emergency brakes.
cos my mind works more visually & imaginatively, it's advantage is gr8 for systematic attention to detail, simulating/planning/predicting scenarios, mechanisms, systems etc but at the other scale when it's not used for work, it's a disadvantage always trying to sim/plan/predict my own life, panics over the results as anxiety and tries to self preserve.
yes I may not be high on autistic scale (everyone is autistic but on different scales), perhaps its just I'm a stubborn introvert, the past failures & mistakes build up "general anxiety" & frustration and the brain tries to pick at my every fault putting blame on some condition to explain the results and regret turns to depression?
aye letting an expert put a label on me won't help.
agree bout the investing high effort/input into work & relations but lack of return/reward beating me down down down.
using my usual roadtrip metaphor: seems I've just took a wrong turn through some rough dodgy neighbourhood where I've been deceived/robbed so I veered off-course in hopes of finding that luvely safe motorway to paradise. but now that I'm lost & broken down, blaming my tools/map/car, the local garage only works once a week and only now that I'm considering asking for directions.
think once I have the right guide, persuade myself to carry on driving through the unknown roads and eventually go back on that rosey motorway with similar ppl, life will be better.
gawd this reminds me of my first solo roadtrips
always wished there was a tomtom / google map satnav to life rather than word of mouth, whispers and the old atlas maps.
thanks to you & everyone for being in my life, believing in me and helping me up after falling
regards to the sill repair, aye twas a quick fix in not ideal cases but it certainly did the job it was meant for (to pass MOT). now I have tools/skills to do it properly and in my own time. the new MIG is the start of something.