This is the sixth Christmas without Mom.

She was my link to the family. I don’t hear from anyone except my sister and dad. I miss them all.

My job treats me worse with new targeted policies on a monthly basis, and my industry has been going through waves of layoffs. I cancelled my trip to see family over the holidays. I am back on antidepressants, but still in the overemotional ramp up period. So I have that going for me.

I'm doing all right, thanks for asking. I have security in knowing no matter how bad I do at my job, nobody else is doing it for less than double what they're paying me.

I wish health insurance wasn't tied to employment. I wish rent wasn't 4x what it was 20 years ago. I wish in& out didn't go and tell their employees they weren't allowed to wear masks at all (outside of California) so I could still enjoy my "at least I'm not in prison burger" by justifying "they're only a little bit religious, and at least they aren't bigots"

Luckily I still have my family, but my parents are conspiracy theorists, my dad especially vocal, so that's not fun. I'm just going to try to avoid the topics.

Meh. First Christmas since my full chronic pain has hit and knowing it's not going away and the issues that arise with it. On the upside, I met with a new pain management doctor today and he actually cared for me. He is switching me from hydrocodone to oxycodone and told me that he is willing to up my dose a lot in the next few months because he doesn't want to see a 26 year old be stuck in his apartment for another year due to pain. So that was a light in a very dark tunnel. As happy as I can be at the moment but my happiness is limited. One of those I'll believe he will help me as much as he says when I see it the next few months. But, the switch is very hopeful in itself. Hopefully next Christmas I'll be able to go on walks longer than one mile without having to deal with the miserable consequences under his pain regimen.

No, but my ECT doctor is gonna call my psychiatrist about next steps so maybe they can figure something out to try. Fingers crossed!

What about you? Are you okay?

I'm a trainwreck right now.

My grandfather suddenly passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer, multiple strokes, and COVID. It was brutal, he was in so much pain for months. What really hurts is that he was a wonderful person, a source of great joy and insight, and most definitely the person who got me into computers at a young age. My youngest coherent memories are of him, and the loss is exceedingly painful.

My stepfather pointed a loaded gun at my autistic little brother and basically kicked him to the street. My little brother has had his fair share of problems with holding down any kind of job, and can barely take care of himself. He was kicked out of a shelter for a messy living space, and living out of a tent next to a YMCA.

My mom was living in fear for a while, as my stepdad increasingly became more paranoid and violent, to the point that she was no longer allowed to talk to us on the phone if he came home. She managed to give him the slip and take the kids with her to go take care of the grandfather on the other side of the country....but, she's in for a messy divorce.

These three things have kind of converged, and a lot of it is starting to resolve finally, but it's been a massive strain on my mental health and my marriage. I'm barely taking care of myself most of the time, and trying to live with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation...and all of the fun side effects of trying to treat those things with therapy and medication.

I'm so tired. I'm barely eating. I have six months left in a maintenance squadron before I get out of the military, and all I want to do is scream.

I'm doing great, thanks for asking!

My birthday was yesterday. I did nothing because just like every year for some inexplicable reason I feel deeply depressed on my birthday. But it was really sweet that I had some family and at least one friend who remembered and wished me a happy birthday. Honestly I just feel really alone…

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Lost my best friend to an overdose in July, then lost my 15 year old dog on Halloween- a week later, my mother went into the ICU because of missed diagnosis of chronic liver failure, then once she got better, she moved across the planet to another country to live with family for better healthcare and I may never see her again. Then my father disowned me because I said “America sucks” while he was preaching the glory of a MAGA Trump dictatorship- all while I was deeply upset about my mother being sedated and I turned in a hospital bed.

Then my girlfriend lost her job of 6 years.

So….. no. NOT OKAY.

No. I'm not ok. I was doing great until several weeks ago, but things have to have poor timing.

I am lucky to have family that I will be visiting for Christmas. But it's going to be frustrating pretending to be ok the entire time I'm there.

My problems are so insignificant and stupid compared to many here, so I don't wish to elaborate on them.

Good luck to everyone out there this holiday season.

Reading the replies to this post reminded me of The Beatles Eleanor Rigby. And then I thought of "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy for some reason. And then I thought of Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas. And then I thought of Tyler Durden's speech in Fight Club.

https://youtu.be/chyRpj-971o?si=T5-rS3J5YH-7qP0z

The world is going to shit, civilization is going to shit, our scientific progress seems to be constantly hampered, and quite a bit of my expectation that we might get a significative push towards communism this decade has vanished. So yeah, I'm great.

Fuck if I know. What's "ok" look like anyway?

I’m alright all things considered. I hope you are ok

I get anxiety every time I go to my parent house. My dad is getting old and I love the dogs there, but I feel like an afterthought for family events unlike my brother from out of the country, who is feted every time he turns up for the holidays. I'm never asked to participate though I used to take some joy in doing desserts for these events. It's just unfortunate that I'll probably be guilted into moving in to taking care of her/ them in the future.

Serious question: what do you intend to do if I’m not? What is this thread for?

No, not even remotely. I actually feel worst than ever. But I also feel so paralyzed and hopeless.

Everything outside of my health is great, good relationship with my family, stable situation, generally good attitude towards life, but I got covid in 2021 and now just staying out of bed the whole day is basically impossible. A fun event passes and half the time I just feel completely blank, like having a good friend telling you something you find extremely interesting but you haven't slept for 50 hours. Even watching a movie is just overwhelming and I need to take breaks. I sometimes feel like I'm already dead and I'm just lingering on. Half of my life feels like a dream, 40% feels like I'm just trying to get to tomorrow where I might feel conscious, and 10% feels almost normal. My whole family is excited about Christmas and I'm overwhelmed by the idea of staying out of bed long enough to say hello to my brothers..

I'm pretty freakin far from okay.

My girlfriend has been mad at me for almost a week now; who knows if she ever even wants to talk to me. She hates me at this point.

And this is my first day of vacation, I have more than 10 days off. I decided to work on one of my hobby projects, and sometimes take a break for gaming. Guess what! My PC broke, Memtest shows more than 3000 RAM errors, so at the moment I'm sitting here testing each module in every slot.

And then once I figure it out whether I have to send the RAM or the motherboard back, I'll have no PC for at least a month (I expect longer than that). So I cannot make any progress with anything, now that I have some free time.

I'm especially pissed off, because it was quite an expensive build, specifically for reliability.

I’m ok but stuck in an endless loop of boring bullshit and the dopamine and dopin no more

I'm as good as I'm going to get for what I have at this time. It's all bullshit and I genuinely hate everything but that's ok. It's whatever.

Little things help, but it's not great.

It would be nice if I could find a job since I have been out of work for a good while. Other than that, things are fine.