Mental Health Issues

[Guest]

After reading all the posts on this thread....I am SO glad I chose little TorC to have my retirement home in....my neighborhood is right in the downtown district and it is quiet and peaceful and just right...I feel so fortunate....<br /><br />My neighbors are a little noisy this weekend but it is just laughter and because they are having a gathering of a few people from their blog universe. All young homesteaders or eco-folks and they are doing all kinds of things from sand casting aluminum bowties (lol) from recycled scrap aluminum to desert plant i.d. and gathering food from the desert. I got back last night from a demo from one fella who travels in a converted Sprinter cargo van with an awesome P.V. system....one with enough power storage to run a 12 volt air conditioner..yep, AC for 4 hours of no sun..night, whatever....it really blows a lot of cold air and is also a heat pump of some sort....everything is sourced and installed by the owner Jordan and is very professionally done...they are also having workshops on fermentation, biodiesel production, organic gardening, cheese making, inventing, electronics, etc. etc.<br /><br />I was invited for a communal Indian food meal but instead I went to pick up some homemade tamales from a friend....<br /><br />Anyway, I digress. I am an old pharte, I can do that...<br />Bri

 

[ttpadilla]

Sounds like a great community, Bri!&nbsp; They'll leave you alone when you want, but you're welcome to take part when you feel like it.&nbsp; Couldn't get much better than that!

 

[ttpadilla]

I'm not sure...&nbsp; Is it considered a mental health issue, to be sick and tired of listening to traffic, car alarms, helicopters, sirens, trains, booming stereos, screaming kids, neighbors' fights, ice cream trucks, the incessant yapping of uncared-for-dogs?&nbsp; Is the ever present urge to escape the crush of the crowd and the constant demands of society a mental health issue?&nbsp; Is the longing to look out your window or door and be able to see for miles, rather than a view of your neighbors living room, considered a mental health issue?&nbsp; I think so, for if I do not soon escape this environment, my mental health is in jeopardy.&nbsp; <br /><br />

<br /><br />I was so thinking of this today among the kid who threw a football at my company car..another one who gave me the finger when I tried to do the right thing &nbsp;and the old ladies who should NOT be driving anywhere there are people. All I could think of was quiet today. Thank god I can take my hearing aids out at the end of the day...but I still SEE them.

<br /><br />Oh yes, I am very familiar with all those!&nbsp; A few years ago, we had some real brats in the neighborhood.&nbsp; They didn't even live on our street, but those of us who had basketball hoops on our private property, had the joy of the little trespassers helping themselves to the use of it, trampling through the flower beds to get the ball, screaming at each other, etc.&nbsp; When I asked them to remove themselves from my property, they started screaming that I was a racist, and asked if I'd ever heard of Martin Luther King.&nbsp; WTH??&nbsp; I offered to go to their house with them, and let their parents tell me all about him... <img src="/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif" alt="" align="absmiddle" border="0" />

 

[Guest]

It is Tammi...but you do have to wade a little through he meth problems that are everywhere...political problems with those who would open us to the standard Generica franchise pollution....etc. etc.<br />It does have it's warts and pimples like most people and places....I just choose to ignore those like I do in my friends...and they in me...<br />Bri<br /><br />P.S. edited to mention...I do vote for those who are willing to take the front lines to hold off the pillaging and raping of our surroundings and sweet town.

 

[sl1966]

my weekends when I do have them just fly by, usually assisted with bourbon, scotch, beer... ie... George Thourogood.

<br /><br />Been there too.&nbsp;Not that my drinking has ever been quite that bad, nor do I think you drink to excess either.&nbsp;I've pretty much weaned myself off the stuff now. The main reason is it's costly and will eat into my funds, the other reason is that I shouldn't need to self sedate myself from the pain of living this kind of a life any longer. Booze will be enjoyed as it was meant to be. To celebrate, and to warm the bones on a cold night out in the sticks.<br />&nbsp;

 

[Stillwater]

Never feel lonely when alone?<br /><br />http://www.aspergerstestsite.com/75/autism-spectrum-quotient-aq-test/#.UL1neoUtcnU<br /><br />Paddling_Man scores: <span style="font-size: large;">45</span><br /><br /><br />

 

[bk2valve]

Bri...: 21, guess not....Screwed up but not with Asbergers I guess...LOL

 

[sl1966]

Lucky #13!<br /><br />

 

[angeli]

10

 

[sl1966]

However I still reserve the right to be coo coo for coco-puffs at will.<br /><br />

 

[karl]

21<br />kept thinking that my answers were very different now than when I was a kid - wondering, is that because of life lessons or what I have done in an attempt to avoid "feeling" in my younger days....?

 

[twokniveskatie]

25

 

[denisebc]

I have followed this topic with interest.&nbsp; I have always been mildly antisocial and I know that I suffer from moderate PTSD, mild depression&nbsp;and I dont do well with crowds.&nbsp; I have made great strides in these areas<br />but&nbsp;as much as I like some folks, I generally prefer to be alone a&nbsp;great part of the time. That is&nbsp;one reason why van/RV dwelling as always appealed to me.&nbsp; Also, being outside every night, possibly around a campfire&nbsp;doesn't sound too bad<img src="/images/boards/smilies/biggrin.gif" />

 

[She]

I have never been good with crowds. I get dizzy going to a party. My whole family has mental illness. I am the only one who works and not in a group home. I do have issues but I also had people in my life who stuck up for me and helped me through. God bless them all is all I can say. Its the holidays now and I have gotten 3 colds already. I know its stress related. I can't wait till I quit. I need this sanity......

 

[josephusminimus]

After I finished gassing up the RV in Kerrville yesterday and paying I was headed for the door of the convenience store when a youngish man came out of the restroom carrying a backpack.&nbsp; I was grinning, as I tend to do most of the time, and when we met at the double door and I held it open for him.<br /><br />Outside he turned to me and snarled, "<em>I get sick of people laughing at me because I'm having a hard time and living in a car and nobody will help me."&nbsp;</em> He gestured to an older econoline parked away from the pumps, edging toward it but waiting for some response from me.<br /><br />"<em>Life can be a tough place, podner</em>."&nbsp; I was trying to tone down my grin but it wasn't entirely gone.&nbsp; I hadn't been grinning because of him and I wasn't about to stop grinning because of him.&nbsp;<br /><br />"<em>I hate all of you bastards!"</em> Was all he said, then snarled off and I watched him get into the van.<br /><br />Maybe the grinning is a mental health issue.&nbsp; I don't know.&nbsp; I do know it pisses people off in town sometimes and they think it's because of them.<br /><br />But it seemed to me this van dweller should have grinning right alongside me.<br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[sl1966]

Sounds like a lack of fiber in his diet.<br /><br />

 

[bk2valve]

@Karl, <br />Same for me....I think it may be both....<br />Bri

 

[josephusminimus]

Steve: There's a lot of that going around, I reckons.

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

I got a 21 on that test.&nbsp; As often is with surveys like that, the questions are kinda off for me.&nbsp; How to explain it...like, if it asks "You like to participate in spontaneous activities".&nbsp; I do like them, but I rarely participate in them. &nbsp; "You find it easy to chitchat in social situations."&nbsp; Yes i can easily do so, but I have no real desire to do so. &nbsp; Often, how I feel inside and how i act are in great conflict.&nbsp; <br /><br />Another example is how I act around people I am close to and others can be wildly different...which should i&nbsp; answer the question as?&nbsp; I took one of these in training for a job, we all did, and in the end i was the only one that was basically what they call a speaker not a listener (i know you are thinking that is right on these forums <img src="/images/boards/smilies/rofl.gif" /> Maybe being anonymous is safer/easier?), but in reality I say very little to people I am not close to and I'm fairly shy.&nbsp; I should have answered from the perspective of how i project myself, rather than how i 'truly feel'.<br /><br /><br />Anyway, I am often very depressed since my divorce, but I usually find a way to cope or escape it.&nbsp; I've no desire to see a professional about it, as I am loathe to trust them after witnessing the pill onslaught they put my mom through.

 

[josephusminimus]

DG:&nbsp; There's a whole industry out there dedicated to finding new mental illnesses to have and help us self-diagnose ourselves so's we can tell one another we've got them, maybe get on television to spread the good news.&nbsp; <br /><br />In 1964-65 one of the weekly rituals during Peace Corps training was a weekly visit to a staff psychologist who asked questions, frowned pensively and made notes on a pad which eventually would be used to decide whether we were 'Peace Corps material'.&nbsp; A lady-psychologist looked me in the eye with troubled sympathy and asked, "Are you a LONER, Jack?"<br /><br />"Ohhh, hell no!" I assured her.&nbsp; The question was jam-packed with baggage I was well aware could throw me over the brink I already teetered on toward being 'deselected' from going to Gujarat, India and teaching peasants to raise poultry.&nbsp; Even by 1964-65 the word loner was one a person could recognize as over on the other side of what anyone seeking respect, success and much else&nbsp;would wish to be.<br /><br />But the Peace Corps also had something called the Minnesota Multi-Phase Personality Test, designed to ferret out anyone able to fool the eye-to-eye interviews.<br /><br />One night in the training quarters we had a long discussion about how to approach it, because it was believed it couldn't be beaten.&nbsp; We all knew at some level we weren't really 'Peace Corps material' because they'd already indoctrinated us with what fine, admirable and unusual folks Peace Corpsmen were.<br /><br />The two sides to the issue were, 1] lie consistently, or 2] try telling the truth and taking your chances.<br /><br />The reality was it didn't matter.&nbsp; The test was designed in such a way no complex personality could give truthful answers.<br /><br />After I was deselected with 30% of the other trainees some of us got off the airliner back to the mainland and stayed a while in Honolulu.&nbsp; We talked a lot about the MMPT and what it meant, what was intended by giving it.<br /><br />Eventually we generally concluded the Peace Corps didn't want complex personalities going overseas fouling the water, then coming home fouling it more.<br /><br /><br /><br />