Depression rolled in a few days ago and won't go away. When I'm depressed I like to watch car crash videos on youtube for hours and hours. Something about the death and destruction and tragedy comforts me.

Years ago I used to love to get drunk and watch Intervention. I would always root for the addict to not go to treatment or to relapse after. Those were good times. Me, alone with a box of wine. Numb to the world.

Now I don't drink and I can't be numb. When I feel ****ty I just sit here and feel ****ty. It's really ****ty.

Those are very odd and self-destructive habits that perpetuate the depression

Can you just force yourself to think about anything positive?

How about baking yourself a walnut cake or a few? This will both keep you occupied and give a pleasurable result, though of course it shouldn't become a staple meal.

Happy Easter!

I can't force positive thoughts. I can hardly force myself to get up to eat or take a shower.

I'm allergic to nuts.

I've just finished a month of B vitamins complex pills and I think my general mood has improved a bit. They hardly ever have a downside as it's hard to get a fatal overdose.

with forcing yourself......
I found that it is easier if you dissect, what you have to do in very small steps. When I was in bad place, it was really: "OK now put your right foot on the floor, now left, now sit-up straight, now stand-up. HURRAY you are out of bed". I know it sounds silly, but somehow thinking about the "getting out of bed" as a one thing to do, was to much, and in such small steps it worked.

And push yourself... push push push! I know it is hard. I know that sometimes it is an achievement if you don't stop breathing. But it is vital to do maximum of what you can.

Yeah this is what I try to do. I went to my therapist a few days ago and we talked about what I was going to do and eat for the rest of the day.

The depression spell lasted about 5 days. I feel better today. I lost 5 pounds because I could barely eat.

One of the things I thought about during this spell was that I think I have a lot of repressed anger. When I was a kid, my parents expressed anger by screaming and swearing. So naturally that's the only way I knew how to express anger. When I would express anger towards my parents, all they did was nitpick about the bad words I was using and scream at me even more, while completely ignoring my feelings. My dad especially would literally turn every argument into a contest to see who could scream the most and the loudest. In his mind, whoever can scream the loudest has the most valid opinion.

So I learned the best thing to do when I get mad is to do absolutely nothing. Don't say anything and don't express anything. Stonefaced. It's a skill that helped my poker game but certainly contributed to the panic attacks and depression later.

I got through a job interview/stage today at a restaurant without screwing anything up or having a panic attack. This is quite a breakthrough for me.

YEA! COOL!

My life has never had any structure. When I was a kid my parents were too lazy to pack lunches for me for school so I did it myself. When we had food in our house I would fill a ziploc bag full of oreos or something and a juice box. Then at school when I'd start munching on my bag-o-cookies other kids would give me weird looks and say "your mom lets you eat cookies for lunch?" Sometimes we didn't have food in our house so I didn't eat anything at lunch and just sat there watching everyone else eat.

My parents are lazy people. They didn't really know how to take care of children and give them structure.

Now my life is aimless and purposeless. I don't know how to take care of myself. I don't know how to give my life any structure. Being completely alone makes it so much harder.

It's okay to be angry. But at some point you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and fight to find a purpose in life.

Hm....

Being alone is hard. But sometimes, actually most of the times, being together with someone is also hard. To correct all problems that are caused by parents is hard.

But come on. I don't believe all "I don't know.....". I do think that it is hard and you don't want hard, you want easy. But the thing is that there is no easy.

You need to push yourself. And you do it. I know that you try your best despite the depression. Keep it up.

Didn't get the job at the restaurant. Got another interview at a cookie place this week. Didn't get the job because I'm allergic to peanuts and they make lots of cookies with peanuts gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Really wanted to get drunk last night but fortunately there wasn't any alcohol in the apartment. I'll try to channel my rage into lifting weights today.

I can't remember the last time I did something fun. There's been no joy in my life for years. The only time I laugh is if I'm watching Broad City.

I've been trying to be more aware of things that cause me negative emotions. Whenever something triggers me I stop and think about why am I really feeling what I'm feeling. Yesterday I heard my mom start whistling in the other room, and it made me agitated, as it always has. This time I decided to freeze and think. Trace the feeling back as far as my memory can go. Then I remembered: when I was little, sometimes when I got upset or started crying or whatever, my mom would start whistling an upbeat tune to kind of taunt me and try to make me feel like my emotions were not worth anyone paying attention to. Other times she would deny and ignore my emotions by saying something like "oh you're just tired you need to go to bed."

I've always hated whistling because it automatically brings up the feeling of being made fun of for having emotions.

Today was the nicest day of the year. I walked around outside for about 3 hours. When I got home I realized I had a little sunburn and my first thought was "hey look, I have proof that I went outside!"

I think whole western Europe has now this sunny, perfect temperature weather.
Do you have a lot of green spaces where you are living? Parks and so?

Yeah I live in chicago there's lots of parks and stuff, and it's next to a big lake.

Project **** You Aspergers

I feel like I never do anything fun or different. The aspergers makes me want to have the same routines and habits every day and never do anything unfamiliar. Well **** you aspergers!!!!!!!

This is my plan to do something I've never done before, at least once a week, preferably more often. It could be anything: doing a new exercise, going to a store I've never been to, eating a food I've never eaten, trying a new hobby, talk to a stranger, whatever.

Any ideas?

Get a new crush every day Learn a few new foreign words, preferably with a natively speaking tutor. Listen to new bands and musical genres in general, same with movies, paintings.

The challenge sounds great! Godspeed!

- Find a tailor course not too far from, where you are living and go there.
- Go and buy something at the next flea market.
- Sell something at a flea market.
- Go to a ball room dancing course. That one will be difficult for you, because coordination and so is difficult with asperger, but you can try Ability to dance is HUGE to attract girls.
- Plant some herbs in pots and watch them grow.
- Cook something with them
- Find someone around, whom you find cool and ask this person to do XYZ? with you.
- Take some pictures from where you are living (something you find cool) and post them here.
- I am not sure, what your education is. If it is high school, you could go to a community college and do a course or two of something you find cool.


I was also thinking about this comfort zone and how I am constantly forced to leave mine. I think the trick is to live on the boarder of it.

Dancing or anything athletic is definitely a possibility. That's one symptom of aspergers that I didn't get. I played a lot of sports when I was a kid like baseball, basketball, tennis, golf.

Right now I don't have the money to take a college course or do anything that requires spending more than like $100. I stil haven't found a job yet.

Dream Log 5/17/16

I'm walking out of a grocery store and there's lots of people in the parking lot. They're walking around aimlessly and look drunk and angry. Then I hear some of them speaking Russian. Then more of them come out of nowhere. It's a drunk russian zombie apocalypse. They're all looking for a fight and taking swings at whoever is in front of them. A fat one lunges towards me and takes a swing and misses by about 3 feet. I'm trying to walk away fast but I can't move. Then a short one fixes his drunk zombie eyes on me. He slowly walks straight towards me. I switch my grocery bags from my right to my left hand. He's about 5 feet away now and I know he's gonna come at me. I make a swift move and hit him with a straight right punch to the face and I knocked his ass out.

I woke up immediately and realized I had actually punched my bed frame really hard and my knuckles hurt.