In 2011, I was in a psychiatric ward for the first time, which was mostly pointless because I was going around with a completely wrong diagnosis for years, but what was notable about that time was that I shared the room with two guys which later became my best and pretty much only friends. All three of us were there for paranoid schizophrenia, all three of us later turned out to have nothing like paranoid schizophrenia at all, which really shows the incompetence of the psychiatric profession. I turned out to have a number of anxiety disorders (SAD, PD, OCD), my friend S. turned out to be a massive case of narcissistic personality disorder, and my friend H. turned out to have a rather serious somatoform disorder. Anyway, the three of us met once a month since then to go to the movies, could only do that because H. lived in another city and never had money to travel. S. moved to my city and we hung out once or twice a week. Over the course of time, S. became more and more unbearable.

He's pretty much the worst fucking loser you can imagine, on social welfare but illegally receiving lots of money from his parents, never showers, zero social skills, ugly as the night, disorganised thinking that never makes any sense, lazy as fuck, finding an excuse for everything, and so on, but because of his narcissistic personality disorder, always thought he was the greatest and most important person on the planet and hated mankind for not giving him the respect he thought he deserves (for what?). He used to say the weirdest shit, like always called himself a sadist because he likes to torture people. Torture how? Verbally, by shattering their self-confidence or whatever. But only he thought he did that, since nobody ever took him seriously no one was ever affected by anything he said, except wanting him to shut up and stop pestering them. Or he liked to talk about how he would like to get a borderline girlfriend so he could drive her to suicide. (He of course is a virgin at 25 because every time he meets a girl the first thing he does is talk about his mental issues and symptoms and about how hard his life is because of it.) He also liked to talk about having all people with down's syndrome and any other form of mental retardation exterminated.

I went along with it and tried to point him in the right direction here and there because I felt there was enough decency in his soul that he deserved a friend. But what was worst was that he was one of those "psycho-hypochondriacs", as in believing he had like every mental illness in the world and constantly talking about how convinced he was of it, and the worst part is that almost every time he met, he went on for hours about all his symptoms and how much he suffers because of them. Basically whining, whining, whining, about nothing. And always telling me the same mundane shit that he was convinced made his life a living hell but really was just stuff no normal thinking adult would even care about. Over the years it became more and more of a drag constantly listening to his apocalyptic moods, especially as I kept working hard on myself and improving.

Anyway, over the past year or so I increased my working on myself and made great progress, kicking almost all my mental issues into complete remission, and getting back into life without looking back, starting to look for jobs and working, going to the gym, going out, having more of a life aside from sitting at home feeling miserable. And I'm not the kind of person to throw away friends like trash when I move on with my life, but because there were a lot of things I was occupied with, I had a lot less time to hang out with S., and I admit sometimes I just didn't feel like it, and he seemed to take great offense at my being less available as a vent for his pointless whining. I wish I could have met with H. more often because I have a lot of respect for the guy, because he also tries everything to get out of his mess and get his life working.

Anyway, at some point late last year, S. asked me if I didn't want to be his friend anymore, and I said I have no such thoughts, and he asked what I was doing for New Year's Eve, I told him I was going to friends, he asked if he could come along, I said sure. He came along, spent about two hours whining about his abusive father to complete strangers, then left at 9pm. That was the point I was really ashamed to have a "friend" like him, because it just opened my eyes to what an embarrassment he is to be around. Anyway, a few days later I receive a text from H. that S. told him I don't want to be his (H.'s) friend anymore and that that's sad, but that if I change my mind, I should get in touch. I texted back after some time that I never said any such thing and that I'll get in touch. Around the same time S. was sending me messages pretending nothing had happened, and I just completely ignored them, wanted nothing more to do with it.

Anyway, months since I heard from S., and a short while ago I finally got to talk to H. on the phone and learned that after New Year's, S. told him that I said I was healthy now and didn't want to waste my time with worthless broken losers anymore or shit like that, the way he worded it was even more harsh. I never said anything even remotely in that direction. True that I wasn't too fond of S. anymore, but I would have remained a low-key friend and tried to point him in a better direction and supported, but I never even had the slightest negative thought of H. and certainly never expressed any such thing. He just completely made that shit up. He's fucking 25, I'm fucking 33, H. is fucking 34, we're not fucking teenagers, what the fuck am I supposed to be fucking dealing with that kind of early teen shit? Early teen girl shit even.

No, fuck that. I don't really think about it, and I've long lost the will to post about such things on the internet (hence the inactivity of my blog), but I just wanted to vent somewhere about how some people just fucking annoy me with their obsession with their own mental illness, especially if most of it is psycho-hypochondriac made up shit for the sake of getting attention/pity, and using it to cover up that they're just really pathetic people. That's why I rarely ever talk about mental issues anymore, I don't want to use it as an excuse for anything, or to somehow justify rotten behaviour. It's a common theme I have discovered over the years of people to it, and no, not into that anymore. If I am being a shitty human being, I take full responsibility. And the best way to avoid that is to do my best and not be a shitty human being. Otherwise I'll go around like a plague boil on people's arse adding idiotic drama to the lives of people who have no need or desire for such shit, and feeling perfectly justified to do so 'cause mental illness excuses all. No, fuck that. I've been making it a principle in my life to completely and 100% avoid people who make mental illness a definining characteristic of their personality. Anyone who self-identifies as mentally ill can go fuck off. It's some shit you wanna get rid of and should do so, not an aspect of your personality. Stop fucking acting like an entitled cunt. Go to therapy, take it seriously, work hard. Don't be fucking content with your own shitty habits or shitty behaviour. Be the best person you can be. And if you don't have the will to do so, get yourself euthanised. Fuck.

I don't blame you for wanting to cut ties with S. He sounds like a pretty haphazard guy, and not in a good way. There's only so much of that you can take before it starts to wear you down. I got that from a guy online and it wore me out, so dealing with that in real time would've been really difficult to maintain. There's only so much negativity you can handle from one person. I think he needs someone in his life to point him in the right direction, but you've definitely done the right thing, especially considering the improvements you've made in the last couple of years.

I don't agree with much of your last paragraph, though. People don't talk about mental issues, and I think that's a problem. You don't sound like the kind of guy who needs to anymore, but there's a lot of people that do need to let it out and talk to people. And sometimes that is a reason why people do the things they do. It doesn't excuse anyone from being a nasty person, so I agree there, but if there was some reason behind it, then you know it can be fixed. For example, someone that doesn't leave the house might have crippling anxiety, so the reason for their hermit lifestyle is because of a mental illness. It's not rotten behaviour, but it's an explanation to their quirkiness. Do you agree?

I also agree that someone with a mental illness shouldn't be entitled to anything, or act holier-than-thou for overcoming or fighting one. What I want to know is the meaning of someone "self-identifying" as mentally ill. Someone may say they have a mental illness, but it doesn't define them as a person, and that's fine. Another might say that they do define as mentally ill, because the illness encompasses everything they do. That's fine, as well, as long as it doesn't make them a bad person or, as you say, entitled. It shouldn't. I also want to add that it's not easy to get rid of. You and I might be behind the worst of it, but I feel that, for me at least, it's something that's always there, stuffed in a corner, waiting to spring back out. And some people have the will to do so, but are too crippled by whatever demons they have, or don't have the resources to properly combat it. Again, do you agree?

I do like the rest of your post, though.

Anyway, something else I wanted to share. I'm so much better these days than I was up until about 2013, but there's always going to be incidences, no matter how small, that will affect my mood in such a disproportionate way. The worst thing is that I'm aware of how exaggerated my reactions are, but the messages don't seem to correlate to better moods, no matter how much I try to understand it.

Take Thursday for example. There was some issue at work and my dad (who now works for the same company as I do) told me that my supervisor needed to come in and sort it out. Usually when the supervisor turns up, it's bad news, but this guy is usually personable and relaxed and he seems to like me. Well, my dad telling me that he might turn up the following morning (Friday) got me down - way more down than it needed to be. I knew I was reacting worse than I should've, and I kept telling myself that, but to no avail. In fact, it wasn't until yesterday (Sunday) that I started to feel any better. Today I'm past the worst of it because the meeting with him turned out way better than I imagined, but the fact that it got me down so fervently for so long is still a lingering worry. The good thing is that I'm still not diving straight into the kinds of depressive episodes I would've three years ago, so that's got to be a positive sign.

On another note, I went to a sporting match with a couple of friends on Saturday. I had a great time and my team won (aww yeah), and my friends with me seemed to enjoy it even though they knew nothing about it. Anyway, one of them is a girl and I've had my eye on her since we've met. She's gorgeous, funny, hilarious, fiercely independent, and has a wicked Spanish accent. I have been wanting to try and get close to her but I tend to get too nervous and I back away from saying or doing anything flirtatious just in case I get rejected or it ruins the friendship. I have almost certainly left it too late (or she was not interested from the start), which means I have a lot more to go with my sexual anxiety, and sex therapy. Maybe there'll be other opportunities in the future but it looks bleak with her, due mostly to my outward coldness to anything remotely sexual.

Feels good to get all that off my chest.

That's like having parades about being gay, what the fuck? If you wanna be special, become an engineer and land a truck sized rover on another planet or power an entire city without fossil fuels. Experience tells me that making any illness part of your personality does nothing but make you a worse person, and that embracing yourself as a healthy person helps more than anything else. Sometimes I feel society as a whole is brainwashed by some sort of Woody Allen Hollywood that everyone and everything is natural to be dysfunctional, and people have completely forgotten that's not normal.

It may seem that I'm being hard on others, but the sole reason I am a lot better these days because I have been a lot harder than even that on myself. It's like with being a drunk and believing in AA bullshit that you're powerless and have a disease that controls you and you have to accept that. No, you don't have to accept anything. You shouldn't accept anything. You shouldn't think of yourself as sick or disabled and certainly not powerless, instead look at yourself and realise fuck, what you're doing is total shit and that's not the kind of person you feel you are and want to be.

Oh, certainly. Sometimes you have to be hard on yourself to get through the toughness of mental illness. "Be cruel to be kind," as they say, only to yourself and not to others. I definitely agree that embracing the healthiness in yourself is at least a positive start to bettering yourself.

I absolutely don't need to tell you how hard depression and anxiety is, as you've lived and experienced it for longer than you liked. Me, too. It sucks. I just know that it takes a long time - in my case an entire decade and then some - to finally reach that point you're talking about. I admit I felt sorry for myself and wallowed in it, which doesn't help. It's hard to take a step back and tell yourself that things need to change, and then putting it into action.

People are totally not powerless (access to helpful sources notwithstanding) and do have the capacity to change. If I can do it, then fuck, anyone can. The first step is always the hardest, though. Once that happens, the rest usually follows.

I find the "you have to make an effort" mindset a bit troubling. How can you be sure that it was your effort and action that dragged you out of your depression? Did you have to make an effort to fall into depression? Maybe both just happen on their own. I say this after having spent a lot of time listening to crap from people and books about how to apparently cure mental illness, and finding it at most a placebo.

How can I be sure the gym made my body look much neater and it didn't just get that way on its own? Duh. That's just how it works. I remember that Bullshit! episode where Penn talked about how all great artists had in common that they all had more than ten thousand hours of practice. That's the level of effort we're talking about here.

Not a valid analogy. Cellular respiration is a well understood process. We understand why weight loss occurs. Not so with mental illness.

When I was about 19 I fell into a depression. It lasted for around a year, I don't remember making any special effort to get out of it. One day I fell into it, I took some pills (which I can't say worked or not), spent most of the year sleeping half the day and feeling very down and then one day I fell out of it.

You make an interesting point. However, I think that there needs to be some minimum requirement of effort to get out of depression.

You said you just one day fell out of it. I don't know if you can wake up one day and suddenly release yourself from something that took a year from your life. I'd say you made some effort - even subliminally. Your thoughts may have changed, your actions may have become more positive, you had more positive interactions that you were not aware of, you got one more compliment...do you remember anything different happening in the lead-up to your depression disappearing?

I'm actually really glad it just went away one day because that means it didn't last too long and you could continue with life unperturbed. It just seems in droneriot's and my cases, and possibly others, there was some required effort to open the blockages. But perhaps in your case it was simply a decision of "enough's enough." Once you reach that point you are willed to change. That's also what happened to me. I'm really curious, mate.

I think this makes sense for people who happen to engage stuff that's really self-destructive, out of sheer habit - or maybe something else as well.

For instance, drinking while you're on meds either because the proscribed medication isn't sufficient to numb you or because you happen to be almost an alcoholic. The two fuel each other for sure, if switching meds isn't an option (and neither is addiction to anti-anxiety pills, though that is something different), then making an effort is really secondary to actual positive changes to your circumstances- which may result from your effort or not. And that latter point is crucial I think, not that effort is meaningless, but not something that works like a charm either.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but are you saying that effort doesn't always work the way you planned? If that's the case, then of course not. Effort doesn't mean getting results - it means you're trying and looking for ways to get to your intended destination. It's still a good thing if you fail.

Of course, you have to say that - your career depends on it.



Yes, I agree with that. I mean, first we have to define what we mean by "effort". If you come to the point where "enough's enough" then it would take more "effort" to stop you from undertaking healthy social activities, exercising, etc. Or are we talking about strictly physical effort here?

I'm just not sure it's helpful to say "you must have effort" in the sense of wanting to pull yourself out of it, if that were possible. How are you going to do that? You aren't in control of what you want.

I think I get your point of view, but personally I can't ever bring myself to actually consider failure - be it of my own devising through mistakes or lack of effort (or anything), or as a result of events I can't control whatsoever - a good thing, if effort is put in.

That was what I was going for, that for some people putting in effort won't cut it. And I agree in general that emphasizing effort to get out of depression can be very counter-productive, especially with people whose personality is such that they are negative perfectionists (basically looking for things to blame themselves about, if the end result of something isn't actually great).

Not yet.


I literally Googled "effort" and the definition is "a vigorous and determined attempt." I don't think it means strictly physical effort, but psychological and emotional effort, too. Any kind of straining attempt, no matter the physiology behind it.

You are right in that once you reach the point of no return, it will be hard to stop yourself from doing positive things. I think that there comes a time before that where you reach the tipping point, though - not quite rock bottom, but close enough to it that you have sudden realisation of the need to change. I'm, of course, generalising here, but I believe we all reach a point where we are determined enough to make positive changes without reaching the absolute end of our tether.

You're right again in that it's extremely unhelpful to just say that you need effort. If someone came up to me with a problem with something, and my advice was, "well, you just need to put more effort in," that's extremely unhelpful and borderline condescending. The healthier option would be to work out what the best plan of attack would be. I don't fully agree with not being in control of what you want. For example, if I want a billion dollars, no amount of effort (unless I get dumb lucky on lotto) will be able to fulfil that dream. If, however, I want to get good at playing drums, then I am in control of what I want. I know that there are drum teachers I can see, videos to watch, and practice at home to do if I want to get good at them. I am definitely in control of my dream of being a drummer. And that's where effort comes in, too. You can't go to a drum teacher once a week and expect that you can walk away after a couple of lessons knowing all there is to know about drums. You have to put in the effort outside of the lesson to get better. And I think that's what I was alluding to. It's the same with depression or any legitimately reversible mental issue. You can go to the psychologist once a week and discuss problems and possible solutions, but it's up to the individual to undertake them if that's what they want. So here I think that the client is in control of what they want, but I acknowledge the effort to get to the point isn't always smooth sailing. Do you agree?


You and I are/were two different people - failure is always on my mind even when things are going well (especially with the ladies ).

In my view (and you're welcome to disagree or provide contrary evidence), perfectionists are generally unhappy. There's nothing wrong with being a critic of yourself, but once taken too far, it's counter-intuitive. In this case, it doesn't matter how much effort goes into whatever the project is, they won't be happy with the outcome, no matter how much devotion was given to the cause. And this then cultivates a sense of failure with oneself - that they're constantly not good enough and everything they try never gets to a satisfactory point. So, for the perfectionist, effort alone, at least from their percept, isn't enough. They need to change their way of approaching and thinking about it. So you're right, emphasising effort in that case is not going to work - a change of thinking is required.

You've made a good point that I hadn't considered. Thanks.

life is so good for me right now but sadly that means i am scared of death and think about it a lot and its crippling me right now, my head is just fucked up and i dont know what to do anymore

Being frightened of the prospect of death is normal. People generally don't want to die, and if your life is going well you want that to continue for as long as possible. Do you think about it constantly? Or is it maybe once a day? Less than that? What exactly happens when you think about it?

thank you for the reply, its rarely during the day, i do think about getting old and death quite a bit, usually at least once every hour or so but it only really messes me up and cripples me about once a week or so, i hate to admit this because it makes me sound pathetic but usually when it happens and it cripples me i pretty much just cry for like 20 minutes and i am usually not the kind of guy who cries but when it affects me it deeply affects me, i guess a lot of it is the fear of not knowing what happens after death but death is something i need to learn to accept and once i do then i can live life in a much happier mindset

Thanatophobia is a fear of death or the realisation of one's own mortality - do you think that's what you have? I'm hesitant to say it but then you say you cry for 20 minutes at the mere thought of it, so you might have some version of death anxiety.

Accepting death is certainly something people need to do to ensure it doesn't negatively affect their lives. Personally, I'm not scared of death, but I would imagine you and I have had different pasts. I don't have any strong advice for you, other than understanding why you fear it so much (possibly due to the unknown), and then attempting to come to terms with your mortality. Death affects everyone in the entire world - probably the only thing that every single person from every single walk of life shares. You said your life is awesome, and I guarantee it will improve once you accept your fate.

Nobody knows what happens after death (although Christians feel like they've got a grasp of it), and that can be frightening for some people. You can't control that, though, whether we go to some place beyond the clouds or we just have infinite darkness, or if we're reincarnated or if we turn into a ghost. But none of that is controllable in our mortal lives. Be happy and content with your life, all the while coming to grips that life is temporary, and it'll be okay.

I do encourage you to PM me if you're ever in that space where you're crying. It might help to talk to someone if that helps you.

Yes, I do. The drum situation is one in which effort needs to put into, like exercise. Mental health? I'm not sure. I think I've come to the understanding that what health professionals mean by "mental health" isn't the same as being happy. Where I disagree is that the natural state of a healthy human is happiness. You can be mentally healthy and still deeply unhappy. That unhappiness (which varies from person to person) stems from something deeper - call it the "human condition" or whatever you like. It is born out of the felt perception of the self as something that is by definition apart from everything else. No amount of drugs or therapy can touch that unhappiness.

I think "good mental health" is to be happy, but more importantly to be in control of one's emotions. All psychologists and laypersons realise that humans are emotional - we experience happy, and we experience sad. I don't think the idea is to eliminate sadness, but to handle it properly when it does occur. So instead of a huge wavelength of peaks and troughs, a smaller wavelength to remain at a content level.

I'm not sure what you mean about the innate unhappiness. How is it apart from everything else? I would love to comment on that but I don't exactly know what you mean, haha.

I figure this post belongs here rather than the movie thread. Anyone seen Les Intouchables (2011 The Intouchables, from France)? It is heavily involved with the relationships between disabled and abled individuals. How did you all react to it? My health problems fall elsewhere, so I wont try to speak for those in wheelchairs, but I thought they did a pretty good job of writing a heartwarming story without belittling the disabled man at all. I'd recommend it.

thank you very much for some reason its worse when no one is awake in my house, even when no one is talking to me because at my house everyone does their own thing but for some reason i feel better when others were awake, thank you i agree you make a tonne of great points i would love to be able to believe in a heaven but i just cant believe in that, kinda getting off topic though a lot of the time i think about death and just get slightly depressed other times it deeply affects me i just need to try to reduce the times when it deeply affects me thank you so much for the support

Seems like you are happier when around people and when you have good interactions. Having everyone in your house not giving you that leads to these thoughts. And yeah, a Heaven from the way we know it would be nice, but I doubt it.

No worries. Hopefully you can come to some peace with it.

sorry it took me so long to reply but thank you very much, i cant see it being real but its a fantastic idea

Any advice on how to handle medications that severely lower motivation and energy? I often find myself not wanting to do the stuff I enjoy, let alone go to class/work. It's been a problem for a long time. I tried coffee, but the caffeine and sugar exacerbate my condition rather than help it, apparently. Also, getting excited/interacting with people exacerbates everything too, so I find myself undereacting on purpose to stuff. Sorry for venting...I'll welcome any advice. Thanks, all.

This was my situation not so long ago. In my case there was nothing I could do, just wait. The medication took about a year to work (or for the depression to recede - who knows which it was?). Is there any way you can take some time off class/work until you recover? I'm pretty sure things will get better with time.

If that's no help you might try exercise. Some antidepressant medications slow blood flow and metabolism, which in turn lowers energy. Exercise may help to reverse that.

Thank you very much for the reply. I don't think I can take time off, but I am considering cancelling my study abroad plans for fear of something going wrong far from home. These feelings come with every medicine I've tried, and this happens to be the medicine with the least side effects yet, so I'm scared to switch again. I've tried exercise, but I get nauseous because my medication has ruined my appetite and therefore my diet. I'm a mess I will try to go for more walks, at least. I really do appreciate the help though, Expedience.

Well what's the medication?

We might be able to help more, or at least I know I could, if I knew what you are taking.

I'm taking Pimozide (also known as Orap), which is an anti-psychotic. I take it for a motor tic that sadly persisted into adulthood. Does that tell you anything?

How long have you been taking Pimozide? It says here that exercise can cause dizziness, light-headedness, and fainting. Maybe that's why you're feeling unwell after exercise. It seems that anything beyond a walk will make you terribly sick. You may need to hold off on the exercise while you're taking the drug.

Taking Pimozide should hopefully not stifle your plans of studying abroad. I think that's a great thing to do! Where are you planning on studying?

It seems you're right. I had thought it was my diet making me dizzy, but it's probably a combination of diet and medicine. I've taken several different medicines over the years, so I get mixed up on their various side effects. I'll stick to walking, thanks!

And I've been hoping to go to Spain. It was originally going to be last year, but I got switched to a medicine that almost made me fail a semester at home. Now, my last chance to study abroad is Spring of 2017 (because that's when I graduate). Chances are though, I'll be put on a new medicine before then, so I'll just have to wait and see what the next medicine brings to the table regarding benefits and side effects. You never know, maybe the next medicine will be the right one for me.

Walking is still the simplest and one of the best exercises out there. Hopefully that'll be good for you.

The next one might very well be the right one for you, which is hopefully the case if you're considering going to Spain for study. I'm a fan of that idea and I hope you get to make it a reality sooner rather than later/never.

On Monday I started a new position on the base I work on. A lot of stress was caused by my old position. A lot of my anxiety is gone. I still have my issues, but I am doing so much better. Still have to find a new therapist, but at least things seem to be turning around for me.

Here's a practical tip for those of you who suffer from anxiety or depressive thoughts: try avoiding metal and any dark reading, listening and viewing matter for a couple of weeks. I'm not saying this will cure you or is the cause of anything, just to consider trying it. We don't tend to give it any thought because such media is everywhere in movies and music, but from personal experience it certainly has an effect. If you're resilient then it's not a problem. But the mind and body isn't used to being constantly bombarded by threatening phenomena, and if it does get used to it, is that something we'd want anyway? Even if you think 'how could this possibly do anything' maybe just give it a try as an experiment, it can't hurt. If you are in desperation with anxiety like I was, you'll try anything to lower it in any way.

You've been very kind. Thank you! I'll try to give an update a while from now if anything changes drastically.

I hope this continues to get better for you.


I have thought of this, too, and I believe that taking a break from something that is mostly a negative entertainment will be good for your mental health. Listening to something a little more uplifting, or watching lighter movies rather than grim ones, will likely help you regulate your mood.

When I was in a bad place, I avoided the media like the plague. I was not interested in news stories, I didn't read the newspaper, and I enjoyed being off the grid. It actually helped me feel better - "innocence is bliss" in some ways - and letting go of all that negativity that the media feeds on was really beneficial.


You're welcome. No worries.

This doesn't work at all for me. If anything listening music (which is always metal for me) usually makes me feel good rather than bad, not to mention that metal isn't always "dark" nor "threatening" as you have put it there. I think many people like to change sub-genres or bands based on their mood.

I will say that one thing I've noticed impacts my depression and anxiety and that I try to limit these days is watching horror movies/shows or even those that are not horror movies/shows but have intense scenes of violence. It really depends on the movie, but many of them, especially the ones with very visually graphic death or torture scenes, definitely exacerbate both my anxiety and depression. I first started noticing a shift in how I watch these types of scenes after experiencing two deaths in my family one after the other a few years ago. On top of my usual ongoing depression and anxiety (I was first diagnosed over 15 years ago but it wasn't always that I was impacted by that sort of thing), I started getting really anxious and paranoid about my own death as well as those I love and it would be worse when watching any sort of "realistically" gory scene (so not talking cheesy horror or something). That was really something new for me because I never reacted that way to those sorts of scenes at all before. I also remember not long after my cousin's death I was walking home and witnessed a bloody scene where a woman had died in seconds from a freak accident. It hit me hard to look at the blood and think that this person's family would never get to see her again, or that she was just going home on a regular night and probably never thought it would be her last day on earth. It only started making me more paranoid that some freak accident would happen to a loved one or myself, and my hermit phases seemed to get worse. These days I still have these weird compulsions every time I leave the house, that I need to do before I leave or else I'll be worrying the whole day or need to come back home right away if I can't remember doing them.

So yeah I think to an extent media/art can definitely impact us in negative ways. But not only art/media but anything we witness in our daily lives, and sometimes that can't be controlled. But I figure I can at least control the sorts of things I watch, so I try to avoid particularly violent movies/shows. I don't think I ever loved comedy very much when I was younger, but these days its probably one of my more preferred genres. I think in general you can't really tell people "avoid this/avoid that" because everything will get a different reaction from different people. You may find avoiding metal makes you feel better, but others like myself find metal makes us feel happier.

Remember I'm talking about people with anxiety or certain types of depression. Of course metal can make us feel better - I've listened to it for a large part of my life. But you can't deny the anxious, edgy nature of it and the subconscious effect that has on the brain (although almost everyone who listens to it does). For people for whom the speed and edginess of modern life is a grind on the nerves and leads to neurotic thoughts, it's not entirely apparent that metal can make this worse, and at the same time feel like it's making it better. I mean, some people thrive on anxiety and seek it out, there's nothing wrong with that. Others who have been overexposed to it, might seek to avoid it while not being aware that the things they do daily (drinking coffee for example) affects their brain chemistry in ways they may not like.

As for this not applying to all types of metal, yeah, that's pretty much self-evident, even though most metal is at the very least abrasive which can grind on the nerves of anxious people.

I wonder if metal acts as a "musical amphetamine" to me? I don't really listen to too much dark/violent/negative stuff these days, but I still listen to really fast, manic, technical music... so I wonder if that's ramping up my nervous system to the nth degree and exacerbating my anxiety disorder? Sometimes I will listen to sad/depressing music (in small doses) and it has a strange calming effect to me.

I do notice that I've unconsciously moved away from stuff that provokes negative emotions within me (or at the very least, greatly reduce it). I wonder if that's some deep level self-preservation mechanism kicking in? A lot of that stuff I can still enjoy, but I don't really want to enter the mindset again to actually do so. There's also a ton of hatred and anger in me, and I found that music never had a cathartic effect with that... maybe some grindcore, but that's about it. Most aggressive music these days strangely enough... bores me.

I usually beeline towards anything that makes me feel better (usually really happy/positive stuff), but I still have an affinity towards melancholy stuff (old habits die hard, so I guess I have to keep that moderated or whatever).

Video games is something I probably should reduce. At least in my case, hours upon hours of mindlessly killing stuff can't be terribly healthy. It seems like they spike my anxiety levels too (turn-based games, not so much though).

I'm not sure if you read the rest of my post or if you stopped reading at the first sentence? I was talking about myself as a person who was long ago been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and social anxiety disorder (and at one point, incorrectly, bipolar disorder). Toward the end of my post I wrote: "So yeah I think to an extent media/art can definitely impact us in negative ways. But not only art/media but anything we witness in our daily lives, and sometimes that can't be controlled. But I figure I can at least control the sorts of things I watch, so I try to avoid particularly violent movies/shows. I don't think I ever loved comedy very much when I was younger, but these days its probably one of my more preferred genres. I think in general you can't really tell people "avoid this/avoid that" because everything will get a different reaction from different people. You may find avoiding metal makes you feel better, but others like myself find metal makes us feel happier."

Metal may make you feel anxious, but for myself as a personal who also has an anxiety disorder, it does not make me feel anxious at all, and provided details above of what form of media/art does impact my anxiety. I was trying to highlight that it's important for each person to be self-aware of what fucks with them and what doesn't/what actually helps them, rather than making a sweeping generalization that somehow metal makes people with anxiety more anxious or whatever.