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Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#191

Post by silverwasthere »

starkd wrote: post #168
rdsubhas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The divorce rate is 50% in US and 40-50% in developed societies today. I would rather urge you to find a society that doesn't waste time on divorces and dysfunctional marriages today.

Does staying single make it any better? If you check the stats on that, I think you'll find married people tend to be happier, both financially and socially. The fact many marriages don't survive should not necessarily dissuade you from rolling the dice. Just be pickier about who you marry. Pre-marriage counselling can help weed out the improabable marriages.

My ex would scream at me if I even hinted to anyone that I was unhappy because "I was trying to make them look bad". Emotional abuse and manipulation, power imbalances, etc, skews stats in any group.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#192

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

ianai wrote: post #12

This actually reads almost normal for a last year of a phd. But you’re in a phd program and probably much closer to complete than you think. I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance. Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless…

>Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. (Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down.)

Excellent observations.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#193

Post by zxienin »

Surround yourself with positivity and gratitude.

A neighbour might need help with groceries or meds. Look around, see how you can help others. Don't expect anything back. Know that you made super tiny winy dent in the world. It's powerful energy. If early waking up is your thing, go out and look at dawn sun.

Simple things.

See anything negative? Toxic gossipers? switch off, skip. Period.

You are making choice to see and accentuate the positive around you. This is hard time for you - and it is finite.

Sounds like you have good thing going (your PhD). It's supposed to be hard. Get positive energy, buckle up and just run that course with support system in the research group.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#195

Post by afpx »

nyokodo wrote: post #81
ianai wrote: post #12

This actually reads almost normal for a last year of a phd. But you’re in a phd program and probably much closer to complete than you think. I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance. Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless…

> Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.

As universal as divorce

Meaning, the "validity" of marriage is built into the power hierarchy. The same power hierarchy that determines whether a couple should stay together. People are going to get together. Wouldn't it be better if they could just be together without the need for an authority?

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#196

Post by ROTMetro »

I've had a failed marriage and hit rock bottom all at once (including 5 years in prison, kids not talking to me, etc). For the relationship part, if you had a tight friends group, they would just keep you busy until the pain turned numb. We don't have that community always and have to keep ourselves busy.

It sucks waking up to an empty home. I went from making my kids breakfast/packing lunches every morning, getting daily hugs and 'I love you dads' to this huge soul crushing void. It sucks.

Before sentenced to prison so still out in the world, but after losing wife/family/career/home I kept busy with podcasts, audiobooks, comedy records always going to fill the 'friends keeping you busy' part. Now's not the best time to spend a lot of one on one time with your inner voice, he's a smart dude but not always our personal biggest champion/hype man :)

I forced myself to maintain normal sleep patterns. If I wanted to sleep by 10 and couldn't, I either exercised more or went to bed earlier and earlier. Forced myself to maintain a healthy diet. Forced myself to exercise regularly and consistently. Those are a must. Get up the same time every day, go to sleep the same time. Plan and eat healthy meals. Have easy emergency healthy meals for when you are too depressed to cook. Have an exercise routine and if you can't sleep, up it. If you go to a gym, swim, it's such a different modality. For me I mountain biked. I mountain biked a lot. When I felt like I was going to crumble (divorce lawyer dates, court dates, realtor selling the house date, hyping myself to make my weekly phone call to each of my kids knowing that they weren't going to answer but that I still needed to keep calling) I got on that bike and road until I didn't have the energy to be anxious. But I didn't ride risky, didn't seek adrenalin because the last thing you need is to get hurt. Hmmm, looking back I also did a lot of white water rafting. Again your brain has to break it's unhealthy constant negative focuses and just focus on getting past the current rocks in front of you.

So routine, intentional (and proactive) self care, with healthy distractions to break the unhealthy focus on your current situation and giving yourself space.

You'll get through this I promise. You will be surprised in life to find out just what you can and cannot get through. Keep your head up! It's not just you, what you are going through while unique and incredibly painful to you and worth being given the weight it deserves as one of the hardest things you will go through is also something you share with the rest of us afflicted with 'the human condition'.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#197

Post by bsaul »

28 is super young. You really will have no trouble rebuilding yourself sentimentaly, don’t worry about that (you’ll never find the exact same love, just another one, because everybody is unique).

I haven’t done a phd but it’s pretty famous for being super hard emotionally, so this is probably « normal ». You’ll manage, just like everybody else do.

About feeling « empty » : find yourself a hobby. Since you’re the phd type, i would recommend something that makes your other parts of your brain work : artistic, and manual. Could be working with plants, joining a band, join a woodworking group, anything. It’ll give you instant gratification and draing you physically enough to make you enjoy the simple things in life : a fresh cup of water and a good night of sleep. Plus, it’ll help you rebuild a social network around a shared interest.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#199

Post by cynusx »

bjornsing wrote: post #128
cynusx wrote: post #121

Being a victim is a mindset, sure you can come from a shitty place but that doesn't determine where you go next. Thinking you are a victim is also highly addictive because it shifts responsibilities from you to something that is not-you (parents, boss, partner, society, your gender, racists, ...) While not all circumstances are your choice, at a fundamental level remaining a victim is a choice. There's always somebod…

> at a fundamental level remaining a victim is a choice It would be nice if this was true. But sadly it’s simply not. Everybody understands that there is physical abuse that cannot be overcome. Unfortunately there is also psychological abuse that cannot be overcome. So I agree we should all strive to avoid remaining victims, but I don’t think it’s healthy or even correct to say that those that do have chosen to be vi…

Victim blaming is completely different, that's saying that you deserved to be abused. Nobody deserves to be abused.

There is a longitudinal study on PTSD cases that investigated why only 35% of people suffer PTSD while some of their colleagues go to similar events and while going through trauma processing, bounce back after some time.

The main finding was that many of them found helpful frames of references to manage their feelings around trauma (often along the lines of... the guy next to me was worse off, at least I am alive) and that allowed them to go into post-trauma growth.

Assigning present-day problems to old events is just a very common way for people to take on a victim mentality and avoid dealing with what is in front of them.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#200

Post by catseyechandra »

A SSRI, a bit of walk, eating vegetables and fruits, friendship, and thinking about what you wanted to do when you were 15? Love, it come and go, come, go, come softer, go softer, over time :) At 28 it is sometimes hard to accept, but it's a network of neurons that needs to adjust it's weight over time, even if it's thru (a lot) of pain. And what about tomorrow, you'll rarely can tell for sure!
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