Community I am depress

[Ortheore]

For those of you who don't know I have depression. I've suffered from it longer than I've been playing competitive pokemon. I feel that everyone ought to know this because it's getting worse and is subsequently impacting on my involvement with PP and the broader pokemon community.

Those of you involved in GSC season may have noticed that my diligence with meeting deadlines and pursuing activity has slipped considerably compared to what it was earlier in the season and in previous seasons. Likewise, my activity in tours has plummeted and when I do play, I play like absolute fucking shit. Overall my motivation to do things is at an all-time low, and I'm just not enjoying the game much at all.

So what does this mean for PP? I'll continue to host the remainder of the GSC season, though participants should be mindful that it will not run very efficiently. After this season, I will need to take a break from hosting the seasons, and I'm hoping someone will be able to run them in my stead, otherwise they may need to take a hiatus. I'll continue my involvement with the rby tiering project, though if DA or anyone else feels like assuming a larger role I won't object. Basically, I'll try to maintain my existing commitments while gradually cutting off future responsibilities. In terms of my participation in tours, expect little to no activity from me. Again, I'll try not to disrupt any ongoing tours but my interest in playing is pretty low.

I don't know what's happened, why I've lost this enjoyment. A lot of other activities had withered and died for me, but I thought mons would stay. Clearly this was a mistaken assumption. In the place of pokemon is... nothing. I get up in the morning and there's nothing to look forward to, nothing that I want to do. I feel like a fucking shell of a person, like if I didn't have to work almost every day there'd be no point in me getting up in the morning

Anyway, I just felt it was important to let you know that this is an issue and that it's compromising my activity here

 

[Isa]

i hope you can turn it around. get well soon.

 

[marcoasd]

It's good you felt like sharing this. I always felt you were playing on different standards... you're smart and reading here and there, I quickly realized you are an above average guy...
Despite not being a professional, I feel I can give you a couple tips:

1- You got to the point yourself: you know what screws you up in terms of either being overrun/worried about things you don't want to have, or not having things you like enough.
It's well known I'm into sports science and shit like that, so I could be biased, but sports' objectively a great investment overall. Music, art, cultural activities is what people can choose to get over bad times, and obviously sports is what involves physiology as well... actually I think playing pokemon is one of those activities in a weaker way, but hey things may change and it happens to feel done with something.
It's hard to get into something you don't know or you're not used to, but I think that's the way out: go for your activities/your plans. Don't become too much dependent on others: company is helpful to get things started, but having activities brings you a lot of company- you'll eventually have more chance to find people you like. Despite society looks on us as people who MUST interact, being able to be alone is a vital skill. Being able to turn the page is another vital skill.

2- don't believe things are going that better to people surrounding you. These days people's lives are just a massive playact, faking they feel good when it's the exact opposite, in hope they can convince themselves and people surrounding them. 95% of the people is at risk of falling into depression, at least here in Italy. All in all, I feel we're all more or less borderline already.
(Un)surprisingly enough, suicide rate is way higher on those place like Japan where most people are very happy about their lives: the unhappy ones are that out of place. Dropping social networks makes people happier too...

Well, suspending/leaving this is not that bad after all... you'll find somebody here welcoming you back in case you're taking time away. Take your time, get well.

 

[Disaster Area]

Those of you involved in GSC season may have noticed that my diligence with meeting deadlines and pursuing activity has slipped considerably compared to what it was earlier in the season and in previous seasons. Likewise, my activity in tours has plummeted and when I do play, I play like absolute fucking shit. Overall my motivation to do things is at an all-time low, and I'm just not enjoying the game much at all.

Tbh I've been less active myself just because my irl's gotten a bit more hectic and I think I just don't enjoy playing in tours very much, even non-standard ones. It's just a burden on my time now so I think outside of new frontiers ones and the current seasons I'm involved in I won't sign up for anything else for now. Don't worry about it.

I'll continue my involvement with the rby tiering project, though if DA or anyone else feels like assuming a larger role I won't object. Basically, I'll try to maintain my existing commitments while gradually cutting off future responsibilities. In terms of my participation in tours, expect little to no activity from me. Again, I'll try not to disrupt any ongoing tours but my interest in playing is pretty low.

I don't know what's happened, why I've lost this enjoyment. A lot of other activities had withered and died for me, but I thought mons would stay. Clearly this was a mistaken assumption. In the place of pokemon is... nothing. I get up in the morning and there's nothing to look forward to, nothing that I want to do. I feel like a fucking shell of a person, like if I didn't have to work almost every day there'd be no point in me getting up in the morning

Anyway, I just felt it was important to let you know that this is an issue and that it's compromising my activity here

I feel like that a lot, like especially in terms of Pokémon enjoyment. I enjoy a couple of aspects a fair bit but for now I definitely want to tone it down, just focus on the community side and casual playing of tiers I enjoy and managing stuff, that's what I enjoy and I don't really want to engage much as a tournament player any more.

I feel a bit less my emotions and stuff now has to have something extreme happen for me to really show any difference now. I'm excited to get up and do stuff I guess but eh I feel too busy and stressed right now

don't believe things are going that better to people surrounding you. These days people's lives are just a massive playact, faking they feel good when it's the exact opposite, in hope they can convince themselves and people surrounding them. 95% of the people is at risk of falling into depression, at least here in Italy. All in all, I feel we're all more or less borderline already.
(Un)surprisingly enough, suicide rate is way higher on those place like Japan where most people are very happy about their lives: the unhappy ones are that out of place. Dropping social networks makes people happier too...

I know a statistic from a charity I used to volunteer for, for a time, called Mind, that 1 in 4 people will get depression at some time in their life. You're not alone. I know at least of another player on this site who has suffered depression for longer than their involvement in the Pokémon community but it's obviously not my place to disclose who or anything further.

 

[Lutra]

Sounds like a good plan. Stick to it no matter what changes from now to the end of the season. Don't accidentally start a new season! Just because it's probably not so demanding to cause you panic (like a bad school/work situation), doesn't mean it's okay for you or anyone else to do continually. Everyone takes breaks with pokemon. I didn't start the seasons idea because I thought it'd even be possible for most people to continually participate or host - I just thought it would be an exciting achievement for me to do at first. I felt like I had to escape most of the intense playing after a year and I feel like moving into the background now.

We get exciting ideas that feel good short-term like continually hosting seasons, but the fact is to you need to feel free to feel good. So at some point, even if you build up really exciting committments, you're gonna feel bad because you're not free. When you feel free, you don't worry about what you can do and you just do things naturally. When you don't feel free, you feel like you have a limited capacity to do anything, including anticipating correctly what it'd be like to be freer.

Plus the GSC OU seasons were always harder to make work than RBY OU seasons. I'm sure lots of players are very grateful you made it last this long

 

[Disaster Area]

Sounds like a good plan. Stick to it no matter what changes from now to the end of the season. Don't accidentally start a new season! Just because it's probably not so demanding to cause you panic (like a bad school/work situation), doesn't mean it's okay for you or anyone else to do continually. Everyone takes breaks with pokemon. I didn't start the seasons idea because I thought it'd even be possible for most people to continually participate or host - I just thought it would be an exciting achievement for me to do at first. I felt like I had to escape most of the intense playing after a year and I feel like moving into the background now.

We get exciting ideas that feel good short-term like continually hosting seasons, but the fact is to you need to feel free to feel good. So at some point, even if you build up really exciting committments, you're gonna feel bad because you're not free. When you feel free, you don't worry about what you can do and you just do things naturally. When you don't feel free, you feel like you have a limited capacity to do anything, including anticipating correctly what it'd be like to be freer.

Plus the GSC OU seasons were always harder to make work than RBY OU seasons. I'm sure lots of players are very grateful you made it last this long

I agree with all of this so much, this is me too.

 

[magic9mushroom]

For those of you who don't know I have depression. I've suffered from it longer than I've been playing competitive pokemon.

Same here. My best wishes and sympathy to you.

 

[CrapAtRBY]

Fuc depression

 

[Jame$ G]

I'm very sorry to hear this man I'm not gonna pretend I know what you're going through. Despite the fact my doc tries to put me on anti depressants if I so much as go in with a cough I don't believe i've actually had clinical depression but living thousands of miles away from my friends and family at my age the blues get me every now again, and I have been through it with a few of my buddies.

I think Marcoasd pretty much nailed it; physical health seems to influence it a lot, you get physically run down you start to feel mentally run down and none of that is good for the soul. Eat well, just go for a walk around a few blocks in daylight hours you'll be surprised how a little light excercise and healthy eating helps. Asses what are the positive and negative influences in your life are; purge the negative things and people and focus on what makes you happy. Keeping busy is always good, boredom just gives you too much time to focus on the negative.

For me I find a little retail therepy is great pick me up; I don't mean go and buy a yacht lol, go buy yourself some nice cloths, splash out on a haircut etc. GOOD COFFEE! Always nice When life starts throwing me lemons and I get pissed off with it, and people often my solice is kick back, smoke a phat one and boot up stadium 2 on my emulator, which I always seem to be able to enjoy immeasurably in that state, never really understood why it's so fun ripped, but it certainly works as a "wind down and focus on nothing else" type of therepy for me. Not endorising this or saying you should do the same but figure it's not too taboo to say it's pretty much legal where I live now lol, but it does make stress completely disappear for me.

I hope you get better and figure it out anyway buddy.

 

[marcoasd]

Whoever did this is a fucking hero, and revealed us the science behind our shitty generation Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy - Wait But Why

 

[Jame$ G]

Interesting read; true to an extent, hard to speculate as "dustman" was probably the peak of my career expectations lol. Not sure I agree 100%. In my circles the guys with the most money are the ones with the biggest problems; the ones whose careers exceeded all expections; ink patent developers, very successful geologists, oil CEO's etc. People who are sitting on $20m+; their career success certainly has not worked for them, it's almost like they lose all sense of drive, ambition and wonder when they hit that point. They realize their lifes hard work & success did not bring them the happiness they were promised. Certainly opened my eyes to the fact that money, power & success does not bring a person happiness, most the time quite the opposite.

 

[Disaster Area]

Chiming in to agree there; wait but why does a good job at simplifying some problems but I definitely disagree with the simplifaction here on happiness.

Going to say something maybe a little controversial but I feel like we should structure our society more focally around increasing our overall happiness (both short term and long term but obviously at the grander level, moreso long term) and that we should recognise everything else as a means to that end.

 

[marcoasd]

That's definitely true: I don't think the author assimilated happiness with money/success as his opinion, he/she just reported that the dominant culture/super ego generated from our society does so, as children we were born into that.
Most people sourrounding us believe in that (at least until that happens leaving them just as unhappy; Durkheim's studies on suicide somehow suggest that too on a statistical basis), so we're into it and that's why we won't see a society based on happiness (at least we won't be alive anymore to see that, so who cares?).

All in all, the problem is not that most people are ignorant -that could be solved-, in the specific case: beat the book with fucking Durkheim's studies on their faces until knowlege pervades them by osmosis.
Problem is, majority of them is retarded to the point they wouldn't even vaguely understand what they read, or would still think they are special and going to have their "garden + unicorn", or would be somehow unable to change their sorry ass ideas justyfing themselves with the "everyone else does so" argument.

 

[Ortheore]

Bumping because I feel like it.

Things irl have turned to shit again. I tried going back to uni, only to basically melt down twice in the space of a week and a half. At this point it's looking like I'll drop out of uni again, this time on a permanent basis. That leaves me at a big crossroads in terms of what to do with my life. If uni's not an option I have no idea what to do. The idea of getting a day to day job similar to what I currently do on a casual basis (lifeguarding) is about as appealing a long term prospect as gouging my eyes out with a rusty teaspoon. I don't want to do small scale mundane shit, but instead create things and/or do something that has relevance on a large scale. IT development is I think my best option, since I already have a general idea of how to code and it's kinda interesting, but I can't just jump straight into a job because I have literally nothing to show for my learning thus far. I could work on my own projects, but I've been doing that for the past several months, and gotten barely anywhere because I'm just not motivated enough to do anything, and sitting down and working on things demands too much effort.

My one option is to do like a diploma at my local tafe, which gives a qualification that isn't anywhere near as prestigious (and I highly doubt it is worth anything outside Aus), but it's something, which is hopefully all I need (also I imagine if I finish I'll have some work to show for it). I expect this to be a much better environment for me, but there's still a huge risk that it won't manage to make it through, and then I'm back where I started, a situation where I've always been thinking that if I reached this point I would seriously consider blowing my brains out.

On a semi-related note, I'll be taking a break from RBY 1U for a while. My play has steadily gotten worse to the point where I'm actually losing to ladder scrubs on a semi-regular basis. I've got no confidence in my play and these losses are just demoralising. RBY lower tiers and BW2 Ubers (hopefully 1U soon!) are where my focus will be in the interim

 

[Disaster Area]

Hoping things move in a positive direction for you irl... most of us on the forums are around that time when we're reaching a crossroads in our life too... I'm at university and will complete it in about a year and a half (hopefully). Your story reminds me a little bit of my Dad's: he dropped out of university, twice, doing Chemistry, and moved into code-based development and has been doing that in one way or another ever since. Good luck! The world feels a bit scary and I really hope you can find something stable and suitable soon

 

[marcoasd]

Man, your situation looks pretty much like the average italian guy's. Possibly, it's harder to swallow as an australian (I mean, studies proved suicide rate to be higher in Japan rather than it is in Italy, with unemployment being way higher here).
About the university and me... I've been to that crossroad too: I went to the university because people around me didn't want to see me just idling (relatives and parent's so-called-friends were throwing words, and my parents were getting mad), but I had no motivation and no business there... I'm coming to an end despite struggling a bit ("a bit"...) and nowdays I'm in my hometown. I'll get things done and be a celebrated hero for a couple minutes, what's next though?
My best hope? The same one I had many years ago (before I had to go to the fucking university): a man who used to play basketball with me starts a take-away pizza of his own (we have been employee together in this specific job for about a season) and takes me with him. I would expect a low wage, and this isn't even likely to happen. Other side of the crossroad? Just go ahead for more studies. With no heart, of course.
My personal take/advice (I write this for myself too), is: just do what you can, and as long as you're healthy, fine with money and parents/relatives... it's all good. And to be honest, at some point I realized other goals aren't mine: they are someone else's myths (just like "why don't you have a baby?")- not my business anyway.
As an almost graduated who witnessed graduated people, I guarantee you coming off an university is overrated when talking about ordinary people. It's an American Dream.
Reaching my 2-3 goals nowdays looks pretty much like *insert your favourite sports heroic/miracle*. (Guess Steven Bradbury's carreer and gold medal will do). I believe it's hard, I really do. It would be enough.

 

[Ch01W0n5h1n]

Interesting read; true to an extent, hard to speculate as "dustman" was probably the peak of my career expectations lol. Not sure I agree 100%. In my circles the guys with the most money are the ones with the biggest problems; the ones whose careers exceeded all expections; ink patent developers, very successful geologists, oil CEO's etc. People who are sitting on $20m+; their career success certainly has not worked for them, it's almost like they lose all sense of drive, ambition and wonder when they hit that point. They realize their lifes hard work & success did not bring them the happiness they were promised. Certainly opened my eyes to the fact that money, power & success does not bring a person happiness, most the time quite the opposite.

I think this is more due to the things they have to give up for it: Ideals, Dreams, Social Life, I don´t think that money and success by themself have a nature that causes all of that, it depends on ones stability and On how far they are willing to go (other social aspects do their part too).

I kinda feel uncomfortable where I live: I feel like people around me don´t share my values, old values, one may say.
Honor, Reliability and the ability to be able to see things in another ones ancle. Quick decision makers that can´t look behind the walls everyone has and people that don´t know when stuff gets serious annoy me the most.
Feels like being born into the wrong time and being in the wrong society.
For me personally, things didn´t change for the better yet, it still feels like holding the balance between the clough and the top, like before a bit more then a month my electricty was still shut down (summary: 6 months), I am still broke and may lose my apartment soon, and I don´t see any change for the better. However, I always fight until I really lost a battle, and in Life, it´s not over until you are seeing the grass from the other side. Still, I can see why others struggled so much and lost their fighting spirit as a process, Goals others chose for them don´t look appealing, others don´t see a perspective and some question life itself and what´s around.

Anyways, this thread evolved into a ventil for others to share their pain to make themself and others feel better, or atleast sort their thoughts and put them to paper, and I guess it´s good that way ^^

 

[Jame$ G]

MTV Australia - This guy just NAILED what it is to be a...

Think our generation is a little guilty of this, myself included.

 

[marcoasd]

MTV Australia - This guy just NAILED what it is to be a...

Think our generation is a little guilty of this, myself included.

And then I see those millennials stepping up and commenting to defend their generation, they missed the whole point. Not that they were called at fault, in first place...

 

[melle2402]

sorry to hear that, wish you the best and get well soon! I think you found a lot of friends in this community who you can talk to when you need someone.
hope to see you one day back here playing and hosting tours. and i would take care over the next gsc season if no one else does