Posts by Jessica Carter3

I feel like every time a legend speaks up, it just reignites these endless arguments about who was actually better. It's hard to enjoy the game when everyone is just trying to settle old scores through their favorite players. Does anyone else feel like we've moved past actual skill and just into pure personality cults?

I was watching some highlights last night and it got me thinking about how much the landscape of college sports has shifted lately. It feels like every single season, there's a new movement to expand, restructure, or just add more games to the schedule. It used to be that certain tournaments or playoffs felt like a rare, prestigious event you actually wanted to win. Now, it feels like the goalposts are constantly moving just to squeeze more content out of the athletes and the fans.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing more teams get a shot, but I can't help but wonder if we're heading toward a breaking point. If everything becomes a massive, multi-team gauntlet every single year, does the "big game" feeling just vanish? I worry we're moving toward a model where quantity is being prioritized over the actual prestige of the championship.

Does anyone else feel like the excitement is being diluted by these constant expansions, or am I just being a nostalgic old man?

Olivia Rivera77 said:I don't drink, period. I mean, I've had a drink maybe once in my entire life... but thanks for looking out for me, haha.
My doctor told me the same thing, but it doesn't really matter since I don't touch the stuff anyway. I can find plenty of ways to have a good time without needing a cocktail. 👍

So, I've been dealing with OCD for like, ten or more years now, and there was this period where depression hit me pretty hard too... I really wanted to share what I've been going through. Honestly, it used to mess with my head so much back when I was still in middle school that I couldn't even function normally. Like, there were times I literally couldn't make it home from school unless I had repeated certain actions at least a hundred times. If I didn't do them exactly right—I don't even know how to explain it—I just had this overwhelming feeling that something absolutely catastrophic was going to happen. And the worst part? With every single thing I did, I had to visualize something specific, like a positive thought, because if I accidentally imagined something bad, I was terrified it would actually come true. So I'd have to go back to the exact same spot and start all over until I finally pictured the "right" thing. My parents ended up picking me up from school quite a few times because I'd just get stuck there for hours, caught in this loop of visualizing, undoing, and repeating these totally pointless rituals... I guess it was just exhausting.

So, after a while, my folks finally dragged me to see a therapist because they realized things weren't just gonna fix themselves. Honestly, it was getting pretty bad. My parents were almost at their breaking point, maybe even heading toward an ER visit, because every time one of my rituals failed, I would just absolutely lose it. I’d get super agitated, lash out at everyone, and basically act like a complete maniac. It was a mess. After that whole blowup, I started seeing a specialist child psychiatrist and they put me on Zoloft and Ativan to help with the anxiety and just to calm me down. But man, for those first few months, the meds didn't seem to do anything at all. Things were just... catastrophic. My parents even tried pushing some herbal remedies on me, thinking plants could somehow cure childhood phobias, which was kind of wild. Basically, I was terrified of everything.

So, after a few months, Zoloft finally started kicking in—thank God—and my life is actually starting to feel somewhat normal again... I managed to get my grades back up at school, and those intrusive thoughts and compulsions are slowly starting to fade away. A few years back, I stopped taking it, and things were honestly pretty decent—I had some good times and even my first crushes. But since I'm such a hypersensitive person, every little argument would just send me spiraling into depression. Anxiety started creeping back in, and I told myself I wasn't going to wait until things got really bad this time, so I went straight to my psychiatrist. I started the Zoloft again, which helped the depression, though the OCD kind of came back... but now, being in my fourth year of being back on it since that break, I feel like I've got it under control. I still get hit with panic or depression sometimes, but I know it'll pass. I have better days and worse days, I guess, but mostly I'm just like any other teenager—dealing with those thoughts and compulsions, though I'm learning to ignore them more and more. Honestly, though, I can't even imagine what life would be like without Zoloft.
So, I guess OCD has pretty much been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. But honestly, thanks to Zoloft, I’m doing okay—like, mostly normal. Nobody outside of my own house even knows what I’m dealing with... most of the time when I'm out hanging with friends, I actually forget about it all. Maybe that's just how it goes.

As for the alcohol thing, I mean, I definitely drink every now and then just like everyone else my age, and honestly, I haven’t really noticed any weird interactions with my Zoloft so far. Plus, I guess Zoloft is one of those milder antidepressants that isn't even considered addictive or anything—at least, not that I've heard of. The only real bummer is how long you have to stay on it... personally, it took me at least two months before I actually started feeling like myself again.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say... hang in there, guys. Just remember that depression doesn't always need some massive, specific reason to hit you. Sometimes it's just a hormonal imbalance with serotonin or whatever. I mean, sure, psychotherapy helps, but trying to fix it without medication? It's kind of like trying to cure a bad flu just by talking about it... maybe it works for some, but I doubt it.

Man, I guess the hardest part is just fighting your own head. Some days are great, you know? Like, I won't even think about that stuff all day long. But then there are those other days where I can't even finish one simple task without having to redo it like a hundred times. Even when I manage to push through, my mind still isn't totally at peace. But honestly, the absolute worst thing is just giving in to the obsessions. It’s better to just sit there feeling scared for five minutes—or maybe an hour—as long as I don't give in. You gotta show your brain who's actually in charge.

Hannah Roberts said:I’ve been dealing with all of that, plus a full-blown panic disorder. It used to be that I was obsessively washing my hands with scalding hot water—to the point where my skin was actually bleeding. Back then, I saw illness lurking in every corner. I’ve moved past that specific phase, but now it’s morphed into this ritual where I constantly whisper names of various diseases, though I have to slightly alter the words so they don't technically count as the actual disease name. The worst part is when I’m trying to just live my life; say I reach for the soap, but I can't actually grab it until I’ve mumbled the right sequence of words first, leaving me just standing there like a frozen statue. Before bed, my TV sleep timer has to be set precisely to 45 minutes. I’m also plagued by these intrusive, unsettling thoughts about accidents happening, so I have to recite certain phrases just to make them dissipate. Honestly, I once unscrewed every single doorknob in the house because I had to check five times to ensure everything was locked. If the thought won't leave me alone, I end up scratching at my face or pinching myself to feel the fat under my skin enough to ground myself.

Oh, man, I guess what you're going through is pretty similar to what I deal with too. So, how are you handling it? Like, are you seeing a psychiatrist or something?

So, like, I see everyone here struggling with stuff like hand washing and all that nonsense. I won't say mine isn't just as draining, but for me, besides having to redo an action a bunch of times, I also have to visualize a specific person or something in my head that feels "right" every single time I do it. And honestly? That is freaking hard because, well, we all know how tough it is to control your own thoughts. Usually, I can't even manage to picture the right person or thing, it just depends on what's hitting me at the moment. I just keep repeating the action until I can visualize it perfectly, you know? And if I accidentally imagine something wrong—like, super basic example—if I picture someone who’s sick, I get terrified that I’ll catch whatever they have. Or if I don't picture anything at all, there's always this nagging fear that my brain will just conjure up something awful on its own, so I try to preemptively visualize people I love who are totally healthy and fine.
But most of the time, I just can't pull it off, and I get so incredibly frustrated, it's a disaster. Anyway, I'm taking 2 Zoloft a day and maybe up to 3 Norvasc (2 or 5 mg) as needed for the anxiety and jitters. Is there anyone else here who feels like every single movement or action has to be paired with the "correct" thought? And just imagine... like, if I'm messing with wires and accidentally cause a short circuit, I know I won't do that again, but with those kinds of one-off tasks, my WHO symptoms flare up big time because I won't get another chance to "undo" it in my head by redoing the action and picturing the right thing. Now, if I'm wiring some 220V lines, there's zero chance... my brain just goes totally haywire, it's just a mess. And it's not just that; I think I've been like this since I was a little kid, maybe 1st or 2nd grade, needing to touch things a certain number of times or blink a certain amount. It drove me crazy. After every little thing, I had to visualize everything correctly. I was also deathly afraid that if I looked at or touched someone who was sick, I'd get sick too. If that happened, I’d have to redo the whole thing and literally squint my eyes until I saw someone who was "safe" and healthy. It wore me out like crazy every single day. I started fearing that anything I imagined would actually come true, so I tried desperately to police my own thoughts, which is impossible when you're dealing with this. I basically lost my mind until my parents realized that physical discipline wasn't the answer and took me to this great child psychologist/psychiatrist. I'm not sure which is which. Within a year—without any actual psychotherapy, just talking to the doctor and taking Zoloft—the illness pretty much vanished. But then, just recently, right when my girlfriend dumped me, the anxiety started creeping back in. It scared the hell out of me because I almost never felt that way before. Then came the depression and all these fears about society rejecting me, etc., since she did leave me. She eventually realized she couldn't live without me though, so she came back, heh. But yeah, I feel like I'm worth nothing, and just as I finally deal with the depression, the WHO comes crawling back. So, if anyone is going through something similar, please post, because it's way harder now than when I was a kid; I actually have responsibilities now. Like, I can't exactly go laying floor tiles if I have to keep picking them up and putting them down over and over until I've visualized the whole process correctly. There is some progress, though; I've been on Zoloft for almost 4 months and I'm fighting the thoughts, but it's definitely tougher than the first time. 😕