Posts by ambermason16

Robert Collins2 said:ambermason16, this one's for you, I totally forgot to make the quote stand out! 👋

Heh, I guess it’s just genetics, right? Like, the whole thing about being predisposed to mental health issues... a few of my great-grandparents were considered "a little off" back in the day—which was basically just how people used to describe the "crazy" folks—and now, here I am dealing with F-ove.

I'm curious, though—how did addiction play into your different states? I'd imagine going through withdrawal or trying to kick the habit is an absolute nightmare. For me, even though it wasn't a huge thing, I dealt with that whole psychological dependency on pills. When my doctor told me we needed to taper down the dose, I literally lost my mind with fear. I was freaking out thinking, "There is no way I can do this, the anxiety is gonna come flooding back, I'll lose it, I won't be able to sleep," just total, pure panic. It was terrifying...
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It’s a safe bet—there isn't a single sane person in my entire family tree.

How did addiction impact your condition?

Positively. When I'm high, everything feels wonderful. But when I'm not—and I haven't been for a long time now—things aren't so great anymore. 😁

I assume withdrawal and the detox period are incredibly painful and nasty.

Trust me, you don't want to know. As far as that part goes—take my word for it. 🙂

Robert Collins2 said:Micek, look, I’m tapering off my meds totally fine. I finished up my psychotherapy, so I don’t have any psychological dependency on the pills or anything. My doctor actually encouraged me to jump in here and swap stories with people right when I started treatment, so that's why I'm hanging out—I just want to be helpful, plain and simple. Plus, I love to read. It's not like I think I'm some genius or a total hypochondriac, and honestly, there's no way I'd ever be crazy enough to be a moderator, so thanks for that! ☕

Seriously though, I have no clue where all this biased nonsense about me is coming from, you know? 🤷

Yeah, I don't get why everyone is attacking a woman either... especially when she's just trying to help. If you think she said something wrong, then correct her. Otherwise, leave it alone. Why all the fighting?

(Man, this Effexor is actually working... 🤔 )

Robert Collins2 said:Look, don't get mad at me, but from what I can gather, you were an addict back then—correct me if I’ve got that wrong.

Did your mental health struggles start before that stretch of time? I'm assuming there might be some hereditary stuff involved, especially since you mentioned your mom and all those psych meds. Did things just spiral because of the addiction, or how did that play out?

I’m not even going to bother correcting you. 🙂

Did these mental health struggles start before that specific stretch of time? I’m assuming there’s some hereditary component at play here, especially since you mentioned your mother and the whole ordeal with psychiatric meds. Did things take a turn for the worse because of all that? How exactly did it go down?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question right there. What actually came first: the chicken or the egg? 😉

The exact same logic applies to Mom.

Brandon Newman95 said:Honestly, that guy has more diagnoses than I do.

Am I collecting... double doses of George Washington quarters? 🍿

Robert Collins2 said:Alright fine, as long as you can still function, but they're gonna taper you off eventually, right?

I don't know... 🤷

Doctors have been prescribing this to me for about 12 years now. I usually steer clear of it unless things get hairy—like when I'm starting a new antidepressant and I'm desperate for it to actually kick in, or when I'm tapering off something else, or when I'm just feeling totally unhinged.

Look, I've taken three pills every day for a week straight and I feel perfectly fine. It's like I just ate three peanuts. Honestly, if I actually want to pass out, I have to take anywhere from five to ten 10mg pills and just pray for the best.

Sometimes I genuinely worry about what happens if I catch some serious illness. If they start pumping me full of painkillers and sedatives, I'll be in trouble. For all the good it does me, I'd probably need three entire bottles of Advil to even touch a toothache.

Robert Collins2 said:Hold up, hold up—you’re actually taking 30 MG of Normabel every single day??? 😲

I mean, seriously, how are you even functioning right now? What kind of diagnosis are we even talking about here?

How long have you been on this stuff, and which hack doctor actually put you on that regimen?

I was on 5 mg of Helix because I really needed it, which is honestly a pretty heavy dose too, but I managed to taper myself off gradually after being on it for about 6 months.

Yup. Three 10s, Effexor, and a few other little extras..

F 11.2, F 10.2, F19.2, F 32.2, F41.0, F41.1... I could go on all day.. 😁

It wasn't a snake oil salesman—he was a legend. Hands down the best shrink in Washington, D.C.

I function perfectly fine. Honestly, I'm high-strung and highly driven. 😁

Robert Collins2 said:Look, I managed to stretch mine out for three whole days—is it doable? Absolutely. But honestly, I was basically popping doses meant for a damn stallion, chasing that high like I was trying to keep up with Elon Musk or Bill Gates! 😁 🙂

Yeah, right... I did half a pill for two more days, then dropped to one, all while taking 10 mg of Normabel three times a day... 🤷

Robert Collins2 said:So, basically, Tegretol is just carbamazepine, which is an anticonvulsant. It’s primarily used to treat epilepsy, but doctors also prescribe it for nerve pain and as a mood stabilizer for people dealing with bipolar disorder or those really heavy depressive episodes. 😉

Thanks, babe. 🙂

On a side note, I've been on Pfizer for five days now... and my sleep has completely vanished. I have this weird sensation that it's actually starting to kick in, which makes zero sense on several different levels. 🤔

Maybe it's just all in my head—pure autosuggestion. Could be. Either way, I'm happy with it. 😁

Lancaster or Savannah...

Seriously, what is the deal with Tegretol even? I feel like they used to shove it down my throat constantly back when I was in those inpatient rehab centers, but honestly, today I don’t have a clue what its actual purpose is. 🤷

Raymond Fisher2 said:I know this one person who’s just constantly pissed off, even when there isn't a single damn reason for it...
They get so worked up they're out here punching concrete walls all the time or just smashing furniture—chairs, tables, cabinets, whatever's nearby...
Honestly, they're such a mess that they actually resort to cutting near their veins just to feel some kind of spark, just to prove they aren't dead yet...
Every time they catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror, they're disgusted. They've even talked about slicing up their own face to look something like The Joker from Gotham City...
This person hates everyone and everything, but mostly they just hate themselves. It's constant self-loathing during the day and pure hatred for the whole world once night hits...
They spend their time wondering why the hell they were even born, feeling like their only purpose is being a walking bag of organs waiting to be useful to someone else one day...
Man, I wish I didn't know them, but unfortunately, I do...

What's with the translation / why the translation? 😁

To me, this feels a bit like Old Yeller-style trolling...

By the way, how does one actually cut around the veins?

Robert Collins2 said:Look, you definitely don't need that crap in your life. I once crossed paths with this total amateur who nearly killed me, and then the creep actually tried to knock me out with enough sleeping pills to sink a ship. Honestly, my body just fights off meds like crazy. Back in the day, I was tossing around 5 mg of Xanax, 75 mg of Effexor, 600 mg of Seroquel, and 25 mg of Thorazine all at once, but now I've scaled it way down to just 37.5 mg of Effexor and 25 mg of Seroquel a day.

Just imagine... there are still medications out there that I can't even wrap my head around. 😕

I’ve tossed every single one of those "mental health" pills into the trash. I’m sticking strictly to the blue ones—specifically the generic version. I only take them when I’m feeling completely unhinged or when I haven't slept for five straight nights. But even then, I feel like I have to shovel them down my throat just to stand a fighting chance at feeling any kind of effect. 🙄

Robert Collins2 said:Psychotherapy, "self-work," whatever you want to call it? Honestly, I think that’s just a one-way ticket to becoming an addict. And don't even get me started on the meds—I wouldn't suggest getting used to them or popping them left and right without a plan. Your body just adapts, and before you know it, you're chasing higher doses just to feel normal. You aren't actually fixing the root cause of why you're feeling this way; if anything, you're just making everything ten times worse.

Give me a break, Robert Collins2, this is the literal aftermath of addiction. 🙂

I hate swallowing these pills as much as anyone. Honestly, nobody would be happier than me if doctors stopped prescribing every little thing under the sun, or if there was just one magic pill I could take once and drift off to sleep. But when you've built up a tolerance like a damn rhino... 🤷

By the way, psychotherapy hasn't worked for me yet. I've cycled through countless psychologists and psychiatrists across the country, and I haven't clicked with a single one. The search continues.

Robert Collins2 said:Look, it’s not even about you personally, it’s just pure stupidity—I really wouldn't advise messing around with those anxiolytics for recreational kicks. I mean, they’re basically the same thing since they both rely on diazepam, and while the absorption process might hit you differently because of the fillers and inactive ingredients, that's hardly an excuse to go treating them like candy. ☕

I won't sit here and lie and say part of this isn't reckless, but it's a tiny fraction of the issue. The real killers are my insomnia (the main culprit), anxiety, and panic disorder (the secondary issues)... hence: the blue pills.🙂

Kenneth Scott41 said:ambermason16, I honestly feel the same way about Oxazepam; it seems to me that the diazepam from Pfizer is significantly more intense than our usual Normabest—you can actually tell the difference. And as for Robert Collins2, well, I suppose all pharmacists will always insist that they are identical. It’s true that there are plenty of people who complain that Normabest feels weaker, but doctors and pharmacologists tend to act like they're infallible gods, looking down on you as if you're just some patient who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. ☕

Thank you, thank you, thank you! 🙏 🙏 🙏

I've got enough chaos running through my head already; I can't stand it when my primary care doctor keeps insisting I need yet another one...

She can blow her trumpet in C-major all she wants about them being the same, but I know what I feel.

By the way, Valium rocks for me... 😁

Oh, and she caught on to that, so now she won't give it to me... 🙂

Anyway, now I'm begging my mom to have her doctor write me a script ("because at my doctor's office, I'm stuck waiting five hours just to get one single prescription 😢" )

P.S. I just realized you guys are having a full-blown argument over my little blue pills... 😢 Oh, please don't... 😢 ...do you want some Valium? 😬

Listen, people, I am begging you—just once, please help me wrap my head around this. I am getting the same story over and over again, from doctors to everyone else in the medical field. They keep insisting that Diazepam, Normabest, and Oxazepam are all essentially the exact same thing, just coming from different manufacturers. Is anyone actually going to tell me the truth here?

So why am I even bothering if...

Two Diazepam pills and I’m out like a light—it's like being knocked unconscious by two shots of Hennessy.
I'm feeling a little drowsy after taking four Oxazepam.
I took 10 Normabest pills and honestly? It felt like I just ate 10 peanuts. Absolute waste of time.

Just a quick heads-up here: we’re talking specifically about the blue pills, the 10mg ones.

🤔

It just doesn't sit right with me. Sure, they might be similar in some ways—relatively speaking—but calling them the same thing? Not a chance. Not even close. 🤷

To me looks like some old-school, government-run factory relic, but I have a hunch it’s actually just that tiny little piece of junk at the end of a cable that plugs into your phone or modem... 😁

ruggedbison11 said:So I’ve got this specific mess on my hands. I’ve been with this girl for three years now, and honestly, she’s dealing with some kind of mental glitch that’s threatening to wreck everything—our relationship, my job, my social life...

The deal is, she views the entire world through this hyper-hostile lens, where literally any sentence thrown her way feels like a direct attack, even when it isn't. She stays in this constant combat mode; if anything sounds even slightly ambiguous, she flags it as an assault and leaves zero room for discussion.

Here’s a totally mundane example from back in the day that sums it up perfectly.

Back when I was living with my ex, she was setting the table and rambling about something, and I was just trying to get a cap on a bottle of Coke I'd poured. Since I was a kid and couldn't quite get the cap on right, I just waited for her to finish her thought and said, "Hey, can you pop this on?" Naturally, I got slapped because she heard it in all the wrong ways. The issue with my current girlfriend is that this happens constantly. From what I can tell, her biggest fear is looking stupid without realizing it, which is the worst part—because she's so obsessed with avoiding that, she ends up looking foolish anyway, but instead of owning it, she creates these massive fights by misinterpreting everything I say.
It's also fueled by this deep-seated insecurity. If we're walking down a street in Chicago and I tease her—like, with a grin, saying, "Hey, look at how crookedly you're walking"—she won't realize I'm joking. Instead, she'll start looking around frantically, trying to fix herself, convinced people are judging her. Even when she knows I'm messing around, she'll still spiral into thinking there's some deeper meaning behind it and build this whole conspiracy theory in her head.

I thought maybe it was just classic paranoia, but then I see these elements of conspiracy and this intense fear of criticism, so if anyone here has dealt with something similar and actually fixed it... help me out.

See, she actually realizes she's the problem. After an hour-long blowout fight that started over nothing but a communication error, she’ll snap out of it, realize she overreacted, and feel terrible because she ended up taking a bunch of her frustrations out on me.
The thing is, she doesn't know how to manage it, but she's willing to change if she can find the root cause. I think I have a handle on it, but at the end of the day, brains are complicated, so before we have any heavy talks or anything serious, I figured it’d be smart to talk to people who’ve been through this.

Thanks in advance.

I don't even get this... who slapped you? Your mom? A girlfriend?

(honestly, if you said "hey, plug this thing!" to me, I'd probably deck you too... though for much different reasons.. 😁)

Joseph Watson3 said:The private messaging system is completely broken. Some troll is absolutely nuking my inbox with nothing but insults and pure garbage.

Oh, please. Joseph Watson3 is totally an undercover moderator...

Honestly, I love this example... I’m asking the admins to please go through the entire thread and review EVERY single deleted post.

By the way, just because something of yours was wiped without being officially sanctioned doesn't mean you're in the clear—it just means I decided to look the other way. Though, frankly, looking at your track record, I'm not even sure why I bothered... 😁

Edit: Looks like I missed the boat on that one... and my thanks to the admins.

mistyhound2 said:Someone mentioned that ambermason16 was welcomed with open arms, but honestly, I think that’s a massive stretch. First off, when the news broke that we were getting her as a mod, most of us hadn't even heard of her. We don't sit around watching cable news all day, and she wasn't exactly a household name here either. Of course people are going to be confused about who she even is. I mean, if I suddenly became a moderator for Formula 1 without ever having watched a single race, 😁 you can bet they'd be looking at me like, "Who is this person and what are they even doing here?" 😁 And then there's this whole thing about her being part of the Diaspora. Honestly, that's the least of anyone's concerns if they actually have half a brain. It shouldn't matter where she lives. It's like how people talk about what folks living outside the US are posting on political forums—I know plenty of people doing exactly that. If anything, having a mod based in Washington, D.C. is an advantage because they can actually compare notes on what's happening back in the home country. Even the fact that she took a few days to introduce herself isn't a big deal. The real issue is that she came in swinging from day one, already throwing around threats of bans and warnings on the very first thread. I remember it clearly. Someone makes a joke, she snaps back and threatens them with a ban. That was the pattern—I didn't follow every single thread, but... yeah, she managed to rub people the wrong way right out of the gate. I don't know if that's just her general vibe or if it was just limited to that specific PDF. Because Skattemus is actually a perfectly normal, likable woman whom we've all known for ages, both from that PDF and others. And look, she's fine; no complaints there. She handles things, sends PMs to tell people to chill out, hands out warnings, etc...

And seriously, the Diaspora is such a diverse group on that PDF. We've got people from every corner of the globe—young kids, old-timers, people just starting out, and people with decades of life experience under their belts who have lived on multiple continents... wherever else could you find that? The Diaspora isn't just some niche group worrying about how to get a work permit in, say, Canada. You guys have no idea how much goes into managing a community like that...

http://www.reddit.com/showthread.php?t...u+moderatoricu

By the way, this whole circus is getting old—it's exhausting for everyone involved. Does anyone else besides you three have an actual opinion here? Are you finally going to provide one concrete example, or are you just going to keep feeding off each other's nonsense indefinitely?🍿