This forum makes me feel depressed

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This forum is the only forum I have been to where people identify with my problems and are understanding of my condition. But the truth is that this whole AS thing is making me feel depressed and I think maybe it's time to move on with my life. Can anyone identify?

I can identify too. It helps me with depression, but then it makes me more depressed. Especially with all these depressed people here. When I'm feeling happy I try to help them, and when I'm depressed I need help and post there yourself... and I get the depressive side effect either way.


If you want to get sick, go to the hospital.


But if you want to get well, you'd better go to the hospital!


What a dilemma.

Hm... Well, I feel a similar way. I want to be on here because it's the only contact I have with other aspies, but I get exasperated with the things people say on here sometimes.

I keep coming back here, because I find this site interesting.

I'm just taking WP for what it is- a chance to connect with other people who have something in common with me, a chance to learn, and (I hope) to give as well as receive.
Nothing depressing about that!

Pain in life in inevitable...but misery is optional!

The only thing you can really control in this life is your own mental attitude.

We can choose to gather to our hearts the thorns of disappointment, failure, loneliness and dismay due to our present situation...
or we can gather the flowers of God's grace, unbounding love, abiding presence and unmatched joy. I choose to gather the
flowers...and I hope you will, too.

Life isn't always what you want, but it's what you've got...so, go find a geranium and stick it in your hat!

If you're depressed, you should get help. If you feel pity for us, that's the last thing that we need. I have one extra issue that most people don't have, here. Do I have pity parties over it? No.

I identify with what you are saying. I think I will try to go back to 'denying' that I have AS, or simply fogetting that I (apparently) do.

I preferred to think of myself as having issues, much like anybody else, but of a different kind.

I feel that the idea that I have some kind of 'syndrome' reifies my personality in a negative way. It makes me feel bounded by some fate of inevitability.

Before diagnosis, I actually appreciated a lot of my differences and eccentricities, and saw myself as being in the fortunate position to look at the world from the 'outside', and see things others did not, even could not.

Now I feel disabled.

It makes me feel good, knowing that I can get support on here, and that I am well-respected and looked up to on here.

Yet, it makes me feel sad because although there are some people on here I am a bit attached to (and I am not saying who), I'll never get to meet them in person.

Tim

I guess the recent events show that it's not good for suicidal people to socialize too exclusively with other suicidal people, but should find friends with more stable moods as well. I remember browsing the haven forum was really scary when I was depressed myself, so I understand that feeling. Reading posts like those gives you the idea that it's somehow natural for you to be depressed and that you can't avoid it, but those thoughts disappear when your mood gets better.

So.. Don't put all your eggs in the same basket, but it can be good to have several baskets.

Speaking of that, I kind of get the impression that some people that say they hate this site still stop by here when they're really depressed, but only hang out at their own "elite" site in the meantime. Kind of reminds me when an old friend of mine pointed out that I only hopped onto IRC with him and a few others when I had no other company for entertainment. I guess it's an AS thing.

I hesitated to join this forum because reading many of the posts made me depressed. But I think that on the whole, joining it has been quite beneficial.

Although I can't identify with a lot of what people have gone through here, I have some distinct AS traits. I am much more fortunate than the majority of people here, but I can identify with people who have gone through things such as bullying in the past, and feel for children who go through it now.

It sometimes depresses me, too, because we pour out our feelings here, but those who read them are also Aspies, so they are not exactly overwhelming with support. I notice that most of us seem to post dirges with little room left for suggestion. It's the nature of the beast.

Every board has ups & downs, that's life in general not this board. I like this board, every time I come here I learn something new. I read & absorb much more then I participate.

I think you might need to limit yourself in what you read on these boards.

You don't need to read everything and if something is starting to make you feel that way, don't read on. Just move on to something else. Maybe hang out in the quiz forums for a while, or something fun.

Also, if you're depressed, don't read the posts of others with serious depression. And don't try to help them. Leave that for the people who are not depressed, those that can see life differently or those that have been there and overcome it.

Some people who are depressed won't be helped, they will disregard everything that's said to them and have a counter argument for every positive point - and that's from experience, because I could shoot down any good feeling while I was in the grips of depression.

If you're free from depression or at least have it under serious control, then you can persevere with those people and maybe turn them around (though probably not). But if you're depressed, stay the Hell away, because depression is infectious. Misery loves company.

Not everything on WP is toxic. A lot of it is helpful and much is just healthy curiosity about what AS is and what we share because of it and (perhaps more importantly) what is still uniquely us despite being on the "spectrum".

If you're reading a post that gets into that low emotional territory, skip it. If there's a thread that seems to have a theme that you can see is a downer, move on to the next one.

Oh, and don't read threads in The Haven... Post one if you really need help, but if you're in a bad way, avoid browsing that forum like the plague.