Please don't take this too seriously.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, it's quite possible she keeps telling me the opposite--that motivation ebbs and flows naturally and it's important that I don't take ebbing motivation as a sign that I'm depressed and doomed to failure and yadda yadda. Whatevs.

Listening to your counselor? Only depressed people do that!

[N35t0r]

Stay on top. Good luck.

Unless she wants you on the bottom. In hat case, it's OK to let her

[rah]

And that would make her a keeper.

[Lorizael]

With what I pay her, she should be doing what I want.

[Sava]

I need more **** to do. I'm registered for classes. I've got things worked out with my boss for the fall semester. My books are in my Amazon cart and will be bought as soon as I get credit for my books from previous semesters. I've accepted my financial aid "awards" and shat myself several times. I can't register for parking for another week because I kind of still count as a sophomore.

I need more **** to do so I can stay excited for this whole going to college thing. If I don't have **** to do, I will lose motivation. And if I lose motivation, that will be the end of the world. At least I think that's what my therapist keeps telling me. Or possibly the opposite. Yes, it's quite possible she keeps telling me the opposite--that motivation ebbs and flows naturally and it's important that I don't take ebbing motivation as a sign that I'm depressed and doomed to failure and yadda yadda. Whatevs.

I went back to school at 26. Joining a club/sport/activity (roller hockey team) helped with my social experience.
(it's also something to do)

[Lorizael]

I should join some sort of something, but between work, school, and complaining about my social life on Poly, I'm not going to have much free time.

[Sava]

There may be informal activities that don't require regular attendance. The more you are active socially, the more likely you are to meet a nice young woman.

[N35t0r]

I started uni at 25, after one unsuccesful year right after school.

It's been 6 years and I'm finishing a 5-year course (which has an 8-10 year average finish time), all the while working full time. If I had been a bit less depressed, I could have been finished by now, but I'm still happy about it.

Dwelling on what I (you) have achieved, instead of on what could have been achieved (do acknowledge, and aim to improve, but not dwell) is critical IMHO.

[rah]

I went back in my middle 20's and I joined a local game club
(held at the community college not the university)

[Lorizael]

This is the slowest conversation I've had in some time.

Lori: I suppose I have to say something next. You can respond whenever. I don't really want to get into an argument about whether or not you were completely honest, or whether or not our relationship really was super special. I think everyone believes their relationships are special to some degree. My point was that our refrain about how special and awesome our friendship was was the problem. it was something we talked about, and repeated. i was addicted to you, and i fed that addiction by building up this image of our magical friendship.

I remember there were times when we discussed the fact that I was in love with you. And you would say, "Lori, what would really change if we became romantically involved? It just means we'd have sex, right?" But that never helped. Because to me that meant we had all the pieces of a romantic relationship except the one. And if I could just find a way to get that last piece... (which is a silly and arguably sexist attitude on my part, but there it is). Then again, it's not as if our relationship was totally sex-free. We were very careful about what we allowed to happen in person, but online things were a bit looser. We flirted a little bit, especially in the beginning. And of course, there were the pictures you sent me over the years. The very first time you sent me a nude picture of yourself, you told me it was "for you." Whatever you may have intended, what the bloody hell was a horny, in love 16 year old supposed to think?

[A week passes.]

Lori: I did say you could respond whenever, but if you don't respond by Friday, that'll be what I talk to my therapist about this week.

[A couple days pass.]

EBF: The pictures were a lot more about my weird self identity and sense of self worth
And also wanting feedbacdk
and you being a safe place for that
I would definitely do that differently if I could
None of my other relationships have been magically special the way that ours was (one or two has been magically special in other ways), so I don't think it's just a matter of "everyone wants their relationships to be special"
it sucks that you were addicted to me and that was apparently such a big part of our relationship for you, because it wasn't at all for me. You were the person I was closest with, safe with, could so easily and well communicate with, that I could be myself with
but I don't think it's appropriate for you to blame me for your addiction, if that's what it was
this whole time I thought you were upset about the way the friendship ended, not the friendship itself

Lori: (I'm pretty sure my or else I''ll talk to my therapist thing seemed a lot more hostile than I intended. That was just supposed to be a funny way of poking you. Thank you for responding, btw. You have no obligation to do so. I'm just some guy you were friends with many years ago who has trouble dealing with his ****. (Yeah, I know you probably don't see it that way.))

So, like I said above, I obviously played a role in all of this, but that's not really what I want to talk to you about. The anger I have for myself over this (and everything else) thoroughly dwarfs the anger I have for you. I am seriously disgusted with myself most of the time. I despise giant chunks of my personality. And that's what I spend the majority of my time in therapy dealing with. The argument could even be made that me having a little bit of anger left over for you is a tiny bit healthy, because my propensity for self-blame almost never allows that.

But it's still there. I do think you did plenty wrong in our friendship. One of the problems with our friendship that can be placed squarely on my shoulders was how passive I was about everything, how I let you dictate the tone. But that's when it swings back to you. You say no other relationship you've had has been super special in the way that ours was, but a couple others have been some kind of super special. Well, I've had some pretty ****ing rad other relationships, too, but I've never once thought about them in terms of how magically special they were. That language was yours, and I went along with it because going along with things is what I do.

For a very long time I was purely angry with the way our friendship ended. I viewed it as a betrayal of the oftentimes explicit commitments you and I made toward each other. I kind of realized that was pretty stupid of me, though. I've recently been able to better articulate what I was actually angry about, and why the end of the friendship bothered me so much. It wasn't so much that you betrayed me or anything like that, but that I was addicted to you, and then you left. I kind of had to go cold turkey as it were.

I got a lot out of our friendship, EBF. I don't want to make it appear as if the whole thing was a lie. I loved you very much and you made me very happy at times. I have a lot of very good memories, and it's pretty rad that we were able to be as close as we were. But none of that changes the fact that our friendship wasn't actually some magically perfect thing. There were problems, and one of the problems was our perception of the friendship itself, which I believe you are at least partly responsible for you.

...

I'm not sure why I'm having this conversation, or why I'm posting it to Poly. But hey, this is my depression thread and I can post whatever the **** I want. I should probably go to bed.

[Lorizael]

Fuuuuck. I just found a novel that would really, really pique the interest of my ex. Normally, I would send her a link to it and then we'd have a fun conversation about it. But methinks now I'll probably do nothing, because I'm trying to keep my distance from her. Sigh.

[rah]

See, you're displaying better judgement every day.
Post the novel title here. I know it's not the same, but you have to come up with some new ways.

[Lorizael]

Starfish, by Peter Watts. My ex has a WIP that involves genetically-engineered humans living underwater. And the facility they live in even looks like a starfish. I have no idea how similar the stories actually are, but there are definitely some superficial similarities and she was always looking for underwater stories she could get inspiration from. Of course, seeing a novel with a similar premise would be just as likely to infuriate her as excite her, and her faux anger is ****ing adorable.

[rah]

Damn, I was expecting to recognize the title and be able to say something reasonably upbeat about it. But sorry, despite having read thousands of SF books, I have never encountered this one.

[Lorizael]

From what I understand, there's nothing upbeat to be said about Peter Watts' stuff. From his wiki:

Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts.