In December 2022 I realized I skipped seeing my cardiologist for 6 years. Did a 24 hour monitor. Apparently my heart rate was dropping to 21 bpm and stopping pumping for up to three seconds. So in February 2023 they cut me open and give me a pacemaker. Months go on and I am still getting winded. So they did another heart Cath procedure (on the 28th) and it turns out my heart is doing worse than thought even, so in the next 3-5 years I'll need a heart transplant. But the make up of my organ layout means I'll need a specialist, which just all sounds so slim. I am 33 and so fucking tired.
I hope to leave some of this stress behind. I know there's a lot I can't escape now, but I hope I can leave some of the anger and fear behind. It's been hard to be a good dad or partner this year just from feeling so stressed, and if I don't know how long we will have I just want my daughter to remember a happier dad.
I’m only a few years older than you and have ischaemic cv disease (blocked arteries). It’s a common problem in people twice my age. I thought I ate well and exercised regularly but it turns out that stuff doesn’t help that much if you lost the genetic lottery like me.
I had a heart attack this year, while my partner was pregnant with our first children. Yes 2x kids. They were born a few months ago.
IDK if I have 2 years or 20 years to do my best for them… but fuck it’s a bitter pill.
I absolutely get the dread / fear / anger.
Every time I have a new blood test that shows I’m more fucked than I hoped it just… hurts.
i used ynab for a while but am now realizing it’s probably worse for my mental health to keep track of things that granularly. need to go back to a more zoomed out, normal person sort of management scheme
Maybe just readjust your categories to be more general?
Alternatively I found a bank called Monzo that has ynab features built-in. I’m definitely considering not renewing my ynab and switching to that if I can.
I really appreciate strings in general, but no instrument can emotionally move me like the violin. A melancholic violin section in an already sad song is a surefire way to make me tear up. I’ve never been very good at playing any instrument, but I’ve been tempted to pick up the violin to see if it feels as good to play as it does to hear.
A large Casavant. Any pipe organ really, but a large one with tones below the human hearing threshold really hit hard in person. They give me nonstop frisson. Almost can’t handle it, and tears stream down my face the whole time, but not from sadness; just a physiological reaction.
Cook one meal from a different country every month. I’ve always loved cooking and I have a partner who is equally as enthusiastic to eat it with me! The foods have to be something I’ve never cooked before. Some can be ones I’ve eaten before, so I have something to compare to. I’m thinking of starting with traditional foods from Afghanistan, Russia, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Uyghur…
Do you know sorted foods on youtube? They have a bunch of different series, one where they do just that, going in alphabetical order from A-Z and then drawing a random country starting with that letter, and then cooking the national dish plus some community recommendations. It’s quite fun!
Oh, no I haven’t, but thank you for the share, I’ll go take a look. Going out to eat has gone up in price so much that it is pushing me to learn to cook my favourite dishes, and explore flavours I would otherwise never have tasted before.
Something else I had planned to do was once a month, my partner and I write down three countries (six between us) we want to visit or re visit on small pieces of paper. We put them in a cup and draw three countries: First is the main meal, second is dessert, third is an activity.
Definitely more effort involved but it gets him to expand his culinary skills past pasta and chicken wraps.
Low stakes would be getting back into a study routine, I want to improve my Norwegian. I’m quite proficient but plateaued at some point and stopped putting any effort in.
Soft recommendation for psychedelics. It’s NOT for everyone and you should do some legitimate research beforehand, but it’s done wonders for my anxiety
It took me a very long time to realise that there’s no point worrying about things I can’t control, I needed to find ways to mitigate the risks or consequences.
E.g. I used to get very very anxious about traveling, e.g. for a four hour car trip. What is there’s heavy traffic, what if we run late, what if there are detours, what if we need to stop, what if the car breaks down…
Then I started working out what I could actually do about these things? What is in my control? What can I do to make heavy traffic more bearable (music and water)? So what if I’m late? I have a phone I can call. I can keep my car well maintained, I can drive calmly, and so on.
It’s not perfect, it’s anecdotal, but it was a mindset change that helped me. I mean, medication helped too… it gave me the space to be rational.
In my case its that I just get stuck into repetative negative thought loops. My default assumption always seems to be that the worst case scenario is going to happen even though it never happens. I’m just really good at convincing myself that nothing is worth trying as I’m probably going to fail anyways.
When you catch yourself going into a negative loop, stop yourself and think of or write down the absolute worst possible scenario (and really, how bad is this, likely minor, negative thing in the grand scheme of things?), the most likely scenario which happens most of the time, and the best possible scenario (how good could it be, similar to the bad outcomes?). What separates those possible outcomes? Chance? Effort on your part? Other people?
If it’s effort on your part, it gives you actionable steps you can take and that’s great for anxiety, everything else being out of your control should actually help as well, though, especially when you intentionally step back and look for the most likely event.
I always have this sense when I’m driving home from an overnight elsewhere that my house will have burned down or my animals will be dead or something. I know it’s absurd, but more than that, even if that was the case, there’s nothing I could actually do about it, and I know one of my neighbors would call the fire department and text me if my house caught fire. So when I have that intrusive thought I stop myself and take a step back - logically it’s very unlikely it will burn down when I’m not home because I spend 99% of my time at home - if it is going to burn, it is likely going to burn when I’m here, and I literally never worry about that. So why do I worry about the rare occurrence?
It doesn’t help immediately, because you didn’t logic yourself into that worry, but eventually you can train yourself to be a bit more realistic which, while it may not fix the intrusive thoughts, does help a ton with breaking the rumination cycle.
Most instruments played well grips my heart and holds. But steelpan. People see it as something carnival something something, but it fits well for a surprisingly wide span of music! The power of the bass pans in death metal as much as the “synthiness” in a melody from some NES game, it fits!
The french horn gets me in the feels every time. I think it’s because it reminds me of dressing up fancy and going to the symphony with my aunt as a school aged kid, as well as candle lit Christmas eve services that heavily featured them.
The french horn is the feelings guy in the horn section. The trumpet is often used to shout the main idea at the audience, and then the french horn lays back on the couch and tells us how that makes him feel.
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