I’m looking for idea’s regarding alternative living arrangement’s that foster and encourage healing. Like many of you, I seek peace and appreciate peaceful places, and find any ounce of stress, or personal drama, to be literally unbearable. Thanks Propecia and FDA!
I currently live (no choice-lack of money-severe mental issue’s post propecia use) with a very emotionally abusive father.
He makes fun of me, pressure’s me to change, berates me and makes my life a living hell. He closely resembles a Nazi Storm trooper without an ounce of sympathy or compassion towards me. A cold and angry man. I tried explaining everything to him, but he doesn’t believe what I’m suffering with on the daily, and uses any excuse to treat me like shit, stress me out and threaten to throw me out. I need out badly ASAP.
I’m interested in alternative living arrangemen’ts that would center around positive and caring people.
I feel strongly that I would need a positive environment to heal.
Out of desperation and frustration, I have come up with some idea’s, and some are quite bold:
Monastic Life - Become a Monk.
Art Co-Op sponsored community’s - Cheap rent & Nice people. Might be too much drama though or shit talking.
Peace Corps.
Military (Steady and Job security (with some money saved; might at least be able to see one of these 'expensive specialist’s)
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD SOME IDEA’S FOR ME. I’M DESPERATE AND IN A BAD SPOT. THANKS!
It sounds like your situation is so very bad for your recovery. I would either actually become a monk, i.e. save money for a one way ticket to somewhere like Nepal. Find your way to a monastry in the mountains and knock on the door. They will always take you. Or, leave home immediately, find cheap rent somewhere and embark on a lifestyle conducive to recovery; no stress, healthy living etc.
In the few months post crash i moved to my fathers who leaves in a more peaceful area, thinking it would be good for me. However he also could not understand me, kept saying it was in my mind and i needed to get over it etc. After a time i realised this was detrimental to my recovery, i moved out and made a plan to bring myself back to normal and stuck to it. Today i am almost fully recovered. I have not spoken to my father since (around 5 months), whereas before fin i spoke almost every day. I don’t think i will get back in touch until i am 100% again. I lost alot of faith in my fathers judgement, together with losing faith in humanity and Doctors as well. Today i know that only i know what is best for my body and i will always hold this view forever more.
I personally considered becoming a monk during my worst days. However, instead, i formulated a plan that would embody many aspects of a monks lifestyle. I practiced 3 different types of yoga; hatha, vinyasa and bikram, around 3-4 times a week for around 3-4 months. I never really took to meditation, but i think this also can be a powerful healer, especially for the mind. I also tried to spend alot of time in the forest or going for walks in the trees. By doing this i was trying to reconnect with nature. At first it brought me zero pleasure, but i worked at it and hung on to any small strand of feeling or emotional attachment i could get.
Thank you kindly Chi. Yes, my situation is really anti-healing with my dad being such a hard ‘tough love’ fire breathing beastman. Do you know he actually was trying to throw me out, while I was trying to take care of my mom dieing of cancer? He couldn’t stand the very sight of me. His words exactly! Many times he tried throwing me out, and many argument’s later, I stay put, because of my illness and lack of work these days.
I also find nature to be a great friend…I simply cannot relax at home…even his presence makes me very nervous and my congnitive illness gets out of hand, to the point where I feel I’m going insane along with headaches in back of my head. Your right, maybe I can practice a more spiritual lifestyle while here. It would be very difficult around that man. I find myself spending what little money I do have, on just putting gas in my car, and driving off and keeping away from the house and negative atmosphere. I also spend it on beer at the pubs. Yes, I know it’s wrong, but I feel sooo frustrated and fucked on the daily. I feel like a guy who came back from the war, with brain damage as result of running over a land mine. So I drink. I saw my mom die in front me, suffered with her and took care of her for three long years, got sick at the same time as my mom was diagnosed, and have to deal with feeling completely destroyed now. I am and have always been a very sensitive person. My predicament is sad. I have considered Klonopin to take the edge off things mentally, especially while at home, but have stayed away from all drugs since getting sick. Since I became ill, off finasteride, I feel stranded like on an island or a nerved out/hollowed out ghostman just staring at the old world left behind; my art table, music, old paintings just seem to be mirages. I can’t do much of anything still here at home. I feel like an ill Victor Frankel, stuck in a daily concentration camp, suffering. Where is the meaning behind all of this? What kept Frankel going was personally defined meaning. For myself; my promise to my late mother, who passed from cancer not long ago, and my own personally defined faith. I seek peace and warm people, for I know I can heal with the proper elements around me. I need to find work, save some money, and remain invisible around my dad until I can move out with a plan…Nepal does sound inteersting, but for a penniless destroyed sufferer, it seems so much of a stretch…Thank you Chi for your kind and uplifting response.
My father on many occassions, especially while mom was ill, told me he saw homeless bums on the street look better than me and my disgusting hair Really tough man to hear that shit coming from people who are supposed to support and love you…I am so jealous of guys here, who have supportive parent’s…must come from rich homes…I come from the working class.
The heartless asshole can’t stand even looking at me…his exact words. No matter how hard I try to explain the situation to him, it’s always the same get the fuck out of my face routine…he probably just keeps me around for being a human punching bag to him.
My father on many occassions, especially while mom was ill, told me he saw homeless bums on the street look better than me and my disgusting hair Really tough man to hear that shit coming from people who are supposed to support and love you…I am so jealous of guys here, who have supportive parent’s…must come from rich homes…I come from the working class.
[/quote]
Robertino, your father sounds like quite an unpleasant man. It must be horrible to be abused about your hair, only to then suffer the persistent side effects of finasteride. I have a few questions.
Do you suffer any sexual side effects or is it strictly cognitive issues that you are dealing with?
Can you find a way of moving out? get a new job with a better salary? stay with a friend?
Are you doing any exercise?
Something that stood out from your story is that you got sick when your mother was also sick. This must have been a very stressful period for you? it is not the case for everyone on this forum but i have noticed that many of us got hit with severe side effects after or during stressful periods in life. There is no question of whether Finasterie is the root cause; it certainly is. However, i think some of us may have been pushed over the edge by other factors, possibly.
I think you would certainly benefit from taking up exercise. Rigorous, if you can handle it and feel good afterwards. Or look into meditation, yoga and any other calming exercises.
Yes, it is a literal concentration camp of pure human misery. Just mental side’s. At the moment I’m stuck living here. Most of my healthy friend’s are all struggling with money as well and other problems. Money’s tight for everyone I know, and I can’t stay with any of them as result. The economy is horrible around here and jobs are scarce. I have a bachelor’s degree from college and liberal art’s education. Working and finding a good paying job has always been rough for me, especially in this conservative, tight pursed state.
I try to exercise and yes, it does help. Although, to be honest with you, it is getting harder for me to go out in public, cause I feel so bad about my appearance and illness at the same time. I feel totally ugly now, and a far cry from what I looked like before this horrid drug. Sadly, I suffered from a form of BDD prior to taking prop, and for many years prior. You could imagine the mental hell I’m in now. I also avoid woman, and feel exactly like a burn victim or someone who has been traumatized by some acicdent.
Have you ever seen the movie ‘interview with a vampire?’ There was a scene in that film, that really symbolizes things well. The lead vampire was betrayed, by the other whom he befriended over a young girl, where Lestat, the vampire was tricked, and supposedly killed off by the other, and burned alive. He didn’t die in the end, he just became very ugly and hideous, withdrawn from society and hid and lurked in the shadow’s feeding on rat’s blood. He was never the same like us, and lurked in the shadow’s…perfect way to symbolize our own predicament of betrayal, illness and disfigurement, thanks to the FDA and Merck.
Yes, it is true that the side effect’s did hit me at the same time my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I feel that perhaps the central nervous system is compromised, while on propecia, and maybe enough stressor’s can push you over the edge into illness. I was perfectly fine on the drug, for a month and a half approximately. My initial first negative side effect on the drug, was a sudden massively painful and constant chest pain or pressure exactly where the middle of the sternum is located, as well as a snapping/cracking (like snapping a twig) sound in the back of my head. I also had lot’s of problems breathing as a result of the chest pain and pressure. However, oddly enough, I didn’t feel stressed at all during all of this. My body was producing these frightful effect’s literally out of nowhere. The mental cognitive illness I know suffer from, came into effect, exactly one month after stopping the drug. Was the stress I was under a key factor? Perhaps, and I’m sure it wasn’t helpful, but I remember the exact order in how my symptom’s progressed. While on the drug: 1. Woken up in the middle of the night and heard a snapping sound in the back of my head 2. continuous chest pain 3. continuous breathing problems with continuous chest pain 4. full blown panic attack…stopped drug and all hell broke loose: heart palpitations, ringing in ears, massive headache’s, insomnia (couldn’t fall asleep for two weeks straight at one point!), always on edge - heat, sound’s, would set me off, and the now frightful brain fog or cognitive impairment is what I’m left with now for three years straight. My mom is certainly a big reason why I don’t give up. I was much closer to her, than I ever was with my beast man of a father sadly. Now she is gone. I carry on like a prisoner in a death camp…I found meaning to go on, and that’s why I don’t kill myself.
Would be nice if this forum had a roommate’s listing for guy’s with extreme cases such as mine. I find it hard to believe, that I’m the only one stuck in a negative living arrangement, with someone who treat’s you like shit for being sick on the daily.
At least we could motivate one another, and understand each other with out condemnation and encourage ourselves to heal. I think this is a brotherhood after all. A union of suffering men who need encouragement, and healthy positive support at the very least, and not division. This really isn’t our fault’s that we got sick. Sometimes, I made to feel that it is.
I think getting a job is an important part of coping with this. I cant imagine dealing with pfs and being completely broke and a burden on family members. Robertino, are you suffering from such bad brain fog that even a menial job is impossible?
Robertino totti, i live a pleasent life with not much stress etc. and my healing has yet to start.
I would however find a less stressful enviroment so you can relax a little, get a little dog for company(i got a little jack russell, best thing i ever done for pfs), take it on walks etc.
I dont know if isolation is the trick here. I work part time (20hours) and i can manage, fulltime is to much for me.
But just get enough to pay the bills and learn a musical instrument or something, if you do already master your art, we might aswell make the most of our days somehow.
You need to get away from your dad. Maybe he’s in turmoil from your mother dying and taking it out on you, or maybe he’s just an asshole. Either way you should not be living with him under normal circumstances let alone pfs. If you’re so fucked can you not just go on disabilty?
I have a parents that are really worried about me. But the problem is they believe it’s all in my head, they believe that i have a big depression and that the depression is causing all my problems, including brain fog (although it’s true depression can cause some kind of brain fog, i don’t think it has nothing to do with our brain fog). Why they believe that? Because i’ve done lots of tests and all of them came back normal (except for one liver test). The worst thing about this illness is that we cannot show anyone a test that demonstrates we have health problems.
So having a supportive parents is not helping me, because now that we’ve seen doctors telling me i have no problems, i’m visiting with my parents a psychiatrist, who wants me to take an antidepressant.
It’s sad that we have our life ruined by this problems, but it’s even more sad that we cannot prove our problems.
I’m so sorry to hear about your current situation. I’d like you to consider something bro… This life, it’s pretty short and you know we tend to have a skewed view of things (and ourselves) while we live it. Let me explain. I don’t know you personally but you seem like a great guy to me. It takes a special kind of person to nurse a loved one through their dying moments, that’s not something everyone would do… even for their own mothers. So I can tell you’re a person of great character. I can also tell that you’re much too hard on yourself. Ease up. I bet you’re not as ugly as you claim you are, in fact you probably look just fine. Do you think most people who see you care one way or another about your appearance? Probably not. They have their own hangups, dramas, aspirations and faults to be busy with. You mentioned that you may have BDD… well this is treatable friend, go and get help for this… you DON’T have to live with it. In terms of your living arrangements… it sounds like your dad has his own demons, don’t make them your own. When he’s saying all that stuff about you… it’s really about him and his own problems/frustrations etc. You definitely need to get out as soon as it’s feasible but in the meantime try to limit conversation with him when he’s being abusive and accept that the only power he has over your emotional state is the power you give him. I know it’s easier said than done but you really have all the power in this equation (as far as your own emotional state… barring chemical and psychological problems which are treatable).
Also… remember this bro. When you’re dead and gone people won’t remember you for how you look but for what you did. Do something that makes you happy and that contributes to the wider community.
Wishing you well,
(ps Chi gave you some awesome advice… take your health in your own hands)
I tend to agree with what you said as well. Your post was very positive. A great post really.
Its likely that we all suffer from various degrees of cognitive/depression/anxiety related symptoms. I’ll preface with that. But there’s still a huge part of this that involves overcoming the mental hurdle… the victim mindset. That’s debilitating in and of itself. There are positive things in and around our lives. The moment I choose to realize my social anxiety, and other PFS issues, were real and face them head on - put myself in uncomfortable situations, find ways to work around my issues as opposed to run from them and keep it all bottled inside - that was a positive step forward for me.
I still deal with these issues every day. Like I said, its likely we all have varying degrees of these symptoms; there are likely those who deal with higher degrees of these symptoms. I get that. However, do not underestimate the power of the mind in overcoming and finding peace within.
Really tough man to hear that shit coming from people who are supposed to support and love you…I am so jealous of guys here, who have supportive parent’s…must come from rich homes…I come from the working class.