How has this poll managed to stay constantly at 50/50?

 

the balance of life maybe :P

 

Three nervous breakdowns started it. First I was in my teens. Almost a pop star back in 1980. Gigs every night, recording contract. My manager had a thing for young boys. He got me alone and tried it on one night. I told the record company and they fired him. He sued me for wrongful dismissal. There were no witnesses and I lost the court case and had to pay damages. $120,000 in lost future income was the ruling. The record company wouldn't pay and I declared bankruptcy. Until my debt was paid I couldn't work in the music business. I wouldn't get out of bed for months. My parents weren't supportive and I cracked. I got a normal job. Years later I met my wife to be. She knew how depressed I was not making music, so we came up with a plan for me to use my engineering skills to open a recording studio in her name. I was so successful I took on a 50/50 partner to split the workload. I had a cancelled session one night and came home to find my business partner in bed with my wife. They calmly explained that they owned the studio. I was homeless and penniless. Nervous breakdown 2. I lived on the streets for years. I'd work odd jobs to buy booze and drugs. In the middle of my drug addled nightclub life, my parents told me I was adopted. I was 38 years old. I found my birth mother. I wasn't Australian, I was German. 6 brothers and sisters. No dad. He died of a heart attack very young as did his father. "Be careful of your heart!" My mother warned. I didn't know who I was anymore. I started having full blown panic attacks which when you haven't had one before is like a heart attack. I went crazy. OCD, anorexia, in and out of hospital thinking I was dying. Eventually I saw a psychiatrist and I was put on Xanax. The way I was going I probably would have died. I was malnourished. The benzos calmed me down. I went back to work and lived an almost normal life. But when stressed I'd become erratic. I'd scare other staff members. I was declared mentally unstable by the government and at the age of 51 I retired. I got a large payout and I remembered how much I missed making music. Finally after a 30 year break I built my dream studio and I've been writing, playing and singing for 13 years now. I have a great partner and she knows I'm still unstable, but I must have my good moments and some charm. I am a lucky man to have made it to my mid 60's. No matter how I did it.

 

Max, your life could be made into a film. What a story. One shock after another, but it does end up somewhat good. I feel so glad you've made it so far to be able to enjoy your life fully again.

 

fucked up by labels as usual

 

Jesus Christ, Max. That is one hell of a story. Astonishing actually. Sounds like you're lucky to still be here.

Glad you're back to making music.

 

You can either jack in or jack off, that's what my grandmother always said!

 

When I think everything sucks.
Why don't you observe your own thoughts?
If you think everything sucks, you will feel like shit. What the thinker thinks, the prover will prove.

What is cognitive therapy?
The term "cognitive" is derived from the Latin "cognoscere" and means "to recognize." Cognitive therapy is about becoming clear about one's thoughts, attitudes, and expectations. The goal is to recognize false and stressful beliefs and then change them. After all, it is often not only the things and situations themselves that cause problems, but also the perhaps far too great importance one gives them.

One stressful thought pattern, for example, is to immediately draw negative conclusions from an incident, to generalize them and to transfer them to similar situations. Generalizing thought patterns are referred to in psychology as "overgeneralization." Another stressful thinking error is "catastrophizing": something disturbing happens, and exaggerated worries promptly arise that a disaster might be imminent.

Such thinking patterns sometimes develop into a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and make life difficult for those affected. For example, if you believe that other people have something against you, you act in a negative way. And in doing so, they themselves trigger others to become more unfriendly.

With the help of cognitive therapy, however, one can learn to replace false thought patterns with more realistic and less harmful thoughts. Cognitive therapy helps you to think more clearly and to better control your own thoughts.