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LookingHopeful
Senior Contributor

Wanting to have a general chat

Hello,

 

First time poster here. I just was looking for a space online to talk to people online, just to connect. 

 

I have recently moved to live remotely and the summer is setting in. It is so hot and on my days off I feel a little lost, stuck and start to overthinking. And the worst part, I will be here for the Christmas so would love a distraction. 

 

How are you doing in life? Do you live remotely, do you have a hobby online that you can suggest? 

 

I was doing fine a little while ago as I was so busy at work and it was the high season so I had no time to stop. Now I will start to work from home for 2.5 months, to be honest I am not looking forward to it as it is just me running things as everyone else goes on holidays and LWOP, I am the only full timer that stays on at this time. This was supposed to be a move to save money for a house (now the housing market is still ballistic, anyone else in this situation also? Would love to talk about it also). 

 

To make it worse we are about 5.5 hours away from the ocean so I cannot go for a walk on the beach or something. I have lived in the middle of Aus before for over a year and didn't miss the ocean but this time is different. I just liked to watch the waves and feel the sand. Do you resonate with any of this? Are there any other safe chat rooms that you use to chat instantly with people? 

43 REPLIES 43

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

Hey @LookingHopeful Thanks for being here. I can relate to missing the ocean. I feel most grounded with my feet in the sand but unfortunately don't live close to it at the moment. It sounds like you're making a plan to look after your mental health for the next 2.5 months while you work remote and I just wanted to point out what a great strength that is. I hope you will find some support here. 

There are lots of different threads and you can have a go at typing your interests into the seach bar and see if there's a discussion you could join. Also check out the social spaces here . 

Just wanted to lead you to the community guidelines  also as they can be a little hard to find and they exist to keep everyone safe. I will tag some members here to get you started. @HenryX @wellwellwellnez @Flying_Hams @AussieRecharger @NatureLover @outlander 

Take care, 

Paperdaisy 

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

Thank you @Paperdaisy, and thank you for the reminder about having the strength to seek help. It certainly didnt feel like that and you reminded me that we are just so harsh on ourselves. It is much easier said than done but I have been very negative with my thoughts and I would just like them to be easier.

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

Hello @LookingHopeful  and  @Paperdaisy 

 

@LookingHopeful, From what you have said, things have changed since you last worked away from the coast; at least for you. I note that you have also mentioned being on your own and it seems that you are probably feeling pretty isolated. That can be particularly so in very hot weather. Our top here today is just under 40 deg C, depending on which side of the tree that you are standing under, and if you can find a tree nearby.

 

While I don't want to take you too far down the track of overthinking, I wonder if you could tell us a bit about any issues that concern you. Being alone over Christmas would be a bit of a downer, unless the aloneness is what you had intended. Quite a few people on the forum say that they wish they could be away from all the activity, shopping and general stress of the Christmas / New Year period. Sometimes, when "the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence", it is just different, but not much greener, if at all.

 

Reading the guidelines, you would be aware of the need to retain anonymity, so, while acknowledging that, maybe you could tell us which state you are in so that we have an idea of your time zone. I live in what is known as the Mid-West Region of W.A., which, for comparison, is more than twice {2.076x} the area of Victoria. {This to give an idea of relative areas and distances.}

"The Mid West region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is a sparsely populated region extending from the west coast of Western Australia, about 200 kilometres north and south of its administrative centre of Geraldton {Population ~38,000} and inland to 450 kilometres east of Wiluna in the Gibson Desert.
Area: 472,336 km²   Population: 52,000 (2006 census)   Wikipedia"
 
With Best Wishes
 
I have added the following tips which I hope will be of help in using the functions of the forum. If you have any problems just ask from wherever you are and someone should be able to assist.
 
When you want to reply to a post with someone's forum address, eg @LookingHopeful  or  @HenryX .
forum name = LookingHopeful, HenryX  , forum address = @LookingHopeful , @HenryX 
  1. Click the REPLY oval to the bottom right of the post to which you intend replying
  2. With the cursor in the Reply box, type the "@" symbol {without inverted commas} which will open a drop down menu with up to five or six forum addresses of people who have commented in the thread to which you want to reply
  3. The @ symbol cannot be adjacent to any other letter or symbol in order for the dropdown menu to appear  P@ ,X  P  @ 
  4. Selecting a forum address from the list will enter that forum address into the reply box, and, in turn, will send an alert to the person concerned, which will appear in the "Your Notifications" page list for that person
  5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 for additional forum address entries into the reply box
  6. Enter the comment that you wish to offer, then click POST and click POST again. {Two POST clicks are normally required. If the comment does not post on the second click, check above and below the reply box for Error messages.
  7. There is often a message below the reply box regarding an "invalid HTML" { - see 8. below.} That message can normally be ignored unless it changes to read a different message. The message just seems to be stuck there, for no apparent reason.
  8. "   Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied.  "

At the top right of the forum page to the right of Guidelines & Info is placed the word New .

  1. Clicking on the word New will open the "Your Notifications" page
  2. The "Your Notifications" page displays a list of the notifications to you, by other members, from threads to which you have posted or been active, or where they have entered your forum address.
  3. In the "Your Notifications" page, Left click on the link, which will be displayed like this;        " Re: Wanting to have a general chat " to open the link and selected message, in the same browser TAB as the "Your Notifications" page or
  4. Right click on the displayed link to open the link and message in a new browser TAB
  5. If there are a number of message alerts, I find it easier to open two or three of them in new browser TABs
  6. However, if you see this timeout message

    Authentication Failed.

    • Authentication Ticket Mismatched, failed authentication.

 Copy the whole of the message that you have typed into the message box, refresh the page, and then paste the copied message back into the reply box, complete the message and click POST and click POST again.

{ This is what I had to do with this message because I took so long to write it. That is when the dreaded Authentication Failed message most often appears }

That should complete the message process unless there are any other error messages that require attention.

 

Cheers @HenryX 

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

Hi there @LookingHopeful,

Welcome to the wonderful SANE forum community.

I'm dropping in here to let you know about Topic Tuesday's . Topic Tuesday is a live, facilitated Q&A style discussion with a special guest who is a subject matter expert. We run Topic Tuesdays every fortnight, and the next Topic Tuesday just so happens to be on strategies for coping during the holiday season! We'll be chatting about isolation, loneliness, grief and service closures during the silly season, so if this sounds like something you might find helpful, and would like to get involved in the discussion, just drop a like/support on this post and I'll be sure to welcome you on the night Smiley Happy

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy your time here in the forums, and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask one of our peer support workers you'll see floating around, or one of our amazing SANE Community Guides (you'll notice their title under their username).

Rhye 🌞

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

Hello @LookingHopeful 

Sounds like a lot of responsibility in next few weeks.

I love the sea and should take more advantage of it 15 mins away.  Thanks for the reminder!

@oceangirl  also loves it ....

 

Yep housing is throught the roof, not making it easy.

Tale Care

Apple

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

@LookingHopeful  Hi and welcome to the forums :D. I will be around this Christmas.if you want a chat and I am sure there will be many others. One of my favourite places is Broken Hill. I love the red dirt and the odd dark green leaf trees spread here and there. I live on the coast so probably take the beaches and ocean for granted. Anyway welcome again. Love greenpeax

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

This is great @Rhye @thank you for the invite to Topic Tuesday's, I will definitely try and participate this fortnight 🙂

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

@Appleblossom Yes, take the reminder and head to the beach for me too 🙂 

And that seems to be another stress and anxiety with the housing market as we were ready to move forward but the extra price rises has pushed any hope out again which is a real let down and feeling like life is a little stagnant.

 

Thank you for the kind words @greenpea I can see connecting online has already helped, I need something to occupy my mind because I am going a little stir crazy with the isolation at Christmas time.


@HenryX what a helpful post. Many thanks 🙏 

yes, it is in the 40s already and makes it worst just being inside a dark house with the aircon on as the days just drag on and don't feel like I'm achieving anything. 
it's funny that you say some people want to get away from the holiday craziness, it very much is a 'grass is greener' scenario but would be good if we could cope either way and not beat up on ourselves. 
Life just doesn't feel like it should and I would love to get back to feeling 'normal' again where I can enjoy the little things in life and not live all day watching the clock in a state or anxiety. I am moving forward the best I can but oh wow, sometimes it feels I am the only one to experience hardship (which I know is not true but that is what plays out in my mind) 

 

Re: Wanting to have a general chat

hello @LookingHopeful  we are here for you my friend xoxo

@greenpea@Appleblossom@Rhye@HenryX 

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