Ontogenesis

Moved out of WIP to Mapping. Fantastic work with this Xonic!

Hallucinations were indeed in early versions of the game with ghost like zombies behind you that disappeared if you tried to lool at them. In real life you need 2/3 days to experience hallucinations, but anomalous experiences can occur after a single sleepless night e.g. seeing shadows out of the corner of your eyes. Generally sleep deprivation doesn't lead to fainting or collapsing. Although you may fall asleep very quickly in moments of, say, sitting down and resting. In sleep deprivation studies people have stayed awake for 13/14 days as long as they stay active. There should definitely be harder consequences for sleep deprivation though.

No Psychologist? Bonus for survivor group of reduced panic, less chance of mental health problems and less interpersonal conflict.

What do I know about Dr Amanda Wilson and her work here? What kind of person is she? The same questions for Kaila! I'll save asking about relationships with other factors for another time. It'll be good to get a handle on the people and their motivations. I imagine that will play heavily in the times to come.

Ain't going nowhere without breakfast. And Nel ain't no fool to take on other people's work for free. So: 1) A

1) B 2) A A people orientated character likely armed with likely a weapon sounds useful. What skills or knowledge would I have picked up working on the hobby garden?

Got to be a space game surely? A turned based 4x or something.

The suggestions are fine but the general tone across the posts is a bit contemptuous. Being contemptuous invites anger, as demonstrated above. Honestly we just the forums to be a pleasant place to be around.

Truly astounding!

I believe this thread has run its course.

Problem with this suggestion is that it makes the assumption that zombification is the result of a virus. Most viral infection theories do not fly in the face of the behaviour and survivability of a zombie. I think TIS have not declared much lore regards the cause and nature of their zombies, so would be difficult to support any suggestion that infers this.

There's quite a few to find, some which you may not get because of how long the forums have been going. For example, that road you linked to with Enigma's books also has a reference to mendonca, Robomat, and myself

I was checking psychologist visas and registration in Canada all morning... Guess I'll see you all over there then

£5 in 2011. Price of an expensive pint in London. Within 5 years had a modding stint, learn some programming, been to numerous meetups and EGXs, played D&D and made some friends, all on the indie stone forums. Also, project zomboid is great too

I like the idea that every trait has negative and positive sides to it as it reflects real life. I'd like to see it expanded to all personality traits.

I've moved this over to the Help section.

Locked on request - you can post any comments to the existing thread in the suggestion forum.

Moved to mod help

Reduction in thirst?

Trainee psychologist, rather than psychiatrist For those who don't know; psychiatrists train as medical doctors before specialising in psychiatry aka mental health, psychologists study psychology before going onto specialise in clinical psychology. They have essentially different training backgrounds and come from different assumptions about mental health problems (although in reality most level-headed psychologists and psychiatrists agree and respect each other). Psychiatrists do diagnosis, medication, legal aspects (e.g. sections/hospital admissions) and often take a lead in decision making in care (often being the de facto leaders as often other team members are nurses or similar). Psychologists do formulation, talking therapies, cognitive/psychometric assessments and support teams in different ways (e.g. reflective practice, clinical supervision) but will often also take leadership roles in one form or another. I'm in my second year of doing the doctorate in clinical psychology (the only course you can do in the UK to qualify as a chartered CP). We have placements that last for 6 months and we need to meet some requirements by the end of the 3 years, such as being competent to adapt therapy/assessments for children, adults, older adults or people with learning disabilities. We also need to be proficient in two therapy models - I've chosen CBT and systemic as they fit more with a person centered approach I favour. I've done two adult placements in the first year and am currently in a child and adolescent placement. Enjoyed it all so far Can be a lot of hard work, especially with placement changes, as it feels like learning how to do a new job all from the start again, doubly so because there is a feeling of responsibility for people's treatment. Between adults and children, children are much harder work! Unlike adults most get dragged in against their will, so not many even want to be there. Adults usually except that they need to take responsibility to make changes but children aren't often at that stage in their life yet. Also, shitty parents are a constant frustration. Don't be a parent that gives their kid a child they need therapy to get over... ethanwdp, a quick suggestion, you might of already looked into/tried, but in case not: if you can't prevent the fight/flight reaction coming over, you might consider how to manage it when it does - what works and why, what can you try etc. minimise damage. Relaxation techniques, distraction, crisis management type of stuff.

Sorry to hear you're having a shit time at the moment ethanwdp. kirrus's advice to avoid the self-diagnosis is right - assessments are quite tricky to do right for professionals as you're always holding in mind differential diagnoses/formulations. 'Symptoms' (i.e. reported feelings of distress) can be misleading because anxiety and depression are transdiagnostic; they appear in everything from depression, bipolar, schizophrenia etc Mood swings are pretty universal too. There are a lot of incorrect self-diagnoses of bipolar about (and actual diagnoses too by lazy or timid clinicians, most often mistaken for personality disorders). And trust me, you'd much prefer not to have this, it's one of the most debilitating conditions in the world (fourth I believe?) with a lifetime of being fearful of how you feel and destroying everything you build when well whenever you slip into mania/depression because you had a bad night sleep or was successful at something (a common trigger of a manic episode). Have you ever been investigated for aspergers? Sensory issues and anxiety are very common with this. At worst they might have some good advice about how to manage sensitivities to sound. There is help out there and it doesn't mean the end of life for you, these can be managed or some things overcome. You sound like you have some good capabilities and talents, as well as some people who love you. These can make all the difference. What's the care plan with the psychiatrist at the moment? Does it consider all these long term future questions you have?

I have no idea why it came out as sokittening... But I thought I wrote 'socialising'. Kittens on ma mind Edit: ok it appears to be a forum rule for some reason I am writing so-cial-ising

So I realised I never actually wrote something for this - sorry for that, been very busy recently. Short essay incoming. What ulfstein talks about is very interesting. The biggest predictor of a relapse of depression is in fact the number of times you been depressed before - the more times you have the higher the chance it will happen again. One attempt at explaining this is a concept called 'cognitive reactivity'. Essentially what this means is that you build an association between negative thinking patterns/behaviour and feeling low, such that even transient or mild low mood can activate the same thinking patterns you have when depressed (if you want to read more, google 'Teasdale differential activation hypothesis'). In this way depression comes back much easier. One way we might teach relapse prevention to people is to change your relationship to your thoughts (also called meta-cognition, or your thoughts about your thoughts) and to not accept their meaning straight off the bat or get caught up in them. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) does this implicitly by decentring you from your thoughts, but other approaches such as mindfulness does this explicitly. What's interesting is that ulfstein sounds like he is doing a lot of that; not getting fighting or ruminating on his thoughts, or making judgement of what comes into his mind. In this way thoughts pass without getting stuck there. A bad day stays as a bad day without necessarily building the momentum into full blown depression. Every experience of depression is unique. As a psychologist I believe there is never not a reason to be depressed. The basics questions I ask and formulate is: why them and why now? I tend to lean towards different ways of understanding it depending on the person and what they bring. For example, someone older with recurrent depression over many years I might want to explore their life story/explanations/theories and see how they view themselves, and perhaps lean towards a narrative therapy approach with mindfulness based relapse prevention. This is because it is less likely that there is life event that has triggered their depression, as explained above, and so examining someone's current life in detail for a clue to the 'trigger' of depression might be less fruitful. Likewise, they might have a clear stressor in their life causing it, such problems at work. Again though, this might be complicated because they might have inadvertently caused it. Best example of that is that someone who tells me they have been bullied in the last 6 jobs they have... the probability they are running into bullies so consistently is very low, so it is more likely they have problematic interactional patterns. Though I digress. Every person's depression is unique - in terms of the causes, experiences (e.g. symptoms) and meaning. One person's depression means they are a failure, or worthless, or unloveable, or that they are not good enough and so on. However, there is much variation in the 'depth' you need to help yourself. The basic way you can understand depression is what is called a maintenance cycle in CBT. This looks at the things that maintain a depressive state in the current moment and tackles these first. One analogy for this is that if you see a man hanging off a cliff, you help him up first before asking how he got there. This can include rumination (the constantly going over of memories or problems with no end - it's like the mind is trying to problem solve but there are no solutions), which is both unhelpful (as it achieves absolutely nothing, not to be mistaken with actual problem solving) and has a strong negative impact on mood. It might include activity levels - i.e. how much you are 'doing' during the day and impact on mood. Depression leads to inactivity, and inactivity leads to more depression (the so called negative spiral). In addition, some activities might make you feel worse (most common: watching TV, because it feels pointless and people usually ruminate during), and some might be missing (most common: socialising, because they say they won't enjoy it anyway). What you decide to do moment-to-moment affects how you feel, and turning this into micro choices can be a very powerful tool. Avoidance (including emotional, situational, and cognitive) is the big thing in both depression and anxiety - often it causes more problems due to the lack of facing other ones. Sitting down and planning problem solving is useful here. Another CBT approach would be start to analyse your thoughts and behaviours and understand their impact on you. You might then do some basic thought challenging to better react and handle situations, this involves examining the truthfulness of both the contents of your thoughts and the conclusions from them. Drugs and alcohol almost always have a negative impact, especially as they act as emotional avoidance, as well as disrupting sleep and causing hangovers. I might also look at some other factors such as sleep (where sleep hygiene would be useful) and diet (not eating and eating the wrong things will make you feel worse). After this you might want to examine further in your history to see where these negative beliefs about yourself, others and the world. I say afterwards because this can resemble rumination ('why me?') if done poorly, which is why therapy can be helpful. Sometimes they can be linked to childhood, such as parental expectations (e.g. getting depressed having a set back at work - when you had it taught to you that you were only worthwhile if you were succeeding). You might then want to think about seeing if you want to believe something different in your life. Sometimes depression goes away by itself (called spontaneous remission), other times you can tackle the cause yourself either by removing the problem or using self-help, another option is therapy. The type of therapy will vary depending on the formulation of your depression, though the big recommended first line of treatment is CBT (protocol driven CBT is often offered first... though I am not a particular fan of this). The list is endless, but might include mindfulness based therapies (I'd argue are better for relapse prevention), dynamic interpersonal therapy (if you think interpersonal patterns are a key part and are prepared to explore this), cognitive analytical therapy (another good interpersonal one - especially for the times when interact in a way which doesn't feel like yourself or is how you were once treated), acceptance and commitment therapy (probably better when you also experience significant anxiety as well), behavioural activation (now a part of CBT but also an approach in of itself, recommended for severe depression), psychodynamic psychotherapy (long term therapy, better for long term problems or if goal directed therapy is too intense) etc. Generally for anything, you need to notice and understand before knowing what to change (i.e. formulate). Doing this will help you pick the most effective thing, as what works for others may not work for you because it might not be related to the depression you get. It's like saying you want to get fit and then get bombed with advice; the best thing is someone to make a bespoke program with you depending on your strengths, weaknesses, current knowledge and experience. You might even have a very particular idea of what 'fit' means compared to others. Your goals for change will be your own. Like I said before, if you have any specific you wanted to ask I am happy to attempt to answer, thought I cannot guarantee I know. I hope something in the above wall of text is helpful.

I can offer the more professional side advice, I currently work as a psychologist in a child and adolescent MH service. I will write a post later tonight when I get some time with some more generic psychological stuff. However, others advice can be equally, if not more, useful at times. Can be powerful abd hopeful to hear you're not the only one and people can get through it. Although, what works for others might not work for you and visa versa, some could actually make you feel worse. It really depends on you, your context, your depression, what is maintaining, what has caused it etc.

Everyone can experience depression differently, and are bothered by some things more. Was there a specific thing you wanted advice on? Or is the general advice ok?