The Sudden Obliteration of Expectation
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- čas přidán 19. 03. 2020
- The way we make sense of the world is mostly invisible to us...but times like this can make it visible. There have been moments in my life my expectations have evaporated and I have felt lost without an anchor. We're starting to realize that we're in a moment like that right now. Maybe it won't be a huge shift...here's hoping, but it's already been unsettling and life-changing for many people, so we're going to have to find our new normal.
Also, when it comes to how we need to handle this...this article from Aaron Carroll is very good. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arc...
And when it comes to how people react during times of crisis, this is also good: www.wired.com/story/coronavir...
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My go-to quote for this feeling is from Lemony Snicket, "It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."
YES I love this thank you
this is so incredibly perfect
Lemony Snicket is an endless source for beautiful, heart-wrenching truths
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There is research on this! I'm a psychologist, and this idea is called "lost possible selves." Laura King has some great work on this that you should check out.
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Love your contribution! Thanks.
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Hey Hank. In Turkish we have a word that can be roughly translated as "disappointment" but it is actually closer to what you describe here. The word is "Hayal Kirikligi" which translates literally as "shattering of dreams". I think this word is somewhat similar to what you describe, it can be used to convey a momentary feeling or a longer state of being. This feeling is in between being disappointed and angry, more like suddenly losing ones positive expectations.
how is this pronounced? (for an english speaker)
@@SesshyLoverLioness let me try to explain pronunciation here: "hayal kırıklığı" = ha-yhal qi-riq-ligh-e. That should give a similar sound, although it is difficult to describe phonetically over text, there is some sounds that dont really have a direct equivalent in English.
I love this thank you for sharing it
I am fully aware that this video was made 3 years ago and has nothing to do with Hank's cancer, but my mind keept pretending that this is the second video after the reveal, and it hurts in an uncanny way.
Let’s call it the “Ohshitness”
CAN I GET A OHSHITNESSSS
@@vlogbrothers OHSHITNESSSS
@@vlogbrothers OHSHITNESSSSSS!
@@vlogbrothers OHSHITNESSSS!!!
@@vlogbrothers OHSHITNESSSS
I went through this hardcore during the lingering end of a relationship I'd thought was going to be a cornerstone for the rest of my life. Grieving a future I never got to experience is one of the worst kinds of grief I've ever experienced.
I know that feel. I had 2 engagements fall apart before I started dating my now-husband. That dark, empty feeling is THE WORST! 🖤
Well said.
Far more poetic and true than I could ever put into words.
@Micah Thibault Mine ended September 2018, and I still feel lost sometimes. I hope it gets better for you too
I find this too relatable. My last relationship was... rocky, to say the least. But I had convinced myself that she was The One™ that I'd have a future with. Everything fell apart hard long before we got that future, and it took me far longer than I'm proud to admit to get over her/it. It was only once the wuthering had passed that I realized the future I imagined would never have been real anyway. Definitely sucked for a very long time. When we were together, we used to call those plans "future memories": fantasies of things that we were so sure would happen, they might as well be memories. They turned out to be false memories after all.
“Paradigm Shift.” When I went through the diagnoses of my chronic illnesses, this is the best phrase I have to describe that feeling.
I vote this one!
Paradigm shifts can be very different though. It can mean anything that changes how you see the world, for good or ill. Like it applies, but doesn't specifically have to do with that sudden feeling of loss and uncertainty
If labeling another person's experience is worth anything...
Alright, here goes the leather chair psychology=
That "feeling" was maybe a bunch of feelings driven by competing desires.
1. Pain, a lot of 'information' suddenly coming at you really quick
2. Struggling, maybe vascillating, between what new 'knowledge' you will have to accept. Denial always feels easier than acceptance. Problem is, your pain persists.
3. Maybe an existential crisis thrown in with middle age... some cognitive dissonance while trying to bargain your way out of the external locust.
4. Grappeling for acceptance and validation with others that you are going to make it through, and their and your expectations will change.
5. Maybe an entire Paradigm has to shift a few degrees. And as a plus you get to keep a sliver of sanity.
later on down the road... you just fall back into living a life that is believably normal
Cheers mate! I'm pull'n for ya. We're all in this together ;)
@@spiritussancto Por que no los dos?
The experience being described is a "Wuthering paradigm shift."
All in favor say "eyes."
I know that this is an old video, and it’s unlikely anyone will ever see this but this really reminded me of my own recovery from active addiction. Even how Hank refers to it “a disease”. Just after I crashed my car under the influence, I felt that sinking feeling that my life would have to change. And there were moments (before and after) where I thought “Maybe I’m not actually an addict!”. But I eventually came to terms with it, and found some stability. Idk why I had to share this but, there.
Hey Michael. I know exactly what you're talking about. I experienced this feeling when I got sober, too. It's pretty amazing when that feeling fades completely, isn't it? Acceptance is better than denial is bad.
So I haven't had your exact experience but I have experienced this with my chronic anxiety and I see you. :)
I watched this video today and thought it was a new video until I read your comment haha
I came here to comment the same thing.
Thank you for sharing this. You are NOT alone!
"Everything is survivable. Except for the last thing." --John Green
Which book?
@@in.other.words_ Paper Towns
"I didn't want the new reality to be real"
I don't know the word you're looking for. But I do know as a nurse we often describe the aftermath as 'grieving for the reality you thought you'd have before you can accept your new reality'. It's like any other type of grief.
Most often we talk about it in terms of parents struggling to accept their disabled child... Parents have to grieve the loss of the child they thought they would have before they can accept the child they have. (Not to say these parents don't love their disabled children to the end of the earth.... But they have to grieve for being unable to do certain things, like teach their child to ride a bike, or go to college, or whatever the parents specific ideas of parenting were prior)
Edit* I'm not trying to say the word Hank is looking for is grief. I'm simply adding to his ideas. ❤️
I've been through these shifts before, and I concur strongly with the statement that you have to grieve. That's definitely part of (a big and important part of) the process.
Yes, I would agree the feeling is grief but I think what Hank is trying to describe is the feeling you have when you realise that bottom dropping out of your world, feel like your falling moment when it doesn't feel real. Maybe it's shock as well? I'm not sure withering really covers it but you're right it's grief that he's describing when he's coming to terms with it.
@David Ball yeah I don't think grief is part of what Hank's describing, I think it's the --- solution? treatment? -- to what Hank's describing. Like the big nothingness inside you is the problem, and you won't be able to get past it until you acknowledge that gaping hole and grieve what used to be there.
I think the distinction here is how many unknowns there are and how you have to adjust to a new reality that is suddenly different but not yet in a way where you know what it will be. Grief will certainly come and be a part of processing that, but that bewildering disconnect between expected reality and new reality is a little different than just grief.
Yeah, that is exactly what I experienced when my son was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder. I was in denial for a time, but you can only stay in denial so long when the problems set in. My life as a parent will never look like what I once thought it would.
I really really loved this video
i love it too
POV: This is the recommended video after Hank’s Cancer video. It’s so much more meaningful to watch now
It’s that tumblr post that’s like “the defining feeling of this millennium is just a omnipresent oh-no feeling that gets louder each year”
It's called aging lol
@@AA123TD Except millennials were taught to believe if they worked hard enough they would be able to have whatever they wanted. Turns out we mostly just wanted to be without pain and suffering.... which is not achievable on account of the whole 'being human' thing. I feel like my parents were never led to expect they could achieve a life without pain... so when it happens they are much better equipped to handle this 'oh no' feeling.
@@spriddlez I am a millenial. An older one at 34.
I had a rough life when I was younger and most of my friends are decade or two or three older. I take inspiration from their struggles.
A different perspective than most millennials perhaps, but you have to admit, most of our generation has it worse off than our boomer parents. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like after this economic crisis. I don't know what it's like to live in a depression all I know is that the economic situation stagnated after 2008. Companies kept taking away every benefit they could until nothing was left to take except that our jobs are threatened. This time, no one is safe.
I am 50 and I was raised to believe hard work and smarts equaled success too. We lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation ever present. In high school, I saw the Challenger space shuttle explode live on TV. When I was 32 I watched 9/11 live on TV. We do not own a home or fancy cars- having spent all our $ on our 2 kids’ college educations. They are the millennials. I hate watching them go through the same cycle of hope and despair.
@@birdsong5494 I just want to say thank you for this thoughtful response. I have encountered a lot of people your age who are not so patient and understanding, and instead dismiss the younger generations as weak or spoiled. But you are right, hope and despair is a natural cycle and we all will go through it. There are definitely differences in generational experiences, but the divisive caricatures of millennials and boomers prevents us from forming that compassionate understanding both ways that would help us all suffer a bit less. Thanks again.
“there isn’t a word for this really specific emotion in feeling” *german has entered the chat*
But is there one? I'm German but I can't think of one. We could probably make one up, though
@@rafaelah1492 *create* the world is on the precipice, we need you now.
@@nkanyezihlatshwayo3601 What I could think of right now is maybe Zukunftsverlusttrauer (the grieving of a lost future) or Schicksalsschlagrealisierung (realizing you experienced a stroke of fate). I don't know if they really encapsulate all the feelings in that situation, but maybe some aspects of it.
There is a German saying "den Boden unter den Füßen wegziehen/verlieren" which translates to "to lose the ground/floor below your feet" or "to have the floor be pulled/ripped away under your feet" which I think captures the feeling quite well
Word concatenation is a superpower. Swedish has it too:
Fornframtidsförlustångest
My dad died last Wednesday. I like the term wuthering. It reminds me of withering, which is what I seem to be doing right now. I got the call at 1pm at work and it wasn't unexpected, but still, my entire future shifted. Blanked. For some reason I keep thinking about my wedding. I'm nowhere close to getting married, but now my dad can't walk me down the aisle. When I imagine it in my mind, there's just empty space next to me, and I'm walking alone. That was a wuthering moment, and it's been like a constant, shifting earthquake ever since. Thanks for giving me a better grasp on the feeling. I'm not sure I even want to settle into this new normal, awful and strange as it is. Is there a term for espoused wuthering?.. I choose to be unsettled. I choose the tumult because it is easier than settling among the shattered pieces.
Loss is a hard time, and I'm wishing you strength, peace, and clarity.
My sincerest condolences. Grieve, then make him proud!
I'm so sorry for your loss.
🤍🤍🤍
Thank you for your comment. I also lost my father this year and I also keep thinking about him not being there for the important moments in my life going forward (e.g. walking me down the aisle).
I know the mourning never ends, but I hope you’re doing better. Take care, friend.
I realize I'm coming to this video late, but what you're describing is a form of trauma. The language you're using is very telling - the loss of the narrative of yourself and your identify (and your future), which removes from you the ability to orient forward in time. And you're kinda stuck in that moment and reflexively looking back at it until you can incorporate the event (in this case, a disease diagnosis) into your concept of self. Then you make adjustments and can reorient forward.
For some, this happens when a loved one dies, or you're the victim of a crime, or a relationship breaks, or a job is lost, or when a major health diagnosis hits them. It's not surprising you thought about it similarly to moments during a car accident. Similar emotional and psychological processes occur, especially if the consequences are life altering.
I think the actual term is called "Derailment." It's a sudden loss of self-concept, such that you need to recreate a self-concept that incorporates the new definitions that caused you to 'derail'.
Bionically Challenged I like this word and definition!!
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Bionically Challenged I like this imagery because it makes me imagine that there are other tracks I didn’t know about that my train fell onto while derailing. New, scary at first, but still taking me somewhere
@@Margaretfogs That is a really healthy way of thinking about it. Identifying derailment when it occurs is a very important step for any kind of identity specific problem. A lot of the time, in therapeutic contexts, clinicians will try and get their clients to identify where their 'derailment' happened. After doing so, challenging their specific negative or unrealistic conceptions regarding the formation of their new identity. Effectively, hoping to challenge the negative and unhealthy thought processes one might have about the recent change in their life.
I think somebody really smart once said “Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.”
Nostalgia is imagining the future as the past that never really was.
if imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia, having your concept of the future wiped away is a kind of amnesia.
You're brilliant
I wish I had better words for just how brilliant this truly is. Thank you, Natalie (1 month ago from 10/15/2022). Yes! Love this!
I said to Metal Marauder, " I wish I had better words for just how brilliant this truly is. Thank you, Natalie (1 month ago from 10/15/2022). Yes! Love this!" And I just wanted to make sure this hit your notifications too. You nailed it.
@@sarahthomison3295 :)
"I feel kind of fine now... maybe the doctor was wrong about this."
Exactly what I've been thinking about my recent RA diagnosis... gonna stay on my meds because of Hank's forewarning.
"When the ground stops moving, you'll rise." - Hank Green, 2020.
That there is the single most hopeful quote since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak. Thank you.
Utah had an earthquake last week and has had a series of aftershocks throughout all of this. It's been said that we should expect it to continue over the next year. So this idea that we will rise when the earth stops shaking feels especially pertinent and poignant.
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It's really just an amazing quote
Sometimes some of us get cornered into rising before the ground stops moving... and those times suck.
3:30 This reminds me of the famous John Green quote "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."
Lily Wang the famous sarah* green quote
Some wag once wrote (sorry for the lack of attribution): "The future isn't what it used to be."
When my son was going through the process that led to an epilepsy diagnosis, I remember feeling that it wasn't just that I didn't have the answers any more - I didn't even know what the questions were. There's a Norwegian expression that "the road is created as you walk it" and that's what he and his doctors did - they created the road. Now I guess we're all going to have to.
I like that phrase a lot, invisible friend.
"Maybe I don't have {Ulcerative colitis}..." Oh God, do I know that dance.
Thank you for sharing 💜
“The story you’ve been quietly silently telling yourself about what the future is going to be like, that story just falls apart. It’s not there anymore. It doesn’t get replaced with anything, it’s just gone.“
This was a huge insight for me this week.
vlogbrothers it’s been an ongoing acceptance process for me too... I’m not quite there yet but yeah, I’m trying.
Is "dispossession" better? I had this thing, this hope, this future, and I have now been dispossessed of it. I did not give it up, or throw it away, it was taken from me - and now I am lost.
@@kenbarker5946 Oh I _like_ dispossession
Maybe with a modifier. Future dispossession? or narrative disposession?
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The part about "wuthering" touched me the most, I'm from Syria, and for the last 9 year my expectation of the future changed with almost every piece of news.
Thank you for the vids, you always helped me with everything.
Ali Saied I want you to know we care in the US. I’m really really sorry
US here too, sending love
Well, MY problems suddenly feel a lot smaller. Thoughts-and-prayers, brother.
Yes love from here too
i was diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago. i’m 19, some people don’t get diagnosed until their thirties, forties, or fifties, but i can’t help mourning the life i could’ve had if i had been diagnosed sooner. i could’ve started on meds, kept up more commitments i made to myself and others, understood why i think the way i do and practice tactics to help me control aspects of my life better. at the same time, i also keep telling myself that maybe i don’t have ADHD, maybe i’ve just been lazy and not working hard enough and the meds only help because of the placebo effect. it’s crazy the things your brain tells you to convince yourself everything is normal and hasn’t changed. that equilibrium is comfortable, until it deviates from reality enough to crumble
As I see it, what you and Hank are both describing is grief. You both described denial which is one of the five parts of grief. Hank lost a part of his health, and he had to go through the grief process before arriving at acceptance.
Mourning what was lost is something I also felt when I got my ADHD diagnosis.
I hope you're doing well!
A lot of people in my life think I have ADHD, but none of them are psychologists. If I get tested, and it turns out that I do have ADHD, and then I get prescribed meds, I'm scared that I'm gonna feel like this. Constant "imposter syndrome", insecurity--- more than usual--- and being afraid that the meds aren't actually doing anything/I'm using them as a crutch for something I should deal with on my own. I hope you've come to terms with having a brain type like this and that you have found strengths in your neurological differences.
I can relate, though I'm on a different spectrum. I remember getting diagnosed late after 16, and just after things had gotten bad. At that point, I had started to experience non-verbal fits and catatonia from the stress and pressure of being in public all day, 6 days a week. It was like the light and noise was wearing into my brain and it'd just start glitching.
Finding out I had autism was this beautiful explanation. Nobody around me understood. I'd try using the diagnosis to explain things to my parents, only to get hurtful comments. Some family members don't believe it, or won't listen if I describe my struggles.
I also mourn that I hadn't know earlier. Hell, if I got diagnosed at 7, all the advice online would be perfect for my parents. Just maybe they would've treated me with understanding. Maybe they'd think it's just a part of me instead of some crutch I use so I can act "stupid."
But it's nice to know that I'm actually stronger than a lot of people. I did all the masking, I put up with my sensitivities, and now every time I need a public face for a few hours, I have one. Every time I start to stutter and slur, twitch and get caught in my throat, I know I'm not crazy. I just need to tell myself it's okay, get some paper or try again later. Knowing I'm neurodivergent, I feel human again. I'm my own kind of normal and I can think of myself any way I want. Better yet, I can use my hyperfixations to delight my friends, my heightened empathy and psychosis to help others when they're struggling, and my complex neurology to offer people perspectives they would have never imagined.
I hope you'll find a similar experience.
There's great things about being different!
You just have to find those things, and realize what makes you special. ^^
The journey is hard, but it's worth it.
You're not lazy.
You are working hard enough.
Stay on the goddamn meds!
"But when the ground stops moving... you'll rise." This made me teary eyed, thank you so much Hank. I've been in my journey of mental illness and undiagnosed physical illness and this really stuck with me. Thank you!
Reminds me of Robert Penn Warren: “After a great blow, or crisis, after the first shock and then after the nerves have stopped screaming and twitching, you settle down to the new condition of things and feel that all possibility of change has been used up. You adjust yourself, and are sure that the new equilibrium is for eternity. . . But if anything is certain it is that no story is ever over, for the story which we think is over is only a chapter in a story which will not be over, and it isn't the game that is over, it is just an inning, and that game has a lot more than nine innings. When the game stops it will be called on account of darkness. But it is a long day.”
Wow, Robert Penn Warren liked to mix his metaphors didn't he? It's a beautiful quote, and he managed to mix like three different comparisons in there - first he compares it to chapters in a story, then he compares it to a baseball game, then he compares it to the length of a dark day all within a couple of sentences.
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Can't beat Robert Penn Warren for poignancy. When I read All the King's Men, I frequently found myself wanting to save quotes from it, but I quickly gave up when I realized I was pretty much going to be quoting the entire book.
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@@thatjillgirl When I read it, I got about halfway into the first page and this feeling came over me, almost like I felt the presence of god, I can't really describe it, there was magic on those pages and I felt privileged to get a glimpse. I only felt something similar one other time--reading the first sentence of Gibson's Neuromancer.
The first time I really felt the "wuthering", was the moment I walked into the bedroom returning from the hospital, after the sudden passing of my husband. The life we had built together was suddenly gone, and there was nothing available to replace it. Fear, uncertainty, grief, and a measure of numbness.
My condolences.
I’m so sorry.
My biggest experience with this was when I realized I was trans. The question of my gender was not really something that bothered me throughout my childhood (though when I look back there were certainly signs), and it wasn't until I was most of the way through male puberty and my body had already developed secondary sex characteristics that I realized, "oh shit, I'm trans." It was very scary because I realized:
1. I could never go back to not knowing this about myself
2. If I didn't do anything about it it would almost certainly make me miserable for the rest of my life
And 3. If I did do something about it it would create a whole new set of problems I wasn't sure I would be able to deal with
I still feel like I'm adjusting to a different way of thinking about myself, and I'm not really sure I'm ever going to be able to stop adjusting.
I'd like to add 4. All the lost opportunities.
Not having irreversible testosterone-based puberty effects to deal with would've made it a whole lot simpler. As well as having had the childhood I wish I had.
Sorry if this got your mood down, btw. Twas hard for me too. These days I'm mostly okay.
I'm going through this right now, I've known I'm trans since I was 15 and I'm 24 and I tried coming out to people in my family for help and I got pushed back into the closet twice and I'm scared and I don't really know what to do
@@basicallycroft946i believe in you friend! it’s never too late and you will find yourself when the time is right. I support your decisions and hope you get to be your authentic self soon !! ❤
I knew when I was really young I was the gender people didn't see me as, I went through an irreversable puberty and bullying about my innate actions/feelings and repression of myself. Until I knew there were others like me I was just depressed but when given this new window to look through I slowly realized I should have been on that side ages ago. Taking steps to be myself have drastically saved me and improved my life though the marks of what I had to be remain as scars to myself and the world which often doesn't understand or accept that if I didn't take these steps I would be dead or a living husk of a person wishing for death.
I'm happier than ever and renting with my partner in a week so despite the tumult I think I've been slowly winding down the right path for me, even if I wish things had gone a bit differently in my past.
Sending you some love.
I didn’t know that this was such a universal feeling.
In 2017 I was in a catastrophic hurricane that completely destroyed my nation. After hours of chaos I walked outside and saw no leaves on the trees, no discernible landmarks, and no way of knowing where I was, even outside my house. That was the first time I felt that feeling, the knowing that things are about to be drastically different (possibly forever) but no way of knowing how.
I know the feeling now and can identify it quickly. For me it feels like falling and not knowing when you’re going to hit the ground. Alternatively, it feels like my environment has suddenly started spinning and I don’t know when it will stop. My strategy to manage it has been to hunker down in the spinning, or the falling until the world feels a bit more solid again. The world looks different after the spinning or falling. Things may be moved, things may be broken, things may have fallen in from places I didn’t even know existed. So I take inventory of where the factors of my life have hit the ground, what condition they’re in, whether they can be repaired, and what new factors are available. I take a moment to mourn the factors that are broken beyond repair, then I run mental permutations with the useable factors until I have a plan to move forward.
When I was searching the thesaurus to try and find a word for this feeling, permutation kept piqueing my curiosity. I don’t know why. Maybe because it feels like in the moment between when you close your eyes to blink and open them up, someone has rearranged your life.
This is beautifully said. Thank you!
It's insane how well Hank can speak my story. I'm still grieving the life I lost due to my illnesses. I was a chemical engineering student 3/4 of the way through my degree, with 5 internships in the field, when my illness gave me no way forward. Now I'm too disabled to work, or have long conversations; I am no longer a scientist, nor engineer, nor intellectual. I've had to reimagine myself with all these limitations, but I haven't lost all control, even though it feels that way sometimes.
That sounds really painful and hard. Hugs
@@airypersiflage thank you. It is really hard, I'm starting to create a new life now but sometimes you just have to let yourself grieve for what was lost
@@nicolenbbw7947 yes! And you often can't do that right away because you're focused on survival
The adjustment to a new normal is so unbelievably tough, and it's so much worse when that adjustment is forced and out of your control. Take as much time as you need to grieve it and reassess, but I hope you don't give up on being the best you that you can be : )
@@zaneharding6486 thank you. I think the hardest part is the uncertainty, I don't know what the future will look like, and I'm a bit afraid to plan or even dream. But, I get to decide what I want and what really matters to me. Also, the community I've gained is pretty great
"When the ground stops moving, you'll rise."
Thank you, Hank.
Melissa Barker +
About a month ago, I was chopping firewood and the axe went through the bottom of my shoe. It didn't hurt much, but the panic about the future was painful. The minutes after were filled with panic about how bad the injury was. Once people started telling me it wasn't bad, I wasn't worried anymore. I got home from the ER that night feeling okay. In the morning, I woke to my foot bleeding (I stood up from bed too fast) and I had the realization that I had never changed the dressing on a wound before. I had never even looked at a bad wound before. I had this feeling that I can't do it, and cried. After a few minutes of that, I realized that this was going to be my new normal, and I needed to just do it. It's been about a month and a half since the accident, and I've felt a lot of wuthering. The injury was significantly worse than expected, but the recovery hasn't been too bad. (Severed tendon, fractured bone, broken joint capsule, if you want to know the details) I didn't realize that I had an expectation that I'd always be able to walk, or take care of myself without help from anyone. I felt a lot of fear around not knowing when I would be okay, not knowing what the near future looked like anymore. This video resonated with me when it was first posted, and even more so now.
Much love to you, friend.
It's so strange watching this in 2022 after having done pandemic life for two years now. Some things feel "normal" again. Some things don't. And with the Omicron spike I feel like we learned some good stuff.
And yeah, idk... I apricate this video a lot!
Here's to the ever-uncertain future
He was definitely right about trusting our doctors instead of our guts, and the waves of believing the risk vs not.
Ah yes, the 'What do you do with a BA in English' feeling.
Why would you do this to me?
Software development. That's what I did ;)
THAT. is a good insight.
I'm close to finishing mine, and... ouch
OMG, you're Gary Coleman!
I think John would title this video "Ulcerative Colitis: a Parable"
I've always used "unmoored" to describe this. it means "no longer tied in place" and "having no confidence or certainty for what you should do"
this… this resonates with me so strongly. I’ve been through this at least three times in my relatively short life- first discovering I’m not straight and therefore questioning my religion, then when I was diagnosed with rapidly progressing scoliosis, and now dealing with the turmoil of my gender identity. Just the solidarity that this feeling is so normal helps a lot. thank you.
"Wuthering" sounds like one of those things where the German language has some 26-letter word that perfectly describes it
..."Weltschmerz" comes to mind, but I feel like it´s not really it
Fun fact: if you read "Wuthering" as a German word, it would be a compound word meaning "herring of rage"
Ty Matson Zukunftsvorstellungsspontanrekalibrierungsverunsicherung could work ;)
I've been trying to think of how I would describe that feeling in German, and couldn't think of a good word, so I made up a few:
Zukunftsverlustgefühlssturm - A storm of feelings caused by the loss of future
Emotionsbeben - An emotional earthquake
Ungewissheitsleere - a feeling of emptiness in the face of uncertainty
Plötzliche Persönlichkeitsneudefinitionszwang - Suddenly being forced to redefine who you are as a person
That's all I got for now.
@@JTB312 That's amazing, haha! The Herring of Rage: a smaller version of the Giant Squid of Anger? 😂
The way I think about diagnosis is that you have to mourn the future you thought you were going to have.
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It just struck me how sincerely open and honest u guys can be with over 3 million strangers and man, it’s pretty wild
I know it's 3 years later but I don't think you know how valuable this video has been to me. I recently got a diagnosis for a chronic illness that is known to have ups and downs and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that while also keeping up with school and my part time job. I'm getting used to the idea that I will never be able to stand or walk for long periods. I've been wondering why I was having trouble coping with something I had already been dealing with but this. This described it exactly. It's the idea that my future may not be the way I imagined it. Anyway, thanks Hank, this has been really helpful.
“there’s a cactus in me” is my new favorite way to describe pain
Bro that's real tho 😂😂 sometimes I think if I actually get stabbed I'll be used to it
This is actually the perfect way to describe how I felt when I had kidney stones
@@tjnova972 I'm still undiagnosed so hopefully it's not kidney stones. thankfully it's at the point where I've been in pain so long I probably won't die, I'll just keep being in pain lol
Hank, that's grief. You went through denial and bargaining and sadness and finally acceptance. (Don't know about anger, I suspect yes, but also the 5 stages are somewhat arbitrary.) This untethering of a set of assumptions about what will be stable in your life is characteristic of grief, because you have lost something of value (stability, narrative direction, etc). Btw I nominate "untethering" as my word of choice, or "unfastening".
I guess it is grief...at least it is either a kind of grief or a component of grief. Untethering is very good.
Maybe a grief for an imagined time that no longer exists?
(totally stolen from that Sarah quote)
@@vlogbrothers "Desiderium carries the meaning of having feelings for something that we no longer have, and wish very much that we did."
www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/heres-that-thing-youre-feeling
^ taken from umbral insanity figured id pass it on to you
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I think untethering is the right word, but I don't think it's just grief. The same feeling when you graduate, or get your first real job, or have your first child are similar, even though none of those are bad things. That same feeling of being in a new world that you don't really understand yet.
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Y'know, I'd absolutely love to see a one-year follow up to this specific post. #newnormal
youtube suggested this video right after hank's latest one. i wonder how much the cancer diagnosis felt the same, 20 years later.
I want to point out that there can be “wuthering” in the opposite direction. I found out yesterday that I got a full ride scholarship to any school in colorado and while two days ago I found out some terrible news about my grandmother, it really puts it into perspective. We have so many times to reshape our future and sometimes it’s going to be terrible but sometimes it’s a key moment that’s going to give you so many opportunities. Trust that both exist.
Dude, sorry about your gma, but you should definitely make use of that scholarship by going to CU Boulder or Colorado Mesa.
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I literally wrote this yesterday:
"I always thought it was weird the "Before" and "After" in Looking for Alaska
but here we are sitting on what feels like the edge of that moment
I'm not ready to let go of the "Before" but I know the "After" is coming"
because I've has some small moments like this, but its never been this big
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"Every pain needs a name." - Jeff Pickles
Expectation deficit is what we have always called it in my family xx
I’ve had severe depression for almost two decades. I’m pretty functional, so I manage to fly under the radar most of the time, even though I *feel* really, really bad.
But holy cow is it exhausting when pretty much everyone you love asks you when you’ll be able to get off that medication finally? When will you get better? Go back to normal?
No, guys. This *is* normal. This is it. This is me now, and I’m having a hard enough time adjusting to that without you telling me it’s not enough.
Same boat here, big virtual hug! It's a form of rejection I'll never adapt too, just as it is a form of acceptance they may never have.
Isn't it interesting to see what kind of mirror people are looking at when they see us. My challenges began at birth and I have had continuing so-called health challenges throughout my life. If I continued to attach myself to other people's limited beliefs on who I was and what I could be I would have never accomplished some of the greatness in my life. I and the Father are one, and we know the greatness within ourselves and others. Blessed Be. (SMI, Frontotemporal Dementia, constant musculoskeletal discomfort, digestive issues, hormonal issues, more. Happy, Whole & Complete. I am healing now.)
Having been on medication for GAD for almost 10 years, I have this same battle, but for me it's usually internal. I don't want to be medicated forever, but I also know it's not wise for me to come off them. This is normality. This is enjoying things and not enjoying things without being flung into the pit of unfeeling despair. This is what my life is. And I have to accept that.
I'm sorry the people who love you are like that, but I'm very proud of you for realising that you have your normality.
A freaking men, sibling
Omg yes. I know people mean well but when I talk about my depression to someone and they say you should exercise or do something you like or write in a journal, it feels so isolating. Some people are understanding that sometimes that's not enough but others just don't get it. It's hard to explain that I've tried all the things and that some days it's hard to just get out of bed. It feels like I have to defend myself. But they just don't get it. So some times I just go with what they say because it's too much to fight it. Thank you for sharing your feelings. You're not alone.
"But we will catch ourselves... and we will rise. Because that's what we do."
Beautiful
True enough, but that's what the other guy thinks too, and in this case the other guys and unstopable virus and immeasurable pessimism.
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Recommending me this is pretty timely after Hank's recent cancer diagnosis
I was wondering why this was popping up in my feed and now it makes perfect sense. Life has save points, like old (do they still exist?) video games. Where everything after is different than before.
hank: makes an intensely relateable video about his illness and some medical history
all the people with chronic illnesses liked that
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Absolutely. I also have THERE IS A LITERAL CACTUS IN ME pain but for different reasons.😂
i just got diagnosed with colitis, i hope nobody ever has to experience this feeling
As one of my neighbors called across the street to me said: “The best thing about all this is that we will never again take ‘normal’ for granted.”
That's what they always say and it's always wrong. We will all, very quickly, return to taking everything for granted as we always do. If your neighbor was right we wouldn't have thousands of nuclear missiles at the ready to destroy mankind for all eternity at the push of a button.
Agreed. We (almost all life on earth) either die off, or create a new normal even surrounded by what was previously perceived as the unfathomably weird.
I love this video. And Hank, I had chemo, surgery, radiation, in that order. I had adriamycin/cytoxin and taxol. And I have found my normal. And life is lovely and good. And I am very grateful.
Keep thinking about your own advice and history here. You're going to get there too. Hang in there.
Thinking of you.
Thank you for putting this process and emotion into words. I'm in the middle of this between needing spinal surgery, a relatively new neurodivergent diagnosis, and managing fibromyalgia while being a wife and mom of 3. It is yard to be weak in my weak moments and not worry about feeling like a burden.
Hi, Hank
I don't know about some specific word, but in Portuguese we have an expression. First, I have to explain a word that doesn't have a direct translation in english which is "saudade". Saudade can be express as a very melancholic feeling due to the withdrawal of a person, thing, place or situation, it's a very intense sadness of deprivation as well as acceptance at the same time. We have the expression: "Saudade de um tempo que nunca vivi." And means roughly what you describe. Insanely missing a time never lived.
That is fascinating, and I thank you for sharing that.
Us the Duo wrote a song titled Saudade. It’s based on a true story submitted by one of their fans, about a daughter’s melancholic acceptance of her dad having passed away.
Wow! So good, thank you. English never lives up to the beauty of other languages like yours.
In Spanish we have "morriña" wich sort of translates to that as well, but I don't think we have an especific expression for the "time never lived" part 🤔
I am brazilian top, not I ain't sure that our expression really fits in Hank's context, for sure it is better than any English word, however this feeling in my opinion is more related for things as a lost love, but what hank describes and I could strongly relate to is a more desperate, sad and agonizing feeling of uncertain and doubts, instability and the part of missing something he couldn't do anymore doesn't embrace all the emotion, at least in my opinion
Reminds me of a Paradigm Shift, which an online thesaurus suggests synonyms with “Cataclysm” and I think that would could describe the sudden shift of expectations (that you yourself might’ve not even realized you had). Like the word consequences it does have a negative connotation bias (I.e every choice has consequences, but since only the negative outcomes are called consequences...) But really Cataclysm could be any big change good or bad.
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God, this hits so hard. It’s like that feeling of the world slowing down, like I just feel something but I don’t know what it is. This is really helpful right now for me and it’s kinda nice.
I had this 'coming apart' feeling, losing my own self identity about 7 years ago. My son was born with complications but it took a few years for me to finally confront the fact that he is seriously disabled. Never walked or talked. Now he’s 11. It’s a big deal in my life.
I’m lucky to be on meds that help and I have let go of my old interpretation of 'self'.
I had that feeling when my first child was born, but it wasn't a bad thing, just an acknowledgement that change, forever change, was happening. The same happened when we found out we were having our second. We're two months out from having our third, and that feeling hasn't shown up again. Not sure why, but maybe we'll find out in May.
I imagine the reason it hasn’t shown up yet is that you’ve grown comfortable with the constant change of having two growing children around. It may not show up at all until they hit adolescence, unless your third’s personality is very different from your first two.
Regardless, remember to keep breathing and good luck!
The awaited unpunishable long video!
@Henlo last year : watch?v=CFxrppOPbrs
I wouldn't mind every vlogbrothers video being as long as this one.
A little sad there won't be a punishment but it was a very good video and I guess that will make up for it
With a title that sounds like it could easily be Hank's third book 😁
RemoTV
I ended up skipping a couple minutes after ignoring a couple minutes while reading the comments because it got to a point where there was no new information entering my brain because i doubt there was any new information in what he was saying.
Which is a long way to say: i respectfully disagree.
This video kept popping up in my recommended. I remember watching it a year ago, when we barely knew anything about COVID's pathology and the dominant wisdom was that masks were ineffective in preventing transmission. At the time, I told everybody I was sure we'd be out in two months, and I repeated that constantly because the other option was to get sucked into the empty space left by the wuthering.
Your prediction was absolutely correct. I didn't believe it a year ago, but a body really can get used to anything, even being hanged.
What is truly incredible to me, is how widely that concept - the sudden obliteration of expactation and "normal" - is. Because to me, this is what figuring out I was transgendre felt like : a complete 180 of what my life might look like. And the back and forth denying (no, it's not possible, that can't be true, it would be too hard) to the deep realization that this is me, the exhaustingness of it all, occupying way too much thought...
Now that I've gone through a portion of my transition, I have a new normal, with things past me might have hought impossible. It's just, well, normal.
Thank you very much for having put words on that feeling !
Feels on that, tho oddly... It took me like five yrs now to finally stsrt to visualize my new normal and see a future along this path. Tho thats no doubt cuz the path was always windin for me initially and also i rly nvr looked forward much before comin out. i just tried to do that thing where you "live in the moment" and didnt realize how harmful that was in multiple ways (i didnt let myself address my past traumas and i also didnt let myself plan for a future where i was alive and healthy; just to name the big two).
Before the lightbulb finally came on i had literally zero concern about myself in the future and i showed zero regard for myself even in the moment honestly. I routinely binge drank and i honestly hated life but also had zero executive function which honestly probs saved my life in ways... As id get sui* thowts and impulses but yet, my brain cud nvr convince my self to act on those intrusive thowts. I was in a very deep depression and literally had no real expectation of normal...
And yet, all the same, when that light bulb flickered on i still suddenly felt lost and like my map had just been burned in front of me... Cuz suddenly it was like i got up and started walkin down a path id stepped off of long ago to setup camp for decades just to survive thru first childhood trauma and then all the rest of life.
Most folks dont have that lightbulb moment at 27 like i did, often its far sooner, but honestly it was at just the right time for me. Id been a LARPer (Amtgard, which is medieval fantasy live action roleplay) for a few yrs then and was for the first time ever in a place i felt home at (my roommates were originally strangers who were my friends coworkers, we played dnd one nite and since i was houseless i asked to crssh afterwards, repeated that twice... The third day shortly after i woke up the two of them came to me to tell me to consider it home for as lonh as i needed, and they truly meant that (tho itd take a while for me to believe it cuz of others not meanin it in the past), they are both (and were then too) Nerdfighters ofc; they even helped get me my first steady job in my life with their recommendations bein the sole reason i got hired as i had zero real experience).
And ofc, id joined the nerdfighter community as soon as i met those roommates who introduced me to this community. And it was here as well as in the Amtgard LARP community that i found unconditional love and acceptance. I saw it shown to others, and when things clicked on for me i knew to expect it for myself as well. It was at Amtgard where i met my first openly out nonbinary person and learned for literally the first time in my life that there were more than just the two genders id been told all my life.
And that was truly the sudden obliteration of the expectation of what was normal for me. Bcuz for the first time ever i saw that in fact i cud be a bit of both, which some part of me had always felt like i rly was (for multiple reasons, my gender is nonbinary but so is my sex; im XXY intersex and have a very in between body but legit had no idea of that bein the case for simple lack of exposure to what intersex bodies looked like >.>).
And where did i go first to figure this stuff out? Why vlogbrothers ofc, turned out "vlogbrothers gender" actually led me to exactly the right kind of topics and i found the queer nerdfighters and the queer nerdfighters who are also video creators like Tyler Oakley and a bunch more my mind blanks on. And from there i gound more and more of exactly the right kind of content to affirm mevand validate me and i found songs to hype me up and within eight months of startin my journey i told the first person from my real life about it, a person i look up to as if he is my father; amd he ofc saw nothin wrong with this version of me and showed he saw me no diff and wanted all the best for me still. Took me a few more months to finally come out fully, but when i did cuz of all the folks i had backin me... I launched myself out of that closet at mach five and havent looked back since.
And for a long time still i didnt see where my life was headin but i cud see the path for the first time and was actually walkin down it and that was more than good enuf for me. Now i live with my fiance who understands me immensely as we share so many similarities and i can see an expectation of what our normal is and i have hopes and dreams for a future.
Even as a child i cudnt imagine myself ever bein married, let alone the rest, not even in my wildest dreams. Let alone imaginin id find someone who accepted what at the time wudve been my grtest shame which made me feel so unlovable; i sometimes feel like i need to be treated like a very young child, which i didnt know at the time was just called age regression and is a common symptom of early childhood trauma.
Even when dreamin up my wildest dreams in the past i nvr dreamed of myself not single and with no partners of any kind; id imagine friends there with me sometimes based on the wild dream i was envisionin, but nvr did i let myself think of findin someone who saw all my, to me at the time, faults and loved me still.
So when mh fiance asked me about what id want for our wedding i had a sudden obliterstion of the expectstion of normal but in the best way possible. Like i had even known for some time by then that we eere gonna grt married but it took that bein brought up for me to begin to be able to truly dream a dream i nvr thowt i cud even dream of, let alone have it become reality. I thowt for so long that my normal wud be one where marriage wasnt a thing and suddenly ive got this new normal swimmin in my thowts and i can imagine a life together where previously i cudnt even think of what next month wud be like.
That sudden obliteration of the expectation of normal can indeed be a very good thing at times, and at least in the case of both shortly after when i first realized i was trans and when my fiance asked me what our wedding shud be like not too long after proposin to me; it was indeed a very good change of the normal, which was mlstly due to findin almost only unconditional acceptance from every community that mattered to me. No LARPers turned on me, no Nerdfighters turned on me, and even latet when i started attendin leftist protests shortly into covid for the obvs reason... I found that same acceptance, and i mean about all of the things about me. Even the AgeRe stuff which i often instd label ABDL as its easier to explain and ppl i know are just as acceptin of both (and it was the ABDL community i first found before understandin ive got age regression spec, so theyre always gonna be my community even if not entirely accurste labeling); not a single leftist took issue with that part of me nor any other part of me.
Bcuz those who matter dont care, and those who care dont matter; as the good dr, Seuss, says.
Hank has never felt more to me like a long-distance uncle than in this especially soothing, honest, and thoughtful video.
An uncle who keeps forgetting my name and calling me "John," but an uncle, never the less.
I’ve only watched the first couple minutes but this is right where I am right now with immune system issues and I feel seen. Waiting for diagnosis really freaking sucks.
You'll get there. It may take a frustratingly long time, but you'll get there. ❤️
Sending you light 💜 it's especially scary right now being undiagnosed/waiting for diagnosis especially because we have no idea what this disease will do to us
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I'm not trying for a diagnosis . Mast cell activation syndrome would take years to find a doctor who could. I know what you mean though. Good luck with it all. Don't be afraid to read peer reviewed articles to learn more.
Yes! I've been a medical mystery too and there was nothing about it that I liked.
Why couldn't CZcams reccomend this video to me a year ago when I desperately needed it?
My life fell apart in the space of 48 hours and I'm only just getting past the wuthering now. Thank you for putting this video out in the world dude.
Every once in a while this video makes its way back onto my dashboard and rocks my world. I realize it isn't exactly one-to-one, but so much of this resonates with my experience as a transgender individual.
I don't know if I should laugh in relief or cry in frustration, to be honest.
I've always thought of that moment as "a shattering." Like a mirror was in front of you, and you knew what you were seeing, but now the mirror has shattered and you see a yawning void beyond what you thought you knew. And you realize too how shallow your knowing was, you see that you didn't really know what you THOUGHT you knew in the first place, and everything is broken around you and inside of you. And you can't even move because there's broken mirror all over your feet and where is it safe to go now?
And eventually you manage to start picking up the pieces. They make your hands bleed and you cry a lot. But you move them, you clear the path, and you take the first step forward. Then another. Sometimes you don't get all the shards out of the way and it hurts a LOT. Sometimes, someone can help you, and they do help you, and it's easier. But it's still dark ahead. Still uncertain. Not until you walk for a while do you realize that you can see more than you could before.
I've been shattered many times, sometimes little ones and sometimes not. Often times I have the same nightmare when I'm feeling crushed by these kinds of changes... a nightmare where I am mostly buried by pea gravel. Like being buried at the beach but not funny, or fun... I can get out, but I have to do it by moving one piece of gravel at a time, and I have to go carefully, or the pile will collapse and cover me completely and then I CAN'T get out. Uncomfortable to say the least.
In this time, as I struggle with not only the terror of living through the whole WORLD shattering around me, but also with my husband's continuing health issues, my own health, our finances which still haven't improved....nothing had let up before this came and hit us like a truck. A lot was bad already and now there's just more and more bad news piling up. The gravel is up to my neck.
The greater majority of us will make it. I cling to that. SOMEONE will make it. And those that do make it will do so because they stuck together and shared their kindness and their strength and their awesomeness. But more and more I feel like maybe I won't. Me personally. Right now the blackness is all I can see, and I can't yet pick up any pieces.
Firstly: * quietly brings a shovel and gloves *
Secondly: This is a brilliant piece of writing.
Shattering is what I've called it in my head too.
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I think right now, you're in the part that's frozen. I've been frozen for a few days now. It's taken me a while but very slowly I am moving. It reminds of the depression that I've had in the past. Putting one step forward is difficult and painful and nothing beyond that step seems possible. But you will that make that step. At one point, that will be the only way forward.
I believe in you. You're not frozen alone.
@@missys3009
I know what this feeling is called!!! I wrote a paper about it for my "literature and medicine" undergrad seminar -- it's called "narrative wreck." I really hope this helps!
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I was diagnosed with UC when I was racing as a professional bike racer. It changed my life radically. I went through a process of mourning my life and the way it was. This gave me a huge dose of perspective and helped me appreciate the good and great days. I eventually had my colon removed (three years ago) and having my small intestines stick out of my abdomen feels completely normal. But the uncertainty is always there. My new normal is that there is no normal - and this is okay. Thanks for your blunt talk about this. It really does take time.
As someone whos struggled with a chronic illness my entire life and had that wuthering feeling numberous times I really really appreciated this video cause i grew up in a culture that doesnt really talk about the mental health and the toll it takes on you so taking care of myself has been tough so thank you Hank
"When the ground stops moving, you will rise." - Hank Green 2020 👌❤
This feeling is also what I felt when I was coming to terms with my sexuality. It was such a change in how I expected my life to go
same.
Seconded
Same. Actually, twice.
Staring at my copy of, Wuthering Heights, and brimming with tears right now because Hank 3 years ago had no clue what was coming and I am UPSET.
"Grief"-- I call this feeling grief. And I think you mentioned all the classic Kubler-Ross steps. Ross Gay wrote "I would like to offer a working definition of grief, which in all likelihood I've cribbed from someone else...grief is the metabolism of change. Perhaps it's for this reason that the bodies of the grieving so often actually transform in the process of grieving..." I really like your earthquake metaphor of finding a new post-event normal. I have a chronic illness, and work with a lot of patients with chronic illnesses, and that description has an immediate familiarity to it.
As a person with Crohn's, I always love when Hank talks about his UC. It makes me feel seen. In still in the process of coming out of denial and finding my new normal. I miss popcorn so goddamn much
Oh man. I’m less than a year into Crohn’s and I’m only partially accepting it so far. 😂
My brother has Crohn’s. I just wrote a comment to Hank about it. It took years for him to be diagnosed. By then he was so thin he looked like a skeleton. That was 20 years ago and he still has occasional flares, but he’s doing much better. There is hope
The closest thing I could find for this word is in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The term, rather oddly, is, "the meantime." But this seems to do more with regret of not being a better self in the past than being thrust into new prescriptive circumstances.
I actually feel this may work tho. Because what we do...we do in the meantime. We cope. We plan. We exist in the meantime. Hrm.
"The meantime" honestly resonates with me so much. You can't think as far ahead as you could anymore; you're reduced to looking only at the next week, next day, next five minutes. Someday, somehow, I'll be OK, but in the meantime, right now, it hurts. I am in the meantime.
Oh god that is really fitting. Feels like I've been living in the meantime for 20 years now.
Is this a new word in the dictionary of obscure sorrows !?
/me goes to find a copy of this book.
The word is "Disenchantment" :All of our dreams live in the unexistent future, being they are all a projection of our amounted will, but if not in a state that was in accordance to the present reality of nature or our natural condition. Not only that, but also our preocuoations, unreal projected states feel, so intensely real that the break of any of this states can be best described as non other than disenchantment.
It’s like mourning the death of a fantasy. Makes me think about the book Philosophy at a Crossroads.
"so I went off my medicine"
Yikes. I've known so many people who do that -- get to a point where you're ok, think "maybe I don't need this!" -- and then find you that you definitely, definitely do. Thanks for sharing your story, Hank. To everyone watching this: be careful making those kinds of decisions, and never do it without your doctor's approval.
Laura Phelps agreed !! this is a message both to future me and to anyone else on antidepressants specifically... if you start feeling better it is bc they are doing their job and not bc you don’t need them !! i make this mistake about every 6 months and withdrawals are not good and also TAKE YOUR MEDICATION AS PRESCRIBED BY YOUR DOCTOR YOUR BRAIN IS LYING TO YOU IT IS A SYMPTOM OF DEPRESSION TO THINK YOU DONT HAVE IT AND ARE JUST BEING WEAK yep i need to stop making this mistake
For me, the most recent time I experienced this feeling of "loss of sameness" was in November of last year (2019). I had just gotten out of the hospital after my THIRD bout of alcohol-induced pancreatitis, and I was confronted with the ultimatum of "get your shit together, or leave this house." It's an awful feeling. But here I am almost half a year later; sober and happy for the first time in my adult life.
So happy you are getting better! Kudos to you!
I also related this to my alcoholism. We talk about expectations a lot in my 12 step program and I think when the world is turned on it’s head it’s comforting to know I’ve already been through something I believed would alter my life forever and it has- but here I am. Here we all are together. Congrats on your sobriety. It’s amazing to have our lives back and even better than they were!
Congratulation on being sober for so long. It is hard and I am proud of you. ♡
woah I have chronic pancreatitis due to a genetic mutation, wasn't expecting it to pop up as one of the top comments!!! good on you for the sobriety, keep it up!! your future self will thank you for it :,)
In French, we don't have a word, rather an expression for it : Le premier jour du reste de ta vie => first day of the rest of your life
It's basically the understanding that you are experiencing a turning point, often leading you to an unexpected direction. It doesn't necessarily hold a bad omen to it though.
Thanks for posting this video. I got diagnosed with UC in 2007. I tried every therapy, drug, biologic, everything possible and nothing got me into remission. I finally had surgery 4 years ago and my life has changed dramatically. I never realized how much of life I was missing because I was tied to a bathroom (couldn't do outdoorsy activities, lines made me anxious, dropped out of university). Now I'm in my 30s, missed all of my 20s. It's now that I have to try and figure out how to live life, I had no concept of normal and now I have to figure things out. It's hard. But thank you for expressing publically everything I never could. What you've said has taken me years to figure out and I'm sure it's taken you a while too. It's helpful for so many! Thank you!
"the emptiness ahead that my previous expectation of the future used to inhabit"
oh
oh yeah that's the one
This video is indeed "educational"; learning about someone else's experiences is just as crucial as learning dry information.
I can't imagine what it's like to live with a chronic illness, but because of this video, I tried.
May we become more sensitive to each other with each passing day.
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Man. Why did I get this three years after my R. Arthritis diagnosis? The YT algorithm needs to do better. This was the vulnerable and hopeful comfort I needed.
I am so late to learning about vlogbrothers and starting to follow your channel, but I loved this video
oof... reading the phrase "stillborn hope" was a gutpunch, that feels painfully accurate
There is a phrase for this: Future Shock. From the book of the same name. It means: "too much change in too short a period of time"
The Alvin Toffler book?
@@RamtheCowy Yes, is there more than one book with that name?
@@DampeS8N idk, I was just asking 😅 it's on my shortly-to-be-read list!
I just read thru the entire Wikipedia page of the book after seeing this comment. Now I feel very tempted to read the book
I wouldn't say that's the same. I think the aspiration is for something that can be a verb
I think I would call it the "unfathoming", as in your fathoms unravel.
I like that. Realizing that what you thought you knew at a deep level, you don't know any more.
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This is very good!
I call that feeling a rockslide. You’re shocked and scared and also super confused what is happening but then in the blink of an eye that moment is over and what’s leftover is a completely different landscape than the one you’re used to walking on.
Oh man, I'm on the denial stage you described and it just hit me 😬
“The story you’ve been quietly silently telling yourself about what the future is going to be like, that story just falls apart. It’s not there anymore. It doesn’t get replaced with anything, it’s just gone.“
My anxiety centers pretty aggressively on the idea of the uncertain. Whenever I don't know what's going to happen, or I don't have a frame of reference for my situation, my fear response gets triggered, and then it stays there until the situation either changes, becomes clarified, or is resolved. I'm a college student who, like every other college student, was recently told: "School will move online for the rest of the semester; come get your things"
And now, everything about my life feels uncertain. I don't know what the future is going to be anymore, I don't know what my life is going to be like tomorrow, I don't know what my society is going to be like tomorrow. It feels like all I can do is either distract myself from it or be afraid of it, and neither option feels productive.
I don't have a resolution for this - the end of my fears, too, is uncertain. If you have any similar thoughts or feelings, or words of comfort that may help, I welcome them.
I commend you for being so aware of your triggers and thought patterns! I think that is an important thing that will help you get to "fine", "good", "well" or what ever other outcome you will be happy with in the future.
Remember, nobody is in a perfect space all the time. You are not alone.
When it comes to what to do. I think living in denial is going to be counter productive. Try instead to make your time productive. Time away from class and other social activities gives you the excess to focus where you think it is needed. Catch up on reading of your own interest or on problem subjects.
BUT also remember to give yourself time to relax, unwind and just be. Nobody can be 100% go go go all the time.
As a fellow anxious person, the sudden realisation that I don't know what the future I'm inhabiting is going to look like is pretty terrifying to me too. What's helping me is reminding myself that the future isn't static-it's dynamic, it's being shaped by what we are doing, and while I have no idea what it's going to look like, I can at least try and contribute to its shaping and making it a more hospitable place. I don't have much comfort to offer, but I do have sympathy-we got this. Good luck!
I struggled a lot with anxiety about the future when I was growing up and in college. School was detrimental to my mental health in that it was prescribed but there were a lot of ways to fail (I experimented with many methods of failure). Early adulthood felt like that, too. There were so many goals/milestones I felt were required and again many more ways to fail.
But it's not real. To me, the only future that matters is one where I am working towards good mental health. This is all to say it CAN get better, but better isn't a guarantee because a lot of "better" hinges on your mental health. I highly recommend cognitive behavioral therapy if you're not already doing it. Good luck 💗
I also feel that the only option seems to be to distract from it or be afraid of it. I've been playing a LOT of video games to cope with this uncertainty. Sometimes I feel guilty about doing that instead of work... but it's okay.
i really really felt this one. i've been an anxious person for most of my life, but this year my thoughts have snowballed into an anxiety disorder and weekly therapy sessions to deal with that and medication to make it easier to live. anxiety fucking sucks. but the one thing i have learned from my therapist that has helped me the most is that my anxious responses are trying to protect me. sure, they don't do a particularly good job of making things easier, and really do not seem helpful at all in the moment, but they are there for a reason. they are a biological response that you are having in order to protect you from something that is objectively scary. like, if you can't picture the future, but your brain can give you the worst-case scenario picture of the future, then you'll feel "more prepared" to face it. if you think through everything that could happen when you truly have no idea what's about to happen, maybe it will be less scary when it does.
the bottom line is that resenting the fear doesn't help anything either. pushing it down won't make it go away. sometimes, you have to just sit in your negative feelings for a bit. "i am really really scared right now. i don't know what's about to happen". in times like these, sometimes acknowledging your emotions helps to process and move on.
i don't know if this is what you were expressing, but this has been my character arc for the past six months or so. i hope this helps. and most of all, i hope that you know that this is a common feeling right now. you are not alone in your fear. not now, not ever.
You’ve just exactly described my (and I’m sure many other people’s) journey after depression diagnosis. The “Nope, I’m fine, I don’t even think I have depression” then boom! Great vid Hank, thanks.
Yep, it was the same for me.
I feel this. It’s been years and I still catch myself that “maybe I don’t have these diagnoses, or maybe they’re not so bad, just mild cases.” Yep. Sigh.
@@aekaydubs yep! The problem is that unlike a physical illness flare-ups of depression aren't self evident and to a point deniable. It took a long time to identify the symptoms. :-|
I absolutely understand the feeling. When I tore my ACK in the middle of my senior softball season I realized a lot was about to change in my life. The surgery and or were no big deal to be honest, but as I recovered I knew there would be things that I would be hesitant if not unable to do, like play softball again or sit in positions I used to find comfortable. It sucked and I was devastated by it on more than one occasion. But as long as you’re still alive, you find a way to move on. I took up rock climbing when I came to college and fell in love, enjoying the puzzle-solving aspect and the pride that comes with beating your personal best. I never would have found it if I hadn’t lost there ability to play softball. And I agree that I definitely have found my balance over a year after my initial tear :)
"while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles into the gentle present"