The depressing depression thread

[JustAName]

Well, I think it sounds like you're on top of this as much as you can be, and any course administrators/professors should see that. If that can't, I'll fight them for you.

[Tinasaur]

I think about posting here every now and then but I don't. I saw people talk about a chat as DB ended and I thought, I should go there, but I didn't. I keep telling myself I want to be social and get new friends, but the way I've behaved I think it's more like I want to want it. Should I fight my introvertedness or should I accept it? I know it takes a lot of energy for me to be social and I need to recharge alone, but does that mean I should just keep to myself when I'm exhausted from depression? I'm so torn because my mind is pulling me in two opposite directions and I don't know which is the right way.

[RytelCSF]

I know exactly how you feel. (Well, probably not exactly, but close enough, I think.) My old online hangouts are either dwindling, or I just don't feel the connection to them that I used to. I feel like I should find somewhere new, but it just feels like so much work for something that the vast majority of people just take for granted. I don't like being alone, but fortunately something like a forum or an IRC chat tends to be enough. Unfortunately, it can take me literally years to feel comfortable at such a place, and even then I'm always dreading making the one fatal mistake, or being found out as not whatever enough to truly be accepted there.

(This is why even in this thread I tend to be extra careful around Memo. He's a mod. He could end me with a thought.)

It is something that I know I should fix, but it takes so much energy to just make the attempt, and there's zero guarantee I'll succeed.

[guidance]

I think about posting here every now and then but I don't. I saw people talk about a chat as DB ended and I thought, I should go there, but I didn't. I keep telling myself I want to be social and get new friends, but the way I've behaved I think it's more like I want to want it. Should I fight my introvertedness or should I accept it? I know it takes a lot of energy for me to be social and I need to recharge alone, but does that mean I should just keep to myself when I'm exhausted from depression? I'm so torn because my mind is pulling me in two opposite directions and I don't know which is the right way.

Man its surprising how similar we are. I fight myself every time to leave a comment or try to interact with the chat. I definitely get the feeling that there are 2 different versions of you wanting to completely distinct things. The thing is though I don't think there is a "right way" or that you should ignore one side completely. Clearly both are things you want, and ignoring one just leaves you unhappy. I tend to go with the side that keeps me in doors and not socializing and I always have that voice at the back of my head telling me that I am missing out. Yet on the few occasions I do actually put myself out there, I always feel like I would be happier back inside. I think that has more to do with me being anxious than anything though. I can say for me at least I think the problem is just that, I am anxious when I talk to new people. Be it real life or DB chat I can't bring myself to say what ever is on my mind, and just regular conversation doesn't come naturally or easily for me. If you feel exhausted when you are social then take a breather, know your limits and if you want to continue to be social work past them. Its hard and for me fills me with dread, but I don't think actively ignoring a part of you that wants to express itself is the best bet.

I may have written this more for myself than you so if this is just a complete ramble of nonsense that doesn't apply to you at all feel free to ignore it.

[Deedles]

Well, I think it sounds like you're on top of this as much as you can be, and any course administrators/professors should see that. If that can't, I'll fight them for you.

Thank you! I hope that they do. I'm just trying to keep calm and tell myself I'm doing what I can, since getting anxious and stressed only makes my eczema worse. So just repeating that to myself.

I think about posting here every now and then but I don't. I saw people talk about a chat as DB ended and I thought, I should go there, but I didn't. I keep telling myself I want to be social and get new friends, but the way I've behaved I think it's more like I want to want it. Should I fight my introvertedness or should I accept it? I know it takes a lot of energy for me to be social and I need to recharge alone, but does that mean I should just keep to myself when I'm exhausted from depression? I'm so torn because my mind is pulling me in two opposite directions and I don't know which is the right way.

I do that a lot myself. One of the things I've started to do if I want company but feel too exhausted to chat is that I just join the chat and sit there. I only participate if I feel like it. It's difficult being caught in between being an introvert and not wanting to be lonely. In the end I began questioning if I only wanted to be social because I'd convinced myself that I wanted it, but I realized that it wasn't that I'd convinced myself that I wanted to be social, but that I'd convinced myself that I wouldn't be able to get and keep any friends if I wasn't really out-going most if not all of the time.

[AdmiralMemo]

(This is why even in this thread I tend to be extra careful around Memo. He's a mod. He could end me with a thought.)

For one, why do you feel you need to be careful around me at all? I actually PREFER blunt honesty. Two, I'm not a mod here. I have no power on the forums.

[RytelCSF]

I didn't mean it as you specifically, though I can see how it could be interpreted that way. I'm wary of mods/admins in general, and as far as I know, you're the only one that frequents this thread. (There may be others, but that knowledge would just make me wary of them as well.)

Secondly, you aren't a mod here, but you are one on the DB chat, and the Twitch chat, and basically areas that I do recognize as good places, even if I'm not entirely comfortable there.

Anxiety may prevent me from accessing some places as much as I'd like, but I'd still like to keep my options open.

[Psyclone]

I was having such a good semester and then I went home for a week and all of a sudden everything sucks again? What did I do?

Also screw not getting cast in things; I'm a great actor since apparently no one has noticed how miserable I am.

[MrL]

That's actually a good point; why is it so easy to hide sadness when it's so difficult to hide happiness…?

[Tinasaur]

Thanks for your replies all of you, it's given me a lot to think about. I've gotten discouraged in my social interactions lately. I found out that former classmates of mine were taking the same course as I am and I mustered the courage to go talk to them. After our first encounter though they've been avoiding me and it's been really awkward at the lectures this week. Feels a bit better to know I'm welcome here and that there are people who can understand and relate.

[Dutch guy]

That's actually a good point; why is it so easy to hide sadness when it's so difficult to hide happiness…?

Somehow its not considered "social" to show sadness much, so we learn to hide it from an early age. Being happy is something no-one has a problem with, so we get little training in hiding it. I'm sure if you tried hard enough you COULD hide happiness quite easily but then why would you want to?

On top of that humans are weird in that if we ACT happy we somehow actually feel just a little bit less crappy sometimes, so we get told (again, from an early age) to "act happy" all the time.

[CrazyMax46]

I told a version of this story in DB chat. Here's a long version of my suicide attempt yesterday. In case you can't tell, I survived. I felt compelled to tell the story because it has a somewhat happy ending.

I recently got a new job as an assistant manager of a grocery store here in Washington. I don't want to give my exact location away but I'll say it's in the SeaTac area.

The store is a mess. Nobody has any decision making skills, nobody takes any responsibility, nobody knows how to run a business. It's basically only popular because it has low prices. It's the poverty grocery store. And I say that as someone who lives on a very cheap budget. I know what it is. The busiest parts of the month are in the early part of the month when food stamps go out.

I feel dirty working for this store. I feel it's kind of a blight on the area. But I got a job there because I need a fucking job.

The other day we were working in the back area of the store, placing products on racking. I was helping figure out where everything should go and trying to keep the back area in a rather clean matter. An employee got on a forklift and placed a pallet on the top portion of racking.

What I was unaware of was the racking wasn't exactly stable. The pallet fell from about 30 feet and to the floor. The pallet was filled with various products, some in glass. A glass jar broke and shattered everywhere. One of our employees was stuck by a piece of glass in the arm, causing profuse bleeding. The good news is that he's okay, but after he was taken care of I had such guilt over what happened that I became suicidal. This was not directly my fault. But as an assistant manager I should have known this ahead of time.

About fifteen minutes later, I began walking toward the highway that the store is near, and planned to lay in the busy highway and kill myself. I hate my job, my job and my decisions got someone seriously hurt. I didn't want to see tomorrow. I wanted to die. I hated my job, my life, my existence.

For reasons I still don't know why, I stopped.

I went through the motions the rest of the day and went home.

The first thing I did was talk to my girlfriend. (Our relationship is a whole other long post altogether) Much to my surprise she decided to stop what she was doing and drive about 30 minutes just to be by my side.

*Conversation reprinted with permission*

"I had a really shitty day. I'm not lying, I attempted suicide.”

"I made catfish and hushpuppies. I'll be over in twenty minutes"

"Don't you have to drive from Seattle to get here?"

"Don't worry about it."

"This is where you are being tested on that whole, I'll always be here for you Bullshit."

"Even if the planet crumbles, even if the stars disappear, even if the world implodes, even if the sun is destroyed, the world spins off its axis, the planets all fall off orbit and we all spin into space, I'll have your back."

I actually felt better just from that. But she came over, brought comfort food and stayed beside me. After about thirty minutes of conversation, I thanked her for rushing to my side. I felt guilty because I took up a lot of her time and effort. After that things were kind of a blur. The next thing I remember, she quoted a song from To The Moon.

“When this world is no more
The moon is all we'll see

I'll ask you to fly away with me

Until the stars all fall down
They empty from the sky

But I don't mind

If you're with me, then everything's alright”

I just remember bursting into tears and hugging her. After years of feeling shitty about myself, I guess I just appreciated feeling wanted.

TL;DR My life is fucked, but I think I'm okay.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

You sir have a bussing awesome girlfriend. Hold on to that one, and become stronger together

[CrazyMax46]

Thanks! I tell her you said that. We've helped each other out in more ways than I can count.

[Jenelmo]

A friend of mine has recently told me that she has been diagnosed with depression and Borderline & depression i know about because of myself and family, but i have no other experience with borderline other than a quick google search.
I want to help if i can and support her if she needs it, but even though this is the depression thread i was wondering if anybody has any experience with borderline, and if there was anything i should be aware about doing or not doing?

[fantôme]

An ex-girlfriend of mine had BPD, and as I'm sure most people will tell you - don't start treating her as fragile. It was important for me to keep in mind that there will often be an ineffable disconnect between what she thinks/feels and what she says/does. But this wasn't a personality change that had just happened overnight, she was who she was, and the person I knew was the person I had always known - the time I'd spent with her had allowed me to form an expertise in reading both when things were really bad for her and what she needed - contrary to how she might have been acting. This may seem obvious, but in retrospect I perhaps didn't keep this in mind as often as I should have.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

I don't know much about BPD, but it seems to me that, in general, saying "I understand depression, but I'm not really familiar with BPD. I'd like to be there for you - can you tell me how I can be helpful?" is always right. And then listen to what your friend has to say.

[RytelCSF]

My workplace is closed for the winter until the end of February.

This, itself, is not a problem: I knew it was coming, budgeted for it, and the overtime I make during the summer makes up for the lost wages during the winter.

However, it's only been three days and I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do with the next few months.

The advice seems obvious: "Go out! Do something! Work on a hobby! Try a new hobby!" and so on, and that's not bad advice, but... nothing feels interesting or enjoyable at all. Anywhere I want to go involves being social, which involves so much anxiety that it doesn't feel remotely worth it. And no sort of hobbies sound fun, especially ones I'm just starting out, where I have to grind through the period in which I horribly suck.

The last few days I've mostly spent laying in bed watching YouTube replays of LRR streams, which while not the worst thing I could be doing with my time, doesn't exactly feel healthy either. But nothing else feels like something I want to do, and I feel ashamed about that.

[AdmiralMemo]

Maybe start streaming some games yourself, Rytel? Just a thought.

[Phi]

A lot has happened recently, so I feel the need to let out some.. I guess "shadows" is a more fitting word than "steam".

After trying different combinations of anti-depressants, I started taking two different types that together seemed to have done me good. I don't know if it is because my brain is getting used to them or because the past few weeks have been generally awful, but I feel like they are not doing much anymore. Most of the time I don't want to do anything, see anyone or leave bed. I don't want to be awake, but I also don't want to sleep because I have nightmares very frequently. I am going to see my neurologist next week, and maybe a change in pills will help. I am also taking something against anxiety when I get anxious (which is often), but I can't take it too frequently because it is addictive.

I wrote my bachelor thesis in psychology and am at the process of making corrections to it based on my coordinator's comments. Yesterday I received an email from my university saying that I won't be able to defend my thesis next month because I failed one subject (for the record, it is the first time this happened. My grades average grade is about 9/10). So I felt terrible, again, and that nothing that I do matters because the world is just going to spit in my face, again. I am currently fighting with my faculty about this.

I have been in Iceland in September, and was captivated by that land. I lived most of my life in Israel and my childhood through the daily suicide bombings, so I am drawn to nature, peace and silence almost instinctively (for context, I have been studying in Lithuania for the past 3 and a bit years, out of unwillingness to stay in Israel combined with being generally poor and having been working since I was 16). So I decided I want to move to Iceland, since I now have a job that, while won't make me rich or anything, can let me survive in peace and quiet. But I can't, because I am not European, and Icelandic laws give a big "fuck you" to non-Europeans who are also not rich. So I feel terrible about this, again. I feel trapped in my own life and in this world.

My coworker is having her third child, my sister is having her first child and my other sister will be getting married sometime in the near future. And all I have are memories of a deceiving ex-girlfriend who never loved and who used me because she didn't want to be alone.

I talked with a friend of mine who is studying in Poland right now, and she told me how much I have changed since she first met me 4 years ago. How I used to be a warmer person, and have grown colder and more hostile towards people over time.

I feel like I have become some sort of inhuman demon thing. I am not interested in most things, everything I ear or drink tastes bland or bitter, nothing seems to go right and I generally have this impression that the world just doesn't want me to be here. And I don't want to be here either, but I am here. Tired, depressed, bitter, but still here.

[betsytheripper]

Update on my episode.

I think I've leveled out. Saw the psychiatrist (finally?) yesterday and her professional opinion was, paraphrased, "I don't see any reason to prescribe medication at this point. We'll talk again at the end of January, and I'll let you think about if you want to try one."

I feel like I sort of just had to implode and get it all out, and I've picked back up again. I've had a couple pretty serious self-worth questioning events in the last couple weeks, but I have bounced back quicker and higher than before.

It made me realize that my new baseline has been on an upward trend, even if I have been freaking out over school and stuff. And I like this, and I am grateful for this.

But this would've never happened if I didn't seek out help, so I strongly urge everyone to seek help. Please, it's the hardest part, but it will turn your life around. I'm not good with personalized words of encouragement, but know that I will support anyone if they need assistance finding resources.

Thank you all, and take care of yourselves, even when it's hard.

[2stepz]

For those of you who haven't kept up, about 18 months ago I moved back to my hometown to take a job teaching math at my old high school. Teaching is rewarding, yet its very taxing for someone who has an anxiety disorder.

One of the unexpected side effects of moving back to my hometown is my mother and I tend to have more in-depth discussions about the past. Saturday we were Christmas shopping and discussing the social environment at school, what students currently deal with, etc.

I had recently had a discussion with one of my students who recently disclosed to me that she is pregnant. This student has had conversations with a wide variety of people who were giving her advice. I was able to speak to her from a different perspective; I am the result of a teenage pregnancy and was raised by a teenage mother. I was sharing with my mom some of the insights I shared with the student that she wouldn't have heard elsewhere, and asking her what she would have told the student.

Mom turned the discussion around on me and started talking about the things she overlooked because she was a teenage mother. The example she used was how early my anxiety manifested, but she didn't recognize what was happening at the time.

Our conversation wrapped up quickly as we got interrupted and never resumed that line... but I spent most of Sunday and part of today reflecting on how my childhood was impacted by my anxiety. I didn't realize until she pointed it out how early my anxiety attacks started. In my head, it was something that started in college... but after she mentioned it, I recall some pre-pubescent episodes. I simultaneously feel better and worse now.

I feel like I'm more substantially broken in ways that will never truly be resolved... yet I feel less responsible for my disorder now. I'm all sorts of jumbled at the moment.

(Pardon if this doesn't make sense... I have a migraine brewing.)

[fantôme]

That's a really interesting perspective, but I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion. A thing that began during childhood doesn't necessarily make it inherent or permanent, we all have grown and changed in a million ways since we were young.

[Lord Hosk]

Next week I will be going off my anti-depressants with the support and knowledge of my medical providers and family.

Please please please, keep and eye on me for the next month or so and if you see some strange things please say something to me, to @lady_hosk on twitter, some place.

Thanks I love you guys.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Good luck Hosk!!