It has been a shitty day at work. Things go wrong, and somehow I am the first person the finger got pointed at. I have a knack for making careless mistakes, true, but it get really tiring when the manager points at me at the first sight of anything wrong. It’s programming, and I’m integrating with other people stuff. Do you expect me to get it right the first time round, while with you breathing down my neck and I have no idea how the other person done his work?
Does it matter in the end that it’s really other guy’s work that conflicts with mine? Do people always need to find someone to blame, to point at and said, “Oh he screws up”. Have it ever occur to people that other people besides me can make mistakes? Anyway, can’t mistakes just happen?
The ironical thing is that I came up with the idea myself to make everyone’s work easier. Maybe I should have just kept quiet and shutdown.
It’s that feeling of blame and shame and helplessness. No matter what I did, I get blamed. I tired of being defensive. I’m tired of what people think. Screw it all and damn it all to hell.
Best of all, I can’t even talk to my friends. “You are doing great since the last time you got depressed”. I don’t even know how to bring this subject up around them anymore.
I don’t feel like doing anything now. I hate my life. It’s just a constant string of ‘acceptance’ one after another. Accept this. Accept that. You can’t change this. Can’t change how the world treat you. Can’t change how I react. At least I am now too tired to.
ETA: I’m very stressed. I can’t admit I’m stressed. I am supposed to be able to handle life. But I can’t handle it. Maybe there’s nothing at all. I can’t take a break, I can’t take a breather. My savings won’t last, there’s no social security in my country. You’re disabled, you’re screwed. Oh God I hate this. I hate this tension.
What environment do you work in? Is there a HR person you can chat with?
I’m going through some bad stuff at work right now, but talked to HR, (the Employee Representative, rather), and things seem like they’ll be resolved in a week or so. Work’s been so bad for me, and I would just worry about it when I wasn’t working.
I’m sorry things are sucky for you right now. It can be difficult when your it’s your job that makes you feel like shit. It’s often hard to find a new one, and it’s such a big part of your life. You can end up feeling trapped.
I hope you can rid yourself of the depression after some time passes. Maybe things will get better. If not though, I hope you get some help, if you’re not already.
I’m still having work problems myself. In fact; I don’t work until Saturday, and I’m dreading it so much, that I can’t go out or have friends over because I’m so worried that if I have any fun, going to work will be like hitting a brick wall.
Seriously, I hope things get better for you Crowbar!
Are you in therapy, Crowbar? Can you start or go back? I know what it’s like to be so depressed and how it affects everything. How it’s hard to know what feelings are legitimate (that is to say, born of actual events) and which are simply symptoms of the depression (like guilt). Friends who aren’t depressed sometimes do have a hard time understanding that you can’t just snap out of it, you can’t just make the sadness and the anxiety go away. Nevertheless, it sounds like it would be a good idea to talk to a professional. Is that a possibility for you?
Crowbar, there’s a Yahoo group for Dopers with Depression. It’s called “Cecil’s Place”, and most of us communicate via email to the group list. It’s been, almost literally, a lifesaver for me. It can really, really help to know that others have experienced the same things you do. You aren’t alone. Hardly. And pretty much all the other people I’ve met with moderate to severe depression are the most caring and supportive people I’ve ever known.
In my experience, it helps to have a short term and long term plan for dealing with depression. Short term is the quickie solutions for those days when you really feel like the universe has it in for you. You just need enough to get through the day. Long term are the things you can do every day which help alleviate depression and minimize or prevent recurrences.
Short term? Have someone you can call, email the Cecil’s Place list, go look at a funny cat video on youtube, hug a puppy, something. Long term? In the following order: regular exercise, good sleep, and good nutrition. Regular exercise by itself works better than SSRIs and cognitive behavioral therapy together. Good sleep is absolutely necessary for the brain to heal itself. Good nutrition is absolutely necessary for your brain to function in the first place.
I’d also add sunlight (it causes your skin to manufacture Vitamin D, which aids the immune system, which is implicated in depression), joyful music, physical human contact like hugs or massages (releases endorphins and serotonin), a good cry (relieves stress), and singing at the top of your lungs in the car.
Crowbar, you deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be healthy. Depression steals both of those away and leaves you vulnerable to even the mildest slings and arrows of every day life. Worse, it interferes with the drive and energy it takes to do the things that will make you feel better. So, even though it may feel like you’re doomed to failure, do these things anyways. Sometimes it makes an immediate difference. Other times it takes a while. But I promise you, it does help.