SDMB Ongoing Depression Support Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
701

Back. Thank you for your words of support Draelin.

No, my mother doesn’t support my eating disorder. She wants me to eat and she just doesn’t understand why eating what I’m supposed to would derail my whole good day.

People have told me the same things like “the only perfect anorexic is a dead anorexic”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be enough to stop those thoughts.

To summarize my entire life story, I’ve suffered from depression for as long as I remember. Anytime I got upset or someone made the slightest expression of disapproval of me, I would cry or scramble to apologize. That only seemed to frustrate people more, because they thought I was crying or fussing because I didn’t get my way, not because I knew I had done something wrong and I couldn’t fix it.

“It’s not that big a deal,” they would tell me. “I don’t see what you’re so upset about. Other people have it much worse than you. You should be thankful for all the good things you have.”

Having these words repeated to me by virtually everyone I met (with varying degrees of sympathy), I internalized that a) People were very unforgiving of me if I made mistakes and b) People thought I was lazy and greedy and that I was only pretending to be upset to get out of trouble.

Then I read all these articles in magazines about anorexic girls. They are always portrayed as wonderful people. They do everything well: school, extra-curriculars, sports, etc. And everybody loves them. Nobody says that they are lazy or selfish or stupid or greedy. People sympathize with their struggle.

And I thought, if I became anorexic, I could be more like these girls. People would like me more. They would stop getting angry every time I screwed up.

I still want so much to be like those girls in the magazines, but it seems like every time I try, I get reminded of what a big failure I am. How can I hope to be like any of those girls when I’m constantly wanting to eat? Shouldn’t having friends and a good life matter to me more than food?

I guess I like food way too much to have those other things.

I’ve pretty much given up the idea that I have any control over my life. I should just sit back, spend my life numbing myself with TV and books, and let the ‘real’ winners revel in their glory. I know I sound bitter, but I’m sane enough to admit that they deserve it more than I do.

702

I’ve had great results with meditation, and there is ample evidence in the psychological literature that meditation and mindfulness help depression. I didn’t pay anyone to teach me to meditate. I just sat down on a cushion and observed what came up. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

How is everyone doing lately?

I’m sort of pretty good, I think. I am looking for a job right now; I have to leave my current one in September. The stress of that has really made my anxiety a lot worse. I’m just rolling with the punches, trying to keep in mind that this intensification is temporary. It doesn’t help that my boss is on vacation for like three weeks, leaving me alone in the office to procrastinate and stew in my own worried thoughts.

I have started to become a lot more physically active and I think I am changing in weird ways. The last week or so I’ve been totally stir-crazy in the house. I went for a 3.5 mile walk today, and 20 minutes after I returned, I wanted to go for another walk. I did end up taking a second, shorter walk. Which was my 3rd walk of the day. And that’s in addition to my Workout of the Day - I did core. It’s like I’m all wound up and I can’t sit still - VERY unusual for me. If it’s the new normal, that’s okay, I kinda like it.

But my husband wanted to cuddle with me on the couch, so we watched Orange is the New Black, and the show is great but it depresses the hell out of me. It did a serious number on my mood. We finished the First Season but I’m not even sure if I’m going to watch the Second when it comes out. Does anyone else respond to TV drama like that?

703

No, this is nonsense, it’s just your illness talking. Talk back to it if you have to. Just do one thing. One tiny thing. Water a plant. Go for a 5 minute walk. Prove to yourself that you do have control. The choices you make do matter. And you deserve happiness as much as anyone else.

704

Very good advice.

As far as my progress goes, at least I don’t have any plans to kill myself in the next couple of months. I’m waiting on a decision from the disability company but if it isn’t approved I will be devastated and overwhelmed.

705

Perhaps on the extreme end of this…

I was convinced (cajoled, conned) to shave my beautiful head of hair for a 1200 dollar donation to a cancer support centre.

I feel great! It’s like I have new lease on life. I feel like me.

Now, I just have to convince my friends and family that I have not gone off the deep end.

(It actually looks pretty good, too!)

706

That’s great that you were willing to step out of your comfort zone to help others. I’m glad it worked out for you, and there are definitely people out there who appreciate your donation.

707

Hi. I don’t know if I’ll keep posting on this board, but I wanted to share a bit of my story. I don’t know if it will be encouraging or not, because I am no means out of the woodwork yet, but I am surviving.

Some years ago a family member of mine who I was close to passed away. I had always been prone to depression, but after that event I really started to get down. I was and am married and I was still talking to my wife, but I gradually stopped going places and doing my hobbies and being in contact with friends, and really started retreating into a shell. I had one friend left that I talked to but I picked a stupid fight with him and he stopped talking to me. That really hurt because I started seeing what I’d been doing to other people without realizing it, but I felt too embarrassed about what I’d done and had too little self-esteem to reach out to my former friends again.

Over the last couple of years what I will paraphrase as “really bad shit” started going down in my life. I attempted suicide a couple of times, was in and out of the hospital. Still hard to talk about that. Through it all my wife stood by me, I don’t know why. Somehow too I managed to hold on to my job. I managed to go to work the day after being discharged from the hospital.

But it’s my job that’s really been hurting me, to be honest. There’s a lot of political crap going on there, and I’m in constant fear that someone (one person in particular) is going to find out about my suicide attempts and hospital stays and conspire to get me canned. At the beginning of this year I started getting really paranoid about that. Then my job title and duties changed and I went from working a regular 40-45 hours a week to 50-60-70 with a lot more responsibility. I started fearing making errors like I never had before, and I was starting to go a little out of control. I started talking openly about ending my life again around my wife (again I do not know why she stays with me) and I was sent to a different doctor, who this time diagnosed me as bipolar. It took me a while for that diagnosis to sink in. For a long time I was telling myself, “you are really sick” and I felt a lot of stigma about being bipolar. I think people think bipolar people are normal then get really violently angry. With me it’s more like “sort of depressed” most of the time and “really super depressed” at other times.

I’m now on lithium, an antidepressant, an antianxiety medication, and a couple of other things as needed. It’s been hard to adjust to the new meds, and I sleep a lot, which makes it difficult to have much of a life outside of work and sleep. But I’m slowly starting to manage. I’ve started doing some of my hobbies again. I don’t have friends but I am starting to talk to people and have even gone to some social events in the past month. So I suppose those are positive steps. There are still times when I feel immensely anxious or depressed. Well, today even.

To be honest I am not sure how I have maintained a semblance of normality over these past years. Even my counselor says most of her bipolar patients aren’t holding down jobs or relationships. I often read about how some people with depression can’t get out of bed. Every day I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t want to dress for work, get in the car for work, drive to work…I don’t know how I do. I fantasize about missing the exit for work and just driving for the next ten hours until I reach the middle of nowhere. I have tried hard to find meaning in my job, because I know there is somewhere else I want to be, but that would take me away from my wife, and from everything I know. But telling myself my job is important puts even more pressure on myself. I have tried instead to do good things for others.

I think that is all I can say for now.

708

I’ve mentioned GLYX-13 before as being an exciting new antidepressant that works on an entirely new (NMDA/glutamatergic) pathway. Its maker has just been granted a patent which expires in 2030 so expect it to come to market sooner rather than later if Phase III goes well.

709

I want to kill myself this weekend. I updated my suicide note and some other stuff so Lincoln and/or Stanley would know what to do. I know what buses to take & when to get to the bridge; I know what/when the tides are for the next few days. I need to go to the library to print some stuff out tomorrow, I need to laundry, I need to wipe my computer…

But people tell me I can’t because it’s wrong, selfish, self-centered, but how much do I have to suffer though?

I have headaches that feel like it can shatter granite. I am physically & mentally in pain. I am physically & mentally exhausted. I want to bang my head against the wall, but it makes too much noise. I want to yell at my neighbor, I want to smash things, I want to flip the table, I want to cry and can’t and don’t know why. I’m so fat now that it hurts, everything hurts, it’s a pain in the butt to wipe my ass, and it’s all my fault, I know this.

How much is enough? 40 years of wanting to end my life, 40 years of on/off therapy, 18 years of medication,
When do you say “yeah, this unit is fucked, send it to the recyclers”??

It’s my fault, right? I fucked up some where, right? This can’t all be because of a chemical imbalance that may or may not exist, I fail somehow. I wasn’t a man enough, I didn’t love Jesus enough, I didn’t work hard enough, I didn’t love my mother enough, I wasn’t gay enough, I didn’t fuck/get fuck by enough men, I didn’t like sex enough, I should have fuck a women, until I found the right one, I should have joined the air force…

I want these headaches to stop, I want the pressure in my head to go away, I don’t want to wake up anymore and there is only one way that I know will work.

So why can’t I kill myself?

710

If you told a doctor all that, you’d be in a mental ward for a 72 hour evaluation. You can do it voluntarily too. Might not be a bad idea. It’s 3 days. What do you have to lose? You might find something out.

711

Foggy, I identify with most of what you say. In fact, I did attempt suicide (it was a legitimate attempt, not ‘a cry for help’). As a result I spent a week in the mental ward. It was terrible at the time but in retrospect not so bad (there’s a book there).

I can’t promise that I’ll never attempt suicide again but I can say that I don’t have any plans to do it in the near future. I almost died before my friends, family, employer and even my psychiatrist realized how sick I was because I refused to let anyone know. I didn’t want to let on for many reasons. Now that they know, things are better but it shouldn’t have taken a suicide attempt to achieve this - my doctor would have helped, he would have moved heaven and earth if he’d known I was going to try to kill myself. It sounds like you are under the care of a doctor but haven’t been forthcoming about your suicidal thoughts.

I believe, intellectually, that it’s ‘not my fault’ but emotionally I still see myself as a terribly flawed person - so I get your despair. I’ve applied for, and received disability because things got so bad that when I returned to work after my suicide attempt, I nearly tried again. Be aware, that’s an option - if you can’t work, your doctor can advocate for you and it doesn’t take a suicide attempt - I had three previous ‘vacations’ from work due to depression and the disability insurance company paid.

712

There is an enemy in your head. It wants to kill you. And it doesn’t -just- want to kill you. It wants to kill everyone who has depression, and everyone who knows everyone who has depression. It wants to hurt and tear and rip and shred everything in your world until it’s bloody bits.
It. Is. The. Enemy.

And if you die, the enemy wins.

Now, right now, I’m betting you’re saying, “Who cares? I don’t have the strength to fight it.” Or somesuch.

I was there 20 years ago. No strength. No friends. No money. No job. I have been in a place wherein simply getting out of bed was nigh-impossible. I believed in my heart and my head that I deserved it because of something I’d done, or maybe something I hadn’t done.

I went to the hospital. It helped.

Now, I’m not guaranteeing it will help you. I can’t do that. But I can tell you that there are professionals who can help you learn to fight this battle, and can, when you’re weary, help you fight it.

Things can change. I know right now you don’t believe that. So… Can you take my word for it? Take my word for the fact that you have nothing to lose by seeking out help.

Can you do that for me?

713

Saturday is the last day of class this term. I’m not going to get an A. I never get A’s.

I messed up really badly on one assignment. People keep trying to tell me it’s not a big deal, but it is a big deal. It wasn’t just that I messed up, but it was because I made one stupid careless mistake, and if I could have just paid more attention, the mistake wouldn’t have happened.
People say that everyone makes mistakes. I know they mean well but surely they realize that I have already made far too many mistakes and I simply can’t afford to make any more.
That I continue to make the same stupid careless mistakes over and over again is the reason that I will always be a failure. If I knew what was good for me, I would pay more attention to my work, but I’d rather be lazy and self-indulgent than commit myself to my work and the result is that I will always be a failure.
I’ll be nicer to myself whenever I decide to stop being such an irresponsible f88k-up, if that magical day ever comes.

714

I want to check in, because it’s good for me to check in…

For good, or bad, or just different… I am NOT suicidal. I have had a LOT of shit in my life lately, between my husband breaking up with me and getting a promotion at work, I’ve been stressed, upset, and some days I can really feel the same old feelings creeping in at the edges.

But, whether it’s the meds, or the coping strategies, or both… It’s like suicide just isn’t one of the options on the table any more. I wake up on the weekends, or get home from work, and have that momentary inner dialogue of “what are you doing today?” and my options now are more or less,“Woodworking, video games, cooking, gardening…” whereas before they were those, plus, “F* it, just stop. The pills are in the bathroom.”

Now? It’s just not one of the options on the table. It’s like, if life were a buffet, and your options were, “Activities, work, suicide” someone took away that suicide casserole. It still exists, intellectually, as an option, but it’s not really on the table any more. More than anything, this has convinced me that my depression has been a biochemical thing. I’ve tried explaining this to my ex, and he’s mostly seemed baffled (part of why he’s my ex). When I mention it to my psychiatric nurse, he just smiles and nods.

I really, really want to share. I’ve been there - I’ve been depressed when my life is fine, and I’ve been on the wrong meds and felt… WRONG. But being on the right meds, I more or less feel the same, I feel like me, just… not suicidal. Not overwhelmed, not sad at nothing. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes this sucks. I FEEL a lot more. I feel angry and sad and frustrated and happy and loving and everything to such and overwhelming degree. So much so, that I realize I didn’t really know how depressed I was, but… not suicidal is different. And good. And I’m happy with it.

On a less-general note, not being depressed makes me feel the biological clock something fierce. (Although, the experiences I’ve had with feeling suicidal make me appreciate that this is a biological drive that I get to decide how I respond to). I was with a co-worker today who brought her one-year-old to the event we were at, and there was part of me that was seriously getting the, “Hey, hey, you want one of these, that guy over there looks solidly ok, and that’s good enough,” even though the thinking part of my brain was like, “Yes, it’s ok to want kids, but right this moment is bad. Let’s wait a year or two.” Why, why, WHY did I get married to someone who doesn’t want kids? And why did he try to convince himself that he might want kids later? Besties or not, that was failed plan from the get-go.

715

That is wonderful news. I’m so glad the medications seem to be helping. The last time I was suicidal, it was brutal for my husband, and when I realized how much he was suffering I decided suicide will never be an option again.

I’ve decided to write a book about managing chronic depression. I have two chapters written so far. When I first started writing it, it made me depressed. So I decided to re-write it in a way that is not depressing. Yesterday was a recounting of my life story - first all of my accomplishments, but then I went and explained what I was going through at those various stages of my life. The idea I wanted to communicate is that you can have depression and live a fulfilling life at the same time. This is true.

I don’t know if anyone is going to want to read my book, but writing it sure has been a positive experience for me. It has reminded me how far I’ve come.

716

You’re lucky to have a husband that cares. No one around here seems to give a flying fuck how I feel.

717

He’s incredibly supportive and I know I’m very lucky for that. I’m sorry you feel so little support. I know it’s not the same, but WE care how you feel.

718

Thanks, Spice Weasel. Yeah, I am told either to “get the fuck over it” or am held to be “a crybaby”. Not exactly constructive. They just want to have meds thrown at the issue, but my psychiatrist thinks that is not the right idea, that it’s treating the symptom and not the cause. The wife thinks he’s a fraud because he won’t just medicate me (which I have been before, with only sporadic positive effect).

I am very stressed out on top of the depression – I am solely responsible not only for keeping the roof over our (and the extended family’s) heads but also for pretty much all the daily upkeep and maintenance of the home – and the depression’s manifesting as extreme anger, to such an extent that I have been screaming at the cats, who I truly love. And I’ve been stress eating and avoiding the gym as well, so I’ve put on 40-50 pounds.

My depression stems from deep resentment and years of going along to keep the peace. My psych really wants me to address these issues with the parties involved, but I’ve been programmed my entire life that the worst possible thing is that anyone think poorly of me, and I’m quick to back down in the face of an opinionated discussion. I cannot seem to break through those barriers.

719

I handle stress with booze and music (and weed when available.) I got drunk last night and posted a bunch of stuff on the Board and am afraid to go back to the threads and even look at what I said.

I am always suicidal. Sometimes there’s even a reason.

We’re losing our house and don’t have enough for a deposit on an apartment. I guess last night I let it all out.

I hate it when I log in to see if I’ve been banned.

720

Okay folks, time to kick this thread to the forefront. A fellow Doper needs us. It’s all well and good to use this as a safe dumping ground but it’s not enough—why take up the space? We need to respond to each other, without judgment, but let each other know we hear and talk about it.

Renifer I weighed 87 lbs when I graduated from high school (and I had weighed less the year before but never weighed myself.). I weighed 100 the first time I got married. I weighed 105 a few years later when I got married for the second time. After the birth of my second child I weighed 100 again. Do you know why I know this? Because people obsessed with their weight remember.

I’ve gone so long before with barely eating (unsalted crackers) that the reintroduction of food gagged me. Meat was impossible (gamey.) A plain potato had too many levels of flavor for me to handle though I was ravenous for it. Thin carrot strips (crunchy but unobtrusive) helped lead me back to food.

Tell me your eating habits.