God doesn’t want to kill me. He just likes to watch me spring back up everytime life knocks me down.
Deep depression is NO feeling. Not feeling bad—but not feeling the good, either. When you truly block out the pain you also lose the good stuff. Yin yang, the natural balance of things. It can be a relief after the “drama” you pointed out. The only thing is, it doesn’t last. Let your doctor know what’s going on without making it sound better than it is so he/she can start helping you now, before the flood gates burst. Because when you’re drowning it’s hard to gulp for air and yell Help! at the same time.
One time I was having a regular day, a good thing for me but of course I was getting kind of bored. Out of the blue a voice in my head said, “You know, you really ought to kill yourself.” Because I’m “getting on in years” and been there/done that I recognized it for what it was—stone cold crazy! Ahhh, suicidal ideation…the gift that keeps on giving.
Now you see this sort of comment never has helped me one bit. It just makes me feel more depressed than ever, and guilty on top of it for complaining.
No matter how bad a shape you’re in, there’s more than likely someone who has it worse. But thinking about all the suffering in the world doesn’t at all cheer me up.
Exactly.
If someone was here complaining about their crippling arthritis or their blinding migraines, would nonentity post that shit? If you are having really bad stomach cramps, does knowing that somewhere in the world a person is watching their entrails flow out of the body make your cramps go away? Try thinking about this the next time you’re holding your gut and racing to the toilet.
It is that kind of comment that keeps depressed people from talking about it with their loved ones or anyone else. I didn’t talk about it with my mother for years (and I still do not talk to her about it really) because she tends to fall back on that stupidity, “Just look at how blessed you are compared to other people!” Other people’s pain, especially some nebulous people-I-don’t-even-know’s pain, has no relationship to how I am feeling (or not feeling). Just like if I’m feeling well, I don’t need to look at the neighbors next door to know how good I am feeling. Feelings can exist in a vacuum. Knowing that there are starving children in Ethiopia does not make suicide any less rational in the head of a depressed person. It makes them feel worse because not only do they feel guilty for their feelings (or lack of), they can’t talk about it with anyone without being made to feel MORE guilty.
Endogenous depression, IMHO, is harder in some ways than depression due to trauma or crappy life circumstances in that it is harder to convey what it is like to other people…not to eek sympathy from them but just so that they will at least not say things that make it worse. I think it is why I often denounce or downplay my depressive spells. I don’t want to be seen as another depressive whiner and get blasted with platitudes from people who have never been there.
I read this Buddhist book that my therapist gave me last week (she is not a Buddhist, but she delves into Eastern philosophy sometimes). I’m bringing it back to her to show her my annotations in the margins, so I can show her what reading that kind of stuff does to a person who is feeling very suicidal and is schizoid to boot. Reading something that says “surrender” and “realize there is no hope, only more suffering” and “pain is the result of struggling against reality” over and over again is enough to make a healthy person insane. But to someone who is seriously feeling hopeless, having a supposed wise sage tell you “there is no hope”…well, let’s just bring out the suicide kit and the champagne, shall we? My therapist made a mistake, but I’m not going to hold it against her because her intentions were good and it was a nice gesture (a house-warming gift). And the book did do something good for me. It made me mad enough to bring me out of my fog of nothingness (a good argument where I feel victorious tends to do this to me as well). It has also taught me that Christians don’t hold a monopoly on crazy ideas. Buddhist and Christians…both of them come up with bizarre solutions for dealing with life’s problems, just in opposing ways.
Thank you both. I don’t intend to “dump” him, but the relationship lines are going to have to be re-drawn. I mentioned he called me and told me - not asked, but told - to look for storage units? When I said I was awfully busy - this is a busy time at the office, and after all, he is retired - he said look for them anyway.
Well, that was about it. I just smiled and said, “I’ll try”. And I haven’t. He said he would wait for me to call about the news on the storage unit and I just haven’t called him, either. I’m not his servant.
And that’s how it’s going to be. I’ll be nice and polite to him because there is no reason not to be, but my dad is a user, and I forgot that for a while, trying to be a good daughter. He uses everyone that lets themselves be used, and my entire family complains about him. I won’t be one of the ones being used.
When I was 2 I discovered that banging my head against a pillow placed against the wall was equally satisfying but hurt less, you may want to give that a try next time.
The Kidlette headbangs walls too, by the time I heard about it and told her Proud Daddy to hand her a pillow she’d gotten over it but at least if she ever does it again (she just turned 3) he’ll hopefully remember about it.
I’m a 25 year old virgin.
The problem isn’t that I don’t want to be a 25 year old virgin, but that people are going to start wondering. I’ve been on psych meds since puberty, and combined with hormonal BC for my whacked out period, I just don’t have any sex drive.
But some day soon my family is going to be asking questions and wondering why I’ve never talked about a boyfriend or girlfriend, or brought anyone to my parents’ for supper. Some day my niece is going to ask me why auntie doesn’t have a boyfriend. My friends are going to wonder why I’ve never dated anyone. I’m going to be the resident weirdo.
I’m too scared to change my meds - I’m balanced as it is, and a change could collapse the whole house of cards. I wouldn’t just be without a relationship, I’d be without a house and a job.
My birthday was yesterday, which is why I’m bringing it up now. 25 is like the magic number.
You could just say, “I’m saving myself for the Lord!”
(That is, if your family is Christian).
I know what this feels like and it does suck. All I can say is that as you get older, you stop caring so much. In the meantime, no one has to know about your personal life in this arena. Don’t tell any elaborate lies, but if someone asks the question pointedly (as one of my sisters did one time), you can fend them off with a terse untruth.
I try not to lie to people, but my belief is that I’m not under any obligations to answer nosy, inappropriate questions honestly.
Since I got laid off two and a half years ago, I have:
- Done drawings for passive-solar houses.
- Tutored Illustrator and Photoshop.
- Illustrated a book.
- Sold a painting.
- Learned how to do basic package design, and made one.
- Learned how to make an ebook, and made several.
- Worked as a poll clerk.
At none of these things have I made enough money to survive. (Working as a poll clerk was actually quite good, but was a time-limited stopgap. For which I have not yet been paid.) I have used up all my savings. I am living off Ontario Works and my friends’ charity. I have been unable to find any work as a tech writer. With the one exception of house drawings (the job of which, quite frankly, now terrifies me enough that even now, I want to run fast and far from it–I was in way over my head), I have made no more than a hundred dollars from any of these, and several are just experiments in adding skills.
I never heard back about the electronics assembler jobs in Newmarket. Even skills I have done before aren’t helping me. I can’t even get a job during the holiday busy period because I don’t have retail experience.
I don’t want to continue living off my friends’ charity.
This week I thought maybe I could get some support to go back to school and add ‘web designer’ to my skills. Nope. The profession isn’t enough in demand that the Ministry of Training would pay for the schooling.
I can’t afford to repair my car; I may have to sell it, possibly at scrap prices. I may have to declare bankruptcy; without income, how can I pay off the one debt I do have?
It’s clear that this is a social problem. I am unable to connect, socially. I can’t get away from the feeling that I’m approaching this all wrong: that there is some simple, basic thing to this I just Do Not Comprehend. But this has the same feel as my life in high school, when I just couldn’t connect with people. And it took me twenty years of counselling to begin to get a handle on the things that are wrong with me–and some of them I can’t do a thing about, like face blindness.
I have borrowed books from the library, ones with titles like “Find a Job using LinkedIn” and “Tell to Win”. A friend told me about a book called “Selling the Invisible” and I’ve requested it from the library. All of these books are about branding and social skills and presenting oneself and arousing the interest of others with a story. Intellectually I get the necessity, but somehow it doesn’t connect…
I need to do something else, not something more.
What can I do? There’s nothing left. I’m thinking of suicide as well. Only two things stop me: that it might be inconvenient for people I know, and that my friends’ kids might miss me. Oh, and I want to see the new plastic banknotes coming out next month.
Sunspace, I have sympathy for you and others who have been unemployed for a long time. Every day I wake up I make myself, no matter how unmotivated I feel, appreciate that I am not in your number. Because I don’t know what I would do either.
Can I ask a question? When you say that you aren’t connecting socially, what do you mean? It sounds like you have friends…good friends, actually. Are you meaning you aren’t connecting in a professional-networking sense? Failing interviews? Do you think this is a life-long thing or maybe a result of low self-esteem due to your unemployment?
I think it’s easy to blame yourself for everything rather than externalizing. But it sounds like you haven’t been slouching around. It sounds like you have been hustling. So you should try externalizing just a little bit. It may be as easy as telling yourself that millions of others, including people who were voted Most Popular in high school, are in your boat.
The only suggestion I can think of is putting out an ad on craigslist as a adult caregiver/companion. Lots of adults are trying to care for elderly parents and are struggling with it, but perhaps cannot afford nursing care. Or maybe their parents don’t need nursing care, just someone to do light cleaning and cooking for a couple of hours a day. I was thinking about this the other day. If I were an old lady riddled with arthritis, with limited mobility but not so bad that I can’t take care of myself, how would I maintain my house? I hate cooking and cleaning as it is and I’m not old and crippled.
I wish you luck.
Yes. Networking is a social thing, and I just don’t know how to do that.
Failing interviews? I haven’t even gotten an interview. Not in person, anyways. (I had one phone interview… and the job needed someone with demonstrated web skills, as evidenced by links.)
Both.
A good idea, but you have to be a licensed PSW for that… also, it demands the aforementioned social skills…
To all who have expressed their pain, troubles and sorrows in this thread I can only say the following things:
First, to have the strength to put in words those things that hurt you does show a strength and a will to persevere, a good start.
Second, a mantra I use to break through the tough times, remember that no matter what the problem is you face, others have faced it. It is an impossibly big world out there. Some of those have managed to succeed and even thrive. Find out what they did and you can too.
There are no guarantees in life and contrary to many people’s opinions, the world owes you nothing and you are unlikely to collect even if you can make a case. However, at the same time, in most cases the greatest obstacle to each of us is ourselves. Our personal enlightenment is often what makes or breaks us.
Says the man separating & divorcing for the second time in three years - and happy about it!
I got very sick when I was a kid. I didn’t know what was happening but I felt like I was not able to breathe and I panicked. My parents thought I was just being silly. I got depressed and became interested in terrorists, which didn’t concern my parents until I dressed as a black September killer for Halloween and took the neighborhood kids hostage.
That was about the time my parents thought it was a good idea to send me to college at a far away place, where if they looked up trouble and mental problems I would have been the poster child.
I’m underemployed. I work part time at a school as a teacher. I have no benefits. I was recently selected to be the main ESL person for the morning. I went to a mandatory meeting on it. I was not paid for said meeting. I will not be paid for said meeting. I will not be paid extra for my time, my extra paperwork, etc.
I am selling things on eBay to pay for dental work. My son grew out of his toddler bed last year and we have to share mine. We don’t have a kitchen table or a proper couch. I thought I was so urban and cool when I moved to downtown Denver but then we were mugged by a crackhead, so I had to sell things to pay for us to move in a boring and safe apartment complex. I frequently feed students breakfast when I can sneak them food from my file cabinet. And yet I feel like my life is okay because I love my son more than anything. As long as i can continue to pay his school tuition and buy him healthy food, I’m okay. I think. I keep telling myself that, but I don’t know how long an epileptic can go without a doctor before something happens. Hopefully I get a fulltime job with benefits next hiring season. But I still bought us Boo at the Zoo tickets and pony up $90/month for his karate and take my son out to do something ‘fun’ every week, even if it’s a matinee. It keeps me sane.
Edit: And because of the embarrassment of being broke and unemployed, I stopped seeing friends. As a result, I see no one. I rarely go out (it’s rather expensive to pay for a sitter) and when I do, I lie. I just don’t socialize anymore. I don’t even WANT to most of the time.
I don’t have company. Where would people sit?! But I do have a nice apple green wall in my living room! 
Add again: It’s also very frustrating to see teachers who didn’t put in 1/10ths of the work I did during student teaching get hired because they’re, I donno? Male? Chirpy? Something. Out of all my classmates, the men ALL have jobs! WhAT?!
And I do rock the working world. It’s the one place where I’m not a social moron.
(Non-pitty update: I have a part-time job! It’s enough of a claw hold that I can start moving upwards now…)
Sick today, kinda glued to the computer all day when I should not be. But at least it is my friday and I get two more days to rest up.
Now if only every goddamned road in the state wasn’t under construction as they try to fix everything before snow falls.
Sorry to hear about you unemployed teachers. So very glad my neice graduated and went into the Teach America program rather than trying to struggle along at the bottom of that totem pole. Maybe if you weren’t demaning those multi-million dollar salaries on the public dime… oh wait, you’re not? Because the Republicans keep trying to tell us that you all are!
My problems sound sooo small compared to some of you who wrote in. I feel bad even writing them down.
Next week is my work anniversary, 4 years at the most soul sucking job I have ever known. If I work 3 hours on an average day, it’s stunning. I can’t decorate my cubicle, can’t have music, can’t use employer internet (did just get smartphone, but I’m still paranoid), basically I’m spending hours a day wasting time, alone with my own thoughts. My thoughts don’t particularly like me.
I haven’t got a call back on a resume for years. My job experience seems to be too focused to get job in this economy. I’m sitting around work miserable and convinced that there is no future. And honestly, I don’t see a future. I’ve basically lost hope, at least in the professional sphere. I sit around having lottery fantasies.
This also leaks into my personal life. I don’t think I’m a positive person to be around. Whatever little self esteem I may have once had is gone, I don’t want to be one of those people who define themselves by their work but after 4 solid years of this, I just don’t feel much anymore. I’m really numb and just going thru the motions many days, relying on muscle memory.
My wife and I have a boring life. Work and TV every workday, weekend work around the house and TV. I find myself jealous of my wife, due to her job and that she actually seems to have some friends/co-workers to sociallize with. You never want to be jealous of the most important person in your life, it’s toxic to the relationship.
Once you start tumbling down, it’s near impossible to right yourself again. I feel like I’m not a good person to be around, so therefore I don’t do as much, it’s very self fullfilling. I was in therapy this summer thru my wife’s EAP and she asked if I was going to hurt myself. And the answer is no, I wouldn’t do that to my wife. But that doesn’t mean I don’t self-sabotage in other ways. There is no future here and it’s terrible to believe that today is better than tomorrow will be. What a miserable existance.
diggerwam, why do you feel bad for posting? That’s a sad story you just told.