Depression: I just don't know what I'm doing with my life.

[Carnatic]

Depression has always been with me, but I've only recently started seeing a therapist this last couple of months.

 

There's a few reasons I've not bothered... I saw being depressed as an unwelcome stigma, I've never had a girlfriend and just assumed it was simply because of that, I didn't want to be prescribed pills.

 

But recently, after a few really low points that made me do some really stupid and out of character things (like try and sleep rough) and that made me cry in front of my friends for the first time. People started to suggest I see someone, so I did.

 

I haven't really opened up to him yet, I see him tomorrow and hope I can have more to say to him before I go back to my parents' for Christmas. In previous discussions he's said he doubts I'm clinically depressed and looked at my self obsession, need for social interaction and unhappiness with work.

 

A lot of my thoughts recently have centred upon how I just don't know what I'm doing with my life, I doubt if I know what I want to do and I don't even know myself well enough to guess.

 

I'd say I was creative and craved freedom. I work in an office... as an urban designer (been in work for about a year). When I went to university I had a keen interest in cities and streets and what makes them tick, and wanted to get creative with them. I eventually got a degree in town planning and got a job as an urban designer thinking it would be right for me.

 

I'm not sure if it is. I haven't had the creative freedom, control or even input that I would have wanted. I just sit at my desk typing up analyses and other stuff. I feel stifled by pressures of deadlines, the working day, politics and the profit crazed, wideboy world of property development. It's not just that I'm new, my boss is a poor delegator and keeps all the creative control to himself when colleague's bosses have given them more input.

 

I'm becoming disillusioned with the entire world of development though, too much that I could just apply at another company... it would just be the same, and I can't live this life, it's too structured, I have to do what I'm told and my own opinions, or even those of my bosses don't count for jack s**t. The only people whose opinions count are those with the money (of course when the inevitable rubbish developments that tear the heart out of the community happen despite our best efforts, we're the ones the community accuse of corruption and of lining our own pockets, because we're the ones on the front line, talking to them). I become morally offended by what I do, feeling like a cog in a broken system. I feel trapped in the rat race (I live in a great city but can't afford to stay living here without a job). I can't even speak my mind because I'll be 'professionally discredited'. Instead I just have to watch my city get torn apart by fat cats wanting to cash in on the reputation for culture it has by building Starbucks after MacDonalds after Costa Coffee (not to mention tearing down historic buildings, independent art galleries, people's houses and cafes to do it)

 

But even after all this, there is this feeling I have inside. It doesn't matter what I do, or what I've done in the past, I'm never happy. I'm always convinced I'm going nowhere and I always feel that I don't belong. I feel like there's nothing in the world for me. I don't know what I want. I think I need to know what kind of person I am before I can know, and I don't even know that. So am I depressed because of work... I don't know, and my inability to open up to my therapist isn't helping.

 

And at times like this, old feelings of depression, like that I've posted so many times on here about not having a girlfriend come crashing down on me and drag me into the gutter, and I feel paralysed, I can't do anything... and I can't be bothered doing anything about it.

[samross]

carnatic,

 

Sorry to hear about your depression. I've had it for a long time and it's under control. Ironically it is one of the most treatable illnesses there is. Keep in mind right now your depression is coloring every single thing in your life. It makes everything seem worse than it is but it can crush you. One of the first things you learn in depression treatment is don't make any major decisions when you are feeling depressed. Depression takes the life out of all you enjoyment of things, aspirations, physical needs, etc. It can be extremely dibillitating. But the silver lining in the cloud is you can easily treat it.

Don't worry about the stigma of taking medicine. The medicine you will be prescribed are not 'feel good' pills. They will increase the amount of certain chemicals in your brain that they know decrease when you have depression. I strongly advise getting on something and stick with the counciling. It will work I guarantee it. Depression is like a cloud over you but can control it. In my case it never really goes away but it is almost non-existent most of the time. There will be periods when it will come back but I now know how to deal with it.

PM any time as I have to leave for now. If I can help you from what I've been through I like to do whatever I can.

[CaptainPlanet]

I think you just need to learn to stop caring about things or people. That is what the system dictates that you do.