Depression.

[waveseer]

Let's talk about depression. I am depressed. I have a medical condition (physical) which requires medication which requires other medication to counteract the side effects. When these chemicals mix with my monthly hormonal changes I become severely depressed. I will be in contact with my doctor within the next 24 hours to see what can be done about these 3-5 days a month. At any rate, I am grateful that I lived through a suicidal period many years ago, so I know not to try and harm myself.

 

If you are depressed, do you know what causes yours? How do you deal with it and what can be done about it? Often people don't want to talk about depression because it's a downer (no joke). So if you aren't depressed feel free to skip this topic.

[JusticeLaw9]

Sometimes I think I am depressed too, but I haven't been experiencing mines within the same fashion as you have...

 

I lost my brother a little under a year ago. Little did I know, I began sub-conciously isolating myself from everything and everybody. I actually just realized I been doing this just last night; I was thinking about it. Cause I don't do nothing but go to work and come home. I see my family a few times during the week, but other than that I really don't talk to much of anybody. I am not out dating, socializng, none of that -- just hanging to myself. Since my brother's death, I just haven't felt like I wanted to be close to anybody but my family.

[waveseer]

I'm so sorry about your brother. My father died last year and I really miss him. I am driving his car and sometimes I can "talk" to him and "hear" what he would say. I pushed everyone away and within a few short months I was completely alone (except for my children). Every so often I go outside and register my complaint with the universe, I cry out, "I miss my daddy!" And then I cry. I haven't done that in a couple of months, I will tonight (I like to wait until dark).

 

Your brother lives on in your heart and your mind.

[Wolf_22]

Often people don't want to talk about depression because it's a downer (no joke).

 

It depends. You have to find people who can talk about it with you. You're right, people do seem to go weak at the knees when this sort of topic is brought to light, but why continue pushing a square peg through a round hole? Move on and keep trying to find people who you can talk to about it with. And remember to note the differentiation between "talk" and "obsess."

 

If you are depressed, do you know what causes yours?

 

I can't truthfully admit to being depressed at the moment, but if I were, I would say that one of the following would suffice:

 

- Impossibility of relationships.

- World stuff which I have no control over but yet suffer from.

- The unknown enigma known as "God."

- Having few friends.

- Work / life balance.

- The big lie about being able to do what you want when you grow up.

- My alcoholic mother of whom I haven't spoken to in 9 years.

- My loser father who knows as much about me as you do.

- Having no lover (see number 1--ha).

- Growing bored of porn.

- Economy.

- Bills, expenses, etc. of which my poor grandmother must compensate for.

- Having little-to-no direction after losing a job due to reasons I couldn't control.

- Fighting the impulse to hate my ex.

 

It's an easy list to populate as I'm sure anyone's list would and will be. The important part out of all of it, however, is that we focus on those things that are not so easy to remember, like the following:

 

- This fall semester I'll have 3 jobs lined-up to ease the burden of my grandmother.

- I'm down to 200 lbs now (coming from a flubby 245, and yes, I have a six pack).

- I've been re-acquainted with an old high school crush (actually, a few) through the damnable Facebook.

- My grandmother is still able enough to come visit when she prods gramps enough to haul her over to my house.

- I have a great car that runs good and can go pretty fast!

- My house is everything I could ever want and need.

- I can jog 3 miles, do about 15 pull-ups and do horizontal ab "holds" for an entire minute after playing 2 full-court games of roundball.

- I have 1 best-friend of whom just told me about a place I can grab all-you-can-eat crablegs for about $12.00!

 

You see? The latter is what you need to focus on. This is the stuff that will get you out of that dark place you feel forced to visit all the time. It's hard, and it takes practice, but if you keep doing it, you'll succeed and things will oddly enough change around you to reflect a brighter side of the gem.

 

 

[waveseer]

Wolf 22, you have me by the all-you-can-eat crablegs!

 

You have done great things for yourself, and I really appreciate your thorough and honest assessment of yourself. I have way more positives in my life than negatives, but at the moment the negatives feel bigger.

 

What restaurant is that? You can pm me, thanks.

[Dancergirl425]

Before I started taking my bc my hormones were all over the place and I was depressed. After I took them I noticed that I didn't cry ever, but was still not happy with my life.

 

what caused it was:

-thinking i was over weight when i'm not

-phobia of pregnancy and sex

-guys treating me like scum

-fear of not being able to accomplish my goals/ideal career

-social anxiety coming back in new situations

-lack of money or good job

-fear of dying b4 I get to have sex or accomplish my goals

I could go on

 

I should probably go to therapy for some of these things (and have been contemplating it), but what I do to help myself feel better is write. I like to write stories using a character that looks like me, and basically is me, but has a different name and lives somewhere else. And that way it's like I'm writing about her life and I can step back and look at it and realize what's going on.

 

I also blast music and sing to it and dance around to make me feel better, exercise, force myself to socialize even if I'm not feeling up to it, draw or paint, clean (organizing makes me feel like I'm in control). Sometimes I also think about how much worse my life could be and how grateful I should be for what I have.

 

I like this quote I heard once "It can't pour forever so for now just learn to dance in the rain". It's like I know times might be hard now, but things will eventually get better so I got to keep my head up and look towards the future and embrace life so it doesn't slip by me.

[waveseer]

DG, that is so inspiring and not very far off how I live on my mediocre to better days. Tonight and tomorrow I am just coasting. Food, water, rest, shower, doctor, pharmacy in that order.

[Wolf_22]

Wolf 22, you have me by the all-you-can-eat crablegs!

 

You have done great things for yourself, and I really appreciate your thorough and honest assessment of yourself. I have way more positives in my life than negatives, but at the moment the negatives feel bigger.

 

What restaurant is that? You can pm me, thanks.

 

Looking through the gem goes both ways, I know. It's hard to look at the bright side, but also, you can sometimes look at the bright side too much (aka: mania). I guess it's all about checks and balances...

 

Whatever you do, just make sure that you don't treat the symptoms in this. I've lost count to the amount of people I've known in life who drowned their sorrows in some sort of substance (whether being professionally prescribed or not) who in the end, were only treating their peripheral causation. If something is bothering you, hence, the depression, then what is it? What's acted as the catalyst? Have you been keeping a log of any of this to record things that may have triggered some sort of response?

 

My sister has recently decided to see a doctor to get some anti-depressants. Hey, all the more power to her. She says she's always felt depressed, lonely, insecure, phobic, etc., etc. We've all heard it before, but how many times have any of these same people decided to make those detrimentally important leaps of courage that they fear?

- Big sis has never lived by herself for more than a year. [she needs her own place.]

- She's always had problems with her relationships because she's always insecure about herself, her judgments, and her thoughts. [she needs more friends and hobbies and she needs a gym membership.]

- She never discusses things like this with ANYONE. She's a completely enclosed shell! [Friends and family are great weapons here, but she's too afraid to be human.]

- She works at a factory where some of the jealous male counterparts have (in the past) urinated on her work locker--good job, right? WRONG. [she needs to either start a job search or else consider her options in higher education in parallel to her current priorities.]

 

See what I mean? She's deciding to attack the limbs and not the roots. Her rationale behind it has everything to do with money, her kid, and her age or energy. My grandmother is the number-1 proponant of my sister using all of these excuses--especially the money--so if Big Sis changes, it's going to have to be because she wants to change. Sure, these are all justifiable things which would inhibit anyone from being brave (the money, kid, etc.), but to live in perpetual unhappiness and drown it out with prescribed drugs until retirement only to realize that one day when you're 80 years old you're still facing the same problems, is beyond me... Why do this to yourself? Wouldn't anyone rather go down fighting instead of gradually accepting a war that may have been won only "if"...? It's disgusting!

 

People don't like talking about depression because nobody is impervious to it. Also, oddly enough, this sort of conversation topic eventually leads down to an avenue of thought which questions the very fabric of human existence (which relates to God and the ever-after), and because nobody knows anymore about that than anyone else does, a scary aura of the unknown descends into a hopeless feeling of impossibility which nobody has the power to control. This probably causes suicide more than anything...

 

I have a friend who often tells me that battles all boil down to how bad you want to win them. This then turns into some sort of offhand proverb of "make the goal bigger than the battle" (or something like that). Regardless, it's true. Everyone has problems--some more than others--but if you truly wish to live in an ascended form of human reality and if you truly wish to experience true happiness (which only you can understand as it is NOT a relative phrase of being), you have to overcome "you" and your environment's hurdles. My sister is a perfect example of this.

 

Oh, and I would tell you what the place is called, but according to that same friend noted above, it's just some random bar and grill.

[waveseer]

Darn about the crablegs. Anyway, I have to treat the symptoms. I have a medical condition that requires a very specific medication. When I take it as prescribed it makes me too tired to function so I have to take an antidepressant to counteract the side effect. When my monthly (or tri-weekly) or whatever it is now (I'm in perimenopause) comes around the hormonal changes knock me flat. I cannot take hormone therapy due to the original medical condition (because it's hormone based) so I am a bit limited in my options. If I go untreated then I place my future health in jeopardy. Believe me, if I could take nothing I would.

[Wolf_22]

I understand that everyone has their biological requirements. I just hope it works out for ya. Don't let it get ya down, though, okay?

[waveseer]

Thank you. I am feeling somewhat better from my interactions here and the passage of some time. On one hand I'd like to be 100% tomorrow and on the other I'm afraid if I feel too good I will skip the doctor visit.

[Wolf_22]

Whatever the outcome, just remember that it's not the end of the world. You can always reschedule, and, you can always keep going-it on your own to see how far you can get. It works both ways.

[waveseer]

I can't take another round, and I'm sure my ex would appreciate it if I were treated. lol

[afrodite79]

I was diagnosed with depression back when I was about 15. They put me on antidepressants which I took until I didn't have medical insurance anymore. After that I never took meds again. I just felt like I should be able to be okay on my own and that it was my fault that I wasn't happy. The stress with being in college, a bad relationship and then being laid off and unemployed for a year just exacerbated my depression. I still never went to see if i could get help. I barely wanted to leave the house. I'd stay in bed for days at a time not answering the phone or anything. Friends and family were worried. I lost a lot of weight. All I would do is sit at home, search for jobs and go have a beer a couple times a week.

 

I always thought that if my situation, surroundings etc, etc. changed my depression would go away. It never did. Even when things are going relatively well I'll get depressed. My severe episodes don't last a long time like they used to but I still have them. I'll feel like I'm a prisoner in my own mind. I think that since I wasn't feeling like hurting myself anymore and that I could still function enough to get to work everyday I was fine. I'm not. Now i'm thinking about going to get help again since I have insurance with my current job. I don't want to feel like this anymore.

 

 

Lately the things that have been making me feel depressed are

-not being able to find a job in my field or one that I like that pays enough to move out

-feeling like a failure because I have to work in retail at 30

-feeling like I'm always going to be too broken to have a healthy relationship

-being bored with life in general

-being dissappointed in myself for having to move with my father after i got laid off and still being here 2 years later

-not knowing exactly how to change my life right now

- not getting enough alone time

-not being able to pay my student loan payments in full every month

-feeling unmotivated even though I want to and try to feel motivated

 

Depression is tough. I love it when people actually want to discuss it and what they've done to cope with it.