Depression and what it's really like

I forgive you. But it's most important for you to work on forgiving yourself. Like sarahell says, there's only forwards. One foot in front of the other, and try not to make the same mistakes again. Forgive yourself, and keep going.

<3

well

a) stop upstaging me
b) you're not a very convincing bad guy -- silence is maybe not helpful but nor is it evil
c) it's hard to make friends as an adult, i think, but it's also hard to lose them -- those ppl you've been through shit with will understand
d) you don't have to be with your grandparents all the time as long as they know you are thinking about them and loving them

are you . . . in nyc now? because there are drinks to be had

I have responded to the lowest lows in my closest friends' lives with silence because I was afraid of awkwardness. I have driven away the people who have loved me.

hey, i've done this thing! repeatedly. but it's not irreversible in the way it can feel, fwiw. if there's anyone in particular you want to reach out to/apologize to/reconnect with, try it.

i am also really familiar with the feeling of having done everything wrong, but the thing is, it's never over. i don't even mean that in a particularly comforting way, i just mean it literally: no matter how badly you think you've fucked up, you still have to wake up the next morning. like sarahell said, you change a few things that are within your power to change and you keep going. circumstances change, and also, just doing a few things that seem doable can make you feel a lot more hopeful. living with what you've done, as you put it, is easier than anticipating living with what you've done.

forgiving yourself all at once can be hard, but it seems to me that you're taking a lot more on as your fault than could possibly realistically be your fault. i hope that helps.

I have responded to the lowest lows in my closest friends' lives with silence because I was afraid of awkwardness. I have driven away the people who have loved me.

i have also done this thing, repeatedly. and i've also felt awful about it, but when i think back about those moments where i should have been more supportive, i remember that it was much more complicated than simply seeing a friend in pain and choosing not to be there for them. there were other feelings, many of them self loathing, like "he really needs someone there, but i'm not a good enough friend to be that person. i would probably end up making him feeling worse." i'm guessing that maybe it was similar for you. also, remember that lots and lots of people respond the same way (by withdrawing) to the pain of others. it's not a good thing, but it's common.

if there's anyone in particular you want to reach out to/apologize to/reconnect with, try it.

horseshoe otm. you don't need to stage a reverse intervention where you gather all of your past friends into one room and beg for forgiveness or something. but you could think about calling up an old friend that you haven't talked to in forever and just asking how they're doing, and if they live really far away (all of my old friends do), at least say that you'd like to get out there sometime and give see them sometime soon. stuff like that goes a long way.

anyway, i don't know you all that well nick (i don't know anyone here that well), but there are too many people i know that have the best of intentions and feel so guilty and sad all of the time, and it kills me. there are so many people that truly are assholes - let them be sad and guilty, you deserve better.

I have responded to the lowest lows in my closest friends' lives with silence because I was afraid of awkwardness. I have driven away the people who have loved me.

i have also done this thing, repeatedly.

Same. It's something I've been feeling increasingly shitty about lately. I've resolved to call at least two of these people this weekend so that I'm at least making an effort. I don't know if it'll work but surely it's worth a shot, right? Maybe you could do similar like everyone else has suggested. Hang in there, N.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. I should probably stop getting drunk for awhile, I seem to go down that hole every time I do nowadays.

I don't know if this will be at all helpful, but I've been on the receiving end of this recently. I have a number of friends who kind of shockingly retreated when I was going through a lot of rough shit (and, thankfully, a handful who have been my rocks). When I got to the other side of that stuff, though, I regained the perspective to remember that I'd been that guy myself in the past and that I retreated out of awkwardness and not because, y'know, "Fuck that sad sack". What I'm trying to say is that I'm not mad at those people who weren't around and I'd like to see/hear from them again. I can't say everyone in my position is gonna feel the same, but I think it's fair to assume that you haven't really alienated as many people as you may think you have. And some people may really miss you and want you back in their lives. Part of the problem is that you're trying to assess what's going on in other people's heads, which is a doomed pursuit under the best of circumstances but doubly so when you're not in the best frame of mind yourself.

saying much about things in my life at this point feels wholly silly. I feel like it's been a spiraling cliche of dead and dying loved ones, drugs, casual self harm; physical or otherwise, growing poverty, the growing inability to communicate or connect with people on anything slightly resembling a meaningful level, etc etc for years now. money is the worst substance on earth. if you're not white and not rich you're not going to school so you're not getting a job. even if I were to somehow get a job, I have no interest in perpetuating and playing into the grossly flawed systems that are in place; of course that's the only way one gets to eat in 20XX. independent media affirmed in me long ago that the world beyond myself isn't getting any better. suicide isn't a viable option either. problems abound.

oops~

feel better nick

http://bogglelovesyou.tumblr.com

what a kind owl

not sure the kind cartoon owl is qualified to give people advice about medication tho

that's great!

you guys are swell

I like the list:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m57qkbl50I1rr4zq1o1_500.jpg

I should print that and stick it on the fridge.

I like that a lot

numbers one and three there partic otm in my experience

I feel like apologizing to someone every day helps too but tbh that's because I fuck up a lot.

Heh I always get told to STOP apologising for everything by my housemate :)

Ugh. Sorry guys, but that tumblr's advice is horrible. Putting a nicely drawn owl on it doesn't make it any better.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m15o73uOVk1rr4zq1o2_500.jpg

Anon, I don’t know if you’ve ever considered whether or not you may be asexual, or if you’re even comfortable considering that label for yourself, but either way, I would encourage you to look up one of the many asexual communities online! At the very least, it should be a comfort to spend time with people who will never tell you that you need to be in a romantic or sexual relationship in order to be healthy and happy!

jumping to a lot of conclusions here, asexuowl

sorry this was the question

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m15o73uOVk1rr4zq1o1_500.jpg

Cool list, partic the owl. Damn, looks like the owl was already made light of. Anyway, hardest one for me was the last, kindness from others didn't exist in my brain so it could never be recognized. Totally mindblowing finding out it was something real ... breaking out of depression is like reality totally morphing and changing one grand realization at a time (or really, just seeing the truth more clearly).

heh, yeah, no offense but put me on Team Fuckyouowl.

what's the difference between being depressed and suffering from existential crisis?

***

life wouldn't be so difficult to handle or survive or work with if i (or we, rather) lived in a healthier global culture and society.

like, is all this war and murder and starvation and pollution and trauma endemic to the human species, or did we go terribly wrong somewhere along the way? i have a hard time believing we evolved to become such a destructive, hateful species. we are capable of so much more.

i don't know. i don't think i'm depressed so much as traumatized by our unhealthy culture.

ws asexuowl

ARGH

Ok, so I have been half-turned-down for a promotion, despite being recommended by the previous occupant of the job and the next highest up at the place because I didn't answer one or two v. vague questions to the woman actually interviewing me, and now will have to be re-interviewed with it.

And everything seems to have broken with none of it being my fault. To fix my laptop will cost... about the same as a new laptop. TY screen for exploding one morning. My bike is fucked too.

Oh and my best friends/only fucking friends around here are moving to Bristol. Fucking ay.

I think I'd be cool but all this shit happened within the same week. I just can't seem to catch a fucking break. I'm getting drunk and listening to Slick Rick loudly. It's not like i've got shit else to do.

what it feels like for me

-- most everything in my life has been a colossal failure (marriage, career)

-- the things other people point out to cheer me up are barely-disguised colossal failures (grad school)

-- the few things i have been successful are small and fleeting and besides i have failed to capitalize on these things (learned how to DJ at age 35, state fair 1st place in architectural drawing)

-- things are not going to get better. if anything they have only been getting worse and worse and judging from the state of my grandparent's generation they are going to get really bad before i die of natural causes, if i die of natural causes.

-- my goals in life have basically shrunk down to appearing stable enough that i don't ruin my parent's impending retirement and twilight of life by having them worry about what will happen to me after they die. then when they die, i can go ahead and die with a clean conscience.

something i have realized is that aside from my family, all of my friends are either a) literally clinically mentally ill or b) indigent

this tells me something negative about my person which i can't really put into words

i often think my dog is disappointed with me or angry with me.

my meds seem to be having an effect. what that means for now is i still recognise all the ways i've fucked up, and all the things that are not good about my life and may not ever improve, but i suddenly seem to have just enough resources to deal with them and sometimes even look other people in the eye and be honest with them. i know i've seen this feeling appear before and i've let it slide away or done things to wreck it, but just observing that pills seem to make me feel even a little bit less flat is enough to remind me that the worst times are not all i am.

i dunno what to say late great, i'm not in your head so i can't know how you feel. but i'm sure your worst times are far from being the sum total of who you are, too.

same goes for all my fellow travellers on this thread. keep hanging in there.

Hey, that's good news, relatively speaking, NV. I'm glad to see it.

glad to see you are doing better nv.

late great, nv, might I suggest seeking advice from a talking owl? Or maybe, you should think of taking up a hobby.

all my hobbies are so antisocial :\

have been trying to think of social activities that don't involve either a) booze, or b) people i'd want to kill unless i was full of booze

target practice lol

good work NV - i guess the thing from here is to use this feeling and not to let it go. the letting it slide thing is easy to let happen

resources - this is a great word

hoy hoy, late great, nv...you are all a+ dudes in my world. there's benefit from just putting one foot in front of the other, even if it doesn't always feel that way.

hugs xoxo

hobbies don't have to be social imo! there can come a serenity from antisocial hobbies too, tinkering about with synths or wandering around with a camera can bring a serenity

didnt mean to say serenity twice and i also meant to put antisocial in inverted commas

painting/doodling/writing too

well anything - i just mean that alone time can also be really valuable

My hobby advice came straight from the cartoon owl.

He thinks it only takes three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, so don't listen to him.

ha oh i didnt know anything about any owls

so here's the thing

-- i've been seeing therapists for 14 years. one for 12 years, one for one year during grad school, the most recent for about a year. they have all been excellent. i know all about cognitive behavioral therapy and CBT.

-- i've been taking SSRIs for 14 years, and mood stabilizers for about 4. big doses. my doses nowadays are bigger than ever.

-- i have hobbies, all sorts. creative things like music, outdoorsy things like camping and cycling, fulfilling things like gardening and community service, snuggly things like a doggy.

-- i have a very very supportive family and several - not many - very close and supportive friends that i've had for a long long time.

the thing is i rarely feel any pleasure and i haven't for a long time. i am always focused on the negatives. if something goes well, i only think about the parts that went wrong. if nothing went wrong, i think about all the other times something went wrong and criticize myself for not doing it perfectly every time. my therapist tells me i've coped with criticism by internalizing the criticism, predicting it, and beating my critics to the punch. now i'm too good at criticizing myself and can't stop. it is great to know this, but i want to stop.

i want to be able to wake up w/o dreading the day and thinking about what can go wrong and what went wrong yesterday. i want to leave work w/o feeling like i'm slinking out, having barely avoided being fired. i want to be able to turn my back on people w/o imagining that they're thinking bad things about me. i want to go to sleep at night not thinking about the worst parts of the day.

i understand that your worst times are far from being the sum total of who you are but i want to feel that, and the only times that i do feel that is when i'm just off a manic tear and doing something like admiring my house after cleaning it from midnight until 5 am (even though i rarely have guests) or admiring the 12 hour straight unpaid indesign job i did (for a not-very-important school event which does not need a professional quality program or flier) or the 40 hours that i spent on a mix (that nobody will listen to) etc etc

what about meditation or something that will help you get away from the self-talk for a while?

not to be all hippy-dippy, just curious