Depression and what it's really like

do you have other people you can lean on right now? (besides wonderful ilx)

thanks silby, it's still a little strange to think that someone could be affected by that story.

phillip nunez, nobody except my therapist. my family is all righteously messed up and this shit goes all the way to top, so there's no one there. i heaved ho all my old friends because they were people like my family so the relationships were no good. i'm thinking of seeing one of those folding chairs in a church basement support groups or something ... i'm just afraid it'll be like one of those abuse messageboards where everyone's just wallowing in shit. what i'm doing now is dealing with everything so i can move on. good news is i'm starting to taste freedom a little, so all this hard work's paying off.

Can you get a pet of some kind, or talk to pet rescue people? (I'm thinking getting a rescue pet would be a good pretext for interacting with more nurturing types of people.)

Can't get a pet, unfortunately.

Something annoying about all this is that middle class standards are based on people having an OK upbringing, so that's how I'm judged in the world. Nobody knows how hard I've had to work to make it, and nobody knows how hard it is for me to learn how to even function at the most basic level right now. You don't get any breaks in the world, and people born blessed with like, family, and without complete and utter terror lurking around every door, and with being taught the most basic shit in the world, don't know what it's like, and frankly don't give a shit.

"Life is hard" people say, not knowing their own privilege of not having had their humanity taken away from them the day they were born. Earning your humanity is hard fucking work. Without some compelling primetime TV story or obvious wounds, nobody gives a shit. Damn! I need to learn to be less bitter about all this.

ah fuck it, i just need to keep pulling myself up, at least i wasn't born a diamond mine slave or something. bitching out!

you don't have to do it alone. keep fighting brother

thanks. i know there are people out there who do care, it's the battle of everyday life that's hard. i know i can do this, i've made it this far.

funny, what I'm doing now is breaking generations upon generations of abuse and dysfunction in my family. guess it wouldn't be easy, especially with how tightly organized and well run it was. i suppose i'm starting a new line in my family, if i live long enough and have a family of my own. that's pretty cool i guess.

What do you think of postfacebook zeroprivacy era where everyone's family dysfunction is public and so they are effectively policed by the larger community?
Would it have been better or worse for you do you think?

Philip I don't know what you are always going on about in this thread but I don't really think it's helpful.

I don't know if what I ask can be helpful (I hope it would be) but I certainly don't want to distress anyone.

for anyone reading my story who can relate, this site looks pretty good. http://www.ascasupport.org/. i might check out one of their groups, there's one on my way home from work.

Couple of touchpoints for a lot of us in this, a short animation about bullying. I don't know if it's more great or more annoying. Some of each, the animation is sometimes interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ltun92DfnPY

That was phenomenal. It knocked down all my defenses, to my embarassment.

Visiting family in Texas, feel so much better.

glad to hear it, tera :)

Good. You know what you need, if you listen, and that's not wrong or weak. That's brilliant.

So glad you get to be with your loved ones in a place you love <3

this sucks. i was making great progress and then i had to get a fucking psycho roommate who pulled all the same sociopathic trauma-inducing bullshit my parents did to me my whole life. i'm getting out of there, but now i feel like i'm lurching back a little. it did help me realize why i'm afraid people are going to murder me, or that every person in the world is capable of boundless horror, and i got to feel a little of how terrifying things were every day of my life. so there's a silver lining. unfortunate timing for my therapist to go on vacation.

Is there any comfort in the fact that you're successfully defending yourself against the madness this time? It sounds like you're dealing with shit pretty well this time around, exhausting as it might be.

Hang in there, dealing with sociopathic fuckers can be very draining.

It is probably wise to get away from someone whose behavior deeply disturbs you, but the reality probably is that not every person or event that reminds you of your traumatic past is actually as bad as it feels. Those old feelings will have a way of attaching themselves to all sorts of present-day occasions. Just accept that this will sometimes confuse and mislead you about the true nature of daily events, because these will be so deeply dyed with past trauma that you cannot sort out what is old and what is present. Not your fault. Just hang in there and fight the good fight.

xxp yeah, there is ... i was thinking of that actually. therapy and the work i've been doing has given me enough skills and understanding to stand up for myself, assert my boundaries, and get the hell out. this could be closure, like now i finally have the power to stand up for myself and get away from these people. right now, though, i'm still pretty wigged out and reverting back to the 'everyone is evil and i'm in hell' kinda thing. in the past i haven't been so lucky, was actually "friends" with a sociopath type for about three years. this coulda gone way worse.

aimless otm as usual

thanks snoball.

yeah, I understand that Aimless, it's the hardest part of knowing what you feel now and what you felt in the past. this roommate was actually legitimately scary, though, screaming in my face, threatening me, saying negative shit to me every time he saw me. i couldn't even sigh around this dude without him going completely ballistic in my face, and i had to live with him. i tried to walk away from him once and he blocked my path and tried to grab me and i had to push him away.... he wanted to completely control me and use me through gaslighting and inducing trauma. simply put, this guy is nuts.

(of course what you're saying I only realized myself about 3 weeks ago, so I'm still understanding it all)

actually Aimless, that's a good point. maybe it wouldn't feel as horrifying as it does if it weren't for past things that were like this.

damn dude, how did you end up with this guy as a roommate??

landlord chose him. he was the first guy who wanted the room. the super who showed him around actually advised against giving it to him because he seemed dangerous, but the landlord didn't give a crap. this is a good lesson in getting myself set up to never need a roommate again.

That guy will probably drive off every prospective new roommate one after the other until the landlord realizes he's brought a cuckoo into his nest. Then he'll try to figure out how to boot him out. Too late for you though.

ugh spectrum that sounds awful! Aimless is def otm. That learned skill of separating [this scary moment] from memories of the past can have a huge effect on how you deal with that awfulness in and of itself, rather than compounding it with childhood horrors. It doesn't make the awful things any less awful to deal with...there's just LESS to deal with once that baggage isn't so everpresent.

But jesus I'm so glad you're getting out of that, it sounds perfectly terrifying

Was gonna say on the roommate thread this is the last thing you need to deal with. Roommates can, believe it or not,have a good effect on one's mental health, but most of them are pretty annoying (albeit not straight-up malevolent.)

friends who talk only about themselves and their problems 100% of the time and minimize your problems, including suicidal feelings, when you try to squeeze them into the conversation

like, classic or dud? jk i know that they are dud

They are too busy eating their tails to be of any use to the rest of the world.

these ppl are not really friends imo

maybe this insane roommate is actually a blessing in disguise. i'm looking back on my life and realizing how many people have manipulated me... it's a real eye opener. my parents trained me well, i'm like sociopath bait. fuck man. anyway, i appreciate all your support and responses here, it's definitely helped, especially with my therapist on vacation the past two weeks.

Are you moved yet, Spectrum? And yes, I do think there's some evidence that victims of abuse are more likely to become victims again, but that could just be something I got of Law & Order: SVU. Try not to be discouraged. There's good folks out there.

There have been a number of times over the past several months where I somehow reached that magical vantage point wherein I could look back at my depression and be all, "what was THAT about?". But I've managed to slide right back into the shitpit again every time. I had <1 day of feeling good about getting out of my crazy roommate situation (again, deepest sympathies, Spectrum, and good to know you're getting/have gotten out) before the reality of everything else in my life (unemployed and seemingly incapable of finding any job whatsoever, broke as a joke, unable to pay rent at the new place because of money my ex-roommate fucked me over on at the last minute, out of stuff to sell and people to ask for help) came rushing back in a flood. I've made some major strides inasmuch as I'm maintaining some sluggish forward momentum and hope rather than just folding in the face of adversity, but I feel like I'm being slowly cored out and wondering how long what's left of me can realistically maintain its structural integrity. And just generally feeling very "is this all there is?...and if so, why am I bothering?" I have some really solid friends in my life and the thought of them keeps me going most of the time, but I'm feeling more and more like that's all I have and wondering if it's enough. And feeling like I pretty much already know the answer to that question.

I dunno. Nevermind me. Surely things will turn around soon absent any evidence in that direction.

emilys, not yet I'm moving Sunday. Met the guy again and he seems straight up cool, so this is definitely an upgrade in all respects, and for the same money. I'm finally starting to realize there are good people ... for the first time I'm looking people in the eye and seeing humanity in them, and they're looking at me like I'm a human being, and it's all kosher. Feels pretty damn good. I can't believe how screwed up things have been for me my whole life!!! But if I can start turning around this shit, man, there's hope for anyone who wants to get better.

Thinking good thoughts for your future, bro.
I've had some really lousy roommates in life --nothing like what you've described but lousy nonetheless.
The guy who lives with me & my wife now is basically like me in most ways except he's a really good guitarist and I am not. So you can find people to live with you understand you, share your values, etc, and mostly importantly, who are not complete psychos.

Yeah, I have an ex-roommate who's one of my best friends in the world. And a number of ex-roommates who were totally cool to live with. And, yeah, a handful of ex-roommates who I might consider not pushing out of the path of an oncoming bus. My current roommate is also a previous roommate who's a perfectly kind and pleasant person. There are decent people out there, for sure.

Hoping your situation improves immediately, Spectrum, counting down. What you describe is just terrible, those last hours can be hell too...don't know if you are spending them there or can stay somewhere else.

A crazy roommate can wreck a person's world. It is a situation, depending on the level of dysfunction, that can really do a number on your outlook, your perceptions. It happens in your home. When you remove yourself from the situation, you may find yourself, at some point, seeing it differently and not have it mess with the progress you have made.

thanks ian and tera. i've had good roommates before, but damn i need to prepare myself against the shitty people of the world. it's easy for them because of my emotional trauma, the fact that my parents raised me to be dominated, controlled, and even killed. if they had just not given a shit that would've been far preferable to the sheer pleasure they took in destroying me as a person. i still have a lot of work left.

ahem ... should probably keep some of that for my journal. anyway.

I hate how it feels when you think you have reached a point of progress, or remission I guess, you just feel good, clouds clear, look back and think, what was that...then out of nowhere, a trigger and like a fragile house of cards it all comes down. Sometimes worse than before. That has been what I have been going through and why I didn't seek out a medical help before. I see a doctor on Thursday. Saw one last Thursday but didn't bring it up because I was feeling so great, truly thought hey, all I needed was out of OK, back to my norm. But today I feel worse than before.

However, Texas in March is my favorite place to be so it's like depressed, oh look flowers! Depressed, oh cool festival! Depressed, I love it here, depressed.....weird.

Yeah, the fact that your depression doesn't seem very connected to your immediate circumstances, which atm would seem to be very pleasant, is a clue that it may be more hormonal than situational.

Turns out my husband was cheating on me. Hence that anxious feeling. Gut feelings....Now to begin the process.

tera I'm so sorry