Depression and what it's really like

You contribute to "beer in the new era"

hugz to u ian

it's obviously a different situation, but reading about yet another cyber-bullying casualty makes me want to rage against death out of spite. Stand strong, my young, freak sisters & homos!

At my 45 hr a week desk job I have sometimes fantasized abt working at trader joe's, idk it seems like an honest and essential occupation.

jesus, what a terrible weekend

I have long noticed that any job where your efforts have known, tangible benefits to individuals that you see face to face is likely to be paid less than jobs where you manipulate abstractions and spend much of your time in isolation. This sucks.

Xpost same here, awful weekend. As a result I am at my desk at work feeling panicked and nightmarish. Unfort I cannot discuss my stuff since I am an idiot who thought it was a good idea to ilx under his given
name.

hugs to emily & j0n l3w1sszz

j0n l3wi1z, i would like to hang out sometime soon! i think we see each other like once every two years and that's just not enough imo? since you are clearly such a cool bro??
still waiting to hear back from my friends about working at their store. it would be cool, even if it's just a few days a week. would be enough structure to help my depression and a bit of money to supplement what i make selling records online/at record shows. also, beer and cheese!

with you both emily and jon lewis. maybe it's the changing of the seasons, at least over in these parts. this weekend had a much different vibe than the past few months... felt like the first real weekend of fall.

Ian it would be super to see you. I was gonna look for you at Richard Youngs but I got a cold that day and didn't go. I am boring to hang out with bc I cant drink/can't eat fun foods/am old n tired, but I do like the talkin and the watchin the stories and the sittin around.

Weather is not the root of my issues rn, in fact I loved the weather this weekend...

Man, sobriety is such a double edged sword Jon! I'm an alkie who has now been sober for about 6 months. My depression has eased because booze is a trigger for me, but I also never go out, see friends etc. because I think I'm such a drag. Last time I drank was when I was best man as my bros wedding, which was such a hard balancing act. Too much and I would embarrass a'body, and to little Dutch Courage and I wouldn't be able to give the speech. Managed it by the grace of God.

I would like to thank Dowd for the really thoughtful email he sent me. You are a good guy.

Applied for a job today at the Mysterious Bookshop, a crime and mystery specialty store in Manhattan. Seems like I would be happy there.

I personally love the fall -- it's my favorite weather. I find it really oppressive to go out in those humid summer days, but I could wander around for ages the way the weather is now. I find that I just need to get out of bed and immediately start doing SOMETHING, so as not to let the downer vibes take over. Even if it's as simple as frying some eggs or walking to the coffee shop -- I can't just sit on the couch or else i start feeling really down and hopeless. I just need to stay in motion..

I could use some help caring for/supporting my husband who is going through some serious-seeming anxiety/panic/depression. It's related to a specific work situation that he doesn't feel he can quit. He's had a few episodes that might have been panic attacks, as well as random crying spells, and his mood swings pretty frequently throughout the day. The work situation that's causing it is temporary (ends in a couple of months) but he is obviously not okay until then. I've suggested seeing the Dr but he doesn't think it will make a difference (he might still go, hasn't ruled it out, I am pushing for this). I am being as supportive as possible but it's scary and horrible and I feel like I need to do more.

Apologies if there is info upthread that would speak to this, I haven't read the whole thing yet.

I can't offer much advice but as someone who felt trapped in a job in the past, the first necessary step for me was to find a time outside the job to feel calm and assess the situation. Only then was I in a good enough mind state to feel I could look for something else. Therapy helped immensely. Hope you guys find a solution, or a way to weather the storm.

i'm always recommending this workbook to ppl - it was/is a huge help to my husband in dealing with a panic/anxiety disorder:

an end to panic: breakthrough techniques for overcoming panic disorder by elke zuercher-white

at the very least, it will teach him how manage most of the physical symptoms of anxiety and panic, which often in turn help diminish the emotional symptoms too.

Thanks Vinnie, we are attempting to find him time/space to be calm. It doesn't help that the work he's doing is from home, and he feels hunted all the time by his smartphone. Without giving too many details, he's being harassed and it's 24/7 some days.

Thank you, just1n3, that gives me something concrete to do. I will order that book.

The world of the happy is quite different from the world of the unhappy.

I often, OFTEN felt like that: no husband, no babies, no home, no car, no couch or living room or entertainment system, don't like my job, nothing to show except my friends and my self and my hobbies for all these years

I have all those things and I give myself a hard time for not having enough friends and not spending time with my friends and not having rewarding* hobbies.
I've come to realise that I will always be dissatisfied in some way.

*Gamerscore doesn't count

I have all those things

er, I don't have a husband

it's ok man you'll find him someday

thx bro

I'm feeling really bored & restless. I need to work again, but just thinking about the jobs that would be available to me makes me want to jump off something. Unfortunately, the town I live in doesn't even have tall buildings. If I haven't gotten it together by now, it seems unlikely that I ever will. Also, I am supposed to be hanging out with my boyfriend right now, but he just stormed off because I was harping on him about when we are going to spend the night together. He NEVER wants to stay with me, and I can't come to his house because of his stupid, uptight Gujarati mother (although I really blame HIM, not her). I have not slept next to him in over a year & I really think I'm going to slit my wrists if I have to keep sleeping alone.

dump that dude ffs

sorry, i didn't mean for that to sound mean or anything but jeez you TOTALLY deserve better

^^^ otm.

also, as someone who feels totally daunted by the prospect of working a shitty job/feels like he's never gonna get a 'real' job, just try to keep your ears open and be patient. just this past week a few things have popped up that i might actually, you know, enjoy. and i'm sure there is something out there for you, it just might not be obvious right away.

tbf a sucessful evening for me is basically getting drunk and having my cat fall asleep on my chest, but at least my cat's mom isn't all judging us and shit

My only real goal in life right now is to be able to move somewhere I can have a cuddly cat.

Thanks for the encouragement, ian. I have always felt barely-competent at all my jobs, which is demoralizing because they're all unskilled, entry-level bullshit things. I'm just never fast enough, I can't multitask, I can't focus. I always feel stupid & put-down. I think I did pretty good at my last restaurant job, but my boss was a complete cunt even after 3 years of me working there (I was the longest-standing employee. The turnover was very high because no one could stand him). He treated me like an idiot until the day I walked out (which I actually did because I'd been having debilitating panic attacks throughout my entire shift for about 6 months straight & I had a weird rash and was convinced I was dying. I left in the middle of serving a table, walked a mile in a thunderstorm, got in bed and drank a bottle of wine).

Oh emilys! That does not sound like a recipe for a calm spirit...

:(

is this thread de-indexed?

yes

thank you!

so i've been having a hard time at work. my therapist recommended i get screened for ADHD by a psychiatrist. i had my appointment with him today and he said it sounds like i have more symptoms of depression (and some of anxiety) than of attention deficit. he prescribed Zoloft. i've never been on an anti-depressant, and i am scared (which i expressed to him.) work has made me miserable for the past month, though, so i am going to do it.

i don't know what i'm asking here, and i feel like i am using the thread for a less serious form of depression than it's really for, but i wondered if anyone has experiences with Zoloft? i know it's all anecdotal, but i feel like i'm reeling a little bit from this impending life change.

i had bad experiences with Zoloft --- it made me very angry -- but different drugs work differently for different people, as this thread reminds us over and over again

yeah. i don't know what i'm asking for, really. i think i am trying to adjust to the possibility i might be depressed? it is not how i generally think of myself. and overcome a kneejerk discomfort with medication. also he told me i should stop drinking while i'm taking it! i was like, i probably shouldn't express how much that bums me out right now, huh?

that is the standard medical line about anti-depressants: no drinking. They do significantly reduce your tolerance fyi (at least they did mine, which was a good thing)

this thread - antidepressants - s&d, CoD, evil bitches, cash cows and saviours of sanity - is good for people's different experiences. A casual ctrl-f for 'zoloft' and 'sertraline' comes up with lots of v divergent stuff, which I can't tell whether it'll be useful or not. I guess it gives you a spectrum of possibilities for how it'll be.

some people just have temporary depression and are prescribed antidepressants for it --which sounds kinda like your situation -- this doesn't mean that you have to take drugs or consider yourself depressed for the rest of your life.

different drugs work differently for different people, as this thread reminds us over and over again

otm

Zoloft did not make me angry. it didn't help a lot either tbf but I wasn't getting therapy and I don't think I was really giving it much to work with, so if you're working with your therapist that sounds hopeful and I hope you have better luck.

(I read on ILX much later that you shouldn't drink while on it, and I thought back to the times I did drink while on it and went "oh yeah! that was a bad combination now I think about it", just because the booze tended to nullify the effect of the Zoloft for the next couple of days and conversely my alcohol tolerance or lack thereof was really unpredictable and it got messy a few times)

using the thread for a less serious form of depression than it's really for

eh
1. I hope this thread is for all forms of depression, tbh I'm more mild dysthymia than major anything rn but I like knowing this thread is here and has my back
2. don't ever feel that you are not qualifying on some special flower scale of mental specialness or misery Olympics, you're having a bad time and your feelings deserve to be taken as seriously as anyone else's. please feel free to talk here as long as it's helpful, good vibes to you etc

thank you both. i looked at the antidepressant thread and it definitely alleviated some of my anxiety--it seems like no one had horrifying and dramatic side effects. it also seemed like overall people didn't find it super-helpful, but i understand that these drugs work differently for different people, and ilx is a pretty small sample size.

can i admit that it also makes me feel weird that the thing that led me to get on antidepressants is essentially feeling like i'm not a good worker? which is terrible, because my job is teaching.

xp thanks spacecadet

i probably need someone to screen me for ADHD too but i am overwhelmed by thinking of how i might feel to hear that and overwhelmed by trying to get something done about my problems. my office at work is such a mess and i don't get things done that i need to. it's so paralyzing sometimes. i make fun of myself for it but it's not really a joke.

i totally feel that not a good worker thing, so much. it sucks that we have to have jobs to survive and i am not being sarcastic or whatever about that. i would be fine if i just didn't have to work.

fwiw harbl, i felt immediate relief once my therapist made the appointment for me. and up until today, i got kind of happy thinking about it, though that was probably my naive hope that finding out i had ADHD would magically fix me and turn me into an organized person. but yeah, now i am a little overwhelmed by the diagnosis.

overwhelmed is my general vibe these days.

xp god i know, right?

also, i preemptively miss you, wine! it's not you, it's me!

btw by the unpredictable alcohol tolerance thing I mean there were nights when I could drink just like before, and then there were nights when almost right away I'd get that "things are spinning and I really should have stopped drinking several drinks ago" feeling. I don't think it did any actual damage but the medication definitely did seem less effective a day or two after drinking.

I also very much relate to the not good worker thing, I have never really got a therapist to take this seriously but it really paralyses me into getting even less done which makes me spiral into self-loathing, a lot, forever. oh well :\

yeah i would like to say here that i love my therapist for taking stuff like that seriously. she also spent more than the allotted time with me last time i saw her (the occasion that she made the psych appointment for me) because i was such a mess. i half-think that she suspected i was depressed and thought she'd tactfully get me in front of a psychiatrist by broaching the organization issue. if so, she was right.

i started seeing her last year because of first year teacher stress fwiw

there are tons of "productivity" and "organizational" tips and strategies out there (as far as the bad worker thing goes) -- it's something i've suffered through and dealt with and suffered through and dealt with (back and forth) for years. For me it was stabilizing the brain chemistry first before I could even address improving habits.

yeah, she's given me a bunch of those, though i think i maybe similarly haven't been able to focus enough to use them consistently.