Depression and what it's really like

otm

I saw a friend's post on FB yesterday in light of all the RW stuff about 'hey here is my phone number if you need me please call and if I don't pick up please call and keep calling' (she legit posted her home phone number) and I'm like, I understand what you are saying and it is wonderful that you are offering that to your friends but you probably aren't going to be the difference in their lives no matter how much you want to think that that's how simple this is

it feels mean to even write it, let alone think it

i think it's probably better that she said that than she didn't? it might help someone, and if it doesn't it's at least not hurting anyone

ime people mostly don't do much to help out w/ anything when you're having a hard time

it's nice that someone's doing something.

that's just my perspective tho

no i agree, I just had so many undercurrent thoughts about it, and I think with the flood of tweets and fb posts 'call someone talk to someone' I maybe targeted it for a bit more ire than I should have

I'm more concerned about what might happen to the person who made such an offer, re the weight of responsibility, like if even one person takes her up on it--unless she's a veteran therapist (whom I doubt would post that, though for her sake, and that of anyone responding, I hope she knows the hell out of what she's doing).
Insofar as books can help, the personal disclosure and unblinking perspective of Andrew Solomon, in The Noonday Demon and others, seem invaluable. There's so much content and lucidity in his testimony---which he also brings to, for instance, interviews with the father of the Sandy Hook killer----it can be tough to read much at a single try, but persistence is def worth it. Lots of articles etc. at his site, reflecting the range of his interests and activities (not too narrow):http://andrewsolomon.com/

i've been working on a big project where i transcribe spoken search terms for a siri-like app, to help their speech-to-text functionality. the very last thing i transcribed before hearing the RW news was someone looking for a free service to help with suicidal thoughts. that spooked me, and i put my work aside for a minute and hopped over to facebook, where "RW commits suicide" was plastered all over my news feed.

:(

it is very sad and fucked up

but in a certain way these events also feel almost validating. like hey, seemingly successful and *good* ppl feel this way too, not just asshole me. sure, i'm missing the artistic genius that is the true depressive's birthright, but that's only fitting

which is horribly and typically self-centered and mean of me, but maybe not worse than all the people who feel compelled to intone 'i hope he finally found peace' let alone those who talk about 'the coward's way out'

The whole thing has made me think about how i have spent 25 or 26 years incessantly running from this feeling and will probably spend another 25 to 40 years running because in my head what happened to RW is what will happen to me if I stop running and turn around.

not sure what i honestly expect, but my country's awfulness is crushing at times

running, ever running yes

one day (or many) i just collapsed in a heap, exhausted, beat, sick of the constant, herculean efforts at self-improvement self-coaching positive thinking balanced thinking buddhist thinking non-thinking 21st century stoicism etcetera and just sat on the floor in my underwear, a heap of sagging flesh like one of lucian freud's impastoed apparitions, and said fuck it, i give up, there is no solution, fuck the solutions the strategies the postures and the "healthy habits" i'm doomed anyways, along with the rest of humanity ...

and strangely this allowed me to breathe a little easier ... so at least i could, not long later, dust myself off and keep on moving, with a touch less panic than before...

some incomplete thoughts from this week

- I know I'm not going to kill myself today. 100% sure. I'm nearly as 100% sure about tomorrow. I don't have to know that for sure about 20 or 40 or 60 years from now for things to be okay right now.

- A weird thing about high-profile suicides like Robin Williams or DFW, and the weird energy behind the impulse of people (incl. myself) using it as an opportunity to speak out about suicide awareness and such is that there's this sense that in losing the fight with depression, they didn't reach the finish line, that they could've done more. Well, I dunno anymore. It sort of seems like the finish line, when the indescribable and unknowable pain of the moment overwhelms everything else, and I wouldn't wish another day on them. It's not a rational choice, suicide, but it's become pretty comprehensible.

i look it as a fatal disease. you can allay the symptoms somewhat, and a few lucky people might actually see their way out of it, but basically you fight and fight and fight until eventually it'll just kill you, thankfully

one big thing getting me down right now is how crummy the world and people can be. i've had a serious streak of bad luck lately: two abusive therapists in a row (yeah!) who took advantage of my mush-addled brain, creepy roommate who for some bizarre reason is obsessed with kicking me down whenever he can, my job is filled with abusive, lazy, incompetent people who are perfectly happy with the shit they're living in. world's going up in flames. makes me feel like i'm going completely loony!

what makes me angry is that these people just don't seem to care. screw with people, hurt them, try to knock 'em down a peg, exploit them, use them, all without a care in the world. like it's just a natural order or something. and i feel this drive and strength inside of me to rise above and keep fighting for what i consider right and all that stuff. i'm not perfect, either, but at least i give a shit and i'm trying. it's the abject apathy and malice of other people that's a real friggin bummer, and they can get away with it or profit off of it because there really are no rules.

but i guess that's the way of the world, eh? makes me wish i was a little more like them so i could be on board with it all. i have to try a more stoic outlook on life.

i guess if i wasn't like this i wouldn't have made it this far in my life, so there's that at least. but it's so damned frustrating. i don't know why i'm such a idealist, based on my experiences i have absolutely no reason to be, but it's both saved my life and making it a real pain in the ass. i wish i could just not give a shit. i tried and it just makes my world dead and hopeless, but when i am true to myself it's like my heart and the outside world are two chemicals that cause an explosion. this pain is part of why i think about suicide sometimes, because i know there's no end to it beyond what i can cope with at any given moment.

oh well, enough of my self-indulgence, i don't want to take up too much of this space for other conversations. i just had to get that out after bullshit at work. you all are cool at least.

geez, sorry for this way too much pity fest, i think the reality of my situation just smacked me upside the head and it sort-of overwhelmed me.

that's what we're here for

not at all, i think you're talking about the good stuff that keeps people who have been through shit alive and going. not everyone has that or cultivates it, miserable petty coworkers or w/e, though they probably do in a way you can't see, doesn't mean they deserve pain, but yeah i think it can be difficult because you have to keep your own fire burning and it's necessary to talk and connect with people about that, you aren't starting a pity fest for expressing a need.

it's funny cos reading your bit and your unhappiness with co-workers is almost the opposite of mine but that didn't seem like the issue - we have to find a way to be true to ourselves and other people often seem really blind to that, we make the world so much harder for each other so often, for a bunch of reasons i suppose but still

i was kinda distressed at the attention Jimmy Kimmel's "Tell someone if you feel sad" tweet got. No, Jimmy, you haven't quite got it.

thanks guys, it just gets really hard because i'm alone right now and this sense of isolation is maddening. like, the real issue here is probably the fact that my job is all i have right now, and it's toxic. plus i have a toxic living situation and just went through toxic therapy. it's sick how there are people out there waiting to hurt and exploit already hurt people, but that's how people can be. at the very least i can file a formal complaint against one of my therapists, but i'll put that on a backburner.

also, the whole robin williams/suicide contemplation stuff is seriously hitting home. i've picked myself up out of the abyss so many times in my life already, starting when i was a kid, and i've probably picked myself up over a dozen times now. i'm starting to get really tired of it. right now i'm at a point where i have to take a new direction. i have to pick myself up out of the abyss again. i'm just exhausted, though, i feel like that fire in me is almost extinguished.

i think it's beautiful that you give a shit, spectrum, and something tells me that in the long run that sensibility, with its pain and all, will give you much more of life than the alternative stance of cool indifference.

Yeah, it's been a tough week. I was slipping into darkness and I didn't even recognize it until I was shit-faced and breaking things. I can't do another stint in shit-street level lock-down treatment, and I have no faith in insurance's ability to put me in a good place. I'm fixing myself and I'm going to do it ugly, but I'm going to live, and I'm not going to hurt anybody. I survived a short-term withdrawal, and dying wasn't on my mind in spite of several triggers (not just the news, but certainly the news).

Maturity has maybe allowed me to pull back before it is too late. Maybe not, but going all the way down feels arrestable now.

spectrum, morbs, cordello, Nhex, mattressness, the past and future depressed - It's an incredibly long after-school special. We're walking on the curb sideways.

Feel like I'm gradually falling back down The Hole again. I guess I'll go see my Dr but I just feel so hopeless about the difference more or different drugs will make.

Doctor's a good move.

coming home from a trip can be hard

i get around it by never leaving the house

last year at this time i was teaching college classes.

i lost that job after a semester when some dean wanted to save the few pennies they were going to pay me for spring.

then i spent six months unemployed, again.

all the while looking for jobs, and being rejected consistently for them, too qualified, not the right qualifications, the usual.

when unemployment ran out i was really in a hard spot and ended up getting by for a bit with some money from parents, and friends, some of whom gave totally out of the blue. some still do.

out of desperation i started applying to jobs i never would have bothered with before, and i was still rejected from most of them, dishwasher, cashier, stockboy, it didn't matter.

i finally cobbled together some income from a few different work-from-home jobs, the terrible kind that care about nothing but numbers, shift all the costs onto you, pay barely nothing. piecework rates, editing and typing and clicking boxes, so you can feel every little cent. daily deadlines, authoritarian management.

and i still haven't been able to support myself with that. i feel like i do nothing but work (on the same thing, hour after hour), and officially i am still only just about covering half-time hours (really it's a lot more than that, but at a rate that would make it less than minimum wage, if i calculated it). i worked down to the wire before my last paycheck just to make enough to cover rent, and it left me with almost literally nothing. i had to go deposit $5 cash in the bank to make sure the check cleared. just like student days. now i'm trying to hold out on nothing until the middle of the month.

at the same time i ran out of minutes on my phone. i don't use it for much except to make calls for one of those jobs, which they require. you can usually get by without it, but sometimes you need it. i rigged up a phone-over-internet service that worked, but that didn't matter - i let slip to management that i was having trouble receiving calls and they immediately cut off my daily workload. down to zero. no calls, no work.

i don't know what the people i know expect from me. how i'm supposed to make this better.

Sorry j., it's shit enough without dealing with job and finance issues.

Xp yeah the 2 big recent trips jarred something loose - spending time alone with all my favorite ppl forced me out of pretending that I'm not desperately lonely. I have acquaintances here but I miss the complete honesty and shared history of my real friends.

I'm feeling pretty empty, like I don't really have much to draw new friends with.

i was going to ask if it was tied to yr trip home...i know returning to my "life" after being with my family/friends back home def made everything here feel v hollow

i never really know how to get out of it tho, i havent gotten any better at making new friends :/

(hugs) for u

j. anybody wd be depressed going thru that horrible shit, i know it's feeble and no help but i hope things turn round for you toot sweet

I feel for you, sincerely do. Don't be hard on yourself, it's really hard to feel at all good when you have a situation like that. You are being pro-active which is really awesome. You are strong because situations like that usually keep a person in bed. So I do think you are doing all you can do. It will get better.

situations like that usually keep a person in bed

well actually... : /

I'm currently on somewhat of an upswing both inside and out, but it saddens me that I can't somehow distribute some of the buoyancy onto others who are groping through the depths I not long ago inhabited . I wish I could reach out a hand to my brothers and sisters in suffering...

Hugs j., hugs all.

Current situation:

http://38.media.tumblr.com/345e196d7cf391e9b8e574cff16226cf/tumblr_nbrtveJEKF1qz6f9yo1_r3_1280.jpg

although my main job still seems to be flirting with firing me without telling me i am fired - i have no idea - i am picking up a few hours elsewhere at another job that requires me to leave the house, typing in addresses from concerned-constituent postcards for a nonprofit. it's been a long time since i rode my bike, so that's kind of uh 'invigorating', but the ride is not far and it feels good to get out, see the same people in the office multiple days in a row, seem like i have a normal job with normal people, etc.

i feel you, elvis telecom

catching up and skimming this thread and it's incredible to me that (w/r/t crut) in a city the size of the one you live in that so few (or any psychiatrists or doctors) keep evening hours! IME evening hours are mental health providers' absolute bread and butter. Here a lot of doctors and therapists even have Saturday hours.

crut if you're reading, did you try this directory? http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms (Psychology Today is kind of a rag, but the directory seems to be the de facto authoritative resource). I'm sure you searched diligently, so I hope I'm not out of line w/ the unsolicited advice.

Oh weird - it never occurred to me to try the APA. http://locator.apa.org/

(I'm searching for a therapist myself, BTW, not just dispensing suggestions)

nothing i do is ever good enough. the positive feedback that i do get i only get because people aren't looking closely enough at what i'm doing. if people had the perspective on me that i did, they'd realize i'm worthless. on the other hand, the negative feedback i get is always 100% accurate.

yup!

I'd offset that against a suspicion that 95% of the rest of the population are either in the same boat or would be except they lack the introspection or possibly the basic expertise to thus diagnose their efforts

Why after 13 years of intermittent CBT is it still basically the furthest thing from second nature to me? Like whenever therapists set me CBT homework I'd come back going "uh I basically had no thoughts or feelings all week and the ones I did have I couldn't identify" and now I find myself in a stupid spiral of thinking about people I miss from the past and Where It All Went Wrong and only after several tearful minutes do I think "yeah I don't have to do this, let's rewind and see what set me off or at least who the first person/what the first Thing Which Went Wrong in the chain were" and it's too late, I've no idea which floor I got onto the crazy plummeting elevator at and why

tl;dr, I'm doing mostly OK so sorry to crash in here but my brain hates me sometimes and I am p. bad at not indulging it

CBT homework is always weird, i never got a handle on it myself

:/ hugs, aps

people you miss from the past exert tremendous power and ime the best thing to do is tell their presence in yr head to fuck off, v sincerely & forthrightly, while somehow also telling yourself that everything went, somehow, to plan. maybe religion was caused by depression

It's so fkin hard. Hard to remind your brain from within your brain that your brain is in fact very bad at extrapolating outcomes and equally bad at [what is the opposite of extrapolation, when one is looking/interpreting backward instead of forward?]. It tries to sell you these very mathly formulae for what people will do and why past people did what they did, and these formulae are so gdam unfounded and insufficient! Everything about people and life is so much more surprising than the system depression brain proposes! And yet I still think like this every day despite all evidence to the contrary.

people are predictable based on their past behavior though

people are moderately predictable based on past behavior, but only in a limited way, in that new situations always differ to some degree from past ones and so may elicit a different behavior than you predicted.