Depression and what it's really like

i was starting to think that i didn't feel esp freakish about not reproducing but now that i know people think i am a suicidal parent-rejecter all i can think is what the hell

There's a domain name or two in there somewhere. (I won't tho.)

i forgot to add selfish

selfishantimommy.me

xps

It's as if choosing not to have kids implies that one is condemning one's own parents' performance of the parental role.

I think this is not quite the idea people are harboring when they say, "but, your parents did so much for you!" I would place it nearer to this: in childhood you received vast gifts from your parents that you accepted unconsciously, so the only karmic redress for this previous imbalance is to have your own kids and shower them with care, as in the pay-it-forward meme. Their disapproval is rooted in believing that you are willfully stopping the chain-letter-of-self-sacrifice's steady progress into the future, or to mix metaphors, you got to eat the cookies for free but are failing to bake the next batch and give them away.

There is a tiny kernel of truth in that idea. After all, raising children is the broad road to paying forward and you are not taking it. But making that choice is being improperly framed as a moral failing. There are myriad ways to pay kindness forward other than having children, and all of them are praiseworthy.

Aimless I hope you're saying that is a framework that some people believe, and not that you think it's in fact representative of reality or anything.

I am having trouble figuring out your question, io. I did say it is improper to frame the choice of not having children as a moral failing, if that helps.

sheesh what in there was not qualified appropriately enough for you io?!

waaaay more depressed now than i was a week ago when this convo started

blame the kids

the best retort to "why don't you have kids?" is "because i've been very careful"

my life feels like it's running on empty atm. feel like a deluded failure everyone avoids. that people caring about each other is a tenuous lie that takes way too much work to keep up. it's hard.

One mid-40s woman I used to work with sometimes got pity or disdain or just inappropriate questions about her not having kids. Her response to those nosy people was perfect: "Oh...I can't have kids...." (this face and a healthy pause) "...because I hate them."

mattresslessness, it probably takes a person more effort to avoid you deliberately than people are willing to put forth

This question of kids is stupid. The world doesn't need more people. If you want kids, it's because you've decided it would be fulfilling. Other people hae nothing to do with it.

If someone comments about it they are being invasive and inappropriate and should just be ignored. Who cares why they feel the way they do

damn right

While I can understand that those sorts of judgmental people exist, those judgments are really only linked to a certain kind of person or culture. Eg no one gives a shit that my husband and I aren't having kids, and everyone I am close to who have kids is almost disturbingly enthusiastic about my choice. Even my mother in law enthusiastically supports our choice, and my parents don't give a shit either way.

The only moral requirement I know of is to be kind to yourself and to others the best you can. Everything else is just footnotes.

I'm sorry to hear you are feeling so low, mattresslessness. It sounds to me like you need to direct some kindness toward yourself rn. To begin, failing is normal. It does not make you "a failure" because that is a static description and you are not a static entity.

i was starting to think that i didn't feel esp freakish about not reproducing but now that i know people think i am a suicidal parent-rejecter all i can think is what the hell

Not "people," but SOME people will think you (or I or anybody) are a freak based on virtually anything we do or don't do. Most people don't give a shit. People you care about and who care about you think you're pretty great.

I don't even remember how any of this was related to depression. Sorry for what became for me a tangent.

I'm sorry, LL.
Some of my best & favoritest friends right now are some ppl in their 70s and 80s who have never had kids, and they are just fucking rad and have the best & most varied life stories. They are happy people and I want to be just like them. And once at that point (old) it seems like no one is giving them shit for not having kids.
And they never ask me about having kids!! We just talk about how they love to play the oboe or whatever.

matt, that feeling sucks shit :(
nb it is in all likelihood untrue

IT IS NOT TRUE

the feeling is still real and horrible and hard to wrassle

i don't even know if actual caring about other people is a self-deluding freak of genes and self-deception but i'm going to try to live like it's not and matt you're an A1 human being in as much as i'm qualified to award marks, fuck isolation and those inner voices that lie lie lie

x x x

Im doing something challenging, empowering and lifechanging.

Or at least it might be if I could do it. Spending 90% of every day in complete frustration is difficult, but the minute I let go of this rope my reserves of energy and hope will have been used up, and one day that day will come

I've gone into seclusion in the countryside to do this, but being here in silence I have to wonder if I really have the energy or interest to go back into the world anyway

For some reason, seeing Rankin-Bass on TV gives me a nasty case of holiday depression.

Maybe because of all of the family and friends I have lost over the years.

Also this is my first Christmas without my grandmother, and even though she was 98, I am still having a hard time getting through it.

why is this so hard

I don't know. Knowing seems like it would help, at least a little.

thanks crabbits and nv. you guys are great.

i don't know either. the holidays are bad imo, i'm laying some blame on that at least.

burn the world
i mean the yule log
holidays are the pits
any chance I can buy you a drink in slc on the 20th or the 30th?

getting really shit face fucked up and passing out in a snow heap sounds so romantical but is a legit bad idea
we could get maybe 30% there tho

sadfap

can only end in tears

legit 4ad album tho

My job's annual holiday party this evening. Did pretty well at it mentally, much better than last year, until about 3 hours in when I suddenly got SUPER maudlin and self pitying inside (all my coworkers 20 years younger than me dancing and just being YOUNG, something I will never be again, blah blah blah, call me Kronos.) Music (hearing it and creating it) is about the only thing that has given me any flashes of well being for months. The abysmal life circumstances of the past ~20 months have mostly abated thank god (except for the money ones) but I feel weirdly hollowed out now. Spread too thin, as bilbo put it when he was being eaten from inside by something he didn't understand.

:D

it's taken me this long to just resign myself to the fact that my mood/outlook undulates wildly and erratically and there's no way to predict it, or to change it much once a mood has set in. philosophies and systems of belief and practices and tricks can elevate the mean comfort level somewhat, but in the end I am more or less powerless over the ebb and tide of my moods. there's a certain relief in giving up trying to "fix" this condition tbh.

not sure if i'm this depressed all the time because it's winter (i guess this is an option/my therapist wants me to get a light box prescription and i wish i wasn't putting hope in it) or because my meds have been fluctuating

i've rarely been this useless and hopeless in my life all i can do is lie in bed and watch wrestling. no desire to do anything. if i didn't have wrestling i don't know what i'd do.

it's not that i wish i was dead as much as i wish i never existed. my failure to accomplish anything significant with my life and my subsequent fear of an awkward funeral where no one knows quite what to say has probably kept me alive more than anything else. i should be terrified of ever being proud of my achievements.

my therapist wants me to get a light box prescription

ooh, i need to check and see whether my insurer covers stuff like this. i really doubt it.

seriously hard to wake up lately, and oversleeping makes me a dumb zombie the rest of the day

oversleep with pride, I say; the waking world's not worth it

i have a job!

same diff

My problem, I suspected, was not sleeping enough.

I finally found a doctor who prescribed meds that help me sleep at night, and for the first time in my life, I fall right to sleep and don't wake up until about 6:30 AM.

That must have been my problem because ever since I got my prescription changed, I've been feeling more positive and energetic. Although the meds are a bit extreme, and most depressed people don't get prescribed them.

Although, as I said, I find the holidays sad, and the lack of light in winter gets to me sometimes.

Terrible weekend. Tired of being me with my bullshit thoughts and reactions. Unhappy at home, unhappy at work. Guh.

the holidays are horrible ... even though I can vividly imagine the horrible secret emotional pain of everyone on facebook who posts pictures of them with their happy spouses and/or smiling children. In my imagination some of them have really heartbreaking physical ailments that should snap me out of feeling shitty and worthless and into some "grateful for god giving me my health" stuff.

Does anyone else get the internal monologue that goes, "Hey, remember that thing you were really depressed about two weeks ago? That was silly to be depressed about. Here is something more devastating to be depressed about."

feel as depressed as ive felt in a long time, feel it physically, tho not sure to what extent that parts not just exhaustion from compulsive working out

Does anyone else get the internal monologue that goes, "Hey, remember that thing you were really depressed about two weeks ago? That was silly to be depressed about. Here is something more devastating to be depressed about."

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Monday, December 22, 2014

yes. think this is a very natural reaction, but it can just constantly deepen the depression.

working out can raise a lot of dust in the mood dept for me. take care of yourself. xp

i actively cut off all communication with my family last x-mas and did the same this november. it feels kinda weird, like i'm not attached to anything, it's liberating but a little lonely i guess. i'm housesitting for a friend over the holiday too, so i'm going to be alone in not-my-place. with a cat though, and a full kitchen, a soft mattress and quiet. and it's clean and uncluttered, everything has a place and takes up a reasonable amount of space. i'm trying not to be critical of my boyfriend, who gets down over the holidays too and sort of falls apart. he buys books for himself at thrift stores as a coping mechanism. the 7-8 bookshelves he has are overstuffed and there are stacks of books and records and papers and etc etc all around the perimeter on the floor. he does not do regular househould chore stuff very well though he was critical of my sloppy/slobbiness when i was living there. he starts something and everything is in disarray and it all piles up and it can take months or years or never for it to be resolved. he is so dreamy about his space he ignores the finitude of it, he doesn't get rid of anything, everything just gets shuffled around, and he'll say "i should weed through" but he never does. i have to struggle not to be disappointed or feel it as a threat or a downward-dragging feeling or a disconnection from reality. it feels increasingly hopeless. but this is the depression thread not the relationship problems thread.

i'm going to be alone in not-my-place

beautiful imo

hi d! thanks :)

and i just talked to the boyfriend and he's up and at the grocery store, which is heartening.