Depression and what it's really like

Thoughts out to you all. Its been many years since I posted here. I was pretty unwell and often drunk for most of it. In NZ we have a very limited mental healthcare system, you have to be basically criminally insane to get beyond a GP and unfortunately the diagnosis and understanding of mental health issues is what you would expect from a generalist, when a specialist is often required.

I stumbled on this idea of "demand resistance" here recently

https://littlengine.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/demand-resistance-absolutely/

I have no idea if its legit but rang true for me and it seems to help me a little, "All “shoulds” and “have tos” are absolutely banned from my cognitive premises. Only “wants” allowed".

Have a read it may give you another little tool.

Take care folks.

hi kiwi and best wishes

from your link:

I’ve always wondered, “What on earth is my problem? Why can’t I work?” I mean any kind of work, job-related, housework, cooking, or even just reading. As soon as I decide I want to do something, I turn against it and, as easy as cake, find at least a dozen reasons why I WON’T and CAN’T do it. I’ve sabotaged actual and potential jobs, lucrative projects, the cleanliness of my house, and of course my intellectual capacities (through not reading).

This is so totally me tbh. Though the childhood background isn't really me and I make lots of excuses for not getting stuff done to the point that it's hard to tell which excuse is closest to the underlying aversion (am I rejecting "shoulds", am I scared of failure/being bad at stuff/letting people down, am I so easily distracted because I have ADHD or because noises set off my anxiety or is it just one of the first two options kicking in?).

Anyway. Anyone else got any tools against this?

ouch, a lot of stuff in that post rings v true for me.

same here

I am not depressed but I have some very self-sabotaging behaviours. That was one of the most illuminating short reads I've ever come across. Thank you.

Bloody hell. "Noises set off my anxiety" is a good shorthand for how I experience so much of this.

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/german-soldiers-trench-art/40026d1243555975-achtung-minen-2637156.jpg

rollercoasting enough to post an image to the depression thread :(

didn't leave the apartment all weekend; shouldn't have left today

still time

When you’re always listening for demands or orders, you’re not in tune with what you want, and, thus, who you are.

Ah yes. Believing in Christianity really seriously as a kid did this to me. It took me until mid-adulthood to even SEE the damage so I could work to undo it. The self-destructive smothering of my feelings, silencing of my intuition. I feel like it warped me from pre-adolescence until, fuck, probably my 30s.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/08/why-depression-needs-a-new-definition/399902/

that piece ended sooner than i hoped

yeah

“depression is the inability to construct a future,”

yeah i "liked" that idea too

hits close to home

Ever since I went to California to take care of my cousin, and especially since I got home and he died, my depression has sunk to all time lows. Part of it is that I haven't even had a chance to properly grieve -- because of a lot of behind-the scenes crap I don't want to get into, I've been very heavily involved nearly every single day in dealing with his apartment, his belongings, accounts, etc. The long and short of it is that a) I've put on about 25 pounds in the last four months and b) my doc had to DOUBLE my Lexapro just to allow me to get out of bed in the mornings.

I told my wife the other day that I don't even want to watch TV or read because I'm so depressed and anhedonic I don't want to not enjoy it. I basically work, eat and sleep.

the love and rockets quote from Rosalba that "deprethion ith anything that keepth you from doing what you want to do" plays in my head about twice a day; seems like a useful touchstone

Phil <3

http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2232&pid=12311&autoplay=1#pp

xp forks: eh, but what if i genuinely want to go out and murder a bunch of random people? that's not depression! ..or is it...

Phil: sorry dude that sounds awful; a lot of times I feel like being able to enjoy such things is the only thing that keeps me going, and I've been in those pits where the anhedonia (useful word) is so strong nothing can dig me out of it.

as with most pieces of advice, this one may not be valid if you are a psychopath

The only thing I have been doing is playing video games, which doesn't require me to enjoy it so much as to shoot things.

please, like murderous desires are the sole province of psychopaths

i stand chastised, please don't murder me

i'm sure it's probably the mega-infection that I came down with that I'm still taking anti-biotics for largely overriding my brain functions, but lord, for me depression lately is being unable to quit projecting my own personal self-loathing onto my peers and assuming they feel the same way.

went to a wedding last night and had a good time and ran into a lot of friends, but as thrilled as I was to be there, it felt like a anxiety-inducing chore at the same time. miss the days where I could have ended the prior sentence after "good time".

Feeling low enough today that I broke and poured a drink at my desk. This just hurts.

we have a small makeshift scotch bar in the corner of the office i'm in & its a temptation i often have, especially bc last week i cried (albeit quietly) at my desk not once but twice due to sudden waves of grief and bleakness

hang in there dude

When I went to see my doctor last week -- because I suddenly felt like I had fallen into a pit -- she doubled my lexapro dosage and gave me the name of a psychologist. I haven't seen a psych doctor since I was 17 years old. I left him a vm today and am almost hoping he doesn't call me back. Don't know if I;m ready for therapy.

Phil, surviving a relative's cancer is something that knocks the stuffing out of even the toughest people - and from what I've seen you write, you probably spent a lot of your tough-person reserves on helping your cousin out in his last days. The psychiatrist has likely seen hundreds/thousands of versions of you, and it's better to go talk to him now rather than bottle it up, because that bottling-up has a horrible tendency to blow up years down the line - especially if you're one of those people who're all I'M FINE or NOT READY. Good luck.

word, suzy

Yeah that is super super true. Good luck, Phil.

otm.

Really woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, nearly called in sick but I already did that a few weeks ago so fought the impulse. Was 45 mins late getting in anyway, but I have a ready-made excuse for that what with current public transport issues so I just blamed it on that. Still feel a bit cloudy-headed but I think it's starting to lift now.

One of the most wearying things about this condition is knowing it's never going to get any better. Never going away. Just look at my mum and see her going through the same things or worse, at least I can hold down a job. Sorry for rambling.

been reminding myself this week to never take for granted those times when life doesn't feel like a waking nightmare

God, if someone could just give me something distracting to do for one second. Please? I can't stand to live in my head any more.

i'm leaning on netflix

compulsive video gaming

I've been playing agar.io obsessively. The knowledge that I'm playing against other human beings but don't have to interact with or hear them is soothing.

Of course playing a game where blobs eat other blobs and then giant blobs go around eating tiny blobs just makes me think about capitalism and

Agar.io is pretty good but I'm crap at it, I just get eaten really fast.

I can't do competitive games during depression cos then if I start losing it just feeds into it worse.

in my 20s I would basically fire up Giorgio Moroder's "Scarface" theme on permanent repeat and play GTA: Vice City and just blow up everybody and everything with cheat codes for a half hour, was surprisingly therapeutic.

sports are my primary distraction from the mess in my head; I'm trying to learn the premier league rn and make it my fourth sport

soccer's great for that cos of the continuous play, no downtime to fall back on unwanted thoughts.

in the same vein as GTA, also been leaning on dumb action movies

xp interesting, didn't even think of that

in my 20s I would basically fire up Giorgio Moroder's "Scarface" theme on permanent repeat and play GTA: Vice City and just blow up everybody and everything with cheat codes for a half hour, was surprisingly therapeutic.

This sounds great. I am very very angry all the time and having the ability to destroy things without actually destroying things would be good. I don't like action movies, though.

professional sport and video games are all that keeps me going most weeks tbh

Video games.

YMMV but I watch a lot of episodes of a TV show I find soothing in either content (Star Trek Voyager works well for me here) or format (Law and Order) or read genre fiction, either Star Trek books, Discworld books, or like the silliest Victorian werewolf and vampire romance type stuff I can find. The less like real life and the goofier the better. Also any sci-fi/spec fic type of TV show that has a rabid tumblr fanbase is usually escapist enough to get me going. Sherlock worked really well for the first three seasons. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is pretty much getting me through my late summer blues this year.

I don't like sports and I'm crap at most video games. I tried playing Final Fantasy something or other a few summers ago and that worked pretty well until it actually got hard (for me) and then I just got frustrated and felt irrationally betrayed that my escape of choice turned on me like that.

I find Star Trek particularly therapeutic because of the built-in optimism, although I avoid TOS because it's sexist and makes me feel like shit and DS9 because it's too gritty and realistic (although fantastic). But TNG and Voyager are fabulous, as are the movies, at least up through First Contact.