Depression and what it's really like

good night for now

so fucking tired of this. tired of "tips" and "tricks" and "wisdom" and other assorted garbage.

people ain't worth jack shit

totally sober here.

no need to respond, i just had to let something out

in the same place right now

i'm sick of being forced to ask for advice from well-adjusted assholes who've floated through life on a happy fucking extrovert bubble and to denounce myself and have them tell me my viewpoint is not valid.

^^^

Had a really bad spate about two weeks ago that frightened me. Have been nearly but not quite baseline since (good enough). But damn all of a sudden there is so much suicide. My friend's brother in law killed himself on Wednesday, one of my comix peers killed himself on Thursday, and then you guys probably saw the bump of the suicide thread on here today. The psychosphere is just so bad right now. What is happening?

seriously, fuck people, fuck america, i just want to be left alone until i die, which i hope comes sooner than later.

when the sheer absolute absurdity of life isn't liberating it's horrifying

maybe tomorrow i'll wake up and feel different. i was starting to feel better before i went to bed last night and then i wake up again covered in cobwebs of mind dirt.

or something

Crap about "fitting in" and "selling yourself." I haven't got the energy or the will to do either. I just want it out of the way.

feeling this hard

http://mnftiu.cc/blog/images/filing.001.gif

i find the current incarnation of david rees kind of depressing

didn't even know he had a tv show until just now

there's this sanctimonious windbag in my recovery group who pulls the fucking "we" card constantly, like "us addicts, we're all master manipulators". speak for yourself, fuckface, i am NOT a manipulative person!!

So glad to hear you reject that notion brimstead. It's one of my pet peeves.

After a couple of decades of working around and with long-term street drug users (mostly low-income), I've come to the conclusion they're no more manipulative than your average caffeinated middle manager (or myself for that matter). If anything the issue is that the latter disguises his manipulations, so you don't notice it as easily.

yeah, for awhile i was just kind of uncritically accepting all these things in the name of humility... and constantly wrestling with my identity and self-esteem... my attitude was sort of "well of course, since i'm terrible in general, i'm probably manipulative too". so my 'identity' gets all jumbled up, AND i end up constantly thinking "am i depressed or am i just a lazy sociopath who's 'manipulating people'". fuck that shit. ask anybody i've lived with/worked with/dated and not a single one would call me "manipulative", i KNOW that.

i don't manipulate anyone in any way other than a wish that maybe they will like me.

Good for you, brimstead, for rejecting that line of thinking. Guilt can be so toxic for people with depression, it's sort of unbelievable how substance recovery programs aren't more sensitive to that danger. iirc AA forces everyone to "make amends," even if you never did anything that bad

totally. i mean, i'm definitely NOT doing the steps lol, that is just not gonna happen ANYTIME soon.

the program i attend is very progressive (for the U.S.), from what I understand... the refrain i hear over and over (from people who have gone through other programs) is: "they actually care about you here". the DA hates them of course, lol.

anyway, that's for another thread

i have no advice for anyone in this thread, only love. i pray that you can find peace.

thanks, man.

hey jon not jon, i don't suppose you're referring to alvin b there?

m bison OTM

brimstead, clouds, Jon, emil.y, all excellent posters and clearly decent humans, love to u all

Xpost yeah

I live in the Bay Area and have published artists like frank santoro and kim deitch so I was acquainted with him as well . Very shocking news.

thanks mb & sleeve

people (well two people) keep telling me this is just a temporary setback.. but as bad as i feel now, i'm pretty sure i'm just going to feel worse more and more frequently the older i get. trust me when i say i'm a bigger fuckup than anybody on this thread. i'm only going to get more miserable, more stressed out. hate this planet. hate it.

best i can hope for:
- job that only makes me want to kill myself once or twice per week
- that's it

i feel like being dropped out of a plane or something

parents, man. parents.

Last night I was telling my wife about the nightmares I've been having. And that I'm sure I could take out my dad with kicks to the leg and liver shots. How he's not even the one I'm mad at; I'm not mad at anybody anymore, but I can't drive halfway across the country and try to act like things are okay. I don't know if I can make it halfway across the country. I might stop along the way and get drunk in a motel. forever.

this shit comes and goes for me. brimstead, I hope you'll be okay.

thanks man. same to you. i had a lot of hope last year but it's all fading away. i need to hold onto that, though.

i don't know if it's possible to mask depression with improved competence, but i'm starting to think i've slid back into a serious bout without realising it, because i've been holding it together enough at work for nobody else to notice. and there's nobody else to notice.

or alternatively i'm in the middle of some overwhelming sadness and aboulia and it isn't depression and therefore i can't think it out or deal with it in the same way. i don't know if any of those distinctions are real or meaningful.

medical models do nothing for me now.

I'm really sorry if the thought of arsenal winning the title has contributed

i've been having a rough time of it lately because for me, depression is a matter of being trapped inside myself, and i try to cope by looking outside and trying to relate to the bigger world. but lately what i see when i do is more fucked up and crazy than the evil stuff that's in my head. and i know i'm not alone, that millions of people are being fucked up by all this the same way i am, and that just seems so much worse than regular depression. i wish so hard that i was the most miserable sonofabitch on the planet.

Much love for everyone one this thread, for what it's worth.

One of the worst things about depression is how selfish it can make me; there's nothing like suffering to make you self-centred. So, that said

Because I've been made homeless I've been put in emergency housing in a place I don't know, far away from my support network. It's a much bigger place than I'm used to, and in the top 5 deprived areas of Scotland. I've had to leave my GP and my psychiatrist, and my CPN, and I'm trying to recreate those relationships but it takes a long time to get a psych referral in an area as impoverished as this. I've never been this isolated, and it's terrifying and dangerous (in a suicide/SPF harm kind of way). The guy I'm sharing the flat with is an active heroin user, who has people coming in and out all the time. I have no moral problem with heroin users - they mostly strike me as very sad and empty. But it wouldn't be a plus when looking to live with someone.

I even went to one of my usual support network, the church; which was very fri sly and welcoming and ended with the minister affirming that gay people go to hell (the Church of Scotland is currently undergoing an argument/schism about such things, which has forced me away from the kirk), so my visit ended with the minister and I having a big argument at the door of the church. Then I sat and cried. I'm trying to get involved in stuff, but I might be here for a month or a year, while I wait for a council house. And I feel like crap, and am already falling into old thought patterns planning suicide/self harm. But where I would normally call my CPN or my psychiatrist I have no one here. Blech, given time it might tun out okay. Nil annoyed the council ignore the NHS advice that I should stay near my support network. I can see why so many homeless people have mental health issues. But I will add that I've slept rough in Glasgow before, and that is no fun. At least here I have a roof over my head.

Godspeed you get through these hard times and into better days, dowd.

yes yes yes

take care of yourself and i hope those services that should be looking after you get their shit together and do a proper job

nameless, sourceless, creeping dread

stay up, dowd

Really hoping you find the support and material stability you need, dowd!

<3 dowd. you'll get through this.

feel like my cat is the only thing keeping me alive rn

which is also stupid

A cat is a perfectly good reason to stay alive, imo. Lyle always looks worth walking through fire for. A cat is a baseline of worth-staying-alive you can build off.

mookie, I know "<3" doesn't hack it. But <3.
Also, in the spirit of the cancer thread, fuck depression. Also silby otm.

Stress is really turning my brain to mush, but they say they'll move me next week. Can't believe how much progress has been undone so quickly.

man dowd I don't know what to say other than "much love" :(