Depression and what it's really like

If someone bought me a punchbag I would absolutely use it. Maybe there's something in that idea! And yeah, the displacement of personal anxieties into whoever is closest is an unfortunate side effect of depressive mood. The improvements you've made probably did help her a lot, but with so many different problems at play, you're probably not seeing the results you hoped for. Talking and listening to everything, and definitely therapy could really help start unpicking some of those deep-seated issues.

Oops, xpost. Beer is a good solution.

i feel like she has repressed a lot as of our relationship being mended. But then i feel rubbish and selfish for thinking this, as its only a percentage of whats many deep rooted issues coming together.

don't feel rubbish for thinking this. it sounds like she is uncomfortable admitting her problems because she thinks they are shameful. i think she needs to take responsibility for herself, unfortunately, because she is going to make you miserable very soon. i, um, have a friend, who did this in a relationship before.

i also have a friend who did this in a relationship before.

Ty guys

this sounds really hard btw and i wish you clarity and courage.

Cheers. I feel like noone ever talks about *someone elses* depression. Its always such a lonely place to be in. She doesnt give a shit how I use the internet, I've never used her name etc. so I think i'm cool but I also don't want to betray her trust. Chatting here seems like a much safer place than with friends or family who are much more connected. I love her and find her incredible. So many of her issues though go much further back before I knew her though, and its tough and its stressful and yeah, the search for clarity is essential right now. Sometimes I wish it was like that shitty mel gibson movie where I could read her mind and help but also how was that not a horror movie? What the fuck is going on in her brain?*

*All of tonight makes it seem like I have a crazy girlfriend, which I don't. I don't like that I don't know a more specific way to think or write, especially having had a couple beers. She is everything you would want a partner to be and I'm very lucky. Its the anxiety, stress and deep lying issues that fuel this, not her. On ilx is not exactly where you need to say this, I think everyone knows already, but for my own sanity its worth saying.

well, she is crazy, but so are we

you are kind & you care for her but in doing so you're inadvertedly reinforcing the cycle she's creating for herself, and you're also becoming the focus when she vents her anxiety, beyond normal levels of comforting and neither of you deserve that.

the toll it takes on you is not your price to pay for your relationship. her punishing herself by bottling up & being ashsmed of her depression is not a price she should pay either.

care for her by not just listening and supporting *to a point*, but by pointing her outwards, towards someone other than you, and break the feedback loop you're both in.

you may tell yourself it's not all the time, that she might get better, but without actual help the odds of her getting worse rather than better are high.

otmfm

i can't really speak to it, but being a crazy person myself i really do appreciate how much my so does for me, and i wish i could express it better than i do/not seem to take it for granted so much of the time.

well, she is crazy, but so are we

― assawoman bay (harbl), Friday, June 10, 2016 4:12 PM (Yesterday)

<3 harbl, i still feel bad that i was bitchy to you in some thread like 5 years ago about women and shopping or something ...

i think she needs to take responsibility for herself, unfortunately, because she is going to make you miserable very soon.

yeah, what you are talking about is sounding kinda unhealthy, in terms of the relationship dynamic. Granted, I suck at relationships and have decided I'm better off not being in one for the time being, but it makes me squeamish and uncomfortable when I see young couples (young = people under 50) where one partner makes all the emotional demands and the other is constantly supplicating and taking it. This could just be a "me thing" ... idk.

i wish you both well, of course

lol i've long forgotten about whatever you're talking about

feeling p weird in the last few months. i did like a year of counselling, and it was going nowhere eventually so i stopped. for a while i seemed fine, like basically happy i guess. but i've started to feel really untrusting of my own mind, if that makes sense. i assess my overall mood at a moment when i'm feeling good (i tend to swing up and down a bit) and then i tell myself that assessment is accurate. it's like my own feelings are kind of hiding from me, and then sometimes i have what feels like a more real feeling, like a chance to more darkly and honestly look at some of the irresolvable problems, my chronic health issues, the issues it causes for me, the subsequent isolation, fear of health worsening and mental health worsening, and both being out of my control.

tonight i can't sleep and couldn't really do anything positive like writing or reading. i ended up trying to write and then was just sitting at my desk shaking and sobbing, which is p weird and scary, and adds to my feeling that i am heading in some direction i don't know about or understand.

and yet tomorrow i could wake up and the sun will be shining and i'll go to work happy, go out after, i go on holidays with my parents this weekend, and it'll be buried for a while. feel like i am hanging on by a thread, with some material stuff and job and things making it incredibly easy to distract myself and meaning i am fortunate enough not to have some of the day-to-day problems which really hurt people.

just bringing it up itt cos i don't really have anyone i can talk to about it, my family just doesn't discuss problems like this, my mother is massively depressed and my dad is sort of affected by dealing with that. i speak to friends but prob my best friend that i'd discuss it with is in as bad a way as i am.

i have done so many of the things that people are supposed to do to help to feel better, i have like done a lot of creative things, i've fought hard to keep exercising even as my health gets worse, walking to work etc, and these things do help, but ultimately nothing fully helps. i can't escape the same loneliness and isolation which i end up reclaiming as a means of dealing with the fact that having a random chronic illness that stops me living the life i want to live is lonely and isolating.

<3

You are really fucking good at the writing.

I don't know how or if any of us come to peace with what we are - feel like negotiation is forever. But our self-perception is only one version - other people probably esteem us all very differently.

Writing out this description of what you are feeling seems important. The only thought I have is to don't discount how you are feeling tomorrow if the sun is shining and you go on holiday. Distraction isn't a negative thing. Those moments when you are distracted are a valid as the other ones.

<3 LG

FWIW, I'm around the corner should you feel like having a civilised lunch some time.

<3 Ronan, keep ya head up.

Chin up LG <3

thanks everyone. it is true that writing it out was useful, i feel a bit better today, i'm just kind of scared by the increasing violence of the swings. i prob need to go back to counselling, but finding a good counsellor ends up like a problem in itself. sometimes during counselling i've felt more sorry for myself and then had a few months without it where talking about nothing seemed to be a good way to live. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

best wishes ronan. i was reading henry winter's '50 years of hurt' book in the shop today (weeping lion emblem on the cover no less) and a couple of paragraphs in i was chuckling to myself wondering what you or nakh would make of it and how your version of winter's 'style' would read..

Distraction isn't a negative thing. Those moments when you are distracted are a valid as the other ones.

― Zachary Taylor, Wednesday, June 15, 2016 12:14 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So so so true. The lows aren't more "authentic" than the highs; happiness, pleasure, enjoyment--are non-trivial. The long dark night of the soul at 3am is horrible but it's not more deeply you than the 2pm version at a cafe in the sunshine.

yeah for sure, i know that. if anything it's that i've been too good at floating off into disconnected joy from moment to moment. that prob sounds silly, but the increase of one has led to the worsening of the darker moments. and just general detachment.

i left my house to socialize even though the only person i knew going to this thing decided not to go and i managed and had fun *high five*

CBT has definitely taught me ways to minimize the impact of my depression, i have learned (mainly by myself tbf) coping strategies that stop me responding to myself in ways that are disastrous to my day to day living. on a surface level i've never been more emotionally together.

thing is, i don't think it's done a thing to address the underlying despair and emptiness. and i don't even know any more if it's meaningful to distinguish between me as a functioning social unit and me calmly reminding myself every week that it's not ok to kill myself because of the hurt it would cause other people.

xp attagirl, assawoman!

best wishes ronan. i was reading henry winter's '50 years of hurt' book in the shop today (weeping lion emblem on the cover no less) and a couple of paragraphs in i was chuckling to myself wondering what you or nakh would make of it and how your version of winter's 'style' would read..

― pandemic, Wednesday, 15 June 2016 11:39 (2 days ago)

ha, he is quite the stylist
his brother, a sunni theologian, closely resembles him in a slightly unsettling way that suggests it may be the same person moonlighting as a terrestrial spokesperon for both muhammad and steven gerrard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL91sviR8o4

paranoia is hitting me very hard today. my mind keeps coming up with all kinds of worst case scenarios and won't get out of "boot stomping on a human face forever" territory. not good.

I feel you. I've really been struggling with trying to feel hopeful lately but I've been reading way too many news stories suggesting that civilization is finally succumbing to the fear and hatred and xenophobia that's been chipping away at its foundations for so long. I've decided for the weekend to just watch the clip of Mr. Rogers testifying before congress anytime I get an itch to check the news.

been a long time since i've dropped in here (like...nearly a year?) and since then depression inventory is as follows: dozens of isolated depressive incidents, two long-term (one month or longer) overarching depressions, one suicidal ideation and subsequent halfhearted attempt that I didn't complete & made me force myself to go back into therapy and not wanting to die is replaced by the herculean effort of finding daily purpose in life. like its a struggle to move and get myself dressed in the morning even though i have no problem doing my mundane-ass job itself. i work from home a lot more now.

does anyone here take antidepressants in conjunction with a stimulant/know which one works for that? i take 15mg once daily of extended-release amphetamines for adult ADHD

Hope everyone is doing okay. Finally got meds today after a week without them; which unfortunately means I've had the worst of withdrawal and now I get to go back on them again. On a happier note, I got the keys to my flat today, so I'm fairly secure no matter what happens healthwise. Of course moving is making me unwell, but hopefully after tomorrow things will settle down.

slowly drinking myself to death is starting to seem like a better and better idea. wish i'd gotten started on it decades ago. if my liver was in as bad shape as my arteries are, i wouldn't have to live through much more of this.

:(

Hope you find a way through this, the worst dark usually recedes given time?

All you depressed cats, we're in this together, we're family, right? Never stop sharing

xp i keep telling myself that and it keeps not happening. :( anyway i'm very fortunate in that i know my spouse won't let me go full-on alky; i'm just in a very dark place right now.

I hear you, I would never deny that "this is forever" feeling, I've had it enough. It has a truth.

This may sound overly melodramatic but I can't really indulge in alcohol that much at the moment because I think there's something up with my kidneys, every time I have more than 1 or 2 pints I get bad pains in my back and after binging for a few days a few weeks ago they stuck around for about 10 days after and still hanging around as a dull ache since then. I'm trying to abstain until I can drag myself to a doctor but I think I will be getting drunk tonight and to hell with it. At least if I did decide to drink myself to death it might be quite easy (that's the melodramatic part).

I'm pretty resigned to this being forever, my depression seems quite similar to my mum's (albeit without the rare manic episodes) and it's not getting any better for her so I doubt I'll be magically cured anytime soon.

gl rushomancy. i prescribe cardiacs

xxp yeah i've had that feeling too, but this isn't that feeling- it's that every day is actively worse than the one before, and while i know damn well things will change for the better and nothing is forever, i don't know when that will be, and in the meantime i feel deeply, deeply broken. i don't hate myself, i just hate having to be alive on this planet right now. :(

xp my mental illness being similar to my dad's is probably the most terrifying thought i can have. he spent the last 25 years of his life waiting for death while systematically alienating everyone he ever knew. except for alzheimer's that's my greatest fear in the world.

imago, i find myself mostly listening to black metal to cheer myself up.

oh totally that too

the new jute gyte was postbrexit consolation listening of choice for me (and let me puch it at you too), along with 'audiocards' by tyro who used to be toenut, an album that maybe 30 people ever have heard

Coincidentally I was listening to Ship of Theseus yesterday, but I don't even know which one is the new one he puts out too many albums.

did you see this imago?

https://twitter.com/grumblingfur/status/743045542259855361

"the grey skies above the roads, fields and woods surrounding my family home seemed forever changed into something warm, dark, glowing and sublime"

'perdurance', it's next-level xp

oh wow! will look at that presently ty :)

the cardiacs are shit btw fyi ;)

heard the new jute gyte, but today i feel like i haven't given the latest oranssi pazuzu enough spins. thanks for the tyro rec- i somehow missed toenut back in the '90s, and it sounds right up my alley.

anyway sorry for sidetracking the thread, back to depression!

well, the 17-minute oranssi pazuzu track is probably my #1 song of the year so far, so fair play tbh

that strip is lovely btw, final panel esp wonderful

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13510985_10153693973142671_3440631026236775187_n.jpg?oh=4a2076c60d1728c060a808ddd73c8efd&oe=580AC2F5

can't even remember tbh