Depression and what it's really like

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

Ouch, what happened? Are you okay?

i'm alright, i think i fell on or against something, stuff is swollen, drinking yrself to death is hard

gonna need a good story for work tomorrow

distinctly remember telling somebody yesterday that i used to have a drink problem

probly intervention time again

I have a sporadic drinking problem, and my problems with meds have pushed me down that pay again. Meaning up with injuries is unfortunately just part of the deal. I have a bruised and swollen finger and bruised knees and shins I don't remember getting.
I generally don't hurt my face, I guess. Also, drinking yourself to death is a horrible way to die.

i know. thought i was thru that nonsense. am much better at climbing back on my horse nowadays tho.

I have a sporadic drinking problem, and my problems with meds have pushed me down that pay again. Meaning up with injuries is unfortunately just part of the deal. I have a bruised and swollen finger and bruised knees and shins I don't remember getting.
I generally don't hurt my face, I guess. Also, drinking yourself to death is a horrible way to die.

― inside, skeletons are always inside, that's obvious. (dowd)

true, but depression is a horrible way to live...

We need an ilaa forum

Also damn nv hope you are ok man. Doing damage to yourself is scary, i know its when i saw my mum covered in dry blood (she had hurt herself some how, didnt know how) and cos she didnt have to go out or see anyone for a day just carried on drinking. Remembering that i just want to give ya a big hug.

(She has been clean for nearly a decade, and much happier and healthier for it. If only beer and wine wasnt so damn delicious...)

thanks man, don't know if i'm more peeved about losing glasses or kebab

Man, I feel for you guys struggling with drink issues. For a period of about three years, I was drunk at least five nights out of every week. And, I don't mean I had a few beers and was feeling jolly. I was either borderline or black out drunk. I was working in an elementary school the whole time as well, so I was constantly ill. I mostly stopped after my first run in the psych ward about three years ago. Not sure really why or how I stopped. I think maybe the combination of all the benzodiazepines I was on and the alcohol made the feeling of being drunk hyper aware during the wooziness and I just couldn't handle it anymore, so I quit. I think probably the benzos made the withdrawals a little more tolerable — though I was smoking a lot of marijuana around the time in place of drinking and am sure that made withdrawals a lot less severe. Last time I got drunk —like heavily slurring and stumbling drunk— was last September and I haven't had a drink since. Before that, I had been sober for about a year. I just don't think I "like" the feeling of being drunk anymore. It used to be fun to get drunk, but I don't know anymore. Just a different perspective, I guess. A lot's changed in the last eight months (a pretty devastating breakup, an out of state move, a suicide attempt, a fourth round in the psych ward and a lot of soul searching).

But I know that feeling. It's two or three in the afternoon and you're still probably hungover from the previous night and you don't want to drink, but you just can't control yourself. Or at least I knew I couldn't. I would walk into the liquor store, hating myself for even coming within a hundred yards of the place. I had every great reason to not be there again. And yet, I would end up there over and over. It reached a point where I would get home, take the first beer of the evening out and literally stand there contemplating the whole miserable situation in my mind for three or five minutes in silence before I would even open it. Just feeling completely hopeless and trapped.

We need an ilaa forum

― plums (a hoy hoy), Sunday, June 26, 2016 4:58 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an Inclusive deindexed I love Recovery forum could be a goer, have to say my (totally unfair I'm sure) attitude to "the program" and its attendant jargon is that's lovely for you but I don't feel like joining a cult just now

much love and bon courage nv obviously

^^^^^ <3

i've been at the stage for the past year where i avoid a lot of social situations i used to "enjoy" in order to avoid getting drunk (because it was the thing to do) and so i've been a lot more solitary, and in some ways it's made the depression worse (though I'm better off in a lot of ways). ... and I've been doing this avoidance for so long, I'm actually anxious and wary of going back to those social situations. And I have a new job, and the nature of the job involves/will involve drinking/being around alcohol a lot, and so far it's been okay but ... idk.

Re: wins

I felt bad after saying that cos after reading it back it could have come across as something blithe, and yeah with experience of people in recovery using aa isnt a great standard. We also all dont struggle with the first A but something else.

I do worry about my own excessive drinking, especially having had parents with addiction issues, and having ilx be an open forum to discuss fears or issues has been a wonder for me though. I dont love the problems raised on it but i bloody love this thread and more range in here may help us all collectively and individually.

Also i iz four beers deep as i type this soooo... how the hell does it happen so easily?

no I wasn't having a go! I was adding to what I thought was a genuine constructive suggestion

thanks for sharing guys

"I Love Recovery" sounds good. just can't believe the same dumb shit over and over, like Austin says, like at some point around 10.30ish yesterday morning i could walk into a pub and buy a bottle of wine and think "this will end well". don't know where the bit of me that's sick of poverty, injury and failure goes at that point.

and I do not suffer from depression so if anyone should tread carefully itt it's me xp

Damn man, i never knew it was morning drinking too. Thats scary. I also understand.

Where I work, which ive detailed a lot here, is not exactly a job set by defined rules and I often found myself drinking at work. Working around other traders who also found acceptable, its quite a regular thing. There is one guy who literally walks in everyday at 11am with a red stripe. None of us want to think we have a drink problem though.

Anyway, since we regularly started having to hire someone and i'd be there as their boss/also working myself, i've had to set myself the responsibility of never drinking in front of an employee, which means i'll never drink at work again. Which helps with my alcoholism... a bit. I've tried noticing other things in life where i've tried to do stuff like this i.e. i really shouldnt drink while doinh x or y. Are there any similar things you could maybe try? Its not going to be like going cold turkey but if it just gets you a bit further away?

Soz if this came away judgementable, its really not meant to be but doling out shitty advice can often come across etc.

no worries, i respect where you're coming from. the simple answer for me is not to go to the pub. which is hard when living alone. will have to try harder, is all, and hope i don't turn into Howard Hughes.