Depression and what it's really like

Found out I have sleep apnea (I stop breathing every 2 minutes on average, God only knows what damage this does to my brain in the long run), so I have to use one of those bloody CPAP machines at night. Was really really hoping it would boost my mood/energy levels the way everybody said it would, but no, I'm just tired and depressed plus I now sleep with a huge fucking hissing thing strapped to my face.

― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, November 19, 2016 2:37 AM

Yeah, trying to use the CPAP was the low point for me. But it actually got me to lose the 40 pounds I had put on, and when I lost the weight, the sleep apnea went away. Don't know if your apnea is weight-related...

in the same boat - if i could shift the weight off my neck, the apnoea would go away, but that means shifting the weight off all of me, and the world sucks enough without giving up food

Me too! I gather fat in my neck like a beast. The CPAP actually catapulted me into losing the weight, that's how much I hated it. Unfortunately, for me to lose weight, I had to cut out the following completely: bread/rice/pasta/potatoes/sugar/alcohol. Luckily, I'm not a drinker. 4 pounds came off every 3 weeks, but it was hell.

Well I could try living on cheese and ham I guess :/

Used the CPAP as a trial and there's just no way

Don't beat yourself up (although I think I cut out dairy too :( I never thought I'd succeed, but the inability to sleep made me freak out enough to finally do it. Do it with a nutritionist through your doctor if you can...they can work out a menu with you that isn't horrible. It helped me to have an appointment every three weeks to weigh in.

I meant to say, don't beat yourself up over CPAP, it don't work full stop

Cheers, iago., nv, i will do some more weight research, as that may well be a contributing problem here
And justin, thank you... She is a good corrective to depression

I've been humming along on a thin veneer of hope and tenuous positivity for the last several weeks but there have been a number of times over the past handful of days when the veneer became translucent and I could see the ink-black void beneath. It's starting to freak me out that most of the people around me aren't freaked out, are just continuing with their daily routine as if nothing in the world has changed and will continue happily unabated forever! Kinda feeling a strong pull to self-medicate in hopes of seeing things the same way. But still feeling hopeful that taking some regular positive action can help pull me out of this before I totally sink.

I'm mostly just venting atm. I'm not quite there yet but I've been down this sadly-familiar road before.

good wishes heading your way, man. i liked your posts about doing something positive to change things post-election - i think you were def on the right track there even although it might not feel it right now

fwiw, i've found recently that physical exercise makes a big positive difference to my mental wellbeing - worth a shot if you're not doing something along those lines already maybe?

Thanks, brother. My lifestyle definitely tends more towards the sedentary so, yeah, that's always a thing to do, I guess.

also there's always posting on ilx, a glass-bottomed boat gliding over the ink-black void

I've been humming along on a thin veneer of hope and tenuous positivity for the last several weeks but there have been a number of times over the past handful of days when the veneer became translucent and I could see the ink-black void beneath. It's starting to freak me out that most of the people around me aren't freaked out, are just continuing with their daily routine as if nothing in the world has changed and will continue happily unabated forever! Kinda feeling a strong pull to self-medicate in hopes of seeing things the same way. But still feeling hopeful that taking some regular positive action can help pull me out of this before I totally sink.

I'm mostly just venting atm. I'm not quite there yet but I've been down this sadly-familiar road before.

― The Pleasure Principal (Old Lunch)

i think something i do as a depressive is to assume that other people are doing better than they actually are. we all have ample incentives to present ourselves in an inappropriately positive light. hell i do it myself when dealing with people in person.

for me it's a struggle because the only way i can continue to be a defensible human being, i have to keep looking at the ink-blackness, but that tends to, well, sort of impair one's functionality. so many people around me in despair, and i can't give them any concrete reasons not to despair, but at the same time living in this sense of absolute refusal... i don't know what i'm saying.

all regular activities tend to end around christmastime. losing what tenuous routines i have will be tough.

I know it's hard to think it matters, but I really like you, and look forward to you getting through this. All of you, really - I've been a poster/reader here for well over a decade, and this is a curiously pleasant place of nice people. It's got me through more than one spell in hospital. And that inky blackness: it's not the truth.

true ^

the lack of sunlight has been really affecting me now. i just feel like going back to bed all day, but i can't bc i have a job. exercising consistently, at least.

wrote a humongous post and scrapped it, condensing it to (a) hope everyone above is doing okay (b) fuck having any sort of aspirations for anything (c) fuck this shit

you are otm in at least one of those brackets but its all swirling relativity isnt it

it is

current plan is to ignore the black dog for another 40 years, but i don't think that's technically a plan

ach 'plans' fuckem dyknow?

every plan i had is dead so 'fuckem' is the best course of action

yep, see what fails miserably and retrospectively trash it as unworthy imo

nb this has worked v well for me in most aspects of life as a coping mechanism

cheers, excellent advice, although i'm looking at trashing ~all of the things~ and atm have nothing to replace them with

Just found out a long-term, dear friend killed himself last November. I honestly don't feel anything about it right now. Just "Oh." A total lack of surprise.

wrote a humongous post and scrapped it, condensing it to (a) hope everyone above is doing okay (b) fuck having any sort of aspirations for anything (c) fuck this shit

― Autumn Almanac, Thursday, January 5, 2017 6:11 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listen to the last ten minutes of this--Curtis really hits the nail on the head. Scary but clarifying
http://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-no-future-feat-adam-curtis-121216

rushomancy i'm so sorry, really hope you have some people to talk to about it. there's no correct/incorrect way to react to something like that imo.

listen to the last ten minutes of this--Curtis really hits the nail on the head. Scary but clarifying

thanks for that. my issues are generally personal in nature but australia's recent history (very similar to what america's about to go through) has certainly had a real impact on my current issues. a huge portion of my give-up-on-everything attitude is the realisation that being nice to people is a lost cause when corporations and selfish fuckheads keep twisting democracies to their own ends and away from the 99%.

And that most australians would happily see other people burned alive as long as they don't have to spend an extra minute a day in traffic or pay 1c more a year for enrrgy

otm, it really does feel like the country's turning into mad max

So, I have a cold atm, and in addition to feeling terrible I seem to be going through withdrawals from my antidepressants. I'm still taking them, but I'm familiar enough with the withdrawal symptoms to recognise it. Can anyone think of any reason why a cold might stop antidepressants working? It's impossible to google for. It sucks, whatever is happening.

are you taking any medicine for the cold?

No, not really. I took some ibuprofen last night, but I tend to ride them out.

idk maybe if you are v. dehydrated

yes, or the cold is causing you to experience double depression. the immune inflammatory response of a cold can feel v., v., similar to a chemical depression

mookieproof otm re: dehydration, that was my thought

Well, the brain zaps seem to have stopped, so I might be able to get some sleep at some point.

one of those weekends where i feel like the adults are about to find out how much homework i haven't done and throw a fit at me - i think i'm just deep down frightened of being punished for not working hard enough, at the same time as i know i don't work hard enough

oh man, i sympathise with that one :(

ILX posts which pound an icy shard of recognition through your heart

gl/good vibes NV

i hate when i stop working and my brain starts spinning. it's like the only thing i can do to stop going crazy is work and i'm sick of work. and the only humans i talk to are at work.

I stopped working like that after changing jobs recently and I feel like cogs and springs that had been kept in place by the tight winding of relentless activity and pressure are now threatening to uncoil and start shipping out from the top of my mind

ayyyyup

stupid three-day weekend. and i was gonna take next friday off too. my house is cleaner but my brain is worse off.

Can anyone give advice on this one:

History of depression/bipolar here, but currently some nice things are going on in life. It's still hard to not think that something disastrously could go wrong - so what do you do to just be present and take these things one moment at time? It's like the black dog of depression is always around the corner. Perhaps I'm just too cynical.

Nah, the black dog of depression is always around the corner. Take advantage of your current state of health to arrange care you've been putting off, establish habits that will serve you if things get harder, that sort of thing. It is, in my experience, hard to live in the moment by ~trying to live in the moment~. Do as much living as you can stand and the inner monologue will recede now and then.

Cheers Silby, appreciated.

if worry/dread takes over I try to find something more benign and intentionally fixate on it - thus shoving out the other things I was previously worrying about and replacing w/ something I can better control. not foolproof mind you but it's worked in recent weeks.

It's still hard to not think that something disastrously could go wrong - so what do you do to just be present and take these things one moment at time?

think about eventual death, then back away from that thought.

death, the only solution

really not the thread I expected to see Slayer lyrics

agree w/ sarahell though - if you start with it as the worst outcome, then walk backwards to more likely outcomes, and embrace that no matter what happens, large parts of it are beyond your control, it becomes easier. horrible things can happen to you any moment of your life, it's just important not to live as if you're anticipating it (not a criticism - I deal w/ that all the time w/ my anxiety)

It's great advice to think of things that way, sarahell. The sitch is I've met someone who I really appreciate and I'm basically trying to take it easy as possible and keep an objective distance.

a relationship-type someone?