Depression and what it's really like

Resonating with a lot of what you're saying sarahell

Also I think my hatred of obligations is a major factor why I'm perennially late.

i guess talking about depression is important to me because as a chronic depressive, i can see and understand things through others' experiences that i can't see, or don't feel comfortable articulating, through my own. like, for instance, my friend who killed himself last year. one of the bullshit things people say is that people with depression are weak. i don't know. i'm not going to go out and say that i'm not weak, but i look at my friend and i see someone who fought harder to stay alive than anybody i have ever known.

rushomancy OTM - def. bullshit that people with depression are weak!

Most people try to fix me or to tell me that what I'm describing is perfectly normal.

I'm not sure why so many people are so incurious about what is foreign to their own lives or else so incapable of understanding experiences which are not like their own. I suppose it is our universal tendency to connect the unknown to whatever its nearest analog is within what is already familiar to us.

ftr, I don't suffer with depression. If anything, I am more disposed to be cheerful, if there is any possible way to carve out a place for it in a given situation. I can easily recognize from hundreds of posts here on ilx and from other reading I've done that ordinary sadness or unhappiness are totally unlike depression. Same goes for despair and grief (of which I've had my share in generous portions) they're very different animals than depression.

You all have not just my sympathy for your pain, but my admiration for your courage, which is not less heroic for its being so necessary as to be almost mandatory.

so she starts lecturing me on the types of foods i should be eating, and how i should be doing this and that and the other... so i tried explaining to her how depression works, and that i actually know a lot about nutrition, but most of the time i literally CAN NOT make myself do what's right for me. and so she's all 'yeah but you just have to DO IT'. so i fruitlessly continue to explain how that's the difference between someone with clinical depression and a 'normal' person - a normal person can be like 'ugh i don't want to do this thing but fine i'll do it ugh', whereas depression often means that you just... can't. and that it can't be explained beyond that. you just can't fucking do some things sometimes.

people like this think that there's a specific thing you can't do. making a plan or starting a different habit or 'just doing it' are ways to help with that. they don't really believe that 'not being able to do' could infect your very ability to do, not a specific thing, but anything. and when it does you can't just 'make a plan to do' or 'develop a habit of doing' or 'just do doing' - even though those are certainly the kinds of things that people do encourage depressives to come at, somehow, by taking walks, engaging in mundane self-care, doing the dishes, and everything on up, as if success at doing those will be therapeutic for your ability to do anything-and-everything.

I used to work with a guy who did not understand depression and he readily admitted it was because he's never had it. He said he would just wonder why people did not choose to be happy or do something about it, because that's what he did. There really is a disconnect that is hard to bridge. Friends and family and support of people with depression need to know we don't need fixed, we just sometimes need people to "be there". Of course our society is so results based that it's hard for people to de-program.

Anyway, so after this happened I let my best friend know -- if it's me, I want people to know how I died -- let my friends know whether it was intentional or accidental.

― sarahell, Sunday, March 5, 2017 2:57 PM (two hours ago)

I thought of you frequently over the past few months, btw. Have no words that seem appropriate, but I'm glad you're doing okay.

i mean not gonna lie sometimes "but thou must!" is the best thing someone can say to me, because people feel like they have to say and do _something_ and you can't logically argue with depression. yeah, i'd feel better if i exercised more. yeah, totally right, and honestly, guilting me into taking better case of myself stands as good a chance of working as anything else does.

today i went to visit a friend and just sat in the car crying for half an hour for no goddamn reason before going in, and that sucked, but the alternative was not leaving the house all day, and i've done that enough to know that there's zero point in taking that approach.

And many thanks to all present. This thread/discussion really helped me through today.

xp for sure, i think the problem is that those 'musts' don't function rationally or even like encouragements and guilt-trips normally do, so people can expect far more of them than they ought to.

so a few weeks ago I went out drinking with my best friend, and I drank too much. Way too much. Like alcohol poisoning too much. And I was sitting there, semi-conscious, on the sidewalk outside the bar, and I couldn't move, and I felt like I could die. What if I just died right there? And my brain made a list of all the immediate effects of me dying: this project wouldn't get finished, my clients wouldn't get their taxes done, my parents were expecting me to have lunch with them next weekend, I just got a bunch of delicious snacks from Trader Joe's the night before, and my best friend would be traumatized for years ... so I decided I would make an attempt not to die.

I honestly don't know if I was even remotely close to death, but it was the first time in a very long time that I physically felt that way, and it has helped keep the depression at bay for now.

would be good to keep stocking up on snacks too

I do stockpile frozen and canned comfort foods (not hoarder style) in case of bad days/weeks in case I feel so shitty I don't want to go to the store or cook.

I just got a bunch of delicious snacks from Trader Joe's the night before

yeah this a partic chilling thought

What depression has been like for me during the last several months: first asking myself what I want (either from life or for dinner that night) and not having a desire for anything. Then suddenly plunged into anxiety, with an energy rush that would enable me to do anything, if I could just figure out what it is I want to do.

who will eat my snap peas when i'm gone?

xxxp since i became poor enough that existing on regular pizza stopped being a viable option, i have done the opposite: using the need to go to the store as an excuse to get out that will move me even at bad times, and needing to have cookable staples on hand, as a hedge against not wanting to go out at the bad times

people like this think that there's a specific thing you can't do. making a plan or starting a different habit or 'just doing it' are ways to help with that. they don't really believe that 'not being able to do' could infect your very ability to do, not a specific thing, but anything. and when it does you can't just 'make a plan to do' or 'develop a habit of doing' or 'just do doing' - even though those are certainly the kinds of things that people do encourage depressives to come at, somehow, by taking walks, engaging in mundane self-care, doing the dishes, and everything on up, as if success at doing those will be therapeutic for your ability to do anything-and-everything.

― j., Sunday, March 5, 2017 5:33 PM (fifty-six minutes ago)

it's frustrating because even good cbt seems to boil down to, "well, what if you just try doing this one, little thing?" and when it works, that's great, baby steps. but when you're at the bottom of the pit, it's like a horrible kind of taunting. i want to ask the therapist i stopped seeing for the magic thing that makes me alive again, but i know it doesn't exist. i am alive, am myself. and i can barely manage to feed the cats.

I do stockpile frozen and canned comfort foods (not hoarder style) in case of bad days/weeks in case I feel so shitty I don't want to go to the store or cook.

haha i deliberately avoid doing this to force myself to go to the store, but it never works and then i end up eating peanut butter out of the jar or something

canned refried beans with grated cheese microwaved at the "dinner plate" setting, with several packets of taco bell hot sauce stockpiled in the packet drawer is one of my go-tos

crock pot is excellent for depressive food prep. also good to stock up on reasonably healthy non-junk. if not for that, i'd subsist on cracker sleeves & frozen pizza.

though tbh, it's really like waking up at three, going out at 9 for a drive-thru cheeseburger & a 40

Food and substances are pretty much the only reasons I leave the house some weekends...other than occasional band practices if I can be arsed

do you get fries with it?

o hell yeah

All yall posters who brighten my life on the other threads and deal with your burdens on this thread - maximum respect here.

Hi fellow depressed people. I want to die.

t's frustrating because even good cbt seems to boil down to, "well, what if you just try doing this one, little thing?" and when it works, that's great, baby steps. but when you're at the bottom of the pit, it's like a horrible kind of taunting. i want to ask the therapist i stopped seeing for the magic thing that makes me alive again, but i know it doesn't exist. i am alive, am myself. and i can barely manage to feed the cats.

yes! it's like: if today i'm able to wash the dishes and do laundry, it's only bc the depression isn't so severe at this moment. when i have really low days, those things don't get done. at my worst, i would (and do) stay in bed for 20 hours at a time, the thought of dirty laundry and mounting dishes and everything else that needs doing just bringing me to tears. i don't know how to explain that to someone who doesn't get it. and it's ok to not get it, bc i didn't understand panic attacks until i had my first one at 20. but i just don't want or need to hear things like "but why don't you just get up and go do the dishes?? it's not that big a deal". I KNOW IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL TO YOU.

i'm at least lucky in that my husband totally gets it and i never have to explain myself to him. i mean, i still feel a ton of guilt over the things i can't do, but it comes from within, not externally.

xps to rushomancy re depression=weakness: i don't think everyone with depression is weak either, but... i'm also ok with admitting that my depression makes ME weak, bc it's not like i have a choice. i'm not choosing to be weak, it's not a sin i'm committing. i don't think being strong is a choice either - you just are.

I want to die.

Tonight? Or just as a general thing? Could be important!

General A, shit, sorry.

Don't be sorry. I just thought some clarity was in order, in case.

I don't want to die but I would dearly like to disappear out of this life

just stop being an object to be measured and judged and made to run on time

I honestly don't know if I was even remotely close to death, but it was the first time in a very long time that I physically felt that way, and it has helped keep the depression at bay for now.

― sarahell

sometimes i run across this, like, man for all seasons thing where it seems like it's not enough to just stay alive, i have to stay alive for the RIGHT REASONS, and man if i had to do that i would be dead for certain. raw animal terror of dying (which, in my case at least, suicidal depression does nothing to abate) has kept me alive more times than i can count.

i've come to deplore this stubborn hope that keeps me from ending it. also i just can't seem to abandon life's sweetness even if it seems to hover around 15 parts per million

animal terror and false hope do a lot of sterling work in my life it's true

I've had a few close calls with death and i've always been relieved to be alive. The problem with my depression atm is it always seems like i'm teetering between being uncomfortable and in relief, and it's pretty jarrring - but one things for sure is I don't want to die. Don't have the guts.

the irony of being too cowardly to kill yourself "saving" your life, i know this too well; just wish i was brave enough to actually change things

^ OTM.

I only tend to change things when they just have zero mileage anymore and become a total bust. Once had my chart read and they confirmed I let things get to the point of maximum discomfort before changing them, so seemed apt.

Some really amazing posting and really amazing posters itt these past few days

My depressions been remarkably savage this week and y'all got at some genuinely useful nuggets.

^ OTM.

I only tend to change things when they just have zero mileage anymore and become a total bust. Once had my chart read and they confirmed I let things get to the point of maximum discomfort before changing them, so seemed apt.

― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Tuesday, March 7, 2017 10:16 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we use our coping mechanisms until they just dont work anymore. some people never do!

I should say some people never realize their coping mechanisms dont work anymore

^ that's true, but what's tough is knowing what to replace them with

I know! I ruin anything I take to.

i don't know what's worth, wanting to die or just not caring enough to where you stop caring about your health, what you eat, what you drink, and what irresponsible shit you do.

i've felt both before and usually any kind of "oh shit" experience snaps me out of the former, but the latter takes so, so little to fall back into

^ Good post and fully agree it's hard to tell what's worse. I have some irresponsible habits that led to a conclusion recently wherein I was staring danger right in the face and it was like I was choosing the addiction over life. Which is fucked. I think having depression goes hand in hand with self destruction in an obliteration way and being on the precipice of danger can be as close to feeling alive as one can get.

I even started watching gory death vids ie Traces of Death type stuff. I used tos tay away from it but got fixated on it in my early 30s. stuff like the Budd Dwyer suicide video, the 911 call from the guy on the floor that collapsed, Great White fire, Vic Morrow death.

my old therapist said it was a subconscious desire to warn myself "you want to see what 'death' really is"? to snap myself out of it.

still do it now and then

I get no thrill out of them and sometimes they keep me awake