Depression and what it's really like

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

i'm not sure your issue is depression

oh are we diagnosing in this thread now? cool

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.

― waht, I am true black metal worrior (Neanderthal), Tuesday, March 7, 2017 5:53 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago)

i feel the latter is way, way worse, or at least it can be. the suicidal urge, when acute, is often accompanied by a kind of passionate anguish, a desperate desire to finally do something about the intolerable. that burst of energetic intensity can serve as a wake-up call, can be turned to other things, fuel change.

simply not caring, or not seeming able to care, doesn't work like that it. it's not a trigger for anything. you just rot in it, wishing you knew where the trigger was, what it felt like. how do you get out when you don't remember how to want to get out?

otm

xxp sure. driving a thousand miles to see a series of metal shows is awesome (seriously!), but it's not the act of a depressive. i can't speak to the faces-of-death stuff other than to say it is not at all in my experience

i merely suggest that you've a slightly different thing going on. take it/be offended as you will

xp I got really into Jackass at the height of my depression, though I'm not sure why. I had the urges to hurt myself, so best I can guess it was therapeutic to watch other people living it out

this thread is a really bad place to start questioning ppl's depression cred

xxpost I'm not offended just felt like that was a weird comment. in my case I already know what my primary issue is and that's anxiety, which I take medication and go to therapy for. depression was always a secondary symptom for me, and as my previous therapist explained, likely caused by the anxiety wearing me down over time. Ironically my meds work better on curbing depression than they do anxiety - prior to taking them, I had many prolonged periods of depression in my 20s, during which I nearly dropped out of college and drank heavily. Now it's more the anxiety that is significantly disruptive to my life (though the meds at least prevent outright panic attacks and my finding a new therapist after irresponsibly letting it lapse has gotten it back under control). I can't do trips like last weekend in the middle of a bad episode (I was actually alright last weekend), but I've had a few short-lived but very bad episodes in the last year. I went to Maryland Deathfest last year and had a bad episode where I couldn't stop crying the whole time and almost considered coming home early. I opted to ride it out because of how much I paid to be there. and there was the binge drinking episode at the CC show that I mentioned here a few times which at least had the positive effect of causing me to finally do something about my alcohol backslide.

I often do things like last weekend BECAUSE not only do I like music but because I know often times being around people, even strangers, helps me.

I only brought up the gore videos because it's weird and don't know where it comes from. last therapist suggested some form of thanatos, this one didn't have much to say about it.

in either case.....contenderizer and Ross otm upthread

yeah this thread is no place for judgement IMO, glad to have you around Neanderthal

xp - the gore videos make perfect sense to me. I watch and read things about Nazis, the Holocaust, other horrible historical atrocities partly out of a "my life could be so much worse" identification with the victims, and also, "I am not that horrible a person .... compared to Hitler"

there was some thread about recommendations for movies that cheer you up, and my suggestions were things along the lines of what I watch when I'm in a serious depressive trough, and someone assumed I was joking.

everybody has different coping strategies. i'll read cioran to cheer myself up sometimes.

There have been times in my life when I would read about failed suicides, as a warning of what could happen. And I do keep in the back of my mind the account someone who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and didn't die; he was quoted to the effect that after he jumped and before he hit the surface, he realized that all the problems in his life could be resolved, but death couldn't.