Depression and what it's really like

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.

So over the last few months I've had to see my doctor repeatedly -- I saw her at the beginning of the year and, because my depression was worsening, she increased my Zoloft dosage from 10mg to 20mg, and everything went to complete shit. Constant nightmares, missing work 3-4 times a month, my first-ever suicidal thoughts, thoughts of harming others, etc. She took me off the Zoloft and decided to try Prozac again, and while it stopped the suicidal thoughts, nothing else was getting better. She made an appointment for me to see An Actual Psychiatrist at the Mood Disorders Clinic at Case Western Reserve University.

That appointment was today, and after 90 minutes with him he thinks I should have been diagnosed as bipolar with generalized anxiety disorder rather than with acute depression. He believes the antidepressants have been doing way more harm than good. So here I am. I am seeing my doctor again Friday to find out whether she wants to try prescribing lithium and/or whether I should see another specialist/participate in a clinical study on lithium treatment response.

Nice to know I've been taking the wrong medications for, like, two decades.

That fucking sucks, Phil. it seems unfortunately common for ppl to get inaccurate mental health diagnoses - especially when you don't get access to anything but a GP (very common in New Zealand).

Hopefully the new meds will help?

haven't been able to keep up with the thread (for days at a time i can't deal with thinking/reading about depression) but it's super-cool that some of you are recently getting accurate diagnoses. professionals can tell you all sorts of things over decades (and dispense the wrong drugs, as phil d. has just discovered), but when one person hits the bulls eye it feels like you've suddenly been freed from a trap.

understanding my core issue has been incredibly liberating. i'm still yet to pull myself all the way out (e.g. i've hidden from social things since november), but every day i get an inch closer to conquering this thing. because i know exactly what the problem is and can explain it with ease, i can talk openly to friends and family (100% supportive responses so far). 30+ years of chronic anxiety is unravelling before my eyes and before the eyes of people close to me. my relationship with my olds has improved out of sight.

the most important part is realising that i've held myself back in so many ways because of this: professionally, socially, creatively. i stopped writing completely because i didn't want to draw attention to myself (what i now realise is a fight-or-flight response), but this week i started again, and last night i was so excited i couldn't sleep. in all honesty i can't remember the last time i was this buzzed about the prospect of achieving anything.

having said all that, i'm wary of becoming complacent and slipping back into it. it's been so deeply entrenched for so long that all my habits are built on it, so every day i need to stop and look at my thoughts and behaviours and make sure i'm not going backwards.

ouch Phil - best wishes man

Constant nightmares, missing work 3-4 times a month, my first-ever suicidal thoughts, thoughts of harming others, etc.

Hey this sucks but it's also OKAY. All of that is okay. You sir are okay.

...common for ppl to get inaccurate mental health diagnoses

fact

My friend's doctor wasn't sure so he let him choose. Kind of made me think it must've been like a spin the diagnosis wheel situation.

I dunno. IMHO "what do you think would be the most helpful approach" as a consensus building exercise with a patient is probably A-100%-OK considering the alternatives ("open wide, now close, try to relax, this will feel cold at first, ok, here it comes") (...is my name jonathan...) ("hello margaret, how are we feeling today?")

in all honesty i can't remember the last time i was this buzzed about the prospect of achieving anything.

HUZZAH

Does anyone truly find exercise helpful for depression? I've never known it to help. I start thinking of it as an obligation, and thus it becomes another source of stress.

I find it helpful - i love walking for extended periods of time, it's good for slowing down the grinding gears of my mind

Saying that, I don't tend to do it enough these days

Does anyone truly find exercise helpful for depression?

it's definitely helped me. i've developed an extraordinary habit of walking for 6–8 hours at a time and finding whacking great blisters, but my mood lifts for a few days.

exercise is kind of neutral for me mentally, at least it's good for me physically (maybe)

exercise is fantastic, imo -- if you can bring yourself to actually do it

the fact that i know this about myself and still do it so rarely is . . . well, depressing

Not with depression but it def helps with severe anxiety, for me.

I sometimes get so anxious after extended periods in my place on weekends I *have* to leave

Went back to therapy. The more I try to actively address deprrssion -- talking through it, building positive habits, etc -- the more depressed I feel.

Also, ime, parents are not a good resource even if they're well meaning. I feel like my existence tortures them.

Treeship - I'm sure that's not the case about your parents. I think it's easy to feel like you're a burden to people when you have depression, and that burden re-inforces the shame. IMO
Anyways well wishes...

I think it's easy to feel like you're a burden to people when you have depression

yeah this is totally otm. the danger is that you can isolate yourself by not wanting to drag other people down with you.

^ yeah, that part's tough.

when i'm depressed i tend to interpret "occasional nuisance" as "soul-crushing burden" and act accordingly. :(

Does anyone truly find exercise helpful for depression?

It did wonders for me, back in the day, and believe me, I resisted it as if it were grim death at first. My through process when first suggested the idea was that I almost didn't want it to work, because it felt too easy. 'I've major depression, man, telling me to walk more is insulting!'. But it did work; at least help all the other aspects of treatment catch on more, too.

(all the best to you great people in this thread btw <3)

*thought process

I went to a kettle bell/bulgarian bag class for a few months a couple of years ago but it was a bit mixed, I think exercise might've helped a bit, but I also kept feeling like shit about not being any good at the techniques so it sort of made me feel useless at the same time.

I also seem to have something wrong with my shins because I hurt them pretty badly doing a 1.5 mile run with the class and had to pack in the class for 6 weeks until the pain went away, which probably set me back a lot because I had to relearn everything again, and just got fed up with it and stopped going.

One of my issues with exercise is that it doesn't occupy me mentally, so I tend to brood on whatever is going on in my life (and right now I'm pretty fearful of things). Right now my interior monologue can be summarized as "Shouldn't you be doing something about {ISSUE}? DO SOMETHING!"

for me, there's a difference between exercise (reps at the gym, trying to push myself towards a fitness goal that has never mattered a damn to me) and exercise (hiking with my dog, going for long walks when i have no idea else what to do).

the latter has always been hugely helpful. at worst: i walked for four or five hours. at best: while i was walking, everything backgrounded a little bit and i felt a little more like i was welcome in the world. i can't imagine some type of class would do that. gym-stuff for me was always push until i'm so worn out i can't move or think. it was more about wiping everything clean than actually trying to feel functional.

exercise makes me feel guilty as hell for the same reason ("think of all the things you could be getting done in this time") but the fact is i'd just sit around feeling guilty regardless. feeling guilty while exercising is how i justify it.

somebody may have filled my skull with cavity wall insulation in the night. today I will either knife somebody or burst into tears. maybe both at once.

i don't mean this to sound glib: would it help to sneak off somewhere private and actually burst into tears, as a pressure release?

that's not glib, but at the moment I'm mostly trying to keep flat so's I can pretend to be functional while I'm at work - I'm sure something will spark me up again later, maybe I shd take the opportunity to let it go then. I have no concrete idea why I feel like crying tho.

futility plus absence of something, maybe

actually nevermind, a bunch of specific stuff I haven't got drunk enough to share on ilx yet, plus trying v hard not to get drunk

q hard

the entirely justified obliviousness of other people

my own lack of competence

and dwelling on all the above

(sometimes it's impossible not to)

I know right

could maybe best be summed up by the words of Hal David - I just don't know what to do with myself

if I try to describe it, define it, explain it to myself - stuck. nothing. no use to people today, but not allowed to be no use.