Depression and what it's really like

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.

maundering

the black dog feels virtually untameable when it insists on chasing its own tail

NV, had the exact experience last week: I actually kicked a few objects which is something I *never* do. Anger seems a bit higher on the emotion scheme than demobilizing hopelessness, but it felt pretty weird. Hope you get through buddy

thx Ross

for me depression is mostly like wheels spinning in mud while I wrestle with a broken gearstick

Things are really kind of terrible at the moment - worst for a long time. Trying to walk that tightrope between suicide and hospitalisation. But so overwhelmed and panicky. And I hurt myself, which is the first time for a while. On the whole I'm not having much fun.

My dog forces me to get out of bed for walks, so that's something. Otherwise it's just periods of despair punctuated with brief spells of panic. I should go back to hospital, I guess, but this flat I was given last summer was meant to be a new start, and I would have to admit that's impossible.

NV, that's an apt description o depression.

Dowd - feeling for ya and wish you the best

yeah dowd, that's horrible, look after yourself

dowd i don't know you but i love you and please be well

<3 dowd

Best to you dowd. I hope there's someone you can talk to about this.

Person who cares here saying go to hospital even if it seems awful; awful passes and more important is that you *disrupt* the darkness. IME. Hospital is a very legit place to save lives; yours matters!

dowd we don't know each other irl but for whatever it is worth I've always valued your posts on ilx and I hope the best for you

quincie otm, and talking to professionals about what's new/what's changed can get you closer to what's going on and ultimately coping/working with it.

also re this:

this flat I was given last summer was meant to be a new start, and I would have to admit that's impossible.

unmet self-expectation is the essence of depression ime. the thing that really did me in last year was making promises to myself that i couldn't keep, and because of that my whole life felt like a growing snowball of fail and i gave up on pretty much everything. i don't have a resolution to it apart from simply not setting expectations, which in itself feels like its own snowball of fail. sorry this shitty post is all i can offer.

^ OTM. I've been holding down a steady job for 6 years, but I'm still just as depressed and likely to spiral at times. But dowd, if you're feeling even worse, it doesn't mean you're regressing to get help.

it doesn't mean you're regressing to get help.

so much this, and repeatedly getting help means you get to narrow down what works and chuck out what doesn't. like anything, getting help is something you get better at the more you do it.

dowd, if it starts to feel like you're wasting your time or retreading old ground, see a different professional if you can. some professionals are just the wrong fit (this is not always obvious), and you can exhaust the usefulness of the good ones too. the right person at the right time can change everything.

Since I had my psychiatric evaluation mentioned above I've been going without medication, because I can't see another psychiatrist clinically, who will prescribe for me, until Apr. 18. Right now I am yo-yoing between depression and manic anger. This fucking sucks.

wish i had something more to offer than best wishes & internet hugs, dowd. but bw&ih.

Oh, don't worry about me - I'm going to get through it. I just had to express the stuff I wouldn't say to people in real life. I know people who care about me would want me to tell them, but that's one of the things about depression. Company hates misery. Things are still terrible, and I think about suicide all the damned time, and I'm panicking a lot. But I'm a lot better at dealing with it than I used to be.