Depression and what it's really like

Thanks Austin, I sincerely appreciate you dude.

Really loved that track, it's quite beautiful. Playing music is one of the only things that really keeps me sane.

It's been 7 years since I was in the hospital for a 2 week bout of psychosis, after that I made my way to a new city and a new job which I held down for about 6 years. I struggle mostly with depression these days and haven't had a psychotic episode since, but I do feel at times too comfortable in this off-centre reality I've structured, where it gets harder and harder to go back, even if that's my goal. I also feel like I've reached a breaking point, the bottom of the bag seems to have fallen out - and I'm not quite sure what to do.

I can relate to a lot of what you said in your post, and we've both been away from work for about 2 months, so I wish you the best.

Anyways Austin if you ever want to e-mail me via the ilxor function, feel free to.

That's an amazing piece, Austin. Thank you for sharing it. It has got a very soothing and caressing effect on me and the melody is gorgeous. I imagine the view of a mountain lake in the winter sun when I hear that. Good luck to get out of the blues.

that piece is totally gorgeous. thank you for sharing it.

Thanks guys. Playing is really the only thing that keeps me grounded these days.

That's exceptionally beautiful Austin. It reminds me of Grouper a bit. Thanks for sharing, and take good care.

It strikes me that some of the nicest, most level-headed and reasonable people on ILX frequently post to this thread.

I'm not sure what to do with that information yet but you all should just go ahead and take the compliment if it suits you.

aw El, that's really solid of you to say that

Thinking about you Ross and Austin, and one thing that has helped me a lot these past few weeks has been physical activity. It has really boosted my self-esteem, confidence and made a lot things much clearer in my mind. These few weeks have been very challenging when it comes to mental health issues and depression, the solitude stemming from a lack of romantic life I've described on this thread is just growing to be more difficult, but now I have this thing that helps me stay level-headed for until the dark clouds clear out. I know it seems overwhelming to plan those things when you have higher priorities like money, when you hate yourself or when you have a hard time feeling anything, but from experience, I can say it works, and that you are worth taking care of yourself. Very much so.

VHS—
You bring up a fantastic point. When I first went on leave of absence from work at the end of April, I was walking down to the beach and back at least a couple times a week. It's about five or six miles round trip along the less trafficy roads, so a good chunk of time to just put headphones on, zone out, and let things sort themselves for an hour or two. As I've had a harder time adjusting to the weirdness in my own mind, I've not made the effort to venture very far. It's been increasingly difficult to be away from the house for extended periods of time for some weeks now. I try not to get down on myself so much for neglecting to get out, but it's reached a point where there's a very real damned if I do/damned if I don't dynamic at work. If I go out, I work myself basically into a panic attack. If I stay home, I start getting into negative self-talk about not being able to be "normal."

On a semi-related note: there is a Starbucks across the road from the house where I go for a cup of coffee every morning. I order the same thing every day and I pay with my Starbucks card, so the employees know me. I've had this routine for well over a year, but I've never really reached a point where I feel at all comfortable chit-chatting with any of the people there beyond a casual "Good morning" and "Thank you." They have had quite a few new people working there as of late, but I am so preoccupied recently in my own mind that I haven't even taken notice of their name tags. This morning, I was told by a couple of the long time employees that one of (presumably newer?) employees fancies me, but is too shy to speak up. She handed me a piece of paper with the girl's name and phone number on it and I was so stricken with a rush of fear, anger, and just in-general guilt that I started to feel faint. I was so utterly disoriented that I left the paper on the counter and power walked out of there. Besides feeling like I can never set foot in there again, I also feel like possibly the biggest hypocrite scumbag of all time, as my own carelessness has undoubtedly now damaged another person. Literally hate myself right now.

VHS, very much agree with you. Walking about 1-2 hours a day now, and I try to walk by the seaside with some good tunes.

Austin, don't beat yourself up man. It's very hard to face the prospect of someone's interest when you're not in your most ideal mind. I met a girl at the hospital 2 months or so ago and she told me to come visit her work sometime. I went a month ago and she wasn't there and I haven't went back yet. Honestly I don't want to meet anyone, as nice as they are until I'm okay with myself. At this point, that's mostly financial or me, but I'm still not ready.

You know, I saw this thing on imgur last week:
http://i.imgur.com/gWGe4ux.png

And I kind of feel like that's the case presently with the girl that moved away. Without getting into too much detail, she and I had a lot of common ground as far as mental health went, so I felt really comfortable around her, like I didn't really have any explaining to do because we had a sort of "understanding."

Just feeling very incompetent as far as just being a person right now.

i dunno if i can help at all but i listened to your song and read a bunch of your blog and i can tell you are a worthwhile, smart and kind person, it's very obvious

totally agree with global

I think people w/ mental illness are often the biggest harm to ourselves, not others.

^ this can be surprising when others who are not diagnosed with anything seem quite mentally buggered, and we're the ones with "issues"

anyways, not to derail (classic sign of mental illness amirite) but just to say I hope for you to see yourself as we all clearly do Austin, as a good dude

i don't think people with mental illness are necessarily any kinder than people without, but with the amount of time i've spent being cruel to myself, i at least know what it feels like when i'm cruel to someone and i try to have empathy for it.

^otm

The worst part currently is that I'm not in the worst headspace, but the reality of my situation is i'm screwed. I keep applying for jobs and hearing nothing. The clock is running out, my family is choked with me, my friends think I'm on my last legs and I have no idea if I'll come out of this

I left a job that was killing me mentally/physically, but what good is it if you can't get some sort of revenge/upper hand on life....it's just fucking faiure

Apologies, I should find a better way to vent this. Not gonna give up /end

Any advice on how to keep plugging away (especially at work) when your inner voice is screaming at you to GTFO? I know that the weekend is coming, but the challenge there is to keep myself from sleeping instead of doing something.

possible short term strategy: immerse yourself in the thoughts/voice of someone you like and admire who has the attributes you want/need. a sort of faking it/imagine how easier it would be to be this cool person type thing. what has helped me most when I have felt similarly overwhelmed are things that put the situation in perspective, make me more relaxed, restore my sense of humour etc. and taking a break from my own tired thought processes and trying to get lost in someone else's can help

in my experience most employers value attendance more than performance, i'd turn up and do as much as I could manage and not beat myself up about being below par

NV OTM

I find that just meeting the minimum requirements is usually enough in those cases, or just prioritizing what needs to be done

Cross posting w/ the annoying co worker thread but my work neighbor humming "do do do" and sitting around doing nothing all day really depressed me today

if i had a co-worker who hummed police songs all day i'd be depressed too. but i guess not as depressed as if they actually sang police songs. life is hard enough without having to listen to sting's lyrics out of somebody else's mouth.

i am not bipolar and don't consider myself an fdb fan, but this (from here) is otm

This is one thing I have always had a hard time expressing, this aspect of the medications: their terrible adequacy. They literally save your life and somehow are still disappointing.

3.5 yrs of trying to claw my way back to that magical six week period of actually feeling alive, 3 different antidepressants and 4 different sleep meds later, I'm going off everything except weed. The sleep meds are completely done as of a week ago (surprise! I'm not sleeping any better but I'm not sleeping any worse). Two more weeks and I'll be finished with the antidepressants too.

I was starting to wonder if the meds were contributing to the suicidal ideation so I guess we'll see.

P.s. Ross, never apologize for anything you post ITT.

good luck just1n3!

good luck Just1n3!

Music has saved my life again and again. Playing it and listening to it, not sure what I'd do without it. If you think this is cheesy, fuck off

(haven't had the mettle to confront this thread, catching up now, just saying hi and really hope you're all okay (and tbh immensely thrilled to see particular ilxors posting in unrelated threads))

xp Music continued to give my life meaning when everything else felt like an enormous pile of shit.

Cheers snoball :)

hi Autumn Almanac, welcome

Really happy to say that job opportunities and interviews are coming up now, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

is pretty substantial substance abuse basically depression? i used to be fairly strong weed smoker and gradually drifted into alcoholism. this weekend went to a cabin with friends and accidentally got extremely uncomfortably high + learned that weed unlocks the worst part of my brain... even the residual effect was bad, all day today (day after) i was just panicking about if i am doing 'okay' or not... just way too hyper aware and analyzing everything, thought i'd excised that part of me (thanks to booze). the worst part is i was really good at playing normal and hiding it and saying 'yeah i'm good! i had a good weekend!' to coworkers. had originally planned on doing acid at the cabin, thank god i didn't do that, i dunno what shitty place i'd be in if i'd done so. got a doctor appointment in a week, finally... been too long and ready to be honest about my lifestyle. naltrexone or something seems in the cards

This is a tough one to crack, global. It's like what came first the chicken or the egg? Personally my depression/bipolar was borne out of habitual weed smoking. It's hard to say, but there is such a thing as chemically induced depression - I find these days my substance abuse accelerates sadness/rumination, but that may have been in me all along.

someone talking to me about this from a similar place helps. :)

i also think i was happier when i didn't constantly smoke weed, but not sure if constant drinking is much better

:)

totally know the feeling

i listened to fahey 'the great santa bernardino birthday party' and broke into tears multiple times throughout, i love anyone who is super acquainted with this tbh. also was terrified and scared by the whole thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRu3NyeVrt4

my man :)

I keep an eye on it but I think I'd still say my weed habit exists on top of my other problems rather than underpinning them - I don't/haven't always smoked. but it is the perfect anaesthetising compulsive behaviour and it fits so well with everything else & especially lack of sleep.

global tetrahedron I think I went through something similar, I used to smoke weed but gave it up cold turkey years back as I'm quite an anxious and at times paranoid person anyway; once I noticed these things getting worse on a daily basis I just had to quit. Which is a surprising show of self-control on my part.

I like to think I don't have a drinking problem because I don't do it every day but I rarely go a weekend without booze. My social life since I was 17 or so has always revolved around heavy drinking but these days if no-one's available to hang out I'm quite content with getting smashed on my own while listening to music, which is frowned upon but the problem is I really enjoy doing that and in some ways prefer it to socializing

Yeah that's one of my favorites too (getting smashed listening to music)

I guess most of the time people start to show the signs of their mental illness in their early or mid 20s, but there was no way for me to really know what was going on at that time, as I was a pretty consistent drinker from 23 onward. It didn't get really bad until about 26 or 27, when I started drinking every day. From about a year before I got divorced until about two years after, I was a very heavy and dependent alcoholic. I was either borderline or just straight up blackout drunk five to six times per week. I was living alone in a cheap apartment that was right down the street from where I worked, so I was able to keep functioning somehow. I didn't have a car, so I was able to stay out of trouble in that respect. Eventually, I think I just got to a point where I wasn't experiencing any of the redeeming aspects about it anymore. And, of course that just destroys your immune system, so I was constantly sick. When I did quit, it was cold turkey. Of course, being the self-saboteur that I am, I started smoking marijuana very heavily. Like, getting into bed and loading a bowl and leaving it on the bedside table so I could quite literally wake and bake. In retrospect, this did two things: it facilitated my ability to get through alcohol withdrawals pretty much without any sort of physical stress whatsoever and it almost certainly exacerbated my psychosis (which, itself, had gone unnoticed, due to the amount of alcohol running through my blood all those years). At first, I just chalked all the paranoia and auditory (and sometimes visual) hallucinations up to the marijuana and just tried to put on a record, pick up my guitar or laugh it off. When the same sort of stuff started happening when I knew for certain I wasn't high, that's when it started to get bad and I really started to freak out. Now, at this point, I probably could have just continued living my life as a reclusive stoner and managed to cope with things by myself. But, it reached a point where I was feeling like I needed to have a bit of a high to even go out and act normal and interact with society. This was a problem, as I worked in a primary school at the time and there would have been serious repercussions if it was discovered I was coming to work high every day (and the paranoia about possibly being "caught" was something I had a very hard time dealing with). So it went that I finally decided to go see a psychiatrist and got on medications. I've been hard sober for coming up on two years now (and I had about six or seven months previous to a "slip up"). I don't miss drinking at all. Like I said, I think its effects just stop being appealing to me, especially after I smoked marijuana on a regular basis. I always liked the actual physical feeling of getting and being drunk, but the hangovers had started to get worse and worse, to the point where it wasn't really worth it anymore. Smoking marijuana was like this really big shift in thought for me, in that regard. I always drank knowing that I was going to be feeling it the next day. But, with marijuana, it was just like, smoke smoke smoke and never feel physically bad. I sometimes miss having a bit of a high when listening to or playing music, because it really facilitated in depth listening and different approaches to playing guitar that just don't occur to me otherwise. But, I don't know. It definitely had just as many cons as it did pros. I can't rightly say at this point if it was a good or a bad thing for me. And I definitely can't say whether I would be able to handle it again in the future.

I smoke, drink and do coke from time to time - vicious whirlwind

I think there's a real difficulty if you're a substance user - including heavy alcohol use - and experiencing mental health problems. It might be impossible to determine what's causal and what's palliative, but as long as you're getting out of it regularly I just think you can't be sure that you're not, at least, exacerbating the problem. Just my personal feeling

^ I have friends who drink daily and would not claim to have any mental health issues, despite what I may feel personally. Do you think one has to be diagnosed before saying the substance abuse is making things worse?

I'm not even sure that a diagnosis is enough - to me, with mental health or substance use issues you have to personally believe you've got a problem before you can even try to work on it. Not that I'm saying that's enough in itself: god knows I know it isn't. But I feel like unless you feel your behaviour is self-harming, it's easy enough to ignore other people telling you, even professionals

And my experience is it's pretty easy to kid yourself that self-defeating behaviour is a necessary part of who you are, maybe even a beneficial thing

yeah you're OTM NV