Depression and what it's really like

Yeah, really good work NV, referring yourself and trying to take it head on. Desiring change, 'wanting' to work on it, is absolutely key imo. Hugs.

best wishes NV, hope the referral brings you what you need (and not too long a waiting list)

in the realm of hungry ghosts is a decent enough read although one big caveat - there is a section when he talks about his addiction to buying classical music (from sikora's, a very well-stocked store which is a couple of blocks from where i am right now) which i can't help but find quite hilarious (obviously all addictive behaviours have common sources but i just find it a bit of a stretch)

obv the 2017 version is "compulsively buying digital releases on boomkat"

that's actually kind of interesting to know and makes me more inclined to seek out the book

obviously my inability to walk past a charity shop without buying a couple of £2 paperbacks I will probably never read (I have many others which I've bought over the years and mostly never read yet) isn't really an addiction in any meaningful intervention-requiring sense, but I def have a bundle of bad addictive/compulsive/impulsive habits that are probably all tied together

(so yes, seeking out the book doesn't mean I'll read it, obv, but maybe I should)

Love ya nv

I just got a promotion today, and got hit up by three internal recruiters for legit jobs. Oh man. Looks like the darkness is ending. Have to keep remembering I only ended up in the abyss because my piece of shit family tried murdering me again -- last time I'm going to let that happen!

<3 nv

i don't know how things are going with my therapist. i think she thinks i'm psychotic since i mentioned i was on atypical antipsychotics for a while. i've never been in a position to dump a therapist before, and don't know how long to give her before doing it.

good luck rushomancy <3

and NV

Yeesh, I hope it wasn't me talking about my whack ass life that helped make you paranoid ... I keep forgetting that what's normal to me isn't normal to other people. I'm probably going to keep this shit to myself from now on, now that I've finally figured it all out.

Your therapist should take your case as a whole, not just what medicine you were on since they're prescribed for a million off-label reasons.

There's an inherent power imbalance in mental health that I think is pretty dangerous, too...

obviously my inability to walk past a charity shop without buying a couple of £2 paperbacks I will probably never read (I have many others which I've bought over the years and mostly never read yet) isn't really an addiction in any meaningful intervention-requiring sense, but I def have a bundle of bad addictive/compulsive/impulsive habits that are probably all tied together

this ties to one of the more interesting things I spoke to my therapist about before I dumped him; his day job was working with addicts and it was his main interest, and he was talking about the difficulty of defining addiction and how much compulsive behaviour basically everyone exhibits which shares a lot of the same features as addicts but never really gets discussed or thought about in those terms unless it's deened unhealthy or w/e. i've definitely been pretty cynical about the things a lot of nominally healthy & fine ppl i know fill their lives with; exercise, religion, raising kids, working on yr career etc. fill an escapist function for lots of ppl, it's all that fearful running away from death and meaninglessness, and they all seem too hollow to invest a sense of self worth in

I feel much the same about that, but of course it depends on my mood.

thanks for kind thoughts everybody, have a kinda satisfying sense of trying to stay wise to my own brain's shenanigans, today at least

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghhh Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

you alright James?

Arrrgh just am coming of one antidepressant, was given a second to reduce the withdrawl effects, and then transitioned onto a 3rd, am having constant nausea, shivering, pain, plus sudden attacks of despair. Want to just shrink away to nothing.

It sounds as if your doctors are determined to fix you up, even if it kills you. I wish to god I had something to say that could help, but the best I can do is to urge you to hang in there and tell your fucking doctors to stop torturing you.

i obviously don't know what's going on, but i enjoy your posts (and blog) and am envious/pissed at the fact that you've read damn near everything. anyway, best wishes

hugs James.

much appreciated, all! thank you.

Mookieproof, if it's any consolation I have a swathe of really interesting looking books I want to read but they are also too depressing-sounding to cope with at the moment

Sending you best nv. Your mention of drinking only in company is making me re-evaluate my compulsion to do the opposite. You're having a positive effect on me so don't doubt yourself. And you're a great poster. Hang in there.

much love to everyone here. Just acknowledging and attempting to figure out the next step is an achievement and you guys should always remember it, clear in your head

I just wish I'd just stick with my original, not great medication. Would do pretty much anything to go back in time and beg myself not to have started down this path.

Never realised how awful it was to slowly experience every single one of the 60 minutes in every single fucking hour, with no joy to be had from any thing that I used to enjoy.

med swapping is hell, but your original medication would have probably quit working eventually. hang in there. try not to blame yourself for the hell you're going through.

Best wishes, James.

Really the best of luck, James. I had a dreadful dreadful time when I first when on my anti-depressants - the first time I've been on them. I felt mentally very sick indeed for something like a week, and it was bloody scary and confusing. The only thing that kept me going was not wanting to go back to how I was before. Take care.

Thank you

best wishes James

Am going back on old, original antidepressant. It wasn't great, but so much better than this. Just hope it doesn't take weeks to kick back in.

May your efforts be blessed with success.

Sending good vibes to James, and everybody itt

^^

J M is a great poster and every time i see him update this thread i hope it is with good news. hang in there man. i don't know why bad things happen to good people, but please just keep trying.

whenever i get suicidal these days it's because i'm just so tired of being human. does anybody really like this shit? i mean for real?

not suicidal but more passively wondering that all the time. what is this for? i'm tired.

same. sometimes i try to list the things that keep me from doing it, in the midst of otherwise normal thoughts. i need to change the oil. it's past the mile marker and the light keeps going off. synthetic oil. not today. next week. i can't leave my partner alone. i need to buy an iphone holder for my car for navigation purposes. also i need to buy a cd for this cd player. i need to at least make an effort to get better. exhaust all the other options first. i am a roughly average driver. i am not as good at i driving as i once thought i was.
when i used to think about it it would be in the midst of a terrible period of time, kind of the low point, and it would be intense. now it's something that just comes up in the middle of other things, more mild and passing, not dayrupturing like it used to be. maybe this is improvement?

It sort of seems like an improvement? But this whole thing is so exhausting. And boring to experience. It must be the most boring disease to suffer.

I hope that made sense. Not very. Articulate Atm

What I've learned is life is a ridiculous joke... laugh or die are the only options here, cuz there's no better alternative.

I choose laugh, because non-existence is waiting for me no matter what sooner or later.

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you...

Eh, I think we make too much of ourselves and our lives. It's just a bunch of myths and illusions, and many of them aren't even for our own good or benefit.

The pain of seeing real life versus the illusions, so much of that is the world taking advantage of us... a world that could care less about our pain in realizing the truth isn't anything like the fantasy.

i tried wellbutrin one day, in addition to the zoloft i'm taking (which is working ok, still lots of yawning but w/e). it was ... not good. near full-on meltdown in the supermarket. i feel lucky i'm mostly functional these days. but echoing the passive thoughts of suicide... i would never do it, but i mean it makes sense all things considered.

For what I suspect are multiple reasons, some of them obvious (finally finding anti-depressants that happened to work for me); others less obvious (paying lots of attention to my body and its desire for movement; making myself more available and open to my kids), others a mystery even to me, this past year has been the least depressive in my life that I can ever remember. I find myself in disbelief about it. I've grown so used to terror, dread, and self-hatred, that not to have these encroaching on my every thought is disorienting. I also know that I'm really always just a step sideways from the edge of the abyss. I don't expect this to last, so I try to savor the fresh air (that's what it feels like) while it does.

I feel guilty even to be posting this, because so many others itt are in the thick of it, and each of your posts breaks my heart a little.

Much love to all. Srsly.

It sort of seems like an improvement? But this whole thing is so exhausting. And boring to experience. It must be the most boring disease to suffer.

― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison)

otm. mental illness is one of the most boring things i can imagine. even beyond being insufferably whiny it's why i tend not to talk about it. "today i didn't get out of bed. the end." i spent five years doing nothing but watching reruns of '90s cop shows. they weren't even the worst years of my life - they were pretty good cop shows.

collardio, my philosophy is to never feel guilty about not being miserable (feel guilty enough about it and you can probably get to miserable pdq). people should enjoy whatever they have while they have it.

the catch-22 I've never been able to figure out is that I don't particularly care if I'm happy, which is certainly a sign that something is wrong, but I can't will myself to fix it, 'cause...I can't will myself to care.

in the realm of hungry ghosts is a decent enough read although one big caveat - there is a section when he talks about his addiction to buying classical music (from sikora's, a very well-stocked store which is a couple of blocks from where i am right now) which i can't help but find quite hilarious (obviously all addictive behaviours have common sources but i just find it a bit of a stretch)

― -_- (jim in vancouver)

^ Madame Bovary in a nutshell

And yes, moi aussi.

when he gets to the parts where he starts talking about his classical music addiction i started reading it looking for recommendations.

i understand he's trying to make it relatable, "we're not so different" etc etc, but the analogy doesn't quite fit. everybody has their own addictions and vices (if it wasn't for the ease and ubiquity of streaming i'd be in big trouble), but i don't know anybody who has a cocaine collection.