Depression and what it's really like

i'm sure the SAD is not helping right now either, it is bleak out there

Thanks. Hesitant to go into too much detail, but basically I know my brain is feeding me these false narratives but I can't shake the part that wants to believe them.

it's ok, no need to go into detail.

narratives. i think of everything from the story of my life and what i've been telling myself (lying, exaggerating, discouraging, self-deprecating during most of my life, trying to believe that the future, or at least my future, really will be better, currently). i also think about those countless day-to-day moments -- i'm going into the store, the way i walk around, the way i get in other people's way, the narrative of a person with a shopping cart full of nothing but 2 pizzas, coffee, and toilet paper, or what the Schnucks "scan your own shit so we can fire more of our workers" supervisor thinks of me when they check my ID for booze for the 5th time in a week, when i'm not doing well.

i think, from speaking to a therapist for a few years, that some people (including myself, maybe you) spend a lot of their time thinking in grand narratives like the former, or feeling excruciatingly nervous and anxious about some of the day-to-day ones. and then, i think some people don't have narratives at all. i don't know if that's better or worse, but i would love to step into the narrative-free zone for several weeks and just forget all context

Yeah, the narrative thing is a long struggle for me and most times, since I've started therapy, I've been able to recognize this and find ways to counteract and redirect the thoughts. But, at times like now, I am struggling on multiple levels and I feel like I've lost the ability to push back on them. Something that I know should amount to a minor annoyance instead gnaws at me and I turn into an example of why I'm a failure or why I'm just a disappointment to everyone else. And during rough times, these examples pile up and the narrative drives.

It's just frustrating that I know this is what is happening, but I can't seem to slow it down. If any of this makes sense.

it makes a lot of sense. i by no means think i'm "out of it", (i will always have to manage my depression) but a couple things you said there are things i spent pretty much 4 years of therapy saying, over and over:

"I've been able to recognize this and find ways to counteract and redirect the thoughts."
and
"It's just frustrating that I know this is what is happening, but I can't seem to slow it down"

those two things together, are incredibly frustrating. you (we) can do it, sometimes, and you have an idea of what you're supposed to do, you just...can't. for months or years. i'm glad they were getting paid to listen to me, because it must have been tedious for my therapist to hear me say "ugh, i know i should just get off the couch and turn off my computer and go for a walk or do some exercise, and i just can't do it! the whole day passes and then it's too late", or something like that.

i don't know. sorry, i know i'm not helping. it's great you already have a therapist and someone to talk to about that kind of stuff. that feels like the most important thing. then, the tedious process (for the therapist and you) of trying to do the thing that you think you're supposed to do, whether that's a mental check on self-narration or forcing yourself to get outside even though it's cold as hell, forgiving yourself for all the times that you don't, and just keep going.

No, it is helpful to bounce this off someone, actually. I think the work week makes it harder, especially now that I'm back in the office full time, so the things I know that might help distract me or help me refocus have to wait until... well, sometime, I guess.

:) thanks, i'm glad i'm not making it worse, at least.

if you're feeling this way and holding down a regular job, you're already a champion in my book. the world is too much right now, and everyone else is going through it as well

No, trust me, it helps to be reminded I'm not the only one struggling with this stuff.

Something that I know should amount to a minor annoyance instead gnaws at me and I turn into an example of why I'm a failure or why I'm just a disappointment to everyone else

this is a really horrible cycle, and I am super familiar with it. Recently, I was totally mired in a form of this, "I am totally the wrong person to be doing this work, and I am annoying everyone I work with, and they would prefer someone other than me to be working with them, but they're just being nice about it and not telling me this to my face." ... but the thing is, I am the person they are working with. I am what they have/have chosen. ... and honestly, I think many of them are also having similar feelings, like they are the wrong person, or that they are annoying me. It sounds corny af but, you've just gotta try to be the best "you" you can be, and that's all anyone can do.

xp

i think most people are struggling, or at least a lot more than they let on in day-to-day life. but also, a lot of people are in positions where they feel they should not appear vulnerable or personal (at an office job, or at least some offices, for example), or they just cannot let themselves get down because too many different people are depending on them (all people with children, or taking care of others). if i had anyone depending on me, (maybe) i wouldn't be able to let myself fall into 3-5 day crashes of total defeat, maybe that total defeat would take place entirely within my head, perhaps as i sat through another completely bullshit meeting where some idiot talks for 2 hours about something that should have been covered in 5 minutes. is it better to let that play out over days instead, at home? or is it better to say "it is what it is", set your face so that you appear normal, and then later get to the car and scream by yourself? i honestly don't know

some idiot talks for 2 hours about something that should have been covered in 5 minutes.

the idiot might also be struggling, and taking 2 hours to talk because he feels he needs to cover up his inadequacy by going on at such great length

haha, this is true!

and perhaps the manager in the room won't cut them off because they're struggling with some feedback they recently received that they interrupt people too frequently

hell is other people is how i break it down to an extent. we are all frankies

and honestly, I think many of them are also having similar feelings, like they are the wrong person, or that they are annoying me. It sounds corny af but, you've just gotta try to be the best "you" you can be, and that's all anyone can do.

this really is a good point

i think this was something ilxor bamcquern said to me or someone else many year back ... just giving credit where it's due

I wonder if, for me, a lot of these feelings are exacerbated (or just mirrored) by having been immersed in art and stories since childhood.
You become used to an author or songwriter crafting critical portraits of characters with tiny telling details -- "See how this person's whole life is built on hypocrisy and lies through this seemingly irrelevant trifle!" But in real life, I'm the character and the trifle is seeing a missing cat poster or a coupon expiring. And of course, the silly unimportance of the event and my disproportionate emotional reaction makes me feel even more absurd, more laughable, in the imagined eyes of some superego who somehow is qualified to judge every human action.

For me it's also about internalizing the choices and behavior of someone else, instead of recognizing it for what it most likely really is. Like, that guy that was a complete dick about things in a meeting on Friday was most likely just having a bad day, or caught up in his own internal battles, and I should just write it off as such. Instead, I spend an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing myself and trying to figure out what I might have done wrong to "deserve" his attitude. And, when I realize I did everything I needed to do and was 100% prepared and on top of things, rather than letting go, I still dig at myself and start imagining it's some larger failure of my own that I can't somehow grasp.

i wrote (and deleted before posting) something earlier that touches on both of the last two posts, but i realize that absolutely no one wants to hear about my lack of a relationship with god, jesus, or a deity, and that no one cares how fucked up white evangelicals are and what they do to children's minds. but since i'm in a depression thread, FUCK IT -

halfway - that 100% resonates with me because until i renounced god, i believed god was watching me and that others might be watching me. of course i was a character with a narrative, i grew up being told that i was smart and would be able to accomplish whatever i wanted and that god was watching me and guiding me. i realize that doesn't connect with many other people's experiences, at all. but i have to believe that there is something to that, christian god but long before that of course, the idea that heavenly bodies or figures are watching, that someone at all is watching.

jon - the post i was writing before was more related to the thought of what comes after that, what comes after the realization that no god is watching. the realization is, pretty much no one else is watching or paying attention to you, either. that person who was a complete dick on Friday? they didn't think about you all afterward, probably, and even if they did, they probably thought of what you did and got it COMPLETELY wrong because they would have warped whatever happened into their own sense of personal narrative. that would suck, but it's comforting that it's so much more likely that they didn't think of you at all, afterward. in some ways it's horrifying that no one is paying attention, in other ways that can be freeing

of course, i say this while constantly worrying what everyone thinks of me and trying and failing not to piss anyone off. "i know what i should do, i just can't do it!" full circle.

"but i'm trying my best", full circle.

these cycles of self-hatred will always be there. the only thing that matters is that you keep going and keep trying your best, and forgive yourself for all the times you will inevitably fuck up

yeah! like Karl's christian god is the same superego /omniscient narrator / imaginary audience that judges us and finds us lacking or ridiculous or pathetic

I am more and more convinced that my self-hate voice is my dad

No blame really but there he is, reminding me I'm not good enough

Xps to Jon:
I’m not sure if what you’re dealing with quite fits but I’d suggest loooking into rejection-sensitivite dysphoria

xp - mine is this sociopathic dude i dated in college

I am more and more convinced that my self-hate voice is my dad

No blame really but there he is, reminding me I'm not good enough

i have this bias, brain habit, presumption or whatever (another spicy artifact of my childhood, wahey!) where whenever i see a powerful entity behaving abominably with no negative consequences (to itself at least), it reaffirms this sense of a fundamental cosmic injustice that is wrong but unfixable, and it makes me feel bad. and i keep seeing it everywhere, and it keeps making me feel bad. but not like michael jackson bad, where i’m cool and a great dancer, just the kind of bad where i want to go curl up in a ball in the closet for a thousand years.

p.s. the futility and meaninglessness of every action i take is kind of making me loathe everything i have to do, in a sideshow bob v. rakes stylee

hell is other people and hell is also me, it’s hells all the way down

this has been the cat report. sorry it’s shit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(p.p.s. my dn is just an hilarious quote from a jerk on a trapper forum who was trying to express his disdain for coyotes but who, through the serendipity of autocorrect, inadvertently revealed his own desire for self-annihilation)

everyone has to try so hard to just be, thoughts with all of you

whenever i see a powerful entity behaving abominably with no negative consequences

haha, cat, as soon as i read this i knew it was going to be bad news. the whole evil actors with no accountability energy thing is very strong right now. i will say this, though, cat - you always keep a good sense of humor, or at least, you seem to. laugh to keep from crying, maybe, i know. but i think it's a good thing, something that comes in handy. that has been the zach response to the cat report

Hugs and love to everyone. It’s been a long, hard stretch.

Thanks all, it is appreciated. Sorry Karl, I read all your posts and thank you for sharing them, it helped.

oh, no worries at all, don't feel like you need to respond. glad it helped a little, though :)

the whole evil actors with no accountability energy thing is very strong right now

Tell me a fuckin bout it

What feels different about my current despair level is it used to be possible to “look over there” (especially at something outside my brain and personal zone of control) at something good or moving in a trajectory that is not abysmal or that seems infused with possibility… but now there is nothing like that. Everywhere I look inside and outside myself is precipitous decline, darkness and rampant monsters. The absence of any “look over there” factors is terrifying to me.

a dear friend of mine used to say, you’d have to be crazy to live in this world and not go crazy

i wish i knew how to help you, and everyone else in this thread. and also just everyone. fuck depression. i hope you find something wonderful to take your mind off things, Jon 💛

& thank you zach for your kindness. ur tape is still awesome 🐎🐎🐎🐎

It's been a really hard month for so many reasons, but perhaps one of the hardest ones is the slow dawning of the realization of the people who truly, unconditionally care about you is much, much, much smaller than you might think. People truly do not give a fuck.

Sorry to hear you're feeling that way.. January has been a tough month for me as well

i'm sorry to hear it, jon. does it have to do with family, friends?

i think one difficult part about being really depressed and down is the feeling of turning invisible. it might feel like your pain is the most obvious thing in the world and that other people are ignoring it -- it's especially hard when you suspect or know that they are just ignoring it. the word "boundaries" comes up more often than it used to, and sometimes it feels like other people have decided that for their own self-care and wellbeing, they've drawn a boundary and now you're outside of it. (i think boundaries are good and necessary, too. i see why people need to do it, and sometimes i think they're useful for a depressed person, too. not trying to be a boundary hater, just saying that when you feel yourself newly placed on the other side of one, especially when it seems unfair for whatever reason, it's an awful feeling)

anyway, things are always complicated, and you mentioned that there are so many reasons it's been a hard month. but try to be as good to yourself as you can, as patient and forgiving to yourself as you are to other people. hang in there.

xp

was typing that while you posted, Andy. and sorry to hear about your shitty January as well.

I'm sorry to hear that, hopefully things get better for you.

It's just been really hard to go through a really trying time and not have any of the people I thought were friends, who all have been aware of what's been happening, reach out to me at all. Not one single person has checked in with me. The final straw was seeing a notification pop up for a text from a friend this morning, only to open it and find that they were asking me to run some errands for them due to a conflict, without one mention of what's been going on for me.

I guess in one respect it's nice to know these things now, before I ever need real support. I only exist as far as I'm able to make their lives easier, beyond that I'm fucking valueless.

uuuuugh, that's the worst. them not checking in with you until they realize they need something from you. i'm sorry. in those situations it can be really hard to avoid being passive-aggressive. it's like, you want them to realize in some way that that you're still going through the fucking things and you still could really use their support!

Yeah, pretty much exactly that.

Except even during the ask, not even a simple "how are you?" was included. It was just the ask.

yeah. a few minutes ago i started typing something that turned into a long ass story, which...who cares about my story. but i'll just say that, in a very similar situation, it sucked to get a text which jumped straight to asking me to check his mail, implying that if i didn't do it his life would be simply unbearable

sometimes i'm amazed at close friends who haven't asked "how are you?" in like...10 years or something

anyway, it sucks. sucks to feel really alone, and then sucks to feel like the only way out is to reach out to people, and the people you have to reach out to are the ones who kind of let you down big time.

it's not easy to do, and it's something i really, really struggle with, but one thing that does help is to make new friends. you don't have to do a big fuck you to the existing ones, but it's nice to just meet someone new and get to know them, whether that's like a board game meetup or a softball team or, in my case, taking a painting workshop. it's nice to get a fresh start with someone, in many ways. with the few people i've met recently, i like the feeling of getting to try to be a _good friend_ to them, from the very beginning.

yeah, that seems solid advice, I just wish it were that easy. unfortunately, one of the things to come out of this challenging month is that the idea of free time to try any of those things is pretty much off the table for the foreseeable future.

i hear that. and yeah, making new friends on purpose is one of the most difficult things in the world, even if you have all the time in the world.

hope you can keep pushing through things, and that whatever is eating up all the time is something that can be managed. don't feel shy about reaching out here, just to vent.

I think a lot of the early 90's 'men's movement' (Iron John, Fire in the Belly, Bill Moyers, etc.) was kinda cheesy but there was something about it that addressed a perennial problem.. that men have a really hard time connecting with each other over problems and feelings. I feel blessed to have a pretty solid circle of buddies but most of talk is alcohol-based and forgotten the next morning

Yeah, that's true, it gets even harder as you get older.

you hear from people who are dealing with grief that they sense people are scared to broach the subject of their grief because it is uncomfortable or feels like it can be re-traumatizing when in reality the opposite is usually true... the absence of conversation about the grief is what feels alienating and traumatic. how could we *not* talk about my grief? it's all i'm thinking about. i think there is a similar dynamic at play when it comes to acknowledging someone else's depression and asking how it's all going, though in a sense it cuts even deeper than in the grief scenario because we're more likely to be talking about close friends who have intimate understandings of our personal lives as opposed to acquaintances or casual friends who may have heard secondhand of a life altering tragedy, death etc

i think for me i've found a certain comfort in understanding how few people really care about me at that level, and, if i'm being honest, how the same is true for me in the other direction. i know the 3 or so people who i feel like i can really rely on, or who have checked in on me in the past when i've really been going through it, or who i do the same to now. there is a power in that clarity to me. but conversely if one feels like the number of people who fit that bill are zero or one, i understand how it can really sting and leave you feeling helpless, or make you feel like you are burdening one person who must be tired of hearing about your shit.

circling back to the initial point about grief and what not, sometimes people actually need to be told, "hey the absence of conversation between us about how i'm doing mentally right now is bothering me. i need you as an outlet, i need you to check on me and ask me how i'm doing. it's not uncomfortable for me, in fact it's crucial that i'm able to talk about this stuff with people who are very close to me, and you're one of those people." maybe that person can't hold up their end of the bargain when explicitly asked to -- which in its own way is also clarifying if sad -- but it's entirely possible if not likely that the other person has never been in the position of needing someone in that way, and as such doesn't really understand the emotional importance of that level of friendship. maybe i'm projecting here but i think when left to their own devices, most ppl will come up with reasons -- often contorted -- to avoid saying something to someone that could make them feel uncomfortable, even when the absence of that thing brings in a new, different kind of discomfort.