Depression and what it's really like

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.

That's a good post J0rdan, I think you are pretty right on about that, ime.

I don't think I could ever be the type of person to be that blunt wrt specifically asking others for help when I need it, somehow I just don't think of myself as "deserving" support (which I know is silly when I type it out, but it's a long running theme in my own therapy). On top of everything, I feel so guilty and am doing a healthy amount of beating myself up for even focusing on my own needs right now but, at the same time, I know when I need help and I don't want to further burden the others in immediate family who are dealing with their own grief. I don't expect it to be a kind of magic bullet to solve grief or anything, but it seems that a chance to talk through my fears, sadness and uncertainty with someone that I'm close with, but a little more removed from the direct impacts, might be a good outlet.

idk, I'm rambling, but essentially I feel like I'm drowning and I know I need to take care of myself and my own mental health in order to be the support others in my life need (especially now), and I had hoped I could lean on a few friends to help fill in the long hours and days between therapy sessions, but it's been really disheartening to realize that I might not have those circles of support to rely on when I need them more than I have in a long time.

i am going to pop in here to share some thoughts -- feel free to ignore me --
i have been going through a severe and v stressful family crisis w my parents and am only child. this experience would be extraordinarily challenging for anyone, but extra challenging because the only person going through it is me (my parents' experiene is separate from my own). i will spare you the details of the situation because they don't matter to my point and are distracting in their severity.

My point is that some of the people who i thought would be there for me (to keep in touch, to make time to talk with me instead of texting, basically consider being my supportive friend a priority at all) have not chosen to make that a priority. I don't think they have stopped caring about me; I do think that they have not prioritized our friendship. At first, when I kept expecting and hoping they would show up somehow, I was miserable and very very very sad.

Since then (along with lots of therapy for all of my situations) I have recognized that there are people who will make time for me, who do prioritize spending time with me and listening to me -- it's just not who I expected it to be. I thank those people profusely and reciprocate as well as I can because I have always valued friendship very highly (esp as only child).

Which is to say: despairing about who isn't there for you isn't going to make them there for you. If you can, you should tell them clearly "I need u rn pls" -- and if not, you need to look elsewhere. I can't tell you who or where, but lamenting a lack or an absence isn't going to help IME. You can vent about it but that can only go so far.

This is it -- thanks for allowing me to interject. This has been a v rough time and I am working on it (it = emotional regulation, staving off wigouts, remaining as calm and nonreactive as possible, and -- yes -- distancing myself from people and situations that I find draining or untenable/asserting boundaries.

Since then, I have learned to recognize who DOES make time for me, however sporadically, and I am extraordinarily grateful.

That's a really good post and well worth reading, and solid advice for sure. I think it's that tricky "look elsewhere" part that feels much easier said than done.

Being a little flip here, to try and force some humor, but it feels a little, "hey new person, I'm going through a really rough time right now and it would be great for you to jump on board while I'm at my less than best! sounds great, right?".

that's absurd and you know it -- but if you can't reach out to the people who you think are leaving you behind, you need to find your own path forward. no one can do that for you.

it's not easily said either -- you have no idea how much effort i have put into reaching out and allowing people get to know me, learning how to open up and ask for help.

if you keep shooting down the truth because it's difficult to achieve that doesn't make it less true!

I think this is part of why people still go to AA meeting years or even decades after their last drink... just to have someone to talk to, and to listen in return

great posts, LL and J0rdan.

on the point of telling people, directly, that you need them, i recently carried out an accidental natural experiment. i told two of my closest friends. one of them responded really well and our relationship is stronger now, we spend more time together, and he's also kind of opened up a bit with me and given me some chances to be a good friend and to be there for him. the other friend was much more distant. i realized during our conversation that i was still expecting him to be the friend that he was in high school, when we spent hours chatting on AIM almost every night. as j0rdan said, it was "clarifying if sad" to realize that he no longer wanted that kind of relationship with me. i'm still hanging around in the hopes that he'll be my friend again (i'm useful to him as a person who picks up his mail), but it's clarifying to know that things have changed and to stop expecting him to be there.

at the same time, jon you mentioned that you don't think you could be blunt about asking for help, and that seems really common, probably the norm, for most people. it's one thing to ask directly for help to someone who you've been open with in that way before; it's a different thing when that's not the kind of thing that ever comes up, or that it makes either you or them uncomfortable.

whoops multiple xps

Since then (along with lots of therapy for all of my situations) I have recognized that there are people who will make time for me, who do prioritize spending time with me and listening to me -- it's just not who I expected it to be.

i think this is really well said and important. if you had asked me at the beginning of my most depressive period who over the next 6-12 months would really be there for me, and then asked me to make a list at the end of that period of who actually *was* there for me, the lists would've had some overlap but would not have been exactly the same. and also not everyone who was there for me at that time is still my friend in that way or even at all... life can still get in the way. (i was single at the time so some of these friendships were something more complicated yada yada). but i found the experience of connecting w/ whoever reached out their hand to be eye opening and somehow freeing

When I've had depressive episodes, I've avoided discussing it with friends. I liked to keep those parts of my life separated. It's possible that my problems weren't so severe that I needed to discuss them, and on some level I realized my feelings didn't have any concrete existence that would be alleviated by conversation?

xp to J0rdan --
yeah i agree -- there was a little overlap between who i expected to show and who actually has but not much. i can't be upset with people for choosing to focus their lives on other things; not only does being upset at them not make them change their minds, it means I spend my time feeling upset. And that is not what I am after tbh. I don't think they have decided not to like me. But if I need people to keep me company or go for walks with me, I have been going with the people who say "sure, let's go next week" instead of the people I have to negotiate extensively to get a phone call with.

this is otm i found the experience of connecting w/ whoever reached out their hand to be eye opening and somehow freeing

xpost to LL, like I said I was being intentionally flip with that comment, I know that wasn't what you were saying but rather relaying what that sort of ask would feel like for me to make.

Lots of good comments here to keep in mind, I appreciate it. What's hard for me is that isn't a case of me waiting for the "right" person to reach out or shying away from people who I don't think will "get" what I'm going through, it's that no one is reaching out. The posts in response itt are the grand sum total of reaching out I've experienced. Which isn't to minimize or diminish any of you who have taken the time to post, I sincerely appreciate it.

To the point of reaching out myself, I did take a step with that yesterday - I texted a friend (who is married to a friend of my wife, whom I know has been thoroughly updated on everything that has been going on) who I've spent a lot of time with, gone to shows with, etc. with "hey, how are you doing? it's been a really rough month, hoping for things to lighten up soon, it's been hard and i hope we can hang out soon" and that has sat on read since yesterday afternoon. To the points made upthread, he may just genuinely not know how to respond or think of what to say, it's a possibility. At the same time, it's kind of shitty feeling to still see no response and doesn't exactly dismiss my (perhaps irrational) thoughts about how maybe I don't "deserve" support.

that's a good start - did you offer any options for hanging out? (would you have time for _____ next week?") _____ could be anything -- a walk a beer anything. it's always easier to open up when you're hanging/talking synchronously. i strongly dislike texting about my problems precisely bc of the asynchronous nature of it.

i would also recommend reading about this -- there are a lot of new books about adult friendships and why they are hard to maintain. most are written by women but i bet they have some good suggestions.

I did not, just mostly because the overlapping family crises have kind of put us in a position where it's really difficult to know our schedule for the next few weeks or months.

that's why you have to ask!!

this is the one i was trying to think of https://weshouldgettogether.com/books

"read a book" may sound pat -- i never thought i would be one of those people who read self-help or psychology books but it has been really useful to read about my now-identified various issues, esp in moments of extreme isolation, to read about other people's experiences and not feel so alone. i'm recommending that in all honesty.

i think that's probably all i have to say about this. i will go back to my regular programming and i wish you all the best.

i can't be upset with people for choosing to focus their lives on other things; not only does being upset at them not make them change their minds, it means I spend my time feeling upset. And that is not what I am after tbh. I don't think they have decided not to like me. But if I need people to keep me company or go for walks with me, I have been going with the people who say "sure, let's go next week" instead of the people I have to negotiate extensively to get a phone call with.

otm! Have I recently told you, LL, how much I value your otm-ness? I forget exactly what the context was ... but I just remember in the past week, thinking about some personal issue, and thinking, LL said something on ilx that was related to this a few years back and it was very otm and I should keep that in mind right now.

If one were to read all the way through this thread, one would know that I have regularly gone through really dark periods and have felt super isolated and rejected, etc. And the thing I would add to what LL said, is that the people will not necessarily be the same ones each time you need support. There were people who were there for me in 2009 who weren't there for me in 2011 and vice versa, and then there was the total collapse in 2018, and the dark times last summer ... it's ... a chronic illness.

Feeling pretty bleak lately, tbh. It's been a really rough year. Regarding my posts from January, I'd been really proud of myself for pushing through my discomfort and the inner voice telling me not to bother and tried reaching out to some folks and being v v diligent about trying to make plans and following up with people. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts and due to a conflation of events and bad timing, nothing much has really panned out. Add in work stress multiplying dramatically due to some personnel changes and the family crises mentioned earlier still manifesting in our lives in frustrating ways, I feel more underwater than ever.

Idk, I know this is probably the stupidest place for me to vent about this, but... whatever. Ultimately I just feel like each successive week is harder, busier and more emotionally taxing than the previous with no easing up in sight and I just don't know how long I can keep moving forward. I mean, obviously I am moving forward, but it feels many days like it's pure survival mode without any joy or enjoyment.

it is not the stupidest place by any means ... US Pol threads, album polls, the Barbie movie thread, post a controversial music opinion ... those would be stupid places.

it feels many days like it's pure survival mode without any joy or enjoyment.

yeah :( I know that feeling, or rather, I have recently been there. For me it's usually just a few months at a time, but I was recently talking to a friend (who is one of those people who rarely has time for me) and he was saying how he has felt that way for years.

Do you get weekends off? Or any kind of chunk of time that is "for you" and isn't either occupied with work or stressful family obligations?

Your last questions there kind of get to the heart of why this has been so difficult, in short - no. Since effectively early March, the weekends that aren't spent at my son's baseball games and tournaments are spent driving six hours each way to go deal with a deceased family member's estate. Those weekends have been to leave immediately after work on Friday and get back (if we're lucky) before midnight on Sunday night.

To be clear, I do really get enjoyment from watching my son play baseball, I don't think of that as a chore or a drain. But most weekends he has two (sometimes three) games a weekend and the accompanying travel, coordination and getting there early for practices and warm-ups really cuts down on being able to schedule anything else those weekends.

So, yeah, absolutely a big part of how I'm feeling is the nonstop go-go-go nature of things right now. Things will lighten up a little bit when baseball ends, but his third(!) season of the year doesn't end until mid-October, which feels forever away from here.

Started going to therapy today, for the first time. For a long time I've been thinking "when _____ is done, things will be okay." But when _____ is done, there's this next thing that needs to be done for things to be okay, and I'm starting to realize that's not how I should be looking at life. Things should be okay even if there are things that need to be done, and there's always going to be a ______. I'm scared of looking back and realizing "oh shit, why couldn't I find some happiness in the day to day instead of just always wanting to get things over with?"

We moved and I stopped working, all of my friends are now hundreds of miles away, I stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine and smoking weed, so my method of coping with stress has been taken away, I feel like I'm drifting. Sometimes I go weeks without talking to anyone but my immediate family or store clerks, and I'm not that social anyways so it's too easy for me to become a hermit. I was talking to my sleep doctor about my CPAP machine and she was asking me if my sleep was normal. I told her that at this point I have no idea what normal looks like.

I'm also not very in touch with myself, I tend to push through whatever is going on. It was weird sitting and talking with someone about me and my brain.

Hopefully therapy can start to help with that. I think still having therapy is probably the only thing keeping my thread hanging on. I've given up on meditation and I've grown really cynical about the concept of self-care (obviously I support it in general and think it's important, but right now it kinda feels like a luxury that really only works for people that spare time).

that "have" spare time

lol for me "self-care" includes ILX and putting some of my drama-prone co-workers on mute during non-working hours

Apparently this hits hardest on Tuesdays. Really been struggling for about a month now, just feeling like I have zero support system and like I'm just a constant disappointment to everyone around me or a burden on them. When I sit and really think about it, I can't come up with anything specific I've done that would cause anyone to be disappointed in me or be a burden to them, but I can't shake the feeling. It's like I only exist as far as serving a specific service to make their lives easier, but once that service is accomplished I'm just in the way.

Yep! That’s real

I’m just so fucking fucked. I’m £200 off paying my rent, which was due 4 days ago, and I just have no fucking clue where the money has disappeared, I haven’t bought anything or gone anywhere or had a fucking social life. I even gave up all my expensive habits like drinking and smoking and don’t have any fuxking hobbies. Even if someone did loan me the money, I wouldn’t know how to pay them back. I’ve reapplied for universal credit but that won’t be assessed until next month. I just feel fucked.

I’ve got fuxking nasty tonsillitis and I can’t fucking get out of bed unless it’s to get my meds.

I just can’t be fucked with life anymore. Im not suicidal like I was a year ago so I guess I’ve just got to sit here and do nothing and feel miserable for ever instead. I used to work so hard and I’ve got less than nothing to show for it.

Do hope it turns around for you. Beginning with your health.

Can we talk meds for a sec?
I’ve been on wellbutrin 450mg and escitalopram 15mg for awhile but over the last year the character of my depression, which has been a prevailing factor in my life for about 35 years, has changed.
Did my best to articulate the changes to my psych dr. and he felt I was describing psycho-motor slowing.
The hallmarks of that do sound a whole lot like what I’m experiencing these days!
He wants me to consider 2mg of abilify as an assistive agent to what I am already taking.
Anyone have any personal experience of abilify as part of a cocktail for depression?

I took abilify alongside citalopram very briefly - the first 3 weeks or so were great because I had more energy. Then that disappeared and I was left with pretty terrible restless leg syndrome. I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t concentrate. So then my psych added a beta blocker but it was kinda pointless because the abilify wasn’t adding anything positive anyway.

So basically RLS is a potential side effect, but hopefully you won’t get it.

How hard was it to taper off?

Pretty easy I think? This was a couple years ago but I don’t remember it being a problem.

lexapro/escitalopram made me zombie slow. i was also taking wellbutrin/lexapro. i now think lexapro is my mortal enemy. it made me feel like death. which is so not what i wanted in an antidepressant. i can't speak to the abilify part though.

no personal experience with abilify but as a psychologist i'd look for a second opinion, reconsidering your antidepressant regimen (dosages, dif meds) seems like a first line of defense before adding an antipsychotic if the main impetus is psychomotor slowing.

nb i am not a prescriber, take this with a grain of salt, but i do know side effects of abilify if you were to end up staying on it can be significant

My therapist recommended Abilify to me, and my doctor scoffed and told me I should start seeing a real psychiatrist. My therapist's experience with Abilify was limited to positive responses in the majority of her patients who had tried it. My doctor counter-argued with other research that demonstrated a limited efficacy for the drug. The result of all of this: I did end up consulting a "real psychiatrist", and I got on an SSRI (Trintellix), and now my medication-needs are met and it has been the case for the last 13 months.

My experience with Wellbutrin has been... mixed. It definitely changed my head-state, but not-necessarily for the better. I recall having to be extra careful about alcohol while on it. As a smoker, too, it messed up my nicotine intake (Wellbutrin acts as an inhibitor, which is perhaps-useful if you aim to quit smoking, but it just made me smoke twice as much, while I was on it.)

I'd definitely get a second-opinion, Jon. My experience has shown me that "getting the right SSRI/SNRI balance is the keystone", and if you're depression has changed, you might consider upping the Escitalopram dosage or changing to another med before adding something new.

*your

nb i am not a prescriber, take this with a grain of salt,

this was beautiful tho

Wow lol

glad you saw what i did there dmac, because i didn’t!

ah the joy of picking up going into therapy again.

i've passed the first stage, which is trawl round the aggregator sites looking at people with indistinct qualifications, who list all forms of therapy in their biogs, and where it's clearly impossible to distinguish between them or get any sense of quality in any way. there was one nearby who looked good in terms of their experience. they were full up (obv), but did recommend me a couple of other names, which I was v pleased about, as any sort of thread through this field is welcome. One of the names got back to me, and although they haven't got any spaces right now, expects to in the next month or so, which, fine, it's not urgent and part of me is just pleased i'm moving this on a bit.

we had a initial chat and it was good. they did say they practice a 'holistic' approach, where the body is seen to be as much a part of the process of therapy as the various ways of making the mind and feelings more legible. in theory this makes total sense and would be foolish to deny; it's seems to me as reasonably clear as it can be that as an organism our emotions, memories, and thoughts - cognitions generally - are embodied and nervous and physical experiences and conditions are intrinsically psychological. i see this in myself as i recognise it in others.

However (obviously), I'm also slightly resistant: I sense 'mindfulness', and I'm wary of it, partly because I saw it appear and develop as a secularised excrescence of spiritual and religious systems (themselves complicated in terms of 'authenticity' and meaning), and meld with that recent popular form of secular humanism that's so unappealing, to me anyway.

So, some objection on broad principles that I don't like the word or what i believe to be the concept, not explicitly stated by the therapist but to me apparent. Seems a bit weak put like that tbh.

It feels like the process will necessarily be also about cognitive states and the recognition and let's say 'management' of them. Now, I've nothing against either CBT or other forms of examining mental states and responses to triggers, which may be causing... let's call it unhappiness or whatever. The identification and exploration of maladaptive cognitions.

And yet, and yet. Is it just a desire for melodrama, self-dramatisation and maybe a form of vanity that makes me feel going back and forth over the ground of how one's memories and representations - a more literary approach - is more appealing to me? Part of it, I think, is that the approach that identifies the areas of fear, tension, anxiety in my existing state may well be efficacious, and to be welcomed for that reason, but that it doesn't end up aligning with my life (put very broadly), that it lacks explanatory force, even if that explanatory force is fictional or synthetic (again, to put one objection to more literary forms of psychotherapy very broadly indeed). Or to put it another way, it seems to me that you can play whack-a-mole with the demons in your head - mole-demons - but that at some point you need to untangle and delve into the tangled roots. in which the mole-demons live. i may be oversimplifying. i'll check when ask the therapist whether they believe they can describe their method as 'whack-a-mole'. see what they say.

The therapist did say 'there's increasing evidence that we need to consider the body in terms of treatment of the mind,' which got my back up slightly. I mean, as I say, it seems more or less axiomatic in one sense, and in another, choosing your methodology may not purely be about evidence of this sort. (i obviously didn't say, well yes, physical explanations for psychic and behavioural states goes back to the dawn of time, but here let me fetch my copy of Burton). i do also realise that understanding of anxiety has improved significantly, and especially in its more extreme forms cognitive approaches have helped people crippled by specific or general forms of anxiety to improve their lives in a way that wouldn't have been possible even fifty years ago.

It's also interesting to me that I'm resistant ofc, and just going along and seeing how I get on is the obvious answer. intellectually i'm not necessarily a dualist, personally there might as well be a 12ft high prison fence between body and mind so, again, maybe it's worth exploring.

anyway, i wanted to set my thoughts down and see if it resonated for anyone. or if the general approach is fgs stop overthinking just go along and see how it is. if you want to pay to be the hero of your own story i'm sure there are places you can do that if this person doesn't provide it.

and if this is not the appopriate thread for what may be a slightly abstract discussion - i've come here before to vent and seek support and it's been a very welcome place to do so - please do let me know and i'll find another or start a new one and leave this one free for more immediate discussions.

'uh sir, is there a question here?'

i guess i'm just asking if anyone has any experience of this 'holistic'* approach and how did you find it.

*i'm not at all clear on the various disciplinary categories and definitions. as i say the self-descriptions always seem to be 'i do everything all the words below'

I think a psychotherapist might be the specific kind of therapist that’ll suit what you’re looking for?