Depression Support Group
Depression is a real and debilitating condition that is often misunderstood by family and friends. Its meaning can range from a prolonged period of sadness to an actual mental illness with specific symptoms. Find and share experiences with others who are going through the same struggles.
It's always the little things that trigger me. Sure, when big things happens I get depressed too, but it's almost less painful because I can tell myself that I have a reason to feel the way I do. Most of the time, it's stupid little things that set the cycle off, and it is at those times that it hurts the most.. because on top of being depressed in the first place, I have to deal with feeling like an idiot for being depressed about nothing.
Sometimes it is something as simple as stepping in a puddle on my way to school and having to spend the day with wet feet that restarts the cycle. Sometimes it's one too many rude customers at work, or a less-than-great grade on a midterm. Usually it's stress building up that is then set off my something stupid. I get stressed out about school or finances and begin to feel a little blah, a little hopeless.. and then I step in a puddle. And then it all goes to hell.
I've found myself crying because I can't find my sunglasses, or because I stubbed my toe. It happens all the time. Sometimes, I can't even point a finger to some tiny insignificant event as a trigger. There are times when I just wake up in the morning crying. I have no idea why or what about. Just crying. There are times when I am having a perfectly good day and out of no where my innards swell and I can feel the tears forming in the pits of my eyes and have to hold them back until I get somewhere private.
I don't understand it. I want to understand it, but I can't. Why does this happen? Why does it happen so quickly and with so little warning? Why does it go away just as unexpectedly?
The biggest problem is that once I find myself depressed, I find things to be depressed about. I have one of those mornings where I wake up crying. I feel like hell all day and can't wait to get back to the privacy of my bedroom to cry some more. I wonder to myself why I am crying.. and this wondering brings me to think about all of the things that are going wrong in my life. So I begin to dwell on these things, becoming more depressed. I begin to think of my lost love, my poor financial situation, my loneliness... all of it. Sometimes it lasts one day, sometimes months. I never know when it starts how long it will last. Sometimes it's up and down and up and down for a matter of days or weeks or months. There are periods of normalcy and periods of chaos. There are times when in a matter of hours I will swing from perfectly content to absolutely hopeless and back again and back again. Then there are times when I'm plain depressed, unceasingly, for long durations of time.
It's this unpredictability, I think, that drives me to madness. I can't stand not understanding myself. I have always been very good at understanding people... but I have never been able to understand myself. I can learn all that books can teach me about my illness, but it still makes no sense. I try to tell myself in medical terms what is going on with my brain when I feel depressed, but at those times none of the official explanations make any sense. Nothing makes sense. I try every time to tell myself that this too will pass, just as it did last time, and just as it will next time. But never do I believe it.
I hate not understanding myself. I hate not being able to control my own feelings. I hate not being able to be rational when my rationality is one of the things that I pride myself on most greatly. When I am nto depressed I am not a very emotional person at all. I have a strong sensitivity to other peoples' emotions, but I am very confident, very rational, very collected. It is hard to bring me down, hard to offend me, hard to hurt me. But when I am depressed I am everything that the real me is not. And I hate it. It drives me crazy because I feel like a fake. When I am not depressed I feel like a phony because there is a part of me that the world does not see, that I do not let them see. I feel like I am hiding. I question myself constantly as to who I really am. Am I the overly-emotional, self-hating easily-hurt girl that I am when depressed, or am I the strong, confident, rational person that I pride myself on being? When I am depressed I feel like I am cheating the real me. When I am what I believe to be the real me I feel like I am hiding the true me. At all times, in all phases, I feel phony, and I feel guilty. I am tired of it. I am tired of feeling guilty about being happy and feeling guilty about being sad. I am tired of not knowing who I am. I am tired of not understanding my own feelings while simultaneously lending comfort and understanding to other people whose emotions I have zero difficulty unfolding and understanding.
Does anyone else suffer from these same issues?
Sometimes it is something as simple as stepping in a puddle on my way to school and having to spend the day with wet feet that restarts the cycle. Sometimes it's one too many rude customers at work, or a less-than-great grade on a midterm. Usually it's stress building up that is then set off my something stupid. I get stressed out about school or finances and begin to feel a little blah, a little hopeless.. and then I step in a puddle. And then it all goes to hell.
I've found myself crying because I can't find my sunglasses, or because I stubbed my toe. It happens all the time. Sometimes, I can't even point a finger to some tiny insignificant event as a trigger. There are times when I just wake up in the morning crying. I have no idea why or what about. Just crying. There are times when I am having a perfectly good day and out of no where my innards swell and I can feel the tears forming in the pits of my eyes and have to hold them back until I get somewhere private.
I don't understand it. I want to understand it, but I can't. Why does this happen? Why does it happen so quickly and with so little warning? Why does it go away just as unexpectedly?
The biggest problem is that once I find myself depressed, I find things to be depressed about. I have one of those mornings where I wake up crying. I feel like hell all day and can't wait to get back to the privacy of my bedroom to cry some more. I wonder to myself why I am crying.. and this wondering brings me to think about all of the things that are going wrong in my life. So I begin to dwell on these things, becoming more depressed. I begin to think of my lost love, my poor financial situation, my loneliness... all of it. Sometimes it lasts one day, sometimes months. I never know when it starts how long it will last. Sometimes it's up and down and up and down for a matter of days or weeks or months. There are periods of normalcy and periods of chaos. There are times when in a matter of hours I will swing from perfectly content to absolutely hopeless and back again and back again. Then there are times when I'm plain depressed, unceasingly, for long durations of time.
It's this unpredictability, I think, that drives me to madness. I can't stand not understanding myself. I have always been very good at understanding people... but I have never been able to understand myself. I can learn all that books can teach me about my illness, but it still makes no sense. I try to tell myself in medical terms what is going on with my brain when I feel depressed, but at those times none of the official explanations make any sense. Nothing makes sense. I try every time to tell myself that this too will pass, just as it did last time, and just as it will next time. But never do I believe it.
I hate not understanding myself. I hate not being able to control my own feelings. I hate not being able to be rational when my rationality is one of the things that I pride myself on most greatly. When I am nto depressed I am not a very emotional person at all. I have a strong sensitivity to other peoples' emotions, but I am very confident, very rational, very collected. It is hard to bring me down, hard to offend me, hard to hurt me. But when I am depressed I am everything that the real me is not. And I hate it. It drives me crazy because I feel like a fake. When I am not depressed I feel like a phony because there is a part of me that the world does not see, that I do not let them see. I feel like I am hiding. I question myself constantly as to who I really am. Am I the overly-emotional, self-hating easily-hurt girl that I am when depressed, or am I the strong, confident, rational person that I pride myself on being? When I am depressed I feel like I am cheating the real me. When I am what I believe to be the real me I feel like I am hiding the true me. At all times, in all phases, I feel phony, and I feel guilty. I am tired of it. I am tired of feeling guilty about being happy and feeling guilty about being sad. I am tired of not knowing who I am. I am tired of not understanding my own feelings while simultaneously lending comfort and understanding to other people whose emotions I have zero difficulty unfolding and understanding.
Does anyone else suffer from these same issues?
((((HUGS))))
I'm pretty good by now at dealing with the depression itself.. I learned some great techniques in therapy and have been practicing them religiously for years. I have virtually eradicated any lingering suicidal tendencies that I once suffered from, and don't really have a difficult time getting through bouts of depression by keeping my irrational side in check and remembering that I've been through this before.
But I have not yet found a way to deal with the guilt factor. It is always with me, whether in a depressed phase or feeling generally fine. I am always feeling guilty about something and I am very very tired of it. But the difficulty with this aspect is that once I begin to try to work through it by telling myself that I have nothing to feel guilty about I begin to feel guilty about being so selfish as to not want to guilty about being a phony... it's a vicious cycle and I can't seem to escape it.
I also still have a hard time pulling myself out of a funk, because like I said it doesn't matter how well I know my illness, it still owns me when I am down. I just have an easier time pulling through without resorting to self harm (I used to cut.. a lot) or suicidal fantasies.
I have never been on any medication for my depression, and I do not want to be. It is not an ethical or moral thing for me - I have no issue with others using meds that need them. But I honestly believe that meds are far too oversubscribed and that many people are on them that do not need to be. I feel that using meds as anything other than a very last resort impedes a person's capacity to work through their illness as a person and with the aid of therapy in a great number of cases. As hard as it is to deal with depression, I would rather deal with it on my own than to deal with it by means of mind-altering medications. I don't think meds are the right choice for me, since I am not an "emergency" case that risks suicide, and I am able to always maintain, to however small a degree, some amount of reasonability and sanity.
The only reason I am mentioning meds is because, typically, whenever I ask for some help or advice on this forum the automatic answer from almost everyone who replies is that I should try this or that medication. I just want everyone to know that that option is simply a "no" for me, so please do not bother suggesting it. I am looking for new techniques to control my emotions and my thoughts, or any other suggestions for things I might do in my life that could help me overcome, in particular, my vicious guilt cycle. I cannot remember one day of my life where I was not haunted by guilt of some sort. I would really like to learn new ways to escape that cycle and learn to love every aspect of my being, rather than just the positive aspects.