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.
how depression seems to creep in and try to steal the next dance with me any time I have downtime in the dance of life.
It scares me when I think about ways I could die that it wouldn't be suicide so that my family could still collect my life insurance, such as losing control in my car, as not such scarey things to have happen. That sounds dramatic - let me try again.
I once read a thing about how if we were honest about depression we would talk about how it is a side effect of adulthood. I don't really believe that, but I can see the point they were making. I feel that a great deal of depression is the result of being faced with problems that we do not have skills to use to deal with.
At times I have depression under control, but then I start to think I can do it in my own power, and that is when pride gets the best of me, so that when I am overwhelmed, I do not reach out to G-d, but try to rely on my own skills to deal with things that are much bigger than me.
How do I give up my desire to try to handle these problems and learn to give them up to G-d so that I don't get overwhelmed and I am able to fight the reasons why I become depressed.....
Firstly: and I speak as someone diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalised anxiety disorder and urged, vehemently, by doctors and counsellors to quit my job (which I refused to do because I had children to feed) when I say that there's no such thing as depression. It is all 100% in your mind. Yes. I said it.
It's a malfunction of the mind, but it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't have depression. You have problems you're not facing. You don't have depression: you have issues that cause you stress and anxiety. That you aren't fixing.
If you fix your problems you won't have 'depression' because depression is a rubbish bin term for being unhappy.
Being unhappy.
We medicate depression, but nobody would dream of medicating unhappiness. They'd just try and get you to fix the problem.
Imagine if the world said 'no such thing as depression'. Guess what. They did. Depression has only existed in the english language and as a concept for about 150 yrs. You know what people were for the 10,000 yrs prior to that? they were UNHAPPY.
For 10,000 yrs nobody needed the word 'depression'. For 10,000 yrs, prior to the advent of expensive psychoactive medication, people were miserable because their lives sucked, and so they would do something in an attempt at fixing their lives. And then they would get better lives, and then they would not be miserable any more.
for 10,000 yrs we have done just fine without this word. People have just been sad. Or miserable, or down, or grieving, or woebegone. They were unhappy, they were desperate, they were distressed, they were morose, lugubrious, blue, down and out,
and ALL of these descriptions are ... fixable because they describe you within the context of your world. they don't take you out of context into the magical never-never, and describe your personal personality. No. They let it not be your fault. They let it be the fault of the life that you are living.
The only thing you can be that you can't fix is depression. Because depression is a mental illness and there is no cure.....
Your life is what you make it. Your happiness is what you DEMAND that it be. The moment at which you say 'blow this for a joke' is the moment you start to claw your way out of this pit. Repeat after me: "my life sucks a$$. F#ck this shit, not putting up with this crap!"
You're going to have to find your issues, your real life issues, and sort them out. Could be now, could be the past. Could be the future. Could be relationships, could be jobs. Could be memories, could be fears. Whatever it is: face it. Clean it up. Give it a good scrub.
You're going to have to learn how to live. Or have an 'illness' that means you feel suicidal for life.
How do YOU want to live?