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.
I'm twenty three today. Last night I hit rock bottom and felt worse than I have in years. I wouldn't say I'm suicidal, not in any serious way. But last night I lay staring at my ceiling in the dark and felt like I just wanted it to end...
I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want my family who live in England at the other side of the world to hear about my death likely through facebook, to think about me dying alone at the other side of the world on my birthday. I don't want to scar my boyfriend in that way. I don't want my lovely dog Mara to miss me.
So I won't. But I'd vanish from everyone's memory and erase myself from the Universe if I could.
I'm feeling a bit better today but I still feel like I need to talk about it. I don't know what's happened lately to make me so much worse. I feel so invisible and irrelevant. I feel like I could be dying and no one would notice. I feel like I AM dying and no one is noticing.
A friend of mine has a new girlfriend, so the four of us (my boyfriend, our friend and the woman - lets call her Rachel) have been spending quite a lot of time together. This is unusual for me, being more or less completely hermatic. She's an extremely popular person, she's a DJ who travels around Australia fairly regularly, so it's deeply bizarre that this person is now in my tiny microscopic little social sphere. I'm being asked to do things socially with this couple a few times a week which I find emotionally exhausting. But it's sort of flattering too, and the male friend is clearly so happy with her and seems to really want us to be close friends.
There are some problems with this though. All of them completely because of me. I don't dislike her or have a problem with her at all, which is why I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this because it would seem like I was MAKING a problem. Firstly I'm just so damned out of practice when it comes to making friends that I find the whole thing very stressful. When my partner tells me the two of them are coming around for drinks that very night it pretty much gives me a panic attack and I just want to hide from every one.
I'm embarrassed about myself - how dull and tired I am, how much of a struggle it is to be even vaguely polite sometimes. How I'm always being caught out looking my worse with dirty, messy hair and baggy, comfortable clothes.
But mostly I envy her. I have to admit it. She's everything I'm not, she's popular and charismatic. She has influence on people. Everyone bends around her and whatever she feels like doing is what is done without question. I find it so intensely difficult to influence people... If I'm feeling extremely tired or faint because of my health problems I have to ask so many times if people mind if we sit down for a bit when I'm out with a group, or even just my boyfriend. Or if I'm enjoying myself and want to do something for a bit longer no one ever listens either.
I feel so bitter and petty complaining about these things... A couple of years ago I went to our State Medieval Fair when I was with my abusive ex. We argued the whole day and he started pushing and shoving at me, and screaming in my face. The day was ruined. So this year it meant a lot to me that I'd finally get to go with friends and have a nice time. My boyfriend knew about all of it and how much it meant to me.
But Rachel wanted to go home after an hour. So despite whatever I said about how much I wanted to stay, we had to leave.
Yesterday I was devastated about David Bowie dying. I put up a facebook status about how upset I was, and that I was going to drink some rum and listen to his music for the rest of the night. About ten minutes later Rachel put up a status about it... which is perfectly normal considering how much David Bowie meant to everyone. But hers was almost identical to mine, saying she was going to raid her liquor cabinet and listen to his music for the rest of the night. What got me was that my lifelong female best friend who has never even met Rachel, but who Rachel added because she's that sort of person who adds everyone, liked and commented on her status but not mine.
I know how trivial that is. But it's a symbol. I'm invisible, no one cares or notices anything about me. The same sentence can be interesting in someone else's mouth but when I say it it's irrelevant and people don't even respond. It's on social media AND in real life, it's everywhere. I'm boring. People don't see me.
Last year I organized a birthday party and not a single person showed up. Not one. Every single person was busy or forgot. I can't handle the humiliation of that again so I'm not going to attempt to organize anything this year. I'm so tired of being no one's priority. Not even my boyfriend's, frankly. He loves me but it's comfortable love, not exciting passionate love. I could shave my head and I doubt he'd notice, Rachel is new and exciting. I'm not suspicious that he might find her romantically attractive - I really haven't got that vibe and I'm normally quite paranoid about that type of thing - but he's fallen for the "I'm important" vibe she radiates. If she has cramps he'll say "oh no, poor thing' blah blah. It feels like a long time since another human being gave a damn whether or not I had cramps. The idea of another couple sitting in their home discussing MY cramps is so bizarre to me... but she just seems to have a gravitational pull on the world around her.
I feel hideous. When I think about my nose and the size of my thighs I want to get down on the floor and curl into a ball. This intense anger I have about myself is paralyzing... I'm an embarrassment, no one likes me, I'm invisible, I'm ugly, I'm a failure.
And then I see other people get so much approval and praise and LOVE from others. If I'm honest I need that. I need that desperately at the moment, and it's no where to be found. Rachel has so much of it and barely seems to notice. How do you become like that? Am I just doomed because I'm an introvert? I can't go on feeling so inferior to everyone and letting it make me bitter. I've wanted friends for a long time, I don't want to sabotage every opportunity because I'm riddled with insecurity.
I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want my family who live in England at the other side of the world to hear about my death likely through facebook, to think about me dying alone at the other side of the world on my birthday. I don't want to scar my boyfriend in that way. I don't want my lovely dog Mara to miss me.
So I won't. But I'd vanish from everyone's memory and erase myself from the Universe if I could.
I'm feeling a bit better today but I still feel like I need to talk about it. I don't know what's happened lately to make me so much worse. I feel so invisible and irrelevant. I feel like I could be dying and no one would notice. I feel like I AM dying and no one is noticing.
A friend of mine has a new girlfriend, so the four of us (my boyfriend, our friend and the woman - lets call her Rachel) have been spending quite a lot of time together. This is unusual for me, being more or less completely hermatic. She's an extremely popular person, she's a DJ who travels around Australia fairly regularly, so it's deeply bizarre that this person is now in my tiny microscopic little social sphere. I'm being asked to do things socially with this couple a few times a week which I find emotionally exhausting. But it's sort of flattering too, and the male friend is clearly so happy with her and seems to really want us to be close friends.
There are some problems with this though. All of them completely because of me. I don't dislike her or have a problem with her at all, which is why I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this because it would seem like I was MAKING a problem. Firstly I'm just so damned out of practice when it comes to making friends that I find the whole thing very stressful. When my partner tells me the two of them are coming around for drinks that very night it pretty much gives me a panic attack and I just want to hide from every one.
I'm embarrassed about myself - how dull and tired I am, how much of a struggle it is to be even vaguely polite sometimes. How I'm always being caught out looking my worse with dirty, messy hair and baggy, comfortable clothes.
But mostly I envy her. I have to admit it. She's everything I'm not, she's popular and charismatic. She has influence on people. Everyone bends around her and whatever she feels like doing is what is done without question. I find it so intensely difficult to influence people... If I'm feeling extremely tired or faint because of my health problems I have to ask so many times if people mind if we sit down for a bit when I'm out with a group, or even just my boyfriend. Or if I'm enjoying myself and want to do something for a bit longer no one ever listens either.
I feel so bitter and petty complaining about these things... A couple of years ago I went to our State Medieval Fair when I was with my abusive ex. We argued the whole day and he started pushing and shoving at me, and screaming in my face. The day was ruined. So this year it meant a lot to me that I'd finally get to go with friends and have a nice time. My boyfriend knew about all of it and how much it meant to me.
But Rachel wanted to go home after an hour. So despite whatever I said about how much I wanted to stay, we had to leave.
Yesterday I was devastated about David Bowie dying. I put up a facebook status about how upset I was, and that I was going to drink some rum and listen to his music for the rest of the night. About ten minutes later Rachel put up a status about it... which is perfectly normal considering how much David Bowie meant to everyone. But hers was almost identical to mine, saying she was going to raid her liquor cabinet and listen to his music for the rest of the night. What got me was that my lifelong female best friend who has never even met Rachel, but who Rachel added because she's that sort of person who adds everyone, liked and commented on her status but not mine.
I know how trivial that is. But it's a symbol. I'm invisible, no one cares or notices anything about me. The same sentence can be interesting in someone else's mouth but when I say it it's irrelevant and people don't even respond. It's on social media AND in real life, it's everywhere. I'm boring. People don't see me.
Last year I organized a birthday party and not a single person showed up. Not one. Every single person was busy or forgot. I can't handle the humiliation of that again so I'm not going to attempt to organize anything this year. I'm so tired of being no one's priority. Not even my boyfriend's, frankly. He loves me but it's comfortable love, not exciting passionate love. I could shave my head and I doubt he'd notice, Rachel is new and exciting. I'm not suspicious that he might find her romantically attractive - I really haven't got that vibe and I'm normally quite paranoid about that type of thing - but he's fallen for the "I'm important" vibe she radiates. If she has cramps he'll say "oh no, poor thing' blah blah. It feels like a long time since another human being gave a damn whether or not I had cramps. The idea of another couple sitting in their home discussing MY cramps is so bizarre to me... but she just seems to have a gravitational pull on the world around her.
I feel hideous. When I think about my nose and the size of my thighs I want to get down on the floor and curl into a ball. This intense anger I have about myself is paralyzing... I'm an embarrassment, no one likes me, I'm invisible, I'm ugly, I'm a failure.
And then I see other people get so much approval and praise and LOVE from others. If I'm honest I need that. I need that desperately at the moment, and it's no where to be found. Rachel has so much of it and barely seems to notice. How do you become like that? Am I just doomed because I'm an introvert? I can't go on feeling so inferior to everyone and letting it make me bitter. I've wanted friends for a long time, I don't want to sabotage every opportunity because I'm riddled with insecurity.
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I invited Bill to have dinner with me last Sunday. He wasn't willing to drive 7 hours to mid Michigan and teased me with his beautiful ribs!!! So, of course I ate alone and had cedar salmon
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
It seems that you feel envious or jealous of that woman you mentioned, which would seem understandable based on what you've said. I've had the same feelings towards people as well, including friends and I really hate feeling that way, and it seems you do as well. In situations like this, you have to just remember that you're who you are, and you don't have to try to change to be more like her or anything like that. You said your boyfriend loves you, so clearly that's a good sign about things, but if you feel he's not giving you enough attention or something like that then you should have a conversation with him about it.
Can you talk to your boyfriend about how hanging out with Rachel makes you feel. i'm not saying stop altogether...I think it is important that you get out there. When you are out, try not to worry about Rachel and her popularity ....just be the best you. i have crossed paths with so many Rachels in my life....and i rather be known for being kind, a good listener etc....than the "popular" girl. People with that "all important" vibe have been know to fade quickly when they have nothing else to offer a relationship. And you know....getting out there may provide you with the opportunity to meet even more people...and maybe you will find the friend that you will click better with. As far as your boyfriend not noticing you....sweetie i have been married for 27 years. I DO things on purpose to see if my husband will notice.....seriously how could he not see a purple streak in my hair...but he missed it! LOL!!! No offense to any man reading this, but sometimes they just plain old don't see it :P
LOL!
You gotta laugh Strange Pale Girl. Otherwise you'd jump off something high up. :D
Now that we've got the giggle out of the way, I have so much to tell you, that I don't know how to say any of it.
1. who are you? What are you? What are you into?
You will kill yourself in misery trying to be someone or something you're not. The grunge emo cannot hang out with the cheerleader. The byronic introspective romantic cannot spend any quality time whatsoever with Paris Hilton.
2. How do you rate you?
Nobody will ever rate you any higher. So if you give yourself a 1/10, you'll get a fat zero from them.
3. You were born alone, and you will die alone.
Anyone you meet along the way can only be taken so far. When you're young, you think people are 'all for one, one for all'. by my age you realise that is qualified by 'actually, it's just all for one, me.'
You are chalk trying to hang out with cheese. You are like I was, in short. trying to gain the respect and acceptance of people who really were not ever going to be my equals. I no longer try. And because I no longer try, I just do what I want.
There is so much less stress in being real. It is incredibly exhausting, as you have seen, being fake in a fake environment where you don't feel valued and like a belonging member.
You have two possible directions available to fix this. Either will fix this but one has a higher price tag than the other.
1. go your own way, tell them to go sod themselves, search the world for people who value you for you. You may or may not find these people but at least you don't have to notice daily the dichotomy between what you're getting from people, and what you deserve.
2. Go on an antidepressant, and ride this thing out. Keep your own counsel and don't look to others for emotional support. Do what you want, get up and leave when you want to get up and leave, with a smile on the face. Be yourself, with this group of friends, and leave them dangling realising they didn't have you pegged as miss doormat after all.
No. 2 is harder, but you pay a lower price to do it. It's the one I'm doing now. I've done no. 1 before, but no. 1 didn't save me. I found myself in a new location, in the same spot: underdog.
Time is your friend socially: the longer you are in a group, the more confidence you can have. The more authority you naturally absorb by knowing things for a fact and being comfortable with them.
I put it to you that if you look VERY hard in the mirror you don't find someone who is inadequate or inferior. I suspect you don't find that at all. You find someone whose light is hidden under a bushel. Time will allow you to get that bushel off. But trust yourself, be kind to yourself, and let this dreadfully noisy johnny-come-lately chick use everyone up and spit everyone out as that kind of girl does, and move on to a new set of victims. She will be bored soon. Take care of your life and your future, and learn how to spot these women. They're a kind of parasite and you meet them a lot in varying different disguises.
Sorry. :D giant screen dump. I'm 2lb lighter now.