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.
So this has been on my mind lately and it's been bugging me for weeks. This, or something like it has happened twice and the more I think back on it, the more disturbing and unsettling it gets. I suppose it deserves a warning here too, it is kind of intense.
The first time something like this happened was back in 2008. It was a month or so before I went on a trip to the California and at the time I had a lot going on. I was already depressed and although I was definitely looking forward to my trip, it was also kind of daunting. I was going to go see a girl I had been in love with for a very VERY long time but I wasn't expecting the outcome of this visit to be good. We needed to discuss things about our past that wasn't going to be pleasant but it was something that had to happen.
I was also going through a lot of stress at home, work, school, friends, relatives.. Anyways, I was out with a few friends and this other girl I liked (long story short, for reasons I'm not comfortable talking about here there was no way things could ever work out with the girl in California). She was driving us home, I was sitting in the back seat with a few other people and for some reason I suddenly locked up. Couldn't move, couldn't think, could barely breathe. My mind in absolute chaos. It was like my mind was overloaded with everything that was going on and for a just a few minutes I just froze. It was scary! It was bad enough and lasted long enough for those around me to notice!
A few years later, I mentioned this to a friend and he said it sounds A LOT like a panic attack. I had never had a panic attack before but he's right, that really is what it sounds like.
The second "incident" was even scarier, A LOT more intense and lasted longer. It was 2011 I think, I was living alone and as a result of the previous few years (3 significant deaths, LOTS of heartbreak and the result of my 2008 trip was also a huge part of it) I was pretty heavily depressed. Things went worse than I expected in California, I was failing out of college, I was miserable and horribly lonely... And I started having these emotional meltdowns. Sometimes they'd get pretty intense and several times my depression got so bad I actually had to call into work sick. Occasionally I'd have to work anyways and that was torture! I'd often have to disappear into the back room and do everything I could to regain control so I wouldn't just curl up in a corner and fall apart. To my credit, I hardly ever melted down at work but it did happen once or twice.
Anyways, I was drawing and I had a meltdown again, but this time it was worse! WAY worse! At first I thought I could handle it, I tried to just continue drawing, breathe deeply, try to think about something else but the tears came and I couldn't make them go away. Nothing I did would make it go away. I collapsed onto the floor and just kept on crying. It felt like it lasted forever! My mind wasn't in complete chaos like before, but it was like some hidden barrier in my psyche just broke. My mind became filled with all kinds of horrible, unpleasant thoughts. I couldn't think straight, couldn't stop crying, couldn't make these thoughts go away.. I was even hearing voices! Thousands of them! All saying terrible things. I felt trapped, even claustrophobic in a way. Like the walls around me were closing in on me. My own deepest, darkest emotions and fears all flooding to the surface uncontrollably.
Eventually it started even effecting my perceptions. I became convinced that I was trapped in some kind of nightmare and the only way out, back to reality was to kill myself. That thought became unbearably strong and I would have done it if I were at all capable of moving. I tried to get up but nothing worked. I wasn't even able to make myself move. Nothing felt real, nothing looked real. Even the air in my lungs felt fake somehow and my breathing didn't sound right. Like I said, I was completely incapable of moving aside from the involuntary spasms from crying. My eyes hurt really bad, my chest hurt, my heart was pounding, my head ached badly... When it finally past I wasn't just deeply depressed, I was scared.. when I was capable of moving again, my mind had cleared enough for me to think straight again and I have no doubt in my mind that at if I were at all capable of moving while my mind was in that dark place I would have killed myself. That's the scariest thing, this meltdown was soo strong that I lost touch with reality. My mind was broken.
When I think back to that, I can't help but wonder what happens if it happens again. What happens if I get that bad again and I am capable of moving? Normally, even when I do seriously consider suicide I always back down because I can't stand the thought of hurting those I love that way... but this just creeps me out! If my mind gets that horribly twisted again, and I get stuck in that delusional state, no one around to ground me, nothing to make me see or feel the difference between reality and whats going on in my head I would become a serious danger to myself. If the only hope of "waking up" is to die, and I really do feel like I'm trapped in some kind of horrible nightmare so intense that I can't just force myself awake then I don't have that fear of harming my loved ones. I would only have this delusion that none of it's real and I'll be returning to the real world by dying in this fake one... I wasn't just depressed, I was sick! It was like for a brief, terrifying 20 minutes or so something snapped and I sank from depression into something else. Something even more serious and alarming.
I'm not looking for advice or anything, just getting this off my chest really. Part of the reason this has been on my mind is because I have been taking a lot of risks lately that could put me in that state of mind again if things go wrong... Up until Yesterday, it seemed like there was hope. It seemed like although I'm still taking horrible risks, they're paying off incredibly well... and then my girlfriend broke up with me... I have no idea how bad I'm going to get. I do know ways now of preventing my depression from getting THAT bad, but I've also known many of these solutions to occasionally not work or not work well enough to keep me from sinking deeper. My own emotions the past few years have been soo different from what I'm used to and I don't know how I got this way. I don't know how I'm going to react, I haven't really reacted yet. Maybe it's just a matter of time, it needs to sink in and waiting until it does is nerve-wracking enough. Right now, I wish I could say I'll just bounce back from this like I have from soo many other things lately that normally would have depressed me and upset me... But idk to be honest.
The first time something like this happened was back in 2008. It was a month or so before I went on a trip to the California and at the time I had a lot going on. I was already depressed and although I was definitely looking forward to my trip, it was also kind of daunting. I was going to go see a girl I had been in love with for a very VERY long time but I wasn't expecting the outcome of this visit to be good. We needed to discuss things about our past that wasn't going to be pleasant but it was something that had to happen.
I was also going through a lot of stress at home, work, school, friends, relatives.. Anyways, I was out with a few friends and this other girl I liked (long story short, for reasons I'm not comfortable talking about here there was no way things could ever work out with the girl in California). She was driving us home, I was sitting in the back seat with a few other people and for some reason I suddenly locked up. Couldn't move, couldn't think, could barely breathe. My mind in absolute chaos. It was like my mind was overloaded with everything that was going on and for a just a few minutes I just froze. It was scary! It was bad enough and lasted long enough for those around me to notice!
A few years later, I mentioned this to a friend and he said it sounds A LOT like a panic attack. I had never had a panic attack before but he's right, that really is what it sounds like.
The second "incident" was even scarier, A LOT more intense and lasted longer. It was 2011 I think, I was living alone and as a result of the previous few years (3 significant deaths, LOTS of heartbreak and the result of my 2008 trip was also a huge part of it) I was pretty heavily depressed. Things went worse than I expected in California, I was failing out of college, I was miserable and horribly lonely... And I started having these emotional meltdowns. Sometimes they'd get pretty intense and several times my depression got so bad I actually had to call into work sick. Occasionally I'd have to work anyways and that was torture! I'd often have to disappear into the back room and do everything I could to regain control so I wouldn't just curl up in a corner and fall apart. To my credit, I hardly ever melted down at work but it did happen once or twice.
Anyways, I was drawing and I had a meltdown again, but this time it was worse! WAY worse! At first I thought I could handle it, I tried to just continue drawing, breathe deeply, try to think about something else but the tears came and I couldn't make them go away. Nothing I did would make it go away. I collapsed onto the floor and just kept on crying. It felt like it lasted forever! My mind wasn't in complete chaos like before, but it was like some hidden barrier in my psyche just broke. My mind became filled with all kinds of horrible, unpleasant thoughts. I couldn't think straight, couldn't stop crying, couldn't make these thoughts go away.. I was even hearing voices! Thousands of them! All saying terrible things. I felt trapped, even claustrophobic in a way. Like the walls around me were closing in on me. My own deepest, darkest emotions and fears all flooding to the surface uncontrollably.
Eventually it started even effecting my perceptions. I became convinced that I was trapped in some kind of nightmare and the only way out, back to reality was to kill myself. That thought became unbearably strong and I would have done it if I were at all capable of moving. I tried to get up but nothing worked. I wasn't even able to make myself move. Nothing felt real, nothing looked real. Even the air in my lungs felt fake somehow and my breathing didn't sound right. Like I said, I was completely incapable of moving aside from the involuntary spasms from crying. My eyes hurt really bad, my chest hurt, my heart was pounding, my head ached badly... When it finally past I wasn't just deeply depressed, I was scared.. when I was capable of moving again, my mind had cleared enough for me to think straight again and I have no doubt in my mind that at if I were at all capable of moving while my mind was in that dark place I would have killed myself. That's the scariest thing, this meltdown was soo strong that I lost touch with reality. My mind was broken.
When I think back to that, I can't help but wonder what happens if it happens again. What happens if I get that bad again and I am capable of moving? Normally, even when I do seriously consider suicide I always back down because I can't stand the thought of hurting those I love that way... but this just creeps me out! If my mind gets that horribly twisted again, and I get stuck in that delusional state, no one around to ground me, nothing to make me see or feel the difference between reality and whats going on in my head I would become a serious danger to myself. If the only hope of "waking up" is to die, and I really do feel like I'm trapped in some kind of horrible nightmare so intense that I can't just force myself awake then I don't have that fear of harming my loved ones. I would only have this delusion that none of it's real and I'll be returning to the real world by dying in this fake one... I wasn't just depressed, I was sick! It was like for a brief, terrifying 20 minutes or so something snapped and I sank from depression into something else. Something even more serious and alarming.
I'm not looking for advice or anything, just getting this off my chest really. Part of the reason this has been on my mind is because I have been taking a lot of risks lately that could put me in that state of mind again if things go wrong... Up until Yesterday, it seemed like there was hope. It seemed like although I'm still taking horrible risks, they're paying off incredibly well... and then my girlfriend broke up with me... I have no idea how bad I'm going to get. I do know ways now of preventing my depression from getting THAT bad, but I've also known many of these solutions to occasionally not work or not work well enough to keep me from sinking deeper. My own emotions the past few years have been soo different from what I'm used to and I don't know how I got this way. I don't know how I'm going to react, I haven't really reacted yet. Maybe it's just a matter of time, it needs to sink in and waiting until it does is nerve-wracking enough. Right now, I wish I could say I'll just bounce back from this like I have from soo many other things lately that normally would have depressed me and upset me... But idk to be honest.
GBU
D
;-O