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.
Sitting here at my Psychiatrist Office waiting to be seen and while I put on a brave face and a fake smile I'm really falling apart on the inside.
Desperately I attempt to hide myself within the crowd avoiding from having to communicate with anyone as my Case Manager approches me and starts up a conversation.
As I try to advoid limited eye contact I keep my answers short while my only hope is that she doesn't notice my sheer weight loss since the last time she'd seen me or pick up on the fact that I haven't slept a wink at all last night.
And for the lack of anyone possibly understanding, fear of being looked upon with sympathy and sparing another my burdens I hide my breakdown behind closed doors.
While nobody will ever know just how debilitating the depression and pain I suffer or how I isolate myself into my apartment day in and day out. Or the many weeks gone by without showering or brushing my teeth. How I sleep sometimes 20 hours a day or even the bed bug infestation in which I live because I'm too depressed to prep for treatment.
And while I live alone in a four bedroom apartment in hopes my children would come and as they didn't thoughts of me moving into a smaller apartment to something as simple as hanging a picture on the wall completely overwhelms me.
But more then any how I, a Christian Believer has resorted back to "numbing" my emotions in which otherwise I can't handle in order to somewhat function within my isolation.
And while I have reached out to so many in this support group with encouraging words of advice in their struggles with depression for some reasons I am unable to find encouragement for that of which I struggle.
As I sat with my Psychiatrist all that I hid, and everything I've been holding inside for so long, the hurt, the pain, the suffering, the agitation, the tears and the sorrow of both past and present burst out of me like a flood waiting to happen!
While I couldn't contain myself from the moment I sat down to the very moment I left his office all I could do was cry as I expressed to him how I felt.
And althought I haven't cried that much in a long time still I felt no release as no amount of tears, no amount of sadness no matter how much I wanted it the realization is I would never be able to raise my children ever again and that's the pain I simply can not wrap my mind around. The very pain which I've carried for four years since our untimely separation of my son age 14, my daughter age 11 and my youngest daughter age 8.
1. I've stuffed up the mothering.
This is irrelevant. Even if you have, they get an adulthood to fix that stuff. As did you, and will you. When you heal you, you will learn how to help them heal. Nobody gets the squeaky clean childhood.
2. They all hate me.
Nope. Just nope. They'll always love you. Not always understand you. But 0you will get given chance after chance and ballsup after ballsup and it'll still be let go of down the track.
3. My life is worth nothing.
This is terrifyingly wrong, because when we have power we don't know we have, we misuse it. They need us to our dying - no, to their dying day. Even if they have a bad relationship with you now, or have had a bad relationship in the past, they need to understand you, they need you to remember what went wrong so that they can understand themselves. They will have children: they will need to unpack things then. And if you resist the depression and manage to drag yourself out of it, they will get it all cleaned up well before then, and will be able to enjoy life with you.
in closing:
the worst thing for depression is depression. never listen to your thoughts when you have depression: they are negative, and stupid. How many lives have been harmed by people who were so wrapped up in their own guilt/shame/sorrow that they didn't help the ones that needed them? When we think we're worthless we don't take care of those who need us. We don't realise they need us. And we don't realise they care.