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 need some feedback please! My therapist is telling me that she thinks I'm not interested in changing because I make choices that are bad for me.
Choices like using the internet instead of doing homework, not cleaning my new apt at 9PM at night when I come back from school and I'm tired, not winding down 1 hour before bedtime, not waking up at the same time every day to get used to waking up earlier.
I tell her I have little energy and motivation. I tell her even after 10 hours of sleep I'm very drowsy in the morning. I tell her I do go to class (grad school) and run urgent errands like paying bills, solving issues with returned checks, etc.
I tell her overeating and watching TV and using the internet are very hard to quit because I've been using them to cope with emotional stress for years. Only when I do those things do I feel any sense of relaxation or joy. The rest of the time I always feel crammy: unattractive, lonely, rejected, inferior, stressed, sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, unworthy, insufficient, ashamed; guilty.
She tells me I'm not depressed because I don't meet a cutoff on a test and I don't have severe symptoms like anxiety and insomnia or being unable to feel any joy.
I tell her I have so little energy that I only take a shower twice a week and I'm not a dirty person. I just feel DRAINED physically and psychologically. I can barely get the basics done like getting to class, going to therapy, school assignment deadlines (4 courses PhD program).
She says that is not depression. She says I'm choosing not to do things to help myself because I struggle with procrastination doing my homework and don't keep trying to wake up every day at the same time. But I am very drowsy. Even after coffee/energy drink, I am still drowsy for several hours after I wake up.
She says I don't take responsibility; always blame things on depression. Always justify myself saying things happen to me, like I can't do anything about it.
I'm going through a break up, moving, no energy/motivation, I'm obese/feel ugly/unhealthy, stuck in a PhD program I can't quit if I want to stay in this country, new school year without any vacation (the summer break was full of stress). I had severe depression just 6 months ago and I still passed the first school year with As.
I'm just tired. Been struggling with low self esteem, lack of energy and motivation for 13 years. Tried all the meds, several different therapies.
Isn't it expected that I would feel hopeless and struggle to do certain things?
Does that mean I don't want to change and I'm not taking responsibility?
I feel drained. Please advice!
Thanks so much!
Choices like using the internet instead of doing homework, not cleaning my new apt at 9PM at night when I come back from school and I'm tired, not winding down 1 hour before bedtime, not waking up at the same time every day to get used to waking up earlier.
I tell her I have little energy and motivation. I tell her even after 10 hours of sleep I'm very drowsy in the morning. I tell her I do go to class (grad school) and run urgent errands like paying bills, solving issues with returned checks, etc.
I tell her overeating and watching TV and using the internet are very hard to quit because I've been using them to cope with emotional stress for years. Only when I do those things do I feel any sense of relaxation or joy. The rest of the time I always feel crammy: unattractive, lonely, rejected, inferior, stressed, sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, unworthy, insufficient, ashamed; guilty.
She tells me I'm not depressed because I don't meet a cutoff on a test and I don't have severe symptoms like anxiety and insomnia or being unable to feel any joy.
I tell her I have so little energy that I only take a shower twice a week and I'm not a dirty person. I just feel DRAINED physically and psychologically. I can barely get the basics done like getting to class, going to therapy, school assignment deadlines (4 courses PhD program).
She says that is not depression. She says I'm choosing not to do things to help myself because I struggle with procrastination doing my homework and don't keep trying to wake up every day at the same time. But I am very drowsy. Even after coffee/energy drink, I am still drowsy for several hours after I wake up.
She says I don't take responsibility; always blame things on depression. Always justify myself saying things happen to me, like I can't do anything about it.
I'm going through a break up, moving, no energy/motivation, I'm obese/feel ugly/unhealthy, stuck in a PhD program I can't quit if I want to stay in this country, new school year without any vacation (the summer break was full of stress). I had severe depression just 6 months ago and I still passed the first school year with As.
I'm just tired. Been struggling with low self esteem, lack of energy and motivation for 13 years. Tried all the meds, several different therapies.
Isn't it expected that I would feel hopeless and struggle to do certain things?
Does that mean I don't want to change and I'm not taking responsibility?
I feel drained. Please advice!
Thanks so much!
My dad has told me many times in the past that I'm depressed because I choose to be depressed and I don't do anything to help myself. Actually, I do things about it that he is unaware of. My parents will get mad at me for not exercising, when actually, exercising makes me feel A LOT worse. Besides, exercising will speed up my brain, which will probably make my seizures worse as a result.
Even a happy person wouldn't clean their apartment at 9:00 p.m. after a long, exhausting day at school. It's okay to go on the internet, as long as your homework gets done in time and you're not stressing out about it at the last minute. Heck, being on the internet is the 2nd thing that usually makes me feel best; playing with my bird is the thing that makes me feel my very best.
By the way, you don't necessarily have to have insomnia to be depressed. To have depression, a person usually sleeps too much or
not enough. Not all symptoms have to be present to be depressed.
Some of these things she gets mad at you for not doing might be able to help a little, though not always.
Anyway, don't listen to her. Depression IS to blame! Extremely few people can function normally when their depression is severe. Yes, you do want to change.
If I was you, I'd get a new therapist. She's definitely doing more harm than good, and she seems emotionally damaging.
My brain is "dead" right now, so I'm sorry if I'm not making any sense.
HUGS
She used to be very supportive but lately she's grown frustrated with not being able to help me. She tells me she's out of resources but that she also thinks I'm not interested enough in changing.
She deduces that from the fact that I sleep all day, then spend hours eating, chatting or on the web, instead of cleaning so I can move to my new place or doing homework. I do all the homework at the last minute late at night.
I don't know why I do it, other than I have little energy or motivation. I feel my brain is in a fog. I don't seem to care about much, but I care enough not to throw away school. I still go to class and do the assignments for work.
but everything else, I can't seem to find the will. I feel like I'm half dead. I don't have the drive to do much.
She tells me the less I do, the less energy and motivation I will have. That is true, but I am really struggling to get started this time. It's been too much stress lately and I'm exhausted.
I should have the right to be exhausted sometimes....
The way your therapist sounds is the way my parents started to act about a year ago. Its not because they are mean people they are just frustrated that they haven't been able to help you.
Over and over I have been told many of the things you've mentioned. Go to sleep on time, wake up on time, good diet, exercise regularly, things of this nature. I agree it seems near impossible. I am personally up late because I dread waking up the next day. When I go to sleep its like time flies by and the next day comes a lot faster. Instead I stay up late and try to slow this down. In reality its stupid and doesn't work but its a mental hurdle I have yet to get over. In turn I don't get enough sleep some days and try to play catch-up by sleeping all day long a few days later. I don't eat health food because I don't enjoy it and I don't like going to the gym.
There is a trick tho I think/hope. It seems as if we are doing things that we enjoy just so we get some sort of enjoyment out of our day. I'm hoping that by forcing myself to follow the routine that they describe for a couple of weeks or even months I will eventually get out of this hole I find myself in. Anyway, bust of luck my friend. If you ever want to chat with someone that is in the same boat as you let me know. Maybe we can get through this together. Cheers
However, for her to day you are not depressed is crazy. She is not a doctor and I didn't know they had a paper test for depression? It might be knew but I prefer using a doctor's opinion. Can you see one and change your therapist too. She is working with depressed people, what does she think, we will get well over night.
Thanks for your feedback! I sincerely appreciate it. I agree with Zazas that she seems to miss the fact that change is not easy. It doesn't happen overnight. She also seems to lack an understanding of what depression really feels like and how hard it really is for me to do what she's asking.
On the other hand, I can see how she would get frustrated and start thinking I don't really want to change. We worked on regulating my sleep for weeks and then I screwed it up again by staying up late. She had warned me that even one day of doing that would set me back.
Part of the problem was that I had to start the process of moving, slept in hotels for a few nights, started having a lot of stress (roommate fights; fighting with my best friend;realizing I had to move instead of having a summer break that I sorely needed). It made it harder to keep a routine. So I sabotaged myself by not doing any of the things she suggested I do every day to keep my sleep regulated. Even worse, that was back in August and I'm still not doing those things regularly to get back on track. I am still stressed about the same things: losing my best friend (she changed a lot, moving (which I hate) while I'm in school, and not having a break after a year of severe depression and a lot of stress at school (the first year is very demanding).
My mind understands that I have to accept the way things are and go on, but my emotions are tired. I feel worse than I did back in July when we managed to regulate my sleep. Keeping a routine is also harder because I'm in the middle of moving and my things are in different places. I also continue to have a stressful relationship with my roommate. So yes, I screwed up, but I also had to face many new obstacles that I was not facing before.
I do understand that the only way to break this cycle is to push myself to do homework and advance the moving process whenever I get a chance. It is very hard to do that with the way I feel now. Her telling me that she thinks I don't really want to change and I don't take responsibility did not help at all. Why would I feel so crammy living this way if I really didn't care? Wouldn't I be content? Her saying that made me feel rejected and criticized because I thought she liked me and appreciated the efforts I did put into this at different times. She even suggested she would kick me out of therapy if I didn't do something different. That made me feel so ashamed and hopeless. If she's giving up on me, doesn't she think that after 13 years of battling this, I might have given up on myself too?
I guess it is because this is not the first time that I sabotage myself that she is so frustrated. I'm always saying I can't do things because of the depression. I do things that are self-sabotaging like procrastinating on homework and then staying up all night; not winding up at night to facilitate falling asleep earlier (instead I use the tv/internet which tend to keep me up); not sitting by the light in the morning like she told me (can't even manage to get out of bed for hours after I wake up); not cleaning my new place on weekends or whenever I have time--I do homework on weekends though so the only other times I'm awake would be during the night hours; being obsessive about cleaning and refusing to move to the new place before I clean everything (I have some OCD about this).
So I do self sabotage quite a bit. It is not easy not to when I feel so crammy. It is a vicious cycle. Yet I'm always pushing myself, even if it is just getting a few things done every day that are most urgent. I realize I do a lot that is self-sabotaging. I also realized my mind is foggy and can't think clearly. I do try!
I also don't get how she can say I'm not depressed. She's qualified to make a diagnosis, but she's going by a cutoff on a test score or by seeing if I have enough symptoms to meet criteria. It is true that I don't meet the cutoff or the criteria for clinical depression, but when someone is this dysfunctional, does it really matter if they have 3 vs 5 symptoms? Does she think I'm making all this up because I enjoy being depressed and don't want to change? Or because I'm too used to feeling like this and scared of change? Isn't it her job to help me be less scared, if that is the case?
I don't know anymore...
It sounds like maybe your doctor is trying to provoke you a little bit by telling you you're not trying, you're not really depressed. She's frustrated and maybe she thinks she can get you to move in one direction or another by challenging you.
The problem is, she's forgotten one of the basic facts about depression -- just knowing what we "should" do isn't enough. Depression robs us of the energy and motivation to do things that would help.
Having to move is not fun under the best of circumstances. But in the middle of a PhD program and with depression -- well, no wonder you're not jumping up to move!
I don't think you're always blaming externals for your problem. It sounds like you're acknowledging what you know you should do, but you're also acknowledging how hard it is to do right now.
Can you tackle one thing she wants you to do ... like winding down 1 hour before bedtime? Just focus on one little step, and do that. Then you'll build momentum and she'll see how you're trying. I wouldn't write her off completely; just take what she says with a grain of salt.
Find another therapist. Use online resources (see, you can use it for something worthwhile despite what your therapist says!). Over half the therapists in my area have websites of some sort. Research them, check out what their therapy styles are. Maybe CBT isn't the best fit for you and you need a more hands on style. I did that and found a terrific therapist who styled her therapy for my needs. Together we discovered a lot of the underlying issues in my life and she brought me back from the edge of a deep dark cliff.
Remember- your therapist is there for you. You are not there to fit their preconceived notions. If you have gone as far as you can with this one, its OK. Think of it as a baseball game where you need to change pitchers in the middle of the game so someone stronger can help you win. You can do it!