The Depressing Thread

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

My mental health state has been deteriorating over the last couple of years.
Last Monday I dropped out of college because I couldn't bring myself to go anymore. I'd feel such intense anxiety and paranoia and fear whenever I was on campus. It was worst in class when I had to sit in the middle of the class cuz the back corner seats were taken. I had a few panic attacks and each day brought increased dread.
My rage issues have also been getting worse. More and more things set me off more and more often. I just explode in rage at the most random shit sometimes and become a danger to myself and everything and everyone around me.
My (now ex) girlfriend of 2 years also broke up with me 3 times and has been sending me very mixed messages after each one.
But I'm over that.

There are some other things but those are some of the biggest.

And honestly, right now, I couldn't give any fucks.
Since I dropped out of college I've felt fantastic! Anxiety has almost disappeared, I've been given a lot more hours at my job and even offered management training, and I've just been truly happy and at peace for the first time in over a year.
I had a rage issue the other day but fortunately I was alone and was able to calm myself down pretty quickly.

I've even been sleeping better. I usually have a lot of trouble falling and staying asleep (3 hours a night was my usual and I frequently went several days without any sleep at all) but this last week I've been getting as much as about 6 hours in every morning!
Not continuous, I'd wake up every couple hours or so but its something!

Oh and I'll soon have some free insurance so I can start getting some help for my mental issues.

 

[inactive123]

Welp, reading all these posts make my own issues seem so little.

All I suffer from is a severe lack of self-esteem/confidence in myself. This is mostly due to the fact that I was friendless up until the age of around 11/12 and had to endure some pretty harsh bullying for most of my primary school career. I was already a shy kid to begin with and that just made it far worse. It didn't help that my parents were divorced and as a result my mother became addicted to online chatting. She would never really listen to me. Her default response to anything I tried to tell her was "that's nice" ... so I had no help there.

I spent most of my high school career trying to get over it. Unfortunately I dated some people that didn't help at all. They wrecked whatever bit of self esteem I managed to gain quite harshly. The first is still exactly the same, I cut all contact from him. However I've recently gotten into contact with the other after around 2 years of almost total silence and it seems we've both grown a lot. He's actually becoming a really good friend of mine so at least that's turned out pretty good.

I'm working on my self confidence with more success lately. I still have moments where I can hardly walk down the street without feeling like utter shit but it's getting better slowly.

To everyone else that's posted...

Spoiler: Have a hug

 

[Sateru]

-snip-

I'm a twenty-five year old gay male who only has one best friend, my cat. I'm afraid of developing relationships with outside people, and each day I worry that I'm starting to gradually lose both the will, and the ability to even try. I try to think of reasons why, and why not... but the logical side of me sides with the benefits of not being in any relationship, while the emotional side of me constantly goes between two extremes of "you need" and "this is too much pressure". I want to feel a kinship with someone else, friendship, companionship, love... but it takes too much out of me and I lose any drive to keep going.

Then, I also have deep spells of just total soul crushing apathy, emptiness, and anxiety over change and uncertainty. The easiest way for me to survive it is to simply try to deny that it exists at all. Ignoring the problem, or forgetting it by trying to immerse myself into games, music, or anything that can swallow my attention entirely. I know it's not healthy, and I'm taking pills to help offset my own mental problems. It sucks, especially the side-effects. I enjoy feeling somewhat sane, and normal. I don't get panic attacks so much anymore, paranoid about death, thinking about how fast time has been progressing, what I will do when my cat dies, and so on, and so on...

I'm rambling, but... I'm glad to get this out a little. I don't want pity, but it's good to know that I'm not alone. I know that there's so many people in this world so it's obvious that I'm not alone in a statistical point of view... however, seeing someone go through similar problems, and empathizing with them as well does help.

 

[Nouw]

I thought I knew what being busy and stressed out was -as busy and stressed out as a high-schooler can be- but oh boy oh boy was I wrong. With various tests, assessments, and musical performances creeping up on me I've begun to crack. I really want to keep appearances because the people around me are all awesome but it's hard maaaan.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I don't post much here anymore, but hey why not?

Girl broke up with me about 3 months ago under the pretense that the love had died. But really she had just wanted to get some more stuff outta me before she cut things off it seems. Had gone to stay with her for a month to fix things, found out from my best friend she'd made up her mind a while ago.It hurt, and it still hurts. I was always the kind of a person that wouldn't let anyone get to me about my disability, the whole thing was negligable. I can still talk like everyone else, just got funny legs and a lack of dexterity.

Yet when I heard someone who I loved for a year and a half tell me they couldn't bear to watch me get dressed, that me touching her made her feel weird, that she wasn't comfortable around me yet able to fall asleep from a 'male friend' cuddling her at college. Something broke, suddenly every little muscle movement, every little thing that Cerebal Palsy does in my body comes to light and I can barely stand to move and it feels so wrong.

Turns out that the first half of our relationship was me being a rebound over her ex, and the other half was her being interested in someone else. Feels like I lived a lie really. It was by birthday the other day, hadn't drank or anything, but she was always on my mind so I stupidly decided to look her up. Already has another boyfriend, and it's implied they;ve slept together. I've had anxiety for a while and this just kicked it into high gear.

Mix in the constant near-recurring nightmares for the last three months, bouts of insomnia, chains of illnesses (right now including a stomach bug coupled with aches and pains) and my parents harassing me to get a job. I don't know what to do, I barely even interact with my friends anymore because I'm scared they'll hurt me in some way. All of my relationships have ended up with me being cheated on or used, so I'm lost. Even typing this now I wanna puke and run, my hands are shaking, I shouldn't be so terrified.

 

[Casual Shinji]

24 year old male with asperger's syndrome, never been kissed or on a date and it kills me inside. I'm trying to accept that I'll be alone forever but part of me doesn't want to.

This is about me, 7 years older.

It sucks when it feels like the world left you behind before you ever got a chance to even be part of it.

I also hardly got any sleep last night, because I saw The Blair Witch Project. 31 years old and still suffering from night terrors... *sigh*

 

[FPLOON]

I'm a recently-turned-26-year-old college drop out, with no idea what to do in life, delivering pizzas alongside highschool students.

Your move, thread.

...Well, at least you have a job...

OT: DAMMIT! I'm too damn happy! I think it's because I use it as a facade most of the time...

Spoiler: What my smiles usually look like most of the time

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/shinyaimpl13/39045184/2967/2967_original.jpg

But seriously, my great grandmother is 92 years old and has a shitty living arrangement up in Northern California's Vallejo. It's basically her, alone, in her house with only a cat that fucking hates her (but is too lazy to actually do anything about it) as well as some son-in-law who's more lazy than I am, which if you REALLY knew me that's fucking saying something... The son-in-law is married to one of my great grandmother's four daughters who's one of two trained doctors certified to take care of their own mother, basically... The problem is that the one married to the son-in-law works full time at the hospital while the other one, who lives less than 5 miles away from my great grandmother's house if I'm not mistaken, is TOO FUCKING LAZY TO GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT HER OWN MOTHER, THAT SELFISH FUCKING *****! THE LAST TIME SHE VISITED HER OWN MOTHER, MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER, WAS WHEN MOST OF THE FAMILY CELEBRATED GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S 90TH FUCKING BIRTHDAY! IT'S GOING ON THREE YEARS ALMOST!

*calms down a bit* Sorry about that... I just really care about my great grandmother... However not as much as my grandmother, of course, who will take care of my great grandmother so well whenever she comes down to visit the family living in Southern California's San Diego that, to her, it's like she's on an elite-paid vacation that was not only pre-paid in advance, but was upgraded due to the senior discount! And, the best part about this over-exaggerated metaphor is that my grandmother, who's basically more paranoid than me when it comes to forgetfulness, isn't even trained to take care of her own mother, but for "some reason" can do a better fucking job than the two highly-trained nurses that basically live almost next door to her with only one of them having a better excuse than the other...

Let me give you two examples that my grandmother always brings up whenever she tells others how her mother is doing, including my own personal example later on... *ahem* One of the major problems my great grandmother's having nowadays while living up in Vallejo is that she BARELY EATS ANYTHING! If you think about it, the fact that she's basically living alone in her own house as well as being 92 years old going on 93 who could barely take care of herself is REALLY not helping the situation here. Now, if she's down in San Diego with my grandmother, she's not only eating what her own daughter has to eat, but also the food that she WANTS to eat sometimes. She wants some fish tacos? She'll get it when my grandmother's out shopping with her mother beside her the whole way, since my grandmother really does not want her own mother alone in her house at any given point in time! This leads to another major problem, which is that my great grandmother LOVES to stay active in her "old" age, as in she's willing to walk outside and go to different places every once in a while instead of always staying coped up in her house basically all the time... Up in Vallejo, she can't leave the house because NO ONE would be there in case she falls and has a hard ass time getting back up. Not even the other family members that live in that area are even available to do something like that, let alone volunteer to choose a day from their overall schedule to do it in the first place. Meanwhile, in San Diego, you bet your ass my grandmother's taking her own mother to different places more than once in a while, basically, even if it's just to the nearest supermarket jut to pick up more damn bananas... And, yes, despite my great grandmother having one of those mechanical walkers for senior citizens, she'd rather walk with her cane in hand and someone to "escort" her...

Now, about my personal example... I mentioned how my grandmother never wants her own mother to be left alone in her own house, so basically she comes with her whenever she has to go somewhere... Well, what if the location my grandmother has to go to would not suit my great grandmother all that well, like when she had to go to the DMV to renew her handicap plaque, then that's when she calls me up, ask me if I could look after my great grandmother for that particular day, and I follow up on the day specified. Now, if there's one time I learned from "babysitting" my great grandmother is that we both hate waking up in the mourning and would rather sleep til past noon, so already that covers the first half of the day... The rest consist of me handing over my great grandmother's food for that day, basically, while we listen to jazz until my grandmother comes back... Oh my glob, if this is basically what anyone up in Vallejo is SUPPOSE to do, more or less, it just pisses me the fuck off that basically one of "many" reasons why my great grandmother could be "weak" or "helpless" in her own home is because of MY OWN FAMILY UP IN NORTH CAL! I really do NOT want her to die because of something that could have been EASILY avoided if ANYONE up there was truly taking care of her almost the same way my grandmother takes care of her...

Do I wish my great grandmother lived down here in SoCal? Fuck yes, but due to "financial" reasons, she can't... as of right now... and that is something I REALLY do not want to get into because of both my biased opinion about the whole thing as well as my lack of "true understanding" about the financial aspect of all this...

Anyway, I rambled enough as it is... I'm not sure how much of that made any sense if I decide to reread it again for any errors in punctuation, but whatever... It's late and I need <link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLyhWIh6jvY>some music to sleep to...

 

[talker]

I'll say it out loud, but this is NOT self-pity. It's just facts. I feel more dishonor than actual depression.
I've taken too long to get my master's. I should've wrapped up college last year, but I got scared of That One Exam, plus I got sidetracked with work and as a result I still have a couple of semesters to go before I get my final degree - quotas I'm paying out of my own pocket. This means I won't graduate before I'm 25, which seems to be pushing it. And even once I'm done with college, I really should get a 2nd job to make ends properly meet.

Been failing all my tests recently because of social problems, find solace in videogames. Decided to stop this year and try again the next, but I'm scared of losing friends/screwing up my tests again. Hardly mentioning compared to what you guys have got going tho :/

I don't recommend taking a year off. See above.

It's the first time I'm redoing a year, plus I don't have the financial problems you seem to be having. You're in a far worse position than me.

 

[Folksoul]

My mother died of systemic organ failure shortly after Valentines day. She was 59. The final stage of her condition was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. She had been but on "we can't do anything but make her comfortable" level painkillers and sedatives. Due to nerve damage her eyes were wide open while her body was convulsing. She was just... shaking, and staring with blank unresponsive eyes. This was a long and slow decline that took a little over a decade. Complications with diabetes, a thyroid disorder, auto immune disorders, and dozens of other smaller illnesses slowly removed her ability to function as an independent person, physically and mentally. We'd had a final conversation of the Friday before, she went on the meds later that night. Her last words were, "It hurts."

 

[Erttheking]

I have no self confidence, it takes an entire day to get me in a good mood and three seconds to get me into a panic stricken mess, I don't focus on my work as hard as I should and always panic as a result, I always goof off when I'm supposed to be working but even when I'm goofing off I can't relax because I'm still worried about my work, I have no idea what I want to do with my life, I'm constantly stressing over grades in college, I just wish summer would get here so that my friends will come back from school already because I seriously need a hug.

 

[Smeatza]

This blog.
http://turnsoutmywifeisgay.com/
It's the blog of a married man who's wife has come out of the closet.
Some of it makes for truly heartbreaking reading.

So often it's thought of as this funny thing that only happens in sitcoms, but in reality it can be an incredibly painful thing for all parties involved.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'll say it out loud, but this is NOT self-pity. It's just facts. I feel more dishonor than actual depression.
I've taken too long to get my master's. I should've wrapped up college last year, but I got scared of That One Exam, plus I got sidetracked with work and as a result I still have a couple of semesters to go before I get my final degree - quotas I'm paying out of my own pocket. This means I won't graduate before I'm 25, which seems to be pushing it. And even once I'm done with college, I really should get a 2nd job to make ends properly meet.

Been failing all my tests recently because of social problems, find solace in videogames. Decided to stop this year and try again the next, but I'm scared of losing friends/screwing up my tests again. Hardly mentioning compared to what you guys have got going tho :/

I don't recommend taking a year off. See above.

It's the first time I'm redoing a year, plus I don't have the financial problems you seem to be having. You're in a far worse position than me.

It has nothing to do with financial issues. Sabbatical years always looks like a big waste of time in hindsight.

 

[Snotnarok]

Then my grandma was diagnosed with cancer at the end of January and had surgery to remove a bulk of it (as I understand it), and in the span of 3 or weeks I got to watch her painfully die at the house. Lived with her my entire life, 28 years, she was super close to me and I loved her dearly. She was in the hospital twice her entire life and it was for the 2 children she birthed. She got check ups regularly and cancer snuck in and she didn't even have a chance to fight. My brother and I trying to keep an eye on our mother and then have to run upstairs to help gram who's in a lot of pain, basically was on 4 hours sleep on 3 or 4 days sometimes, not that's holding much of a candle to, you know, cancer and dying.

Hey man, I don't think you need to apologise. I, myself, feel like I need to apologise because I don't have much to add to this thread. I feel awkward posting in these things because I don't want to sound like a tosser.

Just wanted to say that I had roughly the same experience with my grandmother a couple of years ago. She was the healthiest person you could hope for at her age; she used to feed us spinach whenever we stayed over at her place (to our dismay as kids), and one day she started acting funny. Couldn't talk properly, one eye wouldn't open. We thought she'd had a stroke. Turns out, brain tumour. They managed to remove most of it, but then it came back suddenly a few months later. And then it killed her really quickly. She wished me luck for an exam, hugged me, and that was the last time I spoke to her. I flew down to see her a couple of weeks later after exams finished, at which point she was in a palliative care unit, unconscious. And then she passed away a few days after that.

But yeah, it sucks watching someone healthy just fade away like that. Same for your mother, sounds like that really fucken sucks.

So hugs.

Have some bunny photos.

Spoiler: Nature's anti-depressants

That's really rough, my heart totally goes out to you...That's a really rough getting treated then it coming back. I never feel like i say the right things here.

Yes hugs, many of them for you.

Thank you for saying so and the plethora of bunnies, it means a lot to hear from someone at all...

 

[RoonMian]

I am 29, trying since 10 years now to study something I genuinely love but failing due to a severe depressive disorder and a personality disorder which forces me to trust noone, expect everyone to backstab me, be deep down convinced that every single human relation inevitably leads to harm for myself, extreme self-loathing, the believe in the toxicity of my own personality and general hopelessness. Added to that I eat myself with guilt over the 10 years I've been wasting away my parents' money going nowhere. I've been suicidal pretty much constantly since I've been 14. I have been in therapy for 2 years and institutionalised for a combined 6 months and I still see no end. I can't sleep. My biorythm is more or less being awake for about 30 hours at a time and then being pretty much unconscious for 16. I am a very empathic person and I feel lonely constantly even though I have friends.

And now I've been sitting here since 15 minutes debating with myself over actually posting this. Because even though you're a bunch of internet strangers never letting anything of all I've described above show is deeply ingrained in my subconscious.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I don't know, some days in between college and work I don't get to eat lunch, so I'm hungry and kind of tired at work and it makes me sad.

Besides the craziness of the end of a semester compounding on top of my ever increasing work schedule, I'm pretty good with the world.

I've started to listen to Philip Glass's music, and I'm loving it. I thought minimalism was a complete joke, but the more minimalist composers I listen to, the more it becomes my favorite musical form.

 

[Barbas]

How long has it been now...I doubt I can remember where it really started.

...Which means it was probably school. That seems like a safe bet.

I never enjoyed my time at learning institutions. They seemed to be a scale model of everything that was wrong with people. After too many years there, I wanted someone else to offload my hatred and disgust onto. I gradually convinced myself that the people I had met in my early years were representative of their entire species as a whole. I had harbored bigoted thoughts toward people I saw as foreign before then, but this was something else. I fed on it and I let it grow to encompass my entire life, until almost every conversation I had with someone was a challenge to make them feel as miserable as I had and every interaction was either to push people away or give my misery company. I did my utmost to hate people I had never met before in my life, to form opinions on them based on their looks, mannerisms or nothing at all. I was an island of misanthropy that lashed out at its neighbours whenever it had a chance to.

It took a great deal of time for me to realize that the fix I received from spreading misery would never last long enough and that I was becoming my own worst enemy. When it finally occurred to me just what I had been making people feel, I felt sicker than I ever had before. I would think about my mistakes and double up, retching and trying to void my insides of the poison I had been carrying around for what seemed like an age. I was bed-bound and could do little more than stare glassy-eyed at the ceiling or wish for whatever death decided to come along. When people say "choked with hate" or "sick with anger", "sadness" or "guilt", they are not exaggerating in the slightest. I lay dormant as a husk and watched the sun make its way across the wall as the hours turned into days, then weeks. Finally, through the exhaustion I came to understand that while I could not erase the events of the past, I had no choice but to change dramatically.

Because of my best past efforts, there was nobody there for me to talk to, so I eventually found my way here. I discarded my past preconceptions and began to train my self to do the opposite of what I had before. With the help of a lot of people here, I have already begun to further my unsophisticated understanding of subjects and people. I now find that it feels debilitating to manipulate, connive and insult. I have felt that backfire and do not know that I could live through a second helping of it eating me from the inside-out. Conversely, assisting, accommodating and encouraging people seems to drive me now. I've still made mistakes, mistakes that I have learned to be truly sorry for, but with each new day I get a little bit better, thanks in no small part to you. I was very little before I came here. Everything I have learned has been from you or people like you. There are too many people to name, but they have changed my outlook and shown me just how wrong wrong can be...quite a few times.

I do not exaggerate - people have helped me immeasurably. One of the things they showed me was just how little I really know about them. When I look at some of the things they've done, I am left utterly speechless and humbled. The people I used to mock and deride have built entire worlds with their collaboration and their compassion has moved me to tears. I have never been a greater fool than I was when I utterly misunderstood the word Humanity.

...As I finish writing this, the sun is illuminating the opposite wall with its welcoming glow and I feel like a new man. Brothers, sisters, friends, never allow yourselves to forget that all can change. No-one is the same person they were years ago. The very nature of humans is to change and grow. Show understanding and forgiveness, do what you can. See the good in people, nurture and encourage it and you will find that there is someone who always cares for you, because the good that goes around will come around again.

Spoiler: In the darkest of moments, a single match can flare like a supernova.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

I have a friend that waited until he was about your age, and he still gets panic attacks on freeways even though he turns 30 this week. His fear also makes him a terrible driver, which just exacerbates the difficulty he has driving anywhere.

This is my problem, while I did get my license at 16 like most people I, in hindsight, used a terrible school which my mother says was way to lenient. I was a very nervous driver since but I could move myself to drive alone but never on the free way without one of my parents with me. Then as I was felling confident I got a speeding ticket, in a school zone, the rest of that day was spend scared and crying and after that I was very nervous, I spent all my driving time following all laws to the book, If a light was green with me too far away and too long after I slowed down so I could stop at the yellow. and always followed the speed limit to the number even thought it is common to fudge it about 5 miles. I would always wait for arrows or green lights to make left and right turns respectively. One time my yellow light policy back fired, I dont know if I overreacted or if I was in the right but after stopping what felt like a hard break I was hit from behind, since he was quick to admit fault I think he was distracted. Though after that the car had to be scrapped and for a while I could not drive since I could not drive stick shift. After we replaced the car I was to afraid to drive so every day I had to drive with my dad to school(college) It took the entire semester to get over it so this semester I can atleast drive my self, but every day it stresses me out so much that I come home equally as tired as my friends with harder days. In fact it is so bad that last Friday I got sick because on Thursday I finally worked up the courage to go to my favorite store which is near my school but I misjudged my route and hit construction and was stuck behind a backhoe, it stressed me out so much that I was completely worn out and when i woke up in the morning I was sick, my allergies were acting up I was cold, in that sick cold and shivering way, and my throat hurt.

 

[Gaijinko]

Every weekday I go for a long walk on my own to clear my head and whatnot. Along the way there is this old dog, he is tiny arthritic, deaf and part blind. That dog never backed down from a fight, even against a group of Alsatians (and it bloody won!). It used to follow me on my walks and I would walk slowly so it could come with me, it never asked for a pat on the head or attention and would follow me all the way up and then back down. I grew to really care for that dog. I had not seen it for two days so I talked to its owner and found out today it had been run over by a car it could not hear cos it was deaf, for some reason that has hit me pretty hard.

 

[NLS]

After over 3 years together, my girlfriend broke up with me about a month ago. I then realised that I had put much of my social life and friends aside, and the only thing that remained was me, myself and all the thinking in the world. I've somewhat managed to regain touch with old and new friends, but whenever there's a silence (alone or with friends), I start thinking in inner dialogues all the time. It's driving me nuts, I'm having the same conversations in my head again and again, repeating both past and future conversations. And the only person I could talk to about this, is now obviously not interested in talking to me anymore.

 

[RoonMian]

I discarded my past preconceptions and began to train my self to do the opposite of what I had before.

That kind of makes you a role model for me... That's where I hope to get as well.