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I've been struggling with a pretty heavy depression for the last few months and it is killing me. Not literally, but sometimes it might as well be. I am increasingly resentful of myself for being as depressed as I am all the time. My life is really good, all things considered. I sometimes wish there was something medically wrong with me, just so I could feel justified for feeling as bad as I do. I hate myself for doing badly at the things I fail in, and when I do succeed, I can't shake the feeling that somehow I cheated and don't deserve to have done well.
The truth is, at least I believe, that you don't have to have some 'mental disease' or a terrible home life to be justifiably depressed or miserable. It's not like you
want to be, nobody actually sincerely
wants to be unhappy with their lives. If you convince yourself that maybe you're just 'dramatically miserable' because your subconscious is a pathetic attention-seeking and ungrateful drama queen, and that you should really be able to get over stuff like this? It's Not True. If you haven't thought that, then that's even better XD . But the point is, trust me, you can't get this 'sad' without there being a serious factor outside of yourself; it's just not possible short of some
actual mental issue.
It's... well, I've never studied psychology, but it's a mechanism that my own mind pulled a lot when I was like this, which I personally branded 'emotional rationalization' :needs a better term: . Your feelings are strong, and to anybody else they seem unreasonable and self-inflicting (and most people probably can't even wrap their heads around why you'd feel that way), but
you understand, perfectly well, and can rationalize your thoughts. You do this because you need to have a
reason why you're so upset. These feelings that bother you so much, they have to have some sort of cause, right? You want to know
why is this happening to me, and the best reason you can come up with is that internal karmic logic that
it must be because I deserve it.
Others may say "You should never feel like you're worthless, or you're less worthy than other people, you can do whatever you want with yourself", but you've got all day, and all night, to think about exactly why they're wrong, all the reasons why, logically, you could actually be just as worthless or hopeless as you feel. You're surrounded by the reasons (YOU never go out, don't do things, ME isolated, disliked by all, am an annoying prat), by the feelings (Disgusted with every selfish thought, every lack of will, if
only people could see inside your head all your pettiness, they'd understand why you feel like that. You kind of deserve it, don't you?), all this constant proof, piles and piles of it, just prove exactly how wrong their advice is, how mislead about you they are. They just don't understand, right? Logically, and emotionally, yours is a sound argument stubbing out the basic encouragements of the people around you.
You probably don't think and feel these sorts of things
constantly, I sure as hell didn't, but does it come up often enough in your thoughts? These sorts of feelings, for me, were brooding, self-rationalizing, attempts to self-correct at least in my mind all the 'bad thoughts' that I 'had no right to feel', and they had lots of time to slowly simmer and soak.
It's Not True either. The reason you feel bad is because you DO FEEL BAD, not for any petty or selfish or disgusting reason. There is no need to make yourself feel worse by asking yourself if you even deserve to complain about being unhappy, or if you're just ungrateful and mopey.
Well... I got the
feeling that, from what I read, our situations on the emotional level were similar enough that I could take a guess at what else you might be feeling. Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, that's wicked, you're not as much of a brooder as me (even when I'm not depressed, I have a super-brooder personality, sooo XD ) . But in case you do, well, I hoped that maybe by explaining exactly what you're feeling and telling you that other people have felt it before would help? All those darkest inner thoughts, you probably don't tell others, the ones you are most ashamed of thinking. I've probably thought a lot of them too (and others) . You may still not be able to quite 'See' what I'm saying, as in go 'Oh, yeah, you know she's totally right, I shouldn't think or feel like that anymore!', it may be kind of hard to tell yourself that without feeling... Guilty somehow, but as you get happier overall and look back, you realize how different it is and just how unfair you were with yourself. But, anyway, yeah, you're not alone XD .
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I never seem to be accomplishing anything aside from getting up in the morning (and by morning, I mean no earlier than noon over the last two months), wasting my day on the computer, and going to bed exhausted despite having done nothing.
Throughout all of last summer, I woke up at noon too XD . Sometimes an hour later, sometimes an hour earlier, but I love sleep, so I laze in bed a lot. But anyway, putting aside my similarly bad habits (I don't do much other than fiddle with the laptop and watch TV either), some of the advice
Cheesegear gave sounds like it'd be a good idea. Change is HARD, I know because I suck so much at it myself, but trying is always good!
Maybe try getting interested in various things, even in passing. The internet is great for that. Well, I'm particularly good at picking up random interests (from learning Korean, to Sign Language, to Gothic Lolita clothes to gardening to henna tattoos, all of which I have failed at spectacularly =P ), but maybe you are too? There are lots of fun random hobbies and things you could take interest in and try out. Learning new things in the process is a good plus, and makes you feel like you achieved something.
If you don't know how to play chess, you can teach yourself and play online against a free chess AI, or learn Go, or Checkers, or Solitaire, other games. Maybe starting a collection would be fun (I collect stickers, stuffed animals, pencils, temp tattoos, and various other JUNK) . You're into D&D since you're on this forum, maybe do something related to that (start writing a D&D-related story, try homebrewing random cool junk, etc.).
Getting away from the computer can be really good for you (I wish I could drag myself away, graaah XD ), but if you find you can't bring yourself to do it, or if it doesn't seem to help after trying for a while (especially if all your friends are online), there are some things to try doing on a computer that can still be productive. Even just spending a day clicking through a ton of Wikipedia articles could be interesting and good for you (especially if they all relate to a good topic) . If you have a textbook on a subject you're interested in, or something like that (I have an Environmental Science book), you could try reading it and then taking notes on your computer. What have you.
I got pet rats because of cool stuff I read online (they are very fuzzy and cute) , maybe consider getting a pet if you like animals? I'm told they can be quite therapeutic. Or plants. I'm good at personifying animals and even inanimate objects, and talk to them, so they may be good venting material (then again, I talk aloud to myself on a regular basis... :S ) .
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Most of all, I resent the fact that I am so good at hiding just how screwed up I am to anyone in my life that might be able to see that there is something wrong and help fix it. Day in and day out I lie and pretend that I am doing fine, then at night I log onto the web and spend my time venting and complaining to the group of people I know online. I feel like such a burden to the people that care about me, and I don't feel like I ever give anything back.
I did similarly, with my family (the only people I could consider 'close' at the time) . Home life was fine, I was typically content and happy (ish) , and I would never tell them about any of the bad things that happen at school, and I most especially kept all my darkest thoughts from them, even though I might think about it all day and just want to talk to them about it, and I knew that they would want to know and help me with it. But it's all so very
personal and
not their burden, and then it feels like it's not as important as you thought it was, to go so far as bugging
them about your issues, right? I didn't have the internet then, but I did have my stuffed animals (*cough* and imaginary friends... I was an imaginative child... ^^; ) to pour my feelings into.
But, I'm not sure how best to give advice on this, because I think no matter what, you'll find it difficult to open up and 'drop your burdens on their shoulders'. And it is just a plain truth that, even though your loved ones may care and not push you away or anything, it
will worry them and make them upset. Well, it's not good to constantly talk about stuff like that, and I think it's best to normally put up a good front 'as per usual', but when certain things come up that really makes you feel in a
particular need to talk to someone (personal example, I wish I'd talked to my parents when my classroom made fun of me, it would have helped), they will be there for you.
But also, forgetting about your problems and pretending it's OK may be good sometimes. Spending time with friends and family and just enjoying their company can do wonders to your mood, and make you forget all about that feeling for the duration. It made me feel less bad about myself (being surrounded by people who enjoy your company) overall. Friends can help wonders, when in that way, but they flounder when directly confronted (
Cheesegear is right, they feel as lost as you on how to help) . Then again, my issue was directly connected with socialization (or lack thereof), so perhaps it doesn't apply as well to you.
Being a burden to your loved ones... I know how that feels. That 'emotional rationalization' sure did 'wonders' here too. Well, rest assured, that when you start to think "I should have never been born" with an utmost deadpan sincerity fueled with a self-made laundry list of all the reasons of exactly why that's true, your thoughts
definitely aren't *quite* as rational as you think they are. I don't think you're at that point yet (I'm really hoping not, that's kind of a sucky way to think,
avoid at all costs), and try to stay away from that point. Because that is just not fair to you, you are a human being that deserves better than
that regardless of what 'little you do' or how much 'trouble you give'. You are not a
bad person, or at the very least I can say that you are far
less bad than you give yourself credit for.
There can be all sorts of rationalizations that seem to make just
so much gosh-darned sense here, I know, and that's just stuff that's really hard for me to be able to refute believably, but... that's just about true of
everyone. Anybody has the capacity to feel bad for the burden they are, and have done enough or have enough rational reasons to be able to back up their feeling just as well as you.
If they were that sad. If they needed a reason to wonder about it in the first place. It is what many young children feel when their parents argue or have difficulties taking care of them, but they don't deserve to feel like burdens either.
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Even as I am writing this I can't help admonishing myself for it and feeling like this is nothing more than a self-centered cry for sympathy and attention. At the same time, there are times when I feel almost angry at the people who try to comfort me, because deep down, no matter how much I hate feeling like this, I feel like it is my fault that I am depressed, and that I deserve to be like this. That I must have done something and this is my punishment for it.
Already covered all this above, would hate to start sounding even more repetitive than I already naturally do =P . We really are kin spirits ^^; .
But, to sum up this ridiculous ranty post full of gross assumptions and improper bounciness, I'll say that I got over all this sadness quite a while back (3-4ish years?), and it's a faded memory now. It
is possible for you to be happy, as 'stuck' as it may seem right now. Personally, my remedy for 'happiness' was people. I was the isolated 'Acceptable Target' by virtually every person in my school, but it only required me to gain a couple friends that would talk with me that made me start getting over my feelings. I never really talked to them about how I felt inside, they don't know that I hated myself or any of that, and they didn't have to. Just having a couple people there helped me pull myself up and feel less worthless. After all, I found my friends precious and valuable, and their opinions, so if
they liked me and thought I was a nice friend, maybe I'm not so bad?
It was not a so conscious and sudden a thought though. The divorce between my anger and self-hate and my more natural hyper positivity (as I am now and was as a young kid) was a long, drawn-out process with no real leaps or sudden epiphanies. It is, after all, a state of mind, something that has hold over your every thought and emotion. Rather than going up a set of stairs or a ladder, it was more like inching up a slope, if that makes sense. It'll probably be similar for you? If you can change your life drastically for the better, that's so great, I'm pretty sure I've heard of that happening to people before. But it can be good to know that it's also possible to change yourself a little at a time. (Then again, I've always been super-slow with everything XD ) .
Also, while there may be merit to the advice of 'seeing a professional' from
Cheesegear, personally I have been more... cautious of such avenues. If you
want that, feel OK with the idea of
getting that, then it could be a good idea. But if you're like me and it just makes you feel
uncomfortable and
worse, and perhaps somewhat
invading to even think about talking to a stranger about these things, it may do more harm than good. Psychologists are not miracle workers, and I get the feeling that they can help best with the people who actually want to be there. It is a big decision, I think, and not one to be taken lightly. They could help a lot, especially since they are probably familiar with people like you, your feelings, and your situation, and may give you a feeling of stability or safety, and be a good outlet. But it is not the
only way, so don't feel that it is if you really don't want it. Definitely something to
think about.