Personal Woes and Advice 3

[The Fury]

Are you getting treatment for this depression? If not, please get some help. Going it alone with depression is like trying to levitate by yanking on your own shoelaces, and only slightly more effective. You're probably awesome at a number of things, you've just been running on 20% of your mental resources for so long you think that it's normal and you just suck. That's almost always not the case. With the help of a licensed professional (most of them are competent, although there are a couple bad ones out there so get a second opinion if a particular professional doesn't seem to be helping) you can (with some effort) get your depressed brain back in shape and then discover what life can be like without your brain sabotaging you and then making you feel ashamed that you can't keep up with people who have working, non-depressed brains.

I have been to counseling before, and it has helped. Between my full-time job and trying to get back into volunteering I haven't had time to start going back. I know how much that sounds like a sorry excuse, but that's how I feel.

Seriously, it's like you're trying to run a race with an extra 50 lb weight shackled to your legs. Never mind finishing first, finishing a race at all is actually a huge accomplishment. However, if you've been managing to run races at all with the weight, imagine how well you'll do when you manage to get the shackles removed!

It's very rare for severe depression to spontaneously reverse itself, so slogging through the same old routine that lets you barely function and hoping things get better probably won't work. Find a licensed medical professional, ideally one that specializes in handling depression, be honest with them, do what they tell you, and odds are extremely good that things will improve for you.

If you're speaking of going in for psychiatric evaluation, that's something I've considered. My councilor actually recommended that I go. I'm not so sure about it, personally. There's the stigma surrounding mental illness in general, but being sick mentally always a different sort of problem for me. Whatever I have, I'm fairly high-functioning so that leads people around me to insist that there isn't anything wrong with me at all. Which I don't think they realize just how hurtful that actually is-- being told that I'm perfectly fine when I feel horrible. There's another, nastier flavor of this too; being reminded that mental illness and depression are real and cause a lot of suffering and how I should be ashamed of claiming that I have depression when I clearly do not. Actually being diagnosed and medicated might help, but I don't think it's ever going to be something I can ever discuss with my friends and definitely not with my family.

Edit: And try not to let the fear of failure or rejection stop you from getting help, or exhaustion convince you to put things off until next week. Fear, shame, and a lack of energy are the depressed brain's best ways of stopping you from doing anything that would be beneficial for you. Whether it's getting treatment, cooking a healthy dinner instead of settling for junk food, maintaining a circle of friends, furthering your education, or doing anything fun with other people, your depressed brain will almost certainly try to convince you it's not worth the effort, you'll be awkward if you go, people will laugh at you, nothing's actually wrong with you- you just suck, you're a failure, you're too tired, and if you screwed it up or missed an appointment you'll just screw it up again and no one will want to see you.

I do enjoy cooking. Maybe I should get back into it. I'd like to say that I have been maintaining a circle of friends too, I'm not though. In fact I'm more distant with my friends than I've ever been. Forgive me if I'm getting too personal, but whenever I start to feel like this I get reminded of an anecdote from some years ago. I used to work at a volunteer job, and as a way of saying thank you for all my hard work one of the staff gave me a pass for brunch for two at this neat little cafe. It was even in an envelope with hearts drawn on it and everything. Though it was really nice and really thoughtful, nobody I knew wanted to go with me. I actually tried to give the pass back because I couldn't really use it, I was reassured that "someone" would want to go with me. I held onto the pass for a few months before giving it to a coworker that could actually use it. I'd never felt so lonely in my entire life.

Depression is an illness. One of the symptoms is seeing only the negatives, and being unable to acknowledge or see all the things that make you brilliant.

You know the standards things that can help: talk to people, take a walk outside in nature, do some exercise, listen to music (even music that makes you sad), concentrate on something creative like a drawing - if you can't make yourself do these things today, that's cool too: today might be a bed-day and they're a part of self-care also.

I suppose that's true, though in my case I've had issues with depression for so long that I don't even remember being able to see legitimate good qualities in myself. Whenever I try I usually end up weighing the pros and cons of throwing myself off an overpass. Sorry to be melodramatic, but I'm trying to be completely honest.

I do try to stay active though. I don't have a car so I usually walk and take the bus whenever I go somewhere. Walking outside can be a surreal experience for me sometimes.

I haven't really had time for creative stuff-- I used to really enjoy it, I'm not sure I can still do it. I used to enjoy reading too, though a lot of my time seems devoted to reading about personal finance and career planning. Meanwhile I'm preparing to move and a large part of that is getting rid of a lot of my books.