topic Constant Unease in Depression

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 04:15:24 GMT

Hi my name is Ewan. I have called Beyond Blue many times but never made use of these forums. I have suffered from major depression since at least 2006, and have been on medication since 2010. I try so, so hard to manage depression responsibly but nothing seems to work for long. I have done all the CBT and ACT stuff and am familiar with all the different psychotherapy theories. I meditate and exercise daily and my diet and sleep are generally very good. Nevertheless I still get very depressed. I was in hospital once in 2012 and again in 2016 for suicide attempts. I am in the dark place again now but am thankful I have been able to manage those kinds of thoughts thus far. I have worked so, so hard and somehow managed to obtain a masters degree in science from University of Melbourne, doing very well. In many ways things are much better now with my family life but for a long, long time things were very bad. My sister was in hospital over 40 times for major eating disorders, then drug problems, throughout my teens and early 20s. My mum has long term problems with eating disorders and prescription drugs, along with many, many other physical and mental health problems. There has never been a time in my entire life when I can remember her being far from crisis point. She is frequently in hospital - in the past for suicidal behaviour, now more likely for physical issues. I find the whole thing deeply depressing. She seems a lot better these days, and my sister has almost completely recovered, but I nevertheless feel as if some deep damage has been done to me and our family that will never heal. I feel a sense that I am doomed by my genetics to experience the same misery as my parents and sibling, and no matter how hard I try. I don't drink/smoke/do-drugs etc, but I still feel out of control emotionally. Recently both my PhD and relationship have completely fallen apart. I was no longer able to be a competent partner. I feel totally gutted by what has happened. I feel a massive sense of shame and disappointment with myself that never seems to go away. It's all just gotten too much and I can't see a way forward anymore. I also lost someone I knew to suicide recently that has created much hurt in my freindship group. Most of my friends suffer dramatically from mental health issues. I just don't know how to move forward anymore. I didn't sleep last night and have been having a lot of trouble ordering my thoughts. Thank you for letting me share this on this forum.

Constant Unease

Sophie_M — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 04:35:38 GMT

Hi eshort0401,
Welcome to the forums, we're so glad you've decided to join us here.

Thank you for sharing with us your mental health journy so far. It sounds like you've had many ups and downs over the years but right now seems particularly hard. A lot of our community members can relate to these thoughts and feelings, and hopefully some of them will pop by to offer you words of wisdom and kindness.

We're also really glad to hear that you have spoken with the Beyond Blue Support Service in the past. They are available 24/7 on 1300 22 4636 whenever you might need this support.

You may also like to contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 when thoughts of suicide feel overwhelming and unmanagable.

We hope that you will find some comfort here on the forums. Please keep reaching out here on your thread whenever you feel up to it.

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 05:28:27 GMT

Thank you 🙂

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 09:41:51 GMT

In some ways I have gotten a little better over the last few months, in other ways I have gotten worse. I feel very overwhelmed by the state of the world right now and am just trying to block it all out with TV. I'm still managing to do a little exercise each day but find it very hard to leave the bed and not just watch TV all day. I applied for a bunch of volunteering jobs today and hopefully some of them will pan out.

I feel really gutted by how my career choices have turned out, and by not being able to continue in science. I feel simultaneously angry at my own incompetence, and angry at failures of the institutions, and I can't tell where my problems end and external problems begin. I feel ashamed about how badly I'm doing. I hate this feeling of incompetence and helplessness.

Constant Unease

therising — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 11:36:05 GMT

Hi eshort0401

You sound like a deeply sensitive person. We definitely need more sensitive people in this somewhat insensitive world.

While there are many amazing abilities that come with being sensitive, there are also a lot of challenges:

A sensitive person has the ability to raise others because they're quite sensitive to when someone is down. A sensitive person can also be brought down by others if they're not careful
A sensitive person typically has an open mind. They tend to wonder. The down side of an open mind is negative things can enter and take root if we're not careful
A sensitive person has the ability to analyse their own faults in the process of constructively evolving. The down side - if we don't recognise certain faults as having been instilled by others, we can take them personally. Eg: 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I speak up for myself when someone's degrading me?' If our natural love of wonder and questioning wasn't conditioned out of us so much as kids, our wonder would naturally lead us to question, 'What's wrong with you? Why are you always so degrading toward others?'
A sensitive person has the ability to feel physical emotion easily. The challenge in this is found in deciphering what our body is communicating to us or how our body and mind are interacting. Being a person of science, I'd imagine you could relate to the body being energetic. We have a stack of energy systems within us. Energy runs through our nervous system, our vascular system, our endocrine system and so on. With energy in motion within our physical body, if we had to put labels on how our body feels in relation to our experiences, the labels become relateable. We label physical hyper activity when facing fear 'stress' or 'anxiety. Physical hyperactivity when we're in an extreme state of mental intolerance is labelled as 'anger'. When our energetic systems are all in a state of calm, we label this as 'peace'. In a state of energetic exhaustion we can feel 'numb' (nothing). We feel our systems in different states of energetic activity. A sensitive person can even sense a gut feeling if somethings 'off'. It's said that intuition or natural intelligence becomes stronger when we stop doubting what we feel and trust what we're feeling is telling us something.

Interesting, depending on who you speak to, some tend to say 'What do you think about this?' whereas sensitive people will be inclined to say 'How do you feel about this?'

You sound like a feeling person 🙂

Constant Unease

Roads_End — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 13:17:48 GMT

Hi Ewan

Please don't feel ashamed or blame your self for what's going on, for 1 it will only make you feel worse and its not your fault, depression is a miserable thing that messes up every thing, the lucky few that have never been afflicted with it just have no idea how hard it is just to get out of bed little a loan try to cope with the daily challengers at all when depressor. I would hope that once you have pushed depression back into it's cage science will still be there for you.

Be kind to your self, it's not your fault and your mind needs you to be a friend

regards Roads End

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 07:34:54 GMT

Thank you for your comments they're very kind and insightful. Negative ideas about myself can certainly take root very deeply and grow very large, even if they started from minor throwaway comments. Part of me knows it's irrational, but sometimes they will just grow and dominate everything else regardless. I've always been a very sensitive person. My mum is like that too. I don't want to be over sensitive though. Thanks again for your comments 🙂

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 07:35:54 GMT

Thank you very much for your kind words 🙂

Constant Unease

therising — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 09:54:17 GMT

Hi eshort0401

I get where you're coming from regarding parental influence. My mum is also a sensitive woman. I suppose the difference between me and her is based on the fact that I look at sensitivity as something that gives us certain abilities. Most people will see sensitivity as a 'weakness'.

Having mentioned physical emotion as being a natural part of a sensitive person, would you say you have the natural ability to feel when someone is degrading you or bringing you down? Degradation can be such a physical experience, without a doubt. Personally, when I feel someone bringing me down, I'll ask them why they're doing it. It can be hard to get out of the habit of thinking 'No, I can't ask them that', which leads me to the topic of natural inspiration, something also unique to a sensitive person.

I'd be highly surprised if you had never had inspiration come to mind for you before. Will give you a couple of scenarios where this may have happened

You can feel someone degrading you and then think 'Why is this person behaving like such an a******e?' Inspiration may come to mind 'Ask them why they're behaving like such an a'. Now, this is where the battle between to minds begins to play out, the mind we've been conditioned to listening to and the mind that is open to inspiration. 'I can't ask them that!' 'Why not?' 'They're going to get pretty triggered' 'Let them be triggered' 'No'. Back and forward the battle plays out, typically until the conditioned mind wins out and you decide not to ask that challenging question, toward the person degrading you. So, due to a bad habit, we enable that degrading person, without a single challenge
Someone may say 'Why don't you take up that particular interest?' Here we go again, within our own personal 2 way conversation: 'I'd love to do that but I can't' 'Why not?' 'I just can't. I don't have the money' 'It's not that expensive. You can find the money' 'No, I can't. Just shut up'. So, inspiration shuts up and you have no new interest

It's fascinating to witness a battle play out within a person standing right in front of you. You may be sensitive enough to have sensed this happening with certain people you've come across. You watch an argument taking place within a person but they're actually arguing out loud.Then they might say 'I sound like a crazy person, don't I?' You can usually tell which mind they're in at any given time, inspiration is the constructive mind. It's the mind that pushes us to make a difference.

🙂

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 03:46:39 GMT

Yes I definitely experience some emotions very overwhelmingly and physically. Some people have suggested I have PTSD as some things "trigger" very intense reactions. I don't really understand any of that stuff very well.

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Sat, 07 Nov 2020 03:03:01 GMT

Still been up and down. I've started skateboarding a lot again and that has helped a fair bit. But then last week I received some more bad news. My former step father took his own life. He hadn't been part of my life for a long time, but he is the father of my two half-siblings. I lived with him for a good 8 years or so in my childhood, so I'm affected a bit, but it's more the deep sense of tragedy adding weight to an already very heavy mind. My two half-siblings have been through so, so much in their lives, and I'm terrified this latest burden will be a final straw of sorts. I just feel trashed. Like I've been beaten up in a fight. I feel wonky on my feet and ungrounded. I've been suffering so much for so long now. I'm getting progressively better at coping over the last few months, but it's additional bad news like this that can be hard to shake off or stand up straight from.

Constant Unease

therising — Sat, 07 Nov 2020 10:04:23 GMT

Hi eshort0401

What an overwhelming challenge, the passing of your former step father. My heart truly goes out to you. Whether we're incredibly close to someone who takes their own life or time and emotional distance separates us, it can still be a very emotional event. While now free from depression, it's still easy for me to recall how soul destroying it can feel. When I hear the news of someone who could no longer tolerate the pain, it always leads me to feel deep emotion and compassion for them. Typically, people don't fully understand how bad things can really get unless they've been there.

Wondering if you're still in contact with your half-siblings. Being there for people who may really need us to raise them through their pain can sometimes raise us. This process can raise us to to see the value in our self, to understand our identity as caring, thoughtful, meaningful and so on. Is it possible to raise yourself to and through the challenge of raising them? Given how you're feeling at the moment, it's understandable if this task would feel a little too overwhelming.

Glad you've returned to skateboarding. I think lock down has come with an unforeseen side effect: A lack of excitement can leave us feeling numb. If there is no excitement, we feel no excitement if that makes sense. Being pretty sensitive myself, I'll feel so many things and I'll feel a lack of them too. It's amazing how we can feel a lack of energy. Weird, when you think about it. Usually, if I'm vibing low, physically, I'll ask myself 'How's the hydration factor, the healthy diet, the kinetic energy factor (exercise), the solar power (vitamin D) etc?' If the answer is 'It's shockingly poor' in regard to how much I've neglected myself, I know it's time I got my act together and 'powered up'. I find there's nothing quite like the feeling of having a glass of cold water, feeling the cold sensation move down through your throat and chest area. For me, a lack of hydration really impacts my energy levels.

To hear you're getting progressively better in certain ways leads me to wonder whether you're gradually finding what naturally works for you. It can be incredibly hard to come to know who we naturally are. From my experience, I've found the research is worth the effort. If you've discovered you're someone who can't tolerate a serious lack of excitement, this also tells you you're someone who thrives on excitement.Two sides of the same coin.

🙂

Constant Unease

yggdrasil — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 23:24:21 GMT

Thanks very much for your kind words 🙂 I'm doing a bit better in the last couple of days. I am quite close with my half siblings - we went out for dinner last night - and trying to support them has helped me deal with my own feelings. I've also been exploring support work as a way to stay occupied during my PhD leave, and as another way to get some distance from my own emotions. I've got a few jobs starting this week which I'm very excited about!