Feeling guilty about my depression

[Guest_00622388]

Hi everyone and thankyou in advance for reading my post.

For the past 2 years I have been battling severe depression. I feel completely numb. I have isolated myself from pretty much every relationship I had, except for my boyfriend who has been extremely supportive.

I feel only negative emotions, and cannot remember the last time I’ve been happy or excited.

However I have a great life. I have a loving stable family, a stable job I enjoy, I love my boyfriend of 5 years, a decent amount of savings, I’m in great health and have a trip to New York booked for Christmas with my partner.

I can appreciate all these things in my life, however I am still depressed. In turn, I feel guilty for my depression.

I am 28 years old and my partner and I have been struggling with having our first home built. It has taken 3 years so far and is only half way built. The process has completely drained me, as I feel like my life isn’t moving forward because of it.

we both still live at home with our parents, and I am absolutely miserable about it. And I feel guilty about that too because my parents have helped me.

I definitely feel like this is the reason I’m feeling this way, however I also feel guilty and ungrateful for my life.

i am so confused, and in my spare time I just lay in my bed and cry.

not sure what I’m looking for here, but I come from a family who doesn’t share their feelings.

i have grown up being the “overly sensitive” one, and whenever I voice my feelings about anything, I am shut down and told that I am causing too much drama.

thank you for reading

[Wiltingdaisy]

Hi,

Firstly, what you are feeling is completely valid.

I know what it is like growing up in a family that don't share their feelings. I am constantly coming across as the "emotional one" but I think it's just because for too many years I let things eat away at me, and I had to speak up otherwise it would kill me. 

I'm in a similar boat to you. I've been in a loving relationship for 11 years now, live in a house in a safe neighbourhood, have loving friends and family around me...but I've been feeling so depressed, empty and unmotivated in life. I feel guilty all the time for feeling this way, as there are so many people around the world suffering in far more severe ways.

But, it's important to note that it does not do us any good to compare our suffering. I remember reading this amazing book by Edith Eger, a WWII holocaust survivor who became a psychologist. This is her quote from her book The Choice and I hope it helps: "

“I also want to say that there is no hierarchy of suffering. There's nothing that makes my pain worse or better than yours, no graph on which we can plot the relative importance of one sorrow versus another. People say to me, "Things in my life are pretty hard right now, but I have no right to complain -- it's not Auschwitz." This kind of comparison can lead us to minimize or diminish our own suffering. Being a survivor, being a "thriver" requires absolute acceptance of what was and what is. If we discount our pain, or punish ourselves for feeling lost or isolated or scared about the challenges in our lives, however insignificant these challenges may seem to someone else, then we're still choosing to be victims. We're not seeing our choices. We're judging ourselves."

[therising]

A warm welcome to you at a time in your life that feels so challenging in so many ways.

It's amazing how many times 'the black sheep of the family' turns out to be the highly sensitive one. It seems most families have 'a sensitive' or 'a feeler' in them who appears to be 'broken' or 'dysfunctional' in some way. Appearances can be deceiving. Putting a different spin on 'the black sheep' factor and reframing it to be 'the bright light' of the family can help explain a lot. You could say 'I am the one who sheds light on emotions or I am the one who brings to light that which needs addressing or I am the highlighter of that which needs highlighting'. Whether others wish to address what is being brought to light or highlighted is a whole other story. So, it goes from 'broken' to being very much together and 'dysfunctional' to being highly functional with the ability to feel incredibly easily.

I think what can make being sensitive so tough involves being able to sense on multiple levels. For example, with next to no energy (aka 'numb'), does it involve mental factors like inner dialogue, draining or destructive belief systems that don't promote energy and so on? Could it involve physical or chemical factors, such as a lack of dopamine, a deeply depressing level of a vitamin or mineral deficiency and a lack of a host of things that we need for energy production? And then there's all the natural stuff, stuff for the soul you might say. A lack of inspiration or maybe a lack of vision or a lack of all the kind of things that feed the soul? A super sensitive person can have it even tougher when they're feeling how other people are feeling, other people's emotions. When you can feel other people's disinterest, disconnection, lack of empathy, judgement, anger etc, it can definitely become challenging.

There's lots to sense when you're a sensitive person. When we speak to others who you could say have 'come to there senses', it can make life so much easier. You could have someone say 'Oh, I know that feeling you're speaking of. It's the feeling of twisting in the wind with no sense of direction' or 'It's the feeling of disappointment, when you've appointed something to happen and it's not happening or you've appointed someone a role that they're never going to fill' or 'That's the feeling of waiting, with no sense of joy while you're waiting. It's a depressing kind of waiting'.

I smile when I say I can picture through my vivid imagination the moment before we're born and the powers that be are handing out our super powers. 'You, you will be given the ability to invent, so we will give you the power to see through your imagination. You will be a seer. You, you will be given the ability to analyse without feeling, so that feelings will never get in the way of what you need to analyse' and, wait for it...here we come...our turn 'You, you will be given the ability or super power to feel just about everything. Btw, there's no instruction manual for that so, good luck working it out'. So, here we are, looking for instructions when it comes to the ability to feel. 🙂

[David35]

You should never feel guilty about your depression. Does a person who catches a cold feel guilty? Society will try to teach you that's how you should feel because they can't be bothered. It sounds like your home build has become very stressful. You need to be in the company of others who validate how you feel, not dismiss it. You are who you are and if others can't accept that, then that's their problem.