Hi There

[Susann]

I am suffering from depression - in that I feel constantly sad, gained weight and just performing daily dutied takes enormous energy. Due to a lot of fairly recent issues occurring, I feel that a lot of my undealt with chidhood issues have raised their painful heads AGAIN.

In the past, I have had years of councilling, which in the short term does reduce the pain by sharing it with a concerned person - however, with, I feel,  no real long term effect. I really would like to get past this pain ( of not feeling loved and supported in my life) - but I really don't know how to do that.

I have heard that the pain won't kill you - but the addiction will. However, I find the pain extremely debilitating. So - do I just plaster a smile on my face and get on with living (while squashing all of these feelings back down ) or do I really try to deal with the pain??

I have read that just sitting with the pain and getting in touch with it and going into it  leads to happiness. I have not been able to achieve this , to date. Has anyone got any suggestions or ideas??

P.S. In the past, I have had medication and went as high as a kite,

Warm Regards,

Susann.

[RoxyGirl]

Hi Susann

I'm new to beyond blue community and I would like to share how I overcome childhood/adult  issues/trauma. I have had years of counselling to deal with these issues. Long story short, I have forgiven what these people have done to me! Not for there sake but for mine. Forgiving doesn't mean condoning what they have done, but for you to move on. The people that hurt me obviously have problems that they need help with. Me, I'm happy (in that sense, I now have other issues), I can even speak to these people as they can no longer hurt me. I wont let them.

Its hard to do, but for me it helped. 

Good luck Susann x

[chr960]

Hi Susan,  I am suffering depression as well. It is not something where you can just "get over it". it is a disease.  I have been fighting it for many years and have my good days and my bad daysl  I am on mediacation which has helped me but I still go through my ups and downs. All I want when I am down is someone to listen and understand that I am down but to me that is the hardest thing to find.  I am on a down at the moment, but hopefully in the next few days I will be ok.  Hang in there and if you need anything, remember that ther is someone there for you, for everyone... yo just have to find them and hold on to them, they are the most important people who will let you through the hard time.s  hand in there!!!

[geoff]

dear Susan, it's good that you have 2 replies both from newcomers.

Something has happened to you which has brought back memories of your childhood, and this is a real worry, because these situations what ever they are will keep happening to you and need to be handled or being able to cope with them.

There have been comments by Roxy and Chr which I would to comment on, but will do that a bit later.

I can well understand how you feel when you are in a session, in that we talk about our concerns and come out feeling much better but as the hours roll on we then begin to feel the depression kicking back in, so we're back to square one and then wonder why we ever go to counselling, so what's the point.

There's a reason why 'sitting with the pain and getting in touch with it and going into it leads to happiness', it's called putting on a fake face, we pretend to be happy, because there's no way if we have depression that we can genuinely be happy.

I 'm not sure what you are referring to by saying 'addiction' as I was addicted to alcohol when I had depression.

With regard to Roxy yes it is possible to eventually be able to talk to other people and what they say to you is like 'water off a duck's back', because we do learn to be able to not get upset by what these people say, but you have to overcome depression first.

I am interested in these 'other issues' which you now are trying to cope with.

And with Chr, are you having a relapse at the moment, because when I do I also know that within a couple of days I will also get better.

Interesting post and would like to hear from you. Geoff.