It's like looking from the outside in and it is not you

[NellieJ]

I've been on and off this site that many times.Scared and nervous about what to say, here goes. There are times when I feel happy, but there is an enormous amount of times that I just don't feel right.  I can't concentrate on things, feel restless a lot of the  time, burst into tears at the slightest, and not know why.  I think not knowing why I have these feelings is the thing that worries me the most.  Which just makes me feel even worse.  Sometimes when I have been sitting with friends, everyone is laughing and having a good time.  I get the feeling of isolation.  I then  put on a front that I'm enjoying what is going on.  It's like looking from the outside in and it is not you.  It's like being on a roller coaster.  I can exude confidence really well and hide the way I feel, but inside my stomach in churning.  My father died back in 1995 and I have just neverI really felt the same. Here I am yet again looking for reasons/excuses for the way I feel.  I'm unsure of myself nearly all the time. I go through mood changes where I get this strong "not a problem" "whats the worst that can happen" attitude, a sort of high, then I go downhill fast and the wave of uncertainty comes back full on. I more times than not have a feeling of unsettled nerves. Small things that most people seem to just handle, set me off, making me so stressed that I cant eat, sleep and break out into cold sweats.   I'm scared for some reason of going to a GP, fear of what to say.  Any advise or help would be greatly appreciated.

[White_Rose]

Dear Nellie

Hello and glad to have you on board. I have just read this thread. Your description of yourself and your symptoms are so classically depression. I imagine everyone has been nodding their heads as they read your posts. Been there, done that, got the T shirt.  Don't mean to be flippant, I'm actually trying to reassure you. You are normal, just going through a bad time. Yes, some folk appear to manage better than you when they have problems. It could also be that they are hiding behind a mask, just like you, and inside they are deeply unhappy and wondering how you cope so well.

The reality is that we all react in different ways. Sounds trite to say this I know, but it's true. So stop beating yourself up over something you did not inflict on yourself, scares the living daylights out of you and which other people do not understand.

We all know and understand how and why you feel as you do. We are the experts so believe in us. We are in the same boat and we will help you to learn to row. My word, what a lot of cliches I have used. Not usually my style but never mind. I hope you get the picture.

When your psych asked if you knew why you were feeling that way I'm sure she did not expect a literal answer. As you say, that's her job. I would think she was asking if you could think of anything of significance that had happened in your life recently. Sometimes we can pinpoint some happening that has made us upset. It's usually not the whole story but it's a start. If you cannot think of anything it is still OK.

You need to feel comfortable with the psych and talking in a more general manner can start the process. I would be more concerned if she started doing CBT the minute you walked into the room.

Please try to remind yourself that there is nothing wrong with you in a bad sense. You are unwell and have an illness, just like having the 'flu. Unfortunately it takes longer to get well when you are depressed. And it does take time. That has been my big problem. A huge lack of patience. Baby steps, my daughter tells me, and although I want to run, baby steps it has to be. You run the risk of missing some vital steps in the wellness process by rushing ahead. So just like a baby learning to walk, try hard but expect to fall over. Then pick yourself up and go again.

Imagine us all on the sidelines cheering you on and saying "There's a clever girl". And then we give you a huge virtual hug.

Keep posting as I would love to know how you go on.

LING

[NellieJ]

Therapist started cognitive behaviour therapy.  I don't understand this very well and it makes me feel as if when she asks me a question and I don't understand, that I'm an idiot.  I write down the "I can't and what if" list and then proceed to write out my corresponding "I can" list.  My problem is I can logically write all the "I can" beliefs on paper, but as for actually believing them and putting those beliefs into practice, well that's a whole other story.  I actually consciously believe that I can do and confront specific things, but I just cannot carry these beliefs off.  It scares me to the core.  She has asked me what is it that scares me so much about confronting certain things or people, and it always comes back to the same thing which has been my whole life, always worrying about hurting other peoples feelings or backing down because of confrontations.  She says that I am letting people do this to me.  Which I know is true, but I just can't seem to physically stop this.  She says that I must start telling myself and believing that I have the right to choose who I like and dislike, I have the right to have a different opinion than someone else, I have the right to not be friends with someone.   I tried to put some of these practices into action with a person recently who has given me nothing but grief and I found myself worried more about HER feelings more than my own.  I was then the one that ended up a real mess for the next couple of days.  My heart starts to race, I well up with tears, just like now, as I am writing this.  My neck and heart muscles are so tight it hurts.  I haven't slept well for what seems like an eternity and always seem to wake up with the feeling of nervous tension which I have no idea why.  The therapist asks me what makes me feel this way.  If I knew I could at least pin it down to a reason, but I lay there trying to go back and work out what my mind is thinking about.  I am so frustrated which just seems to make it worse

[geoff]

dear Nellie, this post is good and you know why because it's pretty well what happens to the majority of us, so we can call this chapter 2, because chapter 1 was all the anxiety building up to make an appointment.

I want to thank LING for her excellent reply back to you.

Let's try and sort out how you feel, we all go to our first session to see a strange person, but remember this person is trained and qualified to help us, why, because we are deeply depressed, and do we know why, normally no, however it could be by the loss of someone very close or related to us, so when they ask you 'what's concerning you, well first of all you're stunned and your mind feels as though it's being broken up into a million small pieces, so you become perplexed, but don't worry because the psych will know that this may happen, it's happened so many times over his/her time in counselling, so they just plod away asking you questions

So your trying to think of one reason, but is it only one, because one problem leads to another and then they all jump on board and you ask why, well can I give you an example which is an allegory.

If someone can't work out how to tie their shoes laces, they fall over and with that they their then tear their pants and then cut their head, but have a fear of stitches, so the same process happens with our depression.

I know that it's difficult not to think about what is making us depressed, but when you get stuck on one problem means that you can't expand your mind as to what else is troubling you.L Geoff. x 

[White_Rose]

Dear Nellie

I used to feel exactly the same way about CBT.  I was going to a psychiatrist then and he had sheets of paper with all sorts of headings and I had not a clue what I was supposed to do or say. He was hopeless at explanations.

Times passes and many years later I find myself back in the depression and receiving the services of a psychologist.  He suggested CBT and I freaked. Not again! All that anguish because I could not understand the process, didn't believe it would work, whatever 'it' was. So I would not do it. Fortunately for me the psych persevered and I agreed to try.

Well, what a difference. The simplest of explanations and no worksheets with incomprehensible headings and an analogy that made sense. Suddenly I understood what it was about and how to do it.

So let me give you his explanation. I have given this to others who have found it useful. Imagine a huge plain filled with grasses. Herds of animals graze patches of grass and each herd sticks to its own area. Every night your herd wanders along the path it has trodden down to get to the water. And every night the lions lie in wait for the herd because they know the path the herd will take.

Now imagine your brain as the grassland and your thoughts as the herd. You wander down the same old path, thinking the same negative thoughts and every night the thought lions are waiting to pounce, to rip and tear at you.

To fool them you must take a different path. This is what CBT is about, learning to change your usual or 'normal' thoughts. e.g. if I do this then the end result will be xyz. If I change the way I think the end result could be different. If I work out what I want the end result to be I need to change my usual pattern of thinking and go down a different path, even if it means trampling a new path through the untrodden grass. What other ways of thinking about a particular event can I imagine? Your psych should be able to help you here.

The lions no longer have their prey, you start to manage without the scars and find a more realistic way to live your life.

I do hope this makes sense to you. It will take time and effort, but as they say in the ads, it will happen.

Let us know how you go.

LING

[BeeGee]

LING has brought up a really good point there, and that is that she went to one psychologist she didn't click with, then went to someone different who made all the difference in treatment even though they were using the same approach.

By all means persevere with your psych for a while, but if you feel like you just aren't making progress it may be that you need someone different.  It's not that there's anything fundamentally wrong with either you or her that is not making it work - she is after all just a person, and sometimes we simply don't connect well with some people. Sounds like you're in a fairly small place so I don't know if there are many alternatives - maybe going to the next big town might be needed?  I don't know, but please don't assume that if things don't progress that it's your fault.  There are always alternatives, just like with antidepressants.  Often we have to try a few different ones before finding one that works for us.

[NellieJ]

Well it's 7 sessions down the track and over the last 3 weeks I have had some huge stressful things happen in my life, which I believed that I had handled extremely well considering my capacity to actually handle anything lately has been non existent.  I went for a session on Thursday, I hadn't been to see the therapist for nearly a month as she had been away and times just didn't line up. I'd been doing the exercises in relaxation, I'd been doing the exercises in finding the strength to confront certain thoughts and generally feeling pretty proud of myself for not ending up in a screaming heap like I had been.  I had been sleeping better as well.  Well that all changed during the session. She asked me how I had been going.  I was talking to her about what I had, or thought I had achieved.  We got onto a couple of other subjects and I found myself back in tears.  She asked me if I had been putting into practice the cognitive questions that I had to ask myself.  You know "is it the truth, is it helpful, where is my evidence that it's not true or helpful and then on the positive side what is the "I can".  I said to her that over the last week I had had quite a few stressful thoughts, but had maybe not sat down and written them on the left side of a piece of paper and then written down the "I can" on the right hand side.  But I had at the time taken a deep breath, taken a step back, asked myself the questions and achieved what I thought was a pretty good outcome. Well obviously this wasn't the way and I was told that I needed to apply myself more.  I felt like I was being told off.  Well it hit such a nerve that I was a mess for the rest of the day and into Friday.  I felt like everything that I had felt good about achieving had been dismissed.  When I first started going to this lady I was all at sea, didn't know if I could find the confidence to talk to her, but after a few visits that all disappeared and I was opening up and getting a number of my problems out.  She touched on a big problem in one of the sessions and we had a really good talk. I walked out that day thinking, wow, finally I have someone that is going to help me get through this, but now I just feel I'm right back at the start again. A blubbering idiot.I had actually started to believe and put into practice some of the "I cans" that I thought I'd never be able to do. 

[NellieJ]

I have been seeing a therapist up until 2 months ago.  The last time I went, I through I had been doing really good, and I had really started to feel good for he first time in a long time.  I had been practicing the cognitive therapy that we had been working through and was starting to become very positive about a number of areas in my life.  The only problem is that on the last visit, I basically got told off for NOT following the "program". Well this hurt so bad, I drove around for the rest of the day in such a state, I didn't go home for hours.  I spent the whole of that day wondering what I did wrong.  I have since been trying to deal with everything, just like before.  I have not returned to this therapist.  Most of the time I work through each problem that I come across well, I think. But right at this moment I am struggling yet again.  I am about to go away on a small 2 week break, and I am sitting here in tears.  It seems to be always the same. I look forward so much to a holiday, then a couple of days out, I go down into the depths. I've tried to adapt the cognitive therapy to this but just can't find a way out as I don't even know the questions to ask... I am more positive about the majority of things in my life at the moment, but still have major difficulties coping with some feelings which I just don't seem to be able to out my finger on.  I still end up in tears on a lot of occasions, asking myself what is it that is making me feel so sad, and I still do not know.  

[bluesea]

 I too suffer depression and was first diagnosed in 86, but this is the worst and longest I`ve ever had and it`s really got me worried as normally I would have come back up by now and it`s not happening. I am seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist and am on 4 different antipressants and sleepers. try to keep busy, surrounded by a few friends, read, do puzzles but nothing seems to help. I feel lost and not myself which as you can imagine is not a nice place to be.last time I saw the psychiatrist I said I`d rather have a short course of unilateral etc and just go one lot of antidepressants namely the ones I used to be on that didn`t have the nasty side effects. has anyone here had etc and found it helpful

[White_Rose]

Dear Nellie

Welcome back to the forum. I am sorry your psychologist did not work out.  It was most unkind of her to suggest you had not been working hard enough. No matter how much or how little you had accomplished you were trying hard and had in fact accomplished something.  That is a monumental effort when you consider where you were coming from. It probably good you stopped seeing her.

Have found another psychologist yet? All psychs are not alike and as someone mentioned above, often it is just a personality  clash or lack of communication. Please consider going to someone else and trying again. CBT may or may not be the thing that helps you. But there are other ways of helping you along and a good psych will try all sorts of approaches.  One size does not fit all.

Being in tears at the start of a holiday is not a good start. I do hope your mood lifts before you go. Do you often feel this way before going on holiday? I am never good at leaving my home for more than one or two days. I get panicky being somewhere new so it takes great effort to go and make myself stay. I do adjust, especially if I am with someone I know. But it's not usually a good look.

So don't try to analyse this. Take a few deep breaths and think of something pleasant.

I hope to hear from you when you return.

Regards

Mary

[NellieJ]

Hi Mary, it's taken me a while to even get back to this site.  Im 52 starting menopause, feel like it's all just too much and I've had enough.  I have a loving husband, however I don't think he copes with me being the way I am, so I put on a great front.  I don't want to upset him and make him think that he is a problem because he isn't.  I just don't seem to be able to explain to anyone the reason why I feel so sad all the time. As I said in previous posts.  I went to a therapist for a while but she asked me why I thought I was feeling the way I am and I couldn't answer, because I really have no idea which scares me even more.  I know that there has to be a start somewhere, but If I knew what sets me off on the downward spirals I believe I could possibly deal with it a lot better and let the therapist know. While I went to the therapist I did resolve some issues and feel a lot better about that now, however I'm still down in the pits most of the time.  I found it extremely difficult to have to go back to the doctor after a few sessions with a therapist just to get another referral.  He would want to know how I am going and get me to fill out these tick the box forms which just made me feel even more inadequate as it seemed that I was on a schedule and it would show that I hadn't progressed at all and was like a failure. I just don't know where to go from here.