Hi I'm Ana,
I'm embarrassed to say that I'm severely depressed. I've always prided myself on being strong and externally tough however inside I'm falling apart. My family tell me I should be happy: I'm 28 and I was promoted to a management position 10 months ago at work and I received an offer into a prestigious art degree. I've had to defer my study until 2018 for financial reasons but overall I should be happy but I'm not and I don't know why I feel this way and what to do? I've had depression all my life and it's been manageable with medication. I haven't seen a psychiatrist for over two years and might consider seeing one again. I don't know any good ones in Sydney so any recommendations would be good. Right now is not a good time for me to fall off the rails - however I feel like it's about to happen when all the pieces in my life are falling into place!
I feel completely unmotivated. Getting out of bed is a struggle and dealing with my passive aggressive (turned slightly aggressive) supervisor everyday is starting to gnarl at my soul. I don't want to clean or contribute to my family life. I feel like a shell really.
My spiral down began when I started to show my art publicly and it was televised a year ago (after many years of hiding it due to the bullying in high school for it) and I've been receiving a lot of attention for it and it's open doors for me - doors I would never had dreamt would be open. However I under estimated the affect it would have on friends and family and the jealousy involved. I've had to unfollow/delete/block friends and family who were very negative towards me and I still don't feel happy. I feel alone - friends don't want to hang out as often because they don't want to hear my stories or what I've been up to in the art world and family are acting indifferent. It's a terrible place to be and completely different from a year ago. The cyber bullying from strangers, friends and family has taken it's toll on me to the point where I rarely log on to see anything online except reply to my emails. I've lost faith in people and that upsets me. My situation sounds so silly and the sadness of it is that's true. I feel annoyed, angry, disappointed and frustrated and at times wished I had never pursued my love for art or made it public.
I need help and I'm reaching out. Any advice, understanding or help would be appreciated.
xAna
