No light at end of tunnel

[tiredofit]

I've been depressed for over one month now.  It's not the first time.  I should be used to it.  I've been on SSRIs on and off for over twenty years now.  The mistake I made was thinking I could do without them - lulling myself into a false sense of security as it were.  I'd become interested in Buddhism and meditation as well as Stoicism.  This had given me hope of a way out - ergo no need for medication.  WRONG.  I spent over five weeks carefully weaning myself of my medication.  So far, so good.  I lasted about another two weeks with nothing at all, full of a supreme sense of achievement. And then crash.  I can only conclude that a depressed state is my default setting.  Either that, or the SSRIs rob you of the ability to ever again manufacture the necessary chemicals naturally.

This is day 17 back on the pills and still no effect, bringing back the old, familiar feeling of being stuck beyond the point of no return.  Also familiar, is the feeling that the depressed thinking is right on the money, and the medicated thinking is a type of delusion.  For example, I really am a total screw-up - have been all my life.  I was a strange, sad kid.  Because of my neurosis acting as some kind of a demon standing between me and other people, I've ended up totally alone, and that's not likely to change.  The terrible lonliness I feel is completely real and not a symptom of depression, or rather, medication in someway alleviates lonliness as well as depression.  I know I'm not going to change; I'm too old.  I have nothing to look forward to except the devastation of old age.

Tell me I'm deluded.  Tell me self-loathing is just a symptom of depression.  I don't think so.  I really am pathetic.  I try to dwell on the thought of all the people in far worse situations than myself.  This just seems to make myself and my self pity even more contemptible.  Yet still, I don't have the courage to end it.  Why wouldn't someone be self-loathing?

beyondblue's clinically-trained moderators often work offline (invisible to you) on issues relating to suicide or self-harm. At the same time, general supportive comments from the community are encouraged. If you have concerns around suicide or self-harm, please phone our support service on 1300 22 4636.

[white knight]

Hi tiredofit welcome

17 days eh....I've tried 12-13 tablets over a 6 year period and none of them took effect until 6 week or more = 42 days. Give it a chance.

I'll be straight with you. Positive thinking and motivation is needed here. Get as much information about it as you can then put it into practice. After all my ups and downs spanning most of my 59 years I dont know where I'd be without my own internal positivity that was taught to me in 1982. It's like a shock absorber to my depression.

Tony WK

[Neil_1]

Hi tiredofit

Welcome to Beyond Blue.

Your initial sentence had me scratching my head immediately thinking that this was just a very new symptom, but ahhhh, upon reading further, you go back a long ways with this illness.

I think you should feel proud of yourself for actually giving the ‘no tablet’ thing a shake – and for how you went about it.  I’m assuming you had no gp advising you on timings for the reduction in medication, which as you may know, needs to be done on a slow and controlled basis.  But you went off it slow and steady and for a short while, felt ok, but then came the crash.

I think this illness always wants us to believe that we are total screw ups and that we’re just not that kind of ‘good person’ – that we are pathetic.  It’s in our heads and it has this devastating control over us.  And this is where we have to fight and to do all we can to stand up to it and say “NO”, it’s not going to dominate us.

Ok, so you’re on your medications again, and as Tony said, 17 days is still the time for them to be working back into your system – a few more weeks should help with this.

What have you in the way of family, friends in your life?   Are you working?

I also like to think that I want to “attack” my old age like it’s never been attacked before – don’t give it a chance to make me old and feeble and other such popular beliefs, but to not even realise I’ve entered into it – I’ll be travelling along someday and someone will say, “hey how old are you?”    And I’ll say, “Oh, I think I’m 77”;  and they’ll say, you’ve gotta be kidding, you look 30 years younger than that OR MORE.   Now WHO’S delusional?  🙂

Cheers

Neil

[snickers74]

Tiredofit, I think you are in my head pulling out my thoughts...

I too weaned of medication over a couple of months, managed 12 weeks without it and BANG back into depression.

The most disappointing thing for me is that I was doing so well for so long, the best I'd ever been in my entire life.  I had an event that helped bring on the depression but why oh why straight down to the dark place so quickly?

I think I'll never be "normal", never be stable, I'll be on medication for probably my whole life and I hate that.  People always tell me I'm such a strong woman and I just want to tell them it isn't ME, it's the drugs.  It's a hollow victory because when it's me, I am an apathetic, whiny, weak being with no real purpose who will probably die alone. 

I'm day 5 back on meds.

I guess I'm just trying to tell you that you're not alone, and for me, I feel that my life is too short to fight a battle each day that I just don't need to when I have the weaponry at hand to slay the demon depression, and you do too.

[White_Rose]

Hello Snickers

Did you choose your name because of the chocolate bar? Good choice. You can tell where my head and taste buds lie. Welcome to the Beyond Blue community. Glad to have you aboard.

I am interested in your final comment. I feel that my life is too short to fight a battle each day that I just don't need to when I have the weaponry at hand to slay the demon depression, and you do too. What is the weapon you already have? You could make a fortune by bottling it or whatever, if you could bypass medication. (Smile)

Taking ADs is the pits I agree. I struggled against this for a long time, but I have recently come to terms with it. I dislike medication for any condition. The alternative for much of the medication is a radical change of lifestyle. I'm not sure I can do this. I am learning a great deal about the hows and whys of depression, and maybe, one day, I will be able to do without ADs.

What an ambition! On the other hand, if my brain is not working properly, how do I change that? Can I only function with a chemical operating in my head.These are huge questions and the irony is that we need the meds to be able to make that decision.

If you would like to continue the conversation, would you start your own thread? I will be watching out for it.

Regards

Mary

[tiredofit]

Thanks for your concern Neil.  I think I may just have turned a corner - I'm just not too sure.  I seem to be dancing the two step forward, one step back ... and vice versa.  Last Friday was my worst day yet.  Totally deprived of sleep both Wednesday and Thursday nights, I was in no condition to go to work.  So I wandered around a bit until I found myself sitting, overlooking a local beach.  The bright sunshine and and the squawking seagulls seemed to be cruelly mocking me.  It hit me that I was probably feeling worse than what I would've if I'd gone to work.  Then ensured a terrifying feeling of being completely trapped in this state no matter what I did - no way out.

It wasn't far from there to the next thought.  Obviously though, my survival instinct is still healthy enough to prevail.  Be that as it may, I'm still close enough to experiencing that feeling to be able to see and understand the logic of it, and logic it is, albeit in a perverse form: if one can no longer experience any pleasure in life, if one has nothing to look forward to but loneliness, misery and the decrepitude of old age than it would seem to make perfectly good sense to cut one's losses as it were.

But as I say, I think I may just have turned a corner, as well I think I should have given that I'm almost through my first packet of pills.  If nothing else, I've learnt a salutary lesson: there will be no more thinking I can do without the chemical help. 

beyondblue’s clinically-trained moderators often work offline (invisible to you) on issues relating to suicide or self-harm. At the same time, general supportive comments from the community are encouraged. If you have concerns around suicide or self-harm, please phone our support service on 1300 22 4636.

[tiredofit]

It's nice to be reminded I'm not alone because that's very much how it feels most of the time.  Likemindedness is I guess a benefit of a forum like this.  Even if I wasn't so physically alone (my extreme introversion has seen to that) and actually had people around me, it is extremely unlikely any would not be completely mystified regarding what I'm going through (especially given that nothing actually bad has happened to me - not a trigger in sight).  The closest analogy I can think of is soldiers who've been in combat only being able to talk about it to others who've been in the same situation, knowing full well no-one else would have a clue about the experiences that had so radically effected them.

[White_Rose]

Dear Tiredofit

Hello and welcome. I agree, only those who have been there fully understand the pain and frustration of depression. And as you say, often there appears to be no reason why you should be depressed. Ah, the Black Dog has all points covered.

Well actually that's not so. We have a brain, although that often leads us down the wrong road, and we are clever and creative, although again that can be a mixed blessing. So like the soldiers you refer to, we can step through the minefield and come out the other side.

You are making progress because you have recognised your need for help and are prepared to accept the help. ADs really are the pits as far as I am concerned but I take them because I would fall in a heap without them. I am frequently told that I take other medication such as antibiotics when I am sick, so why not ADs. The reality is that the comparison is valid but the perception has a long way to go before it is acceptable.

In your first post you denounce your self-loathing as a natural part of yourself rather than a symptom of depression. So I gather you feel that if the depression was not there you would still hate yourself. Why? Are you the mad axe murderer? Committed other heinous crimes? A disappointment to everyone? I suspect none of these things are true.

Did you do all the usual things children do as they grow up? Say "no" to your mother, fight with your siblings, steal an extra piece of chocolate, neglect your homework? Well I did too. So did everyone and we have moved past these misdemeanours.

Why do you hate yourself? Before I go on I want you to know that I have spent years hating myself for all sorts of reasons and I believe those reasons to be valid. But whether or not thy are valid I have realised it's time to forgive myself and start to move on.  Your feelings really do come from depression and depression does not want to let you off the hook.

Here's the part where I apologise for upsetting you. And I mean it. It's not my intention or right to make you feel upset. What I do feel is that we need to understand the extent of the damage depression does to us and learn the tools to fight it.

Keep up the fight. I hope I hear from you soon.

Mary