slowly sinking

[blue_quail]

i feel like i wallow in my self pity and i’m slowly sinking into a bottomless pit and everyone tries to bring me back to the surface but they aren’t strong enough or dont get to me in time because i’m already too far down. and maybe i can’t help it, or maybe some part of me wants to sink deeper and deeper.

[geoff]

Hello Blue quail, I really am so sorry this is is happening and although I'm not qualified to say, I know from my own experience that once you start developing any type of depression your mood becomes so heavy it's easier to sink into the hole, rather than try and tackle any of the problems you're facing.

There can be people, family or friends who want to stop you from slipping but are unable to, only because they may not know any of the reasons why you feel this way and again it's easier to be alone rather than trying to explain because they may reject what you say.

There are so many people who have been in a situation like this, and this site is where most of us have struggled ourselves and understand how you are feeling.

What we suggest is to book an appointment with your doctor, but know there might be difficulties for you to do this and really want to hear back from you so we can suggest ways for you to do this.

We are only here to help you as much as we can.

Take care.

Geoff.

[therising]

Hi blue quail

My heart goes out to you as you face this incredible struggle to make sense of why you're experiencing life the way you are. It's a truly horrible feeling, to feel yourself sinking while not being able to stop it. What's even worse, in my opinion, is not knowing why it's happening. If only we knew why, we'd be able to manage strategically.

From my own experience with depression in the past, I'd have to say that entering into a depression isn't always an obvious process at first. Sometimes, it's not until you're in it that you can really begin to feel it. When feeling it, the questioning begins

• What's wrong with me?
• Why can't I be happy?
• Why can't I get out of this?
• What happened that led me to this point?
• Why can't anyone seem to help me?

etc.

Being a gal who's incredibly big on feeling/identifying feelings and being someone who's managed to put 15 or so years of chronic depression behind me, making better sense of things through hindsight has been helpful. It sounds rather simplistic but I believe, if we're sensitive enough, we can feel what's depressing. This doesn't mean we can easily identify exactly what's depressing us, it simply means feeling the effects of a depressing or potentially depressing situation or set of circumstances.

Mentally, the idea that we can feel our thoughts, our internal dialogue and what we imagine (see in our mind) is a bit of a trip. Physically being able to feel depressing chemistry or the effects of a depressing physical condition or a seriously depressing lack of energy can be another factor. When it comes to what's naturally depressing the factors can involve a massive list to pick from, such as a job that leads us to constantly feel down or stressed, a relationship that's going nowhere, a major transitional stage of life where we should be moving forward but don't have any resources with which to do that, not having the right people in our circle to strategically raise us when we're down etc. Continuously suppressing feelings can also be a major trigger.

Being able to feel the levels we're at is another factor. For example, while you could say 'I'm used to feeling this exhausted to some degree or lacking in energy on occasion' a depressing level of exhaustion or a lack of energy is something that can be felt for the first time. As a kind of 'detective' in detecting what's depressing, it pays to eliminate the usual suspects, through blood work (iron, b12, thyroid issues). GP might hold some clues.