Taking a break…

[Firestorm86]

About me: I’m a 37 year old male,suffering from depression on and off for about 18 years, been on/off medication for it too, but don’t think it ever really had an effect. No close friends or family, live a fairly isolated life with a huge focus on my career.

My story: 6 weeks ago, I took a long planned 3-4 week vacation to USA/Caribbean. It had been in the planning for three years, I had all work commitments taken care of, I had even purchased a ‘burner’ emergency phone so I could leave my life behind and live ‘essentially ‘off the grid’ for the duration of my vacation. The vacation was perfect. Had fun, ate lots, relaxed and got plenty of sun.

But,  I’ve really been struggling to come back to my normal life. Everything has been so overwhelming since I got back. Tonight I was walking home from work, and a song came on my playlist that reminded me of my holiday, and I completely broke down. Last week I was at the cinema, and the movie I was watching had themes about ‘escaping reality’ and THAT also caused me to break down. (it’s unusual for me to get so emotional in public settings, it used to always be when I was home alone.)

im sure after a while I will just start forgetting about the vacation and accept that my normal life is, well, a normal life… but I’m not sure I want to.

can anyone relate to this?

[Fiatlux]

Hi Firestorm86,

I am a little older than you but in 2019 at age 51, I took a week off, something that I hadn’t done for a while and actually went for a little holiday on my own. (Left my estranged husband and 3 adult children at home).

I had the most amazing time and it was and still is the absolute best week of my life. I didn’t want it to end and I didn’t want to go home either. In hindsight I wished that I had thrown caution to the wind and never returned from that holiday. I was on such a high even on the flight home so I planned to do it again soon and more frequently.

A couple of months later, I returned to have a second little holiday on my own. I made some friends on my first trip and we planned to catch up again on my second trip.

The second trip started badly as soon as I arrived at the airport to leave. My flight was delayed by several hours so this made me miss my connecting flight. When I finally arrived at my destination, I was tired. I caught up with friends that evening but there was a little tension between us due to my late arrival. It wasn’t the relaxed happy atmosphere that I had experienced on the first trip.

Anyway this trip was not good and ended pretty badly. I won’t say that it was hostile but there was some tension. Anyway on my last night, we all went out to dinner like we did previously but some of my friends decided to drink way too much and wanted to go bar hopping and get plastered. I desperately wanted to get back to the safety of my hotel room. So everyone decided that we should go back to my room where everyone else continued drinking. I really started to feel a little frightened and asked them politely to finish their drinks and leave as I had a very early flight in the morning. At this point, one person started telling me that it’s best that we end the friendship as I am not the person they thought I was. I finally got rid of them at 3am.

It really hit me the next morning. I was exhausted and cried all the way home on two connecting flights that took over 6 hours. I keep my large sunglasses on even inside the airport but people must have thought, what the heck is wrong with this woman. I was visibly shaking and crying and I couldn’t stop. My taxi driver was so kind to me on the way home. He must have noticed that I was not okay.

The next day I took myself to my GP and started back on antidepressants again. I hadn’t needed them in years prior to this.

I don’t know why I reacted this way but I wanted that first holiday experience to never end. 🙏🏼

[Firestorm86]

Thank you for sharing.

[therising]

Hi Firestorm86

I feel for you so deeply as you face a collection of challenges that sound like they've become so overwhelming. I can relate to how a return home, from the place we love, can really trigger a lot of emotion.

I think it was about 12 years ago when my mum, my 2 kids and I first went to a place I'd call heaven on earth. It was actually a trip to help my mum with her mental health, which it did greatly. Each year around Easter we'd return to that paradise. It was about the 9th year where I came home rather depressed, having left my paradise (more depressed than usual), and I could not figure out why it was so much harder this time. Eventually, I worked out what a lot of my sadness and tears were all about. To return means to turn again (re-turn). The issue was about what I was re-turning to, after leaving a week of heaven on earth. I was turning again to a failing marriage that felt like it was never going to change based on my husband desiring comfort in no change, a lack of friends, some financial challenges, a lack of a sense of purpose and fulfillment and the list goes on. Of course, these are all things I could change but I just didn't know how to.

I think human beings are designed to feel and thrive in joyful fulfilling life and we can feel the opposite of that as depressing. Depression can tell us we're doing life wrong in some way. 'How to do it right?' becomes the question and the challenge. Btw, it took me 9 years to find that I just couldn't tolerate what I'd been tolerating in my life for many years. I met with my tipping point in a life where the scales finally tipped into an obvious lack of balance between joy and what was depressing. A week of joy out of 52 weeks of the year is just not enough to sustain a person.

I've found certain circumstances will also trigger parts of me to life. An adventure will trigger the adventurer in me, a sense of wonder will trigger the wonderer or researcher in me and so on. Meeting with these parts of our self can be such a joyful experience. I think we can come to miss or even grieve for parts of our self, when they are lost or go into a hibernation kind of period. So, part of combating depressing periods in life can sometimes involve analysing which parts of us we need to resurrect or bring back to life so that when we return from a holiday, we're returning to parts of our self that are going to serve us in a number of ways. All easier said than done of course. I know one of my challenges at the moment is to establish a solid circle of friends outside of family (who I regard as friends). I haven't had this kind of circle for about 20 years. Some challenges are bigger than others.🙂