A hard year

[brookey24]

I have never really written on one of these before but tonight everything has just been so overwhelming. 2014 has been one of the hardest years of my life so far. At the beginning of the year I lost my aunty to cancer. It was really hard to deal with because she was my favourite and closest aunty, my dads only living relative and as all signs were showing she was improving greatly but unfortunately randomly took a turn for the worse. The guilt that I was supposed to fly over and see her in January for her 50th birthday has been eating me alive. That chance to see her one last time before she passed that I didn't take because my dad couldn't get time off work and I didn't want to go alone. She was the first person I've lost and that was really hard to deal with, I don't think I've quite dealt with it to date. It made it harder to deal with the loss because on top of losing my aunty, I also lost friendships with four of my closest friends. I'm not very good at being alone but for most of this year, besides my amazing family and two friends that have stuck by me, I've had to deal with the loneliness. It's hard for me to deal with overwhelming feeling of suffocation from sadness, anger and envy because I don't have a hard or bad life. I just can't comprehend why I feel so terrible all the time when my life isn't even bad..I feel so guilty for feeling this terrible. I have a great family, an easy going life, I have my health, a roof over my head, I lead a good life. Tonight everything has really gotten to me and feeling torn between not wanting to die, but also not wanting to live has pushed me to the point I wanted to reach out, the point where I need to reach out. I guess I just want something other than the 'you'll get over it' that I've received all year, the 'I don't really care' response just makes it hard for me to open up to anyone I thought really cared.

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[Neil_1]

Hi there Brookey

First up, I’d like to welcome you to Beyond Blue and to thank you for being able to share your post here.

I would like to extend my sympathies to you for the loss of your aunty earlier this year.  Losing a loved one is always one of the hardest things to deal with, but then to know that this person was one of your closest and fave aunty’s does make it a helluva lot worse.

The old phrases of “buck up, you’ll be right” or “you’ll get over it” or “time to move forward now” are never helpful and they are said by people who have no understanding of mental health issues.

I am a bit concerned by you saying “not wanting to live” – and what we’ve got to get you to focus on is the “not wanting to die” part.

Loss, grief, depression are all very hard to live with and may I say that it is nothing to do with having an ok life that you’re currently living.  Depression strikes randomly and for a lot of times, there’s no reason behind it.  So despite the fact that you say that most things are all ‘good in your life’, it matters nothing to depression as it’ll attach itself to whoever.

It’s been really great that you’ve been able to unload some of your thoughts here – and hopefully you will receive a number of different responses from fellow sufferers.

While unloading here is good and can often be therapeutic in its own right – the next step is to try and seek out professional assistance as well.  It might be worth seeking out a GP to go and discuss some of your issues.  If you’re not sure of GP’s, on this site, Beyond Blue have a listing of them;  and the thing with these GP’s is that they are all qualified in dealing with mental health issues – so each person IS taken seriously and not just shunted out the door with some medication to take.

I hope that I’ve said something that was useful – and I do hope you’re able to respond back too.

Neil