Empty and lost and so lonely

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

I feel so empty and lonely... I have plenty of close friends who I share lots of aspects of my life with. But I try to not tell them about how I feel too often because I feel so, so, SO EMPTY (sorry, no other word comes close to how I feel so I'm probably going to use it a lot) all the time and I don't want them to get sick of me. I'm sure they already are anyway. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. The one thing I've wanted to do since I was 13, I can't. I'm just so lost and everyone around me seems to be moving forward, in at least one aspect of their lives. Whereas I'm just running around in circles.

As a little background, I'm 22 and I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was in high school. I'm on antidepressants and I'm still trying to find one that works even though I've tried (what feels like) all of them. I don't see a MH professional because I have lots of difficulty telling people how I feel and it's a thousand times worse when I have to do it in person. For about 1.5 years, things were manageable despite not being on any meds/seeing any professionals but then at the end of 2015 things got really bad again and they haven't gotten better since then. I've had to take a lot of study leave which makes me feel even worse about myself since I've always been seen as the "academic" friend of the group (straight A's in high school kind of person I guess) and it just makes me feel like I can't even do the one thing I'm decent at.

I don't know what the point of this was, other than that I know I just really need to get it out there because I really, really can't burden my friends any more than I already have. I'm sorry if this makes no sense. I can barely formulate sentences in my head and remember them for more than 4 seconds at a time because I'm just finding it so hard to concentrate on anything. I'm sorry. Sorry if you ended up wasting your time to read this messy rant...

- PL

[Hope_for_the_best]

James has given you a good reply there. I have never been on medication myself but know others who are/have. Some of them needed several trials with their psychiatrists to find the best suitable combinations of medication for depression. Nevertheless, I would recommend going to a psychiatrist since he/she is specialised in mental health and has more experiences with medication. This increases your chance of finding the medication that works for you, rather than working from scratch with your GP. From what I know, some people do not respond well to medication and therapies that stimulate the brain can be helpful in these cases. Just to let you know that there are other alternatives even if you are unfortunate enough to be one of these people.

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Hi James, I do remember telling you that and I'm surprised you still remember me! Certainly nice to know 🙂 so thank you for that and all your kind words and your advice as well. Hope you've been well with everything.

- PL x

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Thank you for your reply again. Regarding the psychiatrists, that seems to make sense that they would be able to prescribe more "complicated" regimes. I'm just worried about costs... hopefully when I see my doctor things will get clearer.

Hope you're well.

- PL x

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Just gonna post here because my mind feels a mess and I have an exam tonight and am freaking out even though I had so long to study I barely had any motivation/always lacked the concentration to study properly and the perfectionist side of me who only wants high distinctions is freaking out and now i'm freaking out and i just want to hide under a table and cry and sleep right now

sorry this is such a mess of a post but i just kind of need to rant somewhere again and idk i just kinda feel like punching myself in the face right now or just punching anything really but im already at uni and i just feel so panicky and gross

[james1]

Hey PL,

It's okay. You've expressed yourself pretty well there and we can see you're really panicked and frustrated at yourself.

It sounds like you really need an outlet at the moment. Can you give the BeyondBlue support line or a friend a quick call to get some of that energy out?

Do you have any techniques for calming down when this happens? If you don't think you can do the exam, you could apply for special consideration. Perhaps if you gave your doctor a quick call to see if they could help you with that, you can then decide before the exam whether to sit it or not.

James

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Wow I didn't expect such a quick reply from anyone so thank you

I don't do so well with phone calls unfortunately and this is already a deferred exam so I can't defer it anymore but the panic is kind of subsiding now so that's good I guess. I'm trying to repeatedly tell myself that even if the worst possible outcome happens (i.e. failing the exam), that just means I have to repeat the subject but I'm taking time off uni anyway and don't even know if I'll be back to doing this degree. So it's all gonna be okay right????? Oh god. Idk. It's gonna be fine. It's just an exam it's just an exam it's just an exam...

[james1]

Hey PL,

I'm a bit of a perfectionist like you and my 4 year relationship collapsed literally the week prior to my final exams for honours, so I kind of get where you're coming from.

Thankfully for me, I had the benefit of having already started work and you're right. Even the worst possible outcome, really isn't that bad, especially when you don't even know if you want to continue down this path.

You've already shown us that you value your happiness more and that's great insight which can help you pursue that.

Yes, the exam will be okay. You'll probably do just fine. I know you said you've kind of got the straight A's student identity. People won't dislike you or hate you or even respect you less if you don't meet that. We just want the best for your happiness.

Have you got any hobbies to keep you busy after the exams?

James

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Hi James, that really sucks... I'm sorry that happened to you, that must've been so tough to go through...

So the exam ended up being really hard and I did so badly... I know I already got at least a quarter of it definitely wrong because, of course, I decided to look up the answers for questions I was unsure about after I finished the exam. So there goes that high distinction score I guess... I'm just hoping I still at least pass the course now... But you're right. I know I shouldn't really care that much about what grade I get. Logically, I know people won't respect me less for it but I just feel even more worthless than usual without my good grades (wow that sounds kind of pathetic huh).

I'm going to try to get back into reading and maybe learning the guitar again now that I don't have uni and will only be working part time.

BTW, I think I've read on a couple other threads that you have BPD (I'm really sorry if that wasn't you!!!)? If you do, I wanted to ask you something about that - how did you get that diagnosed? Were you concerned about something and asked your GP who then diagnosed you with it? Sorry again if I got the wrong person...

Thank you for replying me earlier when I was freaking out 🙂 Really appreciate that

- PL x

[james1]

Hey PT,

Ah hard exams can really suck the energy out of you 😞 I hope you got some better sleep last night. I was super busy cleaning and then basically zoned out on my xbox for a bit. Woke up when the rabbit jumped on my face.

I get it. When your self worth is tied in with your grades, for whatever reason, it's hard not to feel terrible about yourself. We just need to work on developing an alternative source of self worth, but that'll take time. In the meantime, I hope you don't mind me saying that I think your desire to be better and do better is very admirable. Perhaps you can make guitar your next mission, haha.

Yeah that's me. Umm, honestly I don't know how I came across it. Last year was pretty hazy. I think I knew something was up so I went to a psych (I skipped the GP until my psych told me about the rebates) and we started talking about some things. I had a look at Dr Google and this thing came up. Since then, I've had various yes/no diagnoses, but the treatment has always been BPD specific treatment, so I'll just go with a yes.

To be honest, I associate more with the symptoms than the diagnosis. It's why I'm here on the forums. I don't count myself as suffering from depression/anxiety even though I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder last year, but some of my BPD traits lead to really intense depressive and anxious episodes. So I sometimes also like to read about bipolar 2 and ROCD coping strategies because they could help me as well.

Why do you ask?

No problem 🙂 It was nice to see your name pop up again.

James

[Piertotum_Locomotor]

Hey 🙂 sleep was outta whack as usual last night but at least there were no vivid nightmares, so that's something positive I guess? Kinda ended up doing stupid things though last night. Was just feeling way too crappy about everything... oh well. Also, I had a little chuckle at your rabbit jumping on your face hahaha. Is it the one in your profile picture? Looks super cute!

Yeah, I know that I need to develop an identity outside of just having good grades because I can't really stay in school forever (nor do I want to, let's be honest). I'll work on it... But thanks for the kind words 🙂 indeed, maybe the guitar can be my next mission

I totally get what you said about associating more with the symptoms than the diagnosis. I'm asking about BPD because I feel like I relate to a LOT of the symptoms and it's been on my mind for the last at least 3 years that it may be something I 'have'? I'm just not really sure how I can even go about asking my GP about it. Especially when it takes me ages to even just tell him that I'm struggling more than usual and maybe my meds are not right. And I know I shouldn't label myself and all that but I just hate not knowing things. I guess maybe once I gather some courage somehow and actually start going to a psychologist to sort myself out, maybe having proper diagnoses could be helpful in terms of treatments etc. Do you still see a psychologist for it, if you don't mind me asking?

Hope you're well.

- PL x