Hi Jaster,
Welcome and thank you for reaching out to us.
I have no doubt you will find many kindred spirits here, we are all at varying degrees of recovery from our mental health issues, so you are in good company.
I can relate to much of what you have talked about, I am in my 60s, my specialty is dysthymia and major depression and have had to distance myself from family also.
I am not sure why you would wonder about your depression, if your family is too triggering and the memories and disappointments are too difficult, I would be surprised if you weren't dealing with depression.
The part I don't quite understand, is what you meant by pushing friends away from embarrassment?
I think we all have learned how to pretend to some degree but some days, even that is too difficult. These days I have more good days than bad, and I have learned to accept the bad ones as part of the illness and not give myself a hard time about it like I used to. I just think, okay today is not one of my good days, maybe tomorrow will be better so for today, I will just go with the flow.
You mentioned that therapy, medication and exercise has only helped so much. Have you heard of somatic therapy? I only really learned about this in the past 18 months myself and am now seeing a therapist who uses a couple of these types of therapy. The main ones are EFT (tapping), EMDR and Somatic Experiencing. The idea of somatic work is that emotional energy and traumatic events can become trapped within the body and over time can also start causing physical issues as a result. Somatic therapy works on shifting the trapped energy to allow the body to repair itself. It may be worth doing a little research on this to see if you might benefit and perhaps chat about it with your current therapist.
I hope you are feeling a bit better today,
indigo
