New here and depressed

[Guest_0682]

Hi,

don’t know how this will go.

But here it is!

Most of my 64 years of live I was trying finding out the source of pain, many of my peers and family and friends go through. I stood beside with help and encouragement and on many occasion things eased or disappeared.
Now after a series of tragic events in the last two years I found my self in an increasingly deeper hole. The thing I would know to do I can not perform. And the things I don’t want to do I find myself caught in it’s claws. Unable to free myself from these accusation against myself and others. I lost all interests in all things. I don’t have a will to live anymore and find myself constantly devising plans to end my live and make it look like an accident. For what should my loved ones bare any of it.

[Sophie_M]

Hi Motz,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for taking a big step in sharing your thoughts and feelings here with our wonderful community. We're so sorry to hear that you're feeling quite low at the moment, but please know that you've come to safe, non-judgemental space to talk things through and our community is here to offer as much support, advice and conversation as you need.

Our Support Service is trying to reach out to you via email as we are worried about you.

We hope you know that there is always help available to you. You have mentioned that you have battling depression for such a long time, over many decades. Can we ask if you are you currently receiving mental health support? If not, we would urge that you do seek professional support to help you work through these thoughts that you're experiencing. If you are not sure of how to access mental health support, please contact the Beyond Blue Support Service anytime on 1300 22 4636 or get in touch with us on Webchat 3pm-12am AEST here: www.beyondblue.org.au/getsupport In addition to this, there are always counsellors available via phone for your most difficult moments. Some of these 24/7 services include;

• Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via webchat, which you can access through the link provided: https://www.lifeline.org.au/Get-Help/Online-Services/crisis-chat 
• The Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 or via webchat through there website: https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/phone-and-online-counselling/suicide-call-back-service-onl...]

And if you find yourself in a situation where you become an immediate danger to yourself, this is an emergency and you should call 000 (triple zero). Many of our members have also been through a lot in their lives and will be able to talk through these feelings with you.  If you would like to post further, please tell us more about what's on your mind and how we can best help support you.

[Guest_0682]

Hi Sophie M

thanks for your reply. I had to climb out of this hole first to get reception.

Apart from a brief period in the late 80is I have never been to see anyone for help until now here. In my early years I struggled a lot with anxiety but I have learned not to give these voices much power by accepting there present but never respect it. Gradually there fuse had burnet to the ground but instead a low level approach of depression sneaked in. It’s not as easy to sent those guys packing. When you're in the anxiety your pumped some how even fear is power. But in this lonely country all is on empty and although I have always find some up and go and pull myself back on the rack. I wonder though. Dead has no fear to me. I have seen worse. It’s just that live has no life in it. All seems so meaningless. Like a painting fallen out of its frame.
How do others go through there stuff I wonder.

[mmMekitty]

Hello Motz,

Reading your posts, it seems you have had a very difficult life, & you've spent a lot of time & effort trying to understand & help others, while struggling with your own problems. You have worked out some strategies for dealing with the anxiety, but in comes depression, which you've had found more difficulty dealing with. Perhaps now is a good time to seek some help & support for yourself? Perhaps seeing someone such as a psychologist or psychiatrist?

There are areas of this website which offer ideas for coping. Please look around, into other Forum topics like ‘Staying Well’ or ‘Depression’, or perhaps, something in one of the tabs at the top of the page, ‘Personal Best’ or ‘Healthy Places’.

& you are more than welcome to talk here.

I’ll check back here to see how you are doing.

mmMekitty

[Guest_0682]

Hi,

thanks for your response much appreciated.

I take the point in seeing a professionell my wife tells me the same. The hesitancy is great though. I don’t think I had a particular difficult life. I think I was born with a critical analytical mind. I can’t change that only guide it. In helping others though rough patches I have found real growth to myself. Because I must listen to what I say when I say it. Now I guess I am writing perhaps to read what I write. The greatest block not to see someone or join a group is, all that I ever experienced in this kind of environment is very lovely people giving me very good advise what I should or could do. And what else can they do if you seeking help. My problem is; I am unable to to the very thing I know to do and have done million times before. Let alone yet another thing to do. I am crying, show me where I am and I’ll find the way out. This is working for others when I showed them the place they’re in and put myself underneath to lift them up. Sure you sink a little in the process, but the other than pulls you out in the process. I could only show them those places because I recognise them. Sorry I talk a lot of nonsense I guess. At least the others thought stay at any for now.

[mmMekitty]

I'm not sure where you are, only it seems you are stuck. You don't know which way to turn, what to do at this point, because all you know is what you've always done, but when those things don't work, it's so hard to think of something that will & to even try when someone suggests anything.

For myself, I find it very hard to implement a new action or response which I want to make into a new habit. One thing I am trying to do is to do things like eating & sleeping at regular intervals. These patterns are so irregular for me they are not really patterns at all. I understand it's not healthy, not good for my body or mood, but how to change poor habits I began in my late teens

? One thing I have learned is to not berate myself when I don't do well; that only makes me feel worse.

& any reason I can accept for NOT berating myself is useful. I am getting better at that. My self-esteem is till on the floor, but I'm not trampling over myself anymore.

Any attempts are worthwhile. I don't know anyone who suceeds at their first attempt to climb out of any hole. I fell back many times, & wondered if I ever could get out. I'm not looking to lofty goals, grand purpose to my life or anything terribly ambitious. Just to live with myself. To find some pleasure, to accept myself as a fallible human being. It's tough, because while I work on this, other things happen. I've had to learn a lot, mostly about myself, learning different ways of looking at my past, my feelings & others as well.

I have seen a few different Psychiatrists before seeing the one I have now. I'm able to work with him, talk openly & even while I doubt & have fears about him continuing to be here for me, I do trust him. He has shown me just how much I can work out for myself, & this has helped me feel more confidence in my ability to make decisions. But there still seems such a long way to go.

I've gone from being in total denial of my own feelings, to being very emotional, & not accepting it, to learning I can accept being emotional. The first Psychiatrist I went to see was in 1993. What's that now? 28yrs next February? I'm not sure if I ought to count the 14yrs I was with one who was not so helpful. Maybe, he was, by being so unhelpful, I realised ways I don't want to be treated.

Writing has been great to get things out but now I also value feedback about what I've written.

mmMekitty

[Guest_0682]

That was an unexpected ray of sunshine into the heart of mine. Thanks!
The standard response to a call for help has always been good advise and worst sympathy!
Therefore it is a pleasant surprise to read about some of your journey’s trouble. It gives me the feeling of sitting in the same boat and paddling towards the same goal.

And you’re right, I am in a place of in-decision. And that is good news to me! Now I can flick the switch and make decisions. One at the time. I have travelled this road so many times and according to popular teaching ‘one should learn from there mistakes’ I must be the dumbest person on earth. For me it’s overcoming the same problematic one at the time and seemingly forgetting everything I have been through time and times before. Different situation but the same trouble at the core. I have summed it up over the year like this:

If only this or that or him or her(or ME) where different I would be alright! Or simply expectations! when the truth is more like, if I am alright with me everything else is just fine!

And another thing I have discovered is, no matter how much I know of the in’s and out of my psyche, it does not always protect me from wrong thinking even when I know I am thinking wrong. Does that make sense ? When I am in the rut like the one I am manoeuvring out of now, my thinking is a constant dialog with real people and in real scenarios and places. And that non stop in 4K resolution. There is even a sense of wanting to do it and comes with a sickening yet pleasant sensation. Like I wanted to do it. But I don’t want to think like that let alone act accordingly. And when the point comes, when I can no more than the feeling of beam me up Scotty is tantalising sweet. I guess I never really expressed it like that.
When I read it back I think that is not a real problem that can be fixed. So you see there are two main reality’s in my life. The one that is thinking good and pleasant thought and the one who only has bad thought who try to kill everything good. And I know that since my early childhood this is no news I must say. The logic answer would have to be, just don’t listen to the bad thoughts. Hmmmm!? I know that to! And till today I have, to be honest, only limited success. And that is not from lack of trying. I guess all I can do is go on live a bid more. Perhaps life sneaks in somewhere through the many cracks of mine.

[mmMekitty]

Hello Motz, & thank you. sometimes I jump right in & simply don't do the small talk. It often feels awkward.

I've read your post several times today.

First, one step at a time sounfd logical. You know what you can do, like you have done before, or something like similar? Would a list help? If so, would it also help to order your list into what needs doing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etcetera? Or from what you can more easily tackle to the harder things later down the list? Are you willing to try new things?

& I don't think you are at all 'the dumbest person on Earth', because many people travel over the same familiar road, simply because they don't know any better, 'better the devil you kno' & don't take a chance on doing something different, or have already decided they can't change, or can't succeed Or, indeed, their difficulties exist because of what someone els did & therefore, nothing we can do will fix it, not until we can do somehting about these other people.

But, I think you are onto something, when you began thinking how you feel & think about yourself is not dependant upon someone else. Far as I'm concerned, certain people can go disappear from my life. I do not have to think they are not okay, or if I want to think I'm okay, then they are too. I intend to think I'm okay . Only that, because what I think about myself is all I need.

I cannot fix them, I can try to understand them, what they did & why, & move from there, to understand how I reacted, how I was impacted, what I can do for myself now. That's a big enough job for anyone to take on. If they want to do something similar for themselves, great; they can go do that.

Sure, all the work I've done does not mean I will never be in a similar hole like you are. I am better equipped to deal with it now, that's all. I'll still falter, still think unhealthy thought, memories can still come up just as strong as ever, & I am triggered sometimes. One important thing I've learned, each time is not going to last for eternity. Weeks, days, even as brief as a few minutes & even without doing anything, the intensity will ease. Doing something such as writing, talking to my PDr, or a bit to someone else, or moving. getting up, looking out the window, washing my face, damn near anything which disrupts the thoughts & feelings helps dissipate them more quickly. No, it's not always easy.

I do have rules about some things I will never do. Rules I do not break. Promises set in concrete.

mmMekitty

[geoff]

Hello Motz, and thank you mmMekitty some great points.

I'm 67 and very much appreciate your post and I wonder whether we say to ourselves ''we learn from our mistakes' or do we just put this in our experience bag and know that in the future we don't go down that path.

We learn so much over these years and it's not that we don't want to implement new ideas, sometimes we don't have the energy anymore unless we are encouraged by another person, and yes it happens with me.

You mustn't demean yourself because I'm sure you have accomplished so much in your life and this is when the elders need to teach the younger ones right from wrong and however they do this is in their own particular way.

When you speak to your psych are you wrong, maybe with this psych but not to another one, one may have a different approach than the other and one may have a more convenient personality.

I've had many different types of psych's, some that only lasted a couple of sessions while the second last one I'd seen for 20 years.

I want to continue this as I have to go, sorry.

Geoff.

[Guest_0682]

Hi Geoff,

thanks for your participation. It is much appreciated. I just want to clarify a misunderstanding.
I was speaking about the psyche, the deepest thought, feelings and beliefs of a person or group. Not the psychiatrist. I love to hear how you read it now.