Does the sadness last forever?

[LuLu_]

Hello to those who are reading

I have been struggling with severe depression for a couple of years now. There have been many influential and significant events in the most important years of my life that have shaped who I am and I believe I will forever be changed for better or for worse.

I was wondering. Will a small piece of my depression be with me forever? Will a small piece of the extreme sadness I have felt stay within?

Please share your recovery journey or any thoughts that are on your mind. Any support and knowledge would be appreciated.

Lulu

[white knight]

Hi lulu

Please google

Topic: dysthymia- beyondblue

Topic: worry worry worry- beyondblue

Tony WK

[LuLu_]

Hi Tony

Thank you very much for the links.

do you have any advice for posting on my personal thread? I am feeling a bit lost.

Thank you

lulu

[Doolhof]

Hi LuLu,

Can you explain how you are feeling a bit lost on your own thread?

Do you feel like you need to keep it going but don't know what to post there, that it is becoming too much, it is going off track, you are tired of it, or something else altogether?

The thing with threads, is they sometimes have a mind of their own it seems to me! Some take off and run for ages, some disappear like a puff of wind in no time at all. It just happens that way.

Some threads are brought back to life and buzz on for ages, then go flat again. It just happens that way.

Would you like to share what you mean in your comment to White Knight? I could be barking up the wrong tree here!

Cheers from Dools

[LuLu_]

Hi dools

I feel like I am saying all the wrong things. Maybe i am just talking about me and people don’t like that. I feel like i am worried i will say the wrongs things which will send people away and I will be left alone. I get thoughts of being a burden. I know it’s a little over dramatic but I feel like I could be wasting peoples time, causing hem unnecessry annoyance.

I really just want people to notice me and acknowledge my presence if they want to, to offer advice or their own stories. I’ve been feeling invisible for as long as I can remember which makes me feel very inferior. Maybe i am being too needy and need to just let people be.

I am sorry for the badly written post. My thoughts aren’t together at the moment. Thank you for listening reading and for taking the time to reply. It means so much.

lulu

[LuLu_]

Hello

I can’t feel.

It’s unsettling because empathy was the one thing that I liked about myself and now I feel nothing.

I feel numb. It scares me that i will never feel again. I don’t want to live an existence where I feel nothing.

Has anyone experienced this before? Did you ever feel again?

lulu

[Croix]

Dear LuLu~

You said before: I don’t know when I’m talking and when my depression is talking

Your empathy, ability to care, understand and love is just as much there as it has ever been, it is just temporarily out of your reach.

When I've been relay in the clutches of depression my link to myself has gone and I have been numb too. In some ways it is as if I'm on one side of a thick glass sheet and the whole world, including myself and my ability to feel is on the other side. I ask myself if I love this person - no answer, I ask myself can I love - no answer, the questions did not even seem to make sense.

Incredibly worrying.

It may not be exactly as I described, we are all different after all, but it will be sufficiently similar you should be able to recognize something and know it is temporary, it will lift for you as well.

You started with a Van Gogh quote, so I'll give you one back "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." OK, in a lot of ways that is how one reduces the power of depression or so I have found. With treatment, lifestyle, distractions, self reward. Small steps to small attainable victories, all leading towards a better life.

Your empathy will return

Croix

[Sad_Mushroom]

Hi LuLu,

STOP for a minute and think.

If you know you want to feel empathy then you have not forgotten about it. Just because things now are taking over does not mean you cannot or will never feel it again. Knowing enough to post about it means you are feeling, just probably not recognising it as you used to.

There is more to us all than feelings. Sometimes a part of ourselves will slacken off to allow for other more important things to take place. Maybe, for now, you are dealing with other issues and your brain just says "hold on, I need more brain space for me" and as such your empathy levels have petered off.

Not feeling can be your own self telling you, you need to focus on YOU more. Maybe you need to mend before you can try and help others. Seriously, sometimes we all need to mend ourselves first!

No point pushing a cart to deliver food for starving people if the wheels on the cart are broken.

Sorry LuLu, it might be time to focus on you more.

SM

[LuLu_]

Hi Croix

I like your metaphor of being behind glass and your use of quote. I too feel everything that makes me, me is out of reach and behind thick glass.

I feel I am combating a mountain where I cannot see the top, and no matter how many steps I take the fog seems to become even thicker. My life seems to be an impossible task. I don’t mean to sound so dramatic but I feel as though I’ve been climbing for a long time, and falling.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to sit on the ledge for a while? Wouldn’t it be nice for someone to say wow look how far you have come, or you may not be able to see it but you have done a great job?

I know the most gratifying thing is when you can see your own progress without people pointing it out. But at this moment I feel I am stuck. I feel it’s my fault for not making it to the top of the mountain. I am tired.

I am sorry. I have written far more than you needed in reply.

thank you for sharing your perspective and insight. You reassurance that it will pass is comforting but i am not sure I believe it yet.

I really do appreciate you reading and writing in response.

lulu

[LuLu_]

Hi SM

I like how you describe the balance. How something must “slacken off” for another to sort of gain a higher place of influence.

I fear I think of myself too often. My parents point out that I don’t do enough for them and others. They don’t realise how hurtful this can be. I don’t mean to be selfish. I feel sort of trapped because my depression is still present and I can’t decide when i am being me or when my depression is shining through. I have a nature to please. I dislike heavily to upset others. I do want to be selfless and help everyone and do my bit. But I seem to be doing it all wrong.

i agree I must heal. But how do you heal when so many other things and people are taking so much from you and expecting so much. The expectations are painful and diminishing.

Thank you so much for your reply. My instinct tells me to focus on me. But then I hear the words selfish and thoughtless and my head starts to spin.

your words mean more than you will ever know

thank you for your kindness

lulu

[Croix]

Dear LuLu~
I get the feeling you give more than you really are capable of, and the end up effect on you is harmful. I quite believe you when you say “I do want to be selfless and help everyone and do my bit” and sadly in your mind you are not doing this.

Instead of being supported and told to do what you can it sounds like the opposite is happening and you are being told you are selfish – which is quite the reverse of what you need.

Actually I suspect you are in two minds, the painful powerful part accepting this and feeling you are at fault, letting people down. The other part of your mind knows this is simply not the case. The problem is getting to believe and accept that other part.

Actually to even think that with even part of your mind makes me feel you are doing pretty well, all things considered. You have a very hard road and are traveling it without the support I had, which shows both strength and resilience. You say it is gratifying for you to see your own progress – true however being told that by others is necessary, and people that should be saying it are letting you down.

Looking at myself I was on the same mountain, all obscured by the fog of depression. Then a little change in my thinking and I was a lot better, the mountain was not there anymore and ideas of how high I was climbing and how far I had to go no longer applied. I’d expect that is what will happen to you.

You may not really believe it at the moment, however it does happen, I’m a real person, not just a few lines of text, with a real MH history, we have both seen that dividing glass, and it happened for me. I’m pretty good now.

Croix