YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi...

I registered here quite a while ago. This is about the tenth time that I've attempted to sit down and type out this introductory post. I still don't know if I'll finish it but dammit I'll give it a shot.

I apologize in advance if this gets to be a bit long winded. Once I get started I don't know if I'll be able to slow down. There are just so many things going through my mind and that I need to get out. I really have no one to tell them to. Bless anyone that can get through all this gibberish.

Well to start off, I'm 31 Male and Bi-Racial. Also, I somehow have ended up living under the same roof with my Mother and Grandmother. That sounds fantastic doesn't it? I guess I should be thankful that I have a job to go to at least. When I lost my apartment a couple years ago (due to stupidity on my part), I had no option but to move back in with my Mom. It took me about a year to actually find a job. I can't tell you how many applications I filled out, only to get called back about 3 times during that period. All the while Mom constantly got on me about not looking hard enough for a job. So I eventually get a job working 3rd shift stocking at a grocery store. Now a year later I'm the manager of the Frozen Food department. Certainly not great by any means, but it's a living I guess.

Lately my depression has been really bad. On my days off, I just try and stay my room for two days. Most times I'm too depressed to even turn on my Xbox (that's sad). I try to talk the least amount possible. I've also noticed that my voice has gotten lower and lower when I speak. I've almost completely shut down.
I really don't have friends to speak of. Even when people try to keep in touch with me on Facebook I just tend to disappear.

Almost everyday that I leave for work, I have to fight back an intense urge to just get in my car and drive off. To where I don't know, but I just know that it has to be anywhere but here. Because, even more now then in the past few years I've started to realize how shit my life is. I kick myself constantly for not doing anything to fix it and for allowing myself to be complacent. But here is the kicker: I have absolutely no motivation to change my situation. My motivation has been dwindling for years and yet I did nothing to stop it. I hate myself for that. When I was a lot younger, I was full of ambition, hopes and dreams. In 5th grade I would go to the library and look a the Barron's College Guides. Hell I would carry around a notebook with the college's that I was thinking of attending written in it. I wonder often whatever happened to him. I wish I could bring him back.

Nothing bad ever really happened to me when I was a kid. Probably the worst is that I've never had a relationship with my father, he is an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was very young. So I have no memory of us ever being a family. He ran off to Las Vegas when I was a kid so that he could avoid paying child support. The only time that I have met him was when I was 15 during a trip out to Las Vegas. I wanted nothing to do with him then, really still don't. When I was young I decided that I would never, ever touch alcohol.

My mother remarried when I was about 9 I believe. I never really did trust my step-father, there was something I could never put my finger on. But my instincts about him turned out to be correct. My Junior year of high school, a sheriff came to our house. He told my mom that we were being evicted and that we needed to be out in a few days. Turned out that my step-father completely stopped making house payments. Instead he bought a house for a woman that he was having an affair with (and got pregnant). Things were a little rough for My mother, brother (from my step-father) and I for a bit after that but we pulled through.

It was at that time that I kind of made a decision to put my life on hold. No one asked me to do this it just felt like it was the right thing to do. Instead of going off to college like I wanted to, I stayed home and went to school here. I wanted to be close to my brother, try to give him the strong male figure that I never had (we are 10 years apart).

College didn't work out for me. I went as a Broadcasting major, and I did enjoy that very much. However I just lost interest in everything there, and quit going to classes altogether. So I stopped going, got a job an started helping out at home wherever and whenever. Mom or brother need money for something, I was there. My brother needed to go to doctor's appointments, got it covered. Things went on like that until he graduated high school. Only one time during that period did I consider moving out. It was nothing that anyone did that made me want to leave.

I was 22 and I had friends that lived out in San Diego. If I wanted to move out there I had an open invitation to stay with them. When I talked with my Mom about my decision to move out there, she called me "selfish". That hit me like a ton of bricks. It really hurt me, and I've never forgotten that.

Damn, this is getting so long I apologize. There certainly is more that I need to get off my chest but I'll save it. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of me already.

Wow, I really identify with a lot of what you say here. And I can also be quite long winded. Not that I think your post was too long, because I don't. I just know how it feels to worry about that. I've also been very withdrawn lately and have a hard time staying in touch with friends. Even online. It seems so simple to touch base with an email or FB message (I hate telephones), but so daunting at the same time. I've come to despise weekends because I always intend to get a lot accomplished on my days off, and then I find myself sleeping and doing stupid stuff online the whole time. And when the workweek starts with nothing to show for, I hate myself.

I was also very motivated and had big dreams as a kid! I did math in my spare time just because I loved it. I researched colleges like crazy (but ended up only applying to the one in my hometown - even though I did move into the dorm at least). I'm 38 now and it was just four years ago that I found a 'career' rather than just a job. And I fell into it completely by luck. Ok, I did end up going back to school three years ago in order to get a more professional position within the field and I just barely succeeded. I tried going back to school again last year to advance further and I utterly fell apart. I was only taking one class and I just couldn't get my assignments done, didn't read the text book, didn't study. And it was a subject I LOVE (Genetics). I'm not going to attempt that again for a while. I'll just have to stay where I'm at until I can figure out why I can't do anything productive.

I'm very impressed that you put your dreams on hold to help out your family after high school. I doubt I would have done the same. That's very admirable, and I think it was unfair of your mother to call you selfish when you wanted to finally do something for yourself. I never knew my father either. As far as I know (I can't get a straight answer from my mom), he was married to someone else when I was conceived. I had three different step fathers and didn't get along with any of them. They were all horrible to my sister, but mostly left me alone because I kept quiet and never expressed my opinions or feelings.

Well, just wanted to let you know that someone did read your entire post, and it was not too long. Welcome to posting!

Hi there, negative_zero,

Glad to make your acquaintance. You said quite a few things in your post which I identify with, but I'll be brief in this initial reply.

Congratulations on at last completing your introductory post. Doing so after making multiple attempts, as well as your year-long search for work and your progression from stock person to department manager at your job certainly seems to me to demonstrate the quality of persistence, an admirable trait which I have often found in rather short supply in my own personality, and which, perhaps, might get you farther in whatever you want to do than any actual talent you may or may not have.

I haven't worked for a while, but a very strong memory of all of my jobs, even the ones I was excited about at the time, is that they were psychologically exhausting - just the process of getting to and being at the workplace, to say nothing of the duties of the jobs, so I think it is *perfectly* understandable that you would absolutely need your weekends simply to recover... even if you *weren't* quite depressed. And I would say that being able to continue to go day after day is something of a heroic struggle that should not be dismissed. Not a trivial accomplishment by any means.

You don't speak of it, so I am wondering if you have ever sought out a mental health professional for consultation.

I guess that's about it for now. Again, glad you introduced yourself and I hope you will return to tell us more.

Thank you very much to both of you for taking the time to read my post, and welcoming me here.

No I haven't sought out a mental health professional for help. That has been something that I have thought about many times, and something that I know I should do. I think part of the reason that I haven't done so is because in some way I feel like I don't deserve to be helped. However I have been on medication once before. I think about 8 or 9 years ago or so I was prescribed Paxil by a doctor. I had gone in about a cyst that was behind my ear, and I was pretty much coaxed into telling the doctor that I was depressed. The medication did help, but after a couple months I just quit using it.

The last couple days have been pretty rough for me. I find myself getting out of bed later and later. The feeling of loneliness that I usually carry with me has grown exponentially. I hate having this feeling of constant loneliness and at the same time just wanting to be left alone. It makes no sense to me.
I haven't had what you could call a girlfriend since high school. Had my heart crushed just a couple years ago, and now I am totally unable to approach women now. Even more so than before. And just the other day my Grandmother says to me "When are you going to get yourself a girlfriend?" That certainly doesn't help matters any. I feel often that it's best to not even attempt to be in a relationship, not matter how much I want to have someone to love an be loved by in return. My feeling is that I want to spare them from me. I'm miserable damn near all the time I don't want to put someone through that.

The feelings of anxiety and anxiousness came over me again today at work. I went out my car to get something that I forgot. Somehow I willed me self not to get in that car and leave. I don't know how much longer I can do that before I finally give in.