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

At times when I get really depressed I have the fantasy of leaving my current world behind. I hate it while I have it and I hate it more after I have it. All the people I love that I know truly love me back would be devasted, and yet I still have the desire at times to think that way. My depression is mostly biological and when it occurs my mind likes to create "reasons" why it's feeling that way and "solutions" to make it stop. Leaving everyone and my whole situation would bring me more sadness than I think I've ever felt before and yet during my episodes I feel so lost and discouraged in continuing the way I'm going at that very moment.

Pretty much seeing the sad eyes of my older son who is turning 7 in this fantasy is what really can snap me out of that and know that I could never willingly do something like that, and yet the fantasy pops up sometimes. It's as if my own perception is hijacked and I'm forced to live through a nightmare in waking life.

I totally feel you. I've never really talked about it, but when I was in my worst depression, I would fantasize about faking my own death and just leaving everything behind. Sometimes I considered letting my parents be in on the ruse, sometimes not. I think it's this fantasy that everything would be better if I was a different person or could just reinvent myself. Get a new name, a new history, whatever. The ironic thing is that you can never escape the actual cause of the depression: your own brain chemistry.

I've felt that way so often, I eventually wrote a screenplay about somebody who actually does it. How's that for externalizing? For me, I think it is a response to that feeling of helplessness just in everyday life, as far the pressures involved, and how tangled we become in our responsibilities and commitments both to ourselves and others. Sometimes it can feel like everything you do is for other people, and when you get to the point that just relaxing or doing something for yourself fills you with shame and/or guilt, leaving everything behind and starting over from scratch at least confirms that you have some control over your life. Of course, just thinking about abandoning all of your responsibilities can make you feel guilty all over again, so I guess the comfort angle is short lived.

That thought has been really present with me lately. I don't have kids, nor do I have much extended family. In the fantasy, I would take my cats, I would let my mom know I was okay but beyond that would just disappear into a new life. But of course I know I just take my problems with me and the new would become the old very quickly. But it's quite the fantasy.

Sometimes when I'm out walking somewhere with my wife and kids I imagine how easy it would be to just let them get a little ahead of me and for me to just get lost in the crowd. They'd turn around I'd be gone... vanished into thin air. Sometimes I wonder if they'd even turn around.

I also very much understand this feeling. It's a thought that's come to my mind since I was very young. Just to leave and start over somewhere else where no one knows me or has any idea of who I am. For me, the thing that usually brings me back to reality when I'm thinking like this is knowing that no matter where I go I'm still me. Since I've moved around quite a bit the last few years I've kind of gotten as close as possible to fulfilling the fantasy as it can get and have realized that it isn't my surroundings. It's me.

Wow! Reading your posts have me stunned! Everything everyone is saying is EXACTLY my thought processes about the whole thing, articulated much better and more detailed! That conclusion that "you're still going to be yourself with your depression" is the final thing really that snaps me out of it too, that this plan that seems to be a last resort is actually one that's already set up to fail anyhow. The escapism of it though, where I could imagine a life where I'm putting myself in situations where I have more control, that's what appeals to me most. I'm not aggressive, very introverted, which seems to also mean that I'm in my head a lot focusing way too much on myself. I look for solutions to the issues in my life that I feel that I should have control over but unfortunately I don't.

My ex-wife was a big part of my life in which I built a world around and had children with. Now that we're split the fate of my children's lives are not in my hands as I feel they should be. They are around her boyfriend that tries to have them think of me as a horrible human being and a bad father, as she believes as well, and it's something I have no control over. I know for a fact I'm a good father because I spend quality time with them, care about them, feed them, clean them, set appropriate bed times, communicate with them with presence, and make sure they know that they are very much loved. With her though if something might seem a little off and I can't explain it very well, she immediately assumes the worst, like one dirty diapered toddler returned somehow DEFINITELY means that myself and my girlfriend (a mother herself) let the poor kid sit there in it all day... Ugh. The guy called DCF on me and called, threatening to physically assault me. If I had a recording I'd have been golden but when I had the cops involved they could do nothing because this boyfriend denied everything and lied saying I was the one always threatening him...

Then there's a the dayjob that feels like I'm being robbed of 10 hours a day of life, punished, just to barely continue existing. That ties into the bills that never get to be fully paid. Debt and bills that aren't able to be paid are easily triggers for my depression, and there's not a lot I feel I can do to rationalize myself out of it. All that's left is the feelings of guilt, that I've fucked up my life making bad decisions and anyone who says that I'm a bad person is most likely right. If I think very rationally about it, I know none of those negative things I think about myself are correct, however if I'm under all that stress I'm bound to believe that there's truth in the words of my abusers.

I'm now transported back to the times in school that I was physically and mentally abused and harassed by bullies, and was left helpless because no one I reached out to could do anything to stop it from continuing.

Jesus, Ether, talk about a perfect example of how hard it can be to climb out from under crushing bouts of depression and self-loathing when the world itself seems to conspire against us. With childhood bullies (and their enablers), abusive ex-spouses and their new vindictive mates, and an oppressive work force that uses the economic recession as an excuse to exploit and undervalue workers, we have people from every aspect of our lives telling us how useless and worthless we are. With that kind of negative input hammering away at us day in and day out, it can be hard not to find yourself believing them. Between all of those immediate influences and the twisted media supporting abusive attitudes and unreasonable standards, it's almost like we are being brainwashed to hate ourselves. It might sound cliche, but I think just the realization that it's us and not them is the first step to breaking out of that emotional bondage.

Thanks Simon! I think you're right about admitting where the real problems are at! For me with therapy and medication I was able to see that, although I have a lot of stressful elements in my life at work I have some choice in how I react. If something triggers my anxiety and depression, without meds and talking I'm pretty much stuck in the sickness of my mental illness for awhile. Paul mentioned a few times on the podcast before about how it should be treated like any other illness, like diabetes, that you need to manage it and take it very seriously. You can live a happy and decent life if you can do that for the most part.

Lately I've still been in a darker place that's hampered my ability to be productive and creative, however since I'm conscious of it I'm better able to manage it. I've been in therapy biweekly again, which is a big help as well. The fantasy of walking away hasn't been in my mind the past week or so thankfully and despite feeling drained and down I'm still very hopeful and I feel like things are okay and will continue to be good or better ultimately.

Hang in there, Ether, I hope the therapy helps improve your outlook. Creative types tend to feel and experience things deeper, so the "hole" can often seem so much deeper.