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

I'm never happy. Meds aren't working and getting nowhere with therapy. I've been chasing this depression for years like a dog trying to chase its tail. I just can't figure out why I'm not happy. I feel like something in my life is missing but I don't know what it is. I also always want to do things and not want to do them at the same time if that even makes any sense at all. I have a boyfriend and he's so good to me but I feel like he's so used to me being depressed all the time that he just kinda does his own thing and he's done everything he can possibly do to make me happy. I feel ungrateful and I feel like a burden. I feel like dead weight in peoples' lives. I just don't know what to do anymore. I do yoga, I work, I get plenty of rest, I am physically healthy, close with family...but I am so unhappy and don't know why and don't know what to do. I always think well maybe I should change this in my life but if I do I will still feel unfulfilled. I want to feel happy again so desperately but all I feel is pain and numbness inside. Constantly.

Ps I also have many friends but I never want to see them because I don't feel like it.

Take a risk. A calculated risk. Risk something that means something vital only to you, to gain more of that vital thing that means that to you.

Take a risk you can afford to take; one that requires something of the people around you; to achieve it but also that requires of them to close in to catch you if you fail. Publicise what exactly is at stake for you as you take that chance.

Usually when you want something and you don't know what it is, it's because it's on the other side of a risk; simply to know the very details of what that wanted thing is.

And you may not feel happy during or even after but you'll sure as sh$@ feel alive so, choose a risk crafted to nurture you.

Therapy is a good place to practice taking risks, especially around trust.

It's up to you of course. I'm just speaking from the point of view of a highly risk-averse person; with a history of mental health issues, who has benefited from learning, from scratch, to take risks.

Can you give me some examples of what you mean by risks??? I am probably reading way too much into your response lol and trying to make sense out of it. Ugh sorry I'm complicated.

I know, I'm complicated too. So... for example, take a risk by being direct with the different people in your life, by not reading too much into things they say or do, by not knowing what conclusion to make about new information or at least, by not making it straight away. I'm sorry if this sounds like advice; I'm really just guessing; pulling things out of thin air.