brownblob

[brownblob]

I don't know if this is really a diary. I kind of like the idea of thinking out in a string of posts to myself. But I don't know if I will follow through with this or not. This will probably be a rambling pile of shit.
I'm not in treatment for my depression/anxiety issues. When I was younger and suicidal, I went and tried to get help and tried meds without a whole lot of success and got turned off by the mental health system. I muddled through life. Not being happy, but treading water. I've been in a hole since November and part of me says it's time to get help and part of me says it's too late. I'm 46. I've made the decisions that made my life the way it is and now I have to live with it. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to act out more and ask for help at a younger age. I wonder why nobody picked up on things back then. Maybe today teachers are more aware and would have picked up on things. There were definitely things that teachers should have noticed and atleast asked if every thing was ok.
Back to the present, I keep thinking this latest depression is maybe a seasonal thing and I will pop out of it when spring comes. My family views my depression as a moral failure and immaturity. I don't ever speak to them about it. I let them think I outgrew it. My spousal unit knows I have problems, but will never say mental illness. She calls them emotional issues which to me makes me feel like I'm some weak little shit that can't control my emotions.
Anyhow I'm fucked up in the head and I don't believe I will ever change. I'm such a sack of shit that should stop whining and feeling sorry for myself when others have much worse problems than me. Why should I call the dr and get meds that won't help, and maybe I'll just come out of this low by myself. I think I'm slowly coming out of it. But even if I come out of this low, I know I still will be an unhappy loser. Going from major depression to dysthymia. I will still be full of anxiety and issues. I'll still be a miserable loser. In five minutes I will regret posting this and will proceed to beat myself up all day for it and hope nobody reads it.

[brownblob]

I so much want to post something positive here, but can't think of anything positive to say.
I do think the depression is lifting a bit, so maybe I just need some sunlight. I am afraid I've missed a chance to get help. That I won't be depressed enough now to motivate myself to get help. It is so hard for me to ask for help. My coping mechanism is to try not to feel. Luckily, I have a bad memory so that helps me block out the past. If I can just stay busy, I won't have to think. If this depression will just lift a little more, so I can get my lazy ass off the couch.

[brownblob]

The other day I talked to my mother. She was talking about a friends daughter who has a drinking problem. She was saying this woman had such a good career and life and she didn't party in college and she couldn't understand why she would go have a drinking problem.(Like it was a life choice)
I said,"Well, everybody's got something."
My mother just repeated herself about this woman having such a good career and life and why would she drink.
I repeated myself,"Everybody's got something"
She dropped it after that, but inside it just reminded me that she had no understanding for people with problems. It just brought back the lack of understanding she had for my depression and issues when I was younger. To her these are all just moral failures and people being stupid.

[Fargin]

Anyhow I'm fucked up in the head and I don't believe I will ever change. I'm such a sack of shit that should stop whining and feeling sorry for myself when others have much worse problems than me. Why should I call the dr and get meds that won't help, and maybe I'll just come out of this low by myself. I think I'm slowly coming out of it. But even if I come out of this low, I know I still will be an unhappy loser. Going from major depression to dysthymia. I will still be full of anxiety and issues. I'll still be a miserable loser. In five minutes I will regret posting this and will proceed to beat myself up all day for it and hope nobody reads it.

This is depression and anxiety in a nutshell.

You know this is an unhappy life, but your anxiety's finest function is to protect you at all times. It's protecting you from getting in touch with your feelings and from your surroundings reactions. Change is dangerous for anxiety, getting better and happier is also change, change your anxiety dredds.

By posting here, you're expressing yourself and allowing yourself to lower the wall of control, you're forced to keep up all day around people. This is dangerous and your body and minds natural reaction is to avoid risk. Expressing your sadness puts you at risk with your family, so your body is telling you, by posting here, you've opened yourself to risk/ridicule/shame and you shouldn't have done it.

Keep posting and keep expressing these secret, dangerous and shameful feelings. I always have the same regrets when posting. I've deleted many posts out of shame, but this is training. Experimenting with opening the lid, bit by bit and getting familiar with the waves of shame, that rushes over us, for expressing how we really feel.

When I think about it, feelings are always honest. More honest than thoughts. When I'm angry or sad, that's what I am and yet we've been taught to hide it like a deadly sin. Maybe you can never get your family to accept it, maybe your wife is calling it "emotional," because she's also protecting you from your parents lack of understanding. It's important to find other venues, where you can experiment with being real, this forum is such venue.

This is my theory, but I'm still working on perfecting the practice.

[brownblob]

Yesterday morning, anxiety was bad. I wanted to leave work so badly, but I just keep telling myself if I leave today what will I do next time. I can't just leave every time I'm feeling this way. It eased up in the afternoon and I managed to relax some. Nothing bad was going on.
The last couple of months I have been low. I've been somewhat obsessed with mental illness and my own problems. I find myself wondering if I am wallowing in my own shit. But normally I ignore this stuff, so when I actually sink into one of these lows I find myself trying to figure it out. I also lose interest in everything else, so I alternate between staring at the wall and googling mental health subjects. I find myself wondering if reading and thinking about the subject is helping or hurting.

[brownblob]

I've been withdrawn and out of it today. Tonight I can't sleep. I've had the urge to overeat lately. I'm not hungry but feel the urge to go to the kitchen and eat something to give myself something to do.
Sometimes I feel like I never grew up. I shutdown at a certain age and have avoided feeling anything ever since. Every once in awhile, I kind of come to and am still this young adult that doesn't know who he is or how to control my brain and I'm just trying to figure it all out and can't.

[brownblob]

So I've been trying to figure lately if I should get help and how. So many questions going through my head. I was completely turned off the mental health system when I was 21. But I feel like I've ignored my needs my whole life. I know I need help, but it's so hard to ask. I'm terrified to ask. I have been in a low since November and I've just been trying to outlast it and I feel like it is easing up, so maybe this episode is seasonal. It is interfering with my life and not just the last couple of months. The anxiety recently has been getting bad, where everyday I work I feel nauseous and feel dread and seriously think about turning around and going home. So I feel like even if I don't get help for the depression, I need to get help for the anxiety.
My thought is to just call my dr and go in and get some meds. But I hate to have to admit to the years I have left this untreated. I hate to have to admit to my history of suicide attempts and hospitalizations years ago. I hate to have him give me meds, but look at me like I'm crazy for the rest of my life. I know people will say drs won't, but this is a small city in the midwest where drs do this.
On the Podcast, Paul is always pushing therapy and support groups. Where I live there are very few support groups. I don't really have a whole lot of belief in either for me. I'm extremely quiet. I talked to a social worker at a mental health clinic when I was younger, but I don't know if she was an actual therapist. It didn't help. There were therapists at the hospitals I was in I guess, but I don't recall having any kind of a breakthru with any of these. By the end of these experiences, I hadn't seen any success and had gotten paranoid of these people. There are only a handful where I live, and if it's like the medical community here, they will all be lousy.
So I know I need help. I know I need to go see my dr, but actually following through and doing it is another story.

[Murphy]

The answer to whether or not you (the general "you") should get help is almost always yes. If you think you need it, and you think you can benefit, then it's worth a try. You may have to try a few therapists to find the right one, which can be difficult if there aren't a lot of options, but you never know.

The first step is always hard, but it can be so so worth it.

[brownblob]

I'm seriously intending to call my dr tomorrow. I'm not sure if I will actually do it, but I should. I stress about what I should say. It will be hard to admit my problem and then how do I describe it. How to I explain yeah I'm always depressed but it's a little worse lately and there's this whole anxiety thing that has been building up in me and it's bubbling over lately. So maybe I'll chicken out.

[brownblob]

Am I really depressed or am I just a lazy loser that feels sorry for myself and is a waste of space? I wish you were never born you worthless piece of shit. Sorry, but this is what I listen to in my head all day.