Advice for depression.

Former Member

Hi.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this on here, as I've never really mentioned any of this to anyone before, maybe I'm being selfish - I don't know. I've just hit the point where I just need to tell someone about it.

Last year (I'm 20) I realised that for the most part of my life I have been suffering with depression. I say suffering, but to be honest I didn't realise I was 'suffering' for the most part, I didn't really accept anything was wrong. I've never seen myself as being quite the same as other people, whether this is just paranoia I don't know, but I've never really 'clicked' with anyone. Don't get me wrong, I've had friends - sometimes even a social life, and I've never had anything terrible happen to me - I've just always felt alone and alienated, and, just different I suppose. Over the years I've become a bit of a misanthrope too :P.

I have self-harmed in the past - though again, I didn't know I was doing anything 'wrong' at time, I was just doing it and it felt right. This was between the ages of 12-16, and I have not self-harmed since then. I have only recently accepted to myself that I was doing this and that I am still depressed (nobody knew about it then and I've kept it that way). Instead of self-harm, I just go walking at night - sometimes right through until the sun comes up again and I am in the middle of nowhere :P as this seems to work. I think the depression was with me at an even younger age than 12, and I feel I have wasted a sizable chunk of my childhood being down, and living in my head too much. I want to change things but I really can't seem to get out of this rut.

I'm not sure what causes my depression and I'm not really sure what to do about it. I will have good days and will then suddenly hit rock bottom and it's pretty damn shit. I'll lose all motivation, become really introverted (I'm shy anyway) and sometimes even just sit there and just feel shit for days without really doing anything. The insomnia doesn't really help either.

I write this at the risk of people assuming I'm craving attention - especially as I've never had anything bad happen to me to cause me to feel this way. But I think I really just want some advice. I really don't want to talk to my family about this as they have enough of their own personal problems right know, and as I've been hiding this from people for around 10 years now, I'd find it hard to suddenly talk to my friends about it, and I'm not sure they'd understand anyway. I haven't told anyone in the past because I didn't realise anything was wrong, and when I did, I thought it would pass, and I always worried about being accused of doing it for attention - especially as self-harm and depression have become almost fashionable nowadays.

I really couldn't cope with people knowing about this, as they see a totally different me, and believe it or not, I really wouldn't want the attention - I'm not even sure I could handle going to a doctor, though I like the sound of anti-depressants...

I know it's something I can't really help but I'm ashamed anyway, I don't really know why :P.

What I could really do with is someone in the same boat - someone who understands what's going through my head when the depression hits, so drop me a line if you're as fucked up I am

Anyway, thanks for listening,

RiverMan

Former Member

I think the first thing you need to do is go and see a GP and tell them how you are feeling.
i often feel like life is a party to which I havnt been invited, Ive just sort of ended up here.
Anti depressants arent magical (I wish they were) they dont always work but since Ive been on them wonder what I would be like if I wasnt on them.
Lack of sleep on its own can do funny things to people. It makes you feel emotional, sometimes irrational, and you cannot think things throught properly and calmly if your mentally exhausted. Im worried that on your long walks (which sound alot better than self harming, you dont specify what form it took tho) you are putting yourself at risk tramping around at night, potentially could get caught up in stuff.
If you think you are potentially wasting time feeling like this, if you have been suffering from this for a long time, it seems you arent getting out of it on your own,so you maybe need to seek help, perhaps professional help if you feel you cant talk to your mates. You dont ahve to let them know if you feel you cant.
Good luck mate, I hope things get better.
x

Former Member

Hi Riverman,

Sorry to hear you've had such a hard time and good on you for posting that, hope it made you feel a bit better if only to be able to put it down in words.

Firstly don't worry about feeling like you are looking for attention, this is after all a board set up to allow young people to talk about what is troubling them and that's entirely fine.

Coming to terms with how you are feeling is obviously going to be difficult and I'd hope that you don't beat yourself up too much over it. For some people depression isn't necessarily caused by events around them, and it can be a difficult thing to address because many times people can spend too long looking for something that 'caused' an illness, when really it's better to try and move forward and find ways to deal with it.

I can't say I'm in the same boat I'm afraid but I did spend a fair few years working with people who had a variety of mental health problems and I'd like to say that without any exceptions trying to get help from a doctor improved the situation people were in.

That doesn't mean you can expect anything to provide a magic solution (and I'm sure you wouldn't expect something like to exsist) but simply that there is a huge variety of possible ways to try and help with depression. For local health support, through possible medication to talking treatments, helplines, websites like this and support groups there is a lot out there, and a lot of people in the same situation.

A lot of it is tied to GP's abilities to refer though, so think about speaking to a doctor about how you feel as the best and the best funded services will often come through a good GP.

However if that is a step too far then obviously you're more than welcome to hang around here - you might want to take a look at the depression and self harm sticky at the top of the page which is a relatively informal thread for people with depression and self harming issues to support each other on the health board.

The depression section of our factsheets containes some introductory information you might find useful and it might also be worth while looking over the information we have on mental health treatments.

In addition there's a page of helplines for health information that include many of the best national support services for mental health issues, including SaneLine which I've always heard good things about.

Saneline also provide the answers to mental health issues through our askTheSite service. So if you have any questions about depression, or anything related to treatment as things might progress then feel free to head over to the following page and ask a question. It's entirely free and confidential and all questions are answered within three working days.

htttp://www.thesite.org/community/askthesite

You might also want to look at out local advice finder, a database of 10,000s of local services. You should be able to find something in your area to help if you aren't able to face a GP but would like to find a face to face service.

Anyway, once again, sorry to hear things have been hard, hopefully they will improve.

Former Member

first of all dont worry there are quite a few of us who "suffer" as you put it from the same problems i too have those dys where im so down i dont talk to anyone or do anything no-one really knows about mine either theres not really much advice i can give as it appears that im younger than you so youve got a lot more experiance shall we say. but i thought id leet you know there are others that have the same problems i tend to drive aimlessly for hours trying to fgure out why im like i am (i cant really walk where i am.) theres no way i can find ot trace it back to the source ive had this prblem as far as i can remember and i have nothing happen to me that could trigger it off
just thought id say that thanks for reading

Former Member

hey,
i don't really have any good advice, just wanted to give you a virtual hug because i've kinda felt the same although i can't say for sure. i hope you get help and feel better soon and i hope you don't feel so lost one day because you sound it.

*hug*

Former Member

If you can, try and find a copy of 'Malignant Sadness - an Anatomy of Depression' by Lewis Wolpert. It really helped me to read in detail about someone else's experience and I found it miles more useful than all of those 'the facts' bits on websites.