I'm tired of life, with little reason, not dramatic - just 'done'...

Everything you say actually seems quite positive, which obviously is a good thing. You have found what at least helps you manage your symptoms, I suppose your next step is to see if there is any hope of resolving the issues that cause the symptoms. But, like me, maybe they aren't resolvable and are just 'you'.

You're healthy, in a better paid job, looking good and have a friend who you can talk to freely. When I have any one of those I'll see if they helped Health is ok, but have always been of the skinny frame regardless of what I do, I don't have a job has can't keep up the right frame of mind so leave before I collapse, and definitely have no friends to share this with. Well, I have no friends so that kinda says it all!

Anywho, I'm glad you seem to be managing quite well and controlling your mood. Canada sounds fun, if cold, and always think it shows an element of bravery to live and work abroad (I assume that's what you meant by saying Indian in Canada rather from Canada). Thanks for your message anyway.

However, it's a common theme: help yourself by helping others. Most people would say I do that TOO much. I will help others endlessly to the detriment of myself as I value anyone's progress above my own. I have given up things for myself to help a near stranger succeed above me. Especially at work, I often actively passed praise on to others or accepted blame that was not mine to save them. It's actually quite harmful if you think about it as it just helps fulfill a belief you have about yourself.

Helping others hasn't helped me. I still do it too, not like I've given up with that tact as it is ingrained in to my personality. But it doesn't make me feel better about myself, it doesn't make others think better of me (I'm almost invisible) and, despite continuing with quite altruistic actions, I firmly believe there is no justice - the good don't get rewarded and the bad don't get punished. I actually think being nice is BAD for me.

In fact I believe the happy successful people in life are, by and large, the ones who don't dwell on the views of others either negative or positive and just take and use as they see fit to progress. That can be in a postive, go getter super confident way or it can be in a negative stab people in the back kind of way. However being focused on yourself and being selfish is by far the best way of succeeding in this world.

I'm going to stop there. I think you've caught me on a bad day. I didn't realise it, but maybe I'm feeling worse today than I thought - I knew I was irritable and this message has just proved it!

Being nice is good but there are limits you need to impose.  You need to spend some time being selfish and looking after yourself.  It doesn't make you a not nice person but does mean you will get more of what you want to in life. 

In my experience most people will take advantage of nice people and can end up treating you like a doormat and are not grateful,  often they are quite the reverse. 

Draw up limits to helping others and learn to say no.  It will feel wrong to you but it is actually right for you.   We all need to look after ourselves in life coz no one else is going to do it for you are they?  Decide what you are willing to do and what you won't do.   I would always help someone at work for example and have done but would draw the line at taking the blame for them or jeopardising your own career or happiness.   Find the line and draw it.  x 

Anyway, this might sound very messed up, and I even recognise this, but I know a part of my seclusion from the world is to avoid unnecessary pain for others through any decent human's response to loss. I'm not stupid enough to think people wouldn't care, I just think they shouldn't. I also feel that people are sad about a strangers death, you can't be sad about something you don't know though...

My old friends know not where I am, haven't heard from me in years, and I will be nothing but a memory for them now. So if I were to 'disappear permanently' it wouldn't effect them. This has been part of my thinking. It genuinely means that all those thoughts that go through my head are tempered by evaluating how I could cause the least (zero) pain to those I know, or even strangers - I'd never do the train thing, I think that is selfish. There are ways without inflicting it upon others (which I won't go in to for any ideas for people who are closer than I am at the moment!)

I tried the medical route after twenty years of dealing with it myself, that too didn't work. I try not to think about it at the moment, because every time I do, I feel there is no hope.

I'm ok at the moment, the problem comes when work starts for my other half again and I'll be left thinking. Thinking is never good!

Every so often I weight up my options and decide do I want to carry on or do I take the get out of jail card.   Even if I decide on the latter I decide I won't do it that day but maybe tomorrow.  Tomorrow comes and I go ok made it so far will think again about it tomorrow.   Eventually it fades into the background again.  

I find it very comforting to have that option as it gives me peace of mind and control over my own life.   If life gets really bad and I do it ok I bought myself many years and now it's time.   

You have got to give yourself chances first and explore everything and try everything else before you decide to give up.   x

If you lose time and time again at chess, and you hate the game as well, do you carry on playing?

To be fair, I have not really had to work at intellectual things, they kind of just make sense or I research everything the nth degree until they do but I wouldn't class myself as clever! It seems impossible to do so when one can't even speak to someone without stumbling over words or stressing or completely losing all grip on what I meant to say!

Although the madness part of King George I might be close to. Stephen Fry is an idol of mine, and someone I watch closely for obvious link in the field of mental health but if he's Premier League I'd barely count as a part time player!

Thanks anyway :D

Pleased that no insult was taken....It,s ok I almost always get it wrong lol jx

I'm going to have to be brutally to the point, in the nicest way I can, and with that I'll have to make some assumptions that I apologise for completely if I'm wrong - it's what you have to do when responding with limited information!

First, you obviously are at a very low point but you indicate this seems to be entirely in response to your work experience. That doesn't mean you're not depressed, far from it, but it does give you a relatively easy target to focus on to improve your overall well-being. If you were happy in work do you think you would be happy (as much as anyone is as they seek more!) with your life? If the answer is yes, then you need to focus on how to make either teaching, or any other career, work for you and your head.

Teaching. Man, I could rant too! However, I would temper that by saying every school is WILDLY different. Just because one is awful doesn't mean all are. Inner city in this country tends to be a lot harder to teach, where as suburbs and rural areas can tend to go the other way and have very unrealistic pushy parents. State school is not your enemy though. I have taught in a lot of schools and you wouldn't believe how they can change from one side of the road to the other. Staff make a far bigger impact than children. I like to believe all children are inherently pleasant and want to achieve, the only thing that lets them down can be parents/environment, poorly organised schools and... yes stupid government policies! But this is largely a chat for TES site - head there if you've not before and you'll get a lot better answers to teaching issues than I can provide. I also worked primary and, by and large, my issue was always with staff who still act like they are on the playground as they know no world different from education and still think the popular, loud, bully kids are the ones who run the joint! I am often secluded because I'm male. However, again, I also recognise that it is also a large part of me that struggles to deal with things rather than letting it not effect me - basically what I'm saying is I personally feel my character is not really strong enough to deal with one of the most demanding professions in the world - especially in this country. Most of the public would laugh at that statement but they don't realise the daily abuse, work, stresses, observations, impossible targets etc - it is the most mentally challenging job out there and when you go home you still have work to do, none of this leaving it at the office, still got to plan and mark and assess. I know (knew) police officers, nurses, labourers, lawyers who all turned to teaching for holidays and the view working with kids was fun (which it can be) but then all returned to their orignal jobs when they realised the mental strain it puts on you and those around you. No-one should say it's easy til you've tried it - there is no other profession in Britain where you can be watched working and assessed on a weekly basis.

But I try to tell me, and I'll tell you, that it doesn't make you a bad person if you can't cope in British schools. I wouldn't chastise a child for struggling in P.E. and it's the same thing, some of us are made to excel in some areas and underperform in others. If you think you are a good teacher elsewhere in the world (and on a side note all the people in this thread who are from x country but working on y country make me feel evern more useless - how cool and brave you all are!) then maybe it's a case of just finding the right school. If not, try something else I suppose. I am struggling to give you a good answer because this paragraph is one of my big daily mental battles.

Again, from what I read, I think you might find more help from TES website to reslove teaching issues, that may then feed in to your general mental wellbeing.

Good luck