Posted , 3 users are following.
i don't where to start but something has reached me beyond sad today. i can't exactly work out what but every now and then it happens and i reach a real low, my health is poor physically and when it's like this i get depressed i think. i don't know how to come back, i have some things to give but more reasons to go. how do you do it? how do you come back?
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soph74192 sam18386
Posted
Hi Sam
Keep fighting. I think i know the feeling you're talking about, where you go so far beyond 'sad' or any other named emotion everything turns into a hollow blur.
I want you to know that no matter how many reasons you feel there are to go, or how they weigh up against how many reasons there are to stay, the smallest single thing is enough to stay. And it can be anything. Any reason is good enough to live and to continue fighting so hold it in your mind and do your best. We all try and keep going through hardships, but we can only take so much and sometimes it can be a tiny, almost unnoticeable thing that tips you over and allows everything piled up to come crashing and weighing you down. Remember that depression is an illness, not a weakness of any sort, not YOU. That it distorts your thoughts, your memories, your perception and understanding of things around you. The first step to coming back is to keep going, keep living. The road out of deep depression is tough and not a straight line or easy journey but it is worth every step.
Sharing about myself is how I try and show understanding and empathy with peoples stories (I'm autistic), so I'm going to tell you about myself, and I hope something I write might help you some amount.
I have recurrent depressive disorder and have been on a roller coaster with this and other illness the past 7 years, including chronic physical illness, so I understand how bad physical health can be a huge affecter to mental wellness. From where I am right now; my physical and mental best in 5 years, it truly saddens me that I was several times at points so low I was close to killing myself. I lived in blank dissociative despair, hurting myself in every way i could; isolation; food, alcohol and drug abuse; self harm; working to destroy any positives I had. I know that when you're in the bottom of the pit you can 100% believe that there is no way out. I was advised by a councillor to journal my thoughts and feelings, and while this ended up with the negative despairing outweighing the neutral or positive, reading back through the pages when i picked it up to note things sometimes gave me a shock relieving the dark places my mind had gone. I was in a downward spiral for so long, becoming more and more depressed, intermittently trying to better my thoughts only to feel worse when i couldn't instantly 'fix' myself. I spoke to my GP, who started me on antidepressants. These were awful, the side effects vicious, and I struggled even more. My doctor recommended therapy and I self-referred myself to local NHS therapy, where after a while i started an online delivered CBT course. It helped some things a little, then finished and i immediately dropped further into depression than before. I think that the point things turned around for me, was when my friend discovered my self harming and forced my to call and tell my mum. And the pain of telling my mum what I was doing, and reality of realising I would be trying to hide the marks from my younger brother was incredible. I asked more therapy and was put on a waiting list for further CBT, read to busy my mind, tried to re-prioritise; 1 - stay alive. university? not even on the list anymore. Your health will always be paramount, and things you think to be essential may not be.
Every day i struggled with my thoughts; with changing the automatic negative, harmful, dissociative comments to balanced thoughts. I struggled showing and feeling emotion, and letting negative emotion run through me instead of holding on to it. Depression is so good at fooling you, at making you believe you're not worth saving, that you're the depressed girl and that's all you'll ever be. It can make you want to hold onto your misery because you believe it is your identity. It makes you believe that there is no other way for you to be; that any happiness you experience is false and make-believe. Starting to pull yourself from the grip of depression is hard, because you become comfortable in it. You know it. You're used to it. Happiness or joy feels alien and scary. So you want to pull away from the emotions and go back to what is familiar to you. As you start trying to move away from depression, you can miss it. Which is a scary feeling. One I felt so much. I felt like working my way to happiness and content was too hard, wouldn't it be easier to just stay here and be miserable? Yes it's easier, but it is not. worth. it.
Addressing your own thoughts, figuring out where they're coming from, evidencing them, working out if they're justifiable, and working out your response to them is a very long, emotional process. Standing up to and picking apart your negative thoughts is exhausting, and repetitive, and hundreds of times i've wanted to give up, but you have to acknowledge your emotion, your want, your thought, allow yourself to feel it and then move forwards from it. When i was at my most damaged and vulnerable, i would see and read and hear peoples stories about recovering from depression and then move on, because i felt alone and unique in the depths of my despair. Depression will try and make you defend it, and defend your inability to fight it and heal yourself. It will try and make you believe that you are not like others, that their experience is unimportant because you will never be able to do what they did. That you should move on, forget about what they said helped their recovery, and go back to the dark space you inhabit. It is wrong.
Maybe it will help if you visualise your depression as a monster, one you've seen in a book or film, and personify it. Give yourself something more tangible to direct you fight at. When you have a negative thought, it's that beast, and you can tell it to f*** off.
Talking out loud to combat my negative thoughts helped me.
Maybe imagine you're seeing someone be bullied, that the negative thought is some jerk picking on a kid. Defend them! Talk back!
Seek out small things that give you pleasure, your favourite smelling body wash; favourite tasting drink. Grant yourself allowances, and accept your feelings. 'Its okay to feel sad about x,y,z, that's understandable. This sadness is not immortal, or defining.'
Find a therapist, sometimes just releasing the emotion can help you find an internal calmness that creates space for you to move forwards with a positive emotion.
Make small, achievable goals; not 'i will stop thinking negative things about myself' but 'i will try and confront one negative thought each day'
Write, talk, whatever helps you process the emotions.
Deviating from your plans is not fundamentally bad; if you have a day of exhaustion and need to rest, allow yourself to, you are not being lazy, you are looking after your body.
Take it day by day
Employ whatever strategy helps you because your journey is personal, you cannot copy someone else, you have to find the things that help you. That doesn't mean to not try what others do, but expect you may have to work harder at some things or try several things until something helps.
Animals, if you have any or can access any, are so good, at giving comfort, peace, calmness, just allowing you to live in a moment, i cannot recommend having them around enough if you are able.
Acknowledge and give yourself praise and love and positivity for any step you make no matter how small. It's so important to mark your movement forwards because it's very easy to despair at how little you feel you've progressed. I still struggle, i still have a way to go, but im getting there, and im still going, and i've found so much along the way. Every day you are alive and with us in this world is a triumph.
Please message me if there's anything here you'd like expansion on.
I wish all the very best for you, keep going, and don't give up.
sam18386 soph74192
Posted
hii soph, you are the 2nd person who understands me on one of these forum groups! i have dyspraxia only i think, my sister doesn't. if there was such a thing as asperger syndrome then she feels i would have been diagnosed with it. firstly thank you for writing back. as u said i was physically ill, i was on antibiotics and they are really good at sending my mental health spiralling downwards. i try desperately to avoid antibiotics but sometimes needs must. i think most people have some level of depression at the moment because of this damn pandemic! i have lost so much and loss sends me into a downwards spin too. my dad was my rock. when i wrote this i had celebrated my mum and dad's wedding anniversary, but the only thing is my dad died in 2012. i have not only lost him but hope, self respect, happiness and was made to terminate what i thought was a potential pregnancy when i was 25. on top of this i am trying once again to process eape, multiple rape to me. i can't get my head round it it just hurts so much! my boyfriend made take a little blue pill forcibly and opened my mouth and made me swallow it with the words 'if you're sick, i'll send you the bill for the upholstery'. that coupled with a fertility counsellor who said she would see that i'd never have children rips any happiness from me because those children i have wanted since 16 i probably now can't ever have. their my dad's grandchildren I'll need to hold up to the stars and are my husband's playmates, that he can take to the park etc. they're my children. mine. the ones who lived? the ones I've wanted all these years and the ones i was not asked to remove through force. THAT'S why i am so sad. why me? why was the chance for this to happen not there? i thought these then when i was so saddened i wrote everything to my doctor. FINALLY at 47, yes 47 i now may be able to turn my dream in to a reality. my doctor wants bloods then who knows? she's given me hope. nobody else has. i just hope things start to turn in my favour. i will let you know what i find out. can i keep talking to you, i like you! autism? i don't care about labels - you are who you are! thanks -; you replied when i needed someone. sorry this is soooooo long!