WARNING -- DEPRESSED AND DEPRESSING RAMBLINGS AHEAD.  YOU MAY WANT TO QUIT NOW.


Lately (the past few days, in particular) I've not been doing well.  I didn't have it in me to go Contra Dancing last weekend, which isn't good.  One morning I woke up and felt an old familiar feeling: like I'm dead, it's just that my body hasn't caught on to it yet.  Just getting up and getting into motion is sometimes just impossible.  The only thing keeping me going on is that I've got obligations to people I'm not willing to stiff.  You know, "miles to go before I sleep."  I used to be able to motivate myself by saying, you're going to do X, Y, and Z whether you feel like it or not , but it's not working any more.

I went to pick my son up at school.  The past few years, since he graduated from high school, have been an endless series of him trying to do something, like taking courses, but losing momentum after a month or two and not being able to pull himself together to finish things.  He's seeing a therapist and is on medication, but it hasn't made the pattern budge.  He called me because he couldn't make himself do the homework or go into class.  I know this really distresses him and that he doesn't know what to do about it, and he just looks like he's in so much pain.  I don't know if I'm just projecting, but I feel like I feel his pain, it's so familiar.  I would lie down on the bed and cry, except that I forgot how to cry a half-century ago.  Fortunately, his mom (my ex) called him as we were just leaving the school and talked him into (however reluctantly) going back and going to the class.  I think it was the best option, under the circumstances, but I can't escape the fear that I'll get a call sometime tonight that he's killed himself.  (He was suicidal a few years ago.)  He's been living with me (as opposed to  up at his mom's) for the past few months.  I've been trying to provide him with structure and encouragement, but I'm running low on it myself.

Work isn't exactly satisfying, either.  The company I work for has undergone a series of big-fish-swallows-little-fish takeovers and is now a large, dysfunctional megacorporation.  Like the comic strip Dilbert, but subtract the humor and replace it with anxiety and frustration.

And I'm not happy being me.  I've tried on and off my whole life to be someone different, but it's never worked.  I'm condemned to be whatever the heck it is I am, neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring -- "no bloody use at all," to quote a snarky birthday song.  I can't connect with people, I think because I can't find a me to connect with them.  When I'm in social situations, I just want to get away because I can't deal with all the people and all the interactions.  I just want to lie down and sleep for a very long time (maybe forever.)  There are times when I find myself almost involuntarily reacting (bodily) as though I were in pain, except that I can't find the pain.   I tried reducing my Bupropion because I was having trouble sleeping, but maybe I need to go back up.  It won't make me feel any better (BTDT), but maybe I'll notice whatever it is I'm feeling/not feeling less, so I'll be able to fake it better.  I just hate the sensation of being emotionally anaesthetized that antidepressants cause.  I remember a few years before my Dad died (he was about 20 years older than I am now), it seemed like he just ran out of reasons to stay alive.  He seemed a little bewildered by it.  Me, I just feel anxious, but that's kind of my default emotion and what's kept me going for most of my life.  Maybe I'm running out of anxiety.

Also, baby bats are super adorable!


If that doesn't work, here is the nuclear option:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Vjorjlon4&feature=player_embedded#at=39

I may not be helpful but maybe you need to find a new activity for you and your son to do? Something neither of you has done or thought of before.

Some thoughts...

Racing RC cars. its wicked fun! I bet there are tracks near by, but you can race em anywhere. It is a bit costly to get nice gear tho. It was a good distraction for me back when I was depressed.

Maybe festivals ? I don't know whats in your area, but at some festivals people are all dressed up and pretending.. nice place to blend in and have fun without social anxiety.

exercise ... Get out running or biking, change your routine... stagnating only makes me get depressed again.

Ok hope I helped a little, wish I had better answers.

Love,
Jade 

Depending on if it is something you are into, art classes can be allot of fun, or carpentry.

I've always liked to make things as an escape.

Or maybe playing music together, if you are talented with that. 

Though that is not a gift I have, the musicians I know find it to be a terrific outlet when things gets hard.


- JJ

are you seeing a therapist?
i'm worrying about your son, you can't love others properly unless you love yourself first.

i'm wondering why you stay at the same workplace. is it because you have to, or have you just not gone looking for other possibilities?
a good work environment, the right boss and colleagues, can make the difference between life and death.

constantly worrying about your son won't make it any easier to help him. worry a little, then do something to help him.
if you don't know what to do, start researching it.
you have at least one purpose in life, and he deserves a happy parent who is capable of supporting him.

so you're failing right now, but that doesn't matter. what matters is what you do from now on.
(try guessing how i ended up on the "happy"path... yeah, could keep killing myself, nobody kills my girl's loved ones, not even me)

getting out of depression can be a long process.
but getting started only requires one little decision. to do what it takes to get out of it because you want to live more than you want to die.
feeling dead? do things that make you feel alive, stop doing things that are killing you.
i'm laying it out a little more simple than it really feels, but this is the short version of what i did.
wasn't easy, i kept telling myself i was gonna die every day in the process, but suddenly one day, things just got right.

i'm super happy that i didn't give up before i'd tried everything that i possibly could.
and i wish you all the best that life can give a person too.

As some one who lives with major depressive disorder I know those feels.

Asking for help is important, I'm going back to the doctors on Friday after a very bad couple of months. I also find that physical activity helps, especially one that requires focus on  what your doing, can centre you in the now.

Hugs

Try to get some sun and try to walk or something both of those should help a little bit. Also try smiling even though it may seem like the most difficult thing in the world to do right now, it helps trick your brain into being less depressed.

First and foremost get to a therapist and have the local crisis intervention hotline number with you at all times.

I'm seeing a therapist (1x /week), have been for about a year (?) now.  (FWIW, I discussed some of the drama in this forum.)  A lot of the time is spent dealing with my dealings with my son, but we also discuss my feelings, including my "who am I?  What am I?" anxieties, my depression, and my feeling that I'm "running on empty."

I haven't really looked for a job because, between work and family and my occasional attempts to do something renewing (Chorus, choir, Contra Dance, sewing), I don't have any energy left.  I've been trying for a month to do the last couple of hours of sewing on a dress, and the few spare hours per week I find I just want to lie down and stare into space.  Another issue is my age: I'm 61, and age discrimination is a real thing.  Back when I got this job ~16 years ago, I'd been job hunting for a year, and the job climate is, if anything worse.   The job is driving me crazy, but it pays well and they're really flexible about working from home and taking time out of the day for doctor's visits, etc.  If I went somewhere else, I'd be looking at the  usual 10-hour days programming in a boiler-room environment (an entire open floor of desks, constant interruptions, etc.) and having to  punch in and out.  And, in all likelihood, it would be just as Dilbert-like.  Plus probably having to drive 1-2 hours each way, instead of taking the train like I do now.

I've been dealing with depression for most of my life: my earliest memories -- age 10 -- are of thinking about suicide.  I've mostly dealt with it by forcing myself to do stuff ("fake it until you make it") and convincing myself that the future will, in some utterly undefined way, be better than now.  Only I'm running out of future to have this better day in.  I'd say my dreams have turned to ashes, except that I never had well-defined dreams.  I've never been able to conceive of a better life, just things to do that keep me busy so I won't notice how I feel.

The running-on-empty feeling has a fairly well-defined start: around the end of 2012.   Ever since then, it's been hard to do what I  used to do.  I try playing music, but it feels like a chore, not a joy and a renewal.  I try to get out and ride my bicycle, but I always seem to run out of time -- instead of a 45-minute ride to the dam and back, I only manage a 10-minute ride around the block.  (In fairness, there's a certain amount of up-and-downhill.)  I have trouble getting around to cleaning, or balancing my checkbook, or any of the other things that used to give me the feeling I had control over my life.  The times I've gone on vacation, the first 4 or 5 days I spend mostly napping.

I wish I could spend, like, a month not having any responsibility for anything.  Not even feeding myself or paying bills.

P.S.: I don't think I'm going to actually kill myself.  I've been thinking about it for decades, and thought nice it would be to be dead, but I've never taken even one step towards it.  I'm a creature of habit, and that's not one of them.  Lying around moping and feeling sorry for myself, that's my speed.

ETA: This still holds.

Ahh my dear we are here, and I well understand the feeling of pain and helplessness with the kids.

I have trite sayings to offer, platitudes, I could don the cheerleaders costume, but what you need to know is we care, we really do.

So outlast the bull...t my dear, wait for the season to change, do a sunrise, pray, watch something mindless, find anything that can be done together.  We do the local racetrack.  In dark moods, I roll out the movie deathrace.  Dress, eat something, drive nowhere with the Windows down and radio on, but never give up.

Keep the therapist on call and if it gets too close for the kid hit the er.  Follow your gut there.

Been through it with the kid, been through he'll on trans, finally reaping those rewards.

But know, all of you, that we are here, whether it's suzi that cries, or me, or ashe, or df, taka, jayce, Mark, so many of us, not to leave anyone out, Brianna and Alex I too.

We are here and we care.  It's just who we all are, we get it.

We care.

Know this ashe.

I have been on the phone hours today with my supportt family and I cried my head off this morning over my wife and child.

Use the phone dear if you can, I can't take calls but others may be able to.  Pm me anytime.

Hang in there.

Satinjoy

the most stylish suicide i've ever hear of was done by a man who'd probably never been happy in his entire life.
but he'd been seeing his therapist, and even been deemed mentally healthier than ever only a few months before.
he was suddenly doing well, doing all the things that "normal" folks were doing.
cleaned up his house, worked the garden, payed all those bills and got his life in order.
then suddenly one of those days, he takes out his bicycle, takes a round through the villages, smiles happily and waves at the people he never tried connecting with before.
and he disappears.

all that is found is his bike left by the river.
and an elderly woman's memory of him having come to that spot the day before he disappeared.

not sure why i'm telling this, but it's an interesting story. almost as if seeing an endpoint, having a goal, had enabled him to fix up his life.
though the endpoint wasn't really one that most people would think of as a good one.


i was feeling just as horrible as you are now, only a little over a year ago.
never complained much because i didn't see how complaining would help, but maybe it does?
taking a whole month off to do absolutely nothing would have been great back then. or at least i thought it would.
i'll never know because i ended up finding my way to happiness before i could take a whole month off.

energy is an interesting thing. it usually comes from activity rather than lazing around.
we should learn to play like children do. they know how to get energized. running around at an increasing pace until they're exhausted and fall into a deep reinvigorating sleep.

why don't you try to get some structure back by planning things you enjoy doing, and crossing out things that don't energize you much?
if you enjoy staring into nothingness, even that is something you can plan to do. try doing it for a whole hour. think your thoughts, any thought, but without getting hung up on any of them. concentrate on staring into nothingness while letting your thoughts just fly past, registering you have them, but not judging them or yourself. if done right, it becomes meditation rather than idling away the short rest of your life. meditation gives you energy, and isn't it amazing how it can be done by staring into nothingness? allow yourself that break, you need it.
if you need time to think hard about something, do it at a different time. that can also be planned.

how do you spend time with your son by the way?

Skateboarding is my meditation, it takes me out of myself and you get to be hella badass at the same time.

I get severe lack of energy at times, there are weeks when I barely get out of bed, some weeks I'm up early and super busy. In the times of super low energy I try and prioritise the stuff that brings me joy, but use that as a bargaining chip to get one of the jobs I don't want to do done. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.