Not sure if this is the place to tell this, but I think I need to tell it somewhere, if only to break the habit of silence.

I had a really painful attack of depression today.  I'd been feeling depressed and despairing all day, the 'I am alone and entirely on my own in the universe' kind of depression.  But this afternoon, for about an hour, it really hurt.  The best way I can describe it is that it was like when I had kidney stones, only in my soul (or whatever I have in place of a soul.)  I wanted to cry, but of course I couldn't, the most I could do was to briefly tear up.  (My ability to cry went away/was burned out about 50 years ago.)  I wanted to die just to stop the pain.

Like my kidney stone pain, it slowly ebbed, leaving a dull achy cloud of depression, and now I don't feel like doing anything, like anything I would do would be me forcing myself to robotically do it and I just can't.  The great 'I just can't any more.'  (Fortunately, my son had already agreed to make dinner.)

I don't imagine anyone here can do anything, but I can't think of anyone in my life where I live who I feel I could call up and talk about it with.  I'm hoping that just saying it where someone else can "hear" it will -- do something, I don't know what.

I'm reminded of this post on Bellejar.ca

(If a soul dies in a forest, but nobody can hear it, does it make a sound?)

as far as the soul goes of course, because supposing the existence of a soul you'd have to assume a greater soul which feels any vibration in the universe like a spider knowing when dinner has arrived. Yes I have severe bouts of depression at night in the darkness and they get bad. there have been many a time where I'm just about to reach for the phone to get to the hospital and there have been a few times when I've made the call. In my particular case I suffer from a fear of going blind and depression and darkness drive me insane,

I am on a depression medication. It helps me get through the low periods quicker. I also take medication to sleep. These two things combined has made a world of a difference. I am also stepped up my transition and have things to look forward to.

I know why I am depressed and I am doing things to correct it.

Went to bed early (7:30 p.m.), so now I'm awake at 3:30 a.m.  The miasma is still there, but either it's gotten better or else I've just gotten inured to it.

I'm on an antidepressant, but my experience with them is that they don't actually make me less depressed, they just make me care about it less so I can function.  Right now, I'm on Wellbutrin, and it dulls the pain but also makes me jittery and unable to sleep.  So when I'm too depressed to function, I up the dose; when I'm too short of sleep to function, I lower it.

I'm still in the process of figuring out what hurts so much.  The latest insight I've had is that, though my physical needs were provided for, at least the ones people believed I should have, I was entirely on my own with everything else, especially emotionally.  Most of my childhood I felt like I was drowning and if people (inside or outside the family) noticed at all, it was to scold me for not walking on the water.  I learned at an early age that if you need someone, nobody will be there for you, and you're a contemptible wimp for even wanting it.  To this day, anytime something unexpectedly goes wrong, I go into a complete panic, convinced that I have to get myself out of it without any help from anyone, only I won't be able to and I'll be lost forever.

I think that's why I have such a hard time even saying out loud that I'm hurting or in trouble.  I imagine I will be rejected and dismissed as just being lazy or making a big deal out of nothing, or just trying to get attention, and I should just "man up."  I remember going to a therapist in college, and again in grad school, and each time being told there was nothing wrong with me and I didn't need therapy.  I can't imagine calling a hospital or going to the ER.  It would be less traumatic to just go ahead and kill myself -- I've plotted different ways in my head often enough, all I lack is the guts to do it.

Yesterday, when the pain was at its worst, I imagined talking to God and saying something like, "why do you force me to go on suffering?  You've even refused me the mental wherewithall to end it, so I go on, like an insect pinned to a display board."  (For all of my supposed "feminist consciousness," in these moments I see God as male, perhaps because I see casual cruelty and indifference to people's sufferings as inherently masculine.)

Yet even as I write this, I keep feeling like I'm making a big deal out of nothing, I'm boring people with my whining.  I should just "man up" and soldier on.  I'm just embarrassing myself by revealing this stuff.  Nobody wants to see what you look like under that facade of fake competence and "I'm okay."  I should do what I trained my self from age 12 to 18 to do: ignore the feelings so they'll go away eventually, figure out what you'd be doing if it didn't hurt and force yourself to do that until it becomes second nature.  Act as if until you feel like the "as if" is the real you.  Oh, and of course pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I always found that when my depression was deep that posting about it either here or in my journal helped. Maybe seeing my thoughts rather than have them rattle in my head like grenades helped me.

So never ever say you are whinging because you aren't you are reaching out as we all do, and I know you reach back when others feel down.

I have no idea how to stop depression, ant-depressants took the edge off most of the time. Loud music excercise talking here all helped me.

I do know that when I transitoned the first effect I had from any procedure was the depression going.

It was incredible.

I hope you can get to that stage as soon as possible my friend.

In the mean time reach out and talk away.

Love
Cindy

Perhaps you'll feel better knowing that if ANYTHING goes wrong in the universe, I am the one to blame to blame for it  and not you. That's my world view starting with being the baby of the family, AKA easy target by older siblings, and still haunts, terrorizes, me today

Hi Asche.

I hope you're feeling much better today than you did yesterday. I have had so many days like the one you described (and still do.). The last one I had like that was a couple days ago, where I literally burned a little hole in the right temple of my forehead from looking into the computer screen all night long thinking about unanswered questions like "Where do we come from? " "Why are we here?" "What is the meaning of life?" The questions are endless.

Funny that when I told my home health nurse this she immediately asked me what I was taking for depression as if medication is the sure-fire singular remedy for every illness on the planet. And actually I am taking something. I was started on something I never took before called Zyprexa. I was reassured that its one of the "safer" psychotic medications out there right now. Meaning its not loaded with painful side-effects as some of the more commonly used ones.

Still, even with this reassurance, I feel weak for having to rely on a drug to "perk me up" so to speak. This can't be the only way to relieve depression, acute or not. But I have a saying that goes, 'if it works for you, just do it.' That goes for prescription drugs too.

A quick "thank you" to everyone who replied.

I'm doing better today, though still shakey.  At church, we had choir, which takes my mind off of pretty much everything except what I'm singing at that moment, and a sermon & discussion of "Black Lives Matter," which gave me different troubles to obsess about besides my own.

I'm not sure that there's anything anyone can do to help me when I'm (in Anne Theriault's words) "going further down the rabbit hole."  Maybe, like when you have the flu, you just have to wait for it to be over.  But having people listen and show they're listening at least makes me feel less lonely while I'm going through it.  (And I think the loneliness and the sense of abandonment is the worst part of it, anyway.)

Again, thank you all.

Hey Asche. Hang in there. I know that's not saying much and there probably isn't anything I could type here that will help you tremendously at all. But just hang in there and tough it out! Maybe that is all we really can do. I mean, even the most privileged people in the world have problems.

And I think everyone, at least one time or another in their lives, has dived down that damn bottomless rabbit hole. Keep on diving but when it becomes too much, you'll know when to turn around.  You've been around much longer than I have, so that right there says a whole lot about your preserving character!

Asche dont feel bad about posting your pain here thats much of what this place is for speaking out is good for you it can help clear your mind I grew up in a time when men were allowed only 2 emotions  those being happy and mad what a crock messed me up big time I am learning to cry and all the other things i was denied as a boy/man so hang on life's a wild ride sometimes

   hugs bobbisue

Quote from: bobbisue on January 17, 2016, 07:32:01 PM
Asche dont feel bad about posting your pain here thats much of what this place is for speaking out is good for you it can help clear your mind I grew up in a time when men were allowed only 2 emotions  those being happy and mad what a crock messed me up big time I am learning to cry and all the other things i was denied as a boy/man so hang on life's a wild ride sometimes

   hugs bobbisue

I think its kinda sad how most people assigned male at birth were socialized to be like psychopaths almost and show no emotion in the face of adversity, sorrow and/or fear. Its very sad indeed, to say the least.

I mean, society has a pretty screwed up way at looking at what it means to be a man; one minute a guy could be called "sissy" in a heartbeat for crying but the same guy could be called a psychopath for not crying if say, his mother died in a fire, because he wants to be strong for his wife and kids or something. We live in such a phallo-centric society that such contradictions go largely unnoticed.

I just woke up and found myself in one of my insane blindness depressions. I woke up when it was dark and I don't have electricity because I decided about 5 years ago or more I couldn't afford it , so I woke up in the dark and had to get downstairs from my apartment building where there is a Subway Sandwich shop and sit in the light and get on Susan's and it's helped me quite a bit. Susan's seems  to be my alternative therapist.

Hi Asche

I often do my best to cope with severe depression and anxiety, the horrific nightmares that I wake up in a cold sweat from that are often followed by another anxiety attack aren't much help, I often wonder if I am having a heart attack

But then later I wake up again and do my best to get on with the day

I wish you well and hope you are feeling better

Hugs

Quote from: stephaniec on January 18, 2016, 02:08:23 AM
I just woke up and found myself in one of my insane blindness depressions. I woke up when it was dark and I don't have electricity because I decided about 5 years ago or more I couldn't afford it , so I woke up in the dark and had to get downstairs from my apartment building where there is a Subway Sandwich shop and sit in the light and get on Susan's and it's helped me quite a bit. Susan's seems  to be my alternative therapist.

Five whole years without any of your own electricity?

Now that's what I call strong! I wish I were that strong also.