Tired of living this way

I am fairly active on the forum, I do not wish to post on my personal account since I am aware there are plenty of trolls on this forum
Since I was 6 years old I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I have since then been to countless psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors.. You name it. I have been on every pill you can imagine, nothing has worked thus far. I was really debating for a long time (6++ months) posting this in fear of moderators checking the ip address and exposing me (or for the sake of their own curiousity).. Anyway let's get back on track, I've tried many medications, and been to conversations my entire life. Also spent 3 weeks at a mental hospital. Since there will probably a lot of confusion to this thread, I want to clarify that I am a very functional human being, I have a lot of friends and that I do very well at school. People often associate mental hospitals with non-functioning human beings. I have completely lost hope, and I don't think there is a chance for me to ever feel good. People in my family tell me I never smiled as a child/kid. I have been this way my entire life, I will often fake laughing publicly (even tho I dont really find it funny), its become a habit at this point. I feel like I don't know what being happy feels like, I can experience joy in short amounts of time, where I get excited. But its not like I have a positive outlook on life when I wake up, and it's never been like this. I am constantly worrying and feeling anxious and depressed. I do not longer wish to live this way, please share your experience if you have any.

 

I know this is a cliche to say, but believe me, getting help is the best treatment and is the only way to truly change your life.

Matthew Santoro has made this excellent video, please watch it.

 

Functioning adult that existed in a similar boat. Never incredibly infatuated with anything life had to over. Overall lacked any interest in most things other people enjoyed (not for lack of trying) as nothing brought me joy.
Much like you I was able to do well in school, able to function and put on the mask so to speak. It got me through those years of pills and a lonely boredom. Eventually I realized what provided me with a will to power on. Note it’s not necessarily what most would call “happiness”, but I found that chasing career progression was something that kept my mind busy enough to fill the void the lack of happiness left. Funny enough this led to meeting some likeminded people and things smoothed out a bit from there. There are still the days of lonely boredom, but they share the space with good days now.
Long story short, I like to believe things eventually get better if we can power on until we find the thing our mind decides is worth pumping our bodies with will power.
Best of luck friend.

 

Do you have any goals for your near future?

 

I've dealt with depression before and I know it is not a fun place to be. Curing depression isn't something that will happen overnight, it will be a long process. One of the most important things you have to realize if you wish to get better is that you cannot do this alone. While depression is something you experience alone, it is not something you can get through alone. You have to find someone to help you through this journey.

There are some things that helped me that I would recommend you to try.

1. Place your alarm on the loudest volume possible and place it on the other side of the room. This makes you get out of bed in the morning (which is often times the most challenging part of the day). Once you're out of bed, think of it as a mini victory.

2. Take cold showers at least once a day. A great time to do so is right after you wake up. When you take a cold shower you're not focusing on anything else but the temperature of the water and you want to get out ASAP. This is important because it doesn't allow you to "waste time" taking a warm shower (where you just stand there and enjoy the water hitting you and tend to think aimlessly).

3. Make your outfit the night before. If you know you have class or work the next day, choose your outfit before you go to bed. This helps reduce any stress you have right before leaving.

4. You have to want yourself to feel better. You will never get better if you're not trying to, this is something you have to dedicate yourself to.

5. Keep a journal or something and every night before you go to bed, recap your day. Put down your thoughts, what was good, what was bad etc. It is important to see your growth over time.

By no means am I a medical professional, but I hope these tips help you the same way they helped me. Best of luck!

 

Be your own psychotherapist. No one understands you better than you do. Forget the pills. They make it worse in the long term. They make you depend on them for your problems - basically those pills take away the effects of your depression but it will not solve the root cause of the actual problem.
Pills may help you solve the problem but it will never solve it for you.

 

Hey So this is something that.. although I feel I may not directly help with.. I still feel that you could probably take something from my experiences quite honestly. Ever since I was 6 as well, I was subjected to pretty horrible treatment and growing up all throughout highschool and my first two years of college, many people that I have confided in have asked me how I am still alive. I've had my life threatened at home numerous times growing up especially with knives and a drunk intoxicated guardian, and i've tried to commit 4 times throughout those years. Although I may not know you irl/how you specifically feel, maybe you can get something from how I overcame a lot of my problems.

When I was young as well, I had a lot of issues because of my pretty horrible childhood. So this I can totally relate to and quite honestly, it did end up hurting me in the long run as I continued to grow up.

I'm very glad to hear this, I was the same way myself (albiet I never went to a mental hospital). But what I did was associate myself closely with "good vibe" individuals. I was a very quiet kid growing up, all throughout highschool, and through my first 2 years of college. I spoke to nobody... let alone trust someone. I had MAJOR and I mean... MAJOR trust issues because every time I did try to trust someone, I was always stabbed in the back. But back to my point, I associated myself closely with people who were generally happy. Why? Because they always were happy to have me around with them. As much as I would try to isolate myself when I was hanging out with them, they'd always include me. They were seriously such a wonderful group of people to interact with and we are still great friends to this day.

I'm glad i'm here responding to your thread. Do you know why my username is Hope? My Discord, my everything has something regarding Hope in it because it is so incredibly powerful. Throughout all those years of my abuse, I always told myself that it won't last forever. That my depression and inner thoughts to 'end it all' would go away if I kept my chin up. It took me 14 literal years of suffering, but I did it. I never gave up hope on the dream that one day I would be happy and I wouldn't feel so chained up in this dark and lonely pit. And when you say you don't think there is a chance for you to ever feel good... think about that for a second.

You do! Joy is such a wonderful feeling and so is excitement! Sure, it may not last long because I know for damn sure it didn't last long for me growing up. But it was THERE. That is what you have to focus on, me personally, that is what I did. I REFUSED to accept the feeling that life was horrible and.. I didn't choose/ask to be born because I realized, what has it done for me?
Have these tormenting thoughts helped me with my depression?
-No
Have these negative feelings helped me get over my anxiety?
-No
Have these horrible urges to commit done anything to help me be happier?
-No

So I just want you to ask yourself... why feed it? For me, and I know it seems insane... because it took me 14 years to overcome it, but for me it took a serious change of heart. I was tired of feeling down and being so secretive about it, so what did I do? I confided in someone I held truly special to me (and I know you must have someone that you hold/think of closer than other normal people). I was in tears and everything and I decided to just let it all out. After that, I made concious efforts to try and make myself happier.

It was hard.. and I mean SERIOUSLY hard. It had very little effect at first and I was wondering if I was doing the right thing, but I kept at it. I woke up every day and thought, thank you God for this day. And every night I would reflect on what I did that day to make positive changes in my way of life. I started volunteering more to those in need. You honestly get such a different view of life when helping those in need and it warmed my heart to know that I was making somebody elses' day better.

Ever so slowly, I started gaining my own stride. I felt as if I truly did have a purpose, and this here is a quote that I held near and dear to my heart. Because this quote took me a LONG way when I was working on my issues:

"How cool is it that the same God, who created mountains, & oceans & galaxies, looked at you and thought the world needed one of you too?"

For me, it wasn't easy. It was one of THE HARDEST things I had to overcome so far in my life but I am very glad I have. I have so much to tell from my own experiences but I don't want this reply to be any longer than it already is. I just don't want you to lose Hope. It's always there and there are people that do want to see you succeed and be happy. <3


Trust me though, I still have my own problems I am fighting with. My trust issues aren't as major as before but I do find trust to be something of a battle (for me at least). And it's something my current girl is helping me with lol. But hey, i'm just trying to keep it real for you here because i'm not perfect either, I still have my own battles I am still fighting

 

I am sad to hear about your situation. Dealing with chronic depression and anxiety is unlike anything most people have to go through. You're acting strong by trying to better your life. Id recommend these two things.

1.) Dealing with problems as soon as they arise. There is a theory that suggests that mental illness is caused by your exterior reality and your perceived self-image not aligning, or rather failing to meet your standards (cant remember the source sorry). For ex. your exterior reality is that you might have slightly too high of fat in your body and your perceived self-image is that you're not fit enough. This distress can exacerbate underlying vulnerabilities (genetic, environmental, etc) to mental illness. Back to mental health; the reality is likely the road to happiness will take a very long time. I want you to know it will not happen overnight and you cant be to hard on yourself. You have the strength to do it.

2.) Full nuclear take. No personal experience (and not a doctor) but strong hallucinogens are rumored to help with chronic depression and anxiety. DMT, acid and shrooms (ranked in order). One of these could help. Google how to take them safely. You should also be with someone else when trying this. Best of luck friend.

 

I hope you feel better, theres been some good comments you should listen to

 

I heard they tried medication with shrooms which have really good results. Google it

 

Every Sunday I sit down in my office, and just reflect on the past week. I think deeply about everything which happened, what went right and what went wrong. I will then write a small and brief summary of this into a journal.

This process really helps me, I used to struggle with anxiety too. Understanding the cause of this anxiety is the main problem you will face.

The health systems we have look to fix symptoms, not the cause. You will have to find that yourself, and he correct it. Know that that correction is not instant and will take long and consistent effort. However, once you're through the tunnel, it is a bright world man. You can do it.

 

Don't give up. Do you have anyone that you could talk to? Not doctors, psychiatric or nurses. Someone who really would listen to you as a friend? If so, please talk to them more often about your feelings. If not, I am glad you are using this forum to share your thoughts and feelings. It is one avenue that is non-judgemental.

Try something new. Something out of ordinary that you don't usually do. An activity, join a club, do some sports, go to the gym, whatever it is, pick multiple activities that will occupy your time away from the thoughts that you currently have. It would be helpful and you'll find that there are also a lot of people that are also struggling just like you. Perhaps, if you did not answer my question earlier if you have someone that could listen to you, you could have that if you find new friends that would.

But please, don't give up on life. Life is beautiful and you don't know this yet but you will. Just hang in there.

 

So I don't know who you are as you posted as a guest, but if you wish to speak privately i'm here if you want to talk. Several of my workers for my RS related services have problems going on in their every day lives which I try to offer advice on as well.

Now let's get to the real part shall we, to begin with - If you don't smile, that's perfectly normal, you don't HAVE to smile like it's a requirement of life to smile each and every day all day long, in fact just more when you find appropriate to do so. I deal with aspergers syndrome which I was diagnosed at a young age, I also have crippling depression because of it and on many occasions I don't understand why people are so happy myself, but people are for all different reasons.

What you need to remember is with that being said, you need to think of what makes you happy, if something makes you feel uncomfortable or unhappy in a way then you need to understand or at least try to understand why it is that way, and if there is a way to avoid it or fix it so it doesn't. I found that watching romance/comedy programs and films helps me slightly so that might be worth a try, even just the odd smile over something funny or the odd chuckle to yourself in your head shows signs of improvement.

You're saying you are popular, and you are doing well in school also but maybe it's the stress in the back of your head without you actually understanding it's that, that is in fact having a negative affect on your lifestyle and choices. Sometimes having these core things that you don't understand completely can sound confusing and mix up between good and bad and for that ending up making you feel worse overall as time goes on.

The problem of anxiety can only be fixed if you throw yourself out there, no one is saying yes drink this funky looking water with this pill but not that pill, yes they offer short term resolving if they work but in the long run it's also possible the affects don't work. Put yourself in the outside looking in at yourself, ask yourself what you would do differently and start small steady paced movement towards a common goal of what you feel could help you, if it being you do something more therapeutic or just that makes you happy, that could be anything such as spending time repairing the family members bonds who apparently try to make you sound bad, or maybe even gardening or cooking to take your mind away from reality.

 

Set goals for your help seek treatment for yourself and you'll see progress in a couple weeks
It wont happen over night

 

Wanna chat?

Need to make small step by step goals, it dont happen over night. Honestly just takes time and change