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Walking depression

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  • December 11, 2018 at 9:45 am #268875
    John
    Participant

    Hello all.  I’ve been through some heart ache and hard times for me over the last  year and some.  Been having a lot of self reflecting and learning a lot about my self and behaviors.  Some more unpleasant than i would like.  Thanks to this  forum, it has helped me realize a lot of my flaws and i’m currently trying to “fix” myself.

    I  was doing some research online last night about depression.  I was in a depression about a year ago.  Enough so that i had thought about taking my own life a few times.  I don’t think I could ever do that, especially having young kids.  I grew up with now father (he passed when i was 9) and I couldn’t do that to my kids.  He was in an accident btw, no history of depression that i know of in my family.

    Anyways, i have gotten a lot better and have been moving on with my life the best I know how.  But recently I have been having bad thoughts again, a bad relapse.  Like, that’s the only way to silence the pain and hurt and thoughts that go through my head and heart on a daily basis.  I will say this again…  I will not do that, i couldn’t do it to my family.  However if i didn’t have my family, i think it would be more of an option for me.  Or so i feel that way sometimes.

    Back to “walking depression”  I found an article on line about this.  It really kind of hit home.  I will find a link to it and post it later.  I was wondering if any of you have had this kind of depression and what you have been able to do about it?  I do plan on finding a good counselor at the beginning of the year when my finances get a little better.

    What’s hard for me to understand is why i feel this way.  I have a great career that i love, beautiful children and a grand baby (i’m 45 btw).  I have a girlfriend with kids who all adore me and look up to me.  I have great friends that support and help me when  needed.  I really do have a “good” life and if i could learn to be happy for what i do have, I think it would be amazing.

    However….

    It feels like i’m always putting on a fake smile,  like i’m just getting by trying to please everyone but myself.  Acting like things are great when i can.  Fake it till you make it right??  Well thats just not working.  As more time goes by, I find myself feeling more and more depressed.  The worst or hardest part is that I know all the steps or things I should do to try to turn this around and no matter how hard I try ( i try every day and night), I can’t do it or I find myself falling deeper into this cloudy miserable phase of my life.  I want so bad to be the happy go lucky guy again.  loves to wake up, come to work, go home, spend time with friends and family or just by myself doing my thing.  But I can’t.  I can for a little bit and then the motivation just disappears and i just want to veg out and do nothing.

    I can go more into my past later,  I’m just looking for some help or some of you that have gone through this similar thing and  your experiences and how you have coped with it.

    Thank you for your help.

     

    December 11, 2018 at 10:24 am #268879
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi John

    Thanks for sharing your story

    Your depression doesn’t come across as existential angst, so it could be chemical which could be related to food you eat or DNA or all the above. Then again I often wonder what comes first the depression or existential angst? Does depression create existential angst or does existential angst create depression? Either way they are entangled so both need to be addressed. IMO

    Are you watching the show A Million Little Things? One of the character has the same problem, a pretty good life, but he’s depressed. I’m interested to see how the writers lead the character through that. So far its been pretty good.

    Anyway. One of the issues I noted with my own depression is that it will feed on itself. I feel depressed about feeling depressed about being depressed…. Why am I so depressed, I suck, I have everything, what’s wrong with me, such a loser…. I try to use the practice of mindfulness to avoid doing that to myself.

    Mindfulness also showed me that much of my depression comes from a place of loneliness which for me is related to existential angst. Asking myself what’s the point when very little I do involves engagement with others, at least at a live I think I want. If it only mattes to me does it matter at all… bla, bla, bla… you get the drift. I understand my absurdity yet can’t fully shake it.

    Which brings me to another point with regards to change. Metaphorically all change requires a “dying” and letting go. Every creation is a destruction, every destruction is a creation. That is the reality of life… You can’t hold on to what is and at the same time grasp the change you hope for. At some point you need to let go and reach out to what is not yet fully known. To the ego this can feel like an actual physical dying/destruction, so we resist it. Subconsciously then the “desire” to kill one self can be a misunderstood call that its time to let go and embrace uncertainty.  (FYI we think we are hanging on to something but when you look you wont find anything – Life is change and we are always falling, yet even though we know its a illusion we still hold on = depression and all the self help books about entering into the flow of life vice resisting it.)

    When the thought arises that I want to die I ask myself if there are area’s in my life that I need to let go of and die.  There are, and the issues, for me anyway, are always associated with fear, uncertainty of not being in control. I understand that in life control is an illusion yet understanding is not being so I’m working on it.

    December 11, 2018 at 10:26 am #268881
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    For me, depression is that deep sadness of long ago, this despair of so many years ago, the … lost paradise of childhood, the lost dreams and hopes.

    You  know, that joy of a child running on green grass in a sunny  day, the sun dancing  around the grass, and  your little feet running and running… or running with your bare feet sinking into hot sand, but not too hot, running to the cool water of the ocean,  feeling  that excitement of getting into that water, splashing… the happy voices of children already there, waiting to join them.

    The memory of that excitement, of that anticipation, of that looking  forward to something right ahead, almost there, when life seemed  full of possibilities, adventures there for the taking.

    I am tired at this point, so very tired and  will be taking  a break for a few hours from the computer. So  glad you started a new thread, good  to  be writing to you so soon, sooner than I expected. It  is nice to be pleasantly surprised this way.

    anita

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